Welcome to another top ten list! This one is all about the albums that musically defined our high school experience. Let’s jump on in, shall we?
10. The Definitive Collection – The Alan Parsons Project (1997)
Alright, so if we’re being fair, nobody that wasn’t on the South Anchorage High School cross country ski team would associate this album in any way with high school, and even then the numbers are limited. But Chris and I were both pretty into it, and Chris and I are the ones writing this list. If you haven’t heard of Alan Parsons, he was the sound engineer on Dark Side of the Moon (you know, that one Pink Floyd album / overpopular T-shirt) and by all accounts, did an okay job with that. He’s the founder and namesake of this group. Actually, “project” is the right word because basically he just hired musicians to come in and play stuff on a song-by-song basis and gradually pieced together his glorious visions of albums from there. Anyway, this is good stuff, so take a listen to it.
9. Sawdust – The Killers (2007)
Another album that was not very well known, I’m guessing, but another album that Chris and Brian were pretty into. Mostly just a collection of B-sides and covers that the Killers did with some pretty impressive guest vocals (Lou Reed? Fuck yeah, Lou Reed) and some interesting song ideas that never got fleshed out into albums. I think if you had to pick an album as a soundtrack to November ’08, this would definitely be a strong contender.
8. Robbers & Cowards – Cold War Kids (2006)
Cold War Kids will always have something of a special place in my heart as they were one of the first “less mainstream” bands I really listened to in high school. I still remember when I first was recommended to listen to them – I was sitting in the recording studio at the Alaska Teen Media Institute working on a radio show and the director was playing the album. This is one of those albums I don’t listen to a lot, but whenever I do, I’m not disappointed. Their follow up, Loyalty to Loyalty was pretty disappointing, but that’s life I suppose. They also put on a pretty rockin’ live show.
7. Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys (2006)
As the old saying goes, everyone learns how to play guitar freshman year of high school, and this album was a great soundtrack for all those wannabes. “Easy yet interesting” is how I would describe it, and it helped that the lead singer/guitarist of Arctic Monkeys was like seventeen when this album came out. Pretty inspiring. And for all those non-guitar players (of which there were few) the album was catchy and loud and energetic and full of rebellious notions (i.e. prostitutes and partying) which are basically all the qualifications you need to appeal to high school freshmen.
6. Give Up – The Postal Service (2003)
In terms of high school adolescent angst and overwhelming emotion, I suppose Give Up is probably our generations Nevermind. Now I’m not comparing the artistic merit of these two albums, but just like Nirvana let to the grunge movement and lots of long haired, flannel wearing northwestern teens who didn’t give a fuck about “the man” or “the establishment” (this is usually a synonym for their parents and teachers), I would argue that Postal Service is the flagship of the late-wave emo/look how sad I am crowd. Speaking of which, I think it’s funny how disenfranchised teens in the 90s got angry, but in the 2000s they just got mopey and stupid looking. Give Up is the only album by Postal Service – a collaboration between Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and some guy who isn’t Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie.
5. Is This It – The Strokes (2001)
Ah, the Strokes. There is a soft spot in everyone’s heart for this band, and everyone under twenty five and over twelve knows the words to “Last Nite.” This album had everything! Loud guitar! Simple chord structure! Lyrics we could all relate to! And just a touch of what could be construed as emotional lyrics. Perfect. As a side note, I’m pretty sure every Battle of the Bands between 2003 and 2006 included a cover of “Someday” at some point, and no matter how terrible a cover it was, everyone in the crowd loved it, because the Strokes were awesome.
4. Wincing the Night Away – The Shins (2007)
The Shins got big in high school, thanks in large part to Zach Braff and Natalie Portman’s Garden State. If there’s one thing high schoolers are looking for, it’s slightly weird and inaccessible films about how everyone is weird and how dumb life it. Sounds almost like they made Give Up into a movie. Throw in some indie-film heartthrobs and you’ve got yourself a picture.
I had already heard the first two Shins albums (Oh Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow – both very good) but Wincing the Night Away was one of the first albums that kind of stopped me in my tracks and made me realize how much I like putting cool sounds in my ear. “Sea Legs” was definitely my favorite song for a while and this CD got some serious plays in my Koss boombox (yeah, we had iPods then…but I was so indie at this point I bought the CD).
Another cool part about this album, is that I have recently been listening to it again, and it’s still really awesome. I think it’s pretty cool that I know have different favorites off this album than I used to.
3. Hot Fuss – The Killers (2004)
God damn could the Killers write a catchy song, and that’s basically all that Hot Fuss was. I guarantee you that if you are even approximately my age, you have a secret love for this album. I think I know every single word to about four of the songs on it, which is an incredibly high percentage, all things considered. Nary a dance went by without everyone cheering as the opening chords of “Somebody Told Me” rang out across the darkened auditorium, and if you were a girl in high school and this was not on your iPod there was something wrong with you. The Killers were the energetic face of the exciting new direction American indie rock was taking in the early 2000′s and whether you cared about that or not, they could make your toes tap. Plus, I hear the lead singer is pretty dreamy.
2. Graduation – Kanye West (2007)
Kanye’s third (and really, one of his worst) release is so high on this list because of timing. This came out in the fall of our junior year, right when everyone was finally getting all that independence they yearned for. We were cool. We drove to school. We went off campus for lunch. We bought mainstream hip-hop albums and thought that made us awesome. I can remember a bunch of us driving to Best Buy after school one day to get this the day it came out. Graduation might be one of the first albums that I really anticipated and counted down the days until it came out.
As an aside, this was the album that 50 Cent and Kanye had the record sales bet on. 50 lost. He said he wouldn’t make any more music, but that has been wrong. I think this makes 50 Cent kind of look like a dick.
1. Stadium Arcadium – Red Hot Chili Peppers (2006)
This album was important for a lot of us in high school. Stadium Arcadium is a pretty ambitious double album and marked the return of the Peppers after a fairly long hiatus since 2002′s By the Way. When you’re as popular as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, four years is a damn long time to not put out any albums. Stadium was hyped because the Peppers were taking more creative control over the whole process, ensuring that it would sound more like it came from a band who wore socks over their uh…guitar necks.
Brian and I decided to put this as the #1 album of our high school years because it was everywhere. “Dani California” and later “Snow” were in constant radio rotation for even a year after the album came out. Buying this album is also literally the first thing I ever did with my driver’s license. That makes an impact on a guy. This being the first big album to come out after all of us started driving is probably a big part of why I remember it so well. It’s also not half bad.
