PUSHING PAPER

So apparently Pitchfork has been doing this awesome 5-10-15-20 series for a while now, but I just found out about it. It’s like they made this series with me in mind. I could read about musicians discussing the music they love all day long. It’s also gotten me to thinking about the music I loved at different intervals of my life. Although 7-10-17-20-24 would be a more informative set of ages for me, I didn’t make the rules, so here’s the music that meant most to me when I was 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25.

5: New Kids On The Block — “Hangin’ Tough”

Around when I was two or three I realized I loved music by watching and dancing to videos of Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” and that crazy big band “Sing, Sing, Sing” song. Well, the New Kids were big shit when I was five, and I remember me and a few other kids on my street would go to this one girl’s house who had a New Kids tape and we would just dance to it like crazy. In my memory we would stay up till like one AM dancing for hours, but I’m sure it was just for fifteen minutes at 5:30 or something. All four of us ended up living on that street all through high school. I remember “Hangin’ Tough” was me and my friend Sean’s favorite because, while we still liked the poppier songs, it seemed hard just like we were. I liked that the New Kids made a song for dudes like us. (For the record, my favorite was Jordan, and I felt vindicated when he hit the charts again with “Give It To You,” which is a pretty good song, in ’99.)

10: Pearl Jam — “Jeremy”

Ten was basically the album that turned me into me a lifelong music nerd. Before I’d ever listened to Pearl Jam, I knew I loved music, but my personal tastes weren’t fleshed out at all. For example, when I was in first grade, my two favorite musical artists were Guns n’ Roses and Paula Abdul. I had this friend named Brandon who was a little ahead of me on the musical road around that time, and he had all these tapes, one of which was Ten. I was always intrigued by its cover, but for some reason we never listened to it. Then in the summer, we were at Kennywood riding the Music Express, which was basically this ride where you got on and went around this track while music blared, and “Jeremy” came on for our ride. Brandon told me it was Pearl Jam, and I just remember thinking that that song was made for me.

From that point on I became completely obsessed. Vs. came out right after my tenth birthday and I got it for Christmas, so I had two unbelievable Pearl Jam albums to digest at the same time. For Easter my mom got me a Pearl Jam shirt, and having a band shirt at that time was the most badass thing you could possibly own. I never had a more inflated sense of myself in my entire life than when I wore that shirt in fourth grade.

15: Everclear — “Everything to Everyone”

Such a lame choice. I still like So Much for the Afterglow and Sparkle and Fade, but when I was fifteen I was coming out of a two year period where I listened to almost no music. I had listened to as much Pearl Jam, Beatles, and Hendrix as a person possibly could by then, and I didn’t know where to turn next. When I was in junior high, my friends didn’t really listen to a lot of music like my friends in elementary school did, and that fact can’t be explained any better than to say that during those years the coolest CD you could own was the soundtrack to I Got the Hook Up. Egad.

For some reason this album was the one that brought me back into the fold. When I was in ninth grade the biggest thing going on in my life was my first year of high school track, so in my mind I spent all my time lying around at meets. The older kids on the team were all nice to me, and I certainly had friends in my grade, but I also sat around by myself a lot just listening to this CD.

20: Prince — “Purple Rain”

During my freshman year of college, I got over the idea that rock is the only valid form of music, thanks to things like Clipse’s first album, discovering the Avalanches, and “Ignition (Remix)”. By the time I was twenty, I was into stuff I never would have listened to in high school, particularly Prince, whose exalted status within the rock world prior to then had irritated me for some reason. I subscribed to Rhapsody that year, and I was listening to Prince albums pretty much every day. I also started dating my wife-to-be that year, and one of our initial common points of interest was a shared appreciation for Prince. She had The Hits, but I was under the impression that she had a working knowledge of his entire discography. Sometimes I wonder if musicians fully realize how their work tangibly alters people’s lives.

25: The Jacksons — “Can You Feel It”

There was no one album or song, old or new, that I became really obsessed with when I was twenty-five. (I’m twenty-six now so it’s not like this was eons ago.) So the biggest musical event in my life at this age, somewhat by default, was the death of Michael Jackson. The day after Michael died I was all bummed out, and I listened to a Michael Jackson station on Pandora at work. This song, which I’d somehow never heard before, came on. It’s awesome. My favorite part about it is how they lead with Randy singing, and kind of tease you with Michael not being overly prominent in the chorus. Then Michael just explodes into the bridge: All the children in the West! It’s far from a perfect song, but it has a sort of tension to it while you wait for Michael to take over, and I love songs that create tension, intentionally or otherwise.