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1 NEIL YOUNG Harvest 1972 (Reprise) '''The Needle and the Damage Done' changed my whole world—that you could have such sad lyrics with such happy music.''

2 BOB DYLAN Blood on the Tracks 1975 (Columbia) ''I needed to somehow not go into therapy, so I started writing songs, and Blood on the Trackstaught me to play guitar.''

3 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN The River 1980 (Columbia) ''I'd never heard music like this. I came from the Caribbean, so I'd been raised on calypso music — white guys in pain (Young, Dylan, Springsteen) was just a total revelation to me.''

4 BLONDIE Parallel Lines 1978 (Chrysalis) ''The first album I ever bought. Don't worry, though, I'm not really that cool, 'cause the first single I bought was 'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool' [by Little Jimmy Osmond, 1972].''

5 KELLY JOE PHELPS Shine Eyed Mister Zen 1999 (Rykodisc) ''I love these songs, all these stories with weird, dark characters.''

6 VAN MORRISON Astral Weeks 1968 (Warner Bros.) ''The sound that comes from the production on this record kind of evokes a feeling of just lying on your back in the middle of a field, looking up at the sky.''

7 JEFF BUCKLEY Grace 1994 (Columbia) ''He spoke of all this stuff that I didn't understand, and yet I never felt patronized by his lyrics or his music. I always felt included, you know?''

8 THE POLICE Outlandos d'Amour 1978 (A&M) ''This is what was on back when I was putting on teal eyeliner and my leg warmers.''

9 WILCO Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2002 (Nonesuch) ''They've been through it, you know? They're battle weary, and they make music. I think there's something just amazing about that.''

10 GUNS N' ROSES Appetite for Destruction 1987 (Geffen) ''I looked like Slash when I was younger — a one-woman hair band.''

11 SON VOLT Trace 1995 (Warner Bros.) '''Tear-Stained Eyes' is one of my all-time favorite songs. It's just so sexy and so brilliant.''

12 GILLIAN WELCH Time (The Revelator) 2001 (Acony) ''She comes from Orange County, which was sort of faintly devastating when I found out. I really thought she came from some sort of small wooden structure in the backwater of Nashville.''

The actress-turned-songstress' debut album, Everything I've Got in My Pocket, is out now.


Posted Oct 15, 2004 | Published in issue #788 Oct 15, 2004 | Order Article Reprints