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.
This list is the last of the original years covered in my previous survey. The Favorite 10 hasn’t changed, but the extended list has gotten longer.
Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair
Sting, The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Arcadia, So Red the Rose
ABC, How to Be a Zillionaire!
10,000 Manaics, The Wishing Chair
Clannad, Macalla
Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
Soundtrack, Macross Song Collection
Midnight Oil, Red Sails in the Sunset
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Requiem
Other favorites from the year::
Camper Van Beethoven, Telephone Free Landslide Victory
Eurythmics, Be Yourself Tonight
Hiroshima, Another Place
The Pogues, Rum Sodomy and the Lash
Simple Minds, Once Upon a Time
Sade, Promise
Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising
The Replacements, Tim
The Outfield, Play Deep
INXS, Listen Like Thieves
Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force
The Power Station, The Power Station
The Family, The Family
Prince and the Revolution, Around the World in a Day
Younger Me would approve of most of this list.
He would have gasped at the inclusion of Prince, considering the Sibling Rivalry Collection Race was at its height, and this kind of intrusion would be accompanied by a drubbing.
And he would groaned at the inclusion of The Outfield. Older Me would then advise him to wait 20 years before a real appreciation could begin.
I capped this survey at 1985 because my collection before that year wasn’t extensive enough for much punditry. Weekly visits to thrift shops in the last three years have allowed me to fill in enough gaps to keep going till 1978.
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.
In 2008, my collection tapered off with releases before 1987. I went so far as to call 1986 an uninteresting year. I’ve since had time to explore the year in greater depth.
The Art of Noise, In Visible Silence
Janet Jackson, Control
Soundtrack, Megazone 23 Song Collection
Paul Simon, Graceland
XTC, Skylarking
The Smiths, The Queen is Dead
Prince & the Revolution, Parade
Nakamori Akina, Fushigi
Duran Duran, Notorious
Club Nouveau, Life, Love and Pain
Other favorites from the year:
Anita Baker, Rapture
Bananarama, True Confessions
Fishbone, In Your Face
Run DMC, Raising Hell
Peter Gabriel, So
John Adams, Harmonielehre
Enya, Enya
Dwight Yoakam, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.
R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant
Pet Shop Boys, Please
Kronos Quartet, Music of Sculthorpe, Sallinen, Glass, Nancarrow, Hendrix
The Human League, Crash
If you told Younger Me that Older Me would like So and Raising Hell, Younger Me would wretch. At the time, Run DMC and Peter Gabriel were so ubiquitous, I felt I would never need to hear “Walk This Way” or “Sledgehamer” for the rest of my life.
One advantage of growing older is no longer caring about looking at all fashionable.
Younger Me would have been puzzled by the inclusion of Dwight Yoakam on the extended list, to which Older Me would have to tell Younger Me to wait 9 years.
Younger Me: Oh, I was wondering whether I should get that Human League album. Is it really that good? Older Me: Yeah, but I don’t think you’d quite appreciate it at your station in life. Wait a few years. Younger Me: Really? How many? Older Me: 30.
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.
The original list from 1994 didn’t even include an extended list. That’s how austere the selections from the year were.
Talitha Mackenzie, Solas
Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World
Wayne Horvitz/Pigpen, V as in Victim
Harry Connick, Jr., She
Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
Everything But the Girl, Amplified Heart
Kronos Quartet, Night Prayers
Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, Cheerful & Optimistic
John Zorn/Masada, Alef
Madonna, Bedtime Stories
Other favorites from the year:
Prince, The Black Album
Blur, Parklife
Pizzicato Five, Made in USA
Shudder to Think, Pony Express Record
Elliott Goldenthal, Interview with a Vampire
At the time of its limited release, I was actually very curious about The Black Album. Part of it was all the hype surrounding its initial aborted release, but I was still mostly ambivalent about Prince to pass on it. Its underdog status among Prince’s work makes me like it just a bit more.
A top 10 list I would have compiled in 1994 would have listed the Interview with a Vampire soundtrack. It’s actually a really good score. It’s too bad the movie sucked eggs. I watched twice — the first time to evaluate its faithfulness to the novel (somewhat), the second to evaluate it as a film (awful). The only thing that mars the soundtrack is the unfortunate cover of Sympathy for the Devil by Guns N’ Roses.
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.
So many gay male artists are releasing new music this summer, it makes me wonder why they all didn’t put everything out in June. But muses can’t be rushed. Nor marketing plans.
Steve Grand, Not the End of Me, July 6
I listen to a lot of really serious music. I need Steve Grand to stop me from being too melancholy.
Luciano Berio, Sinfonia (Roomful of Teeth, Seattle Symphony, Ludovic Morlot), July 20
I went to the Saturday performance of this piece on the recommendation of my music theory professor.
Jake Shears, Jake Shears, Aug. 10
I’ve never really cottoned to Scissor Sisters, even though they seem to be in my wheelhouse.
Death Cab for Cutie, Thank You for Today, Aug. 17
The first two albums of Death Cab’s major label of phase made me wonder if they would follow R.E.M.’s downward creative trajectory in a similar fashion, but Codes and Keys and Kintsugi actually stemmed that tide. I’m not encouraged by the band’s comparison of this new album to Narrow Stairs, however.
Julee Cruise, Three Demos, Aug. 17
I loved Floating Into the Night, so I’m curious to hear these early drafts. A reissue of The Voice of Love also arrives the same day.
Troye Sivan, Bloom, Aug. 31
I was nowhere near the target market for Blue Neighborhood, but I liked it anyway.
Craig Armstrong, Sun on You, Sept. 7
Craig Armstrong is known more for his film scores, mostly because few of his studio albums get US releases. Here’s hoping a streaming release makes up for that drought.
Renée Fleming, Broadway, Sept. 7
A Broadway album? With Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Tell Me on a Sunday”? And a song from Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music that isn’t “Send in the Clowns”? OK, Renée Fleming, I’ll bite.
Prince, Piano and a Microphone 1983, Sept. 14
Sure, I’m curious enough to check out this set of demos, but what I’d like to know is when the vinyl reissue campaign will get to the Love Symbol album.
Vinyl
U2, Achtung Baby, July 27
U2, Zooropa, July 27
Zooropa is an odd album in the U2 canon, recorded in a spontaneous rush with experiments that work (“Numb”) and some that fail (“Lemon”). Despite a lavish repackaging, Achtung Baby had not yet been reissued in stand-alone black vinyl.
I catalog my music purchases on Collectorz and Discogs, but they don’t give me a sense of change over time. So I’m noting them here weekly as well.
This past weekend was the annual Big Book Sale by the Friends of the Seattle Public Library, so I should have enough music to last me for weeks, right? Right.
Catalog
CDs
Anita Baker, Giving You the Best That I Got
Beastie Boys, Check Your Head
Victor Borge, Live(!)
Glenn Branca, Symphony No. 2: Peak of the Sacred
Cameo, Word Up!
Capercaillie, Secret People
John Coltrane, Giant Steps
John Coltrane, Meditations
John Coltrane, My Favorite Things
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
Eazy-E, Eazy-Duz-It
Bill Evans Trio, Waltz for Debby
Fugazi, End Hits
Peter Gabriel, Shaking the Tree
Guns N’ Roses, G N’ R Lies
Heart, Bad Animals
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced?
Ketsumeshi, Ketsunopolis 4
LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out
Milt Jackson and John Coltrane, Bags and Trane
Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark
Morrissey, The Best of Morrissey
Mother Love Bone, Mother Love Bone
Nirvana, Incesticide
Robert Palmer, Clues
Prince, Musicology
R.E.M., Dead Letter Office
Radiohead, The Bends
Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
Einojuhani Rautvaara, Symphony No. 7: Angel of Light / Annunciations
![[The Outfield - Play Deep]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/TheOutfieldPlayDeep1985142461_f-300x294.jpeg)
![[Nakamori Akina - Fushigi]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/nakamori-akina-fushigi-300x300.jpg)
![[Helmet - Meantime]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/HelmetMeantime1992167799_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Soundtrack - Interview with a Vampire]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/VariousArtistsSoundtracks12739_f-300x299.jpg)
![[Tracy Chapman - New Beginning]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/TracyChapmanNewBeginning145003_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Prince - Piano & a Microphone 1983]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/PrincePianoandaMicrophon195267_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Steve Grand - Not the End of Me]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/steve-grand-not-the-end-of-me-300x263.jpg)
![[Duran Duran - Budokan]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DuranDuranBudokan2018184597_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Diana Ross - Diana]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DianaRossDiana198061812_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Roxy Music - Avalon]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/RoxyMusicAvalon1983180628_f-300x300.jpg)