Every Sha-La-La-La, Every Woh-Woh-Woh

The idea that the rap tune obnoxiously blaring from your teenager's room will be the nostalgic trigger of his adulthood might sound absurd at the moment, but it's actually a near-certainty. Just as a Glen Miller tune might prompt a wistful smile from your grandparents (if you're in or around my own age group), your parents likely had the same reaction to Sinatra ballads. You yourself might feel that not-unpleasant nostalgic twinge at the first familiar chords of Pink Floyd, or the above-referenced Carpenters tune, or even the disco you detested so passionately in its 1970s-heyday.

Okay, that disco-thing might just be me. The point is, the upcoming crop of adults will feel that same tug of emotion when future "Oldies" stations pump out Beyonce or Coldplay. They're not called "formative years" for nothing. The music of our youth stamps an indelible brand on our minds. It doesn't have to be music we were fond of at the time it made its mark on us (disco music no longer makes me scowl and flip the station). It doesn't even have to be "good" music (there's no rational reason for those Bobby Sherman tracks in my music library, but my older sister's year-long crush pretty much cemented his curiously flat voice into my head at age-8). The music imprinted on our adolescent minds will always be one of the most direct routes to our emotional right brain, unadulterated by the usual left-brain analysis.

It's important to realize that, although the nostalgic trigger of childhood music is usually a happy one, this is likely only because most of us are fortunate enough to have had at least relatively happy childhoods. One music therapist who geared her selections to the age of her patients was unpleasantly surprised to find that the same Viennese waltzes so soothing to her American-born charges produced a distinctly opposite effect on a Polish-born woman who had spent her early years in a German concentration camp. This reverse effect is poignantly illustrated in the film "Radio Flyer," where scenes of narrator-Tom Hanks' worst childhood memories are always preceded by the Hank Williams tune "Jambalaya," apparently a favorite of his abusive stepfather when he was drinking.

For me, the zenith of feel-good music lies in any track from side-1 of ELO's "A New World's Record," which transports me so thoroughly to the cabin in Tarpon Springs where my high school crowd gathered on weekends that I can practically smell the lake and taste the pizza. I'm not sure why it's specifically side-1, probably because this was the vinyl age and Autoplay took over when we neglected to flip the record, which was most of the time. Side-2 is probably just as good, from a critical standpoint, but lack of critical analysis is kind of the whole point here. Musical nostalgic triggers don't have to sound good. They just have to sound right.