On August 14th, the first album I ever owned turned 20. That album was The Spirit Room by Michelle Branch.
Branch wrote most of the music for The Spirit Room at age 16, recorded the album at 17, and released her debut a month after her 18th birthday. It was an album that was heavily centered around the teenage experience, but to a little 4 year old me, it was the most aspirational depiction of adulthood I had ever encountered.
I’ve never been one to prioritize quality of lyrics in my music — for me the hierarchy has always been vocals first, production second, lyrics third; I was a musical theatre kid who grew up performing songs out of context for recitals and competitions, so it was hard to develop an appreciation for lyrics when the subject matter I was singing about was completely fictional and often unrelatable. The lyrics on The Spirit Room, however, completely captivated me at a young age, and still have a hold on me to this day. A lot of the descriptors and phrases she used were sayings I had never heard before. For the first time in my life, it felt like I was engaging with actual “adult” music that wasn’t just talking down to me like the child I very obviously was. With every spin of the CD, my perception of the world expanded more and more.
Lyrics like “So I’m a little left of center/ I’m a little out of tune/ Some say I’m paranormal/ So I just bend their spoon” from “You Get Me” filled me with inexplicable fascination. Even at the end of the song, when she changes the chorus lyrics from “still you want me all the time” to “still I want you all the time” was so genius to me, and managed to effectively communicate how it feels to be in love to someone who didn’t even know how to spell “love.” The opening line of “Something To Sleep To” was my first brush with metaphor, with the words, “She’s his yellow brick road/ Leading him on.” Considering my only prior connection to such imagery was my hatred of my mother’s affinity for The Wizard of Oz, forcing myself to place the yellow brick road in a completely new context was a mind blowing thought experiment. It felt so cool to be in on the reference, almost as if I had been indicted into a secret club for grown ups only.
The importance that this album has had in my life has shown up in many different ways throughout the last 20 years, but I promise it’s always been there. In fourth grade I was asked to sing for the kids in the back of the bus and chose “You Get Me,” because I thought I would get extra cred points for choosing a song no one else knew. I promised them I would audition for American Idol when I was old enough and I half-kept that promise; in tenth grade I auditioned for The Voice as a duo, and we brought “You Set Me Free” as our backup song in case they wanted to hear more from us (they did not).
The most interesting part of my history with The Spirit Room, though, is the fact that it is such an outlier in the Venn Diagram that encapsulates my music taste. It’s no secret that my favorite artists, past and present, also happen to be considered some of the greatest entertainers of all time — Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Prince, Kanye, Mariah, Whitney, the list goes on. All of these artists have a sound that is rooted in Hip Hop, Soul, and my personal favorite, R&B. These were obviously never Branch’s genres of choice, and yet they are the genres that have gone on to shape my relationship to music the most. But through it all, The Spirit Room has managed to become one of my biggest influences ever, somehow, someway. I really wish I could pose an explanation as to why, but it’s a phenomenon that still puzzles me even as I write this. It could just be the nostalgia, but I like to think it’s a testament to the timelessness sowed within these 11 sacred tracks.
Not too long ago, I asked my parents why they bought me this album. Did I show any major interest in “Everywhere?” Did I pick it up at Target and throw it in the shopping cart when no one was watching? They didn’t have an answer, which forces me to draw the conclusion that in 2001, buying a copy of The Spirit Room for your 4 year old daughter was just a no-brainer. Today’s 4 year olds have their own versions of The Spirit Room, like Sour by Olivia Rodrigo. Even if it’s only a digital copy, I hope they grow up appreciating their very first album for the next 20 years, too.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary, a rerecording of The Spirit Room is slated to be released in early 2022. Listen to the first single here.