A good weekend has just transitioned into great territory as we officially share the exciting news that Erika Wolf has joined our squad of scribes! With her distinctive written voice and contagious zeal for a wide array of music, the Fayetteville, North Carolina based writer is destined to enhance our content footprint while entertaining Albumists across the globe.

“Albumism serves as such a great catalog and celebration of music across decades and genres,” Erika explains. “I love how it allows being able to share the snapshot of an album on social media, and then fosters discussion with friends about favorite songs, the overall concept of the album, or what it meant to us in our lives at the time. It’s also a great way of discovering new music, both new as in right now or just new in the sense of having missed it the first time around.”

We encourage the Albumism community to stay tuned for much more from Erika, and in the meantime, check out her recently published debut Albumism article, a thoughtfully conceived 25th anniversary tribute to Blur’s eponymous fifth studio album here.

More about Erika:

Erika Wolf grew up overseas as an army brat in Germany and Spain, and eventually moved to New York City as a young twentysomething. Her parents had a vast record collection, and so she developed a love of music early on, particularly for ’50s and ’60s rock ‘n’ roll. Her dad was an early adopter of the mixed tape, and whenever the family would go on road trips around Europe—which was frequently—he’d play his tapes and quiz Erika and her brother on each song’s artist, title, and year, and they’d always race each other to answer.

She developed a love for other types of music—The Cure and various punk rock from her brother’s skater friends, The Smiths from a babysitter who turned her onto Meat Is Murder (1985), INXS from the radio, and all the glorious pop girls her age were naturally exposed to in the ‘80s like Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, the Go-Go’s, and Janet Jackson. And then the ’90s collided with her teen years and turned her into a full-on music head. Since then, she’s dabbled in music journalism while working for magazines, attending grad school, writing for alt-weeklies, working in PR, and caring for family. Erika currently lives in North Carolina.

Erika’s 5 Favorite Albums of All Time:

Lady Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ Turns 10 | Album Anniversary

Lady Gaga’s fourth studio affair stands as an essential chapter in her evolution, anticipating the dramatic and vocal achievements that would further expand her career.

John Farnham’s ‘Whispering Jack’ Turns 40 | Album Anniversary

The album’s creation was fraught with frustration and uncertainty, but Farnham’s twelfth studio LP ultimately became the all-time highest-selling album by an Australian artist in Australia.

The Human League’s ‘Dare’ Turns 45 | Album Anniversary

The beauty of the group’s third studio affair is that it sounded unlike anything else on the radio at the time of its arrival, and to this day, has its own unique sound and place in music history.