30-21: 40 things* I’ve loved in 40 years
*Not people! Read 40-31 >
I’m back for night two of this trip down a nostalgic and oft traumatic memory lane. Let’s hit it.
30. Linkin Park
Let’s begin in one of the darkest sections of my personal history. I’m 15. I’ve left my home country and moved to Australia. My family is fractured by mental health struggles and years of pent up tension and anger and needs unvoiced. Thanks to hormones and a deep sense of inadequacy, my mind is a maelstrom. On my first day at my new school, I have a panic attack in the back seat of the car. My parents tell me to get out and face it. I feel very angry. Sad. Lost. Then along comes Linkin Park and they literally give voice to the inside my brain.
Every time I feel mad, I retreat to my room and blast them. I let Chester (💔) do the shouting for me. Listening to this music now makes me feel so much compassion for baby @courtpet, I wish I could whisper back across the decades that it’s all going to be alright.
29. The National
On a happier and more indie note, Boxer is an extremely epic album, the soundtrack to my 20s. I remember seeing The National at The Powerstation and Matt Berninger climbing up to the balcony from the stage. Years later I saw them again with my husband at Vector Arena, and Matt walked straight into the crowd, right past us. When he sent his wired mic back to the front it smashed my husband in the head, like some kind of brutal blessing from the soft rock gods. I was telling husb about this list and he said, “is there a better back-to-back combo on an album than Green Gloves followed by Slow Show?” I think not.
28. Lux
There’s going to be some recency bias showing up in this list, but with good reason. Things I’ve consumed this year have felt genuinely transformative, as if I’ve emerged from the crysalis of new motherhood and these works of art have enabled me to spread my wings and re-enter the world of thought. I have fallen for things harder this year than I ever have in my life, and that is no small statement. Maybe it’s perimenopause? Or maybe 2025 has just produced some very very good art that I’ve been lucky enough to discover.
I wrote in this post, a little flippantly, that Lux was “the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” That was after my first listen. This album is the opposite of a slow burn. It begins like a whisper in your ear and evolves rapidly into a feeling akin to standing on the edge of an ocean cliff with salt air forcing its way into your lungs. Lux is thrilling, even adrenaline-inducing — an extremely unique combination of genres, styles, and languages. It’s as if Rosalía set out to make an album that deliberately breaks every rule. Perhaps her only goal was a vision of herself unleashed. First listen: alone, through headphones. Second listen: outdoors, loud, with drink in hand.
The only reason I haven’t written about Lux earlier is because I feel like I’m still processing it. Also, I stumbled across this video essay from TikTok’s most polarising pop culture critic (Zachary aka the Swiftologist) and I felt like his thoughtful take couldn’t be improved upon.
27. Florence + the Machine
I don’t know if I discovered Florence first, or my friend Alex did. I just know that The Dog Days are Over is synonymous with her in my head. What a breakout song. What a distinctive voice. What a a stage presence. I feel like Florence was one of the most impactful early examples of unapologetic femininity for me. An embodiment of womanhood that was both mystical and imbued with strength. For a girl who grew up watching Disney princesses and flat female characters, the existence of this witchy, dramatic, loud persona was very big for my brain. The epiphany it brought about: “oh, I could allow myself to be more than the stories I’ve been told all my life.”
I still remember when Ceremonials came out. I was living in a flat with one friend and one soon-to-be-problematic situationship. I bought the CD and read the essay inside by Emma Forrest. It spoke to me. I felt as she did: awe bordering on jealousy. There was a sense that Florence was telling me who I could become with those songs — or at least, she was telling me about the version of myself that might emerge if I could just get out of my own head.
26. Magician / The Riftwar Saga
This is a classic fantasy series, and one I often return to. It’s an underdog story – about an orphan boy called Pug who becomes the most powerful sorcerer in two worlds. It’s also about friendship and how it evolves over the course of a lifetime. I’m lucky to still have a few childhood friends and one life companion: my twin. I think there is so much beauty and heartbreak in the way our most treasured relationships change as we grow and the world acts upon us (and vice versa).
On the surface, Magician is a ripping yarn about good vs. evil, love vs. hate, you know, the usual. But like all the best stories, when you scratch beneath the surface you find a believable human story; one in which the characters act the way you think you might act, if ever faced with extraordinary circumstances. It’s a coming-of-age story that I read as I was coming-of-age. It taught me a lot about not holding on too tightly.
(I’m still holding onto my copy from 1997, though.)
25. The Arcade Fire — The Suburbs
I think this is one of my favourite albums of all time, but it’s an interesting anomaly in my personal canon because it didn’t help me process life in the moment, rather it cast a glamour over my past. It offered a new, nostalgic vision of my childhood in the suburbs.
The clincher for me was the promo they did for it, called The Wilderness Downtown. It’s still the most emotionally powerful interactive marketing concept I’ve seen. Brilliantly executed. It’s inexplicably still alive on the internet. Do it! (You will need to allow pop-ups).
24. Andor
This is a big call, but I have Andor here in place of Star Wars. It’s a spin-off series, the story of the character you meet in the film Rogue One. The tale of the origin of the Rebellion. It stars Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and he’s brilliant — I hope he gets his Golden Globe after being outrageously snubbed at the Emmys. All the characters have such depth and nuance. Andor offers all the fun of the Star Wars universe but with real emotional weight. Season 1 is honestly perfect television: heartbreak, murder, love, revenge, an impossible heist, a prison break. Cassian is a perfectly flawed hero. I love it so much. Writing this makes me want to watch it again. A masterpiece.
23. Live
We’ve gone back to my teenage years again. Whiplash! God this band meant so much to me. I used to fall asleep to Dance With You every night (it was the last track on The Distance to Here). I never had a clue they were technically a Christian band, but I guess I was a fan of them at a time when I was looking for some kind of spiritual outlet, and my extremely atheistic upbringing didn’t provide many options. The anthemic nature of Lightning Crashes, Dolphin’s Cry, Run to the Water. The fragility of Ed’s voice in Turn My Head, Overcome, Dance With You. It’s no wonder I had a religious experience of sorts seeing Live, live on my 18th birthday, after years of devotion.
Also I was very affected by this video edit they released in the days following 9/11. It kind of brought home what 14-year-old me unconsciously understood — that the world was forever altered.
22. Stranger Things
I’ve put this here in the hope that the final season lives up to its promise. We haven’t started watching it yet. I absolutely love these kids and their 80s world and their connection to each other and the rising stakes of their saga. Season 1 set the tone, but I think Season 4 was my favourite. Eddie Munson. Running Up that Hill. Hopper’s escape from Russian prison. Eleven taking down helicopters with her mind. Pleeeeease don’t. fuck. up. the. final. season.
Honestly I’ll probably add to this write-up once I’ve finished it all, when I’m hopefully feeling emotional in a good way and not outraged like I was at the end of Game of Thrones.
21. The Matrix
How could this not be here? It changed culture. It’s iconic from start to finish. May I also talk about marketing twice in one post and say that the whatisthematrix.com guerilla campaign is etched in my memory. So clever. Also, Neo was cool, but Trinity? A dream in black PVC.