We all have music and artists that are significant in terms of our musical tastes. Not necessarily one’s favorites, but the ones that most impacted how we think about and engage with music as a whole. Here’s a few of mine – they firmly and accurately out me as a middle-millennial of a nerdy disposition, but hey, what’s authenticity if not a willingness to be cringe?

-The Announcer

Homework
Daft Punk, 1997
first listened ~1998

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuoghR-5-Xs&list=OLAK5uy_mEsIguFz_qxWaG4BoK1NAR2lhytSdyoEU

As the beneficiary of a bona-fide 56K home internet connection, my friend Kayla was my hookup for bootleg MP3s back in the heady days of Napster. Relatedly, her younger siblings had a kick-ass babysitter who played hockey and was a fan of electronic music. (I remember nothing else about that woman other than, because of the above, I had a crush on her. Middle school, right?)

I can only name two of the musical acts this babysitter suggested to us. One was the Crystal Method, which while amusing to revisit, has not exactly stood the test of time. The other was, well, Daft Punk.

Homework arguably isn’t Daft Punk’s best album, and it’s definitely not their most popular. It’s a crunchy, grindy compilation of their work in the Paris electronic scene, and some tracks can be challenging to revisit now – so repetitive as to be grating, with only a few melodic standouts that indicate the direction the duo would eventually take. Nevertheless, between the bouncy samples of Indo Silver Club, the effervescence of Phoenix, and the unmistakable jam that is Da Funk, Homework captured my tween-teen heart immediately. What resulted was a craving and general enthusiasm for electronic music of any stripe, that even led to me joining the Daft Punk forums – back when one joined a forum for each of their interests and I didn’t so much mind interacting with complete strangers on the internet.

Wood Center photo: "It wasn't all that different in my day, but that doesn't mean I'm not getting old."

Everything Goes Numb

Streetlight Manifesto, 2003

first listened 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ahxoOgz-nw&list=OLAK5uy_nBwXTyTf02BKgQ1CrL_YhSx21FjkxsDHA

I heard ska before Streetlight. Indeed, many of us millennials lived through a bizarre moment in the late 1990s when ska, trance, and swing revival were suddenly – simultaneously – top 40 music. I had also listened to the Aquabats no small number of times, though I don’t think I comprehended what exactly they were (with the Aquabats, who does?).

I only really latched onto the genre when I encountered a couple ska tracks on a Vans Warped Tour sampler in mid 2001, and being a band geek my main attraction was that “it has horns in it.” This led to my owning at least two (2) compact discs by Voodoo Glow Skulls – a ska-punk group perhaps most notable for having a lightly tone-deaf lead singer. The Glow Skulls are, put politely, a very acquired taste. But the albums were manic, earnest, and brass-laden (a guy carrying a trombone was even on the cover of one!) so I loved them all the more.

(Due to the timing of their arrival, these albums replaced the soundtrack of Baldur’s Gate 2 in my head. Shame, really, that’s a good soundtrack.)

At a LAN party in late 2003, a friendly acquaintance was unknowingly perusing my music collection and came across my grainy, 96kbps rips of Voodoo Glow Skulls. This guy was, by a wide margin, the coolest person I knew, so when he spoke up to ask whose machine he was browsing I confessed they belonged to me, blushing in preemptive embarrassment.

He responded with a compliment – “You magnificent bastard!” – that I still cherish to this day. Noting my fondness for ska, he also offered his rips of Streetlight Manifesto’s recently-released first album.

Streetlight Manifesto gets lumped in with third-wave ska, but it doesn’t exactly fit with the genre in my head. While it possesses the same frantic energy, the same painfully earnest lyrical style, and the same instrumental makeup as contemporaries of the era, its symphonic and eastern folk influences result in music that feels hard to temporally place. Everything Goes Numb was my favorite album for a long time (might still be, haven’t checked), and it made me feel seen despite its subject matter being way out of my depth – just like every other small town upper-middle-class white boy who heard it that year. Naturally, it cemented my attendance at ska shows well into at least the late 2010s, and attachment to the band (and genre) that persists today. Hype is not something I need in all my music anymore, but I do still favor it a lot.

(I looked that long-ago friendly acquaintance up on Facebook, and his most recent public post is a family Christmas card that references Iggy and the Stooges, so it’s safe to say he is still extremely cool.)

Winamp screenshot: "Were it not for these influences, my taste in music may have remained as abysmal as it was in 2004."

Danse Macabre

The Faint, 2001

first listened ~2004

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd_zs7WAVgM&list=PLdoCgobaxjqdsrTOnwRWNPm3KTKaZwd1B&index=1

The circumstances surrounding my introduction to The Faint are hazy at best today. I can’t remember who provided me with the burned CD, though I’m pretty sure it was outside the biology classrooms during my senior year of high school.

What I do remember is how the album hit me. Danse Macabre is the syrupy, sordid offspring of punk and new-wave. Its opening track – Agenda Suicide – was a punch to the face that more or less defined my ongoing perception of American capitalism, while the thrumming bass and oscillating synths of Glass Danse lent much-craved electronic influence that kept me around for the gloomy, ominous vocals. It was emotionally intense, but pointedly not dancing through the pain. It was dark, but in a cool way.

It’s probably for the best that I didn’t hear Danse Macabre sooner, because it probably would have made me totally unbearable to be around. As it stands, it was the vanguard of my ongoing not-quite-goth era, spinning itself out into loves of indie trash, new wave, darkwave, and post-punk music – an insufferable quartet if there ever was one.

Honorable mention: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Wu-Tang Clan, 1993
first listened ~2004

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhRNgqPlyk&list=OLAK5uy_mwIcbpishw-MNTuqBIcnsAxiFXl2dXKnI&index=1

For most of my youth, I was absolutely one of those obnoxious people who liked “all music, except country and hip-hop.” An errant copy of “Protect Ya Neck” on a loaned data CD de-othered the genre for me, and taught me that hip hop and rap absolutely own. “Ain’t nothin to fuck with,” indeed.

Your Musical DNA - The Show edition