My 20 Favorite Albums.
These are the albums that I have enjoyed the most for the first
seventeen years of my life. All of these are highly recommended. I
have thought long and hard about my
selections. I had to omit lots of stuff, however, like Nina Simone,
Tiny Tim, Daniel Johnston, and Dead Milkmen.
|
| 1 |  | Devo
Duty Now for the Future
Devo strikes a perfect balance between their early guitar sound and their later synths resulting in a
dark,
ominous sound. That combined with the cryptic lyrics have made this my favorite album ever. |
| 2 |  | Captain Beefheart
Ice Cream for Crow
Beefheart returns in the eighties for his last album. As his last musical project he seems sad and more
contemplative than usual. |
| 3 |  | Captain Beefheart
Lick My Decals Off, Baby
The messiness of Trout Mask condensed into one of the most consistently great albums of his career. I
never give two fives to one artist but dammit, Don earned it. |
| 4 |  | Portishead
Portishead
Wall of fear as my friend Evan says. Just really well written ridiculously haunting triphop with Beth
Gibbons
being as icy sounding as ever. |
| 5 |  | Elvis Costello
Armed Forces
More eclectic and catchy than his other early records, this album has Elvis at his angry best. |
| 6 |  | King Crimson
Red
King Crimson stops dicking around, writes a set of five mean, hard, metallic songs and immediately
breaks
up. Good job with that one, Fripp. |
| 7 |  | Lou Reed
Magic and Loss
Lou Reed spent the sixties being some boring avant-garde sonic artist loser, the seventies being some
glam
David Bowie ripoff, the eighties being annoyingly happy with that "I Love You, Suzanne" crap. But finally
sometime in the early nineties two of his close friends died. And somehow that inspired him to create
the
most macabre, woeful experience I have ever heard. Then he went to crap again. So I appreciate this as
all
I will ever get from him. |
| 8 |  | Prince
Controversy
Prince being as sappy, catchy, sexual, and awesome as he ever will be, all at the same time. |
| 9 |  | Minutemen
Double Nickels on the Dime
Hardcore punk's greatest album. And it lasts like two hours. |
| 10 |  | Randy Newman
Sail Away
Before Randy sold himself to Disney he was a pissed off singer songwriting who wrote more hilarious
songs
a year than anyone but Zappa. |
| 11 |  | Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
Absolutely Free
Speaking of Zappa, an album of political topics presented as vegetable metaphors can't possibly miss
this list. |
| 12 |  | Radiohead
Amnesiac
Kid A but less focused, more wild and inventive, and with New Orleans sounding brass here and there. If
The National Anthem was on here this would leave Kid A as little more than interesting. |
| 13 |  | System of a Down
Toxicity
I hate to have anything in common with assholes that worship this band but nearly every song on here
is
a really brutal thrashy metal that appeals mostly to my love of punk. Except "Needles" kind of sucks. |
| 14 |  | Wire
Pink Flag
Wire's first three albums beat down 99.9 percent of anything else ever made. And this is the best one.
Lots of thrashy, intellectual punk punctuated by slow moody pieces. "Champs" is the best song ever. |
| 15 |  | The Cure
Three Imaginary Boys
The Cure's first record. It sounds like they listened to lots of Wire around then. Then they must have
heard some shitty
Joy
Division and thought they should make "Just Like Heaven". Shame. |
| 16 |  | The Aquabats
The Fury of the Aquabats
The most consistent set of silly and fun skapunk ever. |
| 17 |  | Tom Waits
Swordfishtrombones
Fresh from leaving Asylum records, Tom found Captain Beefheart and mixed the Captain's style of
thumpy,
rhythmic noise with his own smooth, jazzy portraits of downtrodden people in bars. He got thumpy
tales of downtrodden people burning down their houses, I guess. Good Job. |
| 18 |  | The Clash
Combat Rock
This isn't the Clash selling out like most people say. Take that "Should I Stay or Should I Go" radio hit
nonsense off of here and you have Clash's most creative set of ponderous, discreet, low-key songs. |
| 19 |  | Pink Floyd
The Final Cut
This is as much Pink Floyd as those two Gilmour abominations are. Roger Waters wrote some personal
songs and some political songs, made them slow and boring and sang annoyingly. I really can't think of
anything good about it. For some reason I love it though. |
| 20 |  | Talking Heads
Fear of Music
Byrne's offsetting lyrics and vocal delivery are finally applied to much more eerie and inventive music.
"Drugs" is probably the best of these. |
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