Vanessa-approved 🖤🥀

Four of my discerning girlfriend's fave albums

I thought I was a hater until I met my girlfriend. Vanessa is the most discerning woman on the planet. In comparison, I am easy and indiscriminate! Well, no, these are not words anyone would ever use to describe me. But! For every ten albums I become obsessed with, Vanessa likes one of them. She famously hates my beloved: Grimes, FKA Twigs, Charli xcx, SZA, Kanye West, Rihanna, Bad Bunny, and Kendrick Lamar. She refuses to figure out who Frank Ocean even is. She doesn’t fuck with post-Born to Die Lana. She hated Beyoncé until, after four years, I finally convinced her how wonderful Renaissance is for cardio, and she now listens to Bey to work out—but no other time. She can’t understand my need for music playing at all times, and is unimpressed by 99% of what I play for her. We do, however, share some important overlap. We both love Chromatics and the Cure, Bjork and Julee Cruise, Portishead and the Smiths, Mary Lattimore and Radiohead. We both think Lorde’s Virgin was mad-underrated, and we both adore Addison Rae’s joie de vivre. Here are four of Vanessa’s favorite albums that I’d never actually listened to before, but I now freaking stan.

Maxinquaye by Tricky (1995)

Bristol-born Tricky’s 1995 debut solo album basically invented trip-hop. Named for his late mother, Maxine Quaye, the record is defined by its murky drum loops, warped vinyl crackle, and Martina Topley-Bird’s intimate vocals drifting in and out like someone talking in the next room. (The record also features vocals by Miss Alison Goldfrapp, below.) It’s smoky and haunted and feels tailor-made for Vanessa stomping around Paris in Doc Martens at age 19.

Walking Wounded by Everything But the Girl (1996)

Absolutely skipless and probably my fave discovery of the bunch, Walking Wounded is English duo Everything But the Girl’s 1996 pivot from jazzy sophisti-pop to moody electronica. Built around Ben Watt’s clubby production and Tracey Thorn’s cool vocals, the beats are crisp and minimal and chic as hell. It feels urban and solitary and soothing, like watching London blur past from the backseat of a cab in the rain. It’s restrained, stylish, quietly melancholic, it’s very Vanessa!

Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp (2000)

I’m a big Black Cherry fan but I’d never listened to Alison Goldfrapp’s more critically acclaimed Felt Mountain. The first thing that jumped out at me, a cringe millennial, was that the intro on “Human” is sampled by Kanye on “Freestyle 4.” But I can promise that’s not why Vanessa likes it! The north London singer’s 2000 debut is all sweeping strings, dusty beats, and vocals that make Alison sound like a glamorous ghost in a spy film. The record feels alpine and surreal, like velvet curtains opening onto some icy, imaginary landscape. It’s moody, it’s European, it’s cinematic, it’s wintry, it’s Vanessa 101.

Bella Donna by Stevie Nicks (1981)

As much as Vanessa loves to pretend she’s European, she is, at the end of the day, a third-generation Valley Girl and witchy Californian who “sees people’s souls.” So while the first three albums are British, we’re ending with Southern California music at its finest. Stevie Nicks’s 1981 solo debut Bella Donna sounds like the wind blowing through the dream catcher in your 1969 Mustang convertible on a hot summer day. It’s music for charging your crystals under the full moon, for air-drying your caftan in the backyard of your Laurel Canyon bungalow, for doing a seance to bring back your dead cat in Joshua Tree, or binge-buying turquoise in an energy vortex in Sedona. It’s lush and emotional and a little occult in that Stevie way, glowing with love, loss, and poetry. Bella Donna is Vanessa’s California.