Oooh, difficult, changes all the time. At the moment it’s something like this:
Boring indie album #1
Boring indie album #2
Boring indie album #3
Indie approved dance/electronic album to show I don’t just listen to boring indie albums (Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada or Autechre if I’m feeling adventurous)
Radiohead album
Some horrendously dated grunge record from the 90s that I incorrectly claim has ‘really stood the test of time’ (because I am over 35, it’d be some horrendous nu-metal album if I was under 35)
Boring indie album #4
Indie approved hip hop album to show I don’t just listen to boring indie albums and indie approved electronic music (Public Enemy or De La Soul or maybe Kendrick Lamar or Run The Jewels if I want to show I’m still with it)
Boring indie album #5
Jazz album to really show off my eclectic tastes (Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme)
Would any 2017 releases sneak in? Maybe boring indie album #6 but other than that, no.
The Sex Pistols - Never mind the Bollocks
The Sugarcubes - Here today, tomorrow, next week…
The Pixies - Doolittle
Lou Reed - Transformer
David Bowie - The Rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust
The Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
The Smiths - The Smiths
Morrissey - Bona Drag (Pretend it’s an album)
BT - Ima
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
Same here, actually. I’d say about 70% it the artists that I’ve been into over the last 5 years are female artists.
Most of that list are albums that I listened to many years ago, but wouldn’t be able to overlook for a list of favourite albums.
Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Rush - Moving Pictures
Dinosaur Jr - You’re Living All Over Me
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
Dismemberment Plan - Emergency and I
American Music Club - California
Codeine - Frigid Stars
My Bloody Valentine - Isn’t Anything
REM - Life’s Rich Pagaent
Prince - Dirty Mind
John Martyn - Solid Air
Melvins - Bullhead
Captain Beefheart - Troutmask Replica
The Stooges - Fun House
Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory
Neil Young - On the Beach
Bob Dylan - Desire
Radiohead – Kid A
Joanna Newsom – Ys
the Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland
Susumu Yokota – Sakura
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf
Orbital – In Sides
Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
Rage Against the Machine – s/t
Anais Mitchell – Hadestown
Blackalicious - Nia
Nothing after 2010 for me, not that I haven’t enjoyed anything this decade but I think it’s just difficult for new music to influence you at 30+ the way discovering music from, say ages of 15-25 does.
Even if expanding to a top 20 I think I think the next ten would be mostly 90s and 60s. Caribou - Swim and Kanye - MBDTF would be thereabouts but still nothing beyond 2010.
Yeah, I’m having a lot of trouble placing albums like The Monitor or Burst Apart for that reason. The former I was completely obsessed with in 2010-2011 to a degree possibly higher than any other album, and the latter was basically the miserable soundtrack to 2012-2013. I haven’t listened to them much since, but more so because I feel like I’m not in the same headspace. I still think they’re incredible.
Subject to change on a minute by minute basis, but here goes:
Neil Young - Harvest
Fugazi - In On The Killtaker
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Low - Things We Lost In The Fire
Dinosaur Jr - You’re Living All Over Me
Public Enemy - Apocalypse 91
Smog - Knock Knock
Joy Division - Closer
Idlewild - Hope is Important
Melvins - Stoner Witch
Feels very wrong not finding space for Lambchop, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Pavement, MF Doom or Rival Schools though.
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
Magnolia Electric Co. - Self Titled
Radio Dept - Lesser Matters
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
Sun Kil Moon - April
Springsteen - Darkness on the edge of town
Micah p hinson - …and the gospel of progress
Sufjan stevens - carrie and lowell
Antony and the johnsons - im a bird now
Pink Floyd - Animals
Radiohead - Kid A
Radiohead - OK Computer
NIN - The Fragile
Primal Scream - Exterminator
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Underworld - 1992-2002
Fugees - The Score
Kendrik Lamar - Good Kid Mad City
Burial - Untrue
Notable mentions:
Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
BLONDES - BLONDES
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
DJ Shadow - Introducing
Rage Against the Machine - Self Titled
Previously under consideration, but excluded due to horrific levels of awfulness:
Swans - The Seer
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (I)
Radiohead - Kid A
Radiohead - OK Computer
Kashmir - Zitilites
Kashmir - The Good Life
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Neutral Milk Hotel - The Plane One
The Antlers - Hospice
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymn
Deftones - White Pony
Notable mentions to ATD-I, Low, Opeth, Sufjan Stevens, Kendrick Lamar, The Fugees
Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
Radiohead- OK Computer
Manics- Holy Bible
Mansun- Six
Twilight Sad -Nobody Wants to be Here…
Suede- Dog Man Star
Doves- Lost Souls
Stills- Logic Will Break Your Heart
Patrick Wolf- Wind in the Wires
Completely obsessed with Protomartyr at moment so feeling like Relatives in Descent will make the tenth choice but too soon to judge properly.
Double nickels on the dime - minutemen
Zen arcade - husker du
Forever changes - love
Spiderland - slint
Laughing stock - talk talk
Entertainment- gang of four
Journey in satchidanada - Alice coltrane
Vexpertine- bjork
The argument- fugazi
Marquee moon- television.
Not really any such thing as a solid top 10 for me, more like a cemented 5 and then a wider 30 cherished records which float and in out of my rotation. I don’t think any 2017 releases would make it in, but then again sometimes nostalgia really cements how you feel about an album some time down the line, and some stuff you absolutely blitzed and obsessed over when it comes out has become played out 18 months later.
Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973)
Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)
Joanna Newsom - Ys (2006)
Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring (2010)
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (2010)
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Owen Pallett - Heartland (2010)
Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (2013)
Taylor Swift - 1989 (2014)
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)
Most recent additions being Kendrick and Taylor Swift. Kendrick’s cemented in the top 5 now, but I only put it at 2 in my AotYs of 2015 at the time. My 1 of that year was White Men Are Black Men Too, which sounded really exciting and new at the time, but I’ve not listened to it in over a year now, after having it on constant rotation for a year after it came out. But I’ve now been obsessing over To Pimp A Butterfly for two solid years and finding more to love about it all the time. 1989 has usurped Speak Now as my favourite Taylor Swift album and go-to comfort album. All the tracks have between 70 - 90 plays on my iTunes library, and then I’ve got 2 CD copies and the LP as well, I just listen to it all the fucking time. In a cruel and uncertain world it provides a soothing distraction and an illusion of stability.
