Nevermind The Posers

Which album or songs best illustrated or described your days of teenage angst?

TNT
The album that best illustrated my days of teenage angst would be The Living End, self-titled album.  I listened to a lot of punk music in my teenage days, but when I listened to The Living End, it just felt different.  Maybe because the band was just getting their name out there with the single “Prisoner of Society.”  Maybe it’s because I informed my friend about this kick ass punk trio.  Maybe it’s because every single song spoke to me, but most of all, it’s because it made me feel like I could do anything in the world at the age of 16. 

Oz
There were many albums from different genres that used to play a soundtrack to my long faded teenage years.  One specific album off top that represents days of teen angst is an album by a band called Vision of Disorder.  The album is self titled and the song name is “Suffer”.  The song challenges the generation gap and its pre-conceived notions and rebels through different type of thinking expressed in the lyrics. 

Daniel-Edward
The one album that best described my days of teen angst was definitely Simple Plan’s No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls.  Songs like “Addicted” and “Worst Day Ever” perfectly evoked everyday high school teen angst and drama.  I listened to it constantly and knew the words to every song, but I haven’t really listened to any of their music in the past few years.

Mark
At the risk of sounding doom and gloom hacky, I will have to go with the first album that always comes to mind when I think of my teen angst, and that would be the album Violator by Depeche Mode.  It came out when I was seven, and although I was a fan then, the understanding of it would escape me for several more years.  But when I hit my mid-teens, the album as a whole began to take on a new meaning.  Every song seemed to speak to me, matching my moods and describing my pains and disillusionment in a lost precise and explicit detail.  It was almost the torch lighting my way down the path of feelings, which became more and more desolate thanks to girls and teen drama.  I still nearly fall apart when I hear “Enjoy the Silence,” remembering all the times that I listened to it incessantly through all the break-ups of my doomed relationships, and the loneliness that being a teen can bring.  Or “Policy of Truth”, when you deal with all the bullshit your friends can cause, or when you wish everyone would try to see things your way on “World in My Eyes”.  Or the blowing off of steam and having fun while dancing around, and mimicking guitar while listening to “Personal Jesus”.  Sometimes I think that if it weren’t for the Mode, making it through the teen years wouldn’t have been as easy. 

Orin Jones
Pantera’s “Fucking Hostile” takes it.  I don’t expect many kids to remember this one off  of the Vulgar Display of Power album, but maybe.  I must have played this song 900 times a day as loud as my headphones would go, as if by blowing out my eardrums, I was somehow getting back at the man.  (Epiphany: this is probably why I am now FUCKING DEAF.)  I tried listening to this song/album recently and just felt embarrassed…silly lyrics and predictable guitar lines.  Doesn’t mean, however, I won’t still see ’em if they ever come around again…does mean I say “What?” and “Huh?!” more than any other 31 year-old I know. ~R.I.P. Dimebag Darrell.

Angela
Maybe we all knew this was coming, but I searched my mental musical catalog and my pick for teen angst album is Green Day’s Dookie.  I know, typical, but this is the very reason as to why I am the die-hard fan that I am.  Even if I was a little young to quite grasp the meaning behind all the songs like “Chump,” “F.O.D.” and “Burnout” resonated somewhere inside my burgeoning angst and blossomed into the take-no-shit punk rock enthusiast you have today.

Hoverbee
The album that best illustrated my days of teenage angst is The Wall by Pink Floyd.  The core concepts of the album deal with the loss of a father figure, an overbearing mother figure, ridicule by peers and the end of a romantic relationship.  Although the album dealt with certain topics beyond my experience at the time (marriage, adultery, heroin use), the core concepts described the deep anxiety I felt during my adolescence.  I identified with the sincere wish to isolate oneself from the world by building a metaphorical wall.  

Klone
If I had to pick just one, I’d say it was Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream.  I may not have landed on that one during my teenage years, but thinking back, it’s the perfect mural to reflect my teenage angst.  The disc has a healthy dose of everything from seriously intense, rocking riffs that electrify your body into at least bobbing your head along with the beat, to slow, melancholy power ballads.  (Ahem, “Disarm” anyone?)  Smashing Pumpkins is the kind of band whose genius washes over you and overtime becomes a part of you, and for me, Siamese Dream always takes me back to a more angsty time in my life.  Alice In Chains’ Facelift was a very close second…so close, worth mentioning.