10 ALBUMS
I was tagged by @twopoppies. The prompt was to list 10 albums that influenced me as a teen, and helped make me who I am today.
This is funny because if I actually listed the ten albums I listened to most as a teenager, no one but classical music nerds (pianists especially) would know what I was talking about. Okay, and a few drama nerds, because MUSICALS.
So I’m going to cheat a little bit and list some albums that changed me as a young person, before I became the barnacle-encrusted mummified saint I am today.
You can only choose one album per artist.
1. Saturday Night Fever, original movie soundtrack, 1977. If I Can’t Have You. How Deep is Your Love. Staying Alive. Night Fever. This is how parties went down in the late 1970′s: white suits, bell bottoms, Farrah Fawcett hair, glittering shoulders, a sexy dip, tight pants. I wasn’t a teen then (was only a petal), but man, what an education.
2. Thriller. Michael Jackson, 1984. Beat It. Wanna Be Starting Something. Human Nature. MJ is the ultimate entertainer. The voice. The face. The charm. The dance moves. Legend for over 40 years. For young seasurfacefullofclouds, MJ was an adorable enfant terrible.
3. Rumours. Fleetwood Mac, 1976. Harry’s favorite album. Sexy. Complicated. Sad. Stevie Nicks had a voice made of wind, whiskey, and regret. Everything you need to learn about heartbreak is here.
4. Blood on the Tracks. Bob Dylan, 1975. Opened my eyes to Dylan, the 1970′s, the blues, the backhanded poetry that tells huge tales in small sentences. Fucking brilliant. The cover design compares Dylan to Mozart and it’s pretty accurate.
5. Ten. Pearl Jam, 1991. Came out in the nick of time for seasurfacefullofcloud’s angry young man period (except with ovaries). Even Flow. Alive. Jeremy. Fight the Man with every wild instinct, is what Eddie Vedder says. And his voice– God, that sexy growl. They still tour and make new music. Met One Direction, too. A good role model.
6. Design of a Decade, 1986-1996. Janet Jackson 1996. Janet has the same charisma as Michael, the same vulnerable and sexy voice. I wanted to be Janet in her head scarf and crop top, so badly. Runaway, What Have You Done for Me Lately, Nasty, Escapade, Miss You Much, Rhythm Nation.
7. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco, 2002. Believe it or not, seasurfacefullofclouds was already a fully formed blastula by this time. The album is a tour de force of hi fi recording. Listen to the first track, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and be blown away by a cold, wistful kind of love song, full of random, added noise that happens to add to the bizarre, disorienting feeling of having to break up.
8. Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? The Cranberries, 1993. I already loved Dolores O’Riordan’s siren voice, but then I saw Wong Kar Wai’s movie, Chungking Express. The movie uses the song Dreams from this album as the background music for a scene where a woman (the gorgeous Faye Wong) sneaks into a policeman’s apartment (she has a crush on him), and cleans it top to bottom in order to rid the apartment of any trace of the other woman. It’s sung in Cantonese. Faye has sung with the Cocteau Twins. Tarantino points this out as a favorite scene. It’s just glorious.
9. Wings Over America. Paul McCartney and Wings, 1976. Maybe I’m Amazed, My Love, Listen to What the Man Said, Let ‘Em In, Silly Love Songs, Band on the Run. Maybe not the best McCartney album, but for seasurfacefullofclouds, the one that brings back memories of summer evenings in the backyard, playing football, eating barbecue with other kids, talking trash.
10. Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads, 1984. Once in a Lifetime. Girlfriend is Better. Seasufacefullofclouds was in a love triangle during this album– very exciting times. Big suits. RISD esthetics. All very se prendre pour le nombril du monde.
I tag @old1ddude, @pezzles17, @mcqdj
@gettingaphdinlarry
