"And I feel like I'm a rider on a downbound train"

#1 Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen, Columbia, 1984

I think this album makes clear the answer to Tony Danza's immortal question: "Who's the boss?" My Dad rocked this cassette in his '85 Mustang for years and I continued to listen to it at home and then my own car once he upgraded to a CD system. I've never really stopped listening to this album. For me, it's the consummate record of the working man, of the post-Vietnam depression and ennui of '80s America, of the economic downturn of the Reagonomics of my youth, and the fun, hope and despair found in human relationships. It's a bittersweet testament to my past and my country which, for good or ill, will always be with me. I hope this record stays with me too.

"I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible"

#2 Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel, Columbia, 1970

Both intimate and wistful, playful and profound, the last true record from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel is about as close to album perfection as I have ever come across. While my parents had this record and played it occasionally, I never really wore it out until I received it as a gift from Sarah my freshman year in college. Since then it has been a regular source of both emotional and musical inspiration which, though it sounds like a Hallmark card, is really how I feel about this record. The stories and the sentiments on this record resonate with me on a level that's much deeper than pop enjoyment - though there's plenty of that here too. I guess Bridge Over Troubled Water is the most personal album I own and, considering I own and listen to so many, that's a pretty incredible accomplishment.

"Sometimes, everybody cries"

#3 Automatic for the People, R.E.M., Warner Brothers, 1992

For many, many years I fought against letting this be my favorite R.E.M. album. While Murmer ranked higher than Automatic last time I listed, it has since fallen out of the Top 25 - not because it isn't an amazing record (it would make the Top 30), but because not only have my music tastes exploded since '01, but Automatic has slowly but surely risen to the top of my listening rotation. It has become more and more the go to R.E.M. record when I want to hear Stipe's soulful croon, Mills' bass licks, Buck's energetic hooks, or Berry's cogent percussion. I guess I've finally accepted the fact that everybody's favorite R.E.M album is also my favorite. Sometimes, everybody hurts. And Automatic hurts so good.

"Now I'm drinking drinking drinking drinking coca coca cola"

#4 The Moon & Antartica, Modest Mouse, Epic Records, 2000

Though I'm guessing that Sean B might regale us with tales of that other Modest Mouse gem, The Moon & Antartica is the true opus for me. I got this record in Bristol right before Sarah and I moved to Durham and I don't think I stopped listening to it my entire first year at Duke. Or since, really. Scoffed by some as frontman Isaac Brock's sell-out album (read: first major label record), nothing could be farther from the truth. Instead of being methodical radio-pap, this record cuts a dark existential swath filled with movements from shoegaze to guitar panic and from punk spazz to acoustic balladry all within an unabashed self-transparency and lyrical truthfulness that opens the mental sinuses like a eucalyptus bath. I mean really, when I finish listening to this record it always feels like my mental state can breath again, freed from past baggage and future dirt (read: the stuff to which your body returns). For both Sarah and I, Brock, who also came from a kooky conservative Christian background, strikes a nerve with his honest, albeit blunt, theological observations. And the dynamic musical atmosphere doesn't hurt our love either. Rather than go on and on about each song, I thought I would post my Top 5 favorite lyrical moments from the record, along with links to the songs, so those who would like a taste can savor the flavor.

"The 3rd planet is sure that they're being watched by an eye in the sky that can't be stopped. When you get to the promised land, you're gonna shake that eye's hand." 3rd Planet

"I just got a message that said, "Yeah, hell has frozen over", got a phone call from the Lord saying "Hey boy, get a sweater. Right now." Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

"It's hard to remember we're alive for the first time. It's hard to remember we're alive for the last time." Lives

"It takes a long time but God dies too, but not before he'll stick it to you." I Came As a Rat

"And the one thing you taught me 'bout human beings was this - they ain't made of nothin' but water and shit." What People Are Made Of

"Could I turn this place all upside down, and shake you and your fossils out"

#5 One Beat, Sleater-Kinney, Kill Rock Stars, 2002

We were at an "Obama in '08" rally on Sunday in Chicago that featured a surprising turn. Halfway through Obama's speech a group of about 30 protestors stood up and started loudly chanting that American troops should get out of Iraq. While Obama, to his credit, attempted to engage them, security removed them reasonably quickly. But the tone of the rally changed - real flesh and blood people had called attention to something that upset them and shattered the univocal "pep rally" atmosphere. Obama pushed on and smoothed it over as best he could, but the reality stood - protest as a counter to politics as usual, as a stab at the status quo, had left its mark.

Such is the sound of Sleater-Kinney's amazing and profoundly moving One Beat. Written and recorded during the hey-day of post-9/11 American nationalistic furor, it galvanized and focused my attempt to deal with the dark political turn following the attack on the World Trade Center. The record became, for me, the sound of dissent. Opener "One Beat" is in my Top 100 songs of all time, using powerful drums and angular guitars to anthmically challenge consensus in the name of reason and progressive thinking. When Corin Tucker asks "If you think like Thomas Edison, could you invent a world for me?" and answers "Now all that's on the surface are bloody arms and oil fields" it's more than a political statement about current events - it's a call to think and create a new mode of engaging old problems, to take the Man head on and "shake you and your fossils out." The sentiment is genius and the music is rocking: a perfect combination. "Far Away" moves from the ideological to the personal, as Tucker relates what it was like nursing a newborn baby on the morning of September 11 and getting that phone call we all got: "Turn on the T.V." As she "watches the world explode in flames" and prays for her family's safety, a bigger question is on her mind: "Why can't I get along with you?" It's a simple query that doesn't hide behind a blind xenophobia or a fervent anit-nationalism, but that strikes at the heart of human realtions - why does difference often lead to violence? "Combat Rock" utilizes military drum work from the exquisite Janet Weiss to drive home a homily on protest everyone from Thomas Paine to MLK, Jr would agree with: "Since when is skepticism un-American? Dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same." Powerfully prophetic words when you think about their context in 2002, a time when the machinations of the Iraq War were only nascent to the public but, as we now know, very prominent in the Bush administration's agenda.

Despite my opening diatribe, however, much of the album isn't focused on political issues. Love song "Oh!" brings emphatic tones to Carrie Brownstein 's empassioned "Nobody figures like you figured me out," and the horn driven feminist anthem "Step Aside," which has a band member name-dropping call and response section that demands a "knife through the heart of our exploitation" and commands to "disassemble your discrimination." Narrative "Prisstina" tells the tongue-in-cheek story of a young college girl tempted by "your dirty rock n'roll" but who ends up leaving her boy toys behind for a bright future. Portland gets a shout out on "Light-Rail Coyote," which focuses on the economic geography of the city, and "Funeral Song" recalls Hot Rock-era SK in the verse and then explodes into the chorus of "Turn out the light" with theramin and a pounding Janet. As Sarah referenced in her post on this record, closer "Sympathy" is perhaps the most moving song on the record. It is, more or less, Corin's prayer over her sick infant who almost died after birth and contains some of the most earnest and haunting phrases in my Top 25: "There is no righteousness in your darkest moment, we're all equal in the face of what we're most afraid of." In powerful seasoned punk style, One Beat utilizes this sentiment to prove that prayer and dissent are really just two sides of the same thing: hope.

"The workers are going home"

#6 Weezer [The Blue Album], Weezer, DGC Records, 1994

This record discovered me just when I discovered music. After a childhood composed of my parents' vinyl collection and oldies radio, and an adolescence of musical putrescence (let's face it, to be in Jr. High between '89-'91 meant bad news for your music taste), I finally stumbled my way into the emerging "alternative" musical explosion heralded by Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Green Day. The first album I got that was not mother-approved was the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication which came as a green cassette that did not stop playing in my car for a month. My realization that I could sculpt my own musical taste was a revolution in my thinking. So after seeing a video on MTV one day before marching band practice (shudder) that brought together crowd chatter, ridiculous lyrical content, and dogs running loose, I decided to take my musical experience once more into my hands and made a mental note to pick up an album by the strangely entitled Weezer (check out that very video below). Once I had it, there wasn't a week over my last two years of high school that didn't see it played at least ten times. I would liken the fetish that developed with Weezer and I to the Starflyer fetish that captured Papa Shoegaze, Captain Ultra, and Lucky Strikes. I could not stop listening. I listened on headphones while I mowed the yard. I listened driving to and from work, school, church, wherever. I remember distinctly getting in trouble for being late to homeroom one morning because I could not turn off "Only in Dreams" before it was over while listening to it in the school parking lot before school started. Of course this love didn't end with high school, and another fond Weezer memory is of myself, Sarah, Bowman, and Bowman's housemates singing along to the entire record on our way home from a quarry in Knoxville. It was a real "Tiny Dancer" moment. For this reason and many others, The Blue Album was, and is, too good to be real.

From the moment the acoustic picking of opener "My Name is Jonas" kicked into walls of distorted power chords, I knew I had found a keeper (side note: my self-chosen drumline nickname my senior year of high school was "Jonas"... double shudder). I found myself marveling at the sheer ironic lyrical bliss of "No One Else" and the mind-numbingly good mix of acoustic and electric on "The World has Turned and Left Me Here" as Rivers Cuomo emoted the spark that started emo: "I just made love to your sweet memory one thousand times a night." Radio staples "Buddy Holly," with its incredibly good Spike Jonze "Happy Days" theme, and "Undone - the Sweater song" were good, but third single "Say It Ain't So" blew me and other geeks away not just by its kick-ass clean up stroke to dirty alternative down stroke progression and lyrical complexity, but by the fact that the video featured hacky-sack and Stormtrooper helmet cameos. But the geekdom appeal doesn't end there, as "In the Garage" name drops a love of KISS side by side with a love of D&D and "Surf Wax America" can be taken both as an embrace of alternative sports in a pre-Warp Tour era as well as a thinly disguised metaphor for masturbation. Genius. But the final track on The Blue Album is my favorite. It is, after all, the reason I received one of the few reprimands of my high school career. It is also the reason Papa Shoegaze and half of Liston Hall will never forget a certain bass line. It's a song who's intense emotive outpouring is so focused that it's almost transcendental. It's a song that makes sense only in dreams. Just like this album.

"Mother Superior jumped the gun"

#7 The Beatles [The White Album], The Beatles, Capitol Records, 1968

30 tracks. 29 pieces of pop perfection. 1 eight minute art wank. 1,000,000 reasons to keep dropping the needle. 'Nuff said.

"Got hips like Cinderella"

#8 Doolittle, Pixies, 4AD, 1989

In 1996 I had a collision with the Pixies. My roommate and I lived beside a dynamic duo who refused to play anything other than the Pixies and so, day and night, eccentric rock with a latin flair and a deranged frontman seeped through our walls and traversed our halls...kind of like the words of the prophets. But not quite. I distinctly remember hearing about the Pixies in high school as influences on Nirvana but I didn't hear their music until the second week of my freshman year when what I thought was a track from a current hardcore screamo band erupted from our next store neighbor's room. When I inquired, I was informed the band was the Pixies and the track was "Tame," which, if you've never heard it, is pretty damn attention-grabbing. While I didn't get to borrow the record that was playing (it was Doolittle), I did get Trompe Le Monde out of the bargain (it's my second favorite Pixies record) and over the course of the next few weeks wore out tracks like "Planet of Sound," "UMass," and perennial favorite "Alec Eiffel," which graced Side 2 Track 1 of my first mixtape of my second semester of my freshman year ("Alec Eiffel" is still one of my favorite Pixies song). My interest in the Pixies waned with my interest in punk and Nirvana, however, when both my relationship with Sarah and her folk tendencies and my desire to really get to know The Beatles put all modern rock on the backburner for a time. Fast forward to 2001 and I discovered a used copy of Doolittle at Radiofree Records. Dear reader, suffice it to say the love was back or, dare I say, Black. Though it barely made it in the '80s, coming out as it did in '89, Frank Black and his players present a powerful composition that could very well be the best record of that decade. Fifteen tracks of pure pop energy with punk sensibility get the juices flowing, beginning with the sweet bass lick and guitar hook of "Debaser" and ending similarly with the menacing "Gouge Away." Black's ability to ratchet up the drama with his ridiculous vocal range is complimented perfectly by Breeders co-founder Kim Deal's bass lines and background vocals. Drummer David Lovering sets the standard for pre-"alternative" drummers pretty high and lead guitarist Joey Santiago beckons more licks than a Tootsie Pop. The lyrics are generally far beyond any kind of narrative interpretation, but the self-loathing of both "Wave of Mutilation" and "Gouge Away" are pretty pointed - Frank Black was (and is) a disturbed musical genius. But he can also be playful, as evidenced by the light pop of "Here Comes Your Man" and "La, La, Love You" or the buffoonery of "Mr. Greives" or "Crackity Jones." But my favorite song on the record and my favorite Pixies song period is "Monkey Gone to Heaven." There's something about the haunting cellos, Deal's background emoting, and Black's metaphysical math that I love: "If man is 5, then the devil is 6, and if the devil is 6 then God is 7." I don't know what it means Frank, but I never understood the Trinity either.

"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you"

#9 Nervermind, Nirvana, DGC Records, 1991

Nevermind is essential for me on so many levels, not the least of which is its visual realization of money-chasing underwater baby nudity. Like so many who were coming of age in the early '90s, this record was an icon of cultural galvanization that proclaimed that the days of Vanilla Ice and Hair Metal are over (or, if you're Sean B and we're talking about Hair Metal, temporarily suspended). I remember seeing the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in '92 and being absolutely blown away at its raw power. The song still has that effect on me - it is really, when I think back, the soundtrack to my high school experience. The song ranked #2 on my Top 200 as listed in 2004, and I wouldn't put it too much lower than that now. But Nevermind is hardly a footnote to Track 1. Butch Vig's engineering, the hallmark of that other essential high school record Siamese Dream, channels the untamed fury of Bleach into a sound that is about as antagonistic as you can be and still have "radio-friendly" music. On the subdued side, "Polly" and "Something in the Way" are sing-a-long classics, presenting themselves as easy fodder for the "I just learned how to play guitar" crew while still preserving punk integrity. Speaking of punk, the pounding energy of "Breed," "Territorial Pissings," and "Stay Away" are some of my favorite moments on the record. Though they weren't on the radio, they got the constant rewind treatment in my four-door Toyota hatchback with the Tie Fighter-patterned ceiling while I drove to and from school, work, and friends' homes. More important still, Nevermind features some of the best rock drumming of all time in the unstoppable machinations of Dave Grohl's humble role as vehicle for the great Drum God Spirit...in the sky. More than any other record, I hold this one as most influential on my own style of drumming. While I might rank 1993's In Utero critically as a better record than Nevermind, it has never struck the same chord in me as its predecessor. And the Unplugged record, which did receive a lot of attention from me in high school and early college, has not weathered well in my estimation as a whole past that point. Nevermind was, and continues to be, one of the most powerfully nostalgic records I own. Oh, and it still kicks ass like nobody's business.

"Keats and Yates are on your side"

#10 The Queen Is Dead, The Smiths, Sire Records, 1986

This is the first record in my countdown that I only have in vinyl format. Purchased over a bone-chilling New Year's break in Cincinnati in 2001, The Queen Is Dead LP continues to be my favorite Smiths record, despite my found affection for Strangeways Here I Come and The Smiths. Part of this love comes from having to drop the needle every time I want to hear all the sweetness from the killer tom-tom intro of "The Queen is Dead" to the perfect '80s guitar outro of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others." The Smiths never shied away from political content and I think that's one of the reasons that I have continued to like them. Morrissey's desire to rid England of its' monarchical legacy has moved all the way from the violent denouncement of "The Queen Is Dead" to 2005's ridiculously good "Irish Heart, English Blood" off of his solo venture You Are the Quarry, a record already lovingly reviewed by Captain Ultra. Musically, this may be the apex for Marr's jagged to shimmery guitar movements and Morrissey's lyrics are at their most acerbic: "Frankly, Mr. Shankly, you are a flatulent pain in the arse." Side 1 closer "Cemetry Gates" is a high school English geek's wet dream, "Never Had No One Never" mopes with the best of them, and the outro of "I Know It's Over" stabs repeatedly at the heart of a scorned lover: "Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head." I might also have to concede that the best Side 2 ever is found here: the brilliant pop flourish and crazed background vocals of "Big Mouth Strikes Again" to the memorable cry-for-help of "The Boy With The Thorn in His Side" to the honky-tonk stomp of "Vicar In A Tutu" to the moody anthem "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" to the danceable reverse misogyny of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others." Durham's colorful Viva once wrote under the band name on The Smiths section card at Radiofree Records (R.I.P.) this query: "The Greatest Band Ever ?!?" To which, keeping The Queen Is Dead firmly in mind, I reply: "Yes ?!?"

"A job that slowly kills you, bruises that won't heal"

#11 OK Computer, Radiohead, Capitol Records, 1997

This is not the first time this record has made an appearance on this blog and this probably won't be the last. Five years ago this was my #1. Three years ago six songs off this record were featured in my Top 200 songs of all time. Why, then, is it no longer number one? It's not because the songs aren't amazingly well done or profound. And it's definitely not because it's too "main stream" (a notion that will continue to be proved as my countdown continues). However, a lot can change in five years. Especially when you feel that your exposure to music explodes within a given time frame (this may be analogous to saying what your favorite book is when you're a senior in high school versus your favorite book when you're a senior in college, which is only a useful analogy if you read anything in both high school and college). But certainly, despite the fact that my musical tastes have expanded one hundred fold since college, OK Computer abides. It abides so much that most of memories with the record involve forced listenings: forcing Sarah to listen to "Exit Music for a Film" on repeat while we had dinner one night in Bristol, forcing Shawna to listen to "Paranoid Android" all the way through once in her Saturn, forcing Hunter and Rob to listen to "Climbing Up the Walls" with the lights out five years ago, and, of course, being forced along with Rob to listen to Jon Kestner argue about why OK Computer is a greater concept record than Dark Side of the Moon while we played Frisbee golf in rural South Carolina. True story. Historically, my favorite song has been a toss-up between "Paranoid Android" or "Karma Police", but the sympathy vote goes to "No Surprises" which, having been forced to live and breathe a 9 to 5 desk job for many years, hits the nail right on the head for those of us who sometimes have felt like a pig. in a cage. on antibiotics.

"I'm damaged bad at best"

#12 either/or, Elliott Smith, Kill Rock Stars, 1997

Once again, a Bowman mixtape led me to the promised land. On Side B of the gem I've already mentioned that featured Cat Power's "Metal Heart" was an acoustic ballad with an edge: "So now you see your first mistake was thinking that you could relate." The quiet, smoke-filled voice oozed apathetic insight, yet hinted at an ocean-sized sensitivity. The song was "Alameda" from 1997's either/or but it took me until 1998 to pick up the record. By that time, Smith's first Dreamworks release, XO, was out as well, and I picked both of them up at the only record store in the Johnson City mall over the summer. While XO is really really good (might we see it end up on some other list?!?), its production level is much grander than the subtler, four-track feel of either/or. From the moment the click of the record button starts "Speed Trials" until the muted optimism of "Say Yes" subsides, Smith recounts episode after episode of drunken failure and stilted love with misanthropic genius. "Ballad of Big Nothing" brings thick bass and drums to taunt the listener: "Do what you want to whenever you want to, there's no one to stop you." Perhaps prophetically, Smith decries his future, post-suicide idolization on "Pictures of Me": "So tired of all these pictures of me/Oh everybodys dying just to get the disease." The forlorn love of "Between the Bars" and the nihilistic edge of "No. Name #5" and "Punch and Judy" challenge the American success story and offer a different, heart-wrenching vision. Such a vision is complete in the masterpiece "Rose Parade," which follows the protagonist as he stumbles through the crowded streets of Pasadena, mocking the band players, trading smokes for food stamps, and wryly observing "when they clean the streets I'll be the only shit that's left behind." Opener "Speed Trials" gets stuck in your head and doesn't leave for days: "it's just a brief smile crossing your face/running speed trials standing in place." Both "Alameda" and "Angeles" received their much deserved fame when Gus Van Sandt utilized Smith's tortured songs for Good Will Hunting, helping that film gain indie cred and catapulting Smith into the limelight as he got a Grammy nod for "Miss Misery." In 2003, I found out right before leaving work that Smith had committed suicide. That day I went home and played this record for several hours, listening in shock and wishing that someone could have broken through to him. either/or offers a glimpse into his sadness and depression through a raw beauty that both challenges and soothes, and I'm thankful that, despite the fact that he is gone, his records are still very much alive.

"Tell Sir Thomas More we've got another failed attempt"

#13 Chutes Too Narrow, The Shins, Sub Pop, 2003

In the winter of 2001 I picked up an LP I had been eyeing for some time at Radiofree and made one of my few "cover-based purchases" a la Captain Ultra. The record was Oh Inverted World and I immediately wished I had purchased the CD as well. It was the perfect work album - dainty pop with occasional '60s rock outburst and wonderfully impenetrable lyrics, all of which I could only enjoy on the confines of my stereo. Three years later, seemingly everyone was abuzz about this album due to a Zach Braff/Natalie Portman induced Shins fervor and I couldn't help laughing a bit, mostly because, though I think Oh Inverted World is solid (it made my Top #35), I thought their best record was the relatively recent Chutes Too Narrow.

Far from a sophomore slump, Chutes might just be the best rock soundtrack to the first half of the double aughts, despite it's absolutely atrocious cover and booklet art. I honestly can't think of an album I played more at work in 2003-2004 than this record. At just over 33 minutes, it was the perfect album to spin waiting on the lunch break or when you were counting down the minutes to 5 o'clock and could soak up some retro-pop genius. Speaking of great side one track ones, "Kissing the Lipless" is a doozy, critiquing soured friendships over great acoustic pop. The Shins cover all kinds of genre territory here too - rockabilly ("Fighting in a Sack"), roots country ("Gone for Good"), '50s surf ("Turn A Square"), and synth pop ("Mine's Not A High Horse"). My favorite two tracks, though, are "So Says I" and "Saint Simon," both of which, with their allusions to socialism, violent statism, and religion, spoke volumes to me as I moved from a strictly religious worldview to a political one. In "So Says I" James Mercer strikes at the ironic heart of failed statist communism: "Because it made no money, nobody saved no one's life," and then further explores the truth uncovered by totalitarian logics, a truth equally valid in our world of free markets and "healthy" competition: "We are a brutal kind." With "Saint Simon" he takes a softer approach, both lyrically and musically, where a personified Mercy offers some comfort to disillusioned dogmatists, respecting the end of their idealism. Mercer's lyrics resonate with me in a profound way: "Since I don't have the time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes that helped us out in making sense of our lives/the cruel uneventful state of apathy releases me/I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out." For those tired of the Garden State Shins AND the back and forth of the weekly grind to make the Man's dollar, I would highly suggest Chutes Too Narrow.

"Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all"

#14 In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel, Merge, 1998

I have a long-lasting love affair with the acoustic guitar. I've always appreciated its more organic sound, the percussive way in which it can be played, and the way it can create community easier than most any other instrument (campfire sing-a-longs anyone?). I received my first and only guitar as a hand-me-down from my aunt during the winter of my freshmen year of college and have never looked back since. Every attempt I have made to create a solo musical project (Math is Power, Fossil Fuels, Soundtrack to the Gadsden Purchase, Your Scripture Legs) has been based off of the acoustic and all the tunes I helped craft with Sandra Lou were based off of my acoustic. It's not that I disliked electric - my preference was more economic than anything else. I already had an acoustic guitar and getting an electric cost dollars, plus you needed cables, pedals, and, oh yeah, an amp. And, according to Sarah, electric guitars were really loud and not welcome in our house (I think this understanding was a holdover from her oldest brother hammering out Dream Theater, Joe Satriani, and Nirvana tunes in their house when she was younger much to the chagrin of her parents....and evidently Sarah as well).

Because of my die-hard adoration of acoustic based music, then, when I first heard In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in 2004 I couldn't believe my ears. Here was genius, stream-of-consciousness songwriting based off a pounding acoustic guitar, enthusiastic, straining vocals, occasional electric fuzz, and guest horn appearances. It was kind of everything I ever wanted to do with music except 100 times better. The exuberant songwriting and performative playing which Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum infuses into Aeroplane is staggering. Even though it features varied instrumentation, the guiding theme throughout the record is Mangum's voice and his acoustic. Opening duo "King of Carrot Flowers, Part I" and "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 2 & 3" showcases the tone of the record perfectly, moving from Mangum solo acoustic balladry to a horn-driven, fuzzed-out stomp that evokes plenty of emotion: "I love you Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ I love you." Epic "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" features not a one, not a two, but a three part vibrating saw harmony in the background that dialogues with trombone and Mangum's omnipresent acoustic. The strangely captivating sexual themes of the confessional "Two-Headed Boy," horn embellished "Communist's Daughter", and eight-minute "Oh Comely" are icing on the cake for songs that stand strongly on their own lyrical and vocal dynamism anyway. Instrumental "The Fool" has a chilling effect in a post-Katrina world as it emulates a New Orleans style funeral dirge, and peppy "Holland, 1945" is probably the most anthemic, nonsensical story since The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." The electric and acoustic meet head-to-head on "Ghost" and trade off with one another while Mangum emotes over solid kick drum, snare and cymbal work, and a supportive horn section. Closer "Two-Headed Boy Part 2" features my favorite melody on the record and comes closest to fulfilling that fireside acoustic fantasy of a youth now passed away that is well aware of its future: "God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life." In many ways, I think of Aeroplane as a soundtrack to an adolescence that I both had and wished I had had - a chronicle of the real and the imagined wrapped tightly in an emotive acoustic blanket capable of smothering all imitators.

"I met a non-dairy creamer, explicitly laid out like a fruitcake"

#15 Bee Thousand, Guided By Voices, Scat, 1994

Released nine days before my 16th birthday, an event I celebrated by watching Return of the Jedi at home with Bowman and Saucerocket after passing my driver's test (oh yes, I was a ladies man), Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand would elude my ears for eight years. It was not until the spring of 2003 that, now married and still occasionally watching Return of the Jedi, I began fleshing out my "indie essentials" back catalog after much internet research and record store conversations. I really first began listening to GBV with the release of the Ric Ocasek produced Do the Collapse, which is perhaps one of GBV's worst records if only because it so heinously deviates from the crusty, lo-fi garage goodness of Robert Pollard's songwriting roots. However, when I heard it in 1999, I was like, "Hey, this sounds like Weezer," a reaction Ocasek's production was no doubt meant to elicit, and dug it. By 2003, I had Isolation Drills as well, but didn't really consider myself a true GBV fan. But after finding out that most everyone hyped Bee Thousand, along with Alien Lanes, as not only the two best GBV records but also classic '90s releases, I decided it was time to act. Radiofree only had Bee Thousand the day I went, so it was what I picked up. What a pick up.

Robert Pollard has the unique ability to write timeless garage-pop song classics. On Bee Thousand (which features audio that seems to have been recorded on tape, re-played through a boombox, and taped from that onto a new tape which was transferred to CD) awkward jump cuts and slightly out of key guitar meld perfectly with nonsensical lyrics and everything from avant-post-punk to acoustic art-balladry. Brilliant hooks and phraseology constantly appear, only to quickly vanish and never show their musical chops again. 20 tracks clock in at barely over 36 minutes which equates to an average song length of less than 2 minutes. To its credit, Pollard's genius on Bee Thousand prefers to burn out rather than fade away, nodding to the Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, and the Who (clearly Pollard's favorite) the whole way.

There are so many great tracks on this record, with such varied and eccentric sounds, it deserves an encounter, not a paragraph...but I'll give it one any way. Stoner opener "Hardcore UFOs" drones classic Pollard ridiculous-speak as it begins: "Sitting out on your house, watching hardcore UFOs." Mildly disturbing "Tractor Rape Chain" grinds its way into your mind with its catchy chorus and has the distinction of having gotten me weird looks at work for singing it to myself once. "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" has all the amazing bombast of a Queen epic, but couches itself with only Pollard's hissy croon and his acoustic, adding a single repetitive pan pipe note in the anthemic outro. "Hot Freaks," one of my Top 100 songs of all time, concocts the most erotically charged nonsense words since Lewis Carroll over a dirty drum beat that gets me dancing every time I hear it. "A Big Fan of the Pigpen" adds a sharp tone to Pollard's guitar while he rants that "the popular mechanics are at it again." "Kicker of Elves," ridiculous and genius at the same time, ends with a demented drum machine intro that bleeds into "Ester's Day" which calls out an actor for "skin-tight buffoonery." I'm telling you, you have to hear this to believe how good it is. Fan favorite "I Am A Scientist" provides one of the few earnest moments of the record as Pollard confesses: "I am a lost soul/I shoot myself with rock n'roll/The hole I dig is bottomless/But nothing else can set me free." And a liberated Pollard is a ludicrously endearing thing.

"We can all be free, maybe not with words, maybe not with a look, but with your mind"

#16 You Are Free, Cat Power, Matador, 2003

I can never forget the first time I heard Cat Power. Bowman had just set me up with a pre-wedding mixtape in the summer of 1999 and its varied and eccentric sounds both challenged and enlivened my emo-rock disposition. Perhaps the greatest shock to the system was a bizarre, off-kilter slow jazz and guitar number with whispery, angelic female vocals. Nestled as it was among Bowman's choice of jitter electronica and screamo outfit punk, it stood out big time. That and the fact that the words seemed to come straight from the Muse's lips settled it for me: I had a new favorite artist. The song was "Metal Heart" and the artist, of course, was Cat Power. Not long after we were married, I got Sarah a copy of Moon Pix for her birthday and our obsession with Chan Marshall was on.

While 2002's Covers Record was solid (and will no doubt appear on my wife's list at some point), it didn't speak to me in the same way Moon Pix did. In late 2002, though, a pre-release track of an upcoming full-length on Matador's website sent me into hysterics. "He War," which still might be my favorite track off the record, sounded unlike other Cat Power I had heard. First of all, there were real drums, rocking even, and clear, forceful Chan vocals. Upon reading that Dave Grohl was the guest drummer for the record and that Eddie Vedder contributed background vocals for a few tracks, it seemed that this would be Cat Power's greatest record yet (a distinction Marshall seemed to want to overcome with the name of her newest record). When I finally got the record in early 2003, I was working as a barrista at Bean Traders, a vocation that involved the ability to share your music with the bean addicted clientele. You Are Free got heavy rotation, so heavy in fact that I can actually smell roasting coffee whenever "Shaking Paper" comes on.

Musically, You Are Free is much more straightforward than previous Cat Power records. Gone are the feedback-y edginess of What Would the Community Think and the jazzy experimentality of Moon Pix. Instead, Chan focuses on more traditional band accompaniment for half the record, and Covers Record style lo-fi solo efforts on the other half. Opener "I Don't Blame You," an homage to Kurt Cobain, radically encapsulates the momentary exuberance of Nirvana's performance within the subdued confines of a percussive piano progression and layered chorus vocal. Acoustic and bass drum anthem "Free" enjoins the listener to live and let love in the club while "Speak for Me" uses Grohl on drums and bass to ask for help in interpreting volition in a new, confusing world. Emotive piano ballad "Names" chronicles the lives of abused children in Chan's past in a chilling manner by highlighting the ages of their victimizations. "Maybe Not" offers, after Moon Pix's "Metal Heart," perhaps the best example of Cat Power's ability to offer hope in the face of an unforgiving reality: "You've got to choose a wish or command if the turn of the tide is weathering thee/remember one thing, a dream you can see, pray it to be, shake this land."

Such hopefulness and consolation surely comes from an inspired place considering Chan's reoccurring problems with alcoholism and depression, which have not only caused her to collapse more than once on tour, but also have blighted her live performances for years. Sarah and I had the privilege of seeing her at the Carrboro Arts Center in early 2002, and it was a rare intimate and brilliant performance. But, a year later, seeing her at Cat's Cradle after You Are Free had come out was a disaster - she kept interrupting songs, complaining to the sound person, and mumbling incoherently. It was sad and frustrating. After that point, I vowed never to see her again in person (though since then she has evidently gone through treatment and therapy and is now performing very successfully, even on Letterman, a feat unimaginable just a few years ago). It is certainly a testament to her art that despite such performing disappointments in the past, her music can still move me from the depths of the speakers.

"There are angels in your angles, there's a low moon caught in your tangles"

#17 Picaresque, The Decemberists, Kill Rock Stars, 2005

Roughly defined as having to do with prose fiction, the word "picaresque" has rascally, prankish connotations. This understanding of the adjective, no doubt, is what drove The Decemberists to name their finest album to date with it. Composed of ten disparate narratives and one fantastic love song, Picaresque has wormed its way into my top 25 in barely over a year, having the distinction of the most recent record that will grace this list. While I had both Castaways and Cutouts as well as Her Majesty, The Decemberists, I never really listened to them regularly. Though I always enjoyed their literary quality and quirky songwriting, they never really connected with me musically. So, when Sean B loaned me their third full length last spring and spoke highly of it, I thought I would give them one more try. Never in a million years would I have guessed it would become my favorite album of 2005. But it did. Melodramatic to the finish, and driven by excellent production from Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla as well as the charismatic intonation of the indubitable Colin Meloy, I let its eccentric stories be the soundtrack to my year.

To get across the literary genius, narrative smarts, and musical allure of Picaresque, here's a song by song rundown to tantalize the senses and ensnare the subconscious:

"The Infanta" - thunderous, operatic opener details the events of a princess' coronation in medieval Spain. But a dark secret lies in her past...

"We Both Go Down Together" - violin-hook laden sing-a-long describes an elicit love affair between an aristocrat and a commoner in the English past. And the song title, and chorus, is ripe with hermeneutic possibilities...

"Eli, the Barrow Boy" - quiet acoustic number oozes sullenness through the story of a young ghost who haunts the churchyard in mourning for his drowned love.

"The Sporting Life" - dancey tom-toms circle round this tale of failure on the ball field. Oh the shame to misstep in front of girlfriend, family, and waterboy.

"The Bagman's Gambit" - One of two epic (read: over 8 minutes long) stories on the record, this one focuses on espionage and liasons dangeroux between two government employees. But are the protagonists separated forever...?

"From My Own True Love (Lost At Sea)" - a forlorn lover pleads with the postman to bring him a letter from a love vanished on the waves. Will one arrive...?

"Sixteen Military Wives" - See video below for explanation and Death Cab for Cutie cameos:


"The Engine Driver" - Emotive female vocals mix with Meloy's to represent various interlocutors entrapped in relationships and vocations beyond their control. Will they be let go....?

"On the Bus Mall" - two optimistic prostitutes commiserate over a shared past and shared experiences. But do they share more than just a history...?

"The Mariner's Revenge Song" - Second epic of the record focuses on revenge in the form of an orphaned son determined to avenge his mother's death on a crusty, seafaring step-father. Moby Dick meets Robert Louis Stevenson under lots of accordion, tuba, and crazy guitar. How the story plays out is one of the best moments in recent musical memory.

"Of Angels and Angles" - a beautiful, short love song. And a beautiful way to end a most enjoyable forty-five minutes.

"I am an American aquarium drinker, I assassin down the avenue"

#18 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco, Nonesuch, 2002

Like it or not, it's a fact that September 11th, 2001 is a cultural nodal point for Americans. There's definitely a distinct separation in my mind, and political consciousness, between the seemingly carefree time before it and the anxiety-ridden, continually war-torn years after it. When I think back to the first bright spot after those dark days, it's in direct connection to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Serving as a DJ for Duke's radio station, one day in April of '02 I noticed that there was a copy of the much-lauded new Wilco record on the playlist. Having heard nothing off of it, I randomly selected "Pot Kettle Black" to feature on my show. The smooth percussive groove of the song and biting commentary of the lyrics, "It's become so obvious, you are oblivious to yourself" struck a chord. Immediately after my shift, I hit Radiofree up and rushed home to play YHF continually for the rest of the year, absorbing the genius of Jeff Tweedy.

Despite the fact that it was recorded before 9/11, it offers an amazingly prescient view of a post-9/11 world. "Ashes of American Flags" is, for all intents and purposes, the most prophetic song ever recorded: "I would like to salute the ashes of American flags/And all the falling leaves, filling up shopping bags." On "Jesus etc." Tweedy softly comments over fiddles that "Tall buildings shake, voices escape, singing sad sad songs," and on one of my favorite tracks, "War on War," he forcefully sings over driving melody that "There's a war on, you're gonna lose/You have to lose, you have to learn how to die." Really, the resonance is scary.

But it's not all eerie - anyone who's seen the excellent documentary about the making of this record, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, can attest to that. Despite the fact that the band had to buy their music from their former label so they could release it and then self-destructed in the process (they lost two members during the recording of the album), there is still joy that escapes in bursts, especially in one fantastic scene involving Tweedy and his son. "Heavy Metal Drummer," the song in question, is one of the top summer feel-good songs ever, and the upbeat guitar and horn histrionics of "I'm the Man That Loves You" could win any girl worth her mettle. And "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" epitomizes drunken love with its staggered, slurred poetry approach in such a way that it endears even as it admits to its inability to commit. Of course, the sheer low-fi intensity of both "Radio Cure" and "Reservations," with their nods to Radiohead's new direction, act as somber bookends.

When Sarah and I moved to Chicago in the summer of last year, the first thing I noticed when I stepped out our front door were the Marina City Towers on the immediate horizon. These beautiful buildings grace the cover of YHF and symbolize Wilco's love of their hometown as much as they make an oddly foreboding nod to those two towers that would not exist shortly after the record's conclusion. What a strange, wonderful, and moving metaphor. What a strange, wonderful, and moving record.

"I will see you in the next life"

#19 Kid A, Radiohead, Capitol, 2000

2000 was a red-letter year in so many ways. I graduated from college, toured California for two weeks for the first time, celebrated my 1 year wedding anniversary, and started grad school at Duke. It was certainly an incredibly busy time, so busy, in fact, that my music life kinda sorta went briefly stagnate. Gone from college and friends, stuck with utilizing dial-up internet, and living in a pre-Radiofree Durham, the only thing that kept me going musically was the status quo, i.e. my subscription to Rolling Stone. But the buzz in the press that Fall that kept me excited was that "There's going to be a new Radiohead album!" It just so happened that roughly at the same time, the US was going through one of the greatest election debacles of all time. I distinctly remember the record coming out before the election of '00, but I was unable to pick up a copy until much later due to ridiculous financial constraints, such as the fact that I wasn't working and Sarah was doing an admin job at a brokerage firm and it seemed like we were always bouncing the bank account, the worst time of which was due to a craving for Pizza Hut. Never again, for more than one reason....but I digress. As America decided to not go out and vote in what turned out to be the closest election this century, I was busy prepping myself for the new Radiohead record by listening non-stop to the last one, OK Computer, and the track "Electioneering" specifically, as that seemed appropriate for the time.

This turned out to be an ironic way to celebrate both the election and the new record's release, for not only did the election end up having a specious result that seemed to come straight out of the words of "Electioneering," but listening heavily to old Radiohead turned out to be the worst possible thing to listen to before engaging Kid A. Once I had the album near the end of November (election still undecided, mind you), it took a conscientious effort on my part to listen to the whole thing. It was honestly, with the exception of "How To Disappear Completely," like nothing I had ever really heard before and I resisted it. Call it critical peer pressure (so many reviews oozing with praise) or actual peer pressure (many students at Duke were raving), but I became determined to not get passed-by by my culture. I listened to the record walking to class. I listened to the record doing the dishes. I listened to the record while at my desk job in the music department. And finally, I remember this clear as day, I was vacuuming our bedroom one afternoon with it blasting from our stereo, and the bass groove of "The National Anthem" somehow got stuck in my subconscious. And the rest is history. I continued to listen to the record in every imaginable way, listening to it so much that Sarah finally had to lay down the law that we had to listen to something else. But I still had "Everything in Its Right Place" to get me up the hill on my morning walk to Duke, and I had "Idioteque" to rattle my ears through my late night walks home after reading an unbearable amount of theology and/or philosophy over the previous 12 hours. I'm not really going to say much about the music here, as I assume most people reading this list have this album and will probably list it over the next few weeks and fill in the musical gaps. All I will say is that the synthetic beats of "Everything in Its Right Place," the postmodern thematics of "The National Anthem," the ethereal float of "How To Disappear Completely," the unsettling metaphors of "Morning Bell," and the absolute transcendence of "Motion Picture Soundtrack" still give me chill bumps. Just like every time I think of the year 2000.

"She was in to S&M and Bible studies, not everyone's cup of tea she would admit to me"

#20 If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle And Sebastian, Matador, 1998

#20 has the distinction of being the only record in my Top 25 that I gave away because I didn't like it. Of course, the year was 1999 and I was committed to The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, and any other emo-rock outfit I could get my hands on. Despite the buzz I had read about B&S, when I got this record I was not ready for it: delicate vocals, instruments, and melodies, mixed with horns, strings, and piano, were not exactly moistening the...anyway, it just didn't grab me. So when Bowman came by and was like, "Hey, I love Belle and Sebastian," I was like "Love away" and tossed him the jewel case.

Fast forward to 2001 and my introduction to the short-lived glory of Radiofree Records in Durham. By that point, my musical palate was beginning to expand - I was using the Internet to find, download, and read about music, and Radiofree brought the virtual indie tunes into my actual hands via their eclectic, yet comprehensive, non-air conditioned selection. In this new home, I found a used copy of If You're Feeling Sinister and righted my error of two years previous.

As Belle and Sebastian's second full length, If You're Feeling Sinister has the distinction of being my favorite offering from the Scottish twee pop chanters (though Sarah's #25, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant is a close second). Snide, literary lyricism (best exemplified by a subject of the Queen lounging with a copy of Kafka's The Trial on the booklet) with balanced, yet variated orchestration best describes the album's overall feel. Stuart Murdoch's songwriting is at its best here as he tells stories of disaffected British youth, usually of the female variety, exploring their own ennui. Sound unbearable? It's actually quite addictive (just like The New Yorker). Murdoch's heady prose sinks its literary teeth into you quickly, a move often hidden by its light-hearted, catchy sound. Light strings and guitar mask the troubling questioning of one's vocation in "Fox in the Snow," "Like Dylan in the Movies"'s impassioned vocals and driving feel make you almost miss the fearful loneliness inscribed there, and "Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying," which is pretty self-explanatory in content, sounds like something your parents danced to in high school. Throughout the entire record, Murdoch captures the confusing experience of adolescence: burgeoning sexuality, existential struggles, vapid melancholy, and groundless optimism. "The Stars of Track and Field" applies these themes to a female runner while "Me and the Major" ingeniously pits a young lad against a grouchy ex-military man obsessed with "taking it out on us." Far and away the best tracks on the record, though, are "If You're Feeling Sinister" and "Judy And the Dream of Horses." The former discusses the loss of faith in becoming an adult ("If you're feeling sinister/Go up and see your minister/He'll try and take away the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever") and the latter perfectly recounts the story of high school rebellion through the eyes of a dreamer ("Judy was a teenage rebel/She did it with a boy when she was young/She gave herself to books and learning/She gave herself to being number one"). God bless the B & S.