On the Couch

I know that rating favorite albums or songs can be a childish and silly endeavor because when it all boils down the only thing that matters is that you love what you are listening to.  Although, sometimes I think it can be a useful tool to get your thoughts and feelings straight on an album. Trying to pick a favorite song is a fickle thing. Favorite songs seem to change with the day, mood, season, weather, and attitude towards life so why bother?

An album that is upgraded to favorite status should reflect a couple of things. Firstly the album in question should be imbued with a timeless quality. It isn’t enough just to listen to the album a few hundred or even a thousand times, when the album first came out. Favorite album status should only be bestowed upon albums that have been out for a number years. The reason why is because when you fall in love with an album you are on top of the world and you aren’t really thinking clearly. You have to wait a bit and come out of that initial high and back to your senses, only then can you do some soul-searching and figure out what your feelings and thoughts are on an album.

Secondly, you have to not just want to listen to the album in question you must feel compelled to listen to it. Every couple of months, weeks, days or perhaps hours a hypnotic daze has to fall over your mind and push you to break out the vinyl and immerse yourself in fond memories of that greatest of things: your favorite album.

I think a lot of people’s favorite albums are generally from their high school years. The reason why is simple: those are very formative years.  Those teen years are a time when many people first really get hooked on a particular genre of music and start an habitual need for that fix. For me, I started off listening to Something Corporate and Alkaline Trio, but there wasn’t an album in particular that stole my heart. I think the first album that really captured my heart and mind, which put me on the road to indie rock, and that really made me who I am today, has got to be Give Up by The Postal Service.

I am sorta embarrassed about it today. Mainly because Give Up has been played in every coffee shop across the world a ba-jillion times over. A lot of its unique magic has been wasted in that way. But ultimately for me, it’s still a magical album that still forces me to put it on the record player every and indulge myself in the eight bit beats and blurps with swooning Ben Gibbard telling me that “I am the one worth leaving.”

Because so many of us have heard The Postal Service so many times that the album has begun to lose all meaning I will leave you with one of my favorite tracks remixed by one of my favorite artists, Styrofoam.

The Postal Service – Nothing Better (Styrofoam Remix)

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