Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

1. The CureDisintegration

I like it because it’s beautiful and sad and everything about it is just exquisite, but also because it reminds me of a time in my life. It’s been like a friend to me. I guess I first heard it in 1994. It kept me company all through my hard teenage years living in Shelby, North Carolina as a goth teenager and I connected with it so much that when I listen back to it now it still feels like a friend that’s travelled with me. I feel like everybody that really connects to Disintegration is in a little club or something, like oh man! They get it! One time that was memorable is when I saw The Cure in North Carolina and there was this really drunk guy behind me and my friends singing all the words, he started saying how he owned these assault rifles and was like ‘I bet I’m the only person here who owns these kind of guns but we all love The Cure’” He was remarking how out of place he was and just embracing everybody, and I was like this is kind of funny that this band brings people together, I don’t want to be judgemental but he looked like a Trump supporter.

You wouldn’t necessarily expect that kind of person to like moody British rock music sung by a man in makeup.

Exactly! I was surprised, I hope it’s not coming across as being judgy about somebody but yeah it really surprised me and I was like, ‘you know what Mary you can’t judge a book by its cover’.

Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Georgia, , Clark, Lee Buford, Bat for Lashes, Ian Rankin, Amanda Palmer
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