So, for the record this list is not in any particular order. It’s just a list of songs that I love.
So (again). Here is my music evolution:
First album: either the Cabbage Patch Doll album or Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs.
Next: Chicago, specifically Hard to Say I’m Sorry.
Then, Phil Collins and Genesis for the rest of elementary school. Hated, hated, haaated boy bands like New Kids on the Block (which 2024 me finds funny).
Next up, Fleetwood Mac (and their various solo albums), with a side of The Eagles. Mostly gave up on Phil Collins because that was too dorky even for me.
By junior high or high school, I’d learned about Kate Bush and Leonard Cohen.
College is when I started to listen to Kirsty MacColl and (to a lesser extent) the Pogues. One of my awesome roommates taught me a little bit about The Bee Gees and other disco.
And that was it, really. My musical tastes did not evolve at all from 1999 until at least a decade later, when I decided that I enjoyed some of the pop songs on the radio like Lady Gaga, “Some Nights” by Fun, and some British boy band’s song The Story of My Life.
But, during that time I did finally get a Sirius XM radio account and discovered the channel where they played 80’s New Wave music (hoping for a little Kate Bush or even, rarely, some Kirsty). A lot of the songs from that time in my life are on this list, including Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode. Something about that song just suited me. “All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here in my arms”. Just a really great song.