This album feels like a long lost relative: both familiar and brand new. From the opening track with Suzanne, I sighed a breath of relief as if to say “oh thank god” even though I never heard it before and that sentiment carried through the rest of the album. Especially with the chaos that my phone is bringing me right now, a peaceful album, sonically, is exactly what I needed. One where the words demanded attention so that my mind could not wander.

In the list of “cool things I’ve stolen from my parents”, this album on cassette is one of them! My mom bought this her senior year of high school with her waitress job money in 1989 and now it sits in a chest of keepsakes because I am too scared to ruin it. So fun to return to something I haven’t listened to in full in I don’t even know how long! If I ignore all the rampant misogyny in the lyrics, and man, there is A LOT, it’s still a really fun album. Who doesn’t love screaming along to Fight For Your Right? Or No Sleep Til Brooklyn? They’re fucking classics! There was one lyric I just literally cannot get behind early in the album about being attracted to underage girls. Yuck. This really is of it’s a time, but fun to revisit regardless.