I wrote
all of this before Adam Yauch died. It feels a little douchy that I left them
off the list on purpose. But I will say
this right here up top. Yauch has died
and so has the band. The Beastie Boys
will remain one of my favorite things
for the rest of my life. They’re up there
with Christmas, Disney World, fried chicken, and Sunday mornings. There
probably hasn’t been a week that has gone by without me listening to something
by them. That’s a little crazy, I know, especially
with their limited discography. They were
the soundtrack to so many daydreams as I took endless walks; they were the
pick-me-up I needed when I was down. I
will miss him. I will miss them. They were the most fun band ever.
Now, with the original post.
This
is a tough one. Everyone has a favorite
music list. A new one is written every
four seconds. That’s a true stat.
I didn’t want to exclude music from
my favorites lists, but constructing one always runs into a few snags. First, there is the sheer volume of music
I’ve heard in my life. I can’t possibly
remember everything I’ve ever heard and put it in order, so I need to choose
criteria. The specific criteria are as
daunting to choose as the actual albums.
Best song? Artists? Most
listened? Desert island music? Love
songs? Driving songs? Songs to plant organic tomatoes by?
But then, all of a sudden, it hit me
like that hackneyed record scratch sound effect. It’s my damn list. And in what way do I
connect to music? Emotionally. I’m not a
musician; I play the drums and I’ve written a bunch of stuff. I know nine chords. To me, music either makes the emotional
impact or it doesn’t. That’s probably
how most humans relate to music without even realizing. I am also a very uncool
person.
I call it my David Bowie
explanation. Bowie is a legend with
decades of great music. He’s respected
by industry, critics and fans. I respect
him, but I have almost nothing in all my stacks of music from David Bowie. I don’t change the channel when his stuff
comes on the radio; but I’ve never bothered to dig deeper because it really
doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t feel
anything.
I also have failed to retroactively
pretend that I liked the better music of the past. I think certain music has to get its hooks in
you early or you’ll never truly embrace it.
I can’t really get into the Pixies or Sonic Youth...I missed the boat. Also, I think there are more people claiming
to have liked Elvis Costello today than ever bought his records and showed up
to his shows. I like him fine, but I
feel almost nothing. I keep promising
myself I’ll try Zappa and listen to a full Wu-Tang album and see what the big
deal was with Van Morrison. But I
probably won’t. And I’ll never get Lou
Reed. In fact…Lou Reed sucks.
I will exclude music from the
following bands: The Beatles, Beastie Boys and The White Stripes. Their stuff
is so intertwined with childhood memories and the memories of my own children,
that half the list would be from their catalogues.
So here goes:
My
Top Twenty Emotionally Satisfying
Albums Of All Time.
20 - Who’s
Next - The Who
I know it’s not the hip Who album. It’s not Sell
Out or Quadrophenia. But this is the album that comes to mind when
I think of classic rock. Power guitar
and lyrics belted out like a banshee --- and ‘My Wife’. I just think of myself as a long-haired
teenager daydreaming with my headphones on whenever I hear ‘Won’t Get Fooled
Again’.
19 - Brighten
the Corners - Pavement
I have this habit of falling in love
with the more unpopular records of a band’s catalogue. I’ll have a few examples on my list. I have never tried to be cool in my life and
purposely venture off the beaten path; it just happens that way for me. Crooked
Rain, Crooked Rain is the seminal Pavement album, but I like BTC which came
out after Pavement was hip. It’s more
melodic and sweet. Malkmus’ lyrics are
just as imaginative; but there is a cohesiveness here that I just love.
It came out in 1997, during the long
gap between about 1996 and 2002 where the type of music I liked was nowhere to
be found. I have a few representatives
on the list that got me through the drought.
18 - Blind
Melon – Blind Melon
Blind Melon came and went and are
regarded as a one-hit wonder. My wife
and I listened to this album non-stop when our son was a baby, so I have
powerful memories tied to it. They have a another album that some say is
better, but this one doesn’t have ‘Dear Ol’ Dad’ and ‘Change’, which transport
me to a much more carefree state of mind.
17 -
Apocalypse ’91 - Public Enemy
Public
Enemy opened up for U2 on the Achtung
Baby tour. It was one of the coolest
experiences at a concert I’ve ever seen. A stadium full of sweaty, bouncing
Bono fans. I went home and got the album and it made me feel like a tough white
boy. Fans will say Fear of a Black Planet is the album to own, but it didn’t grab me
like the follow-up. A common theme. Plus, ‘Shut ‘Em Down’ is still pretty
bad-ass.
16 –
Wildflowers - Tom Petty
There a bunch of worthy Petty albums
to put in here. I believe this was the
first one I really listened to over and over, beginning to end. I remember the production was what drew me
in…and I always like to hear Petty’s laid back lyrics. Listen to ‘Don’t Fade On
Me’.
15 - Alien
Lanes - Guided By Voices
This is another album I got into in
‘The Gap’. It’s almost a sister album to
Bee Thousand which is the album
you’ve heard if you know who these guys are.
I listened to a lot of this one when I was trying to write and play
music myself. It’s beyond
classification, other than calling it lo-fi.
And anything goes lyrically when it comes to GbV. “I want to start a new life…with my valuable hunting knife…”
14 -
Weezer – Weezer (Blue)
I had absolutely no interest in
power pop before Weezer. I can’t
remember if I liked this one right off the bat or not. I was working in a record store when it came
out and if I ignored it at first, the smarmy lyrics and fun, crunchy guitar won
me over. My daughter loves this
album. She’s been singing ‘Say It Ain’t
So’ since she was in first grade.
13 -Yes - Morphine
Everyone loves the album before
this, I know. Here’s the lyrics that
kill me on this brooding and funky CD: “I
had my chance and I let it go. I had my
chance and I let it go. If I ever have
myself another chance like that, I’m gonna grab it and I won’t look back. I’m gonna grab it and I won’t look back…” Awesome. Plus, there’s a song called ‘Super Sex’.
12 - A.M.
- Wilco
I’m not a Wilco fan. They lost me after Being There, which is also a great album. If they kept it close to this countrified
alterna-rock I would still be a fan. I
discovered my secret love of the banjo while listening to this. It’s not connected to anything else; that’s
why I like it.
11- Broken
Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs
Yes, this is my way of squeezing
Jack White on my list. This was the
first time I got to hear him wail in a full rock band and it did not
disappoint. Far and away my favorite
musician of the last ten years, Jack White plays ferociously and writes
tenderly with a smirk. I love that shit.
10 - The
Moon and Antarctica – Modest Mouse
I’m pretty late to this indie rock
staple. My son Holden’s first venture
into music at all was with Modest Mouse, and I think this is the sweet and
scary gateway recording. I absolutely
love ‘3rd Planet’. I’m not sure why they don’t get enough airplay of
their older, meatier music. M & A is disjointed and warm, like a
late-night party that’s dwindled down to the most eclectic of friends.
9 -
Rockin’ the Suburbs – Ben Folds
Ben Folds should be much more
popular. Maybe it’s the occasional
swearing. I have no idea. This is truly
happy and fun and deeply sad all at the same time. It’s one of those albums
that make you sing along, and then you realize what the lyrics are describing,
then you like it that much more.
8 - The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
I love rock music. There, I said it. I’m not afraid. I like guitars both acoustic and electric, I
love softly spoken lyrics and screaming refrains. I love loud drums and songs that build
dramatically. This is a fine rock album and deserves its place among the
greats. All the hits are here, but “Enough Space’ and ‘New Way Home’ are my
favorites. Just pure excitement and fun.
7 - Automatic
For The People – REM
Reckoning,
Life’s Rich Pageant, Document and Green
are probably better than this one. I
love all of those, too. But this one is
also melded into the backdrop of my life.
My son was a baby and all we had was a stereo and a channel or two of TV
to watch. There is some sweet sadness on
this recording that is too sappy for some.
I get it. But there is also
beauty and haunting production that makes it list-worthy. Trust me.
6 - Billy Breathes
– Phish
I'm
off to see the man Mulcahey! I like
several Phish albums but this one sits at first, second and third place. I think it’s a success from beginning to end,
and for a guy who doesn’t care to sit through nine-minute jams, it is damn near
perfect. I sing along to nearly every
song. There are emotional peaks and
valleys in there and it was yet another record that got me through The
Gap.
5 – Guero
– Beck
Guero came out just a few weeks
before I moved the family to Oregon. I
love this sequel to Odelay; it’s
playful, fun, smart and ridiculous just like everything Beck gives us.
4 – Physical
Graffiti – Led Zeppelin
After I listened to this a dozen
times or so when I was seventeen, I know what type of music I loved. I’ve been told Zeppelin ripped off riffs and
lyrics. I’m been told Page was
sloppy. I’ve been told that other bands
deliver better blues-based rock. Well,
they are full of shit. This double album
has everything; electric guitar, slide, acoustic, instrumentals, banjo, you
name it.
‘In My Time Of Dying’ is eleven
minutes of jamming and abrupt stops and starts that makes you feel something. There are songs that are meant for stomping
on a back porch in a rocking chair with good friends, and songs that are meant
for a highway drive alone in the middle of the night.
It’s just cool.
3 - Yield –
Pearl Jam
Loved Pearl Jam. Still love Pearl Jam. The eight or so bands that the media
categorized as grunge put out their
best work by about 1995 or so. Yield came out in 1998 when the band was
deemed silly or forgetful. This album
has elements of punk and KISS, ‘70’s a.m. radio and arena rock. It’s lyrically beautiful and it feels like
the one truly rounded album by the band.
2 – Odelay
– Beck
I never listen to a CD over and
over again. I always think I’ll spoil
it. I like to spread it out, savoring
every track. When Odelay came out in 1996, when everyone forget who Beck was, and it
was getting 5 star reviews, I bought it as soon as I could. I listened to it three times in a day. I told everyone about it; that it was the sweetest
thing I’d heard in years. I wish there
was more if this in music. It is
produced without sounding sterile; it’s fun and inventive and mature and
silly. You can rap to it, dance to it, and
sing along with it.
1 - The
Bends – Radiohead
Just before OK Computer made this band one of the biggest in the world, The Bends came out when I seriously
needed new music in my life. There a lot less electronic experimentation and a
lot more emotional ebbs and flows on this album. ‘Bones’ is a song that gives me
goosebumps every time I hear it. There are songs like ‘Sulk” and ‘Just’ that
have no radio play but are better than most of the stuff on the radio in the
late nineties. This is one recording I
could not enjoy my life without.
(After reading through, I think I love albums with a little bit of everything. I love a good buffet.)
