Friday, May 29, 2009

Time takes a cigarette and puts it in your mouth

Truth be told, I didn't grow up being really into music. Of course I liked it and had preferences but it wasn't a dominate focus of mine. But there will always be those songs and albums that I tied to important events and emotions, the ones that really mattered and changed the way I heard and experienced music. Here they are for your reading pleasure:



Dookie - Green Day.

Green Day's Dookie changed the way I heard music. Songs didn't have to sound like Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys (no offense to anyone). Suddenly, there were other genres with different messages that seemed to speak to me and who I wanted to be. On a side note, instead of my first love and I just having one song we wanted a whole album and this was it.

Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep your ear to the ground - Bright Eyes

It felt like Frida Kahlo set to music. Everything that was deep and beautiful and awful was set within this album (and all that came after it). Conor Oberst is one of the only musicians I have faithfully followed since hearing for the first time. I realize a lot of people label it as "seriously emo" but there is a quality here that you will never find in the majority of "emo" songs ever.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie

Clearly amazing. I could listen to it over and over again while fantasizing about that red hair and body suit. The whole idea of David Bowie and his ambiguity and daring captured me. I would drive in my car down hidden country roads, blaring his music, just wasting time. He made it alright for me to be the spunky little thing I wanted to be.

Antics - Interpol

The voice of Paul Banks haunts me. The melody soothes me. The lyrics interest me. This album and band took me by surprise with their oddly wonderful puppet character video for Evil and have please me with their constant originality ever since. I feel like their songs fill every part of my ear when I listen to them, like the sound really is touching me.

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

I think there is a fairly obvious pattern going on and its based upon my passion for thought provoking, poetic lyrics. And in that respect Bob Dylan should be knighted. The wonderful part of his music was though the concepts in his songs seemed so big, there was an air of simplicity about it. Like a familiar twang that seemed to hint at the idea that Bob Dylan was always going to be your grass roots friend who played on your front porch. This album in particular was special to me because I found some of his songs more story driven and it really made me sit down and listen when I had been so use to tuning out.

So there it is, my glued and patched together list of albums that have resonated with me. I think I have come a long way forward musically from that girl who didn't care enough to buy CDS or maybe I should say gone way back since I buy records now. I went through a lot of different stages in high school but this list is the tried and true, the ones that never faded.
Happy listening everyone,
Lindsay

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'd say dookie is on most lists for people in their early 20's

Lins said...

I agree. It was a pretty awesume album. Who didnt like jumping around to it?

Anonymous said...

can't say i ever jumped around to it, but it does remind me of grade 4 and 5 a lot...