TYF Staff: The first albums we ever owned

As a mid-90s baby (1994 represent!), I was raised on glitter-pop girl groups and boy bands whose outfits were always coordinated and dance moves ever-synchronized. I had countless CDs from ’90s  and ’00 icons like Britney Spears, the Spice Girls and, of course, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. But I count my “first” CD as the one I bought with the cold, hard cash I’d earned as allowance my parents gave me essentially for just not being a totally terrible child. It was 2006 and I was an angsty seventh grader. Spektor’s voice was softly infectious, altogether unique, and I had that totally clichéd feeling that her words were “meant just for me.”

In retrospect, I can’t imagine what the cause of my anguish was, but I knew the power of her music. I was – and remain –  grateful for Begin to Hope not only for what it did for me on a personal level as an adolescent, but for the artists that it introduced me to: Motion City Soundtrack, Ben Folds, Paramore and Ingrid Michaelson to name a few. Begin to Hope marked the beginning (how fitting) of a musical metamorphosis for me. I learned what it meant to have a taste for music, to feel connected to an art form. Since then, my music taste has gone through many an evolution, and can currently be described as “all over the map with push-pins in ’80s rock, ’70s funk and ’60s pop.” Though I may only listen to Spektor – and to the original wave of artists with whom I associated her – once every few years, it is always with a fond memory.