5-10-15-20

I have decided to ripoff Pitchfork's 5-10-15-20 feature. This is where they ask artists to talk about their favorite music from when they were 5 years old, 10 years old, up to your current age. The one rule I gave myself is I could only use music which was current at the time. For example at age 35, I can not use the Replacements. The one interesting thing that has occurred to me while thinking about this exercise is wanting to write a revisionist history. Of course it would look cooler if my answers for 5-10-15 were Tusk, Let It Be, and On Fire.

Age 5: Kenny Rogers- "The Gambler"

This answer is by default since I had not discovered music yet. At the age of 5, my life's ambition was to be Howard Cosell and interview Rod Carew. But while eating my breakfast before school my parents had on WIBC back when they were mostly news but they still played a couple of songs an hour and one of those was almost always "The Gambler". My parents were also fans of Kenny Rogers which could be a factor in my recollecting its existence from that age.

Age 10: Bryan Adams- Reckless

By age 10 I was completely into music. Early on i didn't necessarily have favorites. I liked everything I heard and what I heard was the radio. This was around the age I was starting to cultivate my taste and buy cassettes. I mostly liked new wave and mainstream rock that you would now hear in a classic hits format. "Summer of '69" was my favorite song on the album but I was also a fan of the "heavier" songs like "Kids Wanna Rock" and "It's Only Love".

Age 15: Queensryche- Operation: Mindcrime

At 15, my rock tastes had expanded into metal and was starting to head into what was considered alternative music. I could have probably answered Disintergration for this answer, it's definitely the more respectable one but probably not 100% true. If you had asked me at fifteen, who my favorite band was the answer would have been Queensryche. The concept angle was definitely part of the appeal. They were the perfect middle for a kid that wanted a band that was heavier and more serious than the hair metal bands that were all the rage, but accessible to someone who still wanted melody that thrash bands did not offer. As someone who has always liked music that could be identified as poppy or melodic, their follow-up Empire appealed to me even more. I was taken aback a little when I realized that they were becoming a big deal. Back in the days before Al Gore invented the internet, I would check the newspaper every week to see what the top 10 singles and albums were and the week in the fall of 1990 when I saw Empire at number 10 I actually thought it was a misprint. Of course, by the next spring "Silent Lucidity" became an actual hit. Like the rest of the world, by the time they released their next album in 1994 (yeah, the title escapes me and I am not looking it up) I had moved on.

Age 20: Ben Lee- Grandpa Would

Between 15 and 20 I had pretty much (again, like everyone else) gone the alternative route but I went right past it pretty quickly to what was considered College Rock (for those under the age of 25, that's what we called Indie Rock back in the mid-90's). I loved Noise Addict and Ben Lee from the very first time I heard "I Wish I Was Him" which was probably around the fall of '94. The song was very simplistic (it was written by a 14 year-old) yet catchy as hell and about the singer of The Lemonheads, another band I loved at the time. I was totally impressed and bought everything available at the time which was basically 2 ep's under the Noise Addict name. Grandpaw Would came out the following spring and I remember the very first time I heard the album I was disappointed. Something had happened that never occurred to me: puberty. His voice was literally changing during the recording of this album. Sometimes in the middle of songs. What started off as off-putting became endearing after a couple of listens. It didn't hurt that his songwriting was progressing and people like Liz Phair and Rebecca Gates sang backup. During this time I was also really into the television program "My So-Called Life." Since they were around the same age, I had this idea one day that it would be adorable if Ben Lee and Claire Danes would somehow meet and fall in love. A couple of years later, it actually happened when Winona Ryder set it up for Ben Lee to show up at Claire's birthday party (as she happened to be a Ben Lee fan as well). They were a couple for several years until Billy Crudup became the actual worst person on the planet. Don't feel too bad for Ben, he's now married to Ione Skye.

Age 25: Ben Folds Five- The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

During these next five years I would listen to several bands that would get a following and then start to mature and tweak their sound a little that would usually irritate their fan base. This was exciting to me because I felt I was maturing with the band and I was growing up with the music. However, when this would happen record sales would fall off and in many cases it would also be the band's last album. Ben Folds Five pretty much followed this to a tee. Their first two albums contained jokey upbeat pop songs with a few more serious songs thrown in for good measure. When it came time for album #3 they were starting to outgrow lyrics like "give me my money back, you bitch". In fact, there were only 2 songs on the album I would even call upbeat. The album was very melancholy in a way that fit with my general mood in life at the time. Not all of the album works, but I still think "Don't Change Your Plans", "Mess" and "Magic" are 3 of the best songs the band ever recorded. Of course, the band would break up and Ben Folds would realize he didn't really outgrow the goofiness and that this was just a detour.

Age 30: The Trouble With Sweeney- I Know You Destroy!

A band that time has already forgotten. They were a witty indie-rock band from Philadelphia that released a couple of full length and ep's before falling off the face of the earth. They were the perfect mix of pop melodies with just a dash of wistfulness that had a literate quality to them without coming off as pretentious.

Age 35: Los Campesinos!

They are a rambunctious indie-pop outfit from Wales, just barely out of their teens but both recall and frequently name-drop the Indie Pop Underground bands of the early 90's. This brings me to the present and after all this time I guess I'm still just into catchy pop songs about the opposite sex.