Top-10 of My 100 Favorite Albums of All-Time

The TOP-10 Of My 100 Favorite Albums of All-Time

* means I bought the album right when it was released or at the latest a few months 

# means I discovered it later

10) Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates of Dawn (1967, E.M.I.) - Except for Ummagumma or Atom Heart Mother, and the Roger Waters-less albums, Piper at the Gates of Dawn may be one of the Pink Floyd albums I listen to the least. Most of the other albums have gotten more spins from me over the years because they can be listened to anywhere. To get the full experience of Piper at the Gates of Dawn it needs to be listened to where it gets your undivided attention. Preferably with a really good pair of headphones too. This way you can hear all the various sounds and nuances in songs like “Astronomy Domine”, “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk”, and especially the nearly 10-minute “Interstellar Overdrive”. Plus, no knock on Roger Waters or David Gilmour (who would join for the next album) but Syd Barret’s vocals on songs like "Gnome" and "Scarecrow" are just extraordinary. Except for a few singles and a song on the next album, this is all the Syd Barrett you get so I would recommend checking out his solo albums Madcap Laughs and Barrett. (#)

9) Bad Brains - S/T (1982, Reach Out International) - Nothing can really prepare someone for

the first time they hear the Bad Brains, especially if it's this debut they hear first. I have enjoyed watching many people's facial expressions when the play button is hit. The blazing guitars of Dr. Know on 1-2-3 tracks of  "Sailin' On", "Don't Need It", and "Attitude", the leadoff bass by Daryl Jennifer on "The Regulator" into the stomp of "Banned In DC", all with singer H.R. leading the way. Unlike other Bad Brains albums where I would skip most the reggae songs, here at Track 6 "Jah Calling" you appreciate a second to catch your breath before they kick it in again with "Supertouch/Shitfit". After one more reggae song, you get five more Bad Brains classics including "Big Take Over", their first single "Pay to cum", and my favorite, "Right Brigade". A few of these songs would appear on their next album Rock for Light but they so much more primal here. (#)

8) Slint - Spiderland (1991, Touch and G0) -

I was listening to Slint's second album Spiderland when my wife started asking me a question. I asked her to hold on a minute because my favorite part of the song "Breadcrumb Trail", the last little "solo" by guitarist Dave Pajo at the 4:36 mark, was about to come on. When the song was over she said, "Song? I thought it was just a band tuning up". This is actually a good description of the band, especially for their misunderstood previous album Tweez, On Spiderland it works. None of the six songs contain a "verse chorus verse" structure.  Instead rely on the guitar, bass, and drum harmonics. Still, vocalist Brian McMahon still manages to relay characters and stories, some even with subplots. Track 5 "For Dinner" is instrumental. It is also amazing the band could record such an incredible album, it literally created a new genre ("Math Rock"), at such a young age. The band is most known from incredible "Good Morning, Captain" is included on the soundtrack to the 1995 movie "Kids". It's an intense 7-minute song that will keep you on your toes the whole time. (*)

7) Ramones – Leave Home (1977, Sire)  – I have to say I probably like the first three Ramones albums almost equally, with Road to Ruin and End of the Century right behind them. Leave Home gets a few more spins because the songs just sound a little more varied than the self-titled debut and Rocket to Russia. Besides the “1-2-3 Hey Ho, let’s go” numbers like “Glad to See You Go” and  “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” there are also some tracks that throw in some different elements. The slower tempo of “I Remember You” and “What’s Your Game", the revved-up guitar before the choruses of “Suzy is a Headbanger”, and the built-up lead in first verse on “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” keep Leave Home just a tad more interesting than the albums before it and the one after.(#)

6) The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966, Capital) - It

may be a little cliche to include this album so high on the list but it really is one I listen to a lot since I rediscovered it around 2000. (I wrote more in-depth about it here). It is especially in heavy rotation this time a year when the weather is warming up and we start spending more time outside. Of course when it gets really warm the earlier more sunshine-filled Beach Boys gets slipped into the rotation. Except for "Good Vibrations" of the next album and "Darlin'" a few albums down no post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys really get played in my rotation. On a side note, I recommend checking out the live album Graduation Day 1966 where you get a good mix of older Beach Boys songs and the newer Pet Sounds. The second more inebriated show on the album is particularly entertaining. (#)

5) The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle (1968, CBS) - Not going to get too deep into the album because I wrote about it here but to this day it still amazes me that is 1966 a band could get away being named after an undead being whose only purpose is to seak out brains for eating. But is you think about it The Beatles are kind of named after a bug. Then to have the track "She's Coming Home" about a female prison inmate getting released as their opening song. Just like the Pink Floyd album at #10 this album demands to be listened to in completion with a good pair of headphones It contains so many almost nut important sound coming from all directions. It also contains so many perfect harmonies to rival that band more known for them at #6.

4) Husker Du - Zen Arcade (1984, SST) - Another album I wrote more in-depth about here.

 On some of these past entries, I would instead say something about my second favorite album by the artist. With Husker Du I would probably rate all the others equal behind this masterpiece. Each one has pluses and minus I could point out. This one is perfect. (*)


3) Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime (1984, SST) - My memory may be mistaken but I am pretty sure I bought Zen Arcade at the same time I picked up Double Nickels On The Dime so they are pretty much neck in neck as a favorite. The Minutemen's album gets just a slight nod. Right down to the cover image and insert images of guitarist D Boon, bassist Mike Watt, and drummer George Hurley individually driving cars, Double Nickles is essentially a road album and the first album I grab for a long trip. Even the first song is called "D's Road Jam/Anxious Mofo" and its final track called "Three Car Jam". In between, there are 38 tracks of original short songs filled with Boon's signature guitar and smart mostly socio-political lyrics, Watts's all over the place bass, and Hurley's pounding drums. The album also contains two awesome covers. One of a band  I like in CCR's "Don't Look Now" and the other of a band I really do not in Steely Dan's "Doctor Wu". In my opinion, both are done far better by The Minutemen. Side Note: One thing I also always loved about this album is that it was originally supposed to be a single album. When the band found out Zen Arcade was going to be a double they went back in the studio and recorded a few more songs to match it. In the middle of the lyric sheet, it even says " Take that Huskers!" (*)

2) Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (1988, Enigma) - I explored this album very in-depth in the first post to this blog here 9 years ago so I won't go into too much again. Let's just say this album means so much to me and important to all sorts of alternative music in general that I pretty much built a New York City Tour around the album, Sonic Youth, the No Wave scene they were influenced by as well as bands and venues they went on to influence themselves. Read all about the tour here.

1) Dinosaur Jr - You're Living All Over Me (1987, SST) - Are there any albums out there where after over 30

years of listening you can still be amazed and left wondering how in the world did they come up with this? That is how  J Mascis's wall of noise filled lead-off track  "Little Fury Things", sludge guitar filled "Sludgefest" (Track 3), driving guitars of "Raisins" (Track 5), tidal waves of guitar on "Tarpit" (Track 6), and all the great songs in between on You're Living All Over Me leave me with, even with at least a weekly listen. Somehow at Track 7, they manage to fit in what is essentially a pop song with "In a Jar" at Track 7 before the bassist Lou Barlow pounds it home with his sole lead vocal album appearance on what you think is the closing track "Lose". And it's not just the music which blows my mind. Certain lyrics are just incredible too. Not one note is out of place over the entire 36 minutes, right down to the 2-second drum fill by Murph halfway through "Raisins". I've always had the SST Records original CD version, so for after the true closer of the weird tape loop acoustic recording of Lou Barlow's "Poledo", I get Dinosaur's (as they were still known at the time of the album's release) awesome cover of Peter Frampton's "Show Me the Way". The last few releases on other labels replace it with their equally awesome cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven", which originally appeared a couple years later. (#)

A couple Honorable Mentions or Albums I forgot about

Soul Asylum - Hang Time (1988, A&M)

Faith No More - The Real Thing (1990, Slash)

Naked Raygun - Jettison (1988, Homestead)

Tar - Jackson (1991, Amphetamine Reptile)

Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye (1984, No Core)

Out of the Vaults # 24 - SUGAR -File Under Easy Listening (Deluxe Edition)

My wife dives into our CD cabinets (The Vaults) and randomly pulls out one of the thousands of  CDs. The chosen album will then be given to me and I will talk about the CD for a while no matter how good, bad, obscure, or embarrassing the chosen disc is. Where did I buy it, when did I buy it, what was my first reaction to hearing it, do I still listen to it today etc, etc, etc

One of the things I dislike the most in the world is when people say "Thanks Obama". After 11 years it's just not funny anymore, Whenever someone says it, I cringe. It wasn't too funny to begin but when all those years ago the expression first began popping up it would always give me a little laugh, reminding me of something that happened many years before, 

It was 1992, and Husker Du's singer/guitarist Bob Mould had a new band called Sugar. I hated them so much. Hated them with a passion. And this was before I had even heard a single note.

The reason why I hated Sugar so much was because I wanted Bob Mould to make up with drummer Grant Hart, grab bassist Greg Norton, and do a Husker Du reunion. Over the past couple of years, Bob Mould has released two solo albums, Black Sheets of Rain and Workbook. They were okay albums but didn't have the buzz-saw sound of Husker Du, whose back catalog was always in heavy rotation on my stereo.

Bob Nould (Center) with drummer Malcolm Travis (left) and bassist Dave Barbe (right)

Sugar was going to play the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C. and they didn't even have an album out. Their 7" on Bob's  Singles Only Label (S.O.L.) may have been released already but I can't remember. I planned to go to the show but would be doing so “under protest”. I was hoping they would slip in a Husker Du song or two.

The show was so loud. I don't mind loud but this show was so loud if Sugar had released any recordings it would have been impossible to tell what song was being played anyway. Still, I was pretty sure there weren't any Husker Du songs performed that night. When the show was over I managed to grab one of the set lists. There weren't any Husker Du songs listed on it.

Usually after concerts, my ears would clear up within an hour or so. This Sugar show was so loud the next day my ears still had a muffled buzz going on.

"Your Favorite Thing" single

At the time I had a summer job at a warehouse counting maps. The maps consisted of random things from highway trucking routes to electrical systems in buildings all over the United States   A team of two people would have a list of maps they needed to retrieve ("pick") for an order. Once they had them they would bring them over to me and this other guy who would count them out, wrap them in rubber bands, and box them up to be sent out. About half the warehouse was filled with workers from the temp agency. It was a monotonous job but we made the most of it by having rubber band battles, talking about music and telling each other jokes and stories.

Each day at lunch time there would be a ring over the loudspeaker to let everyone know it was time for lunch. Then after half an hour, there was another ring saying it was time to go back to work. The day after the Sugar show my boxing partner had called out of work so I was working by myself and honestly getting more stuff done than if I was chatting away with my absent coworker.

That day my ears were buzzing so loud from the show I missed both of the rings.

Flier from a show just a few days after the one in D.C.

When I saw the other workers coming back from lunch  I realized  I would now have to wait until the end of the day before I could get something to eat. Ten minutes later when one of the picking teams brought over an order of maps, one of them asked where I had been during the lunch break. I told him what had happened and ended the story with "Thanks Bob Mould".

Soon that became the catchphrase of the summer. Whenever something went wrong we would say "Thank you Bob Mould".

A couple months later Sugar released their first album Copper Blue. Although it was a very good album I still wasn't over my desire for a Husker Du reunion. Almost immediately after Copper Blue Sugar released a mini album called Beaster. This was more like it. Buzz saw guitars all over the place. Then in 1994 Sugar released their final album File Under Easy Listening before Bob once again decided it was time for the band to call it a day. F.U.E.L was more of a continuation of Copper Blue. Good music is full of hooks under Bob's guitars.

 But it still wasn't Husker Du. 

Eventually, I traded the discs back to a used CD store. They also released a collection of b-sides called Besides which I am pretty sure I never picked up. 

File Under Easy Listening Deluxe Edition

In 2012 Merge Records released two deluxe Sugar CD collections. The first was a triple disc containing Copper Blue, Beaster, and Live at the Cabaret Metro. The second is a double disc containing File Under Easy Listening with some B-Sides, and The Joke Isn't Always On Us, Sometimes, a live disc that was originally included with the first 25,000 copies of Besides.

On a whim, I picked up both of the reissues and discovered a new fondness for the band. I guess I had finally come to terms with the idea there was never going to be a Husker Du reunion. To this day both deluxe disc sets remain in my regular rotation. It's also great to finally be able to hear a Sugar live show without my ears buzzing for days. 

Thanks, Bob Mould

Here is the video for F.U.E.L.'s "Gee Angel"

Out Of The Vaults #10 - Husker Du - ZEN ARCADE

Each week or so my wife will dive into our CD cabinets (The Vaults) and randomly pull out one of the thousands of CDs. The chosen album will then be given to me and I will talk about the Cd for awhile no matter how good, bad, obscure or embarrassing the chosen disc is. Where did I buy it, when did I buy it, what was my first reaction to hearing it, do I still listen to it today etc.

Out of The Vaults #10 - Husker Du - Zen Arcade

Zen Arcade is the second album out of my "Holy Trinity" of  incredible double albums. The other two are Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and the Minutemen’s Double Nickels On the Dime. Daydream Nation was actually the very first “Out of the Vaults” pick at the very beginning of this blog. 

Even through Zen Arcade and Double Nickels came out in 1984 and Daydream Nation in 1988, I bought them all within a few weeks of each other circa1988 or 89. All three are perfect albums, each on a whole different level them  everything else that was being released at the time. In my opinion all three of them are also the best material each band ever released.

Although guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart wrote the songs on Zen Arcade, bassist Greg Norton has the honor of being the first member you hear on it. His bass on “Something I Learned Today” gets the ball rolling before the rest of the band kicks in. With song #2 “Broken Homes, Broken Heart” the albums narrative begins. I am not going to get too much into the story because I want you to be able to listen to it yourselves. The acoustic but no less intense “Never Talking To You Again” follows.

“Chartered Trips” picks up where “Broken Homes, Broken Heart left off”. Bob Mould's patented buzzing guitar wailing along as you can hear the urgency and desperation in his voice. “Dreams Reocurring”  is a minute and a half instrumental. Composed of backwards tape loops, piercing and swirling guitars, bass and various other instruments, the song is very reminiscent of The Byrd’s “Eight Miles High”, a song Husker Du would be covering as a single in the near future.

Song #6 “ Indecision Time” continues the intensity with guitar noises attempting to escape from all directions only to be pummeled back down into the ground.

“Hare Krishna” comes on next, bringing more buzzing guitars. Bob’s mumbling lyrics intertwined with drummer Grant Hart’s chants of “Hare Krishna” make the song perfectly convey the feeling of being confused and smothered by religion.

Following are the trio of “Beyond The Threshold”, “Pride” and “Never Forget You”. The middle one is NEVER to be listened to while working out at the gym. If you do, instant heart attack. This song is that intense. You have been warned.

At track 11 we find one of my all time favorite songs. “Biggest Lie” has an awesome heavy build up at the beginning  followed by more of Bob’s trademark guitar sound.  The song also has the best Bob Mould guitar solo ever. His solo on Husker Du’s “Could You Be The One” a couple of years later, a close second.

Track 12 “What’s Going On” has Bob and Grant shouting at each other while guitars wail . I can just picture them in the studio, each one gritting their teeth as they attempt to become louder than the other. The exchange is so intense that neither one seems to notice two minutes into the song a piano has snuck in and grabbed the solo. I always picture bassist Greg sitting there watching Bob and Grant battle it out, seeing this is his chance to shine, runs out of studio, grabs the piano and bring it back without the other guys noticing.

Pretty soon the shouting does dies done but with 30 seconds left, both Bob and Grant attempt to one up each other by starting the shouting again.  Bob emerges the victor, celebrating with a few quick guitar riffs at the very end. Feeling bad about it, he let's Grant take the lead vocals on the next song, "Masochism World".

After the slower "Standing By The Sea" and the very Who-esque "Somewhere", both with Grant on lead vocals, we find the first of two forty second piano interludes "One Step at a Time". Along with the one a few songs down, these interludes are a very good way to separate sections the story. They also allow you to take a breath and prepare for the tragic "Pink Turns To Blue" which follows. Bob takes over the lead for the two songs, separated by the second forty second interlude of "Monday Will Never Be The Same", which follow. In "Newest Industry" and especially "Whatever", Bob's voices becomes so intense and urgent to the point beyond the threshold (couldn't resist) where it sounds as if it is almost about to break.

The droning psychedelic looping sounds of the next song, the three minute "The Tooth Fairy and The Princess" is the sound of the narratives main character waking up leaving them and the listener wondering if it was all just a dream.

Closing out the the monumental album is "Turn on The News", a song which the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named one of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". Hopefully pretty soon Husker Du, one of the most important bands in alternative music, will finally receive it's own rightful place in the Hall

The album officially ends with a fourteen minute extended "Dreams Reoccurring" called "Reoccurring Dreams". I always thought of it as the music playing while the credits for the rest of the album and story were rolling.

According to the front page of iTunes "Husker Du Classic Just Added" with Zen Arcade among them. Go over there and purchase it or listen to it on Spotify. Just please don't listen to it at the gym. You have been warned.