I Think I'm Getting the Black Lung, Pop

Some people are under the impression that my knowledge of music is somewhat extensive. This is false. I'm pretty sure I missed that entire phase where kids start to develop their own musical tastes. This phase did not happen for me until halfway through my Freshman year at Fordham and is still far from refined. Granted, I understand that many people change their musical opinion every day, and that it never really stops changing for good (unless you're a pretentious tool). However, what I'm saying is that 2 years ago, if you asked me what kind of music I liked, or what my favorite band was, or what some of my favorite albums were, there would be a brief pause followed by me churning out lie after lie about bands or albums that I knew I was supposed to like. To further that point, let me give you an example: before "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," I had only heard of the band Death Cab for Cutie and never any songs by them (or, consequently, Postal Service). As a result, because the word "death" was in their name, I had always assumed that they were a hardcore band. So yes, up until 2006, maybe 2007, I thought Ben Gibbard and Co. were hardcore rockers out to terrify the world. And no, that story was not misrepresented in any way to make it seem more ridiculous than it is.

Mundane rambling (aka "pulling a Pennacch") aside, the main point is that up until now, there are only a handful of albums that I think I could really say are my "favorites," and I think writing down and reasoning out why that's the case would be good for me (and the blog. It's about time someone added some (fake) substance around here). This was partly inspired by that Facebook nonsense about "20 most influential albums in your life," but 20 is far too many for me. I think I'd be able to list maybe 15 if I included albums that I'd just heard and liked. In any case, I have 5, and we'll do this from 5th-to-1st, "worst"-to-first, album-by-album, step-by-step, day-by-day. And yes, this is also because I believe my opinion is so important that you should all have to read about it. So here we go, starting with number 5...

#5: The Lion King Soundtrack

It's not a cop-out, I promise. Now, like many of my peers, I have a pretty vast library of Disney songs deep within the corridors of my mind. However, when it comes down to it, there really isn't any Disney album that can even compete with The Lion King's soundtrack (aside from the latest Jo-Bros endeavor, of course). Even if I had no knowledge of any other Disney songs (and hence no childhood), this would still make my list of top albums. Day after day, my mom would put the cassette in as she drove me to school, and day after day, I would go through every song on Side A, singing every word as loud as I could, then flip the tape over to Side B and repeat. It was one of the first times I ever really remember putting that much of myself into anything music-related.

Unfortunately, there is a story related to me singing a song from this album which, coupled with an 8th grade story about me singing with my friend's band at a Chinese retirement home, would scar me for life and leave me feeling as though I never wanted to sing in front of anybody ever again. I've begun the road to recovery over the past 2 years, but I'm still incredibly self-conscious about singing out loud. It's partly because of the fact that I don't have confidence in my singing ability, but mostly that, while I'd prefer it if people would (kindly) let me know if my singing was bothering them or not, most people wouldn't have the heart to tell me, so I'll never know if I'm wreaking havoc on anybody's eardrums. The fact that Mike is a modern-day Liberace doesn't help, either.

There it is. 1 down, 4 to go. Exciting.

Welcome to earth,
Mai