Just the five.
- What is the first record/tape/CD that you bought?
I don’t recall any more what the first tape was — it was one of a handful I still own. All embarassing. Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Falco embarassing. Until that point (which was junior-high-era, for those at home keeping score), mostly I dealt in mix tapes — The Cure, The Smiths, oldies of my parents that I actually liked like James Taylor and Simon & Garfunkel.
The first CD I owned was the new-age-y Best of Kitaro. It’s still my favorite music to relax by.
I bought some collectable albums — Pink Floyd, The Cure. I never bought the ones I had as a kid — they were all gifts. Splashdance, Sesame Street’s 25th anniversary album, Billy Joel, Thriller, Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, the soundtrack to Annie. Stuff like that.
- Who is your favorite all time band/singer?
Duh. The Cure.
- What have you been listening to lately?
Well, the Cure is sort of a constant. Since I heard them last summer at a Cure show: Interpol. Clearlake, a band a friend discovered overseas that I totally love. The Smiths. Pink Floyd. Marilyn Manson. Dan Fogelburg. Matchbox 20. Evanescence. Eminem. The Eagles. I listen to the radio some too, which gives me Jon Mayer, Alicia Keyes, and all those bands that sound like the Beatles. And Trent Reznor, who still sounds exactly like Trent Reznor/NIN has always sounded.
- What is your favorite radio station, what do they play, and where do they broadcast?
There’s this new station in town that I can never find on my car stereo. ‘The River’? They seem to play a lot of 80’s. And not just the singles from the 80’s but whole albums and more obscure songs in addition to the standards. I’ll listen to about anything though, and I’m a die-hard channel surfer. My typical cycle includes G105 (the top-40 station we all listened to in high school), WRAL’s 101.5 (the easy listening, fairly modern yuppie station), some rock station, another classic rock station, the Sunny 93 station that plays easy listening that’s not quite as hip as WRAL, NPR, and WUNC (the UNC-CH station, with it’s weird, ultra-hip music and… stuff), and some others. There’s a country station in there too, but I rarely stop there unless they’re playing something I know from my short country music phase (sometime around 1988).
- Can you recommend a good song or CD that everyone should listen to?
The Cure’s Japanese Whispers is just a brilliant, brilliant thing… unless you want mellow, then you should be spinning Faith. In terms of something new and different, Clearlake’s Cedars is a truly awesome album.