Lincoln: Lincoln (1997)

The lead singer's voice is pretty nasally. The lyrics are smartass and clever. Is it any wonder that half of this band later ended up joining They Might Be Giants? However, unlike that band, there's a strong undercurrent of serious trouble beneath the nerd rock exterior. Songs like Straight, about an addict trying to remain on the right path, or Unhappy, about putting on appearances, are evidence of that.

The band's drummer went on to join Marcy Playground and the lead singer and songwriter, Chris Temple, has all but disappeared, leaving Lincoln as a lost masterpiece.

Madonna: The Immaculate Collection (1990)

From Holiday (song 1) to Vogue (song 15), this album is flawless. Though the chronological ordering offers little in the way of evolution, who needs growth when all the songs are so classic? The Beatles, Beach Boys, and Michael Jackson have had greater numbers of perfect hits, but no compilation thus far has captured an artist so well. Sure, Justify My Love (new song #1) is mostly just heavy breathing and Rescue Me (new song #2) is kind of boring, but they're just the comedown from an amazing high.

Madonna: Something to Remember (1996)

All of Madonna's biggest hits between Vogue (1990) and Ray of Light (1998) were ballads, so it's fitting that she released the compilation Something to Remember as a sort of a slow-song sequel to The Immaculate Collection. The two albums do share two tracks (Crazy For You and Live To Tell), but I'd never complain about hearing either of those too many times.

Otherwise, you've got a couple songs from her first four albums that weren't on Immaculate (Oh Father, Love Don't Live Here Anymore), hits from the albums between Immaculate and this one (Rain, Take a Bow, Forbidden Love), soundtrack songs (the title track, This Used to Be My Playground, I'll Remember), and three new songs (I Want You, You'll See, and One More Chance).

This and the Immaculate Collection together present a fairly complete portrait of the first half of Madonna's career.

Rhett Miller: The Believer (2006)

Read the review here.

A magnificent album that covers a lot of moods and styles but still feels cohesive. There's the pure pop of My Valentine and Help Me, Suzanne, the sad country give-and-take of Fireflies, the sweetness of Question, the clappy rock of Delicate, and the heartbroken eulogy (for Eliot Smith) of the title track.

Ronnie Milsap: 40 #1 Hits (2000)

I'd never heard of Ronnie Milsap until I shared an airplane with him on the way to my grandfather's funeral. It's a weird reason to get into an artist, but that's what happened.

Milsap is a blind, piano-playing country singer who doesn't write his own songs. He has had (as evidenced by the efficient title) 40 number one country hits, but there are actually 43 songs on these two discs. The songs are simple, but never fail to hit emotional highs and lows, thanks to Ronnie's brilliant interpretive arranging and singing.

The Monkees: Then & Now...The Best of (1986)

Read a review here.

Then & Now... was my first Monkees recording, so it holds a very soft place in my heart.

It somehow gets away with breaking a lot of the textbook greatest hits rules: It's in no way representative of their whole career, it includes two B-sides (luckily, they're both great), and three new songs that only half the band (Mickey and Peter) actually perform on.

But I didn't know any of that when I was 9-years-old, I just played the hell out if it! Though I've listened to a lot of Monkees records since, I'll probably alway expect to hear these songs in this order.

Motion City Soundtrack: Commit This To Memory (2005)

Read a review here.

A melodic buzzsaw detailing the neuroses, fears, and failings of a punk kid. The opening line from Make-Out Kids pretty much sums it up: "They carved a message deep within / of broken hearts that failed to mend."

Motion City Soundtrack: Even If It Kills Me (2007)

Read a review here.

On Even If It Kills Me, Motion City Soundtrack moved closer to a power pop sound and thus closer to my heart. No high concept; the album simply moves from highlight to highlight (okay, so maybe Antonia is not a masterpiece, but it's easy to forgive).

Olympic Hopefuls: The Fuses Refuse To Burn (2004)

Read a full review here.

Now that Olympic Hopefuls (later just The Hopefuls) have broken up, it all seems like a dream: A bunch of Twin Cities musicians get together in track suits and make crackerjack power pop. At least we have this album (and its almost-as-good follow-up) to remind us that it really happened. The Fuses Refuse to Burn contains ten tunes that latch onto your brain and don't let go. From an extended story of the birth and death of a relationship (Holiday, Drain The Sea, Whisper, Trust Fund, Stoned Again) to a lyrical ode to a nonexistent girlfriend (Imaginiary) to the pop rush of Shy and Motobike, the band's two songwriters take turns one-upping each other until they're exhausted and can rock no more.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Greatest Hits (1993)

So, Anthology: Through the Years is more comprehensive. If you want to go deep, get that one. But, essentially, everything you need to know about Petty and his Heartbreakers from 1976-1993 is here. It's got every major hit, plus Mary Jane's Last Dance. The only sore spot is the final song, a cover of Something in the Air. A 2008 edition tried to correct this by removing the song in favor of Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, but messed up by not putting it in its correct chronological place. New editions have since reverted back to the original. If you're interested in exploring Petty's latter day career, check this out.

Tom Petty: Wildflowers (1994)

Wildflowers was my first Petty album beyond the Greatest Hits, and it's still my favorite. The album defies convention in several ways in that it does a couple of things that typically prevent albums from ingratiating themselves. For one it's long: 15 tracks, 62 minutes. For another it's slow-song heavy; by my count at least 2/3 of the tracks are medium-paced or slower. Chalk it up to great melodies, interesting performances (by the Heartbreakers, even though they aren't officially credited), and expert sequencing. Standouts include It's Good to be King, You Wreck Me, Crawling Back To You, and A Higher Place.

Glen Phillips: Winter Pays for Summer (2005)

Dulcinea, an album I eagerly purchased after seeing Toad the Wet Sprocket perform Fall Down on Letterman, was THIS close to landing on the favorite albums list. Unfortunately it doesn't quite hang together as a complete listening experience.

Toad frontman Glen Phillips' 2005 album Winter Pays for Summer, however, doesn't have that problem. It's packed from beginning to end with gentle melodies, strong harmonies, and worn-in nuggets of wisdom.

P.M. Dawn: Jesus Wept (1995)

Read a review here.

P.M Dawn had a lot of success with their hip-hop/R & B/pop hybrid on their first two albums, and that gave them the captial to follow their muse on Jesus Wept. So Prince Be went into singer-songwriter mode. Having already abandoned any pretense of being "rappers" in favor of harmony and melody on their previous record, this album finds them mixing in live instrumentation (most prominently Cameron Greider's electric guitar) with their sampling. Lyrically, Prince Be goes into full-on navel gazing mode, mostly contemplating human divinity and his place in the universe.

The combination of being musically non-categorizable and lyrically portentous ensured the album's commercial failure, but artistically it's a complete success. It moves the head, heart, and ass, and serves as a fascinating document of the right way to use your carte blanche.

Prince: Purple Rain (1984)

Read about it here.

Entertainment Weekly's July 2013 Top 100 Albums of All-Time put this at number 2. Now I give fuck-all about those lists as anything definitive, but the magazine did not overrate this album. It might just be the most perfect album ever. Great singles ("When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "I Would Die 4 U," the title track), a weird-ass accompanying film, and no filler. A studio album with no filler is largely a mythological artifact, but Purple Rain is one of the rare exceptions. Some people point to the strange "Computer Blue" as counterpoint, but the amazingly pretty guitar solo at the end of it makes its case convincingly

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Prince: Dirty Mind (1980)

Prince's keyboard-driven new wave album is one of his best, comprised of the ideal balance of singles ("Uptown," "When You Were Mine," and the title track) and unforgettable album tracks (including "Gotta Broken Heart Again," "Head," and "Partyup."). And at just over 30 minutes long, it's pretty much the ideal length for an album.

Prince: The Gold Experience (1995)

A sleeper in the vast Prince catalog, The Gold Experience actually sums up his odd appeal in 12 energetic tunes. It covers everything from civil rights (We March), petty grudges (Billy Jack Bitch), feminism (P Control), sex (Shhh), gangsta love (Shy), Al Green (The Most Beautiful Girl in the World), and being reincarnated as a water-dwelling mammal (Dolphin).

John Lennon: The John Lennon Collection (1982)

Compilations are rarely as well-curated as this one. It's chronological (mostly; the CD has a couple of out-of order bonus tracks at the end) and the tracks are expertly chosen.

A good "best-of" should both serve as an introductory overview of an artist AND cover every base for the listener whose not going to go deeper. By those measures The John Lennon Collection is perfect. There's not a single significant Lennon solo track missing.

R.E.M.: Automatic For The People (1992)

A beautiful, perfectly sequenced, haunting record by a band at the height of their powers. One tends to think of it as a ponderous and melancholy affair, mostly thanks to the powerful quartet of Everybody Hurts, Sweetness Follows, Nightswimming, and Find the River, but the album has lots of dimensions, from the political (Ignoreland) to the light-hearted (The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight) to the biographical (Man on the Moon) to the ill-fated romantic (Star Me Kitten).

R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)

The final album featuring the original line-up (drummer Bill Berry left after the recording), New Adventures in Hi-Fi represents a melding of musical sensibilities that came before. To be pithy and reductive, it's the songcraft of Automatic for the People delivered with the muscle of Monster. But as with all of my favorite albums it comes down to sustained mood, immaculate sequencing, and killer tunes. My favorites include The Wake-Up Bomb, Leave, Bittersweet Me, and Electrolite, but, truly, they're all great.

REO Speedwagon: The Hits

REO Speedwagon got their start in Champaign, Illinois, just a short 45 minutes from where I grew up. I'm convinced that this local connection got them more than the usual amount of radio play. So when I bought The Hits my freshman year of college, I already pretty much knew every song by heart. It doesn't follow my preferred rules of compilations, and in fact openly flaunts them. It opens not with one but TWO "new" songs (thankfully both are pretty great), and then proceeds through a non-chronological smattering of tunes. It's also not comprehensive by any means. Even so, I'll probably always expect to hear these songs in this order.

Roxy Music: Avlaon (1982)

I once saw a quote where lead singer Bryan Ferry admitted that he and the band were on copious amounts of drugs when Avalon was recorded. Not surprising. I've never done heavy drugs, but I'd like to think this album is what it'd be like: Dreamy, hazy, fantastic.

The cover features an armor-clad warrior and his hawk looking out over a vast body of water, with the clouds reflecting in it. It seems like a lost scene from an early Ridley Scott movie, and it fits the music perfectly. From the amazing "More Than This" to dreamy instrumentals like "India" and "Tara," there's a sustained otherworldly quality to the album.

Rush: Moving Pictures (1981)

This is the record where Rush put it all together, a tight seven-song set that features a perennial radio favorite (Tom Sawyer), a sci-fi short story (Red Barchetta), a blazing instrumental (YYZ), a level-headed examination of fame (Limelight), an 11-minute epic (The Camera Eye), a prescient condemnation of the Fox News mindset (Witch Hunt), and a reggae experiment (Vital Signs).

(I downloaded the entire album on Rock Band and get great joy out of playing it all the way through).

Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

A couple of weird things about this amazing album:

1) It was the final Simon and Garfunkel album. You just don't often see a group have massive success (it's their best-selling album by far) and then immediately hang it up, but Bridge Over Troubled Water was still on the charts when Paul and Art decided to call it quits (it stayed there for the following two years, as well).

2) By all accounts it was an extremely involved and complicated recording process. Being that the results are so beautiful and perfectly formed and seemingly straightforward, it's strange to think there was actually a process behind making these songs, let alone a contentious one. It seems as though songs like the title track, The Boxer, and The Only Living Boy In New York always existed, fully formed.

Paul Simon: Hearts And Bones (1984)

Read a full review here.

In the grand tradition of singer-songwriter divorce albums comes Hearts And Bones. Being a divorce album the theme is, of course, heartbreak and loss. In Allergies Simon likens falling in love to an allergic reaction. When Numbers Get Serious, Song About The Moon, and Cars Are Cars are all bouncy tunes that stretch metaphorically. They are respectively about divorce settlements, writing about your pain, and wishing for simplicity. Train In The Distance is a grass-is-always-greener rumination on Simon's first marriage. Finally, Hearts And Bones sums up Simon's marriage to Princess Leia, wherein the couple falls in love, runs into trouble, then splits to "speculate who had been damaged the most." It's the kind of story song Simon excels at. In fact, he spends this entire unappreciated album excelling.

Sloan: The Double Cross (2011)

Quick and precise, Sloan's 10th album is also their most cohesive. All four band members write and sing, but their songs blend together into a perfect 12-song-suite. My favorite moment is on "Shadow of Love" when each band member takes turns singing the title line ("Living in the shadow of love / Is all some people can do") before joining together in four part harmony. It's a rare kind of chemistry that serves as a microcosm for the whole record.

Sloan: Never Hear the End of It (2007)

Read about it here.

Never Hear the End Of It is a basically survey of everything Sloan does well, with a 30 song sandbox for the band's four songwriters to play in.

But what really brings this to greatness for me is the sequencing, both in the fact that there are no gaps between the tracks and in the way the songs seem to speak to one another.

Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Dream (1993)

When I first bought this record (in high school) it sounded completely alien to my ear, and I was scandalized by the fact that there was actually a song called Silverfuck. So it took awhile to get through to me, but once it clicked I couldn't imagine anything more powerful or beautiful.

This is a record that I love so much I bought it again when they re-released it with expanded liner notes. Liner notes! And barely comprehensible ones at that. That's the thing about your favorite records; you'll look for any excuse to buy them again, and even when you see them at the store, you just have to pause for a second.

Using the quiet loud dynamic to great advantage, this album features songs that straight-out rock, like Rocket and Geek U.S.A., and songs that are more introspective and quiet, like Quiet and Mayonnaise. The album is profane, sacred, alien, and all about love, appropriately enough.

Spoon: Gimme Fiction (2005)

I have never vetted an album as thoroughly before buying it as I did Spoon's Gimme Fiction. I must have listened to the iTunes samples at least 20 times over the course of a week before deciding to buy it. I don't remember why I was so careful, but I made a good choice. I love everything about it, from the cover and the title to the opener (The Beast and Dragon Adored) to the closer (Merchants on Soul).

And, yes, I do want to land the part of Eddie in The Stranger Dance. Or at least see the production.

Bruce Springsteen: Tunnel of Love (1987)

In his first post-E-Street album (though many of the members show up) The Boss thoroughly explores romance. There's sadness (try to keep a dry eye during One Step Up or Walk Like a Man), confusion (Brilliant Disguise), jubilance (All That Heaven Will Allow), and determination (Tougher Than the Rest). Tunnel of Love is a great, under-appreciated work by an over-appreciated artist.

Spymob: Sitting Around Keeping Score (2004)

An album with an epic backstory (including almost being released by Epic Records), Sitting Around Keeping Score is a shiny gem of off-kilter pop. If you like melody and harmony, meticulously layered arrangements, and lyrics that are by turns funny, odd, and thought-provoking, this is an album for you.

Sting: Mercury Falling (1996)

My freshman year of college I discovered/re-discovered The Police, and so when Sting came out with a new album I had to get it. I knew some of his solo hits, but this was the first CD of his that I owned, and it will likely always be my favorite.

Starting and ending with the words of the title, in between there are gentle, catchy songs about various states of relationships. I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying is a great faux-country divorce song and All Four Seasons is a theme song for romantic bafflement.

The Strokes: Is This It (2001)

I saw The Strokes in early 2001, opening for The Doves at Minneapolis' tiny 7th Street Entry. The band weren't signed at that point, and Julian Casablancas came on stage drunk and downed at least three Heinekins in their brief set. He insulted the audience a couple of times and generally seemed like he could care less about whether we liked his songs.

But we did. I feel it's pretty fair to say The Strokes have yet to recapture the magic of this first album. At first I thought it was just the context of that moment before the "garage rock" revival, but even relistening 12 years later the tunes still leap out, somehow familiar in the context of rock history but still seeming like something completely new.

Being slightly ahead of the curve, I was able to find an early import version of their debut, with the Spinal Tap-approved cover and the insensitive-only-in-light-of-9-11-01 New York City Cops. That's the definitive version to me.

Storyhill: Dovetail (2002)

This is one of my favorite album covers of all time. Not only because it's clever and tells a story, but because it so perfectly captures the sound of the album itself, a tight 10-song affair that showcases Storyhill's tight harmonies and thoughtful songwriting.

Matthew Sweet: In Reverse (1999)

Matthew Sweet always seemed to have a Beach Boys fixation, but he goes all out on this album, even recording some songs with the same musicians who played on Pet Sounds. The results are gorgeous, with walls of sound, choirs of Matthews, and brilliant melodies.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Special Edition) (1999)

From the greatest concert film of all time comes the greatest live record of all time (in my opinion, of course). The energy coming off of this the monstrous 9-piece line-up of the band is indescribable. And the song selection is almost perfectly representative of the band's first 7 years.

I specify the 1999 Special Edition because you get all the songs from the movie, plus extras, totaling 16 songs. This makes the original 9-song 1984 release seem hopelessly anemic, especially considering many of the cuts on the LP were edited for time. (It's the rare case where the CD is better than the LP).

James Taylor: Greatest Hits (1976)

This is the prototype for greatest hits packages. It's chronological, concise, has (almost) perfect song selection, and doesn't muddy things up with new songs (well, except for rerecordings of Something In the Way She Moves and Carolina In My Mind, both of which I like better than the originals).

It's also completely essential. In many cases hits collections can't hope to compare to actual albums, but for someone like James Taylor, who tended to make uneven records, it was the perfect format.

James Taylor: New Moon Shine (1991)

I was terribly homesick my first month of college, and there were three records that got me through it: R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People, Counting Crows' August and Everything After, and this one. My mom (a big JT fan; she played his albums a ton when I was little) bought it for me out of the Target discount bin on a day visit, and I grasped on to Taylor's familiar tones even though all the songs were new to me. Listening to it now, I get nostalgia for my nostalgia. Favorites include Copperline, Down in the Hole, (I've Got To Stop) Thinkin' 'Bout That, and Like Everyone She Knows.

They Might Be Giants: Apollo 18 (1992)

If Flood is the album that made me a fan of They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18 is the album that made me an obsessive fan of They Might Be Giants. What a weird record, even by TMBG standards. I Palindrome I starts with the line "Someday mother will die and I'll get the money / Dad leans down and says, 'My sentiments exactly, you son of a bitch." Spider is a theme song to a nonexistent Japanese cartoon that I'd love to watch. And of course the strangest and most impressive accomplishment is a dizzying 21 song-snippet medley called Fingertips. Other faves include My Evil Twin, The Statue Got Me High, The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight), and See the Constellation.

'Til Tuesday: Everything's Different Now (1988)

I found this on vinyl in my college radio station's collection, borrowed it, became obsessed, and then decided to "borrow" it permanently. This was 'Til Tuesday's third and final album and featured Aimee Mann's songwriting skills coming into full blossom (along with some famous help: Matthew Sweet and Elvis Costello both have writing credits).

Every song is about love, and since it's Aimee Mann, there's only one ray of hope about the topic on the whole album (the last song, How Can You Give Up). The rest of the songs have titles like Why Must I, Long Gone (Buddy) and Crash & Burn. This is my choice for the ultimate breakup album. It's brilliant from start to finish.

Van Halen: Best of Volume 1 (1996)

First, if you are holding your breath for Volume 2, you can exhale. It's not gonna happen. The band threw out that opportunity when they put out The Best of Both Worlds in 2004. It's a shame, because the purpose of that compilation was to showcase three new songs from the short-lived Van Hagar reunion, so all they had to do was take those and add the glaring omissions from Volume 1 (You Really Got Me, Jamie's Cryin', Everybody Wants Some!!, Hot For Teacher, I'll Wait, Finish What Ya Started, Runaround, Top of the World, Not Enough).

Instead, Volume 1 stands alone, incomplete, but thrilling nonetheless. Outside of their debut, Van Halen's individual albums (both with Dave and Sammy) are riddled with filler so it's no wonder a culling of the best catapults to the top of their output.

Various Artists: Chartaction '83 (1983)

For my sixth birthday I received a Walkman and this tape, purchased by my mom and step-dad at Sears. My mom recalls that there was a certain song on the tape I'd been obsessed with, and that's why they chose it. My guess would be Goody Two Shoes or Come on Eileen, as those would seem to be most appealing to a 6-year-old, but I don't really know. I doubt it was Sexual Healing.

In the days before NOW CDs (and YouTube and iTunes) K-Tel and Ronco cornered the market on compiling current hits. This was from the former. One might think that throwing a bunch of hits together is an easy job, but it's not. Whoever made this either by design or accident nailed a certain sense of flow and consistent quality.

So if we're assigning blame for me becoming a music obsessive, it just might fall to my mom and step-dad.

Various Artists: Pretty In Pink (1987)

It's as though Duckie made you a 10-song mix tape and slipped it into your locker. His primary motif is prime '80s new wave: OMD, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, INXS, and and Psychedelic Furs (of course). There are some obscure, but worthy, tracks from Danny Hutton Hitters and Belouis Some. He's got a track by Time guitarist Jesse Johnson and a song from Suzanne Vega that preceded her commercial breakthrough by a matter of months. And he caps it off with The Smiths, who are probably his favorite band.

His only mistake was not including the song his mother used to play for him: Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness.

Various Artists: Say Anything... (1989)

Read a review here.

A genre-hopping mixtape from Lloyd Dobbler's cassette deck to your ears. Perfect for kickboxing, driving around in your Malibu looking for a drunk kid's house, or standing outside of Diane Court's bedroom window. There's rock (Living Colour's Cult of Personality, Joe Satriani's One Big Rush), funk (Red Hot Chili Peppers' Taste the Pain), ska (Fishbone's Skankin' to the Beat), electro pop (Depeche Mode's Stripped), and ballads (The Replacements' Within Your Reach, Freiheit's Keepin' the Dream Alive, Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes).

Vicious Vicious: Don't Look So Surprised (2005)

Read a review here.

This novella of an album (it's only 34 minutes long) is the story of our narrator, a troubled girl named Jenny, and their doomed romance (their relationship is summarized by the line: "I say Spin the Bottle, you say Truth or Dare"). Even better, despite the interwoven lyrical threads and overall plot, each song stands on its own.

Rufus Wainwright: Want One (2003)

Until further notice, Want One is Rufus Wainwright's masterpiece. The songwriting is spot-on, the vocals are captivating, and the musical arrangements are full and immediate. Oh What a World, I Don't Know What It Is, Vibrate, Beautiful Child, 11:11, and Want are all personal faves, especially the latter which contains a line ("Just want to be my dad / With a slight sprinkling of my mother.") I could have easy written for myself.

Weezer: Weezer (1994)

I wasn't much educated on pop music in 1994, but I did work in the K-Mart electronics department. One of my co-workers bore an uncanny resemblance to Rivers Cuomo in the Buddy Holly video. Another co-worker recognized this, taped it, and brought it into work.

At first I watched it just for lookalike factor, then because the video was so damn clever, and then because I couldn't get the song out of my head. I bought the album, and it became one of the first records I ever got obsessed with.

The Who: Who's Next (1971)

I'm generally not a Who fan, but this album, wow. It was the result of a failed attempt by Pete Townsend to create a rock opera follow-up to Tommy. Called Lifehouse, the story was mainly concerned with conveying the power of music. When the project was scrapped following a nervous breakdown by Townsend, its best songs became Who's Next.

And that was a win for everybody, because Lifehouse's ultimate message comes through loud and clear by default. The album starts with Baba O'Reily (often mislabeled as "Teenage Wasteland") and ends with Won't Get Fooled Again; in between are two of the band's best ballads (The Song Is Over and Behind Blue Eyes) and some great tunes that keep things moving (notably Bargain and Love Ain't For Keeping).

Wilco: Summerteeth (1999)

Read a review here.

When it came out in 1997, I reviewed Summerteeth  for my college newspaper and declared it Wilco's best album. That was out of two albums and Mermaid Avenue. Sixteen years and 6 additional albums later I still believe that (though my estimation of their debut, AM, continues to rise, and Wilco (The Album) was pretty damn good).

The Beatles/Beach Boys fixation of songs like Can't Stand It, I'm Always in Love, and Candyfloss still do it for me. And I don't believe they've recorded a more thrilling moment than the first 45 seconds of ELT.

Robbie Williams: Reality Killed the Video Star (2010)

"Your country's refusal to embrace Robbie Williams will forever baffle me." - Shivrang, New Girl

I love Robbie Williams. He's the most eclectic and intriguing pop star currently operating. Reality Killed the Video Star (a clever triple entendre considering it was produced by Buggles member Trevor Horn), his eighth album, is a showcase for that. For me, it's also the only album of his that completely hangs together.

His lyrical depth and complexity is on display in Morning Sun and Difficult For Weirdos. His pop instincts shine on Bodies and Do You Mind. And his balladic skill reigns on You Know Me and Superblind.

XTC: Skylarking (1986)

This is an album that could be a soundtrack to flowers blooming and trees budding, but don't mistake its sweetness for weakness. Here's how Big Day describes marriage: "Could be heaven / Could be hell / In a cell for two". In Earn Enough for Us a husband greets the news that he's going to be a father by saying, "Don't get me wrong / I'm so proud / But the belt's already tight." And Another Satellite is a terrible brush-off from a man who doesn't want a woman around (she'd just be another moon clogging up his orbit). The melodies and harmonies are so impeccable that even songs about death and human sacrifice sound beautiful.