I turn 40 in a month and a half (or thereabouts).

It’s a big deal. It’s also not a big deal. I’ve been doing quite a bit of reflection, fine tuning in between freaking out and congratulating myself.

40 is just a number, right? But, like, most birthdays (or anniversaries) that cap off a decade, we’re taught to make a thing out of them. So, I made a thing.

I made a lot of things actually. Don’t worry, they’re only playlists.

Music has been the closest thing to religion for me since I was old enough to know what an album was. It’s gotten me through triumphs and tragedies. Served as the soundtrack to childhoods in Brooklyn and the midwest, adulthoods all over New York City and in New England. It’s given me a career for the past twenty-three years. If it wasn’t for music, I simply wouldn’t exist. So, making a playlist depicting each year of my life made perfect sense to me.

So, I’ve put together a list of 40 songs for each year of my existence*. Since a good chunk of my musical education (especially as pertains to music that predates the early ’90s) has been retroactive, I’ve tried to stick to songs I was familiar with (and loved) during the periods of the playlist. Steely Dan and Led Zeppelin are two of my favorite bands, but I didn’t “discover” them until I was 17 (Zep didn’t last too long into my existence anyway, but you know what I’m saying.) I also tried to not shy away from anything embarrassing I may have enjoyed, but as much of an open book as I am, some things should be shoved under the rug permanently. This is why there’s no Kid Rock on any of these playlists.

The first of these playlists covers my birth year through 1979. Some people swear they can remember things from before they were a toddler. I’m not one of those people. Which isn’t to say I remember nothing, but making playlists for 1976, 1977 and 1978 would’ve been disingenuous. Not only do I not remember much of what was going on during that time, but I was also in the hospital for the first two years of my existence (I was a preemie-born three months early) so there wasn’t a lot of exposure to music.

Once I got home, though, music became a constant presence. Either via the radio (which was constantly tuned to trailblazing New York City stations WBLS and WKTU) or via a massive collection of records owned by my grandmother or any of her kids, four of whom were still living at home when I arrived. That collection boasted a range of artists as wide as country singer Jim Reeves and salsa queen Celia Cruz, but the meat of it was soul music. Disco was at the peak of its powers, and we were living in the genre’s capital.

My Jacksons obsession, which many of you are aware of, must have begun when someone in the house acquired the Destiny LP early in 1979. It was the first album I knew all the song titles of. I knew the lyrics before I could even understand most of them, and to this day when I think of The Jacksons, the order I think of them is Michael, Marlon, Jackie, Tito & Randy-AKA the way they’re posed in the Destiny gatefold (from right to left.) A few months later, Off The Wall took over the world and the greatest presence in my musical life was already embedded deeply in my psyche.

I’ve been working on these playlists for the better part of two months (and as I type this, I’ve still got about 10 years to go), so I think they’re a pretty accurate (and decently sequenced) snapshot. I’m annoyed that there are artists integral to my musical life that I can’t access via Spotify (Prince & Jay Z primarily), but we’re gonna have to let that be what it is.

Ultimately, I hope you enjoy the music. I have stories for just about every song included on any of these lists, but this isn’t a memoir, it’s a celebration!

Let the music play…