A poet with all the answers has never yet been built

Musical Science puts forward the theory that music is the most efficient holder and carrier of nostalgia. Entire years of a person's life can be contained in the few minutes of a pop song, with almost none of it leaking out over the years. There are some musical scientists who believe that, in many cases, the nostalgic power of a song can actually increase. These scientists have never been able to prove their theory, however, as every time they put on the song meant to prove their point, they only end up gazing off into the distance, only to leave work early to look at their old high school yearbooks.

I've never been much of a scientist, so while I've never been able to calculate the exact number of heartstring tugs (the official measurement of nostalgia brought on by music, abbreviated, say, 45^HsT) that the music in my life would still produce, I can still identify some of the major carriers. There are two albums in particular which remind me of my sophomore year in high school, a time when I had switched from rotten, good-time hard-ish rock like Night Ranger and Honeymoon Suite to genuinely great, but much sadder music. These two albums saw me through many friendless days that 10th grade year: Sparkle In The Rain by Simple Minds and The Swing by INXS.

While theres a lot of musical nostalgia that feels amazing, reminding you of great times when you were young and just wanted to crank up the songs, these albums are almost too crushing to listen to, especially INXS's "Love Is (What I Say)". Since my Never Played playlist has been the musical focal point in my life these days, I find myself being reminded of these albums, and being drawn back to them in spite of the way they end up making me feel.

"Up On The Catwalk" is up in the jukebox. There's no way that you'll end up feeling the same way I do when I hear it, but it's an amazing song. The intensity of the drums and the vocals almost sound surprising now, knowing that after this album, Simple Minds went on to be something of a joke in a lot of the world, seen as a bloated and boring adult contemporary band. But they were incredible. And this song still hits me hard, with a force of well over 250^HsT