The Ultimate in Top 10 Lists

Today’s post is not a small thing for me. I intentionally scheduled it to be written during the final days of the month so I could put it off as long as possible. With all the music nerdery in my life and here on the blog, it seemed like this May would be as good of a time as any to finally bite the bullet and come up with what I think of as the ultimate in Top 10 lists — my 10 favorite albums. 

I’ve instituted a few rules for this: (1) An album has to be at least five years old to even be eligible for inclusion. That seems like a good amount of time for me to make up my mind about how important it is to me. (2) Boxed sets aren’t eligible. I don’t have many, but I’m taking them out of the running all the same. (3) To save time and avoid redundancy, I’m limiting my descriptions of each album to 140 characters or less — the length of a Tweet. I thought about going with the 10-word description, but that was too limiting.

Here we go. Like I said — this is no small thing. A lot of thought and emotion and history went into the creation of the list you’re about to read. The albums here appear in order, starting with Number 10 and counting down to Number 1, just like Casey Kasem did back in the old days. 

10 - “Not Your Kind of People” by Garbage. The album that got me to love this band’s electronic rock sound. More about great songs than a great album, but some really great songs.

9 - “Secret World Live” by Peter Gabriel. Transcendent performances and arrangements of recognizable hits and lesser-known greats. The version of “In Your Eyes” on here is perfect.

8 - “The Shaming of the True” by Kevin Gilbert. A conceptual narrative reflecting on the glories and pitfalls of creativity and fame. Tragic that most people will never hear it.

7 - “All I Ever Wanted” by The Airborne Toxic Event. How many rock bands could reinvent beautifully written songs to feature string quartets, children’s choirs, and marching bands?

6 - “American Idiot” by Green Day. All energy and emotion, often communicated with pure frustration and rage. A landmark album of the century so far.

5 - “The Incident” by Porcupine Tree. Haunting and piercing in so many different ways at once. It almost demands to be played in its entirety on each listen.

4 - “A Thousand Suns” by Linkin Park. Percussive, aggressive electronic post-millennial rock. A masterpiece of the genre.

3 - “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. No other album has been more formative in my life.

2 - “Scenes From a Memory” by Dream Theater. A defining concept album from probably the most talented collection of contemporary musicians to every collaborate.

And coming in at the top position after a hard-fought battle:

1 - “Snow” by Spock’s Beard. An album that’s torn me apart and put me back together again several times over. It’s a crime that it isn’t more widely known.

*Whew.* That was NOT easy....