Bossanova Before my sister got her first car, the only people I'd traveled with were my parents. That meant their music. So on long road trips, we listened to exactly five tapes: Rock and Roll Hits of the Fifties and Sixties, volumes one through five. I was raised on doo wop and Buddy Holly, and I loved it - but I knew there must be more out there.

Then my sister got her first car, and that meant her music. She had a few mix tapes from friends. Some songs were loud and chaotic, and others were soft and harmonious, but they were all unlike anything that anybody I knew was listening to.

She gave me the one that I loved the most. It was Bossanova by the Pixies.

There were only two radio stations in the small town that I grew up in. One was country and the other was pop forty. Bossanova saved me from that. Black Francis did not simply make music; he composed. Every song had so much structure and individual strength. Every song was unique.

That album spent so much time in my walkman that it may as well have just come with it. It was all I listened to for nearly a year, and it was all I needed. It set such a standard in my taste that I could never have looked at music the same way.  ¶ 6:12 PM