A couple of days ago, the French version of the pop culture website Konbini published an article about their team members' favourite albums when they were teenagers. Every person got to pick fifteen albums that marked their life from age twelve to age nineteen and try to explain why it mattered. A lot of it is, sadly, "Sum 41 are shit and I thought I was punk" elitism, but I like the idea of the post in itself - here's why I am writing about the fifteen albums that I loved the most when I was a teenager.
This is a throwback to the years when I had long dark hair, when I wore short sleeved t-shirts over long sleeves all winter long, when I had trouble getting through the day at school without tripping on my own feet, when I had braces, when I wore gigantic Vans, when I wore dresses over jeans because I was trying so damn hard to be original, when I had an embarrassing indie phase (we all had one), and when no one wanted to be seen with me, and who could blame them.
This is a tough list to make as, back then, I could barely afford CDs. We didn't have the Internet at home until I was seventeen and, until then, I had to be extremely resourceful to get my hands on music. I would borrow my friends' MP3 players, my brother's CDs, CDs off the library, tape songs off the radio. There aren't a lot of full albums I actually had access to.
1. Fallen - Evanescence.
That is the number one album I loved during my teenage years. I ADORED Evanescence - they were the first band I had posters of that wasn't a pop artist, and I wanted to be Amy Lee and dress like Amy Lee and look like Amy Lee. My brother bought me Fallen for Christmas when I was thirteen, and to this day, it's a wonder I can still play the damn thing as I would listen to it on repeat. We used to go on day trips to Picardy or Normandy (don't ask) and I would start playing it as soon as we left home and would just stop it when we got there. It remains one of my favourite albums, and the first rock/metal album I loved.
2. Blonde Comme Moi - BB Brunes
Fast forward to seventeen year old me. It's my last year of school and I am going through my "top 40 is not real music" phase. I only listen to pop music ironically, and the rest of the time, I'm all about indie-rock. There's this band that I've heard on television, they're French and they're called the BB Brunes, and I fall head over heels for them. They were the reason why I went to my first ever festival (my hometown's very own Furia Sound Festival, dead and buried now) (also, I had free tickets, which is another main reason I went), and they were also my first ever indoors gig. I have defended this album with every bloody atom of my being because I loved it so much, even though it was not cool to like them, and truth is, ten years on, it's still a brilliant album (and it's still not cool to like them). It's fast, it's gritty, it's catchy, and Adrien Gallo (vocalist and lyricist) had a way with words like no one else.
3. The Singles (1992-2003) - No Doubt
When I was a little girl, my brother used to make me mixtapes and there was one that I think I still have, somewhere, that had No Doubt (Tragic Kingdom era) and Cyndi Lauper on it. When I was thirteen, he came back from either work or grocery shopping one day and gave me No Doubt's greatest hits album. I know it's a greatest hits album, but it gets a spot in here for all the times I danced around in my bedroom to It's My Life like I was Gwen Stefani, and all the car and bus rides I listened to Don't Speak and bleakly looked out of the window like I was the heroine of a sad film, even though I was thirteen and the closest thing to a break-up I'd experienced was the Lizzie McGuire episode where she has her first boyfriend. To be young and innocent.
4. These Streets - Paolo Nutini.
We used to have morning programmes, on TV, with terribly unfunny (funny by 2005 standards, more like) comedy segments and music videos. I'm sure that's where I first heard Last Request by Paolo Nutini, and he was beautiful and had a deep, raw voice and I fell in love. (It's been a while and I'm still kind of in love with him, to be completely honest). I was gifted These Streets the following Christmas, and as much as I loved it, the moment I listened to it the most was just before I sat my baccalauréat. I had grabbed a pile of CDs in my bedroom and this one worked the best to revise. It's also an excellent pop-folk album. Jenny Don't Be Hasty is still a major tune. Autumn is still one of the most underrated treasures of this world. Paolo's voice is still honey to my ears.
5. The Secret Life Of... - The Veronicas
Ever since I was a child, I've loved catchy female-fronted rock bands. I grew up on No Doubt, as I mentioned before, and even in TV shows, my favourite episodes were always the ones including battles of the bands with the heroines. (A while ago, I found a school presentation I'd started to write on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. I had listed my favourite episodes, and my number one was The Band Episode, during which the main characters participate in a battle of the bands. I was eight) It didn't take a lot for me to fall in love with The Veronicas' debut album - it's catchy as hell and twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso were everything I wanted to be since I was a little girl. I've spent many a bus trip to school listening to The Secret Life Of, spinning 4ever or ballad Speechless on repeat, and ten years on, it's still in the list of my favourites.
5. The Secret Life Of... - The Veronicas
Ever since I was a child, I've loved catchy female-fronted rock bands. I grew up on No Doubt, as I mentioned before, and even in TV shows, my favourite episodes were always the ones including battles of the bands with the heroines. (A while ago, I found a school presentation I'd started to write on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. I had listed my favourite episodes, and my number one was The Band Episode, during which the main characters participate in a battle of the bands. I was eight) It didn't take a lot for me to fall in love with The Veronicas' debut album - it's catchy as hell and twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso were everything I wanted to be since I was a little girl. I've spent many a bus trip to school listening to The Secret Life Of, spinning 4ever or ballad Speechless on repeat, and ten years on, it's still in the list of my favourites.
6. Meteora - Linkin Park
I was thirteen, fourteen, maybe, and I spent my Sunday afternoons listening to the radio, hoping to catch Numb in between two Blue tracks, to tape it off and listen to it later. What a relief when I actually got the CD - it also came as a Christmas present. When you were a teenager in 2003, you had to pick between rap and rock music, and I picked rock, and I picked nü-metal, and I picked Linkin Park. I think Linkin Park was one of the first bands I felt like I could relate to. I had an old magazine with an interview of Chester Bennington and he said something about Linkin Park's music expressing the chaos in his head, and I read those words, and I thought "this man gets it". Meteora stands the test of time and is now a bonafide classic, but mostly, to me, it's the first record I ever related to.
7. Everytime We Touch - Cascada
I should probably be ashamed about that one, but the year is 2017 and I refuse to accept the "guilty pleasure" policy - if I like something, nevermind how embarrassing it is, I like it, full stop. Cascada's début, a half-hour long collection of Eurodance numbers and catchy covers, is a huge part of my teenage years. My brother loved it and we used to play it all the time in the car, wherever we went. It's been almost ten years and I still know the words to every song. It's not the world's best album by any means, but we played that thing like our lives depended on it.
8 - I Dream Soundtrack
If I was all about that guilty pleasure thing, that one would be even worse than Cascada. The year was 2005 and we still had that TV programme in the morning, during the holidays, called KD2A. It lasted a couple of hours and broadcast a selection of sitcoms - it all started out with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sister Sister, Alex Mack and anything with the Olsen Twins, and, when I grew up, there was Lizzie McGuire, 15/Love (a Canadian TV show about teenagers in a tennis academy) and I Dream, a show with a group of teenagers being shipped to a music academy in Spain, weirdly starring Christopher Lloyd. See, I was just fifteen and it was summer and the part of me who loves a good musical number got caught in it in a minute, and I became obsessed, and my mum bought me the soundtrack, which I proceeded to play on repeat all summer long (and, confession time, I still have it on my iPod). I didn't know a thing about S Club 8 and Simon Cowell. I just wanted to have a good time and be sent to a music academy in Spain, too. Who cares if I can't sing.
9 - One Tree Hill Soundtrack : Friends With Benefits.
Yes, I KNOW, another soundtrack. Twelve years onwards, I still believe Friends With Benefits is the best soundtrack to have ever been in a TV programme, ever. It included Nada Surf, Jack's Mannequin, Gavin DeGraw, Fall Out Boy and the first Jimmy Eat World song I would ever listen to - of course I was in love. It's not that deep : it's the soundtrack to the best part of my all-time favourite TV show, it takes me back to the summer I turned sixteen, to all those Saturday afternoons I spent in front of television watching the adventures of Peyton, Lucas, Brooke and their friends, and it also helped broaden my music taste. It got me into emo. That's the album to blame.
10 - American Idiot - Green Day
To be honest here, I only ever bought the CD when I was at university - a long life of not being able to afford music and all that. The first time I ever heard Green Day, they were playing American Idiot at Top of the Pops. I had no idea who they were, I was fourteen, sat in front of the old school computer, writing, and an angry punk-rock track started playing on television, and I was hooked. There was also a large amount of Sunday afternoons trying to tape Boulevard of Broken Dreams off the radio, and many a trip to the local supermarket where I would be eyeing up the CD. I believe it's the best album released this century, no one can compare to the storm American Idiot was. It's multi-faceted and clever, the lyrics are out of this world, and it took me years to get it - but I'm glad I stuck around.
11 - Still Not Getting Any - Simple Plan
If Linkin Park's Meteora was the first album I ever related to, Simple Plan's Still Not Getting Any was probably the second. Welcome to My Life was on a car commercial and my friend bought me the single a while after that, and I would play it on repeat in my bedroom, doors closed, probably to the point of insanity for me and my family. It was the first song I knew every word to, and I decided that it was my life - no one understood me and all I ever wanted to do was scream and everyone else around me had it easier. Teenage angst at its finest. Still Not Getting Any is a supremely important album to me as it brought pop-punk into my life. I don't exactly relate anymore, but the relief I felt back then, it was bliss.
12 - Let Go - Avril Lavigne
I was twelve and, on TV, there was that girl skateboarding in a mall. She was so different from the other girls I could see on television. She wasn't girly and she was hanging out with boys and she had a guitar. Also, by now, you all know my love of females playing rock music. I was hooked in a matter of minutes, thanks to what I thought was the most rebellious music video of all time. And when we went on holiday and I would bring mountains of CDs with me and annoy my family to no end because I was taking too much stuff, I would play Avril's début and wish I was the girl on the skateboard. She was everything I wanted to be, and it would be a lie if I said I didn't want to be her anymore.
13 - Songs About Jane - Maroon 5
The story of Songs About Jane in my life is the same story as These Streets. I got the CD when I was fifteen because I had heard This Love and She Will Be Loved, and I realised its sheer brilliance when I was revising for my baccalauréat - Adam Levine's dulcet tones also worked wonders while I was studying philosophy or literature. It's the best thing Maroon 5 has ever done (and, seeing the direction their recent music is taking, they're probably not going to do better anytime soon), and it's a jewel of a pop album. Sweetest Goodbye still tugs on my heartstrings a little bit - who was saying goodbye to when I was fifteen, go wonder, but here we are.
14 - Inside In / Inside Out - The Kooks.
The Kooks are the height of my embarrassing indie phase. They were my dream of being a cool girl in straight Pepe Jeans and Breton tops and ballet flats and torn tights and long hair with a big, fat, straight fringe and khol under my eyes and Longchamp Pliage handbags. I was none of these things, of course. I wore purple tights because I wanted to be different and I couldn't talk to boys. I just liked football, wanted to move to Liverpool and I listened to The Kooks all day long. Just like Friends With Benefits, Inside In/Inside Out contributed to broaden my music taste (my taste in pop music, to be exact) thanks to its easy choruses and smell of the seaside, and yeah, you know the drill - it's been ten years and I still think it's a belter of an indie pop album. And I still haven't properly seen The Kooks live and it bothers me.
15 - Le Saut de L'Ange - Emma Daumas
My teenage years wouldn't have been my teenage years if it wasn't for those music based reality TV shows. We had two and I was obsessed with both. You could find me every Friday evening from September to December watching Star Academy (a TV programme where young people who want to become artists are locked up in a castle where they perfect their singing, their dancing and the like) and from February to June, every Wednesday evening, I was stuck in front of Nouvelle Star (the French answer to American Idol). Emma Daumas came in third during the second season of Star Academy, I was twelve and she was my favourite, she liked rock music and they tried to make her the French Avril Lavigne. Le Saut de L'Ange was her début album, but I only got it a couple of years after it was released, and it was also on the pile of albums that soundtracked my baccalauréat revisions. It's good pop music, mad props to her for that. It's still on my iPod. I'm big on nostalgia.
(Bonus) 16 - Le Chemin - Kyo
That's the closest thing to an emo record you'll find on that list. Kyo are a French band who became famous in 2003, and their two most popular albums, Le Chemin and 300 Lésions, are the closest things we have to French emo music. My mother loved them and she actually bought the CD for herself - but of course I borrowed it, played it, it ended up with a scratch on my favourite song and I never gave it back. (I bought another copy a couple of years later because, well, a girl needs a physical copy of her favourite French emo song). I still think it's great, and frontman Benoît Poher is one hell of a songwriter - Dernière Danse is one of the most stunning, sensitive and heartbreaking songs ever written in French music. I'm going there.
There's less pop punk and emo than anyone would have thought, I suppose, but I knew it would turn out this way. I didn't have the Internet and only had the main TV channels, how did you expect me to find out about bands that had not broken into the mainstream? My teenage years shaped my music taste as it made it broad - it sparked my love of rock and metal, and it confirmed my love of pop music in all shapes and forms.
I know most of these are downright embarrassing and cringeworthy, and many a person in my scene would probably not be caught dead admitting to obsessing over a TV show starring S Club 8 and knowing all the words to a Eurodance record. The thing is, I've never been a cool kid. There's no need to pretend I was - I wasn't, and truth is, I never will be. I didn't grow up listening to all the cool Drive Thru Records bands. I didn't see Jimmy Eat World live in 2001. I was the most uncool kid of all, the one who liked reality TV and S Club 8 and pop music. It's 2017. I'm owning up to that.
And maybe I'll go give those a spin in the process.
I know most of these are downright embarrassing and cringeworthy, and many a person in my scene would probably not be caught dead admitting to obsessing over a TV show starring S Club 8 and knowing all the words to a Eurodance record. The thing is, I've never been a cool kid. There's no need to pretend I was - I wasn't, and truth is, I never will be. I didn't grow up listening to all the cool Drive Thru Records bands. I didn't see Jimmy Eat World live in 2001. I was the most uncool kid of all, the one who liked reality TV and S Club 8 and pop music. It's 2017. I'm owning up to that.
And maybe I'll go give those a spin in the process.