Life in 10 Tracks is a feature series that is all about being injected into a moment in someone’s life through music. In it, passersby reminisce on the tracks that remind them of bad haircuts, breakups, and all of the joyful, poignant moments in between.
Margeaux Labat is known for her music discoveries and the niche recommendations she makes to her cult following. But before her career as a music curator and interviewer, she spent hours driving around with her mother and brothers, listening to everything from Björk to The Smiths — those rides, the first hint at a long career of listening, became the foundation for her eclectic musical taste. Here, she shares her first indie music discovery, the band to listen to in the fall, and the musician whose music defined her early 20s.
I have one of my earliest, most visceral music memories of this song. My mom would always play lots of different types of music while driving around in the car with me and my brothers when we were small, and an album that I always remember her playing is Björk’s Debut. I remember being especially drawn to “One Day” because of the sounds of a baby cooing in the beginning. This might sound silly, but because those were noises that a child makes, I heard that and somewhat identified with it since I was also a child. I also remember being shocked whenever I heard it because I always thought she was saying “Around the vagina” rather than “Around the volcano” in the second pre-chorus. I thought “vagina” was a really inappropriate word when I was younger.
“One Day” by Björk / Listen to the album Debut (Bjork Overseas Ltd./One Little Indian Ltd., 1993)
I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had just started third grade when my family evacuated due to Hurricane Katrina. After that, we bounced around to a bunch of different places before eventually settling in a really small town in rural Alabama called Montevallo. During that time, I remember my mom always playing The Cars’ Complete Greatest Hits compilation when driving me to school. I vividly remember the song “Touch and Go” because I thought it was super weird-sounding, like nothing I had ever heard before, which I later attributed to the song’s differing time signatures. The verses are also pretty off-kilter and even somewhat eerie-sounding (to a nine-year-old, at least) before settling into the chorus, which is bouncy and melodic in typical Cars fashion. It’s still one of my favorite songs!
“Touch and Go” by The Cars / Listen to the album Panorama (Elektra/Asylum Records, 1980)
Another album my mom would always play for me and my brothers is Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega. As a family, we definitely had our collective favorite songs on the album, like “Ironbound / Fancy Poultry” and “Calypso,” but my personal favorite song was “Gypsy.” I always loved the melody of the chorus, and I always found the songwriting so pure and tender, so bittersweet and full of vivid imagery. This was one of my favorite songs when I was in the fifth grade. I remember watching a fan-made lyric video of it on YouTube that was set to scenes from The Sims. This song marked the beginning of my love for the “singer-songwriter” genre.
“Gypsy” by Suzanne Vega / Listen to the album Solitude Standing (A&M Records Inc., 1987)
Astrud Gilberto’s Finest Hour is another album that would always be playing in the car when I was young, and it served as one of my early introductions to not only Astrud Gilberto and bossa nova, but to music that wasn’t sung in English. The first track on the CD was “Tristeza,” so whenever I listen to that song and hear the first opening “la”s, it always takes me back to those moments.
“Tristeza” by Astrud Gilberto / Listen to the album Astrud Gilberto’s Finest Hour (UMG Recordings, 2001)
Vampire Weekend was my first real exposure to indie music which I discovered on my own accord, outside of my family unit. I remember being in the 8th grade and going to the mall with my friends. We’d often go into stores like Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister, and I remember going into Hollister one day and seeing Vampire Weekend’s Contra album on the shelves underneath the register. I thought the album cover was really striking, and at the time, I had been seeing the music video for “Giving Up The Gun” constantly, since I watched AMTV on MTV while getting ready for school every morning. I decided to buy the CD and listened to it when I got home, and I was blown away by it. I hadn’t heard anything like it up until that point. To this day, Contra is one of my all-time favorite albums.
“Giving Up The Gun” by Vampire Weekend / Listen to the album Contra (XL Recordings, 2010)
Right when I started my freshman year of high school, I remember my oldest brother bringing me to my best friend’s house to pick something up from her, and on the way home, he said, “You know, whenever fall rolls around, you gotta listen to The Smiths.” He then put on a CD, the Hatful of Hollow compilation, and that’s when I heard their music for the first time. “William, It Was Really Nothing” is the first track on the compilation, and once again, I was blown away! I thought it was really cool and had never heard lyricism in that style before. He eventually shared the mp3 files with me, which I downloaded onto my iPod and would always listen to during gym class when running or walking. From that moment on, The Smiths became one of my favorite bands ever.
“William, It Was Really Nothing” by The Smiths / Listen to the album Hatful of Hollow (Warner Music UK, 1986)
During my junior and senior years of high school, I was obsessed with this online radio website called Songza, which had tons and tons of curated playlists based on mood, time of day, activities, etc. I remember one night in my senior year, I was listening to a playlist on the site, and “The Fox and the Snow” by Belle & Sebastian came on. I was immediately transfixed by its tender, bittersweet, melancholic lyrics and overall feel, and once again I had never really heard anything like it. Shortly after, I listened to all of their album If You’re Feeling Sinister and I ended up loving the entire thing. Every song is perfect to me, but the first track, “The Stars of Track and Field” always holds a special place in my heart and is probably my favorite track on the album. I was going through a hard time emotionally towards the end of my senior year, and this album gave me comfort and solace. In 2019, I was lucky enough to see Belle & Sebastian perform If You’re Feeling Sinister in full at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, and to this day it’s one of my all-time favorite live shows.
“The Stars of Track and Field” by Belle and Sebastian / Listen to the album If You’re Feeling Sinister (Jeepster Recordings, 1998)
When I went off to college, my individual music taste really began to deepen and grow. I remember being alone in my freshman dorm room one evening, listening to my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify and hearing “That’s Us/Wild Combination” by Arthur Russell for the first time. It was the first time I heard anything by Arthur Russell, and I immediately fell in love. When I went home for the holiday break, one of my brothers asked what I had been listening to, and I mentioned that I had recently heard something by Arthur Russell that I loved. I was still using my iPod Classic as my primary means of listening to music on the go, so he ended up giving me a bunch of files of Arthur Russell’s music, since he was also a fan. Those files included the Calling Out of Context compilation, which I listened to in full and became obsessed with. It’s still one of my favorite collections of music, and Arthur Russell is probably my all-time favorite solo artist. “That’s Us/Wild Combination” is a song that I can listen to over and over and it never gets old to me.
“That’s Us/Wild Combination” by Arthur Russell / Listen to the album Calling Out Of Context (Audika Records, 2004)
If I had to pick one artist to define my music taste in my early 20s, it’d be Alex G. I had always heard Alex’s name around my college campus, usually in my college radio meetings, but I wasn’t really exposed to Alex’s music until I saw him live at a music festival in Texas in 2016. I remember seeing him perform “Kicker” and the crowd loving it. From that moment on, I became head-over-heels obsessed with his music. I’d describe my love for his music as all-consuming at that point in my life. I would always go see him live, sometimes even driving out of town by myself to catch his shows. Like most Alex G fans, I not only listened to all of his albums but dug deep into his unreleased catalog, which has some of my favorite Alex G songs. But if there’s one track that’d define my Alex G obsession, it’d probably be “Memory” from Trick.
“Memory” by Alex G / Listen to the album Trick (Lucky Number Music Limited, 2015)
Due to COVID and the resulting quarantines, 2020 was a deep period of individual musical expansion and discovery for me. I was living in Austin, Texas when the pandemic started, and I was in my apartment cooking and cleaning a lot. One day when I was doing the dishes and listening to my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify, I heard a song off of Sweet Trip’s 2003 album Velocity: Design: Comfort. I went on to listen to the full album, and it became one of the definitive albums of my pandemic experience. Sweet Trip quickly became one of my favorite bands; I’d always go for long walks or bike rides and listen to their music on a loop. Their song “Chocolate Matter” was an immediate favorite and is still one of my favorite songs, always reminding me of those long walks I’d take on those hot, sunny days of isolation and deep introspection.
“Chocolate Matter” by Sweet Trip / Listen to the album Velocity: Design: Comfort. (Darla Records, 2003)