Select Frequency #18

High school hi-jinks

Hello again, and welcome back to Let Us Try And Convince You How Cool We Are - the series. For those unfamiliar with our gleeful blindfold-on, seatbelt-off style of playlist curation, this is where we, the good writers of gk!, dare to give you a 10-song playlist comprised of…. well, whatever we feel like.

Actually, forget that — actually, it’s whatever YOU should be listening to.

In the post-festive haze of January I found myself in a very nostalgic mood. Maybe it was the need to wade through endless 2025 releases to rank my favourites of the year, or maybe I just needed some audible comfort food to override my intense gastrointestinal distress — either way, I was craving something familiar and passive.

There’s a simple but powerful joy to revisiting benchmark songs from your life, and it’s one of the clearest reminders of how subjective music really is (this will be my legal defence for the nonsense soon to follow). That time-and-place receptiveness — the way emotions crystallise around certain tracks over time — renders their appeal completely unique from person to person. And goddammit, if I want to get all mushy and nostalgic about my first kiss via repeated plays of ‘‘Chocolate Rain’’, I’m gonna do it.

So, nostalgia will be the theme this week, folks. Specifically teenage nostalgia. More specifically: my teenage nostalgia. These picks are all taken from my old high school playlist and do a pretty thorough job of illustrating what a mess I was even back then. Obviously my taste wasn’t quite as rounded/ interesting/ good in the slightest during those years, but I’ve tried to focus on deep cuts from the more over-familiar names featured.

Alright, here we go — prepare to see where it all went wrong for me. Don’t worry, my editor decided to spare you from ‘‘Chocolate Rain’’. I wouldn’t have.

1. Pierce The Veil - “I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous”

2. Shivaree - “Goodnight Moon”

3. Chthonic - “Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains”

4. Wu-Tang Clan - “One of These Days”

5. Nightwish - “Beauty Of The Beast”

6. HIM - “Razorblade Kiss”

7. DS1 - “Twisted”

8. Dirty Pretty Things - “You Fucking Love It”

9. System Of A Down - “Old School Hollywood”

10. Red Hot Chili Peppers - “I Could Have Lied”

(Please note that ‘‘Twisted’’ is missing from the Spotify playlist)

Pierce The Veil - “I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous”

from A Flair For The Dramatic // 2007 // post hardcore

I never fully slipped into the ‘my parents don’t understand me’ phase musically — at least not in the way many of my peers did. PTV were perhaps the closest I came to embodying that true teenage stereotype, but it wasn’t even their angst and emo leanings that drew me in, truly. I swear, mum! What hooked me was how neatly they balanced the diluted, über-lighthearted brand of skate-hardcore I already loved with a melodic edge that made everything feel just a little more complete. ‘‘I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous’’, the frustratingly infectious fourth track on their debut full-length, stitches together a simple earworm riff, the kind of lyrics you howl with misty eyes into your hairbrush (not that I ever did that), and punchy screamed vocals that inject the whole thing with a satisfyingly manic energy. This is PTV before they sanded down any of the slightly rough edges — peak MySpace era genre maximalism: emotionally naked, messy, and utterly sincere in its overblown angst. Nostalgia has a way of clouding judgement when it comes to music, but this is very much a case where I’m happy to let it — this one is true teenage regression therapy, and I make no apologies for it. Okay, maybe to my mum, but that’s it.

Shivaree - “Goodnight Moon”

from I Oughta Give You A Shot In The Head For Making Me Live In This Dump // 1999 // Indie rock - downtempo

A simple, vaguely sinister indie tune, ‘‘Goodnight Moon’’ saturates its brief runtime with noirish tension like blotting paper. The intoxicating organ, brushed drums and Ambrosia Parsley’s lullaby vocals flirt with Americana hallmarks, understated in a manner akin to campfire storytelling, but with the kind of unblinking eye contact that makes it feel serious, confident; final. The arrangement is liminal: the silence matters as much as the instrumentation. The vocal ropes its way around the groove like a noose, leading the listener through a subtle emotional vacuum by retaining a stranglehold on the track’s sparseness. It’s an excellent example of what can be accomplished with the two-hander of a stripped-down aesthetic and a deliberate arrangement; the piece feels intimate, hypnotic and threatening. Where its detachment faintly soothes, it’s never without a sense of looming threat waiting in the wings, which is an impressive feat for a cut as weary and gentle as this. Though it dropped in 1999, it feels timeless: modern but dusted with vintage charm, like a buried vinyl unearthed from a forgotten collection. The album is well worth diving into as well — a little unsung ‘90s gem.

Chthonic - “Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains”

from Mirror of Retribution // 2009 // Black metal - symphonic metal

Cradle of Filth was my gateway drug into extreme metal, so when I stumbled upon an artist profile for Chthonic in an alternative magazine during a long car ride, I was very much intrigued. The article compared them to CoF and discussed at length the difficulties they faced performing such music and gaining acceptance in their home country of Taiwan. As soon as I got home I searched for them online and this monstrous, memorable single served as my introduction to their delirious, teeth-gnashing sound. Utilising traditional Taiwanese instruments such as the Erhu (a two-stringed bowed fiddle) to accentuate the symphonic depth, it’s a vicious whirlwind of structured metallic abrasion held together by some of the shrillest screaming techniques I’ve ever willingly endured. Despite its vicious pace and texture, it still riffs insanely hard, with memorable guitarwork doing lots of heavy lifting, most notably during the pre-chorus bridge. It may be a slight party foul, but I’ve chosen the English rendition of this track over the original Taiwanese version, mainly because nostalgia, but also because the translation renders a far more lyrically dense experience that I find a tad more compelling. If you need any more convincing, check out the cat-in-a-lawnower screech immediately after the first chorus at 1:25. Good grief.

Wu-Tang Clan - “One Of These Days”

from Iron Flag // 2001 // hip hop

Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool metalhead, hip hop has always ended up dominating my listening stats every year. I couldn’t have been any more of a cliché either. That is, a suburban kid with aggressively middle class, conservative parents… so my exposure to the genre was initially very limited, to say the least. Then, this Wu-Tang banger came ambling along as one of the first deep cut tracks (that wasn’t Eminem) that made me realise how much I enjoyed the style of music. Oh, and shout out to an especially terrible buddy-cop movie from 2003 (that shall remain nameless) for the intro. Pulled from the criminally underrated Iron Flag, the track boasts a back-to-basics vibe for the outfit: a catchy hook, a chopped, vaguely ‘80s style beat and some slick bars that feel both locked into their era and surprisingly current. The exploration of such themes as inevitability and paranoia reflect a shift in social attitudes and upheaval within the music industry landscape of the time, making use of a stripped-down but still purposeful focus to bring the Wu-Tang sound back to its hardened roots. RZA keeps the production stark, leaning hard on heavy percussion and a bouncy looping sample that leaves plenty of sparsity for the flows to weave around in. There’s no poppy crossover sheen to this one; it feels serious, grimy, and closer in spirit to 36 Chambers than anything they’d dropped in years.

Nightwish - “Beauty Of The Beast”

from Century Child // 2002 // symphonic metal

Nightwish were my first favourite metal band. Their grand use of classical structure, lush instrumentation and operatic vocals, all saturated in a heavy production style, scratched my goblin brain while still satiating my lust for big, dramatic melodies. They were a key transitional band for me on the way into heavier metal subgenres, and this epic album closer neatly packages everything I love about them. The songwriting is fantastic: restrained yet epic, anchored by a characteristically rich vocal performance from Tarja Turunen, threading its way through distorted guitars and unapologetic symphonic excess. Built as a multi-movement piece and tied together by a soaring chorus with a simple yet undeniably rousing melody, it captures Nightwish at their most sweeping, gothic and elegant. This is a combination they would later drive to the point of overkill (see: Dark Passion Play’s exhaustingly overblown ‘‘The Poet And The Pendulum’’), but ‘‘Beauty Of The Beast’’ represents this aesthetic at its most refined and stirring — blazing, righteous excitement underpinned by rapturous traditionalism. The indulgence may have later tipped dangerously close to self-parody, but this one is so finely-judged it deserves to be mentioned as a highlight from their impressive discography.

HIM - “Razorblade Kiss”

from Razorblade Romance // 1999 // alternative rock - gothic rock

While I slightly prefer the heightened sophistication of 2007’s Venus Doom, I still have a lot of time for early era HIM. ‘‘Razorblade Kiss’’ was one of the first tracks I heard by the Finnish band, and it remains a career favourite — a downtuned, rousing riff, classic gothic melodrama and Ville Valo’s signature baritone, all add up to one of their catchier cuts… and certainly one of their heaviest. This comes from a time in their career when the gothic tag wasn’t doing all the heavy lifting via lyrics and Valo’s gravel alone; the song feels muddy, dense, and genuinely powerful. Which is impressive considering it’s fundamentally about a deeply corny concept. There’s an escalating urgency that spools as the composition unfolds, eventually erupting into a cathartic solo that hits after Valo bellows, your love is a razorblade kiss, sweetest is the taste of your lips. Ridiculous. Glorious. I’ve not been quite as sold on the band in recent years, but as a teenager, HIM spoke to me in a way very few others did. I genuinely miss that. Plus, everytime I hear the solo I’m reminded of Bam Margera waking up his brother by punching him in the head with every strum of his guitar. Art really meant something back then.

DS1 - “Twisted”

single release // 2007 // Bassline

If you didn’t spend your teenage years sitting on felled trees drinking White Lightning and blasting music as loud as your tinny phone speaker would allow, you may not understand the appeal of this one. Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure I understand it either. What I do know is I’ve always been a sucker for bass, and the Niche/ 4x4 scene of the 2000’s was very much my lane. Ministry Of Sound released a triple album in 2008 called The Sound Of Bassline — an ungodly crash course in the most degenerate offshoot of 2-step and speed garage your ears will ever refuse to forgive you for. God help me, I was immediately hooked. There’s a few tracks I could have gone with for this one: TS7’s ‘‘Raise Your Glasses’’, Merkury’s ‘‘Best Thing’’, Mr. Virgo’s ‘‘Oh’’ etc, but I after much fingers-tented soul-searching I settled on this absolute screamer. I’ve gone a smidge off-road for this pick though: there’s barely a whiff of 2-step to be found here, with the track instead locking into a 4x4 rhythm and drilling its more ominous vibe directly into the listener’s skull. Repetitive yet hypnotic, its rubberbanding, warped bass slithers around the aggressive beat for some of the rawest-sounding bassline of the era. A peak of the post-Niche scene, it’s a far more minimal, serious experience than many of its more mainstream cousins — and is still an absolute wobbler all these years later. The Bernard Hermann Psycho sample is just the final deranged cherry on top. For the full experience, don a tracksuit (Burberry cap recommended but not essential) and be at least three tinnies deep before playing.

Dirty Pretty Things - “You Fucking Love It”

from Waterloo To Anywhere // 2006 // Indie rock

Formed by Carl Barât after the split of influential UK indie outfit The Libertines, Dirty Pretty Things wasted little time making themselves known — largely thanks to popular single release ‘‘Bang Bang You’re Dead’’. This track, taken from the same album (and, yes, very much an underappreciated classic of noughties indie rock), cranks up the scruffy fuzz and pace to chaotic levels. Released early as a teaser for their debut, it has a punk-infused core riff and shoutalong chorus, with winking, confrontational energy that feels far more energetic and, dare I say, dangerous, than most of the indie landfill congealing in the charts at the time. The Libertines DNA runs deep in the veins of the cut (with just a dash of the chaos inherited from Barât’s other band, Babyshambles, added in for good measure), but sharpened into something faster, leaner and more incensed. Playful, garage-rock-raw, and rough enough to feel like it may just disintegrate at any moment. Which is, incidentally, exactly why it works, and why it stands out.

System Of A Down - “Old School Hollywood”

from Mezmerize // 2005 // nu metal - alternative metal

System Of A Down had been a favourite of mine since I was ten years old, with ‘‘Sugar’’ teaching me that abject chaos was, in fact, a perfectly viable infrastructure for a metal band. By the time Mezmerize dropped (when I was twelve), its slightly more accessible strain of metal anarchy was exactly what I needed. Cycling the three miles to and from high school, the album was in near-constant rotation (alongside the number 10 pick on this list), and I always found myself looking forward to this penultimate track rolling around. The quixotic usage of pitch processing, synth layering and keyboard textures piled on top of the guitar bombast gives the track a strange, twitchy energy, but manages to remain devilishly catchy and extremely dynamic. The social commentary, delivered through bitter snarls and sudden melodic turns, makes the whole affair feel schizophrenic in true SOAD fashion, with an atypically rhythmic, deeply quirky and gleefully unhinged vibe cementing the song as a deep cut favourite. A fully wild ride, and a fine example of how elastic System’s idea of metal can be.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - “I Could Have Lied”

from Blood Sugar Sex Magik // 1991 // alternative rock - funk rock

Ah, the Chili Peppers. I’ve loved them, I’ve hated them, and nodded along to almost every piece of discourse ever written about them (both glowing and damning). What’s undeniable, though, is how enormous an influence they were on my music taste, and Blood Sugar Sex Magik remains their most impressive achievement by some distance. ‘‘I Could Have Lied’’ was a track that reliably caught me on the home stretch biking home from school, and it always hit a little differently. Despite having zero real-world experience of the scenario it describes, with themes centring on intense heartbreak, remorse and vulnerability, it somehow still felt painfully relatable. The heartache and naked earnestness of the lyrics — already enough to make it stand out on the sexually charged, comparatively zesty LP — fed directly into my teenage angst, and my desire to hear emotions articulated better than I could manage at the time. Layer on the fuzzy, restrained guitar work and plodding, patient percussion of a band operating at the peak of their game, and the result is something far more emotionally tuned than RHCP are often given credit for. Forget the overblown gaucheness of ‘‘Californication’’ or the cloying saccharinity of ‘‘Tearjerker’’; this is RHCP delivering vulnerability in a way that’s simple, pure, and remarkably effective. ‘Simple’ and ‘pure’: two words I’m sure you never expected to see used sincerely in their defence, yet here we are. Is a full bouquet blooming around my teenage lens here? Possibly. But however you slice it, this is still a tremendous, affecting, and uncharacteristically rich moment from a band better known for getting in their own way.