What was YOUR favorite song when you were 20?
As part of CD Baby’s year-long celebration of our 20th anniversary, the CD Baby team put together a fun Spotify playlist:
We asked our staff two questions:
- What was your favorite song when you were 20?
- What’s your favorite song by a CD Baby artist?
It goes wide: Arctic Monkeys, Maná, Jesus Lizard, Sangsuree, 50 Cent, The Protomen, Amy Winehouse, Grace Potter, Sting,…
Kevin Spafford on our accounting team chose The Cure’s “All Cats are Grey” to kick off the playlist, saying:
I was at the height of my Cure obsession when I was 20. I still relapse every few months.
HostBaby’s Michele Kaeder picked “Riot Squad” by CD Baby artists The Plates because:
I like Jamaican dancehall music; this is it with sort of a punk sensibility to it.
Our systems engineer Richard Amerman picked CD Baby artist Joe Jencks’ song “St. Christopher.” Here’s why:
He’s one of the most gifted songwriters I have ever seen. He has an incredible voice and his guitar skills have grown considerably over the past 15 years. This song is both well done musically and a great story.
Rob Bach loves “the harmonies and haunting sound” of Rising Appalachia’s song “Filthy Dirty South.”
Pedro Sanctos chose Cássia Eller’s “Por Enquanto,” saying:
Probably the best live performance I saw when I was 20 was this one occasion when Cássia Eller (and her entire band) played in a very small classroom in a music college in Rio next to my campus. It was almost a workshop, there were less than 100 people there, and she would chat with us in between songs. That was the year her seminal album came out, but on that evening this cover she played stood out. I was fortunate to see her live a few more times after that, until she tragically passed away about two years after that evening.
Marisa Black chose Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” because:
Paul Simon’s writing slays me. This lyric speaks volumes, in very few words: “‘Kathy, I’m lost,’ I said, though I knew she was sleeping.” Follow that up with the next line, “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,” and my young self swooned with deep recognition of universal wells of emotion, potential disconnects between knowledge and feeling, and the tenderness of expressing vulnerability aloud to an unconscious listener!
Corey Dieckman chose CD Baby artist Neighborhood Stars because their song “Warren G and Silent Cal” is:
…a succinct, action-packed little instrumental number. The drums and the guitars are joyous and adventurous. The whole album is good but this track in particular makes me feel like I’m on a speed of light ride.
Rebecca Helgeson picked CD Baby artist Moka Only’s “Go Mellow,” because:
There is so much wonderful, dark, broody hip hop out lately (looking at you Sammus and Dessa), but a diet of solely sad songs isn’t sustainable. I always come back to Moka Only, one of the original Swollen Members. One of the most prolific hip hop artists of all time, Moka always reminds me to chill out and lighten up. The upbeat nature of Go Mellow just puts you in a good mood.
Want to hear the mix? Please listen and follow CD Baby’s 20th Anniversary playlist!
Also, I’d love to hear what your favorite music was when you were 20. (Not 20 yet? Well, what are you into right now?) Lemme know below.
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.