Music plays a very important part in my life and has for a very long time. I have many memories associated with specific songs and albums and there are certain albums that are very important to me in a variety of ways. This post will be the first of many where I will share with you some of my favorite music and tell you why the album is significant to me.

On to the first album…

Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

Besides Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” I have probably been listening to this album longer than any other album that I still listen to today on a regular basis. The album was released in 1983 when I was the ripe old age of nine. My older brother played water polo in high school and the Violent Femmes debut album was adopted as the water polo teams album, I guess they would listen to it on the bus on the way to games and in the locker room. I can still remember the first time I heard the album. I was hanging out in my brothers room with my brother, which wasn’t exactly a common occurrence, and he played it for me. I will admit that part of the appeal to my nine year old self was that they swore and the guy had a sorta funny voice but I genuinely did like it. The fact that my brother was sharing it with me I am sure upped the appeal of the album as well.

I have quite a few fond memories of this album. I have a very vivid memory of driving home from college and getting stuck in traffic in LA and having “Kiss Off” come on the radio. For those three minutes I really didn’t care that I was sitting in smog infested LA with a good six hours more driving I had to do to get me home. Another good memory happened shortly after moving into the dorms. I was sitting in my room doing something boring but I had the door to my room open and threw this album on, shortly after it was on two of the cutest girls in my dorm came hurrying into my room saying how much they loved this song and danced for a bit. Me being the total wimp that I am of course didn’t try to capitalize on the situation but I remember it like it was yesterday. In the summer I will often just take my car out for a drive with no particular destination in mine, this album has accompanied on many of those journeys, it makes great driving music. It also always makes me think of Northbrook, Illinois which is where I lived at the time I first heard this album. It makes me think of the old neighborhood, Brendan and Bridgette who lived across the street, playing german spy, riding my BMX bike, and hanging out in the giant forest that surrounded our neighborhood.

I also got to grow up with this album. Songs took on a whole new meanings once I got a bit older and had the whole teen angst thing going on. Songs that I had known all the lyrics to for years I was suddenly seeing an all new way. Lyrics like

Y’know that I want your loving
but my logic tells me that it aint never gonna happen
and then my defense’d say I did’t want it anyway
but you know sometimes I’m a lier

just don’t have the same kind of impact on a nine year old as they do on a hormonal 16 year old boy with a crush on a girl.

The Violent Femmes really crafted a special album with this debut. To me, every song on this album is excellent, there is no filler. This is one of those albums where I will never complain when someone puts it on and if I am ever flipping through the radio station and come across one of these tracks I will turn it up and get a big smile on my face.