I think i'm getting older; i'm starting to like R.E.M. more & more, especially the non-rock albums (the newer ones).

Whenever i listen to New Adventures in HI-FI it brings me back to 9th grade doing 5 chapters of geometry homework the day before the test. It brings me back to Diving Child. It brings me back to 14. It brings me back to so much. The funny part is i've now started to like the lighter popier songs toward the end of the CD as opposed to when I was younger and only listened to the first 6 tracks. I remember JJ telling me i was crazy because i thought "Leave" was the best track on the CD, now i know it's "Bittersweet Me".

I think everyone has that CD in their lives that takes them back, personally I have a few, some that almost make me cry everytime i listen to them (like ATLiens, especially towards the end)

I think New Adventures is becoming that Album for me. There are albums i personally like more, but i don't think one stands out quite like it.

A quick list of albums, and what they make me remember:

• OutKast - ATLiens - Spring Break Freshman Year were my parents left for somewhere and left me alone a whole week that i pretty much spent completely drunk with Adam. It was his frist time drinking, and i bet even he remembers it pretty well even though we've falled out of contact for the most part. Not to mention the numerous parties, running from the cops at the one party specifically, and the party at Jamison's where I actually heard of this album from him and B


• R.E.M. - New Adventures in Hi-Fi - like I said, 9th grade, pulling all nighters, trying to get a passing grade in Geometry, which I was taking as some weird 9th hour never go to class. I seriously owe Diving Child some props there, how many kids do you know who are in Pre-Calc freshman year? Ms Powers, Mr. Soriano, & Ms. Seizure, i owe you all.


• R.E.M. - UP - Skipping every class of 2nd semester freshman year of college. I think i fell asleep to this album every day around 6 am, and woke up sometime after dinner.


• Radiohead - The Bends - Totally Learning Tree, totally Russ being so happy he could loan a cool cd to one of his Kids, totally the bomb. I wonder what that guy is doing. I should look him up.


• Radiohead - Kid A - Playing Diablo till 3 days later (i was #1 for a while afterall). Being #1 is something very few people truly grasp, i'm pretty sure Tomaka is the onlu one who really gets it, since he was so dominate on the WoW ladder. Neeko, i still owe you for teaching me that game inside out.


• Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (left) - Because of cruel joke played on me, I lost right early on, and so left is my more touching disk. I can clearly rememer being on ebay (before it was so giant) listening to this cd till early morning (4am) trying to grab a good deal on transformers being sold to the west coast. This album is great, but it's better because it's the last cd i listened to as a cd, and not as an MP3.


• Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (right) - I remember this more from the day i bought it. I had just started dating leslie, and she was working at 12 Oaks. I rember getting it at Circuit City and seriously struggling with listening to it for the next 2 weeks straight (after all it had been 5 fucking years) or hanging out with leslie. I decided to listen to the whole thing in my car waiting for her, and I did, but i was so excite about hanging out with her, i totally did not appreciate it the way i should have. That one night may be the whole reason i still pick downward over the fragile.


• Various - Woodstock 94 (CD1) - In 1995 I started to reallt care about music, and my aunt peggy (who was an early BMG CD catalogue adapter) had me for X-mas (actually her daughter did, but she took care of it). She asked for me to pick out some cds, i expected maybe 3, i got over 30. It was totally insane, and it started my music collection. I immediately went from the lowest on the block to the highest. And that x-mas night, this is the CD i listened to about 5 times in a row. Even over all the weird Nine Inch Nails albums i got that year


• Stone Temple Pilots - Purple - This was the 3rd Cd i ever got, and the first one to not be by Queen (Greatest Hits, and Classic Queen, which surprisingly do not appear on this list were my first two) and definately the first to be of the modern rock variaty. Now I did have pretty hate machine on Tape, but CD's were just inanely cool. My mom had just gotten a 5 disc player from RadioShack and i couldnt' wait to blast this album. We had a very old POS receiver, but it could seriously KICK (and shock you when you went past half volume due to a short in the knob). I played this CD so loud i busted the speakers, but my mom was none the wiser. I couldn't understand half the lyrics, unlike queen, buti i knew this cd rocked. Dad got it for me in New York from the virgin record store. You have to remember in the summer of 1994 STP vasoline was the coolest song ever. I think i listened to it 300 times in a row (it was so short). Anyways, thanks dad!


• KRS-One - Return of the Boom Bap - Now i basically stumbled upon KRS-One sometime in highschool, but I bought all his CD's at once. I couldn't believe the intelligence in his rhymes, but this albums sick beats are what really held me. Todd had the Grand Prix with the ridiculous kickbox in the trunk and he had these weird "ultra bass" cd's. They didn't come CLOSE to this album, especially brown skin woman. I specifically remember getting on Milford road, getting ot my mom's house, and that song coming on for the first time. I nearly puked it shook my stomach so much. We played it 5 times on the way home. I told everyone about it, they didn't believe me. This album (or that song more likely) has multiple rememberance points as it's pretty much the first song i play on any new system (mine or someone elses) to test it out. I've broken mirrors, hurt bodies, and impressed the unimpressable with it. I highly suggest you check it out, but note, i've never heard an MP3 version that has done it justice.


• Various - Death Row's Greatest Hits - Again, 9th grade, this is how I got into gangster rap. I got this CD by mistake for X-Mas, and absolutely loved it. Justin stole it about a year later, but I got another copy at some point. This CD followed me everywhere and I remeber listening to it throughout the winter break of freshman year


• GraveDiggaz - The Pick, the Sickle, & the Shovel - Soem guy in an AOL chat room told me to listen to GraveDiggaz and Alkoholics, the Alkoholics suck, but GraveDiggaz was tight shit. I got this CD and listened to it on the way home from Divine Child every day of sohmore year. I stayed home from parites just to listen to this album.


• 2Pac - All Eyez on Me - This one is a double album, and it actually has 2 great memoirs. The first CD was so pop-y, it couldn't be stopped, even it has double meaning to me. 1st, the California Love song, that video was so sweet "CAN YOU DIG IT!", but the ridicule it got from my friends, they just didn't understand 2Pac. Then the dissapointment when it wasn't even on the fucking album, just some lame remix. That was totally whack, thanks to MP3's that has been taken care of, but WTF? Seriously? Then there was the rest of the frist cd. Everywhere I go, i see the same damn hoe! I don't think i've ever laughed as hard as when i heard that song. The rest was great. I never even put in the second cd. I remember playing Justin in chess listening to this Cd for HOURS, and he would ask me about the second cd and i'd just laugh at him. Even today he still calls 2Pac the greatest of all time. Then there was CD2, which actually is probably a better rap albumt than 1. But the only reason i even bothered to listen to it is because someone told Kelly that "Wonda Why They Call U Bytch" was her song. so i lsitened, and guess what, can't c me, short wanna, when we rid, thug pastsion, pciture me rollin, ratha be ya n-i-g-g-a are the best fucking songs on the album, not just cd2. Who knew? I listened to that so much it actually gave me street kred at the Detroit Golf Club. "What you listenin to white boy?""Eyez on me 2""No shit, I ain't know white boys knew how to put cd2 in their stereo" ~ Ashton Akers. They started calling me "Blood" cause i dared listen to it. The clearest memory is when he got shot, but before he died, all of us eating coney doggs, at 5 am, freezing our nutskacs off to get 10$ caddying, talking about how pimp 2Pac's wheelchair would be.


• 4Non blones - What's up Single - You remember this song, the What's up but in te techno remix pop way. Total learning tree again, at some point Mr. Matt decided this was the greatest song of all time, turned it all the way up, and punched the roof so hard it dented. Every kid followed, and we jammed our heads, and we waiting 3 green lights on schoolcraft, merriman, & I-96 with everyone honking at us as we totaly jammed to this song. It only happened once, but it's probably the 2nd funniest musical experience of my life, which leads us to....


• Van Halen - 1984 - the funniest thing in my life. The funniest thing that ever happened. I seriously almost died this day laughing so hard. I don't think i've ever laughed hard, ever. Only Tony Cabanero could get me to laugh this hard in my life, and even he didn't com close to this. Learning Tree talent show, Me, Justin, I think mike something, and Mr. Matt sign up for the talent show with absolute NO ACT. Some people did magic tricks, some people danced, others sang, one chic did gymnastics. About half way through we realized we needed a REAL act. So we go out in the hall and come up with all these crazy ideas, i remember none of them, because at some point Mr. Matt grabbed 4 safety cones, told us that we should put htem on our head,and jump around to the song Jump by Van Halen. I thought he was crazy, i mean he fucking was, but i really started to believe it. Anyways we did it. Oh Hm God, i couldn't breath, we didn't even make it bast 2 minutes in to the song when we all quit, jumped off the stage and threw our safety cones in the air. We jumped for 2 minutes staight, and it may have been the most fun part of my life. I may never top that. I was on the ground for 5 minutes trying to catch my breath, i seriously turned blue. I wish we had taped it somehow (i actually think we did, but i'm sure it's lost) in a digital format. Where was youtube back in 1992?


• Van Halen - 1984 - Deserves a second entry, because my dad totally loved Hot for Teacher, and picture me, Twan, and Heatlie in the car jamming to it on the way to school, but wait after that on the tape was....


• Eazy E- It's On (187um Killa) - Gimme that nutt. ust picture my dad having hot for teacher at 100% volume in his car, and this came on. "In some pussy is the place to be, always fuckin is the life for me...." just imagine it, i mean full blast, a 30 year old man who didn't even know Eazy-E existed. I laughed for 1 entire day of school. Again, double props to this album as the only reason I got it was because of that freshman spring break when B was hitting a bowl rhyiming Real Muthaphikkin G's, which again was a song i knew nothing about. Thanks B, again!


• Filter - ShortBus - minimal mention, but i remember adam saying this album was good because his Dad thought so...


• Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - at aorund 14 every boy in America buys this CD and listens to it with his Dad. Me & my Dad listened to it on the way home from DC on Hines Park Drive in his Tahoe at about 80% volume. Us & Them still makes me smile because of this.


• Genesis - Genesis - Playing this tape in my Dad's "Awesome" kenwood system just to listen to That's All over & over again.

there are few others that bring up very specific small memories, but those are the major ones.

So what albums get you all juiced on the inside, i'm dying to know. I think that the best part of musik is how it brings back the past & great memories.