ANNE MARIE TO STEPHEN:

AM: What is your favorite song?

SB: Wow, so much variety, so many great tracks. At first I was sure Mr. Cadillac was going to take it, but then heard Daily J hiding back there with Sunny Days and I’m going to go diving into their discography for the next week.

AM: Have you heard any of these tracks before?

SB: Only Hanging On by Moon King, which I was going to use for May, but you’ve once again ruined those plans.

AM: Recently someone sent me an Usher’s Confessions LP anonymously. Which launched me into the world’s most exciting micro mystery and gave me great joy. Rest assured, I finally discovered the culprit…after assuming it was a couple of different people…of which it was none. And now a small group lovingly refers to this as “Confessions-gate.” (If you know, you know.) Anyway, it sent me down a nostalgic trip listening to that album and made me think about the summer it came out. When I was deep into BCI club basketball. And I thought I knew all about love.

What’s a throwback summer album from your youth that still hits for you?

SB: I feel like the key word here is “album” because there were so many one or two hit wonders that back then makes me think of but if we’re talking about albums that you’d just hit play and vibe then you’re about to send me down a dirty south rap rabbit hole. We’re talking Who Is Mike Jones was everyone’s swag for a minute. Word of Mouf by Ludacris was his coming out party. And I know they’re not from the south, but Kanye’s College Dropout and Eminem’s The Eminem Show were others on repeat.

STEPHEN TO ANNE MARIE:

SB: What is your favorite song?

AM: Take a Left, Joseph Malik! Damn, son, what a vibe.

SB: Have you heard any of these tracks before?

AM: Cerrone but not this song!

SB: Favorite live show (FOR THE MONEY) you’ve ever been to? Yes, you can pay $400 and see T-Swift kick ass and maybe that’s worth every penny, but what’s a show that might have cost less that blew you away that you would have paid much more for after the fact?

AM: Yeah, this one is so hard… I think Leon Bridges’ first show in LA was about $8 and only about 15 people were in a tiny bar. That was epic. I saw John Mayer’s CONTINUUM tour as a freshman at Syracuse for probably $40 and that was pretty magical. A splurge ($$$) would be Mumford at an ancient theater in Paris about 7-8 years ago… where the ticket transfer didn’t happen and I was on the phone with international customer support until 2 hours before the show…wondering if we’d get in…and they finally came through… and I can still feel the floor vibrating from all the people stomping in harmony to their songs. I saw The Weeknd that same trip in London for about $40 at a small venue and nobody knew much about him yet, either. Harry Styles’ Love on Tour last November was a splurge and it was a really wonderful show — the audience was so kind and welcoming, so nice to one another, I hadn’t really seen that before. I think you hit the nail on the head with “for the money” because all of these are so dependent on the performer, the album specifically, the venue and where you are located in it, the people you’re attending with or if it’s a solo moment, and the state of mind you’re in in your life at that time. And all of these had totally different variables for me.