The April 2023 Record Spin Challenge: "Want to go around again? I do."

April 13 - First Heartbreak. Play an album that you would give to your heartbroken teenaged self after getting dumped/rejected.

Giving my wife the reins on this one too I guess; she immediately said "Cake, I Will Survive" Then she went on to give advice to her teenage self:
"It'll be ok.
You will survive
You'll meet someone else.
He was a weird kisser anyway."

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ranbalam said:
April 13 - First Heartbreak. Play an album that you would give to your heartbroken teenaged self after getting dumped/rejected.

Giving my wife the reins on this one too I guess; she immediately said "Cake, I Will Survive" Then she went on to give advice to her teenage self:
"It'll be ok.
You will survive
You'll meet someone else.
He was a weird kisser anyway."

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Woulda worked for first car day too.
 
April 14 - First Job. Either play the album you first bought with your own money, or an album that reminds you of your first job.

Ahhh, the good ol' days. Dishdogging at Auntie Pasta's, a local Italian joint that I worked from their opening day until they went OOB, about 15 months total. I made it to line cook during my time there and was really learning some good stuff, then they closed overnight. A friend and I both shared a lot of shifts, and we had a stack of cassettes we'd play during our shift. This was among them.

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April 16 - College. Play an album that you either first heard on a college radio station, or that you think all college students should be forced to listen to today.

This hit the WXYC airwaves my sophomore year at Chapel Hill.

It was a glorious time to be alive.



R.E.M. - Chronic Town

Rockin' that 1982 vinyl list price...

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April 11 - Teenage Angst. Play an album that you listened to as a teenager that gave you the feels.
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De La Soul "Buhloone Mindstate and Stakes is High"

"Or some tongues who lied and said, "We'll be natives to the end" Nowadays we don't even speak, I guess we got our own life to live"

This hit me like a tonne of bricks! I realized in that moment that the friends I had at the time that I thought would be my friends forever may not turn out to be my friends for longer than the next few years if we were lucky! These were adults that had been through some shit together and they can't stay friends what chance do we have? This is a perfect album and the culmination of the De La/Prince Paul collaboration and they sure as shit went out with a bang!

I included Stakes is High because at the time I thought that after Prince Paul left they were doomed but holy hell was I wrong! They really came into their own and found themselves on this album! It also starts with a skit about the first time you heard Criminal Minded and that hits too because it makes you think about the first time you ever listened to your favorite records, where were you, who you were you with, what you were doing, the sights the smells all that shit!!!

I've rambled on enough! Waiting on a vinyl upgrade on these cassettes, order is in so I can't wait!
 
April 15 - First Car. Either play an album that mentions cars/transportation, or an album you would blast when driving your first car.

I knew this album was going to get delivered but it came too late yesterday to play. It's by far the best it's ever sounded. No wonder it's about sold out. When I got my license I pumped this out my speakers on a CD player that was busted when I bought my 1990 Isuzu pickup but if you hit it on the bottom just right it would work. Someone smashed the window and broke in to steal it which was hilarious and infuriating because it was clearly broken with a shattered front. Replacing the window cost way more than the CD player was ever worth. But the dickbag yanked the wires out so I couldn't easily replace the CD player. So after that I bought a discman and drive around like a dumb ass with my headphones on.

Sublime - S/T
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April 16 - College. Play an album that you either first heard on a college radio station, or that you think all college students should be forced to listen to today.

This was released while I was at UC Riverside, and got played quite a bit on my short-lived stint as a DJ at KUCR.

Various Artists: The Bridge ~ A Tribute to Neil Young

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April 16 - College. Play an album that you either first heard on a college radio station, or that you think all college students should be forced to listen to today.

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A couple friends of mine were DJs for this great little station out of CU Boulder. I spent a lot of time down in the studio when they were on the air burning stuff onto my computer from the station's incredible collection. I first heard Karate on one of the morning shows.

Karate - Time Expired
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April 15 - First Car. Either play an album that mentions cars/transportation, or an album you would blast when driving your first car.

Two-fer here. This is yet another cassette that I played the crap out of; it definitely got played in my first car's tape deck. And as far as Highway Star goes, I was one. I had a 1978 diesel Volkswagen Rabbit. Copper in color, four door, manual transmission. 0 to 60 in roughly 30 seconds.

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April 12 - First Loves. Play an album that you would want to be playing in the background if you could fall in love (even if unreciprocated) for the first time as a teenager all over again.
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Joyce "Hard Bossa" - a beautiful record to soundtrack a warm and wonderful spring day, with love in the air you wouldn't want anything too distracting you want a positive vibe, and if love fails you can always blame it on the Bossa Nova....
 
April 12 - First Loves. Play an album that you would want to be playing in the background if you could fall in love (even if unreciprocated) for the first time as a teenager all over again.

First Aid Kit – The Lion's Roar
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"Emmylou" is exactly the kind of cutsie nerdy love I want to fall in for the first time all over again.
 
April 13 - First Heartbreak. Play an album that you would give to your heartbroken teenaged self after getting dumped/rejected.

Godspeed You Black Emperor! – F♯ A♯ ∞
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Break-up, death of a friend, existential angst, general malaise... this is a solid surefire go-to for feeling feels. Probably would have done me some good to discover this in my teenage years instead of much later!
 
April 14 - First Job. Either play the album you first bought with your own money, or an album that reminds you of your first job.

OutKast – Aquemini
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My first job was working at HMV. (My fourth and eighth jobs were too because I moved away and came back a couple of times.) I did my Work Experience placement there for high school in hopes I could get my foot in the door, and before I had a chance to ask about a job near the end of my week, the assistant manager told me they had someone leaving in a couple of months and I should leave my resume if I was interested. A dream come true for teenage me!

One of my favourite things about working there was being able to listen to new releases a few days before they officially dropped (these being the early days of internet availability!) There were a couple of us there who were quite into hip hop, so our time to shine was after we closed the doors to the store and were doing the cashout and clean-up. The store had a decent system so we'd crank up whatever release we were amped up for coming out in a couple days. Aquemini was different though. Aquemini was special. I don't remember what we listened to when we went though our closing tasks but it wasn't Aquemini. Not yet. We didn't want to be distracted for this one. One of our co-workers who didn't work that day even came in and joined us after closing. Once the cash was counted and bank deposits were done we cranked up the system, put the album on and didn't leave until after the whole thing was finished. There was no conversation while the album was on, but there were a lot of "ooooh yeah"s and "oh shit!"s. This thing came out hot right out the gate and just kept going. Hearing Raekwon switch up his flow to rock with 'Kast was damn near orgasmic and we were barely a quarter of the way through the whole album! This was something special and we were all in agreement.

To this day it remains one of my top 2 hip-hop albums - which switch back and forth depending on the day. And every time I put it on I have a snapshot memory moment of sitting in the closed store with a couple of co-workers vibing hard when hearing it for the very first time.
 
April 15 - First Car. Either play an album that mentions cars/transportation, or an album you would blast when driving your first car.

Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain
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I was 37 when I got my first car - a little under a year after Prince passed. This was the first album I played in that car. I played it often and I played it loud. I'd picked the CD up the day Prince died - I was on the road with another poet doing high school workshops a couple of hours north of home. She understood what a big deal it was when I got the news and the first thing we did when we got out of school was found whatever Prince CDs were available nearby so I could blast them in her car on the drive home. A few months later the deluxe edition was released and I upgraded. That too got a lot of play in the car.
 
April 16 - College. Play an album that you either first heard on a college radio station, or that you think all college students should be forced to listen to today.

Stone Temple Pilots "Purple" (1994 Atlantic; 2021 reissue)
STP remained pretty niche through their first album until they blew up with Interstate Love Song. I remember being quite surprised seeing that this band I liked was all of a sudden getting people off their ass to the dance floor at the university pub we'd go to. Anyway, it's essential early 90's college fare, this record.

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