10 Records That Changed My Life
Music has always been important to me.
In my early years, it served as an escape, and later, a form of expression. Though my taste has vacillated, interdependent on where I’ve been or when I first heard something, I’ve always been an enthusiast. Playing music provided me a creative outlet, and combined with photography, writing, I gravitated towards artistic expression. Within an increasingly atomized world, music was a tool to carve out my identity.
Songs retain an interesting quality. They can weave themselves, burrow deep into our memories (and by extension), become incredibly personal, sentimental. A song plays when we meet someone important; a theme to a film reminds us of a seminal period in our lives, maybe our elders played certain songs when we were kids, etc. In that way, music is both, explicit and implicit, immediate and lasting, something social but personal, uniquely able to embed into our lives in a way other mediums cannot so effortlessly integrate.
For my writing, music has always been focal. From a teenager till now, there has seldom been a day where a song (or many) won’t hit my ears. I could make a list of 100+ records that would mark different “eras” of my life. Some songs have the ability to transport me in time because of my personalized attachments, so, making an arbitrary list of 10 feels extraordinarily difficult. No matter what I write, this list will be lacking.
Therefore, my list of 10 is merely a thought exercise to communicate if-not commemorate, my cherishment of the following records (in no particular order, besides #1). I won’t provide honorable mentions, as that too would be another list of its own. Also, this will be cursory, as I feel, each record demands their own write-up and in-depth impression.
To quote the 2000 film, High Fidelity, on the subject of taste in art, pop culture:
“I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the fuckin’ truth...”
Without further ado:
#1: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
P. J. Harvey
The most formative, important, cherished album of my life. Without hyperbole, this record and artist, have changed my life. There have been very few times in my existence that I can find a work of art and say, “this is exactly how I feel.” To no exaggeration, I feel this is the closest to an autobiography I’ll ever have, a diary to everything I’ve ever felt, all within an hour. This album is so special to me, so much so, I treat it as a bottle of wine: I only listen on special occasion, when I need it, mostly to rainy mornings, by myself. Everything from the lyrics, instrumentation, song choices, themes and so forth, feel just as powerful today as 20 years ago. To say that this album haunts my dreams is an understatement; this album is part of my soul.
#2: Daybreaker (2001)
Beth Orton
Another record near the turn of the century, Daybreaker is an interesting album. Made by then-indie, alt-folk and electronic artist, Beth Orton, this album serves as an amalgamation of her previous work. An ascendancy of sorts, Daybreaker begins with Paris Train, a song that invokes similar feelings in me to that of waking from mid-morning sleep, a drifting, encompassing tour de force, ephemeral as it is melodic, rhythmic and most important, emotionally-profound. Beth Orton’s music has a texture, feeling that transcends her genre-fusing and arrangement choices. Another record so important, personal to me, I feel at-times, quite lucky to have experienced it during my lifetime and thus, a part of my soul.
#3: No Angel (1999)
Dido
You might be noticing a trend. Something about the late 1990’s into early 2000’s felt important, both to pop-culture and the world (on the advent of the internet age), but also to me, as a young person. While Thank You might be written off as “that song Eminem sampled,” I’d argue the sentiment is a gross oversimplification to what remains a deep, moving record. Though now a worldwide star, Dido, at the time of release, was more or less unknown, and No Angel reflects that: the life, snapshot of a lonely, working-class artist with heartbreak, unrequited desire, grief to nostalgia, isolation, then more. There’s something special about this record, and in my opinion, nothing else in her career comes close. This is a very personal one for me, so much that, a short blurb would never encapsulate. When I want to feel something no other record gives me, this is my home.
#4: Let It Be (1984)
The Replacements
Something different, though no less important. A stamp, watermark of Reaganomics-1980’s rebellious youth counter-culture, this record is somehow a mainstream pop-punk album as it is subversive rejection of the status quo. It seems, everyone remembers their other record, Tim, when discussing this band, nevertheless, this is the one that changed my life. Androgynous, a song well-beyond its time, seems every bit relevant and important now, as it was then. Unsatisfied, a heartfelt, vulnerable lamentation to the excess, consumer-driven ideologue so prevalent then and now, speaks for me in the ideological-political landscape of contemporaneous Americana. This album will always be a part of me and I Will Dare, an echo to my alienation.
#5: Jukebox (2008)
Cat Power
Perhaps my first sacrilege on this list; long-time fans of Chan Marshall, aka, Cat Power, might contest that anything else from her long, rich discography would be a better choice for inclusion, though I beg to differ. While I adore her entire body of work, Jukebox is the record that speaks for my soul, despite being a collection of covers. Ramblin’ (Wo)man, the second track, moody as it is earnest, is searching, a voice of an artist looking for herself through songs of her heroes, and to that, I think, is where this album succeeds (and why other cover-records fall short). Her voice is haunting, the mood palpable, personal, and every time I put on this record, it’s as if, I’m in my own world: an ephemeral, smoky, dimly-lit lounge somewhere in NYC, a bastion, haven for my soul. When other records fail to elicit a cathartic cry, this one reminds me why I’m alive.
#6: The Magic Place (2011)
Julianna Barwick
The second most recent on my list, though now over a decade past, this album, always feels like I just started listening. Concretely ambient through and through, The Magic Place is personification of memory, nostalgia, dreams, consciousness, all beautifully painted onto an outdoor canvas. If you are familiar with the appeal of Gregorian chanting and/or monastic hymnals, then this is similar. Harp-like ethereal voices drift in and out of reverb-soaked delays amidst jangling, percussive acoustics, open spaces. The hour spent listening to The Magic Place feels just that: emotionally revelatory, profound, emanant. Though I’ve heard albums comparable to this before and after, due to the time and place I connected with it (2010’s, NYC), this record is an eternal snapshot of my transient and beautiful, irrelevant life.
#7: Clocktower Park (2004)
Kate Walsh
There’s endless references to this album in my novel, Saturday Mornings Forever, and if you couldn’t guess it by now: Clocktower Park is a record that captures my soul. One of those rare times I don’t feel so out of place in the world, this album gives me a home. From the moment it starts until it ends, Clocktower Park is a small window into a world so far away (of its artist-creator), but, feels like I’ve always been from. Quicksand, a song built with residual amplification of a cynical yet idealistic heart, buried by emotion, feels so real to me. June Bug is a melody haunting my dreams, while Impressionable resonates with so much intimacy, that I’m forever awestruck by its emotional brevity, craft and courage. I don’t relate to this album, I was made from the same material. There’s many unrecognized poets in our world, and this is but one letter for my ears; I wish I could take this album with me wherever we go after...you know.
#8: (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
Oasis.
This record will never not feel new to me. What can be written about this particular album that hasn’t been already? A prophetic, landmark record, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? is a sendup, flagship of an album proclaiming the apex of “Britpop,” circa the mid-to-late 1990’s, UK. I can’t not feel young whenever I put this on, and the sentiments echoed throughout the roughly 50-minute album feel new and relevant, despite born from another timeline, another life of its geo-political petri dish. Hey Now!, a song that feels longing, simmers of unrequited anger. The title track, equal parts adrenaline and depression, brims with the eternal angst of youth. I will always have a place in my heart for this record, and it will always be an escape for me.
#9: Either/Or (1997)
Elliott Smith
Indie’s fallen-angel, forever a ghostly voice of malaise and alienation still-prevalent across Gen-X, Y and Z, Elliott Smith is absolutely one-of-a-kind. Either/Or is his magnum opus, purposefully dark and discordant, intimate, self-effacing but revealing to a fault, emotionally cathartic. This is the type of album that never leaves you, only growing with you in time. There are some records and/or artists we “take breaks from,” either to come back or leave behind, and this is the former, one non-negotiable always loaded on my hard drives. What I feel from this record is an encapsulation of my inner-misanthrope, dreamer, misled, addicted and sensitive. A rather minimalist record with instrumentation and arrangement, Either/Or is that one book, movie you’ll never get rid of, but never stop to ask why. Elliott, though gone, has remained throughout my life in car rides, conversations, computers, lonely-days, to which, I will always be grateful. Either/Or is a quiet phone call to a friend, where you feel like the two of you never stopped talking, perhaps never left.
#10: DAMN. (2017)
Kendrick Lamar
My most recent, a tossup between Nas’s Illmatic for #10. Winner of a Pulitzer, among others, DAMN. bleeds, accosts, sways your ears with urgent, profound conviction, then never lets go. Goosebumps amplified, beyond poetry or art, this is life personified. Searching, reaching, deep and vulnerable, DAMN. has literally made me weep. FEEL, the track I identify the most, is my soul, more than I’d like to admit. “I feel like the whole world want me to pray for em’, but who the fuck praying for me?” is understated profundity opining DAMN.’s themes. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” a heartbreaking, relentless, multi-entendre lyric, sears. Depression, hopelessness, violence, identity, oppression swivel, circle in and out of aural canvas. We’re taken through roads of memory, trauma, all between original, compelling beats. Melodic, LOYALTY invokes a type of neo-RnB-fusion, utilizing Erykah Badu-esque jams, soulful exploration. PRIDE, a track that injects existential conjecture atop ephemeral rhythm, feels so ahead of the curve. “Why g-d, why g-d, do I got to suffer, pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle?”...I dually love this record yet, grieve why it exists, if that makes any sense. While I can make a lists specific to sub-genres (i.e. jazz, hip-hop, etc.), DAMN. ultimately transcends its boundaries, limitations, stealing my heart every, single, time.
