Out Of My Shell: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Me

By Megashaun

I was in the sixth grade, eleven years old, and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t cool. I only knew I wasn’t. I liked Ninja Turtles and Batman in a time when everyone else in my class was into MC Hammer, Technotronic, and Public Enemy. I didn’t own any albums. I didn’t try chasing the girls. One of my classmates—a boy—asked me which girl I liked and I said I didn’t like any (which was a lie; I didn’t want that secret getting out and risk being made fun of for it) and he asked me if I was gay.
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Bringin’ the Crazy: John Cale in the 1970s

By Emily C.

John Cale’s musical career has encompassed many genres—rock and classical notwithstanding—and at present time he still shows no sign of letting up. He also notably produced many other artists’ albums; it’s impossible to imagine Nico’s The Marble Index and Patti Smith’s Horses without his dark sonic influence. Cale’s own 1970s solo albums—particularly his Island Records trilogy of Fear, Slow Dazzle, and Helen of Troy—have also dated remarkably well.
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1983: Music For Twelve-Year-Olds?

By Less Lee Moore

Remember when you were old enough to like “cool” music but still young enough to shamelessly appreciate crappy music? For me, that time was 1983.
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1988: Perk Up Your Ears

By Latanya

I was only seven in 1983, so I wasn’t as musically aware as I was in 1988. Granted, by 1988 I was 12 and in the seventh grade, and I was much more expressive by this point. Thankfully, my ears were perked up higher so the following albums stuck out
from that year.
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Top Five Most Unexpected Summer Songs

By Emily C.

I grew up in South Florida, where summer was obviously guaranteed to be oppressively hot and sticky. The worst part about being in Florida is how people assume you were probably growing up by the beachside, chilling out, getting tan, and doing something constructive and athletic. I was usually found doing embarrassing things like writing awful “confessional” poetry, reading books that were way over my head, and working on my paleness, when I should have been out, say, making friends. Another diversion was—of course—listening to a lot of Goth, indie, and shoegazer “hits” of the 1990s and before. Because of that, the following songs have sounds I will always associate with summertime.
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Van Halen: Imps of Summer

By Jimmy Ether

Ever notice how some bands seem timeless while others are permanently affixed to a particular period of time in your life? Van Halen is definitely the latter for me. They epitomize adolescence—especially the testosterone-laced variety of adolescence. They were largely the soundtrack to my pre-teen and early teen years, and while they are indelibly connected to my own coming of age, they are even more associated in my mind with summer. It doesn’t matter what time of year you are listening to a Van Halen album. It feels like summer. Heat and humidity radiate from the speakers making you crave cold beer and swimming pools.

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The Minutemen, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat

By Jimmy Ether

It’s difficult for me to fully express the effect that the Minutemen had on me. “Life changing” may seem over-dramatic, but it would not be inaccurate. They were the ultimate underground band. A perfect blend of outrage, respect, art, sweat, and brotherly love. They never fit the hardcore genre into which they have been historically placed. They were not about aggression, rebellion, and noise. They were blatant self-expression and open-mindedness. They projected a very conceptualized vision of what a free, musical lifestyle meant. . . zen and the art of “the spiel.” They dabbled in self-mythology while remaining entirely modest everymen from blue-collar San Pedro, California.

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Adventures with Metal Mania: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

By Julie Finley

I recently re-subscribed to cable TV after a three-year hiatus. There is crap on TV that I am completely out of touch with, but that’s probably a good thing. In that three-year break, I didn’t pull that shit where people claim to only “read books” just so they can one-up the rest of the world. That’s just as bad as the douchebag that watches Ultimate Fighting Championship.
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Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Shocking

By Christian Lipski

Nothing’s Shocking is a great example of an album that I liked more for the individual statement that those specific songs made than the band itself. I didn’t really follow Jane’s Addiction after their debut, and I never felt sad about that. What I do feel sad about is that I looked on my iPod and I do not have this album on it. Okay now I do.
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The Police, Synchronicity

By Jemiah Jefferson

This is the first music that I ever bought in a record store (or, I should say, that I begged my mom to buy for me—I had absolutely no money of my own at the age of eleven, since I never got an allowance as a child. . . or a teenager, for that matter). I bought this on cassette, probably from a Sam Goody or something similar, in a mall. I bought it months after its release, in the fall, after a punishing summer where “Every Breath You Take” kept its stranglehold on the Billboard #1 slot for what seemed like forever. I have always quite disliked that song, and after seeing so many other worthy songs attempt to break through and fail (most particularly “Is There Something I Should Know?”, Duran Duran’s vastly superior single, which topped out at #4, much to my rage and frustration) I learned to hate it, and I still hate it.
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