Every few years, it's interesting to sit down and see how taste changes as we age. While we tend to hold consistency up as a sign of moral clarity, it's foolish to rely on an answer simply because it has always been the answer. Facts change, and so do opinions. There is nothing to feel shame about in acknowledging that who we are now is not who we once were, and the music we favor now isn't always going to be the same music that fueled our youth. Trying to adhere to some old perception of who we were for no other reason than to avoid charges of having changed our minds is a dangerous form of self-delusion.
We might be the same people we were, but we are not the same. As such, it's only natural that we look back on a lifetime of music from different angles, depending on where we are in life. The light coming through the prism shines a different color from each vantage point, and so too do records sound different from each stage of life.
As I sit down to this task yet again, my thinking has moved in the direction of my actual listening. I don't want to put records on the list because they have always been there, or because I have some esoteric assessment of why they are great. I want to reflect what are 'the classics' of my life, but I also want to give proper due to the albums I find myself still listening to regularity. The albums I can't get enough of, despite having heard them so many times, should be the ones rising up the ranks.
That was the aim, and that was the reasoning behind the biggest decision I've ever made in assembling these lists. But we'll get to that in a bit.
-ish. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway
Apparently, this is my favorite pop record. It's also why I try to never discount the means an artist might undertake to generate a name for themselves. She may have started on a reality show, but this album showcased her as an unbelievable voice, who at least for that moment in time had exquisite taste in picking the right songs to sing. I think this is also why I hate pop today.
-ish. Alyson Avenue - Presence Of Mind
European AOR isn't a genre I'm all that fond of, as a lot of it can be too soft an fluffy. But with saturated guitars and Anette Olzon's cutting voice, this album is a melodic gem. It's just pop enough, just rock enough, and jam packed with unforgettable songs.
-ish. Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
Iron Maiden are legends, but I have always preferred Bruce's solo trilogy to anything they have done. This album is the crowning achievement, a monumental slab of crushing metal with soaring melodies, and a poetic undercurrent that puts it on an intellectual level we don't often hear from this kind of music. It's drama at its finest.
-ish. Dan Swano - Moontower
The greatest death metal album ever, and quite frankly, probably the only one I ever need to listen to again. With it's approach often described as 'Rush meets death metal', it turns the conventions of the genre on its head, and throws in the best melodies ever growled. Swano's performance puts nearly every harsh vocalist in history to shame, and he soured me on all those who can't rise to his level.
-ish. The Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall
The Jayhawks, for a brief period, were the perfect combination of folk and fuzz. They shouldn't have worked the way they did, but the blend of Gary Louris and Mark Olsen, both as singers and guitar players, found the gaps where black and white can sit side-by-side without blending into grey. It's Americana at its absolute best.
Those are the records that just missed the cut, for various reasons. Several of them have been on previous iterations, and the only factor relegating them to this stature is my having not listened to them as often as those that will come later. They are fantastic records, but circumstances of mood have led to them being less present in my listening habits. My opinion of them hasn't changed any, and I could easily make a case for any of them over some that rank above them. This is all based on momentary feelings, after all.
20. Dave Matthews Band - The Lillywhite Sessions
My first pick is controversial, since it isn't an actual album. Still, I'm going with it, because writing about it for the twentieth anniversary last year reminded me of how important this collection of songs has been. I have been listening to this more in the last few months than I had in years, and it still kills me.
19. Halestorm - Vicious
The newest entry on the list is an interesting case. Do I think it's their best album? I'm not sure if I do, but it's the one I find myself putting on more than the rest. The songs that get to me are just too good, and there are moments when Lzzy's voice tears right through me.
18. Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
I often say I don't understand the blues, which is true, but listening to this album is one of the few times I think I could.
17. Elvis Costello - King Of America
Somber and simple, I love how this record is able to feel honest, even if it isn't, simply by stripping away the facade of the character. I still find great inspiration in the craft.
16. Edguy - Tinnitus Sanctus
Of all the power metal in all the gin joints.... wait, that's not right. What is right is that this black sheep continues to be the power metal with the strongest legs, the one album I keep going back to. It's fun without being silly (most of the time), and it feels like it actually matters, which not a lot of power metal can do.
15. Killswitch Engage - The End Of Heartache
This album defines an entire genre, and even though I never went much deeper, it also defines a period of time in my life. I vividly remember the first times I heard this record, how I was struggling to understand it, and how it eventually made all the sense in the world. I've long thought the 2009 album was better, but I find myself gravitating back toward this one lately.
14. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
One of the first albums I ever owned on cassette (ugh), I always thought it was crucial, but flawed. What I discovered over the last year, with the deaths of Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf, is those supposed flaws have mellowed with time, and now the album is to me the classic it has always been to everyone else. It still gets trumped by its sequel (spoiler alert), but the gap is closing.
13. Fall Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree
Maybe I just love puns? I never had an emo phase, per se, but I've had more of a relationship with it lately than I did when it was at its peak. There are other albums that fit that mold, and give me the same feeling, but none of them do it with quite the power and panache of this one. They sing, "you're a classic, like a little black dress." How true.
12. Green Day - Warning
My prime example of an addictive album. I got through waves where I won't listen to this for a long time, and then I will put it on half a dozen times in a week. There is something to Green Day's take on classic power-pop (that's what it is - let's be honest) that feels as vital as a cup of coffee in the morning. The blood may not be pumping, but it's flowing, which is more my speed.
11. Black Sabbath - Heaven & Hell
You'll notice I'm not, at my heart, really that much of a metal person. This album is, almost always, my pick for the best metal album ever made. Ronnie James Dio is incredible, but there was something about the combination of his persona with Tony Iommi's riffs that was magical. I can pretend I'm a headbanger.
10. Matchbox 20 - Yourself Or Someone Like You
As I've mentioned before, I can remember the exact scene when I knew I needed to get this album. Twenty-five years later, things came full circle, and that connection was too strong for me to ever think "Mad Season" is the more important album to me. They were never cool, but neither was I, and I still feel the same as I did when I first was listening to this one.
9. Graham Colton Band - Drive
Thanks to the old days of mislabeled files, I found myself listening to Graham Colton. He wrote one of my favorite songs ever (which doesn't seem to exist anymore), but it's the one and only album he made with his band before trying to be a pop star that echoes on through time. If a facsimile can still be a masterpiece, this would be the proof.
8. Dilana - InsideOut
As if I needed to say more than "Falling Apart" is my favorite song of all time, this album is a rollercoaster of sounds and emotions, which culminates in the memory of finding purpose. I wouldn't say this is when I found religion, but if anything has ever made me spiritual, it would be her.
7. Graveyard - Lights Out
An album I have routinely called a 'time machine', this one lets me feel what it must have been like for those classic rock fans who can't shut up about how everything has sucked since 1979. It's a simple album that strips the music down to the basics so we can be amazed at how much can be built from so little. It's one of the most amazing feats of rock and roll I've heard.
6. Tonic - Head On Straight
I've always loved this record, but it wasn't until I started to pay attention to my listening that I realized just how often I still reach for this one. Other than "Irish", I could listen to this record practically every day without ever growing tired of it. At times, I have.
5. Dilana - Beautiful Monster
I've already said everything I can say about this record, at least until its anniversary comes up and I need to find new words. So far, I haven't done any better than saying Dilana's voice resonates at the same frequency as my soul, and it's never been a stronger phenomenon than here.
4. Tonic - Lemon Parade
Maybe I stuck to my guns too long with this one, and I simply didn't want to admit it could no longer balance on the sharp tip that is the apex. What I realized recently is that for as much as I love this record, I don't have the same gut-level response to it I do with many others. Often, I want to feel something, and that's not what Tonic is necessarily for. Tonic is for when I want to remember why I became a musician myself.
3. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II
When I talk about getting 'swept up' in music, this album is the one that best embodies that feeling. It always has. I can put it on, and whether I'm transported back to being a kid or I'm looking back as an adult, something about Jim Steinman's songs transports me somewhere else. It's sort of funny how someone so obsessed with Peter Pan was able to write an album that sort of stops time when I listen to it.
2. The Wallflowers - (Breach)
The more time that passes, the more I find myself understanding what I want out of music. This record, more and more, checks all the boxes. It defines an entire side of my personality, and no matter how many times I listen to some of the poetry in these songs, they still sparks new images in my mind.
1. Jimmy Eat World - Futures
My answer to this question had been the same for over twenty years, but when I look at myself now, this is the album that I see hanging around as my aura. There have been countless cold and rainy days where my mind was wandering into the darker recesses, and the only album that felt right to listen to was this one. Nothing else hits the spot the same way as the perfect blend of sugar masking bitter undertones. That sums me up, in some ways, so perhaps this was an inevitable conclusion.
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