Birthday

Not sure how it happened (well, yes, I know how it happened), but today I'm the mom of a teenager. Happy 13th birthday, spawn!

So Friday evening I went down to Musimundo, which is like Tower Records here, to look for a total of 13 CDs for my little teen. After the laptop tragedy of last month in which we lost 6,000+ songs on iTunes, not to mention the entire hard drive, spawn and I have been feeling a little morose, a little gobsmacked, as we shuffle about in our lives without an accompanying soundtrack.

I knew picking out 13 decent CDs wasn't going to be simple. This was no Amoeba on Sunset after all! First I had to scoot around aisles and displays of High School Musical 2, fighting the impulse to knock them down. Then there were the muy guapo Latin singers whose CD covers followed me wherever I meandered. I bet they sound as sweet as they look, but that's another research project altogether.

So after about an hour and a half, I left with these babies. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.

1. The Cure Greatest Hits (yes, I know that greatest hits are the refuge of losers, but it was all they had)

2. The Velvet Underground & Nico, Andy Warhol

3. The White Stripes, Icky Thump

4. Make Some Noise, The Campaign to Save Darfur: The Songs of John Lennon (featuring a lot of cool people)

5. Coldplay, a Rush of Blood to the Head (I swore years ago I'd never own Coldplay...does this mean Barbara Streisand isn't too far behind...?)

6. Arcade Fire, Funeral (oh how I heart this album)

7. Green Day, American Idiot (replacement album)

8. Smashing Pumpkins, Zeitgeist (woohoo, never thought I'd see another album by these guys...)

9. This Is It: The Best of Faith No More (introducing band to spawn)

10. Gorillaz, Demon Days (replacement album)

11. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greatest Hits (spawn's been singing Californication a lot lately...is he trying to tell me he's homesick or have we just seen too many billboards of that David Duchovny show?)

12. The Beatles, Love

13. Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree (this was recommended to me by my awesome 6-year-old student, Lars)

[A side note: It's amazing how alive and well the 80s is at Musimundo. Bands I hadn't thought of in decades (OK so that's a blatant lie; after all, I do own the wondrous Magic Mic) were overflowing with greatest hits and retrospectives and sometimes--horror of horrors--a dedication "in the style of..." album.]

Spawn also got Guitar Hero for his birthday (bought with the money Titi Lalah sent--thank you, Sarah!), which is this ridiculously weird music video game for PlayStation 2 where you simulate popular rock songs on a miniature Gibson. I tell ya, you haven't lived until you've watched a 13 year old rockin' out to "Surrender" by Cheap Trick. MY EYES! A positive fallout is that he's starting to mention wanting guitar lessons. That's rather like me vowing to take voice lessons after copious hours karaoking. It's heartwarming how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...

Gotta go--he says he's dedicating a song to me called "Mother" by some band called Danzig. Um.