5 Bands/Artists I Feel Nostalgic About

I was listening to a band the other day that I first discovered and fell in love with around ten years ago, and I thought it might be fun to write a post about the bands and musical artists in general that have this heavy nostalgic feeling for me, either because I had an intense period of listening to them during a particular year, or they became embedded with specific memories in my head, or they just remind me of the time a certain song or album was released. Let's dive into some of my nostalgic favourites.

1. Delays

Delays - Lost in a Melody (from the album 'You See Colours', released in 2004)

Let's start with the band who inspired this post. When I was still a teen, I found this band by searching for my own first name in Limewire and listening to all the songs that came up. The Delays song was easily the best one, and I promptly bought all their albums and they became one of my most beloved bands. They were a hot band around the late '00s and they were obscure enough that any time I saw them mentioned in a magazine or heard them talked about I would get really excited as if they were my relatives. Greg's beautiful high voice and the evocative lyrics full of tenderness and adventure ("let's go swimming in the morning, let's go swimming in the morning" from Jet Lag makes me feel so touched and happy) create such a lovely, unique sound. I highly recommend the video linked above because I remember watching it aged 17 and feeling like there was so much magic to it. It's the blue light - it's hypnotic.

2. Molly Nilsson

Molly Nilsson - 8000 Days (from the album 'These Things Take Time', released in 2008)

There is such a particular type of melancholy to Molly's songs that they draw you into their strange world and cadence. Listening to them can feel like you're inside a spooky music box somehow. These songs make me nostalgic for around the early '10s (2011 and 2012 most prominently), when John Maus was a big new thing, and of course John Maus and Molly Nilsson share something of their sound and notably worked together. I ended up seeing Molly perform at The Shacklewell Arms accidentally one night after going to a zine fair held there, and it was one of the best gigs I have ever been to. She sang along to a cassette player backing track, and that might sound like it would be awful, but it was seriously the best thing I've ever witnessed. The fuzzy sound worked perfectly. So intimate and so lovely.

3. The Damned

The Damned - Eloise (from the album 'Anything', released in 1986)

The Damned are the band I've gone to see live most often. They put on an incredible show, and have so much personality, as well as a bunch of cracking good songs. They do send me back to my childhood though. I was very into them starting when I was around 16 and in my last year of high school. I even bonded with one of the head of years over our mutual love of both The Damned and The Doors. There are quite a few bands who always evoke high school for me, but there is something about The Damned. It's like their songs cut through to the core of who I was as a person, and the part of me who was a teenage fanatic of The Damned is the same person. It's strange, it just feels really positive for me. They uplift me so much and only good things and fun are associated with them in my mind. I'm really glad of that, since fun is what they exude onstage and in their songs more than anything.

4. HIM

HIM - The Funeral of Hearts (from the album 'Love Metal', released in 2003)

Ahhh, now this is the band I was obsessively into is a teenager. As you'll likely know already if you're a fan of this band, most people who are into them seem to be very heavily invested. I'm not sure quite what it is that lures people in such a devotional manner into HIM, but yes, they ruled my life for a while. I still remember the feeling I had when I first encountered them. It must have been 2004/2005. I was watching a music video channel, as I did quite a lot back then, and the video for The Funeral of Hearts came on. I was mesmerised, in total awe and wonder at this audio visual experience. Something the snowy forest setting, Ville Valo's voice and particular enunciation, and the peculiar sort of muddiness in the way the song was mixed - all of that combined had me utterly captivated. I remember this moment so clearly, and listening to the song can take me right back to that moment as if I was watching a video of myself.

5. Taking Back Sunday

Taking Back Sunday - MakeDamnSure (from the album 'Louder Now', released in 2006)

I had to include some kind of proper emo band on here, and Taking Back Sunday fit well because their album Louder Now is so intrinsically linked to my teenage experience that it can never be extricated, unlike the big Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance albums from around that time, which aren't quite so evocative of the time they came out to me as I still listen to them to this day. Louder Now is unbearably filled with anguish, and I think post-2009 I found it very hard to listen to. There's now been enough time that I feel the angst calling to me, and I have to listen to this album again. Man, it's great.