Michael Ian Black: “I Never Became Cool”

THE CD THAT MADE ME, LIKE, THINK
Styx, Kilroy Was Here
A&M
“This was the first album I put on by choice and listened to over and over on a nightly basis. I was 10 or 11. I knew it was a story, but I wasn’t sure what it was about. I thought it was like a 1984 thing. I took ‘Mr. Roboto’ very seriously. The first 30 years of my life were all about questioning authority. My musical journey comes down to anti-authority and ‘Fuck the police.’”

THE CD THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE AN OLD FART
Fruit Bats, Mouthfuls
Sub Pop
“I downloaded this from iTunes — I think it was on some celebrity asshole’s playlist. There are certain band names — ‘Fruit Bats’ is one — you might as well just take a lasso and throw it around me. The music is mellow; it’s emblematic of the kind of thing I’m looking for now. I don’t need anti-authority anymore. Leave punk rock to the next generation. I don’t need the agita.”

THE CD THAT MADE ME WANNA BLOW SHIT UP
Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Def Jam
“This is more of that anti-authority thing. When I was young, I was like a Columbine kid. I used to mentally try to make my grade school blow up by staring really hard at a particular cinderblock. But I would never actually do anything, unlike Chuck D. Hearing this, it was like Chuck D grabbed me by the shoulders and said, ‘Forget armies; it’s going to take an entire nation.’”

THE CD THAT I SHOPLIFTED IN COLLEGE
N.W.A, Straight Outta Compton
Priority
“The summer before my junior year of college, I went through a period of stealing CDs from Tower. I was living on the Lower East Side, delivering pizzas, and this was my ‘disfranchised-white-guy’ soundtrack. I thought they were scary guys: If I ran into them in a dark alley, best-case scenario would have me ending up in a coma. Though I had a little man-crush on Eazy-E.”

THE CD FOR WALLOWING IN DEPRESSION
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
Columbia
“This has my favorite song of all time, ‘Buckets of Rain.’ It’s such a good song that I don’t listen to it because I think if I listen to it, I’ll get tired of it. It seems to be the loneliest song I’ve ever heard. I find Dylan annoying, didactic, obtuse, yet I love him to death, because I’m manic-depressive, self-doubting, self-loathing, angst-ridden, didactic and obtuse. I’ll compare myself to Dylan in any way I can.”

THE CD THAT MADE ME SMARTER
Radiohead, OK Computer
Capitol
“This had the same effect on me as the Beatles had on an earlier generation; it opened my head to what music could be. It took me to the limits of my intelligence, maybe even raised my IQ a few points. If you had an infinite number of me’s with an infinite number of typewriters, we could never come up with it. It reminds me of all the ways I’m a moron. They’re saying, ‘You don’t need to be a genius, we got it covered.’”

THE CD THAT INSPIRED WEIRD SEX FANTASIES
Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Chrysalis
“This is quietly furious — I like when you can be pissed off and quiet and orchestral about it. The bald thing was a big turn-on. I saw her on the street once and thought, ‘Man, I’d like to tap that ass.’ We could do the one-nighter — that would be tremendous. Then she’d call me a motherfucker and throw me out and that would be the end of it.”

THE CD I USE TO AVOID MY KIDS
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Nonesuch
“I listen to music when I write to drown out the sounds of my children screaming. I have a 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Someone else’s solution might be to find out why they’re crying and comfort them, but I’d rather not get up. So I just put on my headphones and crank up the Wilco. I need something soft and dreamy — ‘just simmer down’ music.”

THE CD TO PUT GOOD CHARLOTTE IN ITS PLACE
Fugazi, 13 Songs
Dischord
“I think this is the best rock album ever. You can keep your Good Charlottes and your Cali-pop — Fugazi did it better. I used to go out to Maxwell’s in New Jersey or CBGB’s to see these guys whenever they came to town. I loved their attitude: ‘We’re just doing our own thing, you can come or not, we’re going to do it regardless. We charge five bucks, and there’s no merch — merch is beneath us.’”

THE CD I HOPED WOULD MAKE ME COOL
Hüsker Dü, Candy Apple Grey
Warner Bros.
“When I was 14, I thought if I had a large cassette collection, that would make me cool. So I bought this cassette. It was the worst thing I’d ever heard — I was used to stuff like the Cars — but I kept listening to it because I hated it so much and eventually it grew on me. But I never became cool, unfortunately.”