How Kids Conceived to These Albums Turned Out

Frank Sinatra, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956)
Went to an elite prep school where he experimented with guys, ultimately resolving that he wasn’t gay but storing experiences that he returned to frequently throughout his life when masturbating. Cast his first Presidential ballot for Gerald Ford, secretly thanking God that he just missed the Vietnam draft. Graduated from Yale in ’79 and parlayed an internship on the Reagan campaign into a minor staff position, spending a sweaty day testifying before Congress and carefully choosing his words so as not to implicate himself or his superiors in the Iran-Contra Affair. Matriculated at Harvard Law in ’86, but left a year later to go into rehab and never returned to finish his degree. Went to work at his father’s friend’s seafood shipping business, where he’s now a vice-president. Every other Wednesday night he “stays at work” until 10 or 11 at night, and his wife and kids couldn’t care less.

The Doors, Strange Days (1967)
Her first memory is of pot smoke being blown in her ear. By the time she was in junior high her single mom was working as an office manager at an envelope company in Newark, and from age 14 on, she’d spend every weekend in New York with her 26-year-old boyfriend. Her essay about her abortion won her admission to CUNY, where she graduated in ’89 with a degree in anthropology. She spent the next three years in Seattle, playing drums in various bands and not answering her mother’s calls. She got married in ’91 and she and her husband had their wedding rings tattooed on, but two years after they moved to Austin to open a record store, she caught him Rollerblading around the store naked with a 14-year-old and she moved back to Newark. Her memoir sold modestly but was very well-reviewed, and she now teaches creative writing at a for-profit technical college. She still doesn’t answer her mother’s calls.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
He never knew this was the album he was conceived to, but he discovered it at age 14 in his parents’ record cabinet and it blew his mind. He asked a classmate to come over and smoke pot with him while they listened to it; she did, but she made him pay for the pot and when he grabbed her boob she jumped up and spilled the bong water onto his Nintendo. Since he couldn’t play video games any more, he started getting excellent grades and was admitted to Caltech. After graduating in ’94, he went to work for Microsoft and saved $900,000 that he invested in a handheld computing venture in 1998. After he lost everything, he took a temp job teaching computer classes at an afterschool program in Reno, where he fell in love with a coach named Janet. They’re now married, and enjoy watching Mythbusters together.

St. Elmo’s Fire soundtrack (1985)
When she graduated from high school, her parents told her not to study engineering like they did: they urged her to follow her dream. She majored in journalism and is now working as a server and writing ad copy as a freelancer for LivingSocial. Her landlord just raised her rent, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do now. She fucking hates this album.

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville (1993)
He can’t believe that his mom sold out and took that job at Wells Fargo, but after she’s had a couple glasses of Pinot Noir from the black box, she tells him that he has no idea what it’s like to have to support yourself in the real world. He’d move in with his dad, but he can’t handle the way his stepmom makes him do things like scrub the grout and tuck in his shirt.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
She writes for Rookie Magazine and prays her parents never find the seven Tumblrs and two Twitter accounts they don’t already know about.