Harvey Danger – “What You Live By”

The year was 2005. I was in my last year at middle school, and looking back, I was having a shitty time. It was nowhere near as shitty of a time I was about to have in high school, but in middle school I just wasn’t happy. I had just gotten into music for the first time, and I liked god-awful alt bands like every other eighth grader did; Breaking Benjamin and the like.

But in 2005, Little By Little dropped online for free, and by some providence, 13 year-old Adam stumbled upon the group Harvey Danger. Even though I was a huge Smashing Pumpkins rocker (still am) and didn’t give a flying fuck about music that didn’t cave your eardrums in, This super-clean alternative pop nonsense was so sweet to my ears and made me feel such a strong and pure happiness that I had to rethink everything I ever listened to (I think all of the SFTL staff had an album like this). From that I found a need to search for music that made me really feel things, and thanks to that one album I am the hipster asshole who is typing this into Tumblr today, seven years later.

Of course (since this story is tragic and unhappy) they ultimately failed. Being where I am today, I guess I just regret not doing something, anything to curb their demise. I mean, I was 13, but I didn’t do anything for years knowing that they were failing. I never told my friends about them, I never wanted to go to a concert of theirs, I never spent a dime on any of their albums, and, worse yet, I’m willing to bet that a lot of people didn’t do the same things that I didn’t do. And, so it goes, the first band I fell in love with turned into the one-hit-wonder that nobody ever cared about. I guess somewhere deep down I feel like I as a fan had the power to change that, and I’ve never gotten over how much I failed them.

I know this won’t do them any good now, but the last time I mentioned them we had like 150 folllowers and I was butchering the word “nostalgia,” so maybe airing out my grief in front of an audience of a quarter million people makes up for all those years of theft and negligence. Probably not, but it’s pretty much all I’ve got.

So, uh, thanks for the tunes, guys. Really helped me through middle and high school.

I’m sorry.

Harvey Danger
What You Live By

∞

The Quakers – “Smoke”

It’s April and I hate superlatives. That being said, unless Danger Mouse, Jack White, and Kanye all produce four albums each this summer, this thing they call “Quakers” (earthquakes, not Pennsylvanians) is absolutely going to go down as one of the ten best-produced albums of the year.

The Quakers
Smoke

∞

Schoolboy Q – “Hatin’ Joint”

Schoolboy Q is part of Kendrick Lamar’s Black Hippy, a fresh west coast crew whose beats alone are just mind-blowingly complex. All of their albums are dense and filthy, dripping with commentary that is quite reminiscent of the likes of (dare I say?) Tupac. I’m so white that I put mayonaise in my coffee but even I can’t ignore how dope this shit is.

Schoolboy Q
My Hatin' Joint

∞

Islands – “No Crying”

It seems like Islands’ sound has been consistently getting better and more well-developed with every release. Almost like Coldplay, except for the part where Mylo Xyloto exists.

Islands
No Crying

∞