From the "Album Explanations" comes the story of why one subject picked "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too" by New Radicals for his list of albums that have most influenced his life.
This was the first album I ever personally owned: it was a birthday gift from my mom when I was 9. Apparently some dude who worked at Strawberries (a now defunct music superstore in Cambridge) convinced her it was "the coolest record out right now," so she took his word for it and picked up the cassette. I must've played that tape from side-to-side and back again for a couple years, because the only other cassette I remember having prior to getting a CD player when I was 12 was "Americana" by The Offspring, the soundtrack to the Matthew Broderick Godzilla, and a Creed tape. (*shudder*)
Aside from being a nostalgia thing, "Brainwashed" is actually a pretty well constructed bastard-pop record. Every song is tinged with surprisingly competent socio-political commentary that had relevance during the late 90's. Of course, as a 9 year old, all that stuff went way over my head, but the catchiness and breadth of style in each song made it the perfect record for a kid just starting to look past the Lou Bega's of the time. In a lot of ways, "Brainwashed" is a culturally defining record, especially when you consider how an alt-pop anthem like "You Get what You Give" went mega-platinum or whatever, AND how frontman Gregg Alexander went on to write the songs that made Britney Spears famous (not like that's something to be proud of or anything, but hey, it's important...). There's also a song on the record that involved doing porno films in Japan and some guy mistaking cocaine for Sweet n' Low (keep in mind, I was 9... so when I heard "coke" I thought it was soda and when I heard "porno" I didn't know what the f*** it meant). Anyways, the album is great: so much so, in fact, that I bought the record again ten years later and still have it on my laptop now.