I have been thinking about doing this for a while now, and I think it’s time I got this journal started. I really want to write about the albums I loved since 2007. That was a critical time in my life because that is when my love for music began to grow. I never liked music too much nor paid any attention to it but two albums I heard that year changed that. A strong affection towards music began to grow and it grew stronger as time went on. There have been plenty of things I have heard throughout the years and I will be discussing my favorites and the memories that go along with it that bring a strong sense of nostalgia. The albums also show what musical phase I was going through at the time, or even social phase. The albums I’m posting won’t necessarily be reviews, they will more so be related to the time period I listened to it and the memories that go along with it. I will discuss the album a little though. I have a strong memory of the chronological order I heard the albums in so I can pretty much start from the beginning. It is crazy how my musical taste grew to what it is now. (Side note. Anything that has a * * in between it means it is one of my all-time favorite albums to this day.
2007
Kanye West
Graduation (2007)
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The beginning. I remember being in 7th grade sitting in the car getting a ride from my parents to my friend’s house for a barbeque a few minutes away. I heard some of the tracks on the album during the ride but they didn’t really click with me because music was the last of my interest but I did think they were catchy. On the ride back home at night I heard one track that changed everything. I really feel in love with the song Champion for some strange reason. Maybe it was the beat or the lyrics “do you realize, that you were a champion in their eyes” that caught me. I eventually began to love the album as a whole with the standout tracks to me being Champion, Good Morning, I Wonder, Everything I Am and Glory. At this point in time a lot of things changed in my life. I went from a video game nerd in school that many people found annoying to a kid that was becoming semi popular. I got into sports and I started talking to girls (
hell yeah!). I also remember going to a lot of bar/bat mitzvahs during this time and just having a good time as a kid reaching the beginning of his teenage years.
Nice & Smooth
*Ain’t a Damn Thing Changed (1991)*
Time goes on and it is December already. I have listened to plenty of other music but it was mostly just radio singles and life was really good. For Christmas I wanted an mp3 player and my family was really surprised because I never liked music, and in a few months after hearing one album I wanted an mp3 player, crazy but I’m glad I made that decision. That Christmas was fun, I got a 2gig mp3 player, an Xbox 360, Gears of War and Halo 3. After the gifts were opened I immediately put the Kanye album on my mp3 and a few other singles but my mp3 was still very empty. My dad had a suggestion. He told me to listen to this album and tell me how I liked it. He put on the Nice and Smooth album. I went in by basement and plugged my mp3 to my Xbox so it can play the music loud while I play Halo 3 Co-op with my younger brother. Right when we start playing the music comes on with the lines that bring me a huge feeling of Nostalgia. The intro of the song “I got a funky rhyme with a funky funky style” and the first lines “Petes Rickty rocket was my favorite cartoon, After marriage the honey moon, Ill be dammed gag me with a spoon, who loves Popeye Alice the Goon. ” On the track Hiphop Junkies which stood out along with the tracks, Cake and Eat it Too, Sometimes I Rhyme Slow, How to Flow, Step by Step and Harmonize. This whole entire album reminds me of Playing Halo, Gears of War, watching my brother and sister play soccer, going to Brooklyn every weekend seeing family and getting beef patties, and playing Basketball at an intermural league, losing every game because it was my first year and eating white castle afterwards. It was a fun time