The album: where this started.

For about as long as I can remember, music has always captivated me. Up to this point, I can say I’ve been exposed to a cornucopia of different styles, tastes, and approaches. With all that in mind (and with summer vacation giving me oodles of free time), I’d like to reflect on where my musical tastes and interest began.

I believe I was only three or four years old when I first heard Nirvana’s Nevermind. My oldest sister was going through high school at the time, and was playing the album in her room when I just happened to wander in, intrigued by the sound of the drums. “In Bloom” was really the first track I remember hearing, and the rest of the album has stayed with me ever since. From there, I got exposed to a lot more of the 90s-alternative/rock style, including:

• Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
• Weezer - The Blue Album
• Nirvana - In Utero
• Operation Ivy - Operation Ivy
• Dance Hall Crashers - Lockjaw

Around the same time, I also started to get more of a classic rock influence, mostly from hearing songs on the radio or the cassette player on long drives with my family. My dad had bought both the Forrest Gump and Good Morning, Vietnam soundtracks, which had a whole range of bands and artists I would briefly be exposed to, yet not re-connect with until later (i.e. Bob Dylan). One of the most important albums I remember hearing was Abbey Road, which I only loosely remember hearing as a kid (with everything from “Come Together” to “Here Comes the Sun” staying with me until college, when I would hear the rest of the album in full). 

For a little while, I had a lame pop phase that I’m not proud of admitting to (around 1st grade until about 3rd grade). Yes, this period was filled with all the teeny-bop stuff, from Backstreet Boys to Nsync to Britney Spears, etc. etc. MTV, what a mess. Yet, amidst all the popular drivel, I managed to get exposed to some pretty cool albums, one of which was The Get Up Kids’ Something to Write Home About. 

Around 4th grade I started getting back into rock and alternative, mostly with the help of MTV and MTV2. This included some cheesy stuff like Lostprophets and Linkin Park, yet it would also be my first exposure to more indie rock like …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Clinic, Interpol, and Abandoned Pools, for example. No albums as a whole really stood out in this period of time, until I got to 5th grade. My sister was just ready to graduate from college, when she introduced me to two very important albums:

• They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18
• Pixies - Doolittle

I remember hearing Apollo 18 repeatedly in 5th and 6th grade, and from there my interest in TMBG grew to collect many more of their albums. 6th grade was also an important year for me because there was my first exposure to Saddle Creek Records and its most popular act: Bright Eyes. I then picked up other bands from the label, i.e. The Good Life, Cursive, and Azure Ray. I also went through a bit of an emo phase in between, so that meant the following albums were in rotation:

• Thursday - Full Collapse
• Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
• Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
• Brand New - Deja Entendu
• Sparta - Wiretap Scars
• Cursive - The Ugly Organ
• Bright Eyes - Digital Ash in a Digital Urn/I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

Other bands came and went, and then 7th grade gained more exposure to Modest Mouse and Rush.

• Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News
• Rush - Moving Pictures

To jump ahead to freshman year of high school, I started to get back into Trail of Dead, listened to Placebo, the new Modest Mouse that year…but what was most important was freshman year would bring me to Neutral Milk Hotel and the album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I also started taking up the guitar, and my teacher exposed me to post-rock acts like Saxon Shore, Explosions in the Sky, and Mogwai. I also started to get into M83 and Sigur Ros after hearing some of their tracks in movie trailers. Important albums from freshman year:

• Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Sophomore year saw more exposure to indie music, and my tastes widened to The National and Stars. Yet I started the year with more mainstream rock tastes:

• The Killers - Hot Fuss
• The Killers - Sam’s Town
• Jimmy Eat World - Futures

My indie cred developed though:

• M83 - Saturdays = Youth
• Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
• The Good Life - Novena on a Nocturn
• Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature/Veneer
• Neil Young - After the Goldrush

Junior year:

• Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
• Explosions in the Sky - Those Who Tell the Truth…
• Low vs. Diamond
• Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
• Earlimart - Mentor Tormentor
• Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
• Phosphorescent - Pride
• Do Make Say Think - You, You’re a History in Rust

Senior year:

• The National - High Violet
• Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
• Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
• Sigur Ros - Takk…
• The Antlers - Hospice
• Coldplay - Parachutes

Freshman year, college:

• The Beatles - Abbey Road
• Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
• Arcade Fire - Funeral
• Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
• MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
• Passion Pit - Manners
• Phosphorescent - Here’s to Taking it Easy
• Sleigh Bells - Treats

Summer 2011 

• Bon Iver - Bon Iver
• The Middle East - The Recordings of the Middle East
• Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
• LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
• Dr. Dog - We All Belong

Sophomore year, college:

• St. Vincent - Actor
• Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run
• Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run/Darkness on the Edge of Town/The Wild, the Innocent
• LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
• Real Estate - Days
• Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
• Oberhofer - Time Capsules II
• Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
• The xx - xx
• Yellow Ostrich - The Mistress
• Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
• Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
• Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
• Real Estate - Real Estate
• Slow Club - Paradise
• The National - Alligator

Summer 2012 (so far)

• Twin Shadow - Forget
• Beach House - Beach House
• Beach House - Devotion
• Beach House - Teen Dream
• Beach House - Bloom
• Friends - Manifest!

So my taste has exponentially widened since the first time I heard Nevermind. I’m going to use this opportunity to talk about most (if not all) of the albums mentioned here in detail, reflecting on when I first heard them, and how they’ve aged since that first listen. Should be fun!

Call it inspiration?

I’ve had something floating around for a while now. A lot of the music I’ve been writing lately has been pretty personal, but at the same time important. Plenty of ideas have been circulating in my head, including the concept of dreams, of setting goals for yourself, of realizing who you are, of becoming yourself, of fulfilling your potential, of achieving, and how we stand in our own way of our own version of happiness. I want to create a work that celebrates all of that, that focuses on the importance of having a dream, and holding onto it. Of knowing when it’s worth fighting for, and when you feel nothing for it, worth letting go.

Something I keep realizing is that I become endlessly inspired and amazed whenever I am exposed to something, be it a book, an idea expressed in a research paper, a quote, an album, a film, etc. So many things have inspired me and left me awestruck. I want to channel all of that, and synthesize it in my work. I don’t know what that work will be, but it will be something.

Creating something is what I love, and I think that’s what draws me to writing/songwriting. How I can take all of my inspiration, my frustration, my surroundings, my thoughts, my impulses, my self, and scribble it all down in pen and paper,give body to it, make it known. Even if my career is never matched up to this, it’s something I can never forget. Writing music…no, just music itself is something so essential in me, something that is a part of me that I feel and can’t shake…it’s a part of me. I’ll never let go of it, because to do so would basically be to void my identity. And really, who in their right mind would want to do that?