There exists a special caste of albums that don't have even a single bad track on them. They are rare and only appear every three blue moons, two harvest moons and five strawberry moons. I recommend finding an hour or so of free time, sit down at your best audio setup, have some wine and cheese and just soak up these soundwaves. (Shout out to "Full Moon Albums" which inspired me to make this list, go check those out too!)
You may notice that there are no iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, MySpace, Napster, Limewire, last.fm, Bandcamp or any other links. Not only am I too lazy to find the best links to post here for each album, but you should buy them physically if possible! Hearing this stuff on vinyl or CD is good for the soul.
It's funny that this album ended up on this list, because when I first listened to it, I was rather unimpressed. I was obsessed with Vampire Weekend's Father of the Bride album, so hearing them with a different sound from that one was a little disappointing at first. But their sound changes slightly with each album, but just enough so that you can hear a clear progression from their first album all the way til now. Classical, Gen-X Cops, Connect and Pravda are some of my favorites on this one.
Uh... yeah, I like Vampire Weekend a lot. I find it interesting they're not talked about more given how much influence some of their tracks have had on popular culture. People went crazy over the "Giving Up the Gun" music video when it dropped. Apple loves Vampire Weekend in their commercials. Need I mention "Oxford Comma" or "Holiday?" To me, it feels like their first 2-3 albums had them finding their footing, and Father of the Bride is where they really hit their stride. The deluxe version of this album with its 3 extra tracks just enhances the experience. Some of my favorite tracks on this album are "This Life," "Sympathy," "Sunflower" and "Houston, Dubai."
A friend of mine pestered me to catch up on the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure manga after I mentioned that the last bit I saw was the part 4 anime. (Which is an amazing part.) Part 6 didn't impress me much, but reading any of the manga while listening to the stand name references' namesakes is one of the coolest comic or manga experiences you can have. Listening to Heavy Weather while all the insanity of the climax of part 6 is going on is fantastic. And then I continued listening to this album after I finished reading part 6. Now, just a day or two ago, as of writing, I found it on vinyl and it still holds up very well. Now, as for the music itself, it's some very fun, energetic and creative jazz. You'll just have to give it a listen! My favorite track is probably the opener, "Birdland." The brass is just too good.
One of the best contributions to philosophy Aristotle made is his metaphysics. To him, a thing is judged good or bad if it reaches its end well - if it accomplishes laudably the thing which it is made for. Along these lines, The Courtneys produced a perfect album. I don't think it's won 200 music awards, I've never heard of them until recently, but they had a vision for what they wanted to make and they nailed it. I was also floored to see that this came out in 2013, because it sounds way older than that, like it should have been released in 1999 or 2003 or something. Compared to other similar music, this album feels like one cohesive unit altogether, so please give it a listen that way, but if I had to pick a favorite or two, it'd be "Nu Sundae" and "90210."
Funnily enough, one of my favorite EPs is made by comedy-video-man-turned-light-rockstar "Farbsy." So, he's really talented at comedy and music and also has a cohort of friends also musically gifted. Cool. I'm not jealous at all, dude. Anyways, every song on this album is delicious, and the TV/radio station changing that ties the whole thing together is great. And the way this framing is used to end the last track, "Far Away from Here," kinda blew my mind when I first heard it. Listen to this EP now!!!
"Aggressive elevator soul..." Yep, I'm sold. Another freakishly talented dude takes his place on this list, since a ton of his songs have self-produced music videos to go along with them. What a fun album to listen to! "Giddy Up" regularly appears and stays in my brain.
What are your favorite albums? Any suggestions for me? Does my taste suck? Let me know about your favorites and whatnot by emailing me - jojo2k at jojo2k dot com. Will continually add to this list as time goes on :)
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