52 Reasons Why

Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.

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jane's addiction - nothing's shocking

Jane’s Addiction: Nothing’s Shocking (1988)

Jane’s Addiction always brings up a very specific sense memory for me: driving to high school with my friends in the backseat of a station wagon, transitioning from the suburbs to the country, hearing these songs mixed in with Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix (it was always the Smash Hits compilation), and Minor Threat, among others. Ritual de Habitual may have been the chart breaker as it rode the alternative wave in 1990, but I always preferred the hazy, Zep-heavy debt of Nothing’s Shocking. Recently my brother and I went record shopping looking for the songs we grew up with, and whereas his Perry Farrell fix came from Porno for Pyros (we’re seven years apart), mine was with the OG. This just came in on vinyl yesterday, so no better time to give it a fresh spin.

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