Hi, I'm Ann Powers, critic and correspondent for NPR Music, and co-founder of Turning the

Tables, the project that considers the canon of popular music and lets the weirdness in.

Okay, well, it's Kate Bush who lets the weirdness in as we hear in her song, leave it open.

But in Turning the Tables, we imagine a music world in which the voices and stories of women

and others who've been pushed to the margins in pop music grab and hold center stage.

And I'm Marissa Larousseau, I'm an associate editor for NPR Music, and I edited the Turning

the Tables series' records that changed our lives.

In 2021, we published 12 essays by women and non-binary writers, each centered on one

record by a woman musician that changed their life.

And we're going to hear from a bunch of those writers on the All-Songs Considered podcast

every week in March.

So Marissa, I'm so excited to be here talking about this fantastic series, which, you know,

went to so many places and it really was not just about people's encounters with albums,

but about the development of your life, you know, of life phases, of challenges, of growing

up.

And I think it turned that question which album changed your life kind of on its head.

But let's get into today's picks.

We both picked albums that some people might find challenging.

That when they came out, they were greeted as like, really out there, really, they were

really weird, like K-Push says.

But now partly thanks to feminist writing about them, they're considered classics.

I think we should start with your pick because in some ways it's the definitive album by

...