New Millenium, Baby

I've written about how much I adore the movies of 1999 here, here, and here. I've also discussed the job I was working as 1999 gave way to 2000. But it's the music from that time which takes me there most forcefully. Before I elaborate, let me just share a bit of what was going on in my life at that time.

My wife and I were getting ready to move into our first house. We had rented apartments for the prior 3 years and after paying more than $700 rent for quite some time, realized that having our own home was a win, win (other than having to mow the lawn, shovel snow, and living several minutes out of town as opposed to within city limits). Our apartment was just 3 blocks from Saint Mary Hospital, so we constantly heard ambulances and police sirens.

Getting a yard for our dogs and cat was a big move-up as was having a garage for both our transports. We had requested that the home be built with vaulted ceilings, but the builder messed up and didn't do so. Since they wouldn't redo the ceilings, we either had to accept the standard one with a $500 credit or wait several months for another home to be built. We decided to take the credit and ended up moving into our place in January of 2000.

For our first few months there, we were the only ones on the block. In fact, they hadn't even put a streetlight on our block yet. Since the basement was mostly unfinished, we actually had less space to live in than we did in the prior apartment. Living a few miles out of town made me less inclined to want to go out in the evenings. However, I did love the quiet and quickly became used to the "commute".

As '99 drew to a close, a friend of mine and his wife began stockpiling supplies, worried that either all the world's computers would fail or that the world would come to an end. He was pleasantly surprised that nothing happened. I shook my head, never giving much credence to the hype in the first place.

Now, on to three songs that really take me back to those days. The first has Timbaland uttering the name of this post at the end of the song, the second song's video revolves around a party that is taking place on New Year's Eve 1999,

and the third is a late-night tune whose video surprised me in that it shows the use of text messaging (I had no idea it existed back then).