Mae’s Music Picks

Whenever I watch Mae, I let her select an album off the shelf to put on. Here is a collection of music hand-picked by a baby:

(click cover for link to album)

A wonderful collection of Brazilian popular music from the ’60s put out by David Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop. I was first introduced to this album by a good friend while living in Miami, and it has gotten a lot of playtime since. I’m not sure how many times we listened to it while Mae was gestating, but I’m sure it was more than a few. Something must have gotten through to her, as she gravitated towards this album right away.

The first, but not the last, disco album (hi-NRG, even) on the list. This was one of the first things I picked for us to dance to, so it’s no wonder she would return to it. It’s been dubbed “Mae’s favorite album” by at least one person, and so far she has embodied the “Bad Girl” attitude as much as a baby can. It’s Donna Summer. What’s not to love?

Mae hasn’t hesitated to go for the jazz on the shelf, and she is a big fan of this one. I personally especially enjoy “It Could Happen to You.” Several years ago, I was back home in central PA and, on a whim, woke up first thing to make the drive out to Falling Water. I listened to this album a couple of times during the trip. The scenery of rural Pennsylvania is not all that dissimilar from parts of Japan, especially in the early morning autumn fog.

Wells Fargo was a psychedelic rock band from Zimbabwe, and this is the only album of theirs that I know of. Luckily, this one collection is more than enough. Any song with “baby” in the lyrics is perfect for dancing to with a baby, and this album has them. Even if you don’t have a baby with you, it’s a great album.

I’m going to be honest, I originally got this album because of the cover. Luckily, the album is also excellent. It is a fun blend of genres that I am unfamiliar with, so to my ear it is simply some interesting Japanese synthpop. I later learned that it was co-produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra, so there you go. This is one of Mae’s most frequent picks off the shelf.  To this day, when I think of this album, my mind goes to the cover rather than the title.

This synthy post-punk band from Belarus had a real moment during the pandemic. I understand they featured in quite a few TikToks. I think I first learned about them from the Sacred Bones newsletter when their second album was released, and I became an instant fan. Given that she was born in the coldest part of winter, I think Mae really resonates with their sound.

One of the (to me) sillier albums Mae has selected. It’s more hi-NRG disco, and the album opens with a fun cover of Thelma Houston’s cover of “Don’t Leave Me this Way.” One half of the duo, Richard Coles, is a classically trained musician, and literally every dancy disco song is followed by one showcasing his piano skills accompanied by swinging falsetto. He was also later ordained as a priest and became a published author, though I am unfamiliar with these phases of his career.

A stone cold classic. All three founding members have their hands on a few of the albums here, and I’m not sure if that speaks to Mae’s tastes or to their influence. In any case, it’s always a good time when she picks this one. Michael Jackson’s cover of “Behind the Mask” was originally supposed to appear on Thriller, but apparently there were some legal disputes over the rights. It was released posthumously instead, and these guys lost out on a fortune in royalties but I’m sure they’re alright.

I actually warned Mae off of this one several times before finally putting it on. She’s had some experience with jazz, of course, but this is pretty heady stuff. After a few days of her requesting it, I finally played it, and, sure enough, the second “Pharaoh’s Dance” started she was bopping her head. I still feel bad for underestimating her, and hopefully she won’t remember or internalize it in any way.

This is a perfect kid’s album. George Barnes rips it up on his renditions of American standards as well as some originals. “Strollin’ Slow” is a personal favorite. His takes on Pop Goes the Weasel (“Rockin’ the Weasel”), Old Dan Tucker (“Dan’s Plumb Tuckered”), and Turkey in the Straw (“Turkey Cobbler”) are hits every time. Barnes’s virtuosity shines in a wonderfully silly way on this album.

Everyone has heard this album whether they know it or not. Mae has had the unique experience of hearing “Apache” in its original form first. I don’t know if that will make her appreciate the album more or less, but for now it’s at least good to dance along to. I look forward to seeing her first Hey, I recognize that sample once she’s a little older.

Who says a baby can’t have her face melted? This live album is his earliest release, and compared to the more iconic studio albums to follow, it is a little rougher in all the ways you want a live and/or early album to be. It was even more fun listening to it with her, and I expect there to be more Mdou Moctar to come. This might be a show to take her to next time they’re in the states.

YMO is back on the list, and it’s no wonder. Their debut release is just as excellent as the follow-up, even if it doesn’t have quite as much acclaim (though it does have plenty of acclaim). I think these were the first video game sounds she’s heard? When we first got this album, we played it once or twice every day for a week until we stopped ourselves so as to not spoil it. There’s nothing not to love on this album, especially songs like “Tong Poo.”

Speaking of YMO’s first album, this one finishes with an early version of “Cosmic Surfin’,” which I have no doubt Mae picked up on. YMO really does open up a whole can of worms musically, and this will not be the end of that. While she’s only ever seen the Atlantic, this album still hits.

I’ve never actually seen Home of the Brave, and I’d only listened to this album once before Mae picked it. A friend got it for me while we were browsing Molly’s Books. It’s definitely an interesting album, and I’m glad Mae is exposing herself to the kind of stuff that even I don’t know much about. As she continues to grow, I’m sure she’ll surprise and surpass me in many other ways as well.

I was thrilled when she picked this one. Considered to be the ur–alt country album, it opens strong with “Amarillo Highway (For Dave Hickey)” and constructs a satirical survey of the Texas panhandle all the way through. Like its predecessor, this album is organized into several movements with transition songs between, though, unlike Juarez, it isn’t narrative. Solid beginning to end, plenty of the album has been covered by others, including “New Delhi Freight Train,” which is covered by (not a cover of) The Little Feat despite their version being recorded first. Sa la vey. Sa la guerre.

Why not begin with the end? Mae has certainly heard Heavy Weather, so maybe that’s why she was inclined to pick something she hadn’t. This incredibly chill sound-survey makes you feel like a globe-trotting rich person on vacation, and one who knows where the action is. Fun fact: Jaco Pastorius’s brother once took a shower at Mae’s titi’s parent’s home in West Hollywood. He isn’t on this album, but like I said, she still hasn’t picked Heavy Weather.

This is the second Luaka Bop compilation Mae has picked and the second collection of ’70s African (West African this time) psychedelic rock. It’s another hit from the label, and like the first one, we definitely had this on in the months leading to Mae’s birth. It’s not surprising that she would go for these. There are plenty of screeched “Yeah!”s on this album which are mostly within Mae’s vocal range, so we spend a lot of time imitating those while she bops around.

I didn’t know they had ever pressed this one, so I got it right away when I saw it. (The songs were originally collected in 2010, and the vinyl was released in 2025.) It’s a collection from his treehouse days, and the tracks are as rough and reverby as they ought to be. These recordings really highlight his ability to make his voice disappear into the guitar, in retreat from this cold, cold world. Mae picked this one within days of me getting it, so she must have been as excited as I was. “Clay Pigeons” also happens to be one of Birdie’s favorite songs.

This pick was destiny: not at all surprising but thrilling nonetheless. Mae is both a Rubber Fan and a Funk-a-teer, and there’s really no getting around that. One of the fondest memories of my own life is when SNACKTIME played “Munchies for Your Love” as our wedding song, and that was long before she was even a twinkle in her father’s eye, baby…

The sound of the Hammond M-3 organ is really all you need to identify this album at a great distance. Mae likes her mixed genres, and even the straightforward R&B and rock and soul sounds give way to surf and others. This album put Stax on the charts for a reason, and it’s not just because of the title track, despite what the haters on Rate Your Music would have you believe. (Even if that is true, the one song is enough of a reason to hear the whole thing.)

Mae has officially entered her “Dilla changed my life” phase, and I’m not letting her near any DJ equipment until it’s passed. It’s a stunning album in the way so many of the died-too-young musicians of exceptional talent are, though unlike most, Dilla saw his end coming. There’s probably some cosmic connection to make between lupus and Peanut Butter Wolf, but that’s too morbid for a baby’s music catalogue. It’s Stones Throw’s most widely recognized album, with (maybe) the exception of Madvillainy. If she keeps returning to it, we can just let it loop round and round and round…

Mae has been digging the alt-country lately, though this is more modern and more on the indie than the americana side of things. This was the album that started it all for Orville Peck, both formally inventive while also digging up some dusty callbacks to the cowboys of the past and especially of our cultural imagination. Like Mae, I’m a sucker for a hidden identity, and Peck simultaneously recalls the Lone Ranger (who was probably really Bass Reeves), Orion (elsewhere known as “?” and who was really Jimmy Ellis, not Elvis), as well as the secret spaces where leather and masks evoke other responses. Just who is this mysterious masked man? We don’t have any Nü Sensae albums, so Mae may never know.

I was kind of surprised to see Mae go for this one. She’s gone for the psychedelic stuff before, but she’s tended to prefer the international over the home-grown California blends. That said, we’ve spent a little bit of time listening to those other “Cosmic American” sounds (as Gram Parsons called them), so maybe the part-psych folk, part-country, part-progressive blues, jazz, etc. of Spirit’s first album is just part and parcel to that whole west coast jam, man. It’s a fun album that goes all over but isn’t too demanding of you to groove to.

Mae has actually picked this one before, but I was reluctant to put it on. It’s a heavy album for a little baby. It’s gorgeous, of course, and catchy and sexy and so very sad. I might have blushed but I wouldn’t have hesitated had she picked Let’s Get It On instead. On “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” he notes that things ain’t what they used to be. Looking around today, at the war, at those we’ve lost helpless to their own habits, at a country bent on brutalizing its most marginalized, at the cruelty, at the inhumanity, it maybe feels all too familiar, and yet, like Marvin Gaye, we can’t help but ask how did we get here? Hanif Abdurraqib in discussing the album says this: “Some people…might say that there are some ways that history returns and returns again that might make linear time inconsequential….But it is important to tease out the specifics, if for no other reason, because piling one horror on top of another serves people in power.” It is notable that there aren’t actually any question marks on this album. “What’s Going On” and “What’s Happening Brother” aren’t posed as queries but observations and even greetings. Though, there are questions throughout the album. He is thinking about the children when he asks, “Who’s willing to try to save a world that is destined to die?” I don’t know why Mae picked this one, if she was trying to give me hope or if she was asking me, reminding me to try. Either case requires me to believe in a future for her, one worth working for no matter what’s going on right now.

Mae is a little too young for Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is of course the perfect age to first encounter Rocky Horror Picture Show. Obviously the soundtrack is less bawdy than watching the film would have been, so I’m sure for her it (with some exceptions) felt more like a jolly jukebox than a schlocky, perverted masterpiece. This was Mae’s introduction to Meatloaf, so that is setting the stage for some later fun, especially if she finds our copy of Bat out of Hell.

Back in college, I found a copy of this album in a Pittsburgh Goodwill, and the cover had my name written in pen in the upper-left corner. The record cost $1 and was covered in scratches and unplayable, so I didn’t buy it despite the obvious sign. I’ve regretted it ever since. I tried to correct it a few years back by getting a copy. It’s an easy record to put on, and Mae loves it. It’s poppy and has some but not too much stylistic range (including his attempt at patois in “All Night Long”). Like me, Mae laughed when she saw the inside gatefold art.

Mae probably picked this because she was curious about the Graveface t-shirts I’m always wearing. I have several, and one of them is in rotation close to once a week, I’d say. She picked a good one to start with. This is Black Moth’s second album (I’m excluding the Satanstompingcatterpillars stuff) and the one where TOBACCO established the sound the band would be known for, at least for the next decade. I also love to see her as a Philly baby reaching back towards her ancestral Pittsburgh roots with this one. It’s also just good kids music, teaching her the basics with songs like “I am the Alphabet” and “Trees and Colors and Wizards,” where the lyrics are just him counting to 5.

Maybe Mae was looking for some Paul McCartney and not finding any Wings albums. Maybe it had been a long day and she was just looking for something easy to listen to. No complaints with this one. It’s mild and mellow and soft, and that didn’t stop her from REALLY bopping to it. The album was recorded in his home, which went against union rules and is probably why the label insisted it be self-titled as opposed to Rhodes’s preferred title Homecooking. When I put it on, I said I thought the album was called “Through a Window” or something like that, but no, it’s just self-titled.

A classic album that I’m surprised hasn’t come up yet. It’s hard to beat Carole King’s iconic singer-songwriter singing/songwriting. It’s one of those albums that even if you’ve never listened to it, you’ve probably heard most if not all of the songs elsewhere. It’s perhaps the most widely-acclaimed album we own, and I enjoy the fact that the title song is the only arguably bad one in the mix. (It’s also arguably a no-skip album.) When we put it on, I discovered that “I Feel the Earth Move” now skips quite a bit, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a copy of this album every time I’ve ever gone to the record store.

Who knew there was a Japanese lo-fi indie pop album from 2021 that would transport me so thoroughly back to my sensitive teenage years. It recalls all of the bedroom indie pop of the early-mid aughts, and I was surprised when I first learned that it came out so relatively recently. I put it on, and all of the sudden I’m 17 again: I’m picking up smoking, I’m listening to Letting Off the Happiness, I’m in love. The weight of nostalgia can be hard to bear sometimes, but other times it’s small and soft. I think Mae picked this album for the same reason I originally did, the cute kitty cat on the cover.

It’s hard to believe this album is already so old. Maybe it feels more recent because right now seems so similar to when it came out. There are the obvious political parallels, and it feels just as important today to know what it means to love the place where you live, especially when that love feels like an act of defiance or, better yet, hopes to inspire change. Abby wrote a review of the album some years ago, and it could have been written yesterday. Something that will never change is its sound: “pure, unadulterated soul. Not neo-soul, not retro-soul, but capital S Soul.” I love a cover that improves on the original, as the title song does, changing Black Sabbath’s iconic song about lost love into an even more iconic song about losing his mother. We all lost Bradley not long after this album was released, but now that Mae has discovered it, I’m sure we’ll come back to it again and again.