That’s a loaded title. You might be thinking –
i. it never stops raining in this city, so more like 5 Albums For Living In Seattle…
ii. excuse me, albums? Who still listens to albums?
iii. what the hell is wrong with Folklore and Evermore?
If you agreed with one or more of these sentiments, I understand where you’re coming from. Allow me to launch into a rambling disclaimer!
First of all, it’s a tough time to be a Seattleite, especially in the U-District. I’m already prone to mood swings, as a February Pisces (<3) and spring weather patterns here really keep me on my toes, much like pressing shuffle on my Liked Songs. You know what they say about April showers...we're all just waiting for May with our fists clenched in the sleeves of our windbreakers. I wouldn't survive here if I didn't have that twisted penchant for precipitation shared by many PNW princesses, but I'd also be lying if I said I haven't been daydreaming about jorts weather. I'm writing this article to make it a little easier. When you're holding your breath for summer, what kind of music can still romanticize cold wind on a gray Thursday? When you've run through your go-to rainy day playlist (Hozier, HS1, maybe some Lana Del Rey) so many times that the opening chords of "the 1" make you feel like sleeping forever, what do you listen to?
Maybe it’s time to change it up. Maybe it’s time to start really listening to albums again, like it’s 2009 and your most prized possession is a clunky combined stereo-CD player. You know, the round metallic one, with the plastic handle and the netted speakers like dragonfly eyes.
I can’t speak highly enough of the album lifestyle. I’m just a girl…with one hundred and seventy two playlists. That is too many playlists. Some of them are trustworthy, a few of them are masterpieces, but most of them are overeager and overly specific jumbles of heartstrings, knotted and tangled like your oldest pair of wire headphones. I like to escape from the messy bedroom that is my Spotify profile by hanging out in the Albums tab. I feel sneaky and accomplished when I listen to a record from start to finish – that’s what artists want for their art, for it to be seen and felt comprehensively. Every wild-eyed, work-in-progress musician has a vibe they’re trying to curate. I don’t know if the following artists necessarily had “it’s f*cking raining again” as their end goal with these compilations, but that’s the pipeline around here. Which brings us (finally) to my top picks, in no particular order, for the next time you have to match yet another outfit to your raincoat.
No. 1: Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
This album was released the month I was born, and I grew up around it the way a tomato vine grows up around its stake. Norah sings of dreamy lovers and nightingales and rain falling on a tin roof, writing your soul into words with “Lonestar” and unclasping your bra with “I’ve Got to See You Again.” Her voice is smooth and sleepy, spread like warm butter over melodies made of the prettiest, laziest piano progressions. It’s the kind of music I imagine Marie Antoinette would take a bath to. (Kirsten Dunst’s Marie Antionette, anyway.)
No. 2: Atlanta Millionaires Club – Faye Webster
Faye is all of us. The album’s opening lyric, “Looks like I’ve been crying again,” hooks you immediately with its dryly funny vulnerability. It’s hard to label her sound – music blogs call it Americana, alternative country, or even R&B, but she has an inimitable sense of campiness that transcends categorization. As I write this article (and as rain pelts the window) my sister’s roommate compares her music to Cigarettes After Sex. I see that; both artists underscore yearning in their work. But Faye casts a spell of high-femme melancholy that makes this rain feel like a friend. A tipsy friend, whose hair you stroke as they sob adorably into your lap.
No. 3: Quiet the Room – Skullcrusher
Skullcrusher rules the in-between spaces. I found her music by aggressively screenshotting everything Ethel Cain puts on her Instagram story. Like Ethel, she’s just…ethereal. Listening to this album feels like being a little girl, digging in your grandparents’ backyard, stubby fingers unearthing an old wooden box in the mud. No one questions you as you carry this new mystery up the stairs to open alone, but even so your body tingles like a deer crossing the road in the dark. I can’t tell you what’s in the box – you have to find out for yourself.
No. 4: 21 – Adele
This one’s obvious. As a freshly minted 21-year-old, I just want to remind young women everywhere that this now-vintage jewel has the power to connect you to every past version of yourself. For me, “Set Fire to the Rain” is screaming and dancing around with my cousins like witches in a séance. We were nine-year-old girls who wouldn’t know what 21 would feel like for a long time, but we knew there was something ferally spiritual about the cracks in Adele’s smoky voice. I promise you, playing this album top to bottom gives even the gloomiest day a sense of maturity and importance.
No. 5: I Need to Start a Garden – Haley Heynderickx
Anyone familiar with Haley’s work is strung out and helpless in the face of her songwriting. Someday, hundreds of years from now, archaeologists will conclude that she was a forest witch. I Need to Start a Garden is her only album thus far, and the title speaks for itself. I think about starting a garden every time it rains. I wish I was a forest witch instead of a business major, living in a cottage in the woods instead of an apartment building where I pay for laundry. Haley’s voice shakes with its own talent, streaming through your mind in soulful shades of green. Like every record in this list, sitting through the whole thing of it is an emotional experience. You’ll come away feeling one with the rain.
Thanks for tuning in! For all our sakes, I hope the sun comes out soon. In the meantime, let these albums give you patience.