The First Echo

Ah, 2001. It's not just the name of Stanley Kubrick's space epic. It was the first year of the 21st century, a year of... so much . It was the year I got my first cell phone, the year I lived abroad in London and fell deeper in love with all things British, and the year that saw one sunny September morning change the lives of every American forever. But not to be forgotten, it was the last innocent era of pop music. 2001 was the year that introduced us to new adjectives ("Bootylicious"), new artists (Hey, Craig David), and newfound respect for Pink ( Missundaztood , anyone?). Here are the 30+ tracks that made my year (gulp) twenty years ago. @TheFirstEcho

If you don't recognize the two names in the above headline, then you clearly did not come of age in the 90s as a budding horror fan ... UPDATED: Back in December of 2020, R.L. Stine, the world-famous author of nearly a hundred scary novels for kids and young adults ( and one of my literary idols ), tweeted a photo of himself with a corny caption that truly demonstrated his dad joke game. The picture showed the 77-year-old writer sitting at his desk, announcing himself as the winner of a fake award: Then, at the beginning of the new year, Christopher Pike (real name: Kevin McFadden), the other young-adult novelist who also dominated teen bookshelves during the same decade (and elusive object of my journalistic obsession back in 2011 ), replied with a fun jab at Stine, sharing his own win. 9:10am UPDATE: And Stine clapped back!!! Needless to say, if this were 1993, my younger and much geekier self would spontaneously combust from a massive nerdgasm after seeing these two so-called