14 Albums I Have To Give Up Now That I'm 30 I turned 30 this past summer and came to grips with the fact that it's all downhill, in a bad way, from here. The morning I woke up, in the wilds of my father's house north of Seattle, I could already feel the gouty, runny, enfeebling pangs of old age. When I made it back home to my Baltimore apartment, it was time to have it out with my record collection -- because there's nothing worse than an aging hipster clinging to his former glory, right? My John Deere cap just doesn't fit the way it used to.
The Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good You're still allowed to be wistful and melancholy at 30 -- it just isn't cute any more. It gives you brain tumors. So "don't get old, just don't get old."
Fugazi's 13 Songs Ian and Guy can do it over 30 (hell, are they 40 yet?) but no one else is as hardcore. But their music is getting more experimental, and jazz was invented for people like me who want to stay cool at an advanced age.
Elvis Costello's Blood and Chocolate Before I'd ever had my heart broken, I listened to this album obsessively so that I'd be ready when it happened. For better or worse (almost always worse on this piece of ragged, elegant vitriol), I doubt I could ever feel as strongly about someone as I did listening to this disc back in college. Frankly, I don't think I'd want to.
Brand New Heavies' Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1 White men cannot dance. Most people cannot dance. But before 30, it's all fun and games -- no harm, no foul, especially in dimly lit apartments during an after-party. But after 30, people get hurt, or at least most egos do.
Cap'n Jazz's Analphabetapolothology "Oh, messy life." Three words that define just about everything about post-30.
Bikini Kill's Pussy Whipped Hot, ambisexual, political, sex-starved chicks before 30? Aqua Vitae. Holy Grail. Ponce de Leon's wet dream. Now? Fucking trouble. Probably won't return your calls. Probably can, and will, do much better than you.
The Velvet Underground's 1969: Velvet Underground Live, Vol. 1 That mixture of exhilaration, curiosity, and maybe even a little fear I got from listening to tracks like "Rock & Roll" and "Heroin"? It's pretty much gone into the exhilaration, curiosity, and fear I get from listening to Morning Edition while driving to the high school I teach at.
Candy Machine's #25 The singer for this band used to come on stage with a saxophone. He had no idea how to play it. That's punk. This album has a song called "Louisiana". It has nothing to do with Louisiana, so eat my fuck you preppy bastard. (On track 12, there is whistling.)
James Brown's Love Power Peace Another relic from my dancing days -- my God, this Bootsy-infused lineup could do anything. While my dorm-mates drank 40s and thought they understood the funk while grooving to Parliament, of whom I'm equally fond, they were missing the really good stuff here. This album is so tremendous that I actually allowed an ex-girlfriend to keep it. And it was recorded in France, which has to mean something.
Nation of Ulysses's 13-Point Program to Destroy America The album cover and back are even better than the music, and that's saying a hell of a lot. I've been to the dildo store where Ian used to work. A few years ago I ran into him at a sushi restaurant on Connecticut Avenue that isn't very good. I saw a Scene Creamers show where he introduced a song by saying that is was about "labor-saving devices of the 19th century." Rad. But alas, my raditude is no longer.
Jawbox's For Your Own Special Sweetheart I used to try to play guitar. I actually had subscriptions to horrible magazines like Guitar World and Guitar Player. People like Dimebag Darrell (R.I.P.) would teach me to play the opening lines of "The Immigrant Song". Deep down in my little, secret, emerging indie-heart, I just wanted to play the atrociously brutal, amazing, and original things the Messrs. Robbins and Barbot could pull off. Beyond that, Kim Coletta is and remains "teh hot".
Pavement's Brighten the Corners This isn't their best album, but it's the one I heard first. Having gone through an uncomfortable classic-rock phase, I'll always think I'm the only asshole who gets the Geddy Lee reference. Beyond that, Steven Malkmus makes growing older seem like a good thing. I heart him.
Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade First four tracks, the last of which makes me, almost, want to take acid again.
The Specials' The Specials This album suffers from having an amazing opening track. I rarely listen to the whole thing, as it's simpler to just replay "Message to Rudy". But even before I was old enough to drink, "Nite Klub" made perfect sense. "Do the Dog" was about a socio-political situation in the urban grime of England that I knew nothing about, but understood completely in the urban grime of Reagan-era DC. And "Concrete Jungle"? I don't want to talk about it, because it reminds me of 22.
-- James Parr
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