Six Song Six-Pack - Albums To Get You Through Your Twenties

#firstworldproblems


Until at least the middle of the twentieth century there would be no need for "music to get you through your twenties". Once most people graduated high school, or (for those lucky few) college, they would marry, get a job (or, if you were female, quite your job) start having kids and work till retirement. It was a straightforward life with perhaps less self-discovery but also less self-exploration and its attendant self-recrimination.


For a lot modern Americans however, the twenties are an increasingly complex period containing a slow and erratic shift from adolescence to mature adulthood. If you're in your twenties with a college education odds are you're spending that post-grad decade trying different jobs, cities, mates, ideas and attitudes on for size before taking the big plunge. It's a life of late nights AND early meetings. Paying bills AND playing in bands. You're not quite ready to give up the ghost and "settle down" but you're also working your ass off to make a career and define a place for yourself in the world. It's not as bad as being a teenager but, like pretty much every stage in life, once you're there you find that it's nowhere as easy as you thought it'd be.


If there ever were a medium that would understand the feeling of being an overgrown teenager (or immature adult?) it's rock n' roll. Here are six of best records that will help get you through your third decade alive.

Windy City Christmas Holiday - The On Warmer Music 2011 Christmas Mix

I'm an only child. Indeed, the only offspring on one whole side of my family. Needless to say, this meant that Christmas was a holiday that was kind to me while growing up. But even looking beyond the consumptive orgy that went with it, Christmas was a favorite time of mine. The ritualistic nature of the holiday, the anticipation, the changing seasons, all of these things held my imagination as a child, creating warm associations that still tug mercilessly at me every December.

My family had a few old Christmas tapes that my father had made years before I was born for winter drives from Chicago to New Jersey with my mother to visit his family. They were mixtures of hymns, secular standards and a few (relatively) newer holiday pop songs. The juxtaposition of old and new along with the pacing and selection that is a feature of any good mix lent the tapes a timeless quality. Those tapes were Christmas to me as a child.