We all have them. Albums that the minute you press play, the second the first note pulses into the room, you are instantly zapped somewhere. Your body may be on this astral plane, paused momentarily in the middle of licking a spatula, letting the Internet suck away an hour (or four) of your night, or flipping a card to see if your dramatic “ALL IN, ASSHOLES!” bet was a slick or sick move. But the rest of you, your insides that are triggered by sounds, smells and sights, that part of you is gone. Reliving the skin you were in when you heard that album for the first time. Or 100th time. The time it became embedded in your memory, sewn in with tight precise little stitches to the fabric of the pieces and parts of your life you hold onto with a precious iron grip. The audio equivalent of catching a ghostly whiff of your Mom’s perfume, the one she wore when you were still a snuggler. Or how the taste of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup deposits you back onto your bunk bed flipping through Bop and wishing with all your might you were Candace Cameron. (No? Just me? Hmph.) We all have them. Here are mine, in no particular order. The Five Albums That (with no conscience thought at all, wholly and completely) Take Me Back In Time.
Danger Mouse // The Grey Album
In 2004, I fell hard in love and lust with Nuv. This album, an inspired and beautiful mashup of the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album, done by the incomparable Danger Mouse, was lovingly ripped onto a blank cd for me, (the new times equivalent of an Elizabethan letter written with blood onto a candle-waxed seal scroll) was the soundtrack for that beginning. The beginning – the best part of a relationship, and nobody can argue that. The days where you are hungry for each other, when every mediocre part of your day is simultaneously better (because they are also in your life), and worse (because every agonizing second of whatever you have to do before seeing them drags on interminably like a cruel joke). Every topic of conversation is magical and new because they never knew you felt that way and you never knew they thought that and OH MY GOD WE ARE SO IN SYNC, LET’S BONE. Whiling away a Saturday eating waffles, drinking oversized cups of tea in pyjamas, with a Batman Animated Series box set = bliss. Staying up in bed on a weeknight, a tangle of limbs and untucked sheets and cigarette butts, is amazing until the cruel blare of the alarm five hours later. I listened to this album during my drive to and from Cloverdale to Vancouver. Day after day after day. Hour long pockets that I barely remembered and never dreaded because the destination was all I wanted.
PJ Harvey // Rid of Me
It’s 1993. I’m in my bedroom, early evening. It sits on top of the garage so it’s nipple shatteringly cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer, but it’s big, with a high arched ceiling and two sides of crawl space storage for me to store the part of my life I’m slowly shedding. The young carefree naïve parts of me chunking off as my eyes begin to slit because school is NOT like Riverdale and I feel outraged sometimes for what feels like no reason and if it wouldn’t hurt so much sometimes I’d like to punch a wall. I gently place the cassette into the player and the room fills with hushed whispered rage and the command to “lick my legs.” Hold on a minute here. My mouth is full of this amazing candy called bellybuttons that were sold at a small dusty herb shop on Robson St (now Bebe or something selling equally overpriced glitter) and I stand there, slow chewing, staring at the album cover and listening to my head spin. How grotesque and angular and wet this woman was, and this was the picture she chose for the cover? For all of us to see. And judge. She was so raw and angry and she channeled that into music which slid quietly and quickly under my skin and boom. The hinges were blown off. This was the music that made me full, right up to the messy brim, with confidence. And with it blasting tinnily first out the speakers of my Mom’s 1982 shitbrown Honda Civic hatchback, then my very own wood paneled station wagon, I was so f-cking boss. My head – shaved and bleached, a new colour every few weeks. My clothes – thrifted. My new friends – Bikini Kill, Hole, Sonic Youth, L7, Bratmobile. Women beefy with talent and strength and shrieking what I could only whisper. I never considered myself a feminist – that to me had a tarnished value of having to hate boys. And I could never do that. You can’t make out with an LP. God.
Jay Reatard // Matador Singles ‘08
In 2009 I was an adult. Kind of. Chronologically and dictionary definition, yes. If you tested me on adult facts like how to budget a paycheque, talk confidently to strangers on a phone or basic world geography, then I would fail miserably. But I did what I was supposed to. I had a job, many jobs, found a boy I loved that put up with my garbage-y mannerisms, then went back to school to find a better job that I would like instead of tolerate. I downloaded this album. And was reminded with a smack in the eardrums that not everybody does what they’re supposed to. People make up jobs and make money. People don’t always pay taxes. Or wash their hair or shirts even. You don’t have to abide. You can push for answers you may not want to hear. You can be Larry David. Who cares? Your life is made up of decisions and choices that you should make because they in turn make you happy. If you poke your head out of the teeming “Hey hey I’m being an adult ovah here” crowd to find people are doing what they want to do and are happy and supporting themselves and blowing other people’s minds, it is an incredible life shakeup. Like when you found out there was no Santa, but less tearful. This is why punk rock will always have legs, long dirty ones clad in torn patched blue jeans. A live punk rock show leaves no room for responsibility. The air is too thick with spittle, riffs, flung sweat and a drum line that stays lodged in your ears like peanut butter while you try and sleep that night. Every adult needs to be yoinked out of their reverie and reminded you can be having more fun than you are. This album did that for me. RIP Reatard. I owe you one.
Stand By Me OST
If only I could show you a picture of myself from the summer of 1986. Well, I could. Instead, just close your eyes and imagine this. Amazing rat tail, retainer, stirrup pants, dangerously obsessed with angel food cake, hammocks and my Mom’s childhood collection of Trixie Belden books. Lazing on the shag-carpeted floor of my room at my grandparents I would play this soundtrack over and over and over. When you’re nine you find what you love and you stick with it like it’s against the law. You don’t dedicate half an hour of your day to shaving body hair, glasses aren’t lame yet and LA Gears will never be lame. You know July and August are the greatest months ever invented, you don’t know that boys exist other than your younger husky brother who is still small enough to bully and mock, and you would love, like keenly LOOOOVE, to find a dead body.
Beastie Boys // Hello Nasty
Thanks to an extra 30 lbs and a wardrobe courtesy of Old Navy XL, I didn’t get laid when I traveled to Australia in 1999. If I was that type of girl (read: braveslut) I could have sucked so much international dick – every hostel was co-ed and many a time it was just me and a room full of tangy sweaty European boys. The night after I bought this cd and played it (on my Discman, Holla!) back to back to back, one of the boys declared to the bunks that his pillow was so weird, it felt like a “moofin.” I had to mold MY pillow to my face to muffle the laughter. His delivery was so perfect and even now that still makes me laugh. (That story was invented to prove the worth of “you had to be there.”) You know, this is a slept on Beasties album. I’d never arm wrestle you about it’s worth versus, say, Paul’s Boutique, but yes, it was enhanced by watching boys surf and reading all of John Irving’s bibliography while sprawled across warm pup tent floors or on a wooden picnic bench with a box of gingerbread biscuits. Backpacking around that beautiful welcoming country, through the impressively tall big cities and the gentle ebb and flow of the beach towns, with the easy friendships and easier weed was the best thing I ever did. A shy girl with no life experience can be transformed by the simple act of taking a toke through a length of garden hose with a 40 year old named Mack. (My female roommate was there too Dad, if that’ll help to ease the shuddering.) I’d go back in a heartbeat.
Now that I’ve overshared, tell me what albums take you there.
