1) One album per band
2) No greatest hits albums
3) Not a music critic, pure amateur here
While I enjoy all the albums that have made the list so far, now we're starting to get into the good stuff. You may not be familiar with all the artists in this section but I'd recommend giving these albums a legitimate chance. And if you like what you hear, most of these bands have multiple albums so you could stumble into something good. Sometimes it's hard for me to give a full album a chance because Spotify has made it so easy to just sink back into artists and playlists that I already know. And more than 80% of the time, I never listen again to anything new but I never view it as a waste of time because in that 20% when I find something good, it's worth it.
#75
Enema Of The State
Blink-182
In the song "What's My Age Again", Blink-182 boldly proclaims that the twenty-something year old rockers still act like they're in freshman year. For me, I was about to enter my freshman year when this album was released. What a surprise that the simple song with sophomoric lyrics would resonate with the 14 year old me. Side note: When I saw the title of the album, Enema of the State, I just thought they had misspelled "enemy" as some kind of slang or just to be wacky. It didn't take long for my friends to correct me and inform me what an enema was. (sigh) Growing up.
Given the album cover, there was zero chance that my mom would have signed off on this purchase (our family had a firm anti-latex glove stance). Luckily for me, Napster came into existence that summer so it wasn't long before I was utilizing our family phone line and 50 pound desktop computer to download a song at a two song per hour clip. However frustrated my parents were about how much I was using dial-up internet, that problem would only grow when I would discover AOL and MSN messenger one year later. But those were 2000 problems. This was 1999 when Y2K was looming, cell phones were as big as a Kindle, and TRL was a thing.
I bring up TRL because Blink-182 was featured prominently there and that's important because this band became as much a pop music sensation as they were a rock band. That's particularly ironic given that the "All the Small Things" video was a send-up of a lot of pop music videos of the day (e.g. Backstreet Boys at an airport, "Genie In A Bottle" at the beach). The band was huge and this album was their zenith. The vocals are distinctive but in the same vein of other pop punk rock acts like Sum-41, but what distinguished Blink's sound was Travis Barker's drumming. It's the driving force behind each song, and even in more mellow tracks like "Adam's Song" Barker still injects a rising drum solo toward the end. That sound has helped the album age well as opposed to some of the lyrics which just seem overly dumb now or just outdated. I haven't had the courage to play "Dumpweed" in our house for fear of the chorus line "I need a girl that I can train".
Enema Of The State is an album that we can look back on fondly but makes us feel just a little bit uncomfortable. Not unlike freshman year of high school. "Adam's Song", "What's My Age Again", "All the Small Things", and "Mutt" are the highlights of album number 75 and, at only 35 minutes, the album breezes by and does not overstay its welcome.
#74
End Of The Innocence
Don Henley
Don Henley in all his long-haired, cigarette-smoking glory (seriously, look at this album cover) put out this gem of an album in 1989. It's true that his best known songs are probably "Boys of Summer" or "Dirty Laundry", but The End Of The Innocence is the peak of his solo career. Fun fact: I covered the end of my innocence in the album #75 write-up when I found out what an enema was!
There's so much melodrama in these songs; you can wallow in it if that's the mood you're feeling. "The End of the Innocence", "The Last Worthless Evening", "New York Minute", and, my favorite, "The Heart Of The Matter" carry the 10-track album and its relatively long run time of 53 minutes. Listen for Guns 'N Roses front man Axl Rose as the background vocals in "I Will Not Go Quietly". Henley by far had the best post-Eagles career of any of his former bandmates, save for Glenn Frey's "The Heat Is On" being immortalized as the opening title song of Beverly Hills Cop.
Relax, listen to Henley's voice and enjoy album number 74 while wondering if Henley's inclusion on the list counts as the Eagles entry.
#73
Flood
They Might Be Giants
What a difference in lyrics between earlier list entries like Rise Against and today's band They Might Be Giants. One tries to spur social change and activism and the other literally sings about "Whistling In The Dark". Formed in the early eighties, They Might Be Giants uses lyrics that aim for absurdity or humor written over the top of very unconventional but very catchy melodies.
When I was in seventh grade, I took a typing class, which sounds like something Peggy Olson from the first season of Mad Men would enroll in, but at least my school had the foresight that these fancy computers would probably be pretty vital to work and life in the future. The computer lab shared the space with a high school Excel course and I was seated next to a sophomore. I remember this kid as a computer whiz but in actuality, it was probably just because he knew how to use copy/paste using Alt+E+S+V (Excel jokes!).
Whatever his computer proficiency, he had a lot of free time on his hands and would spend a lot of that time listening to music at a very low volume but still audible to me. If you're young or have forgotten, let me remind you that desktop computers had CD-ROMs which allowed for playing CDs. He listened to the They Might Be Giants album Flood for a few days straight. After a few days, I finally had the courage to ask him who the band was. He seemed thrilled that someone was actually expressing interest in this band and immediately let me borrow it to listen to at home.
I made a physical copy that night which was significantly easier than if I had tried to download the album over Kazaa. Again, in case you've forgotten, trying to download a 19 song album (plus the seventeen viruses that Kazaa threw in for free) would take all night via the dial-up connection most of us were still using in 1997. I've been hooked on the album since then and it's something that's so simple that even my daughters enjoy it in the car.
I think that may have been the only thing that the upperclassman and I had in common other than a random seat assignment, but just shows that music is a great way to find common ground. The 1990 platinum album Flood is the band's best work. Once you get past the fact that the lyrics don't really mean anything deeper and shouldn't be dwelled on, the songs are so catchy (musical term). And if you don't like a particular song, it's usually over in a couple minutes as evidenced by the album length of 43 minutes despite being comprised of 19 songs. Highlights are "Birdhouse In Your Soul", "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", "Particle Man", "Women and Men" and, my favorite, "Whistling In the Dark". At the number 73 spot, don't judge and enjoy an album that doesn't take itself seriously.
#72
Cosmo's Factory
Creedence Clearwater Revival
I remember sitting in the back seat on the way home from Catholic Mass when I was eight or nine years old and my dad played Creedence Clearwater Revival's greatest hits album Chronicle, starting with "Lookin' Out My Back Door". That was around the time it was dawning on me that there was all this music from older generations that might be worth listening to.
John Fogerty's voice is so distinctive and, to my knowledge, he's the only singer to be sued for plagiarizing himself so there's that. CCR's sound was described by Fogerty as "swamp rock" and you can argue that many of the songs sound the same. Mumford and Sons seemed to model their music as a modern day cousin of this, and it's funny that they also seem to experience some of the same criticism of repetition. CCR put out some great tracks in the classic rock pantheon and their label sure hasn't been shy about loaning out their music for movie soundtracks (Forrest Gump, Remember the Titans, The Longest Yard) or even commercials ("Fortunate Son" for Levi's).
The Chronicle greatest hits compilation is still the album I use to listen to the band more often than not, but Cosmo's Factory is my favorite of their standalone albums. There are short, well known tracks like "Lookin' Out My Back Door", "Run Through the Jungle", "Up Around the Bend", and "Who'll Stop the Rain" and there are long musical marathons like "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". Embrace your inner bayou and enjoy album number 72.
#71
After The Party
The Menzingers
While After the Party is the official album entry to the list, I treat this album as the second half of a two-part album with the first half coming in the form of 2011's On The Impossible Past.
It's rewarding when a band's members are the same age as you, the listener, because it usually means that the lyrical content matches the trajectory of your own life's progression. In the On The Impossible Past album, the Philadelphia-based group touches on friends, bars, anger at materialism ("Nice Things"), recklessness and the invincibility of youth ("On The Impossible Past"), pursuing relationships ("Casey"), insecurity (very clear during the chorus on "The Obituaries"), or, said differently, all the beats of someone in their early to mid-twenties.
My wife (then fiancee) and I saw them at The Electric Factory when they opened for The Gaslight Anthem in late November 2012. I hadn't heard of the band prior to the concert announcement but when I found out they were the opener I listened to the Past album and was interested in how they would be live. During the opening song, "The Obituaries", vocalist Tom May spit on the stage floor in front of him a few times. As a result, if there was ever a chance I could get Katie into the band, they were now gone.
I casually followed the band after that, but thought their next release Rented World was average. But their follow-up, After The Party, seemed like a big step forward in both the sound and how much they were able to tap into the insecurity and restlessness that can come after your twenties fade and your thirties set in. The chorus of the opening track "Tellin' Lies" very explicitly lays this out. The line "where we gonna go now that our twenties are over?" can be taken a multitude of ways. In terms of relationships it can mean, "Are we good for each other long-term or is this just something for fun?". It can be taken as more metaphorical as "where is my life going now that my twenties are over"? Or it can be taken literally, as I think of that line every time my friends and I are in a bar (remember pre-Covid bars?), the younger twenty-somethings gradually take over as the night progresses, and we have to make the decision of where to go because we're clearly too old to stay here.
"Lookers" confronts the reality of physical aging. They write about the danger of holding on too long to the days of care-free drinking with your friends as it bleeds into lonely alcohol dependence ("The Bars"). There's some pretty bleak existentialism in "House on Fire" with the heavy line of "Yeah, does it make you nervous? / Have you fulfilled your purpose". Those kinds of just-before-falling asleep anxiety thoughts are second only to wondering about the after-life.
Based on the lyrics, I know this sounds like an album meticulously created to provoke an anxiety attack, but the music is so upbeat and strong that it serves as a good balance to the lyrics. Oddly enough, the title track "After The Party" is my favorite and, whether it was the intent or not, it gives me the most comfort of any song on the album. The line that's repeated over and over is "After the party, it's me and you" and that's how I feel about my wife. After the "party" and really good times in our twenties, in the end all that really matters is me and her. And as we move on from milestone to milestone in life (kids, retirement, finally finishing The Americans) all that will really matter is it's me and her. For whatever reason I love the analogy of metaphorically wrapping your arm around your partner's shoulder and walking out of the "party" and into the next phase of life. Might be deeper than what the band originally intended but art is all about how you choose to interpret it, right? But, full disclosure, I thought "Tub Thumping" was an in depth exploration of the dangers of alcoholism and "Macarena" was a study on the struggles of dating culture in Latin America.
However much you read into After the Party, I suggest you pair it by first listening to On The Impossible Past before diving into album #71.
#70
Collective Soul
Collective Soul
A band that can get lost in the shuffle of modern rock band history, Collective Soul put out its share of hits in the mid to late nineties starting with "Shine" in 1994. But it was this album that was the much heavier hitter and is the most complete album.
The song order follows an unconventional path compared to other albums on this list. Most albums start strong and then fade completely or start strong, lag in the middle and finish strong. I find the beginning of the album to be the weakest with "Simple" and "Untitled" more experimental than the sharper songs as the album progresses, with the middle tracks "The World I Know", "Gel", "December" and "Where The River Flows" (a song that's going for the record of the grungiest guitar work that has ever grunge-d) serving as the core of the album before "Bleed" and "Reunion" close the 46 minute album down on a calmer note.
The band would put out another notable album in 1999, Dosage, boasting the tracks "Heavy", which was a high school weight room staple, and "Run" which was immortalized in the Varsity Blues soundtrack (cue me saying out loud "I don't want yer life" while typing this). But the band's self-titled 1995 album, coming in at number 70 on the list, would be the peak of a solid career.
#69
Stuck On Nothing
Free Energy
Thirty-one albums in and I have not deviated from my original list. That will change with album number 69. This spot was originally intended for the Guns N Roses album Appetite For Destruction. It's an incredibly successful album that includes three all-time great rock songs in "Paradise City", "Sweet Child Of Mine", and "Welcome To The Jungle". But in listening to it again, I felt a twinge of annoyance at listening to Axl Rose's voice for that extended period of time. And, while the rest of the album is good, I don't have a real favorite track other than those incredibly well known songs. I acknowledge its rightful place in rock history but it won't be included here...other than what I just wrote about it.
In its place is a local Philly band who put out their debut album Stuck on Nothing in 2010 to acclaim from Rolling Stone and Spin, released one more album three years later, and then faded from view. While the band's run was shorter than a presidential term, this gem of an album remains. The first four songs are strongest stretch including "Free Energy", "Dream City", "Bang Pop", and "All I Know" but the whole album is strong with a consistent, laid back feel. Album number 69 didn't break the mold of rock and roll but I come back to it every few months or so. And I feel better about including it here rather than throwing more accolades toward egomaniac Axl Rose.
#68
TRUE
Avicii
I used to volunteer (not court ordered) as a counselor at a four-day summer camp for high schoolers. On the last night there would be a dance and, in an effort to save money and pad my ego, I was asked for a few years to "DJ". I am using quotation marks because I was DJ-ing in the same way that I drive a car while on the interstate under cruise control. I would simply plug in an iPod (younger readers, it was a phone without the annoying texting, phone calls and social media interaction) and let the kids enjoy themselves.
High school dances are stereotypically filled with a lot of awkward, unsure shifting of weight, avoidance of eye contact, and leaning on walls. Guilty as charged there for me too back when I was a sixteen year old on or, more accurately, within the vicinity of a dance floor. So getting these kids to dance was a challenge, even if I was a world class DJ, which, again, I am not. In 2011 the vibe in the room was particularly rough since the dance floor provided to us was in a room that was 90% windows and the dance started at 7 o'clock in July. These kids didn't even have the cover of darkness to mask their insecurity, arm pit stains (again, July) and boredom (that last one's on me). So I reached for the panic button only twenty minutes into the dance. And that "break in case of emergency" song was "Levels" by Avicii. Kids went nuts. Ice was broken. It was a fun night for everyone after that.
Some people are just born with incredible innate abilities that, if they're lucky, they discover early in life and then nurture. For me, it's the amazing ability to compile arbitrary lists to feed my narcissism (if you're reading this, thank for you indulging me). For Tim Bergling, aka Avicii, it was the ability to not only create EDM tracks that were incredibly uplifting and infectious as evidenced by the reactions of those kids on the dance floor. But there were plenty of great DJs before Avicii and there will be more that come after. What separated him into an all-time echelon was his ear and foresight to incorporate what was happening in other parts of the musical world into his own music. In the mid-2010s he must have known that bands with a certain folksy or country sound (Mumford and Sons, Lumineers) were rising in popularity. Instead of judging it, he used it in his own songs like "Hey Brother" as a way to draw even more listeners into his orbit. He even used folk singer Audra Mae for the track "Addicted To You".
TRUE is a phenomenal album with hit after hit coming on all ten tracks. Some songs are a fusion of folk and EDM like "Hey Brother" or the song-so-big-you-can't-escape-it "Wake Me Up". Others are more straightforward EDM songs that should have some part of your body tapping or nodding like "You Make Me" or "Heart Upon My Sleeve". It's a shame that he's gone and it sounds like he had his share of problems, which is hardly surprising when you make it that big, that fast, in that industry, in that lifestyle when you're a teenager. He left an indelible mark on the music world though. "Levels" might be played at my daughters' prom if that's even still a thing in 2033 and what greater accomplishment is there than creating something that gives people confidence and enables their ability to have a good time? Actually, I think I may have just described amphetamines but you get what I mean.
TRUE still makes me happy in the car, in the gym or in the office and it's the number 68 album on the list.
#67
Bad Blood
Bastille
Nothing like the first song off your first album becoming arguably your biggest hit. That's what I can write about Bastille after three albums to date. With "Pompeii", the lead single off their debut album Bad Blood, they were able to tap into something special by blending big drums, some tribal chanting, and lead singer Dan Smith's ranging falsetto, slightly haunting British voice into a massive hit.
But that doesn't mean the rest of the album is a throwaway or even much of a decline. "Things We Lost In The Fire" and "Bad Blood" finish off the strong, upbeat start before "Overjoyed" slows things down. Highlights the rest of the way include "Icarus", "Laura Palmer", "Flaws", "Daniel In the Den" and, my favorite, "Laughter Lines" which somehow didn't make the initial album cut, and is only available as a bonus track.
The band continued the momentum from their debut with two solid subsequent albums. Particular kudos to their most recent album, Doom Days, which tells the story of a night out in London during the apocalypse starting from midnight ("Quarter Past Midnight") all the way to waking up on the kitchen floor the next morning ("Joy"). That album was close to getting the nod for this list but the songs from Bad Blood are just too strong. The middle album, Wild World, has some bright spots like "Blame", "Send Them Off" and "Good Grief" but it's the weakest of the three albums. But when the bar was set as high as the number 67 album, Bad Blood, it will be hard for any future album to top. Still, I look forward to listening to them try.
#66
Morning View
Incubus
As a teenager, I wanted the music I bought to be edgy and cool. I don't think I was alone in that given that marketing to teens is centered around a "buy this and you'll be cool" theme. Listening to Incubus made me feel that way. Lead singer Brandon Boyd seemed to exude "cool". They had a DJ! The sound could be loud at times but then heartfelt and sincere. I caught on to the band when everyone else did with their third album Make Yourself which boasted the hits of "Pardon Me", "Stellar", "I Miss You" (love to know how many long distance couples used that on-the-nose track as "their song"), and the band's biggest hit "Drive".
As much as that album grabbed me, their next album Morning View is what makes it onto the list. There are a couple tracks I could still do without but "Nice To Know You", "11 AM", "Warning", "Are You In", the hard rocking "Under My Umbrella", and my favorite "Wish You Were Here" are more than enough to compensate for that weakness. Following the release in 2001, the band started to lose me with their next album A Crow Left of the Murder... (I can't type that without either a slight head shake or mild eye roll) which was good, not great as the band got more experimental. By the time Light Grenades came out I was only following the band passively at best.
I have still enjoyed listening to Make Yourself and Morning View over the years but the enjoyment now is more about the music itself rather than an image I'm trying to portraying. Knowing what I know now about the much wider scope of music that existed in 2001, the notion that a band like Incubus that was plastered all over MTV was edgy doesn't make much sense. That was more or less confirmed when I came across an interview that Spin wrote on Boyd in 2001 that Incubus's music was "kid-tested/mother approved guitar rock". It doesn't matter. If there's been one theme of this list, it's that you should listen to what makes you happy and for me, that's the number 66 album, Morning View.
#65
Hotel California
Eagles
It's inevitable that most of us follow the musical path that our parents put us on. For some, it's the Beatles. For others, it's The Temptations. For me, the two artists that I most strongly associate with my parents are Ben E. King and Eagles. There won't be a Ben E. King album on this list, or even one from The Drifters although Save The Last Dance For Me is pretty great. King is responsible for what is a top ten all time song in "Stand By Me" but I'd be lying if I said I put on a full non-compilation album from him on a consistent basis. Eagles, on the other hand, are a different story. This was one of my dad's favorite bands so I was exposed to them from an early age.
I think part of what draws us to the music of our parents' youth is that it allows us to envision them as something other than our parents - as young people who had insecurities, hopes, and flaws. And in that way, we can identify with them further because we can see them as something other than just our parents. I could picture my dad listening to albums from bands like Eagles and Mountain in his room the same way that I would listen to my favorite albums. I think about that when I play music in the house and whether my daughters will one today associate me with the "classic rock" of their youth like Green Day or Weezer.
I don't know what there is to say about Eagles that hasn't already been said. All-time rock band. Split up by ego, alcohol and exhaustion (never happened to a band before). Spawned solo careers of Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Joe Walsh. The band's music after Walsh's addition was superior to the earlier albums in my opinion and he brings a lot to the table on the Hotel California album. He supplied the opening guitar riff that became "Life In The Fast Lane" as well as the vocals for "Pretty Maids All In A Row", which are two of the strongest tracks on the album. "Hotel California" might be the band's most well-known song and it's the anchor to the number 65 album.
#64
Lights and Sounds
Yellowcard
If you're appalled that I put Yellowcard ahead of Eagles, things are only going to get worse from here.
Sure, "Ocean Avenue" is Yellowcard's biggest hit and Ocean Avenue is their most successful album (not surprising that a Jacksonville band incorporated the ocean into their work), but I would argue Ocean Avenue felt more like a collection of singles whereas 2006's Lights and Sounds was at least an attempt at making a more complete album.
I'm a sucker for a long prelude, preferably using strings or piano, with an abrupt smash to the song opening (e.g. Kanye's "All of the Lights", Muse's "Survival", even Eminem's "Lose Yourself"). So when Yellowcard starts the album off with the instrumental strings and piano track "Three Flights Up" only to cut right into "Lights and Sounds", I was immediately hooked on the album opening and it still amps me up 14 years later. That's followed up with my favorite Yellowcard song "Down on My Head".
The next nine tracks can be a little uneven but the strength of "Sure Thing Falling", "Rough Landing, Holly", "Martin Sheen or JFK", and "Words, Hands, Hearts" balance out the weaker songs. The weakest of those is "Two Weeks From Twenty" which just feels like a forced "war is bad" song because this was 2006 and most musicians hated George W. Bush (*loses train of thought imagining how great it would be to have W. over either of the 2020 candidates*). And it's not like the band is incapable of writing songs with a message as "Believe" from the Ocean Avenue album is one of the best 9/11 dedications I've heard.
The album wraps up with "How I Go" and "Holly Wood Died". "How I Go" was a song written for the Tim Burton film Big Fish which, if you haven't seen it, is two hours of a son coming to grips with his dad dying. Watch that and Field of Dreams back to back and you run the risk of moving back in with your parents and never letting them out of your sight. It's the only song on the album that feels out of place but it's still an enjoyable listen.
The finale "Holly Wood Died" really wraps things up beautifully. It's a strong rock track that, in the last minute, reverts to the piano intro from the first track "Up Three Flights". I know it's a gimmick but it bookends the album so well. It's the musical equivalent of the feather at the beginning and end of Forrest Gump.
I followed the band for the next few albums but they didn't come close to repeating the success of Ocean Avenue, Lights and Sounds, or even their second album One For The Kids. There were flashes of brilliance like the songs "Awakening", "Hang You Up", "Light Up The Sky", or the instrumental "Convocation". Most bands would kill to have one great album. This band had two with several other supplemental works so they're definitely a success; I just thought the band had more in store for them. But the #64 album is not too shabby.
#63
Coloring Book
Chance The Rapper
Big horns, gospel choirs and excellent lyrics combine to make Coloring Book a very pleasurable listening experience. In creating this list I found that some of the hip hop albums I loved when I was younger like Marshall Mathers LP or 2001 sound so angry and violent all these years later. Unlike those albums, Coloring Book's positive sentiment and even humor make it more appealing as a continued re-listen. It's election day as I post this so a little lightheartedness today never hurt anybody.
"All We Got", "No Problem", "Angels", and "All Night" are my highlights. Although the chorus of "All Night" refers to drinking all night which, at my age, now consists of staying up until 11:30 on a Saturday night with four beers. I might need more than that depending on how the election results proceed over the next day / hopefully not weeks. Relax, trust the (democratic) process and listen to album #63 for now.
#62
Heartbeat City
The Cars
We may not know the presidential results yet but one thing we should all agree on is that The Cars front man Ric Ocasek had one of the most iconic and unique voices of any rock band. His voice and the heavy use of keyboards / synthesizers as supplements to the standard guitar and drums make many songs from the band easily recognizable. The Cars put out a murderer's row of pop rock hits across six albums in the 80s. The infectious and appealing sound of many of the songs may have even worked to the detriment of the band as the years progressed as their inclusion in movies and commercials (Circuit City is gone but the commercials will live in my head forever) have a tendency to water down the true impact of hearing the band on a standalone album. There's a similar phenomenon happening right now as Pandora jewelry, Allstate insurance, and Papa Johns are all using Bill Withers's "Lovely Day". Please leave that song alone.
I really could have picked any of the albums from The Cars for this list but it really came down to their debut album, The Cars, and their fifth album, Heartbeat City. As iconic as that debut album is ("Just What I Needed", "Good Times Roll", "Best Friends Girl", "Moving In Stereo"), I gave the nod to Heartbeat City largely because the great songs on the album haven't suffered from being as overplayed. The ten track album starts and ends strong with "Hello Again" and "Heartbeat City" serving as musical bookends and in between are "Magic", "I Refuse", "Drive", and, my favorite song from the band, "You Might Think".
Do your best Ric Ocasek impression as you enjoy album number 62.
#61
Nothing Is Wrong
Dawes
"A Little Bit of Everything" from the Nothing Is Wrong album gets me wistful and even a little sad on every listen. That's probably the only time someone has written that sentence about a song that features a verse about an older gentleman selecting food at a buffet. Although when I was a kid and they were out of pepperoni in the Sunday Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet, I would become pretty melancholy so maybe it's all connected. At any rate, the folk rockers from California, Dawes know how to write a rock song with a straightforward narrative and regarding topics to which almost everyone can relate, whether that's thinking of a friend from your youth that you lost touch with ("All Your Favorite Bands"), self-sabotaging a relationship out of jealousy ("Who Do You Think You're Talking To"), or contemplating what's important in life ("When My Time Comes").
Credit to Philly's best source of new music 88.5 XPN (and the best working radio host / softball player in the business, Mike Vasilikos) for playing the song "If I Wanted Someone" on a summer weekday morning. It was my first exposure to the band and I went down the rabbit hole that night finding that the rest of the Nothing is Wrong album was just as enjoyable as that single. Other highlights include "Time Spent In Los Angeles", "Moon In The Water", and "My Way Back Home" but the whole album is an enjoyable listen, especially the aforementioned finale "A Little Bit of Everything". I had just proposed around the time that I heard the full album so the line toward the end of the song of "so on that day in late September / it's not some stupid little ring / I'm getting a little bit of everything" hit me especially hard. Or, you know, it's somehow food related.
Whether it's my heart or my stomach, I'm somehow connected to the number 61 album.
#60
Jagged Little Pill
Alanis Morissette
Like a Schoolhouse Rock video that was never fact-checked, Alanis Morissette taught all of us impressionable youth the incorrect meaning of the word "irony" in the summer of 1995. Morissette's album Jagged Little Pill was a juggernaut in the mid-90s and for good reason. The 12-track album was an effective mix of her unique vocals, semi-grunge guitar and...harmonica?
Somehow it all worked as it was a big commercial success supported by the singles "Ironic", "Hand In My Pocket", "You Learn", "Head Over Feet", and "You Oughta Know" which immortalized Dave Coulier in a way other than the Full House "cut...it...out" hand motion (whether the story is real is irrelevant as it's part of the song's lore now). The album's release came four months after Jewel put out her "Pieces Of You" album. Both albums were in heavy rotation for my 16 year old sister. And if you listen to the beginning of a song like "Ironic" it could be mistaken for a Jewel song, but that's before the guitar kicks in and Alanis's voice drops an octave.
The mid-nineties were a bright spot for women in rock as No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom would be released three months after Jagged Little Pill and Hole would vault more into the mainstream a couple years later with Celebrity Skin. Alanis has stayed in the picture over the last 25 years both musically and culturally (married Ryan Reynolds for a minute there) but this album was indisputably her peak.
Jagged Little Pill has stood the test of time (there's a musical!) and it wouldn't surprise me to hear the number 60 emanating out of one or both of my daughters' rooms in about ten years. That would be ironic. Actually, it's not ironic. I'm not sure. But don't blame me, I learned the definition from a mid-90s rock song.
#59
The Sun And The Moon
The Bravery
It's unfortunate that so much of my association with this band revolves around their petty feud with The Killers. Brandon Flowers of The Killers admits that he unnecessarily started the fight by saying that The Bravery was only signed as a band because of the success of The Killers. Bravery singer Sam Endicott responded by saying Flowers had no personality and no sense of humor and that picking on him was like "picking on a kid in a wheelchair". At that point battle lines were drawn and, while I knew that The Killers had started it, no one talks about Flowers that way. I couldn't have been more in The Killers camp.
Before the feud started I had downloaded The Bravery's debut album and really enjoyed it, especially "Swollen Summer", "Unconditional" and "An Honest Mistake". Listening to the album again, I really do hear the similarity to The Killers so the accusation by Flowers did have some legitimacy. The Sun And The Moon, however, has a sound that's more its own and it suits The Bravery much better. Anchored by "Believe", "Time Won't Let Me Go", "Bad Sun", "This Is Not The End" and the downbeat "Tragedy Bound", the whole album is consistently solid throughout its 39 minute run time.
Sadly The Bravery would only put out one more album, Stir The Blood, of which I was very much not a fan. Hard to say who really won the feud. Flowers states that he wishes he had never said anything and he acted like a jerk early in the band's days in part because he admired Oasis so much. The Killers will go down as undoubtedly the better and more successful band but The Bravery did carve out their own small piece of rock history with album number 59 as their greatest work.
#58
Waking Up The Giants
Grizfolk
Grizfolk opened for Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness in Philly three years ago. I had never heard of them but I like to at least sample the opener's album(s) before the show to get a sense of what they'll play. If I'm not a fan, my wife and I can enjoy the pre-show dinner reservation a little longer or, at the very least, avoid paying the babysitter as much.
In this case, I was very impressed with what I heard from Grizfollk and their album Waking Up The Giants. There's really not a song that I don't enjoy on the album but highlights are "Into The Barrens", "Troublemaker", "Waking Up The Giants", "Waiting For You", and, my favorite, "Bounty On My Head". The musical style is in the vein of Mumford and Sons and there's not much musical variety over the course of the album. So if you enjoy one song, you'll enjoy them all. Conversely, if you're bored three tracks in, then just resign yourself to the fact that album number 59 is not for you. But at least it didn't cost you a babysitter to find out.
#57
S&M
Metallica
The gamble that a sound marriage between Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony helmed by Michael Kamen would work could have ended in musical disaster. It wasn't like Metallica's sound needed to get any bigger and the addition of that much incremental instrumentation could result in an overload on the eardrums. And I do think that happens from time to time over the course of the album. But for the majority of the album, the union between the two musical worlds works just as perfectly as the Mike and Carol Brady marriage.
My enthusiasm for Metallica has always been tepid at best. I can't deny that I enjoyed their bigger hits like "One" or "For Whom The Bell Tolls" but even when I was at my youthful angst-iest most of their music just sounded like loud noise to me and I found no real connection. Compounded by that was the band's famous anti-Napster take when I was 15 years old. As I have aged, I'm more sympathetic to the band's stance that illegal downloads rob deserving artists of money. But I maintain that the band wasn't looking out for the lesser known artists in the industry and were mainly focused on ensuring that they made as many millions as possible. To this day, it still looks more like petty complaining from millionaires rather than a noble stand for the future of the music industry. It was against the backdrop of those public comments that I first heard S&M which I'm sure biased my opinion of the album in a negative manner at the time. After a couple years I came back to the album though and was much more appreciative of what was accomplished and just how big the scale was.
It could be argued that I'm breaking my own rule of excluding compilation albums but A) it's my list and I can do what I want and B) while the majority of S&M includes previous works by Metallica, hearing those songs through the beautiful and powerful filter of the San Francisco Symphony as helmed by Michael Kamen makes many of them sound wholly new. The new songs aren't empty gestures either as "Human" and "No Leaf Clover" (arguably the best song on the album) sound like the two entities are one giant band rather than the symphony supplementing Metallica's work.
The run time is two hours and thirteen minutes which is the length of Die Hard. Any entertainment product that lasts that long is going to have moments or sections that don't enthrall you. For me, songs like "The Outlaw Torn" or "The Call of Ktulu" are the equivalent of when Holly McClane asks Hans Gruber if some hostages can go to the bathroom. But those moments are far outweighed by the grandness of "No Leaf Clover", "One", "Enter Sandman" or even the instrumental opening of "The Ecstasy of Gold".
The gamble of combining the rock band and the symphony paid off and the beautiful orchestration even acts to blunt the harshness of Metallica's sound without sacrificing the power of any of the songs on album number 57.
#56
Licensed To Ill
Beastie Boys
1986 was an interesting year. Listening to the Billboard Top 100 playlist from that year, you'd hear familiar music industry giants like Madonna ("Open Your Heart) along with the 80s classics that are stereotypically associated with that decade like "Broken Wings", "Higher Love", "Take Me Home Tonight" and "Your Love". You'd hear that Eddie Murphy's girl wanted to "Party All The Time" (actually holds up, especially contrasted with Bruce Willis's Return of Bruno) along with some all-time movie soundtrack songs ranging from Top Gun's "Danger Zone" to Rocky IV's "Burning Heart" to Pretty In Pink's "If You Leave". You'd also hear that the music landscape was beginning to broaden with more experimental songs like Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" achieving commercial success. Hip hop was fighting its way into the mainstream with albums like Run DMC's Raising Hell and of course Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys.
I wasn't even two years old when the music that year was released but it's still odd to me to think of songs like "Your Love" and "Brass Monkey" being released in the same year. Licensed To Ill seems so far ahead of its time and I guess, for the listeners who could recognize that, it led to a lot of the appeal. The platinum album was a commercial success and, more importantly, it had a profound impact on many future artists like Eminem who modeled his 2018 album Kamikaze after the License To Ill artwork and Coldplay.
I experienced The Beastie Boys out of order by first purchasing Hello Nasty ("Intergalactic", "Body Movin'") in 1998 which led me to Ill Communication ("Sabotage", "Sure Shot") before I eventually made my way back to this original album. The band had already matured considerably over the twelve years since the Licensed To Ill release and the lyrics on the earlier albums were much more crass than what I had initially heard on Hello Nasty, but listening to the 1986 album, it's easy to see why so many teens and young twenty-somethings reacted so passionately to the music. It was light years apart from the majority of what everyone else was listening to. Bands like The Clash, who had attempted to spur political change and activism, were winding down and the youth seemed to be looking toward musical acts that more reflected the times. And those times were the economic boom of the mid-80s where there was no war and I'd guess that a lot of the youth just had pent up animosity that they wanted to let out but at no one in particular except for their parents, teachers and society in general; hence "Fight For Your Right" became a battle cry.
The album is a classic and my favorite tracks are right in line with the most popular choices: "Rhymin & Stealin", "Girls", "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", "Fight For Your Right" and "Brass Monkey". Still hard to believe that cancer took MCA eight years ago at only 47 years old but this number 56 album, along with countless others, will stand the test of time as his and the rest of the band's legacy.
#55
Violator
Depeche Mode
Some Depeche Mode songs are a little odd and, at times, can overstay their welcome (also describes my behavior at most parties) but Violator, the seventh album from the group, is undeniably their apex. "Personal Jesus". "Policy of Truth". "Enjoy The Silence". One of those songs on an album would guarantee commercial and critical success. Violator was home to all three of them and together they comprised one third of the 47 minute nine-track album.
#54
Daybreaker
Moon Taxi
I discovered this album and band within a couple weeks of purchasing Spotify premium. "Year Zero" came up on a recommended playlist and it led me to the rest of the 2015 Daybreaker album and eventually the other three Moon Taxi albums. What's interesting is that I think "Year Zero" is a different sound than the rest of the album, which isn't a bad thing; they're able to pull off both sounds equally well. Rather than list top tracks, it's easier for me to just say that "Who's To Say" and "Ready To Go" are my least favorite songs. The whole album is a top notch choice for making dinner or sitting on a porch in the summer. The band's other albums sound very much the same so if you enjoy this one, you'll enjoy the others.
Finding this album on Spotify really underscores the benefit of having thousands of hours of music on tap whenever you want. This band is just one example of music I never would have heard were it not for this streaming service. I'm not being paid by Spotify for this plug, but I'm not above taking money under the table (I'll settle for about 1/50th of what you paid Bill Simmons).
Since I don't have much to say on this album, I'm choosing here to write about the place of the music critic in 2020. After I made my list, I went back through internet archives (used this thing called Google) to look at how well received many of my top albums were when they were released. Some were received very well. Others were torched. For example, I won't reveal whether this album made the list or not, but Pitchfork wrote a particularly scathing review of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American. The summation of the review is basically that someone would only enjoy this album if they're a simpleton high schooler. I happened to be one of those simpleton high schoolers so consider me triggered when I read that. 3.5/10? Who do they think they are?
Then I was hit with the realization that the review didn't matter. I enjoyed the album and that was all that mattered. It's a theme that I've brought up over and over again with this list. Consumption of art is such a subjective experience and that certainly applies to music. If you like a band or a song or an album, it's really irrelevant what anyone else thinks, including music critics. If a critic agrees with you, it can be enjoyable to read along with someone who shares your opinions. But if the opinion differs, then it can do nothing but potentially negatively cloud your experience listening to that album or artist going forward. You may feel inferiority or embarrassment at enjoying it. It's why people call certain artists "guilty pleasures". Music should be about relaxing you or motivating you or just as a release to have a good time (bumper sticker coming soon). Why bring all that stress and negativity into the mix?
All this made me start to wonder about the overall place or need for music critics in 2020. I would argue that movie, TV, music and book critics are meant to provide utility in the form of saving the consumer time or money. A movie critic who tells you a film is a dud is saving you from spending $15 on a movie ticket (back when we went to theaters) and throwing away over two hours of your life on something you likely won't enjoy. The same is true for book and TV critics but here the time commitment is of larger concern than the price paid.
The role of the music critic is the same except that with the rise of streaming services, the need to save the consumer time and money has dissipated significantly. I pay about $12 a month for Spotify as a flat rate and can consume as much money as I want in that month. I'm not paying $20 for a CD anymore so I don't need to be as selective about my music. So saving the consumer money doesn't matter nearly as much anymore. But what about saving time? When reading a book or watching a movie, most of the time our entire focus is centered on that activity. That's generally not the case with music. I could be working, driving, making dinner, or working out while listening to music so, even if I hated a new album, I can't call it a waste of time because I'm accomplishing other tasks. The worst case is that it was a missed opportunity in that I could have been listening to something better but I'd rather roll the dice on something new than give a Billy Joel album a spin for the 135th time.
So the music critic is no longer saving time and no longer saving money, in which case I struggle to find the societal benefit of continuing to write straightforward pieces like "that album is good" or "that album stinks". What they can do is what some critics like Cole Cuchna are doing with his Dissect podcast in which he takes an album and completely breaks it down song by song on a lyrical and musical level. This is especially interesting to me as someone with a very limited music background and it's helped me to appreciate albums like Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly or Beyonce's Lemonade. More on this podcast as we get farther down the list.
That's all. Rant over. I can't call that tangent on music critics an "old man rant" but certainly an "approaching-middle-age man rant". Thank you for indulging me. But the key takeaway here is listen to Daybreaker, album number 54 on the list.
#53
Night Moves
Bob Seger
Just an all-time album cover picture. The long hair, the leather jacket, the "what are you looking at" head tilt and mug. Just the best.
This is another artist that was swiped from my dad's collection. I borrowed Seger's greatest hits compilation so often that I'm willing to bet that he forgot he even owned it. I think it made him happy though rather than the alternative of me only knowing Seger's working via those "Like A Rock" Chevy commercials.
Seger's greatest hits is my go-to but since I have the no compilation rule, it really comes down to two albums for my selection: Night Moves or Stranger In Town. The nod goes to Night Moves, released two years before Stranger In Town. The album boasts two of Seger's biggest hits with "Night Moves" and "Mainstreet" but the album makes the cut based on the strength of the supporting tracks like "Rock And Roll Never Forgets", "The Fire Down Below", and "Ship Of Fools" (always thought Billy Cunningham's "People Are Crazy" was a rip-off of this song's sound). Seger's voice was always one of the main appeals of the band to me and that's on full display here. It somehow attains a mix of being a little gravelly but still smooth.
"Night Moves" remains my favorite song on the album, even though my current night moves consist of eating cookies at 10 PM on a Friday night after three beers. That's opposed to the night moves of my younger days which consisted on eating cookies at 1 AM on a Friday night after six beers. Self-deprecating humor about being old and lame never fails. What also never fails is the timeless sound of this rock album which comes in at number 53.
#52
Everything In Transit
Jack's Mannequin
The dissolution of the pop punk band Something Corporate produced two new projects. Josh Parington started the short-lived Firescape while Andrew McMahon moved on to the much more successful Jack's Mannequin. Jack's Mannequin put out three albums, but only two were in consideration for the list entry: Everything In Transit and The Glass Passenger.
It's not surprising that the lyrical content of Jack's Mannequin reflected more maturity and life experience than Something Corporate considering that McMahon wrote most of the Something Corporate song library as a 17-19 year old. Jack's Mannequin follows McMahon's life in a fairly open manner, first as he evaluates his life relationships in Everything In Transit and then as he deals with recovery and fall-out from his leukemia diagnosis and treatment in The Glass Passenger.
The Glass Passenger's mood is understandably a bit darker than Transit but there's a rawness and openness to McMahon's voice and lyrics that make it very appealing especially on songs like "Swim", "The Resolution" and "Crashin" where he sings "Even if your voice comes back again / Maybe there'll be no one listening" as a clear insight into his insecurity and fear. It's not as bouncy and fun as the Something Corporate albums but that's reflective of the life trajectory of most people. The carefree days of teen years are replaced by bigger life obstacles.
One of those obstacles is relationships which McMahon sings about at length in today's list entry, Everything In Transit. It's easy to hear the similarity to some Something Corporate songs but the lyrics are a bit more downbeat. The entirety of the album is more consistent than Glass Passenger with songs like "La La Lie", which stresses the importance of friends, "Bruised", which anyone who has had to travel away from loved ones can relate, "Dark Blue", "I'm Ready" and "The Mixed Tape". The second half of the album isn't as strong as the first but overall it's good enough for number 52 on the list.
#51
The Ride
Catfish and the Bottlemen
A fantastic meal is good from the first bite to the last and you walk away full but still somehow wishing that there was more. The same holds true for the second album from the North Wales rockers, Catfish and the Bottlemen. The Ride is just a solid rock and roll album from the first notes of "7" to the 40th minute when the last notes of "Outside" fade out.
I have no fancy write-up. Some albums just rock and don't need to have verbal laurels pinned on them. "7", "Twice", "Soundcheck", "Postpone" and the driving beat of "Oxygen" are the highlights here but it would be a shame to press "next" on any of the tracks. This is the perfect album to take us to the halfway point of the list.
Hard to believe it's been 50 albums so far! The next post will cover albums 50-41. Thanks for reading and following along and please keep sending me feedback. I've found three or four bands and albums I really enjoy already from people sending recommendations. I'm looking forward to getting to the top 50!
