The 10 best albums teenagers have ever released
When Yukio Mishima was musing upon the “beautiful death of James Dean”, he wrote: “Greek mythology tells of how Achilles was forced to choose between a long life void of glory and a glorious young death. Without flinching, he chose the latter.”
Unflinchingly, Mishima continues, “Surely all but the most prosaic of men, if given the choice at the start of life, would do the same.” While that is certainly not a sentiment that anyone should support, there is, indeed, a sense of seizing triumph in youth that dwindles with the wrinkles of time. Devoid of the sense of your own mortality, the spirit of Achilles is certainly stronger.
There is a dawning reality that great conquests don’t come easily as the years progress. As you get older, your stockpile of green enthusiasm is chipped away at by the hammer of hard knocks and the come-hither of safe, cushioning comforts. Youth culture is borne from an opposition to this. In fact, this is why youngsters are the engine of cultural change; they eagerly seem to slash at the shackles of society and look to blaze on, illuminating something new and fresh that they can call their own.
This has led to a bewildering array of masterworks from people not yet old enough to even comprehend their own accomplishments. This may be just as well because sometimes those accomplishments are so huge they’d cause anyone with a degree of experienced maturity to shirk and shudder.
This is why the youth movements underpin our culture. You could even argue the rule of thumb that nothing truly momentous has ever been saddled with a mortgage. As Joe Strummer of The Clash famously quipped, “I don’t like the idea that people who aren’t adolescents make records. Adolescents make the best records. Except for Paul Simon.”
When you look at the rise of pop culture, the pivotal steps have all been propagated by pockmarked teenagers or those in their early 20s. Bob Dylan was 21 when he changed the world with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The Beatles were considered elder statesmen of the scene when they cracked stereo sound with Sgt. Peppers before hitting the second half of their 20s. And the bulk of NWA were only 23 when they added a pointed impetus to the hip-hop movement in 1988.
This air of vitality shines through on the masterpieces crafted by the younger generation in the list below. Each of these albums that we have assorted is brimming with juvenile enthusiasm in one way or another. They are visceral epics. Some of them will have you questioning your own daft teenage existence as these proteges were grappling with existentialism in waxing verse while you were busy trying to scrape together loose change to experiment with dropping Mentos into fizzy pop.
But we can’t all be Mozart. So, from Kate Bush’s unbridled creativity to the Arctic Monkeys’ steadfast refusal the drift into boring factory life, feast on these magnificent creations by teenagers and just try not to feel as old as the hills and the rightward drift of bitter cynicism as you do so. Enjoy…
The 10 best albums teenagers have ever released
‘Alas, I Cannot Swim’ – Laura Marling
Laura Marling is not only a stunning lyricist but also a truly natural guitar player. Both of these stirring talents are on display with the charming debut she released at the tender age of 17. There’s an elegance and grace to the record that betrays a maturity beyond her years, and yet this is also tempered by a churlishness and sincerity that proves she wasn’t yearning for any widened approval.
The extent of her artistic scope was readily apparent with tracks inspired by Philip Larkin and other literary tropes littered among her finger-picking lushness. Now, the album feels like a time capsule, but not in a dated sense, more so that it captures an era in terms of both the desperate bid to be mature that many make at 17 and the golden days of 2008 when it was released.
‘Africa Must be Free by 1983’ – Hugh Mundell
It’s one thing to be skilled enough as a musician to simply make a record when you’re 15/16; it’s another thing entirely to be assured in your talents enough to yield your music as a political tool. However, there is an odd enigmatic quality that also imbues Africa Must be Free by 1983 with an added layer of profundity.
You might expect from the sweeping title that Mundell was a confident and vivacious youngster, but he was actually shy and retiring. In fact, there are only 12 confirmed performances throughout his life. It was sadly a fraught life that was cut tragically short when he was shot to death while in his vehicle at the age of 21.
Nevertheless, Mundell still managed to record five albums, with this epic and bittersweet statement the most glowing among them. It couples the fierceness of righteousness with an infectious fun.
‘The Kick Inside’ – Kate Bush
Sometimes, the greenness of teenage naivety is essential in shifting the course of history. Any savvy songwriter in their 20s would’ve known that to come out wailing in a whirl of flowery mysticism at the height of the uproar of punk was sure to be a juxtaposed misfire. The critics proved them right. When Kate Bush arrived with ‘Wuthering Heights’, the Guardian called her an “odd combo of artiness and artlessness,” and the NME said, “[Kate Bush] has all the unpleasant aspects of David Bowie in the Mainman era.”
However, while she might have defied the style of the zeitgeist, she remained true to herself, and that shone through like an inspiring assegai of cheery sunshine. After all, wasn’t punk all about the expression of individualism anyway? Bush’s considerable talents might have separated her from the snarling side of this movement, but being expressive is a tenet that her music upheld to the nth degree.
The Kick Inside still stands as an invigorating masterpiece to this day, making it all the more maddening that some of the songs were written when she was 13.
‘Kerplunk’ – Green Day
Some of the best punk bands normally come from the younger generation. Although plenty of punks have been able to keep the fire burning for decades at a time, the best have gotten their foot in the door while still in their teens, singing about rebelling against anyone who tries to keep them down because of their age. Billie Joe Armstrong may have still been going through puberty by the time Green Day’s debut hit stores, but the band were a well-oiled machine by album number two.
Right after getting Tre Cool behind the drum kit, Kerplunk was the kind of album that laid the groundwork for pop-punk, making anthems like ‘Welcome to Paradise’ and ‘2000 Light Years Away’ out of just a handful of chords and a Beatles-esque approach to melody. Even though the band had hit their stride, other bands were more intimidated than anything else, thinking they were hitting the nail on the head a bit too much. The massive success of Dookie was looming, but Kerplunk remains one of the few independent releases to reach platinum status.
‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ – Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish’s debut album, released when she was just 17, displayed a level of pioneering innovation that only someone approaching their craft as play could muster. Throughout the record, clever techniques create an entirely revolutionary view of stereo sound being pushed to its limits while importantly remaining true to pop’s core tenet: hits.
Invention is approached with the purpose of having fun. This rubs off on the songs that are invigorating enough for you to listen and note them as merely unusual but captivating pop, or you can delve deeper and come to a conclusion about how she may well be the first pop ASMRtist, using textured sounds not just as a bed for melody and tonal depth but also a direct emotive response in the listener.
‘Boy’ – U2
Fans have come a long way from U2 being known as every dad’s favourite band. Compared to the post-punk creatures, they started out as a band, which has turned into a band that fluctuates between genuinely brilliant and borderline insufferable, depending on which speech Bono is spewing out at the time. When the band first got started, they were serving up some of the best post-punk to come out of Ireland.
Fresh after the initial punk revolution, Boy is the kind of album that combines punk anger with anthemic power, turning songs like ‘I Will Follow’ into stadium anthems before they were even out of the bar circuit. The band were still barely old enough to drink by the time the record hit shelves, but if you listen to Bono’s voice and The Edge’s approach to guitar playing, you’re listening to a band about to become a giant.
‘Tidal’ – Fiona Apple
Most artists have to deal with paying their dues a few times over before they are ready for the studio. Compared to the hours spent in front of your instrument, it won’t matter unless you have that spark in you that wants to wow everyone from the moment you sit down. Or, in some cases, you’re Fiona Apple, and you’re able to channel all of the harshness of your home life into one magical piece of writing.
From the moment Tidal starts, Apple feels like a seasoned pro in the studio scene, using her alto voice and piano skills to make every song hit like a sledgehammer. While ‘Criminal’ is the real showstopper, songs like ‘The Child is Gone’ and ‘Never is a Promise’ sound like they’re being written by a songwriting veteran, putting the same kind of energy that you would expect out of a Carole King. Albeit, a Carole King that is a lot more realistic about the pleasures and pitfalls of the world.
‘In The City’ – The Jam
At the end of 1977, most artists didn’t really know where punk could go next. When you have a genre based on destroying any other genre in sight, what do you do once you start trying to move on? Many artists folded into post-punk, but Paul Weller pulled from his old record collection when working on The Jam’s debut, In The City.
Taking the best from the Mod culture of the 1960s, this is practically what artists like The Who may have sounded like if they had never left their R&B-infused roots, with Weller putting a healthy amount of attitude behind every song. While there is the occasional cover or novelty song like the ‘Batman’ theme, this was no joke. This was Weller reminding aspiring guitar heroes of why they picked up instruments in the first place.
‘For You’ – Prince
Every part of the Minneapolis sound can be traced back to something that Prince had done first. Acts like Morris Day and the Time and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis may have left their mark on the city, but ‘The Purple One’ was responsible for taking that mix of rock, funk, and R&B and launching it into the stratosphere when he first got started. All this…and the kid had barely even graduated high school.
When working on For You, Prince was still hardly out of his teens and had already started making his signature brand of quirky musical mayhem. As if writing everything wasn’t enough, Prince also played every single note on the record and somehow made the entire thing sound like it was made in a top-of-the-line recording studio. Purple Rain was years away, but this was the testing ground for every Prince song.
As ever, the album is energetic, catchy, and occasionally hornier than a late night caller after a year at sea. What’s not to love?
‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ – Arctic Monkeys
When the Arctic Monkeys left college, they decided to shun university and give their little band a crack for a year instead. It was the best decision they ever made. The fevered album that resulted encapsulates the life of a working-class 18-year-old drinking down as much adventure as possible before reality dawns more so than any other record in existence.
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not was written and recorded when the Sheffield gang were still fresh out of their school ties before being released two weeks after Alex Turner’s 20th birthday. When they eventually toured their pastiche of weekend scuffles and skirmishes across the pond in the US, they had to travel with fake IDs.
All of this seems gloriously fitting for a record that is all about the Shakespearean comedy and melodrama of simply trying to juice life down to the pith before you have accrued the means to facilitate that.
