The Music That Made Me

My life from 5 to 45 in 9 records

You’ve probably seen those Music That Made Me columns over at Pitchfork. The concept is simple: Artists talk about the records that inspired them in various stages of their lives.

Starting with music they were exposed to at age 5, they move in five-year intervals up to their current age. For each period, one album serves as the starting point for the recount of a memory.

I am not an artist so Pitchfork will never ask me to answer their questionnaire, yet I always wanted to do it.

This piece is not an attempt to create a linear narrative out of the chaotic mess that is my biography. Still, writing it helped me to understand how I actually ended up right here. It might help you to get to know me better – that is, if you even care.

Here’s the Music That Made Me.

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5

Roxy Music – Avalon (1982)

I just woke up, and I’m hearing sounds from the living room – people chatting, bass thumping, glasses clattering over muffled music.

We’re at our new house in this small beach town, and my parents are having friends over. They’re playing music on their analog hi-fi system.

I get up and sneak out of my room. The music is louder now. Peeking around the corner, I see a few people dancing, while others sit on couches, laughing, talking and drinking. I watch the scenery for a few seconds.

My mother catches sight of me, comes over, takes me on her arm and rocks me gently.

“I had a bad dream”, I whisper. “It’s over now,” she answers.

As she’s leaving my room, I am asking her to leave the door ajar so I can still hear the muffled music.

“Sure, my dear,” she says, and switches off the light.

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10

Depeche Mode – Black Celebration (1986)

At a family reunion, my older cousin invites me up to her room to show me her collection of Depeche Mode records. She hands me a folder with her collected magazine articles of the band.

I’m flipping through the photos. One of their members is a blonde man in a mesh vest and leather pants, wearing black lipstick and an earring. The singer is dark-haired, with an enchanting deep voice. They don’t look like the boys at my school.

I don’t understand any of this, but I feel magically drawn to them.

I’m using my pocket money savings to buy their most recent album Black Celebration. The music shimmers metallic, all synthesizers and programmed drums.

I sit in my darkened room for hours, eyes closed, and get carried away by these sounds. And while I don’t know what the music does to me, I know that I want more of it.

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15

The Cure – Pornography (1982)

In high school, I’m an outsider. I skateboard, I read old books, and I dress weirdly, in flannel shirts, big woolly jumpers and a top hat. I’m wearing an army backpack and a wallet keychain. I backcomb my long, black-dyed hair.

Musically, I’m into Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Sisters of Mercy, and I dream of one day visiting Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris.

The Cure’s current hit “Friday I’m In Love” is playing on MTV all day but I despise the happy song. When I find some of the band’s early albums in the dollar bin, I fall deeply in love with their ‘goth trilogy’: Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and their masterpiece Pornography.

I meet a beautiful short-haired girl at a beach party. Riding our bikes to a nearby lake, we set up a tent and spend the night among mosquitoes. I’ve written a bad poem for her, and our kisses taste of cheap red wine.

The Cure are still my favorite band. I still don’t like “Friday I’m In Love”.

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20

DJ Shadow – Endtroducing… (1996)