My Top 100 Albums (40-31)

The countdown continues as we reach the top 40.  The selections have gotten even harder from here but we're now waist deep in bands and albums that I absolutely love.  Just a reminder that there's only one album per band/singer allowed on the list.  On to number 40!

#40

Black Holes and Revelations

Muse

In prior entries I've talked about the six months I spent in New Jersey during college for an internship and how I was more or less solo for the majority of that time.  A couple months into the job, I decided that I would grow a goatee.  The problem with that is that I can't grow facial hair.  So, after two weeks, the goatee looked like a three year old's drawing of a house; you can tell what it's supposed to be but it doesn't look anything like what it's supposed to.  My boss's boss stopped me in the hallway after those two weeks and advised me that I should remove it for the sake of my workplace image.  Even worse, he suggested that I not even wait until the end of the day and I should take care of this during my lunch break.  I went back to my apartment, shaved and for a few minutes sat on the futon mattress on the floor that was serving as my makeshift bed and thought "this is really not going well at all".  Looking back, the whole experience was, in fact, going well and this higher-up had given me a valuable piece of advice.  It's beneficial to have people in your life to tell you when something is a bad idea or just to provide honest feedback.  Past success can be an impediment to finding this advice because either people will be less likely to question you or, even if they do, you may ignore them because you've been successful in the past so what do they know?

Muse is a band that has continually tried new things over the course of their career that has spanned eight albums over 21 years.  They started as a pure rock band and gradually experimented more and more with electronic instrumentation to varying degrees of success.  As the band grew more successful, some of the sound on the subsequent albums got larger and larger to the point where it felt like they were trying to fit an elephant into a port-o-potty.  Some of this newer sound doesn't connect with me but I applaud their initiative to try something new and inventive rather than just trying to repeat the sounds of prior albums.  It's also incredible to me that a band of three primary members can make a collective sound so loud that it borders on a full orchestra.

Following the solid rock album of Absolution, their third album which was propelled by hits like "Time Is Running Out" and "Hysteria", Muse released Black Holes and Revelations which ratcheted up the scale of the album aided by adding more synthesizers.  The synthesizer experiment continued further and further on the next two albums, The Resistance and The 2nd Law, the latter of which, in my opinion, took the electronic sound too far.  They started to sound less like a rock band and more like a synth show even though there were hits I liked including "Madness", "Undisclosed Desires" and "Panic Station".  Like a misguided twenty year old mistakenly trying to grow facial hair, the band needed someone to tell them to give them honest feedback.  Either no one was brave enough to provide the feedback or their past success closed their ears off to those kinds of suggestions.  

Muse attempted to get back to more of their rock roots with Drones which I thought was a middle of the road, perfectly serviceable rock album (lead singer Matt Bellamy's fresh divorce from Kate Hudson could have played a factor in the album's production).  Their latest release, Simulation Theory, is actually an album that I enjoyed the most since Black Holes, even though the synthesizer influence returned in full.  I just spent the last two paragraphs saying how they shouldn't lean into the synth sound too much but now I'm praising the synth-heavy Simulation Theory.  One more brick in the 7 foot wall of evidence that I shouldn't be a music critic.  

Black Holes and Revelations was a Goldilocks moment for the band to my listening preference.  The songs were more operatic than those on a standard rock album and there was just enough electronic influence to make the sound interesting without overwhelming the album.  "Starlight", "Map Of The Problematique", "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Knights of Cydonia" are some of the highlights.  I'm really looking forward to what the trio has in store in future albums but they've already built a very successful catalog highlighted by album number 40. 

#39

Only By The Night

Kings of Leon

In my only major traffic accident, I rear-ended another car at a stop light in late 2008.  I had never been in a car when the airbags deployed.  No one warned me how dusty that experience is.  I was convinced that the car was on fire.  I'm sure my girlfriend at the time enjoyed not only being in an unnecessary traffic accident but also talking me off the ledge that the car was not on fire (shades of Ricky Bobby).  

Despite this accident that occurred around 4 PM, I was still determined that we make the 8 PM Kings of Leon show at The Electric Factory, a relatively small venue in Philadelphia.  I'm glad I did because, as the band announced at that show much to the chagrin of the crowd, it would be the last time the band would play a venue that small.  The crowd was actually so angry at the decision that most of those in the front row turned their backs on the band when they played "Sex On Fire".  That was hard for me to understand since I had just started listening to the band seven months earlier.  

Similar to many others, my first real exposure to Kings of Leon was through the album Only By The Night which included the hits "Sex On Fire", "Crawl", "Closer" and "Use Somebody", a song that was driven into the ground so hard that it resurfaced on the other side of the planet.  After wearing out that album in 2008, I made my way to their previous three albums and I particularly enjoyed Aha Shake Heartbreak ("King Of The Rodeo", "The Bucket") and Because of the Times ("On Call", "Knocked Up" but really the whole album is great). 

As much as I enjoyed the earlier work and even the later albums, especially the latest album WALLS, the decision for the list came down to Because of the Times or Only By The Night.  The knock against Night would be that the hits have been overplayed but that's by no fault of the band.  Going back to how I felt hearing each album the first time, Only By The Night takes today's spot on the list.  

12 years later and the album still holds up.  I would be tempted to say that the number 39 album is "on fire" but I don't want to give myself a panic attack.  *checks self to see if on fire*

#38

August and Everything After

Counting Crows

"Mr. Jones" was one of the first songs I remember hearing on the radio and wanting to own.  Purchasing a CD was a big endeavor that involved parental consent and a monetary loan so it was much easier to just record the song off the radio onto a cassette even if the sound quality was akin to listening to the song inside a tin can.  Plus you could never be sure when the song would even play on the radio.  The safest bet was during the weekly Top 40 Countdown but that presented its own problems.  The Casey Kasem hosted countdown aired on our local radio station on Sunday mornings from 8 AM to noon which meant that it overlapped considerably with Sunday Catholic mass and, on some Sundays, catechism.  Sometimes I would miss the song that I wanted completely or, even worse, the song would come on when we were two minutes away from the house which meant that I would just miss being able to run inside and press record.  On those days I would carry resentment toward my parents for a couple hours at their dilly-dallying after mass ("just haaaad to talk to the LeBeau family for those five minutes huh?").  
 
Thankfully "Mr. Jones" was one of the songs that I was able to successfully capture.  The rest of the 1993 August and Everything After album passed me by for the most part until I was a teenager with the full power of Napster at my fingertips.  "Round Here", "Omaha" and "Rain King" were my favorites and they're still the tracks for which I turn the volume up a little higher.  But I appreciate the album for being able to just hit play around the house or in the car and not worry about which song is coming up next.  
 
As much as I enjoyed "Mr. Jones" on the radio, I would learn to enjoy it in a new form when I met my friend Chris when we were both on work rotations in Jacksonville.  Chris has a good voice and once or twice would coerce his way into a stint on the microphone at a bar with a band where his go-to song was "Mr. Jones".  He saved the best version for his wedding day though.  I don't think he pulled it out in the delivery room for the birth of his son though.  I'm always impressed by his ability to actually sing in front of people and to remember the words to what is a deceptively tricky song lyrically.  
 
You'd be well within your right to have Hard Candy penciled into this list but, for me, Counting Crows never flew higher (bird pun, yay) than album number 38 August and Everything After.

#37

The King Is Dead

The Decemberists

I can almost smell the campfire on my clothes by the time this gem of an album wraps up.  The Decemberists took my favorite song "Sons and Daughters" from 2006 and expanded it into album form with the tweaks of ramping up the Americana folk influence and the guest guitar work of R.E.M.'s Peter Buck.  The result is 2011's The King Is Dead.  

Like I mentioned, I think the ideal setting for this album is around an evening campfire but it really plays anywhere as a relaxing listen.  The whole album is strong but "This Is Why We Fight" was the song that drew my attention back to The Decemberists after a couple albums that didn't connect with me.  It's probably not a coincidence that three of my favorite songs on the album are the ones for which Peter Buck lends his guitar talent ("Don't Carry It All", "Calamity Song" and "Down By The Water").

"Rox In The Box" is an upbeat workers anthem masking the absolutely brutal work performed by Montana miners at the turn of the 20th century, specifically the Speculator Mine disaster in 1917.  It's not a pleasant story but the struggle of the American blue collar worker is a running theme in the history of the early 20th century and it's this song specifically that could have been sung around a worker encampment bonfire in the 1920s.  It blends in with the album's theme perfectly.  Side note:  the Solas "Tell God and the Devil" covers this same topic with a similar folk song.

 

"January Hymn" and "June Hymn" are beautiful, slowed down tracks while the closing track "Dear Avery" has taken on a different meaning for me since our second daughter, Avery, was born in July 2019.  She seems ambivalent when I sing this to her in the car.  That's not likely to change as she gets older.  

The only songs that leave me a little cold are "Rise To Me" and "All Arise!" (too twangy and leans a little too hard into the folk sound).  But even discounting those two songs isn't enough to knock this stellar album out of the top 40 and it comes in at number 37 on the list.  

#36

21

Adele

This album might be number 36 on the list but Adele has a top ten voice that's able to pack arenas, sell millions of albums, and maybe even provide common ground for the deepest of divisions.  Through a discography that's shaping up to sound like last night's lotto winners (19, 21, 25), Adele has proven to be a staying force in the musical landscape.  

I've written before about being fortunate enough to have friends and family who were generous enough to share their good taste with me, not only in music, but also in movies, books and even plays.  Few people were more influential to me than Dan, my first manager after college.  He not only looked out for me professionally and helped me navigate the corporate world but also provided me with some entertainment recommendations that had a lasting impact well after I rotated to my next position.  

One of the downsides to my first job was that during our quarterly closings, our team would have to stay at the office until about 2 or 3 AM.  There would be lulls and waiting periods throughout the night during which our team (seven people with ages ranging from 22 to 29) could converse about topics at length other than work.  Music, movies, TV and New York plays/shows were the main points of conversation and it was great for me to hear new and different opinions.  

After a while, I knew Dan and I had similar taste (David Fincher, The Killers, Arrested Development) so when he started providing recommendations, I listened.  If not for him I would have missed out on seeing shows like Spring Awakening (pre-fame Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele) or August: Osage County as well as movies like Half Nelson.  He also put the bug in my ear early about Adele and he was the one who got me a copy of 21 before "Rolling In The Deep" overtook the airwaves and just society in general.  "Rumor Has It", "Someone Like You", "Set Fire To The Rain" and "Turning Tables" also got frequent CD play in my car during my hour-long commute.  

The older I get the more I'm able to look back on my career and see with appreciation how many people looked out for me.  Dan was one of those people both professionally and personally and for that I'm very grateful.  I should call him more often.  It would give me a reason to say "Hellooo.....it's me...."

Adele put out an equally stellar album 25 in 2016 but the album 21, coming in at number 36 today, will likely be viewed as her go-to album and for good reason.  

#35

Throwing Copper

Live

Searching for music from the band Live was a nightmare when music streaming sites launched.  You can imagine the flood of results that were returned by just typing in the word "live".  But it was worth the effort to capture their music from the 1994 triple platinum Throwing Copper.  

The album's success was built around singles "Selling The Drama", "I Alone" and "All Over You".  But it's "Lightning Crashes" that vaults this album not only above other Live albums but also into the ranks of top rock albums of the 90s.  It's a song that seems like it shouldn't work.  The subject matter is a little grisly and macabre as the first minute of the song describes a mother passing away while giving birth.  It compelled the eleven year old version of me to look up the word "placenta" in the dictionary (pre-internet!).  I found the definition, slowly closed the book, and backed away.  My take on the song is that it's meant to examine the dichotomy between death and birth and the endless cycle of human life.  But that's weighty for a rock song especially when one of the top albums released that same year, Green Day's Dookie, was a euphemism for poop.  But some mid-90s rock listeners never shied away from darker lyrics in songs (e.g. Vervepipe's "The Freshman" or Ben Folds's "Brick") so maybe it's not so much of a stretch that this song was a smash.  

What's consistent across the whole album is lead singer Ed Kowalczyk's excellent voice.  There are some songs that don't strike a chord with me ("Pillar of Davidson", "Shit Towne") but the overall album is so strong that those slight dips are rarely noticed.  

Normally I advise sticking to the original album rather the "deluxe" version that Spotify offers on some albums.  Most of the additional tracks offered in these deluxe versions are demos or extra tracks that were omitted from the original album for good reason.  But this album is the exception.  One of the three extra tracks is "Hold Me Up".  I have no idea why the band thought that this song didn't belong on the original album.  I think it's one of the best songs they've ever made and it fits tonally with the rest of the album.  

 

I'll always have a soft spot for their 1999 album The Distance To Here ("The Dolphin's Cry", "Run To The Water", "They Stood Up For Love") but it still stands a full foot shorter than the band's sophomore effort Throwing Copper.  The band would continue on for a few more years with varying success until the original band split for good in 2009.  But as Throwing Copper celebrates its twenty-five year anniversary this year, it stands as a landmark to the band's accomplishments and as the number 35 album here.

#34

There Is Nothing Left To Lose

Foo Fighters

Runner-Up:  The Colour And The Shape

Bronze Medal:  In Your Honour

Honorable Mention:  Wasting Light

The third album from Foo Fighters whose title also accurately captures how my daughters apparently feel about winter hats and gloves at schoo (dad jokes!).  If I wrote this ten years earlier that joke would have read instead as "how I feel the morning after a hard night out at the bars". 

The Colour And The Shape will likely always be the classic Foo Fighters album as it includes "Everlong", "My Hero" and "Monkey Wrench" but it's their follow-up 1999 album that takes the spot on the list today.  Over the last 25 years the band has put out nine albums and TINLTL manages to stand out as the most unique and not just because it's the shortest Grohl would ever cut his hair.  

I love a good, loud rock anthem and Foo Fighters are able to supply that with ease across multiple albums (e.g. "Walk", "Best Of You", "St. Cecilia").  But this album, while still firmly in the rock and roll genre, is a little mellower than the band's other work.  That's partly because the band consisted of three members for this album which is half the size of the band's lineup currently.  So while the sound may not reach as grandiose levels, the songs sound more intimate.  It's also the first album for which Taylor Hawkins serves as the drummer.  Hawkins has been one of the better influences musically on the band over the years and that comes through as early as this album.  

"Learn To Fly" has been, and probably always will be, my favorite Foo Fighters song and it spawned the band's best music video.  It involves an airplane, hallucinogen-spiked coffee, pre-fame Tenacious D (for whom Grohl would serve as the drummer on their next album), and the band's trio managing to save all of a plane's passengers because they were drinking scotch instead of coffee during the flight.  It's a classic early aughts video for which Grohl plays six parts and highlights the band's fun-loving nature as opposed to the self-seriousness of Grohl's prior band Nirvana.  

"Stacked Actors", "Breakout", "Generator", "MIA" are the other highlights here.  There's also what's probably one of the bands best ballads in "Next Year" which I will forever associate with the theme song to the gone-too-soon TV show Ed.  

No doubt that Foo Fighters will continue releasing solid rock albums for years to come.  Grohl stated on Bill Simmons's podcast that there's no point in Foo Fighters breaking up now.  He equated it to your grandparents getting a divorce.  "What's the point?  What the f*ck are they gonna do?"  It'll be interesting how the band progresses in the future.  Grohl has had a hand in a number of bands either getting started or furthering their success (Queens of the Stone Age, Tenacious D) so it wouldn't be surprising if there are more side projects along the way.  

But There Is Nothing Left To Lose, today's album coming in at number 34, will in all likelihood remain my favorite release from the band.

#33

Hold My Home

Cold War Kids

Runner-Up:  Robbers and Cowards

Bronze Medal:  LA Divine

Honorable Mention:  Loyalty To Loyalty

It's no secret that Joseph A. Bank runs a "sale" almost every weekend of the year.  It's a gimmick and it's meant to spur potential buyers to buy three suits to drive the price per suit lower.  But running a sale that often just becomes white noise and consumers no longer view the sale announcement as a special event.  The same can be true of bands and album releases.  Release an album too infrequently and your fan base loses its fervor for your music.  Release an album too often and the albums could suffer in quality.  

Few bands are more prolific in terms of album releases than Cold War Kids.  Over 13 years the band has released eight albums including three in the last four years.  Thus far in the band's career the frequent releases haven't resulted in a downturn in quality.  One of the benefits of such frequent album releases, other than the obvious benefit of enjoying their well made music, is that I'm able to connect each album to what was going on in my life at the time.  

I remember listening to 2007's Robbers and Cowards in the hospital when my mom was receiving chemotherapy (the song "Hospital Beds" hit a little too close to home at the time). 2013's Dear Miss Lonelyhearts was around the time of our wedding.  2017's LA Divine and 2019's New Age Norms 1 were both released around the births of both of my daughters.  I know it's common for certain songs or albums to tie the listener to a particular experience or feeling or moment but with this band, the frequency of this band's album output has made that easy.  

It's also encouraging that the albums released are consistently of high quality.  There's no one album from the band that's completely blown me away but they've been consistently solid.  So instead of one "A+" album, there are six to seven "B+" to "A-" albums.  The strength of the band has always relied on the underlying use of the piano and lead singer Nathan Willet's voice which somehow effectively achieves a mix of wounded but upbeat.  I know "true" fans of the band turn their nose up a bit at the newer releases like LA Divine but I love the sound of that album particularly songs like "Can We Hang On" and "Part Of The Night" where lead singer Nathan Willett's voice can really shine.  But I also love the band's early work like Robbers and Cowards ("We Used to Vacation", "Hang Me Out To Dry") and Loyalty to Loyalty ("Something Is Not Right With Me", "Dreams Old Men Dream").  

But it's 2014's Hold My Home that represents the band's apex to me.  The pounding piano notes of "All This Could Be Yours" grabs your attention out of the gate and that's followed by the band's biggest commercial success "First".  "Drive Desperate" (my favorite on the album), "Hold My Home", "Nights & Weekends" and the closing track "Hear My Baby Call" are the other highlights here.  

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to keep tying life events to Cold War Kids album releases like my daughter's graduation or bingo night at the nursing home.  I'll take as much good music that this band can churn out regardless of how frequent the releases occur.  But if the band decides to take an extra year or two to make a product as good as the number 33 album, Hold My Home, I'd be happy to wait patiently.  

#32

Full Moon Fever

Tom Petty

Runner-Up:  Wildflowers

Bronze Medal:  Damn The Torpedoes

Honorable Mention:  Into The Great Wide Open

A titan of rock and roll, Tom Petty makes his contribution to the list with today's entry Full Moon Fever.  I'm combining Tom Petty's solo work and Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers all as one discography (same will go for Springsteen and the E Street Band).  There may not be an artist on this list who's an easier listen than Petty and it's hard to tell whether that's due to his voice or the guitar work.  It's probably unfair to place Petty this far down the list and the main reason is that I have typically always listened to his music in the form of a "best of" playlist rather than in album form.  In the case of a mega-talent like Petty, that playlist can stretch for over three hours.  

Those playlists very often served as the background music of many trips and memories with my best friends from college.  Petty's music provided the audio backdrop to eating Mexican food at 3 AM our senior year, renting a houseboat for three days in Tennessee as a one year college reunion, an impromptu road trip senior year to Winston-Salem to help one of our best friends check out Wake Forest law school and, my favorite, pulling into lake cabins in upper peninsula Michigan at 6 AM after a 13 hour drive and seeing the sun come up over the lake as "Learning To Fly" played on the radio.  Petty's music is primed to put you in a good mood already but the fact that I associate fun memories like those just adds to my preference for his songs.

Tom Petty versus Bruce Springsteen has been an informal competition to me (shades of Pearl Jam versus Nirvana) and I'm not sure if that's widespread or if it's just in my head.  They rose to prominence at roughly the same time and both went through stretches where they released solo work as well as of members of a band (Heartbreakers and E Street Band).  Petty's work is almost as voluminous as Springsteen's but it's not dissected with nearly the same minutiae.  Petty's work is the easier listen and that's not necessarily a bad thing especially depending on your mood.  There are some nights that I'd rather just have a beer and sing along to "Free Fallin'" rather than put myself in a three day funk by listening to Nebraska.  For anyone starting to get riled up that I'm attacking Springsteen, calm yourself; his entry is still coming.  They're both immensely talented and I love both of catalogs for somewhat different reasons.

Full Moon Fever takes the spot as the Petty entry by a fairly wide margin but I could have also included Wildflowers here instead.  It's just hard to compete with an album that includes "Free Fallin'", "Yer So Bad", "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down A Dream" and "Love Is a Long Road".  This was Petty's first solo album, which was also about the time that Springsteen ventured out on his own with Tunnel of Love.  Petty brought in members of his side band The Traveling Wilburys (except Bob Dylan) to help record and it's easy to hear their influence on the album.  Wilburys are another band well worth the listen and aren't talked about enough as a strong rock band (self-guilt and apologies to Kingsley that they won't make it on this list).

What is on the list is Full Moon Fever, an incredibly strong album from a rock and roll legend.  We won't mention the acting career.  We'll just focus on album number 32.

#31

The Suburbs

Arcade Fire

Runner-Up:  Funeral

The band that has somehow become synonymous with hipsters, here's an Arcade Fire entry to kick off the top 40.  Their debut album Funeral was released in 2004 which somehow completely passed me by as I had more pressing matters in my life, like trying to fit in during freshman year of college while occasionally and naively wearing Aeropostale gear.  So Arcade Fire wouldn't show up on my radar for another three years when they were promoting their next album Neon Bible as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live (they actually participated in one of my favorite short sketches "Business Meeting") and their song "Wake Up" was used in the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are.

The band was large both in number of members and, as a result of that much instrumentation, in sound.  That could result in songs that sounded grand in scale like "Rebellion" or "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" but it could also result in some songs sounding too crowded or a little out of control.  That left me as a casual fan of the band up until 2010 when their next album, The Suburbs, was released.  

The Suburbs more effectively harnessed the large sound of the band by scaling down the complexity even if that meant scaling down the enormity of the sound.  That's obvious from the opening track "The Suburbs" where the gentle piano and gentle Partridge Family guitar strumming actually evokes images of a 1950s family driving through their perfect neighborhood.  But that's contrasted against lyrics of "sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling" which I interpret to mean moving past caring about larger issues and settling into the seclusion and insulated safety net of the suburbs.  

The last notes of "The Suburbs" bleeds right into "Ready To Start", "Modern Man" and "Rococo" which makes for a stellar start to the album.  The rest of the way is littered with solid track after solid track from "Suburban War" to "We Used to Wait" until the album's finale of "The Sprawl I & II" and a closing orchestration of the opening "The Suburbs" which leaves the album on a slight melancholy note.  

The band's subsequent albums didn't strike a chord with me but it's impossible for  me to leave The Suburbs off any "best of" list and it comes in at number 31 here, just missing out on the top 30.

We're on to the top 30 so there will be a new post tomorrow (12/7) taking us from numbers 30 to 21.  I appreciate you sticking with it this far!