A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
Our retrospective ends at 1978 because my collection starts thinning out at this point. I was 6 years old at the time and just starting to become aware of songs on the radio. Of course, nothing on this list would have appealed to 6-year-old me.
Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians
Brian Eno, Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Kate Bush, The Kick Inside
Emmylou Harris, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town
Blondie, Parallel Lines
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Variations
Andy Gibb, Shadow Dancing
Willie Nelson, Stardust
Kate Bush, Lionheart
The Police, Outlandos d’Amour
Other favorites from the year:
Clannad, In Concert
Rap Reiplinger, Poi Dog
I loved Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”, but when my dad saw her perform on Solid Gold, he hated her on sight. “She looks drugged,” he would complain, so I wasn’t allowed to listen to Blondie. That didn’t stop my brother from picking up the 7-inch singles for “The Tide Is High” and “Rapture.”
I can only imagine what dad would have said if he saw Kate Bush dancing in “Wuthering Heights.”
If any album on this list would have appealed to 6-year-old me, it would be Rap Reiplinger’s Poi Dog. Local radio played Reiplinger’s skits regularly, and I enjoyed hearing “Room Service” over and over again.
I didn’t realize those skits were available on an album. I thought only radio could broadcast them, so it wasn’t until Poi Dog was reissued on CD in 1992 that I could relive that thrill.
Reiplinger forged the Honolulu stand-up comic scene, and it died when he did in 1984. Or maybe it was the humorlessness of the 1980s.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
1979 is officially the year I started collecting music. And it’s all because of a post-disco hit about the Twilight Zone theme song. This list, though, couldn’t have been compiled till 2006.
Gang of Four, Entertainment!
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita
Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd
Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach
Midnight Oil, Head Injuries
Talking Heads, Fear of Music
The Clash, London Calling
Michael Jackson, Off the Wall
The Police, Reggatta de Blanc
Emmylou Harris, Blue Kentucky Girl
Other favorites from the year:
The Manhattan Transfer, Extensions
The B-52’s, The B-52’s
The hit in question is “Twilight Tone” by the Manhattan Transfer.
Though more renowned as a jazz vocal quartet, the group wouldn’t get on my radar till “Twilight Tone” invaded the airwaves. Search YouTube for a performance of the song on a variety show — it’s amazing what people will endure for art. Or gimmickry.
My parents relented and bought the Extensions album for me. Of course, I played “Twilight Tone” to death, but I also dug the other songs on the album. Unlike “Twilight Tone”, they ranged from doo-wop to a capella. One song was a bizarre novelty with the singers voices rendered at chipmunk speed. You could say this was Manhattan Transfer’s disco album.
I’ve included it in the extended list. As fond as I am of the album, I have a better sense of what 1979 really offered as a year in music.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
If my 8-year-old self were in control of this list, the soundtrack to Xanadu would occupy the top spot. The only other title he might have recognized would be Diana. And he would have questioned the inclusion of AC/DC.
U2, Boy
David Bowie, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Kate Bush, Never for Ever
Diana Ross, Diana
X, Los Angeles
Grace Jones, Warm Leatherette
Killing Joke, Killing Joke
Talking Heads, Remain in Light
AC/DC, Back in Black
Emmylou Harris, Roses in the Snow
Other favorites from the year:
The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta
Soundtrack, Xanadu
ABBA, Super Trouper
The B-52’s, Wild Planet
The roots of my collecting bug are anchored in 1980.
I would bug my mom to buy me 7-inch singles. I was told I didn’t have the sufficient capacity to judge whether a full album would be worth the purchase price. My mom wasn’t about to drop cash on a set of songs if only one of them would entertain me.
So I amassed quite a lot of singles — “Tell It Like Is” by Heart, “A Lover’s Holiday” by Change, “Stomp!” by the Brothers Johnson.
I was, however, a pest about ABBA. The age of eight seems to be the right level of maturity for ABBA to sink its sugary hooks into an impressionable mind. My niece was crazy for Mamma Mia, the movie musical, right around the age I bugged my parents to get me their Greatest Hits, Vol. 2. The first volume didn’t have “Chiquitita.”
Video games interrupted my interest in music for four years, so it makes me wonder in how much more trouble I’d be today without that disruption.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
I go on and on about how much I love 1987 that I should just shut up and let the list speak for itself. Unsurprisingly, the Favorite 10 hasn’t changed, saved one correction.
U2, The Joshua Tree
Sting, … Nothing Like the Sun
10,000 Maniacs, In My Tribe
Sinéad O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
Bulgarian State TV & Radio Women’s Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares
John Adams, The Chairman Dances
Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera
Wendy & Lisa, Wendy & Lisa
Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction
R.E.M., Document
Other favorites from the year:
Kronos Quartet, White Man Sleeps
Depeche Mode, Music for the Masses
Dolly Parton / Linda Ronstadt / Emmylou Harris, Trio
The Art of Noise, In No Sense? Nonsense!
Swing Out Sister, It’s Better to Travel
Hiroshima, Go
The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come
Eurythmics, Savage
INXS, Kick
Sonic Youth, Sister
The Dukes of the Stratosphear, Psonic Psunspot
Dead Can Dance, Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
Icehouse, Man of Colours
In Tua Nua, Vaudeville
Johnny Hates Jazz, Turn Back the Clock
I originally listed the cast recording of Into the Woods in the Favorite 10, but I discovered it was actually released in 1988.
The extended list is shorter than the one for 1988, but I’ve actually added fewer titles from 1987 since the original list was compiled. I think I also like these albums more intensely because I had discovered them at the time, and they’ve made a lasting impression.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
It shouldn’t be a surprise the largest expansion in my collection focuses on the late 1980s, i.e. my high school years. The Favorite 10 list from these years won’t see much change, as 1989 demonstrates, but the expanded lists risk becoming ridiculously long.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing
Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
Faith No More, The Real Thing
Steve Reich, Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
Fugazi, 13 Songs
Emmylou Harris, Bluebird
Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love
Madonna, Like a Prayer
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Other favorites from the year:
The Replacements, Don’t Tell a Soul
Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder
All About Eve, Scarlet and Other Stories
XTC, Oranges and Lemons
De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
Nirvana, Bleach
Pixies, Doolittle
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Bring Yr Camera
John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy
Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares, Vol. 2
Nakamori Akina, CRUISE
Depeche Mode, 101
Fugazi displaces The Replacements, who made a shot for the charts by cleaning up their sound.
I saw this ad in Pulse magazine and scoffed at it:
Today, I nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But it took 30 years before I had enough life experience to understand how breathtaking 3 Feet High and Rising is.
Nevermind introduced me to Nirvana like the rest of the world, but I prefer Bleach.
The events in Nakamori Akina’s life at the time CRUISE was released overshadowed the maturity of the album. It’s not ground-breaking the way Fushigi is, but it’s an album that could have only been recorded after it.
I saw Depeche Mode in concert in 2017, and 101 ruined my experience of it. I had been listening to 101 in the weeks leading up to the concert, and understandably, the band stacked the set list more toward recent work than “the hits”.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
We’ve actually revisited 1992 earlier in the year, and this list hasn’t changed, although I did tack on L7 and Helmet in the extended list.
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Miracle Mile
Máire Brennan, Máire
Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 3 (Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, London Sinfonietta)
k.d. lang, Ingenue
Sade, Love Deluxe
En Vogue, Funky Divas
Prince and the New Power Generation, 0(+> (Love Symbol Album)
Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, At the Ryman
Kronos Quartet, Pieces of Africa
Robin Holcomb, Rockabye
Other favorites from the year:
The Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
Faith No More, Angel Dust
Sonic Youth, Dirty
Helmet, Meantime
L7, Bricks Are Heavy
Helmet got caught up in the grunge craze of the early ’90s, even though they were clearly not grunge. Wikipedia says Helmet’s staccato riffage would influence Mastodon, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Korn and Linkin Park.
I’ll admit I picked up Meantime because of the grunge-adjacent marketing hype. I didn’t hold onto it, but like Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record, I couldn’t shake it. So I brought it back into my collection when it was reissued on vinyl earlier in the year.
Bricks Are Heavy also suffered a bit of guilt by association. Butch Vig had been doing miraculous work with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Surely, L7 would follow in that vein. I didn’t warm up to it. I’m not sure how 25 years turned around my perception of the album, but it did.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
Instead of providing an extended list for 1993, I rag on a number of critical favorites from the year. I’ve mellowed out about Björk’s Debut and U2’s Zooropa, but Siamese Dream and janet. are still overrated.
Duran Duran, The Wedding Album
Bill Frisell, Have a Little Faith
John Zorn / Naked City, Absinthe
Judy Dunaway and the Evan Gallagher Little Band, Judy Dunaway and the Evan Gallagher Little Band
Spiny Norman, Crust
The Love Gods, Hujja Hujja Fishla
Michael Nyman, The Piano
Wayne Horvitz / Pigpen, Halfrack
Clannad, Banba
Emerson Sting Quartet, American Originals: Ives / Barber String Quartets
Other favorites from the year:
Kate Bush, The Red Shoes
Emmylou Harris, Cowgirl’s Prayer
Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Cypress Hill, Black Sunday
Digable Planets, Reachin’
U2, Zooropa
Julee Cruise, The Voice of Love
Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales
This time, I’m providing an extended list, and it demonstrates where I was as a listener and where I am.
That Favorite 10 is stuffed to the gills with some really avant-garde titles, the kind put together by a young person trying to be more cosmopolitan than his peers.
The extended list includes music that would have been ignored by the person who compiled the Favorite 10.
My younger self would have scoffed at my older present self for deigning to include hip-hop, and my older self would tell my younger self to examine what social pressures may be coming to bear for his opposition.
Younger self would complain about how hip-hop culture is fetishized by his ethnic cohorts, which older self would acknowledge but caution against succumbing to the racial dynamics of the country.
Younger self would have no idea what older self would be talking about, since younger self hadn’t yet moved to he Mainland US to see these dynamics in action.
All that to say maybe I’ve been resistant to hip-hop because the music that most appeals to me is made predominantly by upper middle class white men.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
I had trouble coming up with a Favorite 10 of 1995, so I left it at nine. I’ve since had time to fill the remaining spot with an album I shouldn’t have let go.
Emmylou Harris, Wrecking Ball
The Klezmatics, Jews with Horns
John Zorn/Masada, Hei
Värttinä, Aitara
Björk, Post
Enya, The Memory of Trees
Kronos Quartet, Performs Philip Glass
Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill
Tears for Fears, Raoul and the Kings of Spain
Tracy Chapman, New Beginning
Other favorites from the year:
Prince, The Gold Experience
Bang on a Can All-Stars, Industry
Janet Jackson, Design of a Decade, 1986-1996
Fugazi, Red Medicine
Radiohead, The Bends
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Brainbloodvolume
John Zorn, Elegy and Kristallnacht
A year-end list at the time would have included Tracy Chapman, but New Beginning got cut in purge before the original list was compiled. It took the discovery of her second album, Crossroads, for me to revisit New Beginning and realizing what a mistake I’d made.
The Gold Experience is a surprising entry in the extended list. The era when Prince was known by the Love Symbol was a creatively fraught time, so it overshadows just how good The Gold Experience is.
I’ve attempted to explore Radiohead in the past few years to understand my general ambivalence to them. So far, The Bends is the only album I really like, which is of course an obvious choice. Modern classical musicians all seem to love them, which surprises me. Café Tacuba does far more interesting work.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
1996 was my final year in college, a year before I would earn the kind of disposable income that would go into building a music collection. While the Favorite 10 of 1996 remains mostly unchanged, the extended list includes many more discoveries I couldn’t afford to hear at the time.
Soundtrack, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet
Värttinä, Kokko
Soundtrack, Robotech Perfect Collection
Asylum Street Spankers, Spanks for the Memories
Various Composers, Gay American Composers
Original Cast Recording, Rent
Marilyn Manson, Antichrist Superstar
Everything But the Girl, Walking Wounded
Shawn Colvin, A Few Small Repairs
Robin Holcomb, Little Three
Other favorites from the year:
Midnight Oil, Breathe
Dead Can Dance, Spiritchaser
Emmylou Harris, Portraits
Kronos Quartet, Howl USA
UA, 11
Yen Town Band, Montage
Neutral Milk Hotel, On Avery Island
Aphex Twin, Richard D. James Album
Weezer, Pinkerton
Sleater-Kinney, Call the Doctor
Clannad, Lore
Café Tacuba, Avalancha de Exitos
I could actually add more titles from Wilco, Helmet, Gillian Welch, DJ Shadow and Amuro Namie to the extended list, but I haven’t lived with them as long as the ones I’ve already added.
I owned the Richard D. James album at one point. It was a promo from the student newspaper, but I was such a neophyte with EDM that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. As it turns out nobody could really make heads or tails of it.
The original extended list didn’t include Lore because it had already fallen victim to a collection purge. I rediscovered the album after the death of Padraig Duggan.
Avalancha de Exitos was the first album by Café Tacuba I would encounter, but I wouldn’t purchase it till many years later. I borrowed it from a friend and liked it. But I stayed away from it because it’s a cover album of music of which I had no reference.
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