childhood
1. spice world - spice girls
five sex goddesses from mother england sing about world peace, feminine equality, and self-importance against disco thumps and jazzy hip hop beats, creating a wall of pop heaven that steals your life several times over.
2. fanmail - tlc
after being gone for half a decade, this r&b powerhouse trio returned with an album that was both an ode to their wide fanbase and to the bright futurism of the late 90s, melding their typical fuck-grooves with crashing industrial sounds of metal and computer keys, making you feel as if you're on an erotic space station orbiting mars.
3. oops! i did it again - britney spears
her bouncy debut may have gotten us all excited about midriffs and school uniforms, but it was her funk-fantasy follow-up combined with red jumpsuits, flipped chairs, and movie-star delusions that made me fall head over heels.
4. mariah carey - butterfly
mariah declares her independence (for the first time) with a collection of the most beautifully moody ballads of the fin-de-sicle, connecting her with the operatic greats of the past with a single stroke of her melisma.
5. relationship of command - at the drive-in
my best friend bought this when i was in 5th grade and although i initially made jokes about the aggressive, nonsensical lyrics, the mindblowing experience of this album cannot be denied with its train-yard angst and basketcase lounge vibes.
6. rhythm nation 1814 - janet jackson
uber-political, super-striking, and incredibly-electrifying, this is the first album to have any real effect on me (primarily based on the video collection my mom repeatedly played for my sister and i) and is filled with the harshest, most polished dance music ever to be created.
mid-years
7. garbage - garbage
as puberty mounted, the post-grunge gods lifted me from pop heaven and brought me down to earth with slinky, sleazy bass lines and lyrics about religion, eating stones, and crashing against oceans, giving me my first real taste of rock.
8. return of saturn - no doubt
rock steady may have been their grooviest and my official converter, but years of sampling their hits led me back to this melancholic ball of glitter and vaudeville, creating the darkest atmosphere for the band and a perfect outline for my adolescence.
9. live through this - hole
a friend of mine died in 7th grade and courtney love's loud, off-pitch, and largely abrasive voice and lyrics about dead fetuses and eating disorders seemed to reflect the anxiety and confusion i felt in those days soon after, serving stark reality on a tarnished platter.
10. whip it on - the raveonettes
who says the swedes can't rock? take the ronettes, my bloody valentine, and a ton of methamphetamine and you have the jumpy feedback flow of a band that sounds as sexy as they do paranoid.
high school
11. fever to tell - yeah yeah yeahs
"i'm rich," karen-o professes in her charming hillbilly yelp, setting the pace for the dirtiest, futuristic album of the last decade, mumbling about incest, the blues, and going absolutely bonkers.
12. washing machine - sonic youth
my favorite band dips their feet into the folksiest, stoned waters of the late 60s and early 70s, evoking a time of mind-altering substances, wooden dive bars, and kids who never had a chance of escaping it all.
13. dear diary my teen angst has a body count - from first to last
before sonny moore became the darling of the dubstep world, he fronted one of the most beautiful "post-hardcore" groups whose cynical, pop-cultural lyrics fused adolescent transgressions with violent fantasies, forever reminding me of lying on the floor with a bit of smoke in my mouth.
14. the singles collection - siouxsie and the banshees
the spookiest danceable music to come out of england, complete with horror movie hums and ghastly screams and gifted with the ability to evoke politics through hitchcockian terror.
15. power, corruption & lies - new order
feeding my burgeoning obsession with 80's club music, this synth-laden wonderland of chilly scenes, monarchical sadness, and cheery idealism conjures up a cold war world where luxury was western and decadent and "red scares" truly meant something.
16. crimes - blood brothers
there was nothing more revolutionary during my teen years than hearing the deep vibrato mixed with drag queen whines from this rousing group, fusing bush-era politics with pieces celebrating the downtrodden, urban disaster, and a world glittering toward mayhem.
17. funeral - arcade fire
never short of jolliness, elegance, and dignity, this symphonic dream is epitomized by jukey clanks and hollowed voices, carefully sounding as if the whos in whoville took a few hits from the pipe and began rockin away.
18. elephant - white stripes
oh how bluesy and loud! as primal as pretty, as gentle as gargantuan, each song feeds off the last and at its core, paints a passionate portrait of the headiness of dime store youths drinking soda with cigarettes hanging from their mouths; turning the proverbial leaf of michigan soul.
19. rio - duran duran
cleaner and flashier than new order but just as evocative of an era of tropical yachts, cocaine love affairs, and transatlantic materialism, making you feel as if you're on a constant flight on the concorde, a tiny umbrella hanging out of your martini glass.
20. the new romance - pretty girls make graves
hints of new wave, monster guitars, and oceanic lyrics create the perfect mood of deception, madness, and romance that can only be fully understood at the right age but becomes quite more gorgeous as time moves forward.
post
21. psychocandy - jesus and mary chain
heroin, sunshine, girls, alienation are the rules of the game and i will keep playing them if it means crawling into the tiny hole this band inhabits and never coming up for air.
22. my beautiful dark twisted fantasy - kanye west
putting hip hop on the highest level, this masterpiece embodies the obama years more than any other single piece of musical work, building grandiose sounds and decadent rhymes that put a mirror on the stylish yet distant nation we've become.
23. kala - m.i.a.
world music has never been my particular thing but how could one stay away from the sampling-crazy, globe-trotting, third-world know-it-all genius of maya arulpragasam, who creates the soundtrack for starving, gun-totting tweens with dance hooks and pop melodies; a colossal carnivale of rap and rations.
24. yoko ono/plastic ono band - yoko ono
whatever you've heard about yoko, forget it: this avant-garde classic (and clear influence to the riot grrl period) finds itself isolated in an industrial jungle, screaming and raging against man and nature with a staccato instrument of a voice that is unlike anything you will have ever heard.
25. born this way - lady gaga
after declaring it a pop masterpiece only a few days after its release, i continue to standby my assessment, still infatuated with the sheer electro-rock hysteria of rebellion and froth that oozes from each track and that has given us the first true mass goddess of the internet age.
26. the immaculate collection - madonna
a set of revolutionary, infectious hits that perfectly cling to their moments in which they were recorded while at the same time launching themselves as gorgeous artifacts to those who have never known what it was like "to get into the groove" or waiting for someone to "open your heart."
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