25 Albums
This is the latest “tag, you’re it” note going around Facebook. You’re supposed to pick 25 albums that sucked you in for days, weeks, months, years. Albums that identify times, places, peoples, and emotions. No matter what you think of them musically, they shaped your world.
I’m doing my list a little different. If I did it honestly, you’d see too many of the same four or five artists. This list is combination of albums that I relate to a time and a place and/or changed my listening habits, introduced me to a new genre, or otherwise changed my perspective.
1.The Beatles – The Beatles (White Album)
I don’t remember when exactly I hit my Beatles phase, but one year for Christmas (let’s say 1999) I got the White album, Greatest Hits 1960-1966, and Greatest Hits 1967-1970. These days my favorite Beatles albums are Revolver, Abbey Road, and Rubber Soul. As the ghost of Jim Morrison once said in a Kids In The Hall sketch, “Greatest hits albums are for little girls and housewives.”
2. Weezer – Weezer (Blue Album)
3. Weezer – Pinkerton
I owned the blue album on cassette shortly after it came out and probably wore it out. My sister got me Pinkerton for Christmas the year it came out and while I may spin other Weezer albums from time to time, these two are what Weezer means to me.
4. Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters
5. Foo Fighters – The Colour And The Shape
I bought the s/t album on a marching band trip. After our performance we went to some mall to eat and hang out before heading home. I don’t recall how or when I got The Colour And The Shape, but I did a music video for the song “Hey Johnny Park” my junior year. Despite being a popular radio single, “Hero” never did much for me.
6. Green Day – Insomniac
Though it was actually their fourth album, this was my introduction to Green Day freshman year of high school. There are some okay tracks, but I don’t gravitate to this one very often.
7. Oasis – Be Here Now
One of the first CDs I ever owned, it was also one of my first online purchases. I got it from cheap-cds.com along with Clumsy by Our Lady Peace. These were things I listend to while doing algebra II.
8. Our Lady Peace – Clumsy
9. The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Loney
This is something I bought in preparation for Lollapalooza 2008. It’s so rare that I fall in love with an album so quickly. Even though I think I’ve come to love their first album even more, “Carolina Drama” is still a work of art.
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows
Like so many Radiohead albums before it, I owned this for a while before I really started to enjoy it. It wasn’t until I saw most of these songs performed live at Lollapalooza that I began to appreciate them. It was a fixture in my car for weeks afterwards.
11. Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Probably the only album I have purchased three times (once on cassette, twice on compact disc). The first time I heard “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” I thought it was incredibly stupid. I was running laps in gym class. It grew on me, I bought the album and was completely obsessed with all things Pumpkins for about seven years.
12. Smashing Pumpkins – Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music
The free double album released upon the news of their break up in 2000. Not only did I download the free mp3s, I sent some blank CDs to a club in Canada that ripped audio from original copies of the 5 EPs that comprised this digital double album. Most of these songs don’t stand the test of time like their early singles, but the album marked the end of an era.
13. Spin Doctors – Pocketful of Kryptonite
I bought this on cassette in junior high. It’s not rock and roll, but I like it anway. Everyone should be understadably sick of their radio singles (“Two Princes”, “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues”), but there’s some great stuff on this and other albums that hasn’t been killed by the radio and Eric Shenkman’s guitar playing is pretty underated.
14. U2 – Achtung Baby
U2 fans will think it’s sacrileige that this was my introduction to U2. My Aunt Kim had this album and I think I taped it from her. My Aunt Cindy gave it to me for Christmas one year. I gave my copy to a girl because I thought it was crime that it wasn’t in her music library. She turned out to be no good and I regretted giving it away. Years later a penpal friend of mine gave me her copy. It makes me a little sad that my penpal friend doesn’t see fit to have it in her library, but it’s fun to think about the stories behind albums sitting on the shelf.
15. White Stripes – Elephant
I remember this album coming out very well, driving around DeKalb with my friend Mike comparing it to everything else the White Stripes had done before.
16. The Doors – Greatest Hits
From my father’s music collection, I used to run around the dining room table listening to “Light My Fire”, “Break On Through”, etc. Years later I bought a similar double disc compliation (against the wishes of Jim Morrison’s ghost) that featured a previously unrealeased cover of Van Morisson’s “Gloria”.
17. Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island
My friend Elizabeth lent this to me and I remember listening to it as I painted late at nigh in the art studio.
18. Marcy Playground – Marcy Playground
“Sex and Candy” was the first song I learned to play on the guitar. I played it my junior year of high school during the Fine Arts festival, sans vocal accompaniment.
19. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
20. The Dandy Warhols – Dandys Rule OK
I’ve always said I’m the most unlikely Dandy Warhols fan. The first time I saw them play live at the Metro they played the song “Genius” from this album (which I did not know at the time) and a week later I was tracking down a used copy of this out of print gem. It’s like the Velvet Underground for the early 90′s.
21. NIN – The Downward Spiral
Can’t recall acquiring this album, but “Hurt” and “Closer” were favorites for sure. My freshman year of college I used to draw this angry gun weilding robot that I called “Mr. Self Destruct” after the song of same name, which eventually evolved into the guitar playing robots I still draw today.
22. Bicycle Day – Mandarin
Bicycle Day was a band out of DeKalb and three of its five members used to be my roommates. Listening to their music always brings me back to that tumultuous year, but despite some of the unhappy memories the music is really quite good. Not sure if you can find a copy for sale, but ask me nice and I might burn one for you.
23. The Flaming Lips – Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
Anytime I got a ride in my roommate Jared’s Mazda, I’d flip through his albums and this was the one I’d put in. Weird and wild, they’ve become one of my favorite bands. I bought my copy at a record store in Orland Park while visiting my friend Mike. It’s fun when I can remember these little details.
24. Wilco – Summerteeth
The first song I ever heard from Wilco was “Misunderstood” and the first album I owned was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but Summerteeth is the most accessible and nearly always the one I recommend to Wilco newcomers. I don’t always love everything they do right away, but I always come around. It’s safe to say that Jeff Tweedy has edged out Billy Corgan for my favorite Chicagoland musician in the last five years. Sorry Billy.
25. Velvet Underground – Velvet Unerground
This is my hail mary and I’m not sure it belongs, but I don’t know what else to offer up either. I bought this along with The Velvet Underground & Nico probably in 2002 or shortly thereafter.
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