I was recently asked to post 10 of my all-time favorite albums. This is a tall order. Limiting myself to 10 feels overly restrictive. Anyway, I took a stab at it and realized that if I'm going to do this, I need to do it right. So there will probably be more listings later.
In no particular order:
Heathen (David Bowie)
Released 2002:
In 2002, my life seemed pretty on-track. I was approaching the end of my 20s, but I thought I had my shit together: house, marriage, good job. The U.S. was still reeling from the aftermath of 9/11 and domestically things felt uneasy, but my life was good.
Favorite tracks:
Sunday; Slow Burn; Everyone Says 'Hi'; A Better Future
Additional thoughts:
When Heathen was released, I liked it but wasn't sure if I would ever consider it one of my favorite Bowie albums. I listened to it a decent amount over the years and seemed to gravitate to it whenever I was having a hard time with something. When my grandfather died a few years back, this was the album that helped me work through the grief.
The Fifth Release from Matador (Pizzicato 5)
Released 1999:
In 1999, I was transitioning from freelance work back to an FTE, office job. This was the year we bought our house and our friends were trying to figure out why we moved out into the country. (Spoiler alert: It's now one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.) I was finally starting to feel like a grown-up.
Favorite tracks:
Roma; La guerre est finie; Tout, Tout, Pour Ma Cherie; Darlin' of the Discotheque
Additional thoughts:
This feels like a little bit of a cheat since most of the album is made up of songs that were previously released on EPs. So many good songs though! This is one of those albums I like to listen to on those (too rare) days when the weather is perfect for driving with the windows down.
Confessions of a Pop Group (The Style Council)
Released 1988:
In was transitioning from middle school to high school in 1988. I probably didn't even know this album existed then. In 1988, the Berlin Wall hadn't fallen yet, and other than knowing who our president was at the time, I was not politically aware or active. I bought a copy of Confessions of a Pop Group when I was (I think) a sophomore in college. I was battling some major depression and wondering if I was on the right path academically and personally.
Favorite tracks:
Life at a Top a People's Health Farm; It's a Very Deep Sea; Why I Went Missing; How She Threw It All Away
Additional thoughts:
The Style Council gets a really bad rap (especially by fans of The Jam). However, if you listen to The Jam's catalog chronologically, the emergence of The Style Council makes perfect sense. This album, in particular, gets panned for being pretentious. Perhaps it is, but that's not what I hear when I listen to it. There are some fantastic lyrics in this album and some of the music is just brilliant.
My first copy of it was on cassette; I listened to it until it wore out. I've picked up several copies on CD/vinyl over the years. I bought this (pristine) copy of the album in 2000 for $3 at Half Price Books.
The Big Express (XTC)
Released 1984:
Although I was a huge new wave fan in 1984, I was into the Human League, Culture Club, Men at Work and other terrestrial radio bands. I doubt I ever heard this album when it came out. The first time I took notice of XTC was after the release of Skylarking (1986) when "Dear God" was getting a lot of airplay on the local alternative station. My brother gave me a copy of it for my birthday in (I think) 1988. At any rate, I bought my first copy of The Big Express on CD at some point in the early 1990s. I really started to get into XTC while I was in college and was buying everything I could find; I think my copy came from the clearance bin at Half Price Books.
Favorite tracks:
Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her*; All You Pretty Girls; Shake You Donkey Up; I Bought Myself a Liarbird; You're the Wish You Are I Had … pretty much the entire album?
Additional thoughts:
XTC has better albums. In fact, they have a LOT of albums that are better than The Big Express. However, when it comes to lyrically fun songs that are a lot of fun to sing along with, this one ranks at the top. This is one of my go-to albums for waking myself up in the morning on the drive to work.
* "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her" just might be my favorite XTC song of all – and that's saying a lot because I love a lot of their songs. There's something about the vivid imagery int he lyrics and the slightly menacing synths that just works so well.
…And Then We Saw Land (Tunng)
Released 2010:
In 2010, I was finally dealing with a lot of my personal shit in therapy. I was contracting but it was an extremely stable gig. Oh yeah – and after years of wanting to, I adopted 3 adorable Nigerian dwarf goats (Carl, Hansel, and Gretel).
Favorite tracks:
Hustle; Don't Look Down or Back; Sanitago; These Winds
Additional thoughts:
Is there a time when this album isn't a good fit? Because I can't think of one. Comforting when I'm feeling down. Relaxing when I'm stressed out. Lovely when I'm already in a good mood. This is the album that got me into them; I bought it after hearing them play live on BBC 6 Music one afternoon. (I tried to explain what they sounded like to Scot afterward and didn't do a very good job. I think I said it was "eclectic but not in a weird shit way.")
I still don't really know wtf "folktronica" means and I still think the genre sounds dumb, but Tunng is great and I love this album.
Handcream for a Generation (Cornershop)
Released 2002
Another from 2002. Not sure I have much else to say about that year.
Favorite tracks:
Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform; Music Plus 1; Lessons Learned from Rocky I-III; Motion the 11; People Power
Additional thoughts
Another album that's perfect for road trips or driving with the windows down on a lovely day. Also great for getting into a groove that helps me to do the boring stuff that I otherwise would avoid (e.g. dusting, sorting the mail, anything related to verifying data in a spreadsheet).
Cloudcuckooland (The Lightning Seeds)
Released 1990:
This was released while I was in high school, but I didn't get my copy until the summer after I graduated. I vaguely remember the local alternative station playing some songs from Cloudcuckooland. This album hooked me though and I remember playing songs from Jollification and Dizzy Heights on my college radio show.
Favorite tracks:
Pure; All I Want; The Nearly Man; Don't Let Go
Additional thoughts
I love pretty much everything by The Lightning Seeds. This was their first album, though, and I have a soft spot for it. The synth work is a bit dated and cheesy in places, but that doesn't affect how much I enjoy it.
My first copy was on cassette but there are several CDs and vinyl copies in my collection now. According to the receipt I found in this record sleeve, we bought this copy for between $2 and $8 in 2003 at Recycled Books in Denton, TX.
When Scot and I got married Cloudcuckooland was one of the few (I think 3) albums we ended up with duplicates of when we combined our music collections. (I think the other 2 were The Ramone's Mania and The Stone Roses' Second Coming.) Considering our collections and our taste in music, this was pretty surprising.
Finally, as many people know, "Pure" is Scot's and my 'song' and we danced to it at our wedding. It's still one of my favorite songs ever and as much as I think it would benefit from some updating, I don't know that I would like it as much if it did sound more current. There's something about it that's just Perfect. /nerdy fan joke
Perpetual Motion People (Ezra Furman)
Released 2015:
2015 was a pretty good year…until it wasn't.
Favorite tracks:
Restless Year; Lousy Connection; Body Was Made; Wobbly; Can I Sleep in Your Brain?
Additional thoughts:
I don't care that this album is only 3 years old; I say it counts as an all-time favorite. There are some albums that I just know I'm going to adore forever after I listen to it the first time, and this is one of them.
A mixture of punk, glam, and doo-wop – Perpetual Motion People is just plain fun. Pretty much every song is catchy enough to get stuck in my head for days at a time, and I don't even mind because the music is just that good.
Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
Released 2004:
2004 was a "rebuilding" year for me. I'd been laid off for the first time the year before and gone through a mini "what am I doing with my life?" crisis. By 2004, I'd raised my first hens from chicks (Mabel and Tilly) and was starting to get the hang of the whole raising-chickens-thing. I remember being disappointed that I could only buy these albums on CD; I really wanted vinyl. When it was later re-released on vinyl, I snapped it up.
Favorite tracks:
Get Ready for Love; There She Goes, My Beautiful World; Nature Boy; The Lyre of Orpheus; Breathless; Supernaturally; Spell
Additional thoughts:
These two albums were released together, so I can't rightfully separate them – if I had to do that, I'd probably just have to choose a different Nick Cave album altogether. The songs on Abbatoir Blues and Lyre of Orpheus represent a lot of what I enjoy about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and, yet, they are not representative of their catalog. I would never suggest Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus as a good overview of their music. (Maybe start with Let Love In, Henry's Dream, or Push the Sky Away – all fantastic albums in different ways – instead.) However, these 2 albums have some of the most widely listenable and catchy songs of Cave's discography.
Nick Cave has probably written some of the darkest songs I listen to. But, as I like to point out to people who think that's all there is to his oeuvre, he's also written some of the most absolutely wonderful love songs I've ever heard. Some of them are lust-driven and some are awe-driven, but almost all of them are smart and enjoyable. This twin album is full of them. (It also has a fair number of the darker stuff I enjoy, just not as much as a typical album.)
Not everything is a love song on these 2 albums by any means, For instance, Cave rewrote the story of Orpheus. Instead of Orpheus perfecting the lyre, charming all of nature and the gods, and winning his wife back from the dead, Orpheus creates a sound so beautiful that it kills everything and everyone who hears it (including his wife). Only Orpheus is so in love with the sound, he keeps on playing – even after God smites him and sends him to Hades. I've always enjoyed the song, "Lyre of Orpheus," but seeing it performed live when we saw Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in New Orleans 2014 was a surprise and extremely memorable. I don't think any other singer could seriously perform the lines —
Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said to Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing down here
I'll stick it up your orifice
—without laughing and/or being laughed at.
And while I'm on the subject of seeing him in concert: If you have the chance you should go, even if you're not a big fan of his music. Nick Cave is an absolute force live. He thrives on his audience and he is completely mesmerizing. I've said it before but we should all be glad he decided to become a rock musician instead of a preacher. I'm pretty sure that man could throw a tent revival and talk half the audience into doing whatever the hell he wanted.
Endnote: If you're a fan of the Harry Potter movies, you'll recognize the song, "O, Children," from the last movie. It's in the scene where Harry and Hermione are dancing in the woods. If you liked that song, you should check out this pair of albums and also Nocturama (which was released the year before these were).
Brick Factory (Crayon)
Released 1994
I discovered this in the college radio's collection shortly after the album came out. 1994 was filled with grunge and I remember being enamored with the upbeat nature of the album in a sea of Pearl Jam and Nirvana.
Favorite tracks:
Chutes and Ladders; The Snap-Tight Wars; Pedal; Schirm Loop; Jenny Don't Be Sad; Knee-High Susan
Additional thoughts
If you want to know what I was like in college – this is one of my favorite albums from back then. I still know all the words to all the songs and I still love to sing them loudly and out-of-tune. (Because loud and out-of-tune is kind of the signature of this album.) The songs totally take me back to mortgage-less, responsibility-free days of babydoll dresses with knee socks and lunchbox purses.
Crayon is noisy sweetness. It's got that grungy mid-'90s sound coupled with adorable lyrics about relationships and growing up. The singers are fantastically out-of-tune at times and I think they were still learning how to tune their instruments. If there's such a thing as twee punk or punk twee*, this is it.
Sadly, Brick Factory was the only album Crayon ever released. Two of the members would eventually go on to form the twee band, Tullycraft (another favorite band of mine).
Where did you get those knee-highs, Susan?
Oops, I forgot: Your name is Kim.
*I think that twee is pretty darn punk, for the most part: DIY sensibilities coupled with short, fast-rocking songs. I know that the idea of twee as punk is horrifying to some people, but… Shonen Knife, case in point. I'm convinced they're the closest thing we have to The Ramones and they sing about taking out the trash on garbage day, strawberry cream puffs, and capybaras.
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