❚ The Noise in my life

The early years

Born in a Chilean household at the end of 90's doesn't give any leads of what kinda of music we were listening at every waking moment, even if I say that both parents were musicians, that's still very vague. But I can start with prefacing that my mother was very open listener, with a big love for latinoamerican rhythms like Boleros, BossaNova, Peruvian Waltz, as their parents were fond of it too, but also open to Jazz, Rock, and Fusion genres as their brothers were entering teen or adulthood during the 70's and 80's

Father, on the other hand was mostly a Progressive Rock and Progressive adjacent genres enjoyer, while it had tons of Old-School Jazz, Classical Music and Early Electronic music albums, he wasn't fond of them as much as he was for more niche things like Progressive Rock and bands that stood in-between Jazz, Rock and Classical Music, you get the idea, he liked their bands with complex rhythms and long solos I guess.

Now, I wanna preface this with my father was a pedantic individual, with a knack for braggin about his likes and indoctrinated us that popular music is a brain-rotting cacophony and we should only enjoy the good stuff his stuff. The hoarding of Classical Music in our house and the inclination to hear Classical Music adjacent bands wasn't because he actually liked it, but because his father was another pedantic individual that indoctrinated him too with his likes and refused to accept my father's likes as he grew up. You can see where this goes, yes, me and my older brother also struggled enjoying the music we found for ourselves as my father was dismissive of them because of quality or complexity, actions like that have fucked me over in ways I didn't know, where I had to give myself years to come to terms with it and making peace with music that I once liked but I left behind to prove to my father that I was enjoying the good music.

I want to write this down so I make another step into appreciating the music I found and connected on my own, that is part of my identity, yet, I have forgotten about it because the legacy of my upbringing. But, context is important too, and so, this article is dedicated to the music I heard before I had access to research and find my own.

What babies listen to anyway?

I cannot write in detail what I listened as I was developing my senses and figuring out how to communicate and interact with the world, but I can point a couple of tunes that are a classic between me and my brother, these stood out in our tender years for a variety of reasons, in the case of the dutch band, Focus, it was the loud yodelling over a rock tune of Hocus Pocus, someone screaming at the top of their lungs and modulating their voice in unusual ways will leave a mark in your toddler brain.

Another tune that remained in our long-term brain storage was from the Spanish band Barrabás and their tune Wild Safari, because nothing screams memorable like a song that evokes a place, with their percussions and voice work meant to mimic African traditional music but with a strong psychedelic rock base.

We did get our fair share of children's music, in the form Mazapan, an all-female musician assembly who draw influence from medieval, south american folklore music, they were catchy and happy, lyrics that talk about dancing animals and enjoying the wonders of the world.

As my parents started collectings CD from the local records shops and/or receving them as a gift from friends,a copy of Yo-Yo Ma's The Cello suites fell into my hands, with it, it became a routine to assemble puzzles in the floor of the living room during the weekends while listening to this album and I believe this is the first time where I showed interest in something that was beyond what my parents were playing everyday, I clearly remember my parents getting tired of me listening to this CD every weekend.

Random comment about me seeing Yo-Yo Ma for the first time, in the booklet that came with the case there were several pictures of him, and to me it looked like one of my uncles, still snicker at myself whenever I see their face on their internet.

Blessed with a Stereo, cursed with a violin

As we remodeled our house and we got our own rooms we got blessed with, first, privacy, and second, our own TV, VHS player and Stereo to watch our cartoons after school, and play whatever we wanted, over the time a library of Disney movies video tapes filled a drawer on the living room, and a myriad of casette tapes appeared on the shelf under my stereo equipement on my room, from between the disney soundtrack compilations and the Mazapan ones I got one in a purple case with the words Corona, which was a chain of department stores in Chile, the cassette was a compilation of popular hits in the country of the decade, most likely offered as a gift with any purchase or maybe it came in a magazine or a newspaper promotion.

From that cassette, two songs I remember, one by the Spanish boy-band Locomía, who were known for their extravagant outfits and fan twirling performances. My impression from that time was that their music was a little grating to my ears and their lyrics of desiring someone romantically and sexually made me uncomfortable (I was a kid, no more than 7, kissing and loving people was for grown-ups in my eyes).

The other ones were the Chilean rock-pop band The Prisioneros, they are ubiquitous in Chilean culture, a band famous for their music which mixed synth and pop formula, sprinkled with the latinoamerican element of traditional instruments here and there, their lyrics which the youth of the 80's and the 90's related to it a lot, speaking of the current state of the country, political and socioeconomical, but in my household I was barely aware they existed because of a certain someone who banished all of it. I found this song to be extremely melancholic, a tune that talks about someone taking the train somewhere, inspired to break way from the frantic rhythm of the metropolis, hopeful to reconnect with the nature and the beauty of the Chilean countryside.

I was getting old enough to start deciding what to do with my free time, and I couldn't have the most unfortunate idea of taking violin lessons in the context of living a stress inducing family, who thought it was peak parenting to verbally drag through the mud a 6-year-old who was not getting good at violin fast enough. I remember being harassed by my father and grandfather when I didn't understand music theory and failed the exams, but it was too scary to ask for help because the way they understood it wasn't friendly at all with my brain, I resorted to memorize heavily my music exercises and bluff my shit through academic year on music school, I passed somehow but someone snitched on me that I wasn't actually reading music score and that prompted more sermons, added to the fact that my violin professor was another maniac, had no idea how to deal with students that learn in different ways and/or slower paced, I could jump from performing a song with a 5/10 to a 9/10 in a week and he decided to respond with a "Not good enough". My mom saw all of that and fought for my right to give up, which meant some big discussions with my father and my grandfather, but she prevailed. Thanks mom ♡.

Anime openings memorize experience, Any%

As latinoamerica started broadcasting even more anime thanks to Japanese animation studios licensing their shows to foreign TV Networks (there was already some anime shows like Heidi, Lady Oscar, Moomin, Remi, but the sheer volume acquired during the 90's was it's own can of worms), the youth became drawn to the heroes of these shows and I became drawn to the tunes (I mean, I also became drawn to the shows's characters like anyone else but this article is about the music).

Now, outside the broadcast schedule I had no other means to enjoy their soundtrack and opening themes, yes I had VHS tapes and cassette tapes, but I didn't quite understand how to record from TV and if I dare ask my father about it I was gonna get questioned the whys followed by a NO. Even if I managed to record sneakily, most likely the music was ruined by dialog over it, and me trying to appreciate the music alone would have drove me nuts.

A tangent I can't resist to go on is that opening themes were dubbed of course, and because of mysterious reasons beyond my knowledge, either these dubbed themes were slapped to the entirety of the run EVEN if the original run had more opening themes, only a few shows were lucky to have all ther openings intact through the dubbing process, others were removed in place of a song that worked in introducing the show but it felt a little tonally dissonant with the rest of the vibes of the show (I.E: Saint Seiya)

This song is so cringe in their lyrics, a typical theme of "hey, these are the heroes, they will win against the evil" but I guess it worked for the time

I'm not intersted going into the weeds of which songs I memorized during this time, there was the typical Inuyasha openings with the 6th opening being the one I remember the most, Sakura Card Captor, Hunter X Hunter with their very upbeat and inspiring "Ohayou" and their melancholic "Kaze no Uta", Rurouni Kenshin which had no bad songs and Detective Conan (only the first opening was available during the first iteration of their dubbing which was made by Mexico, since then it seems Chile has taken the dub of the show and have released new seasons using the corresponding undubbed opening theme for the right arc they're broadcasting). Away from these very popular ones there was one or two works which their opening theme were very neat and catchy and I wanna talk briefly of them.

Jigoku Sensei Nube had a banger of a song, a fun plot of a ghost nerd that also wielded a demon hand to exorcise when these ghosts got too rowdy and a silly group of students that followed him around. Good shit all around, I remember trying to play this song on a record when I was bored.

I had to find a link outside Youtube because the ones available are very low quality.

Loki and their familiars have descended from their divine place to earth in the shape of a tiny child and other human or animal identities, and just like Jigoku Sensei Nube, they got into paranormal cases and teamed up with a school student which was a dumb but kind hearted young girl, oblivious of the real identity of our main characters, show was milque-toast but the openings and endings were right up my alley and I wonder now why I didn't look up the artists involved in it.

There's only so much I can describe before start mentioning about Internet and getting familiar with file sharing or early video platforms, so this is it for now.