Albums I Love No One Seems To Know

 Music is a personal experience, but it's also communal. While our connection to a particular song or record is entirely our own, we take it upon ourselves to share what we love, to talk about it with others in the hope of impacting someone else's life in the same way. It isn't imperative other people hear music the same way we do, there is a bond that is formed when taste coalesces, and we can talk in a language that doesn't involve words.

Not every album becomes ubiquitous. Many are from artists who never break through into the the collective consciousness, and their albums are known only to a select few who happen to have been in the right place at the right time. There are several I have loved for years, but I have rarely if ever heard another soul talk about. Today, I'm going to put forward a few of them, so maybe you can hear something the same way I do in them.

Nightmare Of You - S/T

I was not big into indie-rock when Bright Eyes and Dashboard Confessional were a bit thing, so I don't know how I came across this album. For years, though, I have been drawn to it's blend of catchy melodies and lyrics that try (and sometimes fail) to be hyper-literate. It serves as a bit of a time capsule, and still sounds better than most of the current indie-rock scene.

Edward O'Connell - Vanishing Act

If you have been frustrated by the last.... thirty?.... years of Elvis Costello's career, this is the album for you. Edward O'Connell released this wonderful gem of an album, replete with power-pop hooks, sardonic lyrics, and a voice that reminds us of Costello. It's more straight-forward than Elvis' early albums, but in that style, and of that quality.

Adler - Back From The Dead

The former Guns N Roses drummer put together this band for what turned out to be one album, released too late in a year to make many waves or year-end lists, but it deserved so much better. It's a remarkable little rock album, which I attribute in no part to him. It's crunchy, catchy, and tightly written. It's from the same era, but far better than "Chinese Democracy" was (even though I like that record more than a lot of people).

Graham Colton Band - Drive/EP

A two-fer. Before he started making adult-oriented pop music, Graham Colton was a songwriter who put together a great band. "Drive" was the major-label album that never generated any buzz, but is a killer record that built on the framework bands like The Wallflowers left on the charts. Even before that, there was an independent EP of yet more great pop/rock songs with hints of Americana. The best of them would get watered down, and is the only version anyone seems to know these days. In fact, that EP isn't available anywhere anymore, which is hard to believe. I still love those songs, and it's sad no one gets to hear them.

John Popper & The Duskray Troubadours - S/T

The frontman of Blues Traveler has had a few solo projects, but this is the one that makes me wonder 'what if?' While his main band was making moves to try to win back the pop mainstream, this band was a fun project getting together to play some simple songs, which is all you ever need. A bit stripped back, and far more organic, this album blended the old and new of Blues Traveler better than the band themselves, and probably should have been the band's album, rather than "Blow Up The Moon".