LEN - Steal My Sunshine

There is nothing quite like a day of lazing around in the sun, reading various Sunday newspaper supplements and having this drowsy routine punctuated only by short overtures to see friends over good food. Had I ever been subjected to what has been proverbially coined 'the Rat Race', today would surely be one of the best of all time to escape it. Surely, the amount of nothing I indulged in would have the organizers of the race licking their wounds and questioning whether the derby still had any merit to it. Accordingly, as the thermometer took to the beaming midday sun and I added to the number of sun spots currently inhabiting my upper back, it was this song by LEN that I couldn't get out of my head. Considering its glowing temperament (the video's budget of $100,000 was blown on booze during a week in spring-break Daytona Beach and the clip shot in an afternoon of hazy hangover), nothing could be more apt.

1999 was a good year to be upbeat. Notwithstanding the war in Kosovo and the Y2K bug which threatened to destroy us all, the dotcom bubble was rising, the Denver Broncos had won their second Superbowl in a row, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000 for the first time in history (currently languishing at 9,171) and Napster had its debut. Everyone was naive and happy and there was no such thing as Prozac or sub-prime mortgages. Ok, those last two might have been a bit of creative license, but still, you'd have to agree it was a far more innocent time. At least that's how it seemed for a then ten-year old me. I was bursting with excitement at the thought of a new house (!) and the upcoming Sydney Olympics (!) and everything on my musical palate (from the Backstreet Lads to Lou Bega, TLC to Aussie dance duo Madison Avenue which, for some reason, I remember being a favourite) reflected this ecstatic enthusiasm.

Now, near-on a decade later, things haven't soured as much as I suggest they have but, getting all retrospective and sappy on a warm Sunday afternoon, there is a certain aching for youth (ha! I'm 19) that is undeniable. As such, beyond indulging in youth culture every once in a while (my last Tamagotchi died in a Laotian pool, only two or three years back), I get my kicks from nostalgia music. It's why the demise of the mixtape CD is such a tragedy. Without J's mixes 1 thru 17 cataloging our sonic predilections of those early years - JLo and The Offspring featuring frighteningly disproportionately - I'd have nothing to pop in the old Sony these days and throwback to the late 90s, early 00s. And so, it is with LEN's bubble pop still replaying in my head (an attempted imitation of Human League's girl/boy back-and-forth "Don't You Want Me") that I urge you: make CDs. Don't lose yourself to the terrors of digital archiving. Backup your music regularly and buy a bigger iPod to accommodate your full collection. It may have been a one-hit wonder, but it's certainly one hit that made me wonder...

LEN - Steal My Sunshine