Deftones - Bored (1995)

Album: Deftones - Adrenaline (1995)
Song: Bored

How good was this album... It was 1995, and the grunge philosophy was stagnating due to over commercialization. Conflicting emotions meant caring and not caring, or looking like you care, and looking like you don't care, were all weighing heavily on the young adults of the time. I was too young to even have an opinion when this album was released, but looking back on it now, hearing the actual emotion in the vocals, the lyrics, and the physical playing and performance, I get the sense that this album was a true boiling point caused by social indifference and pretension.

It's almost like having to practice social nihilism and not actually being happy about it. When you read the lyrics, and you hear how many times they specifically reference being bored or not being what is expected. The title of this track for example is flat out, "Bored". I just get such a strong sense of purpose and real emotion behind this album, and this song perfectly embodies it all. As a result, I think it feels really transcendental. The music itself is immensely creative. From the use of super compressed vocals going from whispers to screams, to the completely bizarre production style, to the the extremely uncommon play style and patterns of the drummer. This seems like a result of kids that aren't happy not being themselves (welcome to the commercialization of grunge), who went to great lengths to actually BE themselves.

This song kind of serves as an anthem to me. If you truly want something to exist, you have to create it. The hard part is knowing what you truly want, or what your surroundings dictate you should want.