Fiona Apple: When the Pawn... (1999)

In 1999, Fiona Apple and filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson were a couple. Judging by this album and Anderson's his tour-de-force film Magnolia, both of which came out that year, wow, it was a fertile creative time in that household. 

Emotional, too. Magnolia is pitch black in its depictions of failed fathers and on When the Pawn... Apple seems to find the cloud on every romance's silver lining. Fortunately, like Magnolia, what makes the darkness bearable is the writer's ability to use the artistic process as catharsis while finding some humor and nobility in the struggle (see Limp, Fast as You Can, Get Gone, and A Mistake for more detail).

When the Pawn... has a lot going for it: Jon Brion's Sgt. Peppery production, brevity (it's only 9 songs long), and the fact that all of the songs connect thematically. For me, it's her high water mark. 

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (1966)

This album is a desert island disc if there ever was one. It generates enough beauty, regret, nostaliga, loss, and hope in 12 songs to sustain a lifetime of musical enjoyment.

If there's anyone in your life who still labors under the delusion that The Beach Boys only sang about cars, surfing and women-as-objects, please do them a favor. Sit them down and play this record for them. Let them hear the sweet horny longing of Wouldn't It Be Nice, or the rueful, misunderstood narrator of I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, or the love-through-the-fear-of-loss anthem God Only Knows.

The Beach Boys: Surf's Up (1971)

Every band that lasts more than 20 years has one weird-but-killer album. For the Beach Boys, that's Surf's Up. A true collaborative effort (every band member but Dennis offered up tunes), much of album addresses social and environmental ills that are unfortunately still relevant today. The record closes with two of Brian Wilson's most gorgeous and soulful songs, 'Til I Die and the title track.

The Beach Boys: Super Hits (1978)

The Beach Boys have approximately six million best-of compilations out there, all with slightly interchangeable song selections. Like my K-Tel Chartaction '83 tape, the 1978 Ronco cash-in product Beach Boys Super Hits manages to transcend its as-seen-on-TV origins.

Whoever put this together decided to (or was forced to) focus on the pre-1966 hits, so that means that 1) it's a perfect companion to Pet Sounds and your other later-period Beach Boys albums, and 2) Kokomo is not to be found. Said compiler also sequenced the songs exceedingly well. And take a close look at that cover; it's endearingly weird.

Since this is only on vinyl (and probably 8-track), here's the tracklist so you can play along on iTunes: 1) Surfin' USA, 2) California Girls, 3) Little Deuce Coupe, 4) Dance, Dance, Dance, 5) Help Me, Rhonda, 6) Don't Worry Baby, 7) Surfin' Safari, 8) When I Grow Up (To Be a Man), 9) I Get Around, 10) Fun, Fun, Fun, 11) Surfer Girl, 12) Barbara Ann, 13) In My Room, 14) Catch A Wave, 15) Do You Wanna Dance, 16) Little Honda, 17) 409, 18) Be True To Your School.

(The most egregious omission is All Summer Long, so you should throw that on the playlist, too.)

Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique (1989)

This is the Beasties' most consistently enjoyable and listenable record. It's also what every music nerd hopes to see, that is, an intelligent, expectations-subverting follow-up to a massively-successful-but-vacuous record. Add in the fact that it was under-appreciated at its time, and you've got greatness.

We start with a bizarre shout out to all sorts of girls, including "the stewardesses flying around the world" and end with a mind-blowing 15 minute, 9-part pastiche of song bits. In between there are such classics as Hey Ladies, Egg Man, and Shake Your Rump.

It's unlikely that the pure diversity of sound on this record will ever be duplicated. Produced (by the Dust Brothers) in a time before anybody had a legal hold on sampling, you'll hear Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Johnny Cash samples among countless others. It's funny, crazy, weird, and full of odd references (Issac Newton, Chuck Woolery, Fruit Stripe Gum, etc.).

Beastie Boys: To the 5 Boroughs (2004)

Read a review here.

I'm realizing that there are an inordinate number of artists I'd count among my favorites who don't actually have a great success rate in making albums I love. Take The Beastie Boys. Of their seven albums, there are only two I'd vouch for: Paul's Boutique, of course, and To the 5 Boroughs.

And it's interesting that it'd be those two, because they're musical opposites. Where Paul's Boutique layers the samples to a dizzying level, To the 5 Boroughs is the essence of old-school simplicity. Of course they both feature insanely funny rhymes and a dearth of experimental dub jazz or hardcore punk dabblings.

The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Read a review here.

A Hard Day's Night is the best of the early Beatles. By this time the band (rightly) felt confident enough in their writing not to rely on covers, making it their first all-original album. This one is John Lennon's show; he writes and sings lead on 9 of the 13 songs (though not, notably, on its most well known hit, Can't Buy Me Love).

The album is full of mostly-uncomplicated pop tunes, albeit ones that are impeccably arranged, produced, and performed. Listening, it's not difficult to see exactly why the world went so crazy for them

The Beatles: Revolver (1966)

Read a review here.

I got a CD player for my 16th birthday. This was the first CD I bought. I still remember the thrill of hearing that "1, 2, 3, 4, cough, 1, 2" countdown that precedes the riff that opens Taxman coming out of the speakers so clearly. 

So, yeah, it's currently in style to call this one the "best album of all time", and though I believe it's a fool's errand to try to declare one album better than all the rest, I have to admit Revolver is a pretty good candidate. It's by turns experimental, straightforward, whimsical, clever, bracing, joyful, and terrifying.

The Beatles: Abbey Road (1969)

Read a review here.

The Beatles' final work together (though released before Let It Be, this was chronologically the final album they recorded) is a doozy. The hit singles are there: Something, Come Together, Here Comes The Sun (the fact that two of these are George Harrison compositions show that he had come into his own as a songwriter), but the treat is the side two medley that runs from the gorgeous 3-part harmonies of Because to the very fitting The End. How many artists control their career so well as to ensure that the final words they record are "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"?

(Actually the real final words are "and one day I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah, one day I'm gonna make her mine" because of a mistake that tacked Her Majesty to the end of the album and created the hidden bonus track phenomenon as we know it.)

Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999)

On the final album of their first go-round, Ben Folds Five put it all together: Bachrachian formalism (Don't Change Your Plans), Baroque pop (Narcolepsy, Mess, Regrets),  what-if-Billy-Joel-was-funnier songs (Army, Your Redneck Past), and just plain strangeness (Your Most Valuable Possession).

Records that try to do too much often fail from their lack of focus, but this one somehow manages to turn its wild shifts in tone to its favor.

David Bowie: Never Let Me Down (1987)

Read about it here.

This is the album that proves the idea of music's subjectivity to me. When I was researching Bowie's worst album for my Rock Bottom series, I was shocked to find that Never Let Me Down was considered his nadir. It had, in tandem with the Labyrinth soundtrack (released a year earlier), always been my favorite Bowie record.

I bought the album because of a cover story and full page ad in an old Musician magazine my dad had given me. If I'm telling the truth, it was the superheroish design of the cover that hooked me more than anything. I found a remastered copy of the CD and loved what I heard.

Bowie himself has disavowed almost everything about the album from the songs to the title to the cover. I guess sometimes art can transcend even its creator.

The Broken West: Now or Heaven (2008)

A great indie power pop record about - what else? - heartbreak. The lyrics are concerned with pain while the music bumps along with quick tempos, memorable riffs, and well-placed harmonies. Standouts include Auctioneer, House of Lies, Perfect Games, and Embassy Row.

The Carpenters: Love Songs (1997)

As a greatest hits collection, it's imperfect (no A Kind Of Hush or Let Me Be The One?!) but you won't find another Carpenters' album or compilation with this sort of consistency. And though their reputation is that of sappy balladeers, the title of this CD is somewhat subversive since roughly half of these songs are about the negative side of love.

The Cars: Heartbeat City (1984)

Read a review here.

Just a monster album. It may have been hell to make, but you can't argue with the impeccable-sounding, hook-laden results: Four Billboard top 20 singles (You Might Think, Magic, Drive, Why Can't I Have You), two of those in the top 10, and six killer album tracks, including standouts I Refuse and the title track (originally called Jacki).

Clash: London Calling (1979)

No one will ever be able to convince me that 1977-1983 wasn't the most exciting time in pop music history. The punk/new wave movement was just so damn diverse; the musicians that came to prominence in the time seemed determined to take every bit of pop music history and mash it up into something new. London Calling is a stellar example of this. Over the course of 19 songs The Clash touch on reggae, ska, funk, British Invasion pop, and jazz. There's almost nothing punk about this record except its anything-goes spirit. Personally, I'm most drawn to the pop songs like Lost in the Supermarket, Death or Glory, and Train in Vain, but the whole album is amazingly consistent.

The Costello Show: King of America (1986)

Read a review here.

In my opinion, Elvis' best album. Lyrically he was on point (there are about 6 song lyrics that permanently circle my brain and "I was a fine idea at the time / Now I'm a brilliant mistake" is one of them), and his melodies were never before or after as insistent and consistent.