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Re: Albums that helped you through tough times

15 by trey
Electr-O-Pura by Yo La Tengo. Whatever mid-late 20's existential dreead was bearing down on me at that time, this album lifted some of the weight. Especially "Blue Line Swinger." I hadn't listened to it in decades, but when I did again, it didn't have the same effect on me. I guess because I was much older, dealing with new levels of strain. But I specifically remember coming down off an unpleasant LSD trip and the music was like a warm blanket. Also Dirty Three's self titled album. "Everything's Fucked" is one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

Re: Albums that helped you through tough times

16 by dfglv
15 years ago I went through two years of pulling up the floorboards to quit my job, sell all my music gear, move overseas, go back to college, and make my long-distance thing a cohabiting thing. I hated the life I was trying to leave (an arrested adolescence). I was doing it on my own and it was all gradual and hard. I played Numbers Band, Jimmy Bell's Still In Town, all the way through most days. Felt like someone was on my side. It's that entire vibe.

A crisis me & my now-husband went through together a few years later was made endurable by discovering the Pretenders' first album. Should be available on prescription. "Lovers of Today", one of the most beautifully/terrifyingly unguarded songs.

Beauty Pill's Describes Things As They Are. Has offered me a hand up out of despair and/or panic more times than I can remember. Cold fury, unguarded love, exhausted recognition, humble gratitude: it's all in those songs, and it sounds incredible.

In the "emotional first aid" cabinet: Sonny Sharrock, Ask The Ages; Murray Perahia's recording of the Goldberg Variations; Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun; Cleo Sol, Rose in the Dark. Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Music of My Mind; Antonio Carlos Jobim, Wave; Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, op 132, the manuscript of which bears a dedication to God for his recovery from protracted illness (the Main Street Quartet's recording is top); Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall; George Michael, Older.

Since I sound too much like someone trying to sound cool, I will disclose that once upon a time all of my feelings towards my first confirmed boyfriend were somehow most completely expressed by the Pumpkins' Machina. 25 years later, we are now old friends, and he still gives me shit about this.

Re: Albums that helped you through tough times

18 by gotdamn
dfglv wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2024 4:09 pm 15 years ago I went through two years of pulling up the floorboards to quit my job, sell all my music gear, move overseas, go back to college, and make my long-distance thing a cohabiting thing. I hated the life I was trying to leave (an arrested adolescence). I was doing it on my own and it was all gradual and hard. I played Numbers Band, Jimmy Bell's Still In Town, all the way through most days. Felt like someone was on my side. It's that entire vibe.

A crisis me & my now-husband went through together a few years later was made endurable by discovering the Pretenders' first album. Should be available on prescription. "Lovers of Today", one of the most beautifully/terrifyingly unguarded songs.

Beauty Pill's Describes Things As They Are. Has offered me a hand up out of despair and/or panic more times than I can remember. Cold fury, unguarded love, exhausted recognition, humble gratitude: it's all in those songs, and it sounds incredible.

In the "emotional first aid" cabinet: Sonny Sharrock, Ask The Ages; Murray Perahia's recording of the Goldberg Variations; Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun; Cleo Sol, Rose in the Dark. Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Music of My Mind; Antonio Carlos Jobim, Wave; Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, op 132, the manuscript of which bears a dedication to God for his recovery from protracted illness (the Main Street Quartet's recording is top); Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall; George Michael, Older.

Since I sound too much like someone trying to sound cool, I will disclose that once upon a time all of my feelings towards my first confirmed boyfriend were somehow most completely expressed by the Pumpkins' Machina. 25 years later, we are now old friends, and he still gives me shit about this.
dfglv i dunno who you are but you can DJ my funeral.

lots of albums helped in bad times - Scott Walker, Grouper, and Lush have multiple releases that are just huge caresses - but there was a particularly dark time when I was 20 where I could not deal with what and who were around me, or myself. Similarly, I could not deal with the vast majority of music's colors and characters and sleight of hand bullshit. It all just sounded hollow, like all of it. I probably spent a solid 2 or 3 months only being able to listen to the following:

Hank Sr's 40 Greatest Hits
Nico's The Marble Index
Marianne Faithfull's Broken English
Kill Creek Proving Winter Cruel
the suite plus the title track of Laura Marling's I Was An Eagle

I found them all refreshingly honest, stark, and beautiful. It's very nazal-gazey I know, but they certainly kept me from doing even dumber things to myself.

Re: Albums that helped you through tough times

20 by penningtron
dfglv wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2024 4:09 pm Beauty Pill's Describes Things As They Are. Has offered me a hand up out of despair and/or panic more times than I can remember. Cold fury, unguarded love, exhausted recognition, humble gratitude: it's all in those songs, and it sounds incredible.
I went thru a similar phase with Smart Went Crazy Con Art. Not a literal breakup/divorce, but the sense of change and being forced to move on the summer I heard it clicked. Even the field recording at the end felt meaningful.
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