What's Your Favorite Record?

This is me. Hi.

In greater detail, this is me with three days unwashed, straightened hair holding on to a copy of one of my Favorite of All Time Ever records in beautiful yellow vinyl with white and pink marbling. This copy of Beat Happening's You Turn Me On cost me a bit more than I would like to admit to having spent on a record seeing as I am not exactly in the financial state to be spending any money at all on anything other than rent and bills and possibly food and tampons, but I essentially am an irrational young adult whose priorities are mixed up. All said and done, this record cost me a pair of quarters shy of $25 and, let me tell you, it was worth it.

The record, physically and audibly, is simple and beautiful. The embellishments are subtle and fuzzy. I want to laze around the apartment with the love of my life (not just summer love, I mean apartment love, love love) while listening to this record. Maybe not lazing but doing an activity that isn't much of anything like, say, rearranging books.

You know Beat Happening. Everyone knows Beat Happening. It's that warm tingle in the bridge of your nose when you've met a cute somebody who has a skinned knee and squints a lot and just wants to walk quietly in a park with you, but you both end up on the beach instead, digging your toes into the sand, past that warm layer and deep into the more compact, water-cooled layer while your bikes are resting nearby somewhere and you don't even mind that it's getting late and there's sand in your trousers because that tingle* in your nose bridge is lasting for more than a moment. This is it. Everyone knows that, right? Some of us could pretend to and ache for it until it happens, oh god, if it ever happens, this deceptively simple kind of love, and really, Beat Happening is it. This band, this record, is one of the few that breaks and reassembles my feeble, little heart.

*Or it may only be allergies.