Music to Reminisce By

I love pulling out old albums I haven't listened to in years and giving them a re-listen. These are invariably albums I was obsessed with, because I didn't buy any albums I only superficially liked (okay, that's kind of a lie because I own Chumbawamba's album Tubthumper, for which there's no excuse other than what must have been some spare cash burning a hole in my pocket).

I just adore the rush of emotion an old, beloved album brings when played. At the moment I'm listening to Matchbox 20's Yourself Or Someone Like You. I bought it in junior high but never took it out of my CD player in the early years of high school. It was so deliciously emo before emo was cool. I recall sitting in front of my dad's huge speakers in our living room in the few hours between when I got out of school and my parents returned home, listening to that CD on repeat and singing along at the top of my lungs with all the conviction I could muster out of my limited life experience. The whole album reminds me of my freshman year of high school - my favorite of the four - meeting new best friends, having crushes that were flirted around but never materialized to anything, insane amounts of access and freedom courtesy of becoming best friends with someone two grades older who could drive and had a car.

And yesterday I was listening to Frou Frou's Details, an album that has the ability to seemingly physically transport me to my first year college apartment. I wouldn't say that I was obsessed with this album, but I listened to it enough that it was the soundtrack to some of my favorite moments from that year - rekindling an old friendship, drinking enough to wonder why my liver stayed in such an abusive relationship, the excitement and difficulty of living on my own for the first time ... I can still picture exactly where I kept the album on my desk.

This has made me realize that I remember my life in album form - I hardly ever just think of individual moments, as great as they might be, they always come in a context of other moments, both good and bad, put together into an experience of a time period - freshman year of high school, first year at college, my last semester before transferring - they aren't specific instances, but rather a collage of moments put together to make a whole, much like, for the really talented artist, a whole album is greater than it's individual songs.