So this thread has been going around facebook, and it’s mostly a way of showing off how cool you are, so I will participate. These albums I have purchased in CD format and played in my Walkman with dorky headphones for much of junior high/early high school, and are poignant in my memories and have impacted my musical taste, so that is why I chose them. Enjoy.

1. Five Iron Frenzy - Quantity is Job 1 [EP], November 1998, 5 Minute Walk

I know. I’m a dork. But, Christian ska band Five Iron Frenzy opened me into the real world of music. I was on a youth retreat to the coast, and we listened to that album over and over in the fifteen-seat passenger van. It was mostly for the humor of the “pants songs,” but come on, I was transitioning into junior high, and seventh grade was right around the corner. Because of this album, it opened me into the world of Christian ska/punk, as well as broadening me to even more genres. From this album came other FIF albums, MxPx, Squad Five-O, Dogwood, Calibretto 13, and probably plenty of others. I was cool and starting my CD collection. Also, I did go to a concert of theres, and my future husband attended as well. Go figure.

2. Further Seems Forever - The Moon Is Down, March 2001, Tooth and Nail

Ah, FSF. My first venture into the concept of “emo” music. Now, Further Seems Forever for this album was headed by Chris Carrabba. Yes, you see where this lead. Further Seems Forever was my gateway drug into “emo” music. I continued to like FSF, even through a vocal change, but really, this album is still solid after all these years. I saw them live with Juliana Theory my freshman year, but without Carrabba. It was still awesome. Tooth and Nail opened me up to bands like Twothirtyeight and mewithoutYou, which I adore as well.






3. Dashboard Confessional - The Places We Have Come to Fear the Most, March 2001, Vagrant

Oh man. This album. It’s just so sad, angsty, juvenile, everything a shy freshman would want in an album. I really loved Dashboard Confessional, and I felt like an original because I liked him before he blew up, or at least that’s what I tell myself :P I listened to him all the way through Swiss Army Romance album, but, come on, I dumped him and got cooler. Sadly, I never was able to experience him live, as no one I knew liked him and my parents would not let me attend concerts alone. Boo hoo. Vagrant opened me to a lot of things, from there I was led to other bands like Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, onward to Jade Tree and Pedro the Lion, which kept leading me down the rabbit hole of more record labels, like Sub Pop and Barsuk and so forth.

4. Jimmy Eat World - Clarity, February 1999, Capitol

Jimmy! I loved this album and have fond memories of playing this album over and over on family road trips and bus rides to school. I will always have a special place in my musical heart for this album. I can’t really specifically pin what this album did for me like the other one’s had, obviously opening me through their similar artists on the record company they were released on, but, this album put me to sleep on tough nights, and I just really connected with it. I really didn’t follow JEW at all, but for some reason, I picked this album up and I attached to it, and it makes me glad when I hear it. I think around this time, I was just discovering new music, but this is one I actually ran to the store and bought, not just getting free mp3s of popular songs of the artists that were “in” with the “hip” scene.

5. Bright Eyes - Fever and Mirrors, May 2000, Saddle Creek

Yeah, sad ole Bright Eyes. I debated what I should put for this last one, there are just soo many good albums out there, but I decided to pick albums that influenced me and my adolescence. There are albums that completely blow my mind, like Spoon, Decemberists, Eisley, M Ward, and so many other artists that put out albums that I can just listen through completely over and over again. But it seems like the music I was attracted to during my young teenage years still influences my tastes today, this album included. I remember specifically this album, too. The haunting sounds and whiney voice of Conor Oberst really caught me, and I really hadn’t heard anything like it. There are other select songs I enjoy by him, but this is really where it started and ended. Saddle Creek is his label that he put out, and during this time I was also listening to Elliott Smith, Kevin Devine, Rocky Votolato, and probably a couple other artists that fit this mold of a young man with a guitar singing sad songs.


So, that’s it. Maybe I’ll make a more current “Albums I Enjoy So Much, You Can Play Any Song Off of Them and I’ll Sing Them and Dance Around” which would be more cheery and fun. But these are my roots people! No hate!