LINER NOTES: Reset

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Reset was meant to be a secular nod to the Muslim and Jewish New Years, both of which fell in October. By LINER NOTES standards the music spun reflected the theme broadly. Mostly thoughts about the past and reflections on change. As such, the tone spanned a few emotions.

Optimism towards change is perhaps more prevalent in song than in real-life. Credit Johnny Nash for capturing that a-ha! moment for middle America and wedding dinners across the land. Jonathan Richman's "I'm Just Beginning to Live" is nowhere near as ubiquitous, but perhaps more delirious with ecstasy over his new state of being. Even surly Bob has nothing but love likening his sweetheart to a "New Morning." Perhaps that's why we toned down this optimism with the cynical realizations in the Velvets' "Beginning to See the Light."

At times we allowed the optimism to become aggressive. At the start of the cult film Wild in the Streets, Max Frost sings "Shape of Things to Come" with a religious fervor calling out to the nation the youth invasion. By film's end Frost is a demagogue consumed with exercising his vision at any cost. The song becomes less a youth anthem and more an explicit threat of genocide. I suppose the writers had some issues with the hippy generation. Less malignant is Common's ball-swaggering "Resurrection." The song remains the emcee's "Giant Steps" stacking rhymes upon rhymes upon rhymes." If you had bars like this at 22, what would you do?

A bittersweet look backward seems common for most adults. NaS and Quik walk us through their respective childhoods with equal respect for the better times and the blemished memories. A fresh out of retirement Lennon channels his rejuvenated outlook while subtly acknowledging his constant moral meandering on "Starting Over." Recent events may weigh more heavily on Solange's mind, but she knows she has to "go ahead and take some time" on "Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)." Everyone moves forward in lock step with the march of time.