10 favorite albums - for today at least!

[guidedbyvoices]

Here's mine.

1. Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
An album that everytime I hear it, I have to hear the whole thing. I love everything about it, from the choice of instrumentation (sometimes sparse, sometimes, everything and the kitchen sink - saws, horns), and tackles a difficult concept that involves Anne Frank and the holocaust but somehow makes it all work. Like Citizen Kane, I can experience it on different levels - just listen to what he chooses to do with the music, or just pay attention to the lyrics and sing along badly in the car, or just enjoy it as great music.

2. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand.
Hard to pick a single GBV album but this is the one that changed how I listened to music. Recorded on a shitty 4 track, not the best musicians, and at times doesn't even sound like they learned the songs. But I got past that when I'd be at work with a song stuck in my head, and it was from here. Then another song, and another. Bob Pollard is a prolific genius who takes the best of rock since the Beatles and made it fun.

3. Pet Sounds - I didn't get this at first, it was nice but couldn't see why it's a big deal. But I kept coming back over and over till I saw why it was genius. the box set is essential too.

4. Beatles - Revolver. If it had In My Life instead of Doctor Robert, it'd be a perfect album. To me, this is where the fun catchy early beatles met their future but realyl tightly focused. I love al their albums, but this one to me nails it.

5. Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won. I was a big Zeppelin fan as a kid, and the first band I bought bootlegs of. The best bootleg I ever got was their LA Forum gig from June 72, Burn That Candle. And then, they released it in perfect sound (albeit mixed in with a Long Beach show and tiny errors tweaked out). Immigrant Song is insanely brilliant, and that medlye in Whole Lotta Love is perfect. the Whole Lotta Love medleys on bootlegs turned me on to so much outside of cock rock - Elvis, blues, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, etc, and the one on here is perfect. Feel free to skip through Moby Dick though!

6. Spoon - A Series Of Sneaks. This album may not change your life, but I listen to it all the time, just catchy edgy indie rock. one of my favorite bands sine I saw them open for GBV in 97.

7. Iris Dement - My Life. I saw her on Austin City Limits yaers ago, doing something with Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard maybe, and they let her sing one. She did Sweet Is The Melody, and it was trasncendent, the type of song you feel you know your whole life and just speaks to you. Perfect simple country, like almost pre-hank williams country, with songs that are lived in and familiar and really spoke to me.

8. Buddy Holly - Collection . Elvis really should be here with the 50s box, but I find in recent years that I return to this more. I feel a small personal tie to him since my Dad met him briefly as a kid (he has his autograph in pencil on a Jim Reeves album). I sing these songs to my daughter as lullabyes, and dance around like an idiot to the rockers. The opening line of Rave On says more to me about rock than the first line of Tutti Frutti.

9. The Smiths - Meat is Murder. Hard to not pick Queen Is Dead, but as mentioned on other albums, this is the one I come back to more today. Well I Wonder still kills me, and as overplayed as it is, How Soon Is Now, I had a eureka moment with that song in a club trying to pick up chicks which was not me at all. As a 19 year old kid trying to figure shit out, it was pretty spectacular, and I *felt* those songs - I Want The One I Can't Have, or a line like "I walk home a lone, but my faih in love is still devout..."

10. I almost put Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs here, but there's a lot of filler among the truly great songs (Busby Berkely Dreams and Grand Canyon especially). Instead, I'll go with The Decemberists' Castaways & Cutouts. I love all their stuff but this was the first CD I got of theirs, and then saw them live the night after that Cubs playoff game after the Bartman game, and there were maybe 30 people there. A lot of fun live, played Squeeze's Up The Junction and a great new song that turned out to be Engine Driver. Castaways is literate smart tongue in cheek catchy pop songs. Sure, there are songs of pirates and whores and architects and soldiers, but they don't take themselves too seriously, which makes the songs stick with you longer than they should.

[Mike Boom]

Im a big fan of Buddy Holly, great stuff. Neutral Milk Hotel I have and like very much , but know nothing of the concept.
Ive heard great things of Iris Dement and must check out How The West Was Won.
I also have a the volume of 69 Love Songs with Busby Berkley Dreams on it which is beautiful. I also love the song Yeah Oh Yeah! on that record.