"More so than any of her records, again, I just find it one after another songs that just particularly move me... I'm very moved by the song 'The Man with the Child in his Eyes' - I love that song. So, it's funny, it's a lot about having children and at the time I first heard it, I had no idea that I'd ever have children. I always loved her - she seemed like a kind of punk rock folk singer to me, with that punk rock attitude, and that extraordinary voice and such beautiful songwriting and very diverse musicianship. This record for me is something that, in my teenage years, I was just engrossed in. I can't really take myself back there and say why, what started that. It was very much part of my teenage years, but it's also very much part of my life now - fuck, this is so hard! 'The Man with the Child in his Eyes', 'L'Amour Looks Something Like You', 'Them Heavy People' - all of them, 'Moving'... often it's the way the songs start, as much as anything. It's a bit like Blue; as soon as they start, you know something amazing's coming, and then her voice kicks in and it's just like heaven. Ah, it's just heavenly!"

"I found out about them from a friend in high school between my junior and senior year. He didn't know how to describe them except it sort of sounded like The Rolling Stones. I listened and I didn't hear that. It had that rootsiness to it maybe and that slight psychedelicness to it. I've listened to this album thousands of times but I don't have all of their records and I don't know what came before or after, but I do love this one. It's just a vibe the entire time. I remember being with that guy who told me about them on our way to high school one day. We were supposed to be at school at 8:30 in the morning and we met at 7:30 in the morning under some bridge to drink beer before we went to school. This is what we were listening to. I only did that once and it wasn't as fun as it sounded. But it was definitely a moment and it always stuck with me. It was a sunny day, cool out, probably a Thursday or Friday, long day of school ahead of us and we're kicking back drinking stolen beer in someone's car under bridge listing to The Perfect Prescription."

"This is track two on Beck’s Morning Phase, his ninth studio record, which I discovered after touring Radlands around America three times. I’d always appreciated Beck from a distance, but I never had an emotional connection to his music. I loved “Loser” and it was fun to spin him at an indie disco, but I didn’t have that real relationship with his music. But when this came out it blew my mind; it was such an incredible record. “It was written and recorded as a counterpart to Sea Change, his previous record. It used a lot of the same musicians and it was recorded in Nashville. It has that real blissed out, opioid induced country music feel to it - very floaty. To me, it really felt like it was his mid-life crisis record, the musical version of him buying a Bugatti and running off with his secretary. “Just like with King Crimson and Cass McCombs, Beck’s Morning Phase completely influenced Curve of the Earth and it gave us the sonic blueprint for that record. The blueprint was this woozy, washed out, ethereal, very spacious, widescreen feel. There are tinges of country there, but it’s more of a headphone stoner record."

"That is the album. It’s got all the songs on there that I love. You know, like ‘High Plains Drifter.’ That was an era of Beastie Boys that was between where they were like frat-partying animals and were like, ‘Whoa, hold up. We can really be artists with this rap thing.’ I think they were on the first album, obviously it was a breakthrough. I think this was their statement album—their first statement album of many. I am a huge fan. “To be honest, I could have gone with Check Your Head or Ill Communication since those were more my era of when I was deep in music. I think I stole my brother’s Licensed To Ill tape. The first one I bought on my own was Check Your Head. After I got that I was like, 'Oh, this is the shit.' I went back to go buy Paul's Boutique. And Paul’s Boutique, along with the other few albums I chose, just sounded like it was from another planet. It existed always. There was nothing wrong with it. The voicemail, outgoing message about Paul’s Boutique: 'We are here in Brooklyn.' It was like, this is for real, I could go there. I could call that number. It just seemed, like, magical."

"I never tire of using this film in the classroom, because there’s always more to glean from it, and I say this as someone who has seen it many, many times. Before I saw it, I had already read Todd’s script, and I did not have any understanding of what it was going to be. I just remember seeing it in New York City at a small screening, and I was in the movie for so long after that—I couldn’t shake it. I came out so hyperaware of every little thing. At the time I was living above a dry cleaner, and I became obsessed with every smell around me. Julianne Moore is amazing in the movie—is there a better performance? This is a film that, if you don’t know anything about it, you certainly won’t know where it’s going. I remember riding in a cab with some big film critic at the time who said, “You won’t believe what I saw today! Some story about a housewife who gets sick—can you believe it?” He had no idea what to make of it, but people have really revised their opinions since then. It’s so masterful, and it’s some of my favorite Todd Haynes writing—it’s so darkly funny."