X's Angst

Even though the media has decided to ignore us you have to admit that Gen X in the 80's and early 90's Teen Angst(ed) it like no generation before or since. "Really?", you say. Yes, really. The 80's gave birth to the American Hardcore Punk Scene, both Speed and Thrash Metal, as well as Gangster Rap.

We were staring down the barrel of the AIDS Crisis, both the Crack Cocaine and Crystal Meth epidemics, as well as, thanks to Saint Ronnie’s pissing match with the Soviets, the real possibility of Nuclear Annihilation. The movie War Games and the song 99 Red Balloons were both based on true stories. Phil Collins kind of sucks, but his Mtv video for Land of Confusion could have very well been humanity’s final documentary.

We even rocked mullets back in the day. Mullets for god’s sake! The high school pictures from that era are enough to cause a lifetime of angst for anyone.

And even though I haven't been a teen since dead technologies like cassette tapes and VHS reigned supreme, this is my 80's Teen Angst Mix Tape or maybe the Gen X Dinosaur's Play List.

Every Day is Like Sunday: Yes, we know Morrisey is an out of touch dickhead. Maybe we even knew it as far back as 1988 when this song came out. Regardless, you have to admit when he was with The Smiths and at least for a couple of solo albums afterwards he wrote some pretty edgy and teen angsty sounding songs. This one, about a bored teen living in a small UK beach town dreaming of Armageddon is pretty fucking angsty. Especially, considering the fact that the Nuclear Sword Rattling hadn’t been that intense since The Cuban Missile Crisis.

(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party): It's Saturday night, 1987. Your parents are out of town for the weekend. The Beastie Boys are on the home stereo system blasting way past 11. All four hundred of your high school friends are drunk and high on cheap skunky beer and cheap skunky weed. The police, summoned by the next door neighbors, have given you your fifth stern warning of the night to turn the damn music down and send everyone home. And your best friend Skeeter has just parked his '78 Camaro in the backyard swimming pool.

Multiply felonies were probably committed the night before, but the worst thing that happens is that you have to wake up super early on Sunday and clean up the mess while hungover before your parents get home. You do get grounded for two weeks though, because your dad finds two empty beer cans stuffed in the hedges and a dirty roach clip in the ashtray out by the swimming pool. Somehow Skeeter's greasy carburetor at the bottom of the pool goes unnoticed.

Institutionalized: Every teen has been there. You are sitting in your room staring at a poster on your wall not thinking about anything. You’ve accidentally left your bedroom door slightly ajar. Your mom walks by and sees you staring at your wall and thinks, "Oh my god, is he depressed? Is he suicidal? Is he on drugs? Does he want a Pepsi?" Total parental meltdown freak out. You slam your bedroom door, slap on your headphones and crank Suicidal Tendencies just to regain your sanity.

Smells Like Teen Spirit: I know, I know, 1991. I wasn't an 80's teenager anymore, but when Nirvana's Nevermind dropped in '91 everyone between the ages of 12 to 25 was feeling the teen angst because of songs like this coming from the Seattle Sound bands that blew up around that time. (Nobody but industry posers called it Grunge). The Seattle Sound took edgy teen angst mainstream. Bands like Soundgarden, Pear Jam, Alice in Chains and of course the mighty Nirvana successfully killed much of what was terrible about 80’s music. And teens are still, uh, angst(ing) to their music to this day.

Bullet With Butterfly Wings: Again, I know, I know, 1995. I’m way past my Teen Angst sell date on this one. Just imagine though, your teen angst years are now a long gone dusty memory, you are several years out of college, so no more Bong Hitting your way to some sort of philosophical optimism in your door room. Screaming this song along with The Smashing Pumpkins might be all you got left. “Despite of my rage I am still just a rat in a cage”, never were there more perfect lyrics written to describe that moment when you leave your Teen Angst years behind and adult your way into some good old healthy existential despair. More than likely at this point you will do something stupid like get married, raise a family and dump your Mix Tape/Play List forever for stuff like Baby Shark played over and over and over and over…...