I’m doing write-ups on my personal top 10 albums because that’s fun for me… tl;dr, just check out the headings below.

My report card grades are due tonight at 11:59 PM and I’m sick of scoring student work, so I’m letting myself work on this challenge one album at a time as my reward for hitting various work checkpoints. Listening to these various albums while grading has already brightened my mood. Nothing fights a feeling of enclosure more effectively than music that expands the mind.

The key word in the challenge to me is “album.” To me, an album should be more than a collection of songs. A great album must be greater than the sum of its parts, so that listening to it in its entirety elevates the whole experience; on a great album, there should be no skippable filler. For this reason, I have taken a liberty with the challenge instruction to identify the “best song” by naming an excellent song outside of the best-known singles. If I couldn’t find such a song and could only justify a choice with tracks that made the radio and Billboard charts, then I deemed the album insufficiently great for this list. I also deliberately tried for variety to make my list more interesting: at least a little diversity of genre, and no more than one album per artist (or else there would have been a hell of a lot more Pink Floyd). I’m also leaving off musical soundtracks as primarily belonging to a different art form, or else Hamilton would have made my list.

I’ll begin by noting that my honorable mention albums include Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile and literally everything David Bowie ever did, but probably Station to Station. (Sorry, David Bowie.)

10. Soundgarden, Superunknown – “Let Me Drown”

I had a devil of a time choosing a song from this album, best remembered for “Black Hole Sun,” because each track is a showcase. Whether the song is rollicking or brooding or both – which is the case with “Let Me Drown” – Chris Cornell’s power vocals cut through the grunge and add whole other layer. The earlier Badmotorfinger is a snarling badass of an album, but give me the tuneful and varied songwriting of Superunknown, grunge in its most elevated form.

9. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love– “The Hazards of Love 1 (‘The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle The Thistles Undone’)”

Given my criteria for a great album, it should not be surprising that I’ve got a concept album on my list. This one is a fairytale: a young woman finds a wounded fawn who transforms into a handsome young man, under the spell of his mother, a witch, and the two sheltered youths fall in love – pregnancy, the witch’s jealousy, and a kidnapping provide complications leading up to a tragic end. The deeply creepy “Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge)” is a highlight – ghostly children taking revenge on their murderous father! – but it’s the first full song on the album that provides its best intro. Colin Meloy’s endearing voice and delight in wordplay are on full display, and the track immediately draws the listener into the fable.

8. Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster – “Dance in the Dark”

I don’t generally do pop music, but this album is an exception. I first checked out Lady Gaga because of the crazy and awesome music videos she made in this era – the art form was moribund at best in 2009, but Gaga made videos an event again, for which we are all in her debt. It’s hard to escape the headliners on the album (“Bad Romance,” “Alejandro,” “Telephone”) but it’s all so damn good. This overshadowed track has a driving beat, earworm synth, and, at its core, a pair of evocative and simple lines: “Baby loves to dance in the dark / Cause when he’s looking she falls apart.” Despite the number of repetitions, the lines remain plaintive until the end, thanks to Gaga’s skillful singing and a well-timed spoken word bridge that expands the song’s scope. Considered as a whole, The Fame Monster grapples not only with fame but with love, joy, possession, fear, and their intersections.

7. Muse, Absolution – “Falling Away with You”

Once Muse got big, the band wallowed in its own pretension and facile slogans; the sound remained good, but the self-importance lessened it for me. Absolution, though, came before all that. I first sought out the album because I caught “Hysteria” on the radio, and it rocks, hard. Muse can do that; they can also create beautiful, melodic layers. Absolution balances it all. As much as any track, “Falling Away with You” contains these competing, complementary styles. The lyrics, here and elsewhere, would not hold up on a page sans accompaniment, but they’re not meant to: the arrangements and upper-range vocals invest them with largeness. Later Muse is self-righteous and pandering, but on this album, you hear searching instead of answers. It’s music reaching for something beyond itself.

6. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly – “How Much a Dollar Cost”

Rap: not my genre. Kendrick Lamar, however, is a genius, and this is the album that brought me to his work. There’s consistent development of themes throughout, but a fascinating variety of styles to the music: he raps over free jazz(!), he raps over a funk track (featuring George Clinton), he raps a politically-charged banger (“The Blacker the Berry,” the first Kendrick track that blew my mind). There is other-level wordplay here, and I really want to talk about “King Kunta,” but I committed to avoiding hit singles, so… “How Much a Dollar Cost” is a fable with slow-paced music that belies the building intensity of Lamar’s flow. Wealthy as he is, he meets a homeless beggar (“Guilt trippin’ and feelin’ resentment / I never met a transient who demanded attention”) but doubts the man’s sincerity. He accuses him of drug and alcohol abuse (“I comprehend, I smell grandpa’s old medicine / Reekin’ from your skin, moonshine and gin”) and putting on an act (“I’m imaginin’ / Denzel but lookin’ at O’Neal, Kazaam is sad / Thrills, your gimmick is mediocre”). But as happens in fables, the haughty man who refuses to help the poor pays for his arrogance. It’s good storytelling. The whole album is good storytelling, with Kendrick’s signature wit, flow, depth, and ability to dramatize the tensions in his life. There’s more than just a portrayal of conflict across Kendrick’s albums: there’s a complex and brilliant man’s whole thought process laid bare in all its nuanced, searching glory.

5. The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – “Thru the Eyes of Ruby”

My favorite song of all time by anybody is “Muzzle” because the poetic lyrics have brought me comfort on more occasions than I can count; the greatest Smashing Pumpkins song is “1979.” Both are here, but since my goal is to show others why I love this glorious double album, I want to write about the overlooked “Thru the Eyes of Ruby.” The song is gentle, and the song repeatedly builds into a swirling mass of distorted guitars, and there is no contradiction in those characteristics. Billy Corgan’s pinched singing voice is similarly distorted and complements the music perfectly. The lyrics are worth the trouble, though: the album was packaged with a booklet containing all of them, and I spent many fond hours in my teenage years pondering them. “Thru the Eyes of Ruby” has some characteristic gems. “Your innocence is treasure, your innocence is death / Your innocence is all I have.” In the song’s final lines, Corgan repeats, “The night has come to hold us young.” The words invite thought.

The album’s first disc is titled Dawn to Dusk, and the second Twilight to Starlight. Some evening when you’ll be driving the interstate into the night, put the Smashing Pumpkins on and let them carry you where you’re going.

4. Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures – “Shadowplay”

Some of the songs on this album evidence the “punk” in “post-punk,” and some are moody dreamscapes, but all of them combine to create an atmosphere like no other band’s work. “She’s Lost Control” is the headliner, but I have long considered “Shadowplay” a highlight. It’s impossible to separate the music from the tragedy that ended Joy Division, but even if you don’t know the story, there’s always something menacing just outside the edges as you listen. Nonetheless, the album feels like a melancholy embrace, in no small part because Ian Curtis’s haunting, earnest baritone vocals. Turn the lights and volume low, close your eyes and play Unknown Pleasures through. The feelings run deep.

3. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs – “The Suburbs”

You’ll find many who say Arcade Fire’s first album, Funeral, is the alpha and omega, but for all that debut’s greatness, I love The Suburbs more. When driving home to the town of my birth, this album rises inevitably from the car stereo. Youth, maturation, change, loss, struggle, nostalgia – the lyrics have a lot to unpack, and the music just as much. “The Suburbs” was, technically, a single, but since its Wikipedia entry opens with a note that it “reached number 94 on the Canadian Hot 100,” I feel that it’s still a valid option for my low-recognition song choices. I use the lilting opening chords for my ringtone, and if I’m not too quick to pick up, I hear the opening lines that instantly transport listeners to a time of life: “In the suburbs I / I learned to drive, / And you told me we’d never survive / Grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving.” And with that, the journey to the past begins.

2. Nirvana, Unplugged in New York – “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam”

Nirvana is the legend of the 90s. Name the band and nine people out of ten probably think of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” first. But if you want to hear the beating heart within the iconoclast, listen to Unplugged straight through. Of all the songs the band played that night, the cover of “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” fits most strangely into their oeuvre, and that’s why it’s an essential listen.

1. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon – “Us and Them”

It’s omnipresent in our culture, one of the bestselling albums of all time, and near the top of virtually every great album list ever created—and there’s a reason for that. Ask anyone in the world to name songs on Dark Side of the Moon, and I’ll guarantee that person will list “Us and Them” fourth at the earliest; it’s the sixth track in order, and “Time,” “Money,” and “Brain Damage/Eclipse” all get more radio play. But what a magical song it is. What a magical album it is. Not many artists in any medium have attempted to encapsulate the human experience in a single work. If anyone has ever succeeded, Pink Floyd pulled it off on Dark Side of the Moon.

Metallica - Black Album: Wherever I may roam

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire: Bulls on Parade

Pink Floyd - Darkside of the Moon: Comfortably Numb

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory: In the End

Linkin Park - Meteora: Lying from You

Bob Marley - Mixed: Three little Birds

Tupac - Greatest Hits: Dear Momma

TFK - War of Change: War of Change

Green day - American Idiot: Holiday

Crimson King - Epitaph: Epitaph

This was harder than I thought, especially ranking them. My favorites are forever in flux.

I. BLOOD ON THE TRACKS by Bob Dylan

favorite song: Shelter from the Storm

II. IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER by Belle & Sebastian

favorite song: Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying

III. GET LOST by the Magnetic Fields

favorite song: With Whom to Dance

IV. MARQUEE MOON by Television

favorite song: Marquee Moon

V. LONDON CALLING by the Clash

favorite song: Guns of Brixton

VI. I'M WIDE AWAKE, IT'S MORNING by Bright Eyes

favorite song: First Day of My Life

VII. EITHER/OR by Elliott Smith

favorite song: Between the Bars

VIII. VERSION 2.0 by Garbage

favorite song: You Look So Fine

VIV. THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT by the Airborne Toxic Event

favorite song: Sometime Around Midnight

X. EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME by Band of Horses

favorite song: the Funeral

1. MF DOOM/Madlib: Madvillainy

Song: Rhinestone Cowboy

Link: https://youtu.be/s4iR668Ki3I

2. Quasimoto/aka Madlib:The Unseen

Song: Bluffin

Link: https://youtu.be/soll26DTlBo

3. MF DOOM: MM..Food

Song: Vomitspit

Link: https://youtu.be/cDYHraHnjJE

4. Marvin Gaye: What's Going On

Song: God Is Love

Link: https://youtu.be/1aNMq-tOtYg

5. Chet Baker: Chet Baker Sings

Song: But Not For Me

Link: https://youtu.be/QwAwtMt8t4s

6. Twilight: Still Loving You

Song: Still Loving You

Link: https://youtu.be/4_RNFof-eMY

7. Mac Miller: Circles (Deluxe)

Song: Right

Link: https://youtu.be/vx0i-iPOlQk

8. JockStrap: Wicked City

Song: Acid

Link: https://youtu.be/oOXho8yVaKk

9. Freddie Gibbs/Madlib: Bandana

Song: Fake Names

Link: https://youtu.be/MmvzeR2AFhA

10. Daryl Hall & John Oates: War Babies

Song: You're Much Too Soon

Link: https://youtu.be/RNj2b2dN3_Y

1.) The Powers that B - Death Grips [rape, experimental] (pretty much all of their discography)

First time I listened to Death Grips was the track Guillotine from Exmilitary when I was 16 or 17. I remember hating it, thinking it was just noise. It was nauseating at the time. Now they're literally my favorite band, and their discography's timeless - I can listen to Exmilitary and think it was dropped yesterday.

Don't know what happened when I went to college. I think I got burnt out from listening to the same stuff over and over again so somehow Death Grips smashed all of that and clicked for me. Either that or it's stockholm syndrome where I forced my brain to dig the shouting and the production that likens beating your head in with a hammer.

Favorite track off of this double album's On Gp. Helped me through my first year of winter in China. Just did mushrooms for the first time then and it kind of sent me into a depressive episode so the track means a lot to me.

I suggest reading the lyrics if you're listening.

"All the nights I don't die for you

Wouldn't believe how many nights I ain't died for you

On GP

Not that I care, I'd be a liar

If I sat here claiming I'd exit in a minute

But I can't say I wouldn't, I have my limit

All the nights I don't die"

2.) A Long Drive... - Modest Mouse [alternative]

Never got into Modest Mouse until when I was 20 or something. Always knew about them growing up but it was only from the song Float On which I had always mistaken for Franz Ferdinand's Take me Out. A close friend of mine who's a huge Modest Mouse fan made it click for me.

A lot of memories are bundled up in this album, most of them hazy, shades of gray. Favorite track's Talking Shit about a Pretty Sunset. My friend and I were on acid while we listened to it as we watched the sun rise on his birthday. Good word play and melancholic compositions, it's a band that definitely counts as one of my influences in terms of music and writing.

"Talking shit about a pretty sunset

Blanketing opinions that I'll probably regret soon

Changed my mind so much I can't even trust it

My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself"

3.) The Microphones in 2020 - The Microphones [indie]

This one's a record that clicked only recently. I've listened to it when it came out and wasn't too enthralled by it. Then I listened to it after I broke my leg about a year ago, was kind of the only companion I had throughout the whole ordeal. I remember putting it on on a car ride to the hospital to get an x-ray, we turned into a roundabout and it felt like life didn't feel real. Maybe it was just gravity being weird in roundabouts, I don't know. But at the time the trees that were bending from the wind and the buildings looked like miniatures or a caricature of a city.

After that, I started to dig deep into Elvrum's discography. The Glow Pt.2, It was hot we stayed in the water, Mount Eerie. This DIY aesthetic he has and the raw, unfiltered lyrics resonates with me.

I would drive out to the ocean and not tell anybody

I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a dollar theatre in Aberdeen

It was a rainy matinée, 2001, Sunday, March 18th

And in the parking lot afterward

For a few minutes in the rain

I stood glowing with ideas

Of what I might try to convey with this music

At that moment, my mind flashing like a blade

4.) Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada - Godspeed You! Black Emperor [post-rock]

So Godspeed You! Black Emperor used to be the first one on the list when I was younger. They showed me that music doesn't have boundaries and you can make of it what you will which blew my mind as a kid. To have these 20 minute slow, lumbering songs that end in a crescendo was new to me at the time. They went further down the list but they still have a place in me.

Without lyrics but through field recordings and orchestra-like performances, they show rage and dissatisfaction on how the world's ran, with glimmers of hope sprinkled in here and there.

5.) You Won't Get What You Want - Daughters [noise rock]

It's a lot. You get two breathers throughout the album, Less Sex and Daughter, the rest is like having a knife stab your ear drums over and over again. I've always described it as a horror movie when talking about it mostly because of how the guitar parallels the sound effect off of the Psycho shower scene.

Favorite track is the closer Guest House. The end of the song feels like the sun came up after a night of primal rage.

I have come from the distance

Where you can't see

It is there, believe me

Now let me in

Let me in

Let me in

6.) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains [country, indie rock]

This one's pretty out of place. Never was into country but the cheery instrumentals contrasted by the depressing as hell lyrics really grabbed my ear on the first listen. Added to that's the catchy hooks and goddamn do they get stuck in your head. Favorite track is either "All my Happiness is Gone" or "I Loved being my Mother's Son"

Guess this went on here cause the lyrics really meant a lot to me, and the closer "Maybe I'm the Only One for Me" gave me this glimmer of hope for Bergman that was very much dashed away when he committed suicide about a month after he dropped the album. I don't listen to it often, only when I'm drunk, but I don't drink anymore either.

"Mounting mileage on the dash

Double darkness falling fast

I keep stressing, pressing on

Way deep down at some substratum

Feels like something really wrong has happened

And I confess I'm barely hanging on"

7.) Visions of Bodies Being Burned - clipping. [rap, experimental]

I like rap but I rarely listen to them in an album sort of way, just singles and a few tracks here and there. This album was an outlier though. Daveed's headbobbing flow whizzes through and bounces over horrifying ambient productions and fresh, boundary pushing instrumentals. The previous album There Existed an Addiction to Blood had the track Run for Your Life where the main beat was being played out of a car that would drive by at different points of the song, matching Daveed's flow at the same time. It's insane. And cool as hell.

Favorite track's Enlacing. Drug hazed and an absolute banger.

"Your body is a drug you love, you crush

Make the most of magic, map the math of it

Master mouthpiece and extract the past from it

Plummet, plumb it, plum pit, fruit

Summit, some shit, sunk ship, loot

Loop, feedback, look, see that

Bloody sack, you used to be that"

8.) Lost and Safe - The Books [folktronical, post rock]

Melodic and calming, this was an album I'd always put on during acid trips. Helped me calm down during tense moments. The production's very intimate like they're tickling your ears or they're there performing in the same room as you. Favorite track is Smells like Content, can't even count the amount of times this song anchored me.

"Most of all the world is a place

Where parts of wholes are described

Within an overarching paradigm of clarity

And accuracy

The context of which makes possible

An underlying sense of the way it all fits together

Despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such"

9.) songs - Adrianne Lenker [acoustic]

This one's recent as well. Was one of the records that inspired me to play guitar and write songs. Very beautiful and comfy, reminds me of when my friend would play guitar on the balcony as the sun started to set. Can't really pick a favorite on here, each one of them stand out on their own but forwards beckon rebound shows off some of Lenker's best lyricism and god her voice is like ginger tea with some honey.

Virtual bedroom

Rise like a full moon

Show me pictures that hang in your house

Pictures that hang in your mouth

Candescent insects

Crosses and fishnecks

I have nothing to pray to you now

Nothing to pray to you now

10.) Shukusai - Ayano Kaneko

A Japanese record that really encapsulates the whole start of the 2020 quarantine. My housemate (the one that got me into modest mouse) and I would just put this album on repeat. We were pretty much drunk the whole time and on the verge of losing our minds because one of our friends went missing at the same time as the quarantine started but this album kept us up and going.

Groovy, catchy, a ray of sun during winter. I'll always keep this with me.

Favorite track's the closer.

Honorable Mentions:

Spiderland - Slint

Maggot Brain - Funkadelic

Infest the Rat's Nest - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

The Seer - Swans

Drukqs - Aphex Twin

These are not in order but here you go!

Cry Baby ~ Melanie Martinez/ Fave song: Either: Milk and Cookies or Alphabet Boy

The Search ~ NF/ Fave song: Only

Perception ~ NF/ Fave song: You're Special

Dear Agony ~ Breaking Benjamin/ Fave Song: I will no bow

Phobia ~ Breaking Benjamin/ Fave song: Either: You or The Diary of Jane

Killing All that Holds You ~ 10 Years/ Fave song: Wasteland

One More Light ~ Linkin Park/ Fave Song: One More Light & Sharp Edges

The Lost Book of Fantasy ~ Peter Gundry/ Fave sing: Lament of the Shadow Elves

X ~ Ed Sheeran/ Fave song: Photograph

The Fault in Our Stars soundtrack/ Fave song: All of the Stars ~ Ed Sheeran

My favourite songs.

1:suburban cradles.

2:Linkin park: In the end.

3: Believers

4:Sing me to sleep-Amanda Jenson.

5:The calling.

6:Fake a smile.

7:Rise up

8:No friends.

9:Lost sky-Dreams part 2.

10: We'll meet again.

Others:

Sad sometimes

Lily,

Close to the sun,

Fly away-The fat rat,

Hiding in the blue,

Faded,

Myself-neffex.

1. Minute from The Wassailant by Kofi Young

2. Fight Gods from The Garages Kill the Gods by The Garages

3. Liquid Friend from Percolate by The Garages

4. Shrove Tuesday by Kofi Young

5. Sirens from Ulysses Dies at Dawn by The Mechanisms

6. Téir Abhaile ’Riú from Believe by Celtic Woman

7. Cyborg Abominations from Lolina: Origins by R. L. Hughes

8. Kulupu Jan Tempo from (disambiguation) by jan Misali

9. How the Story Goes from Half-Sin, Half-Virtue by Ben Below

10. Rocks from Night Visions by Imagine Dragons

My taste in music is pretty obscure and kind of all over the place, but this is what I’ve been listening to recently!