Albums of Our Lives
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: RUN DMC’S RAISING HELL
It was a cassette copy with no case, and my dad gave it to me a couple of years after he’d moved out. I was about nine. I knew enough about the album to yelp “This is priceless!” as I ran…
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Albums of Our Lives: The Thermals’ The Body The Blood The Machine
It begins with an act of divine intervention. “God reached his hand down from the sky,” sings Hutch Harris.
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SONGS OF OUR LIVES: JOY DIVISION’S “LOVE WILL TEAR US APART”
She drew cartoon sketches of herself. I sent more mix-tapes. Within a few months, in the middle of a five- or six-page letter, she wrote that she loved me.
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: NEKO CASE’S MIDDLE CYCLONE
The year 2008 tumbled out of itself and took with it the things that consumed my days. Within a month I had lost my job to the upholding of liquor laws, my college education to an unavoidable graduation, and my…
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: PETER GABRIEL’S SO
The only thing that could put me back right was a long walk in the cold along the Danube, with Peter Gabriel singing in my ear.
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Albums of Our Lives: Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town
Elizabeth and I took our first road trip a few months into our relationship.
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’S EVIL EMPIRE
We listened to the album straight through. When it finished I looked at my hands. I’d kept them balled tightly for all forty-five minutes.
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: HICKEY’S VARIOUS STATES OF DISREPAIR
When I first heard Hickey’s Various States of Disrepair I knew I’d found what I’d been looking for. The only problem was, I’d found it too late.
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: LIZ PHAIR’S EXILE IN GUYVILLE
I must have heard about Liz Phair from Sassy Magazine, my go-to and, really, only source for anything remotely counter-culture in the early ‘90s.
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: ANI DIFRANCO’S LIKE I SAID
Both hands, please use both hands. Oh no, don’t close your eyes. I am writing graffiti on your body. I am drawing the story of how hard we tried.
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Albums of Our Lives: Tori Amos’s Strange Little Girls and Little Earthquakes
I was fourteen when Strange Little Girls was released and I was fifteen when my parents decided to separate.
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Albums of Our Lives: Whitney Houston and Whitney
I didn’t know Whitney Houston, and yet there I was, weeping. I’d read the Tweets, watched the videos, and re-posted a video of her singing “I’m Changing” live from when she was very young and so pretty that it remains…