Songwriter MARIA DeHART Shares 5 Influential Albums

Maria DeHart – Quarantunes EP is available at Bandcamp, Apple Music.

by Maria DeHart

My current influences are a mixture of artists I’ve started listening to in my recent adult years and albums I’ve repeatedly heard since childhood. I owe the larger part of my musical style to female artists, and both folk and indie bedroom pop/rock play a significant role in my taste.

Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger in the Alps

Spotify

It’s not an overstatement to say this album totally changed my life. When I first heard it, I marveled at hearing a voice that was so unique and new, and a sound that felt like it was made just for me. Phoebe continues to be one of my most significant musical influences.

Soccer Mommy – Collection

Spotify

This album, both sonically and visually (check out the cover) captures the essence of the kind of femme bedroom pop aesthetic I relate to and strive to create with my own music. The nostalgic and relatable lyrics combined with the perfect mix of delicate keys and catchy guitar licks make this an album I can listen to over and over again.

I guess it’s kind of me
I never try
You drove me home last week
I would’ve died for a kiss
You smell like cigarettes
And how chocolate tastes
It makes me wanna die
But I guess I can wait

– Death by Chocolate

Sufjan Stevens – Illinois

Spotify

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry to this album often as a preteen. This record was incredibly important in my journey as a musician; “casimir Pulaski day” is one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar, and it still sounds to me like looking out the window of my bedroom as a lonely thirteen-year-old stuck in the suburbs.

Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

Spotify

This was probably the first “cool” CD I ever owned. I remember my dad giving it to me and saying he liked it and he thought I would too. I listened to it religiously, and for my high school creative writing class I wrote a whole paper on the music video for “at the bottom of everything.”

Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt

Spotify

This is an album that I only discovered in the past year or so, but it was a total game-changer for me. I envy Katie Crutchfield’s bravery in being so completely raw and earnest in her songwriting. Today I frequently find myself writing lyrics and melodies inspired by her unique tone and style.

MARIA DeHART

facebook / instagram / spotify

“Taking sonic prompts from modern indie pop artists like Caroline Polachek and Phoebe Bridgers, DeHart’s “In My Head” exists in a world self-created and self-reflexive; a simple song written in a time where everything is reduced to simplicity. This song isn’t so much a creative expression as it is a mental necessity; a twinkly, bedroom-pop tune that tries to enjoy its own bubble of safety when its creator can’t quite do the same.” – bio

support great artists, buy music

for more inspired albums, visit the gtc archive