1996: Inside

Patti Rothberg: Inside

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1996 was an important year for me musically. It was the year I discovered music could mean something, that it wasn't just about being catchy and fun to listen to. As I've written on here before, my breakthrough came as a high schooler discovering Lisa Loeb's album "Tails" and it grabbed me so much and made me think "wow, is there more music like this out there?". Luckily for me, this was the start of the beautiful few years where female singer-songwriters actually got airplay on mainstream radio, so my mind (and music collection) expanded at an alarming rate.

One of those first discoveries after "Tails" was hearing this single on the radio. I loved it immediately and remember turning the volume up in my dad's car as we drove home from dinner one evening to hear if the radio would say the artist's name so I knew what to look for when I got to the music store. I played this CD a lot that year, and I still really love it. It's one of those singles that a lot of people wouldn't remember if you asked them about it, but if you played them some of it they'd say "oh yeah, that was a pretty good song!". And the whole album is like that, not a bad song on it. It was a shame that the album did not get more recognition, but since then I've come across a number of people who get so enthusiastic if I mention this album because they have such fond feelings towards it as well.

1996 was a good year.

All Apologies: Forgive Me

Patti Rothberg: Forgive Me

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The biggest part of saying you're sorry is so you can potentially get the offended party's forgiveness. Despite being the offended party in the scenario, this song became very pertinent to me after a break-up I had many years ago, when I felt like if I had just not played it so cool, if I had just not played hard to get, or had been faster in realizing I wanted to be with him, then maybe he wouldn't have gotten bored and moved on.

Patti Rothberg had minor success with her single "Inside" from her debut album "Between the 1 and the 9" in the late '90s, but hasn't been able to recreate the magic since. This song is from that stellar debut that still remains one of the favorites in my collection, simple and affective songwriting that often touch on feelings that are slightly different than the typical love and lost that most are about.