The first time the world encountered Chloë Sevigny on screen was in Sonic Youth’s 1992 music video for “Sugar Kane.” Pale and pixie-cut, she struts through Manhattan in a crop top, trench, and ultra-low waisted pants. For a downtown cool-kid like Sevigny, then a 17-year-old fixture of Washington Square Park’s skater scene, the streets were enough of a runway—a point hammered home by the video’s intercut scenes of a grunge-inspired fashion showcase. Eventually, Sevigny arrives to crash the party, disrobing to nothing but black censor bars. She takes her nude pass on the catwalk then exits as quietly as she arrived.
In hindsight, this ineffably cool debut was perfectly on-brand for Sevigny. For the last 25 years, she has gone from cult films like Kids to acclaimed TV shows like “Big Love,” all without abandoning her credibility as a tastemaker in the worlds of fashion and music.
As early as age 5, she had a plastic record player and a small collection of vinyl discs. Her dad would always bring the latest records—Blondie, Lou Reed—back to the family home in Darien, Connecticut, one of wealthy Fairfield County’s most quintessential suburbs. Her older brother, a hardcore and hip-hop obsessive, would let touring bands crash at their house.
By the time she regularly started sneaking off to New York in high school, she was hanging with skaters and partying with ravers, drawn to various strains of fringy weirdness. She remembers once doing acid and falling in love with an Argentinian boy who turned her onto the Grateful Dead. “When they jam, and it gets really crazy—that’s my favorite thing in the entire universe,” she tells me. Back then, she wore Doc Martens and had a single dreadlock in her hair; sitting in a meeting room at the Four Seasons in L.A., her straight blond hair is now tucked behind her ears, and a thin gold cross dangles over her black-and-white floral top.
“I have a hard time even going out and listening to music if I don’t like the sound system now, it’s really awful,” she adds. Her preference is to relive the songs and albums of her youth from the comfort of home, having mostly given up on buying music released in the new millennium—though releases by psychedelic folkie Mira Billotte of White Magic, witch-house misfits Salem, and super freak Ariel Pink are exceptions. “If music is on, I’m so concentrated on it that I can’t do other stuff,” she says. “I’m not very good at singing, but I’m really good at singing along.” Especially if it’s to one of the records on this list.
Annie (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
I saw Annie on Broadway with my mother and I got the doll and the record, and it was on repeat. Even at 5, it was a way to escape the world that I was in—not that I had an unhappy childhood or was an orphan. But because I had an older brother, and my father was such a dominant figure in the family, it was very patriarchal in my household. My mother was present, but in that time period, Annie was a way for me to have this really feminine, girly world. I played Annie in a theater program that summer too.
Cyndi Lauper: She’s So Unusual
Hands down, that was my favorite record. I had it on vinyl and cassette and then eventually on CD. I had a dance routine for it from start to finish. I think it was my older brother who told me that “She Bop” was about masturbation, and I was really confused, like, Do I really know what these people are singing about? It was a weird wake up.
The Smiths: Louder Than Bombs
I first heard the Smiths when I saw Pretty in Pink, and that just became the soundtrack to my life. I didn’t have a car yet, but I was sitting in my friend’s Volvo sedan at the beach and smoking cigarettes and being fake-miserable. That’s where all the weirdo teenagers hung out. They would go down there and skate and smoke weed and drink 40s, and the alternative girls would be there with their black Alice headbands, Docs, and baby doll dresses. It was more of an innocent time.
There was also a club that happened in Greenwich, Connecticut inside a church. Moby DJ’d there, and a lot of industrial boys would hang out there. I always had such crushes on them. It was all about Front 242, and that industrial dance that the boys would do. I always thought it was a really sexy dance.
Unwound: New Plastic Ideas
I had just moved to New York City and was working at Liquid Sky, a store where kids who were into raves would go to sell T-shirts and jeans, and underneath it was a record store. It was all techno and jungle and electronic music, and I was hanging out really heavy in the club scene. Even though I could admire certain aspects of that music, as a reaction to it, I had my own inner life: the indie rock sob story.
I felt like Unwound were kids my age that were doing something fresh and wild and that had all this crazy energy. It was a three-piece with a female drummer and they were on Kill Rock Stars, which was already cool because of Bikini Kill and all the rest. But there was something about the delighting sexiness of Unwound that made it my favorite record of that time.
Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets
I was having a super ’70s vibe then. I always get into one record, and it’s just that record forever. That was the year I was nominated for the Oscar [for Boys Don’t Cry]. I was running around and listening to Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets. “On Some Faraway Beach” is the song on that record. I remember having a barbecue in Connecticut at my mom’s house and inviting a bunch of friends out and listening to that song 20 times in a row on the porch.
This is around when I stopped buying newer music—which is really bad, I know.
Morrissey: You Are the Quarry
Morrissey hadn’t put out anything for a long time, and it was just really exciting to have new songs and a tour. I went to 10 of those shows, traveled all around. I was like: I’m a teenager again, I’m in it. In Atlantic City, during “Everyday Is Like Sunday,” I waited for the right moment and went on stage and hugged him. And he was like, “Ah, my heart.” I couldn’t tell if it was because I scared him or if he liked me because I was wearing a floral dress and booties. I was there with two friends, [photographers] Ryan McGinley and Patrick O’Dell, who always take pictures of their friends everywhere, but neither of them got a photo. I was so disappointed. I think everyone was just so stunned. I was really reliving my youth there, maybe because, at 30, it was like a last hurrah of having a moment when you can do that.
Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
One of my best friends, Lizzi Bougatsos, is in Gang Gang Dance, and their album Saint Dymphna came out around then. I’ve had a lot of boyfriends and friends who were in bands that I didn’t necessarily love, so seeing a friend do something that is your favorite thing in the world—there’s nothing better. Just seeing how she owns it on stage. I’ve gone on tour with them a couple of times, and they have this one song, “Before My Voice Fails,” that’s just epic, really one of those bang-your-head vibes. I love to let loose.
Danielle Dax: Jesus Egg That Wept
At 40, the bar and club scene had kinda lost its charm, so I was spending a lot of time having friends over. And I was surprised by how many of my musician friends had never heard of this record. Nothing gives me more pleasure than turning people I love onto new things I know will inspire them. This one is super obscure—you can only find it on vinyl and, I guess, on YouTube. It’s just perfect: dancey and weird and wild and doo-woppy and punky and all the things I love about music all on one record.