The first year that I actually gave a crap about music was 2004. Up until that point, I enjoyed whatever the radio played and whatever albums ended up in my house, but I didn't give it much of a second thought. Then, as a dual consequence of getting older, and rock radio going on a stunning decline that it still hasn't even begun to recover from, I began to seek out music on my own. Tom Petty was the first artist I got into, R.E.M. and The White Stripes followed. Then, in October 2004, as I was just beginning high school, dealing with the myriad of obvious problems that go along with that, I discovered The Replacements. On a trip to Media Play to buy R.E.M.'s Around The Sun (which proved to be the worst album they ever made), I picked up Tim on a whim, and to use an especially labored cliche, things were never the same.

Just like every teenager, I found that one album that spoke to me like nothing else before. Paul Westerberg's problems seemed like my problems, and that made them a lot easier to deal with. The things that used to just make me feel sad, like watching the girl I liked make out with her boyfriend in the hallway, or hearing people talk about parties that I had no chance of getting invited to didn't bother me as much anymore. Somehow, listening to the Replacements didn't just offer a comforting voice, it allowed me to view the whole thing from a distance, and just accept my own position among the other 800 people in school.

Eventually, as I kept listening to more and more albums that occupied similar roles, I played Tim less and less. Not because I didn't still love it, but just because I had already memorized it, and I was up to see what else music had to offer. Sometime around my junior year, I gave it a listen and was struck by how much it immediately reminded me of everything that happened in my freshman year. It had become the soundtrack to that part of my life. I'll never hear the opening to "Hold My Life" without thinking of those times.

As I got older, I realized this wasn't a one-time thing. Whenever I re-listen to an album that effected me in a particularly strong way, my mind goes back to the point in time when I first heard it. Listening to Elvis Costello reminds me of discovering him in May 2006, when my grades were going down the tubes, and I was distracting myself with the Sabres playoff run. When I listen to M. Ward, I think of spring 2009, when I was finally getting a hang of college, and felt incredibly relieved that my life wasn't going to hell the way I thought it was.

Sometimes, the effect is almost immediate. On May 23, 2013, two key things happened; I spilled beer on my keyboard, which meant I lost my computer for almost two weeks, and my copy of Nada Surf's Let Go arrived in the mail. I listened to it multiple times that night, and I already know that I'll never listen to it without thinking of the day I spilled beer on my laptop, and the fallout that ensued.

Music exists for a lot of reasons; to entertain you, to provide perspective, and to console you when you most need it most. When I think about the biggest challenges in my life, I invariably think about the music that got me through them, and vice versa. We are reminded that the pain happened, but also that we got over it, and usually, the music was a big part of that  When music makes the hard times easier to deal with, that's something that sticks with you forever.

In just a few weeks, I'll finally be done with college, which, naturally, has got me thinking about the past five years of my life (yes, I'm a super senior). Actually, make that the past nine, since high school and college are inextricably linked together. The beginning of my freshman year of high school just happened to coincide with the time my musical tastes began to broaden - I feel like 90% of the world could probably say that - and now, one of the longer eras of my life is coming to a close. With that in mind, I decided to think about some songs that have helped me get through these 9 years that i wish i could hear again for the first time.

The Replacements - "Here Comes A Regular"

At 14, I probably shouldn't have related to this song as much as I did, since it's about a bunch of pathetic drunks slowly wasting their lives away in the same bar every day, but somehow, the dreary tavern that Paul Westerberg was describing didn't seem too different my high school cafeteria. "Everybody wants to be special here," Westerberg sang. few lyrics describe the high school experience so succinctly. The fear of being average haunts you at that point. Whether you play football, aim for a 100 average every semester, or try to dress as flashy as possible, there's a good chance you're doing it because you desperately want to differentiate yourself from everyone else. That wasn't exactly what Westerberg was saying (he mined that territory more on "Sixteen Blue"), but it was what I took from it, and I'll never hear this song without being reminded of those first few months of high school.



Modest Mouse - "Lives"

In 2004, I was the scourge of many die-hard Modest Mouse fans because like many, many others, I discovered the band when they had a sudden mainstream hit with "Float On." The song seemed so refreshing compared to every piece of post-grunge sludge on the radio, but the old school fans never were fond of band-wagoners like me. Still, I eventually got into their earlier stuff, and no song shook me quite as much as "Lives" off 2000's The Moon And Antarctica. The idea that "everyone is afraid of their on lives" always stuck with me. it's a song about the parts of life we avoid - risk, confrontation, ambition. In order to maintain contentedness, we avoid aiming for the things that might make us truly happy, because failure scares us more than mediocrity. As an awkward 14-year-old, who was deathly afraid of talking to girls, that message really stuck with me.



Elvis Costello - "I Want You"

Of course, when I finally did start talking to girls, I dealt with (and still deal with), my fair share of rejection, and that's where Elvis Costello came in. He's a therapist for the lovelorn, and while some have claimed that his lyrics are misogynist, I tend to think anyone who's unlucky in love can relate to his message. He doesn't hate women, so much as he hates love and lust, the things that create rejection in the first place. This song was the most vitriolic screed he ever wrote on the subject, and as a 16-year-old who was no one's "type," this song hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course, now that I've gotten older and discovered feminism, I now think 16-year-old me was a prick with a huge sense of entitlement who thought every girl who smiled at him in the hallway was supposed to be his girlfriend. Still, no one likes to be rejected, even in retrospect, they might have deserved it. When Costello sings "I want to know he pleases he you more than I do....I might as well as be useless for all it means to you" with all the bile in his system being put to work, you can't help but feel something.  Anyone who ever loved (or at least really really liked) someone who viewed them as a mere afterthought can understand what EC is talking about.



Nada Surf - "Always Love"

This list is looking a bit gloomy, isn't it? How about a message of hope? Of course, this song is still pretty sad in its own right, but offers a way out of the darkness. We've all reached points in our life where we run out of positivity, and anger and frustration get the better of it, and Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws understands that. While he preaches a message of "always love," he acknowledges that he himself often fails to live up to that standard ("but I never learned enough to listen to the voice that told me....). The lesson is that while you may screw up, lose your temper, and do or say something you don't regret, you can still redeem yourself. the idea isn't to be perfect, but simply to try to be a better person every day. As someone who often lets stress over school and looking for a career take over the part of my brain that tries to be a good person, that message never stops being important.



Yes - "The Revealing Science Of God (Dance of the Dawn)"

I decided to end this list with something completely out of left field - a 20-minute-long song from an album that most sensible people can't stand. Tales From Topographic Oceans was one of the albums that introduced me to progressive rock, and while it might have been unwelcoming for some, I embraced this album's ambition right away. The opening track stood out to me as easily being the best. I fell in love with it's constant tempo changes and weird chants that I tried in vain to decipher the meaning of. This song still doesn't completely make sense to me, it's beautifully strange, and pretentious in the best way, showcasing a band that was willing to do anything just to be a bit weirder than everyone else.