One of our favorite online magazines is Pitchfork. We’ve been visiting that site since the beginning of our relationship. It’s always been a good way to find new music, keep up with the bands we like, or to find out interesting things about musicians we obsess over. Recently, they started doing a feature called 5-10-15-20 where an artist shares the albums that defined the different ages in their life, and how that has in turn played a role in the music they create.

Well, we aren’t creating any music these days, but we thought it would be fun to go all the way back to the beginning of our relationship and talk about the music and albums that defined us at different points. It’s been just about 14 years for us, and that’s quite a lot of music. Lets focus on the important ones, shall we?

2004 – Mates of State: Team Boo
Right around the time I was asking Christina to be my girlfriend we spent a lot of days and nights driving around listening to Mates of State’s Team Boo. They were (and still are) a husband and wife making fun songs that we sure loved to sing and dance to while we drove around Long Island as teenagers. Some might even say, they inspired us to start documenting and blogging with their old blog that used to follow their tours, recording updates, and the birth of their baby. We became kind of obsessed with them and we can thank them for all those crazy car rides blasting “I’ve Got This Feelin”.

2007 – The National: Boxer
It wouldn’t be a series of defining albums without at least one album from The National. They are the one band we both completely agree on. We’ve traveled to see them in different states, watched Matt Berninger howling “Mr. November” from Radio City in NYC and listen to at least one of their songs on a daily basis. I don’t know what we would’ve done had this album not come out. I really don’t. I wonder what our time would’ve been filled with because the amount of times we’ve played this album is quite scary. Ha! Is there a better song to come out in the past 10+ years than “Fake Empire”? I really don’t think so!

2010 – The Tallest Man on Earth: The Wild Hunt
I remember the day this album “leaked”. Do albums still leak? I used to be more on top of that sort of thing. Anyway, the day this album leaked was March 1st and I remember that first song where he says “There is a crow moon comin’ in well you keep looking out. It is the hollow month of March now sweeping in…” and feeling like the album came at exactly the right moment. We had already been pretty intrigued with Kristian Matsson. We were lucky enough to catch him at Bowery Ballroom that year as well. His raspy, Dylan-esque voice was our favorite to sing along with back then and we’re still following along with him today.

2011 – Tennis: Cape Dory
We definitely have a thing for couples making music together, and when Tennis released some lo-fi beach jams, specifically a song called “Marathon”, we were hooked. That demo (I’m not even sure it was officially released) was followed by their first proper record, Cape Dory. We were so inspired by a couple who spent seven months sailing together, writing songs about it and releasing the album on a cold New York day in January making us all long for the summer. I’m pretty sure we played this album all through the winter, spring, and summer that year. When we got engaged in the summer of 2011, we decided we would eventually have our first dance at our wedding be to the song “Pigeon” (it’s prettier than it sounds!). It was really special to us and we were lucky enough to see them numerous times over the years.

2013 – Arcade Fire: Reflektor
2013 was a big year for us. We got married in April and then soon after packed up and moved across the country to Phoenix. Our transition wasn’t an easy one. We felt completely out of place in a new city and found it difficult to meet people at first. I feel like the turning point came right around New Year’s eve just before 2013 came to an end. It was just the two of us, we didn’t know anyone and no one knew us, so we went to a random bar and when they played Reflektor, we let it all out. Months of stressing out over our move was all released through the art of dance. Ha! Our blog launched six months later, so thank you Arcade Fire for the nudge. 😉

2017 – Molly Burch: Please Be Mine
In 2017, we took our first trip to Paris. It was one of those trips that we’d spoken about since we first started dating. It was a trip we were never sure we’d actually ever take and when we finally did, it was everything we hoped it would be. We stayed for two weeks and I remember while we were getting ready to head out from our Airbnb one day, I read about this artist who just put out her first album. I was intrigued by the review I read, so I gave it a listen. We listened to “Try” like 200 times that trip and another million since then. The whole album is great, we listen to it at least once a week while we have breakfast, and it will always be attached to our first time in Paris. It’s become a staple in our house.

We hope you enjoyed a trip down memory lane with us. We thought this would be a fun way to share some stories from the start of our relationship. Do you guys have any albums that mean a lot to you? We’d love to hear about it in the comment below!