19 years old today. When Pulp’s “This is Hardcore” hit the record stores, I was already 5 years smitten with front-man Jarvis Cocker, but this was the noise that bit me hard, and I got hooked. In fact, YGIM fell in so much love with the title track it made me realize no boy could ever compete with what music does to me – not even if they were the very musicians who made me my music.

As I write this 19 years later, nearly 3 years since telling Jarvis Cocker during our Coachella interview that I’d been saving myself for him when I was 14 (he blushed, it was awkward, I reveled in giddy delight), I’m struck at just how much the tracks piano kills me, so thoroughly shredding me apart. “Its what men in stained raincoats pay for…” It certainly is. Still.