Charm City Jukebox

Flash forward six years after yesterday’s post…

…and we have Claire at 22. Those first few years out of college are a whirlwind— fast paced, full of change, and of course, complete with a rapidly evolving soundtrack. Here’s mine.

“I Need Some Fine Wine, and You, You Need to Be Nicer,” by The Cardigans

I think it’s brave to have a song title that’s a whole sentence. It shows a level of obliviousness that I enjoy—I can’t believe that nary a producer or studio exec or friend said “Hey, what about ‘Fine Wine’?” or “Hey, what about ‘You Need to Be Nicer’?” or “Hey…are you famous enough to have 12 word song titles?”

Before hearing this, the only song I knew by The Cardigans was “Love Fool,” which I’d been avoiding since elementary school. Once in a while, I get this type of insomnia where a song will race through my head over and over, hitting pause on all impending sleep. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad—honestly, the good ones are the worst, because they become unbearable to listen to after having heard them thousands of time in a row while the bags under my eyes acquire depth and shading. “Love Fool” was my first sleepless song, and it made me hate The Cardigans. 12 years later, “I Need Some Fine Wine, and You, You Need to Be Nicer” redeemed them and set me on a new path when it came my music listening.  The Cardigans introduced me to The Sounds, Jenny Owens Young, and Mazzy Star. Mazzy Star introduced me to early Beck, early Liz Phair, and The Smiths. The lesson here is that bands deserve a second chance—they may disappoint you once (Liz Phair), offer you a terrible show (Bob Dylan), or keep you up all night in the worst way (The Cardigans), but another go-round could change your music collection for the better.

“Mrs. Officer,” by Lil Wayne

I’ve made fun of Top 40 music here, and here, and in more places on this blog that I can’t locate, and trust me, I will again. But the truth is (and it might be a hard truth for our faint of heart readers), I don’t dislike Top 40—I like a lot of it, and when I used to drive, I listened to it with the same religious intensity of it’s teen target demographic. I like it because I like to dance and because I like to know what’s popular, but mostly I like it because it’s created to be likeable. It’s the musical equivalent of eating too much candy—you may not feel great about it, but you’re having a good time turning your tongue raspberry blue and spiking your blood sugar. “Mrs. Officer” was a big hit right around my 22nd birthday. I danced to it at every club I went to for months, I listened to it any time I had a chance to drive. It was upbeat and light and to this day reminds me of happy moments from a six month period that didn’t have many. (Also Lil Wayne is kind of awesome. Go watch the Carter Documentary and you’ll see what I mean.)

“Electric Feel,” by MGMT

My sister, who is categorically much cooler than me, had exhausted this song by the time I found it on her iPod. We were in Port Isabel, TX for a week visiting our grandparents. It was HOT outside. Really hot. By the time we got home, Baltimore had thawed out too, and the Maryland summer was in full swing. “Electric Feel” then, and now, was the perfect summery song: Fun, warm, the kind of thing I wanted to listen to while drinking mojitos and dancing outside.

“Devil’s Pie,” by Rhymefest

“Devil’s Pie” is an awesome, insanely catchy, socially conscious rap that samples The Strokes. My boyfriend bought this album that year and I listened to it relentlessly. If you like this track, check out “Bullet,” a similarly conscious rap that liberally samples Citizen Cope.

“Walking with a Ghost,” by Tegan and Sara

At 22, I’d been avoiding Tegan and Sara for a couple years. The last year was the hardest, since I had a roommate who loved them, and a boss who shared that sentiment and played Tegan and Sara-ish songs all day.

Why was I avoiding them? I have no idea. Seriously. For whatever reason, they became one of those bands: Other people liked them, I didn’t, and I wasn’t going to bother to do the legwork to figure out why. It’s the same thing that keeps my CDs wrapped in plastic for years, or allows lists of music recommendations to go dusty in old notebooks before I take a hint and listen to the Decemberists, for christ’s sake. It’s like I’m afraid I’m going to like something new, and that liking will require the kind of obsessive energy I put towards all music that I like. I’m going to have to buy albums and go to shows. I’m going to have to get hung up on a song, then another, and move through a handful of albums at a several year long snail’s pace. It’s a lot of work, being obsessive about music. It can cause this exact kind of avoidance and bitterness for no good reason. I heard this song at 22, I loved it, I got just as obsessive as I feared I would, and then there were new bands, new artists, more songs, more albums, and the cycle continued, as it should.