Call it a compulsion. I have compiled and ranked a list of my twenty favorite albums. Many argue the futility in such an exercise. “Why do you need rank things you already like? Just enjoy them equally!” It isn’t so much that X has to be better than or inferior to Y and for some reason I need to know this. Tastes change and feelings towards things like music change and maybe I like to see these changes, these relations, and consider what they mean. If they do mean anything, that is. For my three middle-school years, every week I would compile a “top 10” list of my favorite songs of that week and play the 10 songs in order in my room, making an impromptu show for myself to both direct and enjoy. This was religion. As eluded, only part of the fun was blasting the music from my stereo. I would keep all the weekly lists in a white binder, where the
real fun lived. With this data, I would go and tabulate how long certain songs were on the list, how fast they ascended and fell, how long they occupied the top spot. Perhaps simply out of this programming is why I enjoy list-making in general. But I believe it’s deeper than that. I believe by doing this exercise I can to learn more about my tastes, the music, and ultimately myself.
It’s entertaining to write and read scathing opinions of music you hate, but I would truly rather talk about music I like. It’s more difficult, sure, to coherently express the good qualities of something as subjective as music, how it makes you feel, and do it in a way that piques discussion. “I like it cause it’s good,” a common sentiment, doesn’t cut the mustard on any level. Isn’t this why people post on music discussion forums at some core, to talk about things they like? This is what I aim to do. With my freshly tabulated top twenty (that is by no means definitive,) I am going to try my very best to write something entertaining, thoughtful and something hopefully stir up some discussion to cue you to think and talk about your music in a similar manner and join in on the fun! Nothing says fun like deliberation, meditation, and examination right?
Obviously, to cull a list of twenty, I kicked around considerably more than twenty albums. I went ahead and ordered in excess of twenty, for the sake of fun, and for the relationships between some top twenty albums to non twenty albums which were quite interesting. I decided I would also include discussions for a few of the albums that I ranked above my personal top twenty, but only as a supplement to the twenty, our main focus.
Additionally, my approach is to not just to drop a full list and annotate it with some thoughts. I plan to present a, hopefully, well thought out article for each entry in an order governed only by what I deem interesting.
With that said, I hope you enjoy my first post in this series and hope I can see this through!
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#20 and #21:
The King of Limbs and Shouso Strip
#16: The Aeroplane Flies High
#17 and #11: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
#19 and #18: Doolittle and First Band on the Moon
#14: Pinkerton
#15 and #13: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and Sappukei
#12: Funeral
#8: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
#10 and #4: Trailer Park and Central Reservation
#7: Nevermind
#6: Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana
#5: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
#9: Bitte Orca
#3: (What's the Story?) Morning Glory
#1: The Beatles
#2: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea