The day I started saying "Turn that damn music down!"

OK
Since I wasn't doing a remix today I thought I would focus on a good blog topic and I used my time on the T in the morning to plan it. This time is usually spent thinking up the witty banter for my remix pics.
First I picked my topic. Music.
I love music. I listen to it all day at work. I feel like I can't get anything done unless someone is yelling in my ear all day. I spent 3 years working at Berklee College of Music and had access to 30 thousand cds. I also had a budget to pick some for the catalog. That was always fun. Coming up with a giant list of stuff I thought we needed. I had a habit of getting albums I wanted without really considering the curriculum. That's what the librarians were for.
I decided to list SOME of my top albums of all times. So I am a fickle pickle and my loyalties can be swayed but these are the albums I continue to go back to again and again and again.



Violator by Depeche Mode
I still remember the day I bought it. I was in Key West with my parents and I had a copy of the album on tape from my friend Jason and I wanted a cd of my own. I got it in in this little music store and continued to listen to it on repeat for the next year or so. This cd got so much love and went so many places with me that the cds pretty much exploded into pieces in 1995. I taped those pieces back together because apparently the tought of putting it in a new case never dawned on me.
Oh about the album? What is there to say? its Depeche Mode. Its electronic rock fronted by a skinny Brit. His voice is very distinct and I can always pick him out even if I don't know the song. Its songs just were somthing my impressionable 15 year old mind could relate to. Personal Jesus, Enjoy the Silence. Deep man deep (rolls eyes)

Its a shame about Ray by the Lemonheads.
ah how to put to words my love for the Lemonheads. Well there is Evan for one. Jesus was having a good day when he made him. (well except for the whole Heroin addiction) Another album I actively remember buying. Christmas 1992. My family had taken its one and only family vacation to Aruba. A great place for adults a horrible vacation locale for a 14 year old. I can't drink, I can't gamble and I am Irish and burn to a crisp if in the sun for more than 5 minutes. So there was NOTHING for me to do there. I was bored out of my mind. My parents oh they loved it. Lots of fun for the over 21 crowd. I spent my days reading magazines and sitting at the bar drinking shirley temples listening to my cd player I carried around in a GIANT bag around my neck. I remember reading a review in Sassy about the Lemonheads new album that had/was about to come out. I saw Evan and said oooh I want that. So when we got back to the states and I went to see my dad for our x-mas he had given me a certificate to a cd store and we went and I bought Its a shame about Ray. It came in a giant cardboard sleeves as they did then. I always cut the sleeve open and hung it on my wall.
I made EVERYONE listen to that album. I brought it to parties, sleepovers, 8th grade graduation at the Works. I made a few converts. People who truely got the amazingness that is the Lemonheads. Well more like Evan. He "is" the Lemonheads. He is the only thing constant from album to album (much like Nine inch Nails more on that in a moment)
Oh again the album? Well its amazing. Songs about love, drugs and Mrs. Robinson. What is there not to like. Frank Mills is one of my favorites. I know all the words and can recite it. I have never seen Hair but I know the song.

Pretty hate machine by Nine inch Nails.
Now I don't actively remember buying this album but I do remember the first two times I heard it. We were in class in 8th grade and this hit Matt (em what was his last name? he was like 6 feet tall in middle school) Him and Brad were sitting on the table in the back of class drawing on their notebook covers with a ruler. I asked what it was and they showed me a picture of a nail. I looked at them like they were stupid (they probably were) and they laughed cause they well were 14 year old boys. So then Matt said its a band, listen and handed me his super fancy $5 foam headphones.
I love it from the line
bow down before the one you serve.
oh man. fuck the man. woo.
I didn't buy it right away. I was 14 I didn't have money. But I did after the second time I heard it. My uncle Chris and I were in the backseat of his dad's car and we were going to dinner at the Asia. It was a goodbye dinner as we were moving to Florida and my parents were leaving in a couple of days. My uncle who is a year younger than me had his cd player and 28934792387 cds cause he was a spoiled rotten brat. I remember asking what he was listening to and he handed it to me and had me listen. It was NIN. Second time in a month someone had me listen. The only other thing I remember about that night is my uncle telling me he thought his girlfriend was pregnant and I just looked at him. No idea what to say. We were 14. (me about to turn 15) yeah he ended up in Juvie within the year. No idea where he is now. I tried looking him up on facebook but I haven't seen him in 15 years so I am not sure what he even looks like.
Yeah yeah this post had gone WAY off topic. eh. whatevs.



Ruby Vroom by Soul Coughing.
If you don't know I am a Soul Coughing fan you don't know me as good as you think you do.
Mike Doughty formerly M. Doughty before he got all clean and OH I should go by a proper name.
Again another album I remember my first. Summer of 1996 Emily and I were in her temporary bedroom laying on the floor listening to music. She put this on and I LOVED IT. I don't love much on the first listen, this album was one I did. I asked her who it was and to tell me how she found it. (I like knowing connections) Our friend Meghan's dad. He is one cool dude. He used to be a Dead head. Probably still is but without the whole going to concerts thing. Funny story. The first time my dad ever dropped me off at Meghan's house he said OH MAN I remember this house. He asked if the basement still had carpet on the walls and ceilings. Yup in the shape of mushrooms and peace signs. Apparently Meghan's house was a party house and both my parents had gone to parties there in highschool. heeeee. OH THE ALBUM! yeah. So Em and I were killing time til we were going to York that night to see our friend Kaylyn's boyfriend who was stuck there for the week with his parents and bored out of his mind cause Kaylyn was at basketball camp or some sporty thing who knows. We had him listen to the cds with his smancy car set up of a cd player plugged into a tape adapter for the car stereo. What we didn't know then was Dave bought that cd the very next day. Probably at Bullmoose in Porstmouth and listened to that cd over and over til he knew all the songs and could impress us with his music knowledge.


So those are some of my all time favorites. I notice a few trends. All are male bands. All were put out between 1990-1994 and All had lead singers with a drug addiction (3 were heroin one cocaine) and all are temperamental moody SOBs.
What can I say I like em broken.

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