Jeremy's 300 All-Time Favorite Albums: Nos. 240 to 225
- petsch6787
- Feb 20, 2017
- 16 min read
Other pages in this list: Nos. 300-286 Nos. 285-271 Nos. 270-257 Nos. 256-241 Nos. 224-209 Nos. 208-192 Nos. 191-175 Nos. 174-158 Nos. 157-141 Nos. 140-124 Nos. 123-107 Nos. 106-91 Nos. 90-75 Nos. 74-59 Nos. 58-43 Nos. 42-27 Nos. 26-11 Nos. 10-01
Welcome back to the (sort-of) weekly entry into my 300 Favorite Albums of All-Time list. This week we have all kinds of surprises for you, there might be a man making balloon animals, probably someone jumping through a hog's head of pure fire, over behind the shed you can find the big kids smoking cigarettes, trying to be cool and not participating in the party. Don't be like the big kids. Everyone should get to party. Enjoy!
240. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - It's A Corporate World
Year of Release: 2011
Fun Fact: this album came out on my birthday in 2011. Unfortunately for the world of awesome band names, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. has recently changed their name to simply Jr. Jr. I know, it's such a bummer. Their original name was so much better, and it had the blessing of its Nascar namesake, so I wonder what the impetus was to move on from the name, especially since their best album came out under that guise, but whatever. It's A Corporate World is essentially three aggressive, loud songs surrounded by eight other slow indie rock songs. My love of this album started with one of the aggressive ones, When I Open My Eyes, which is one of my favorite all time songs (a list that will never get made), and it opens with the following lines " I don’t know where to start, I wanna tear you apart, I feels as if emotions fly, emotions fly off." It's so strange for a song to be so crazy and intense on an album that is so flowery otherwise. They also cover Gil Scott-Heron's We Almost Lost Detroit to tremendous success.
Song: When I Open My Eyes
239. The Offspring - Americana
Year of Release: 1998
In the winter of 1998/1999, a young Jeremy was giving a gift card for a record store for Christmas, and used that gift card to make the first two CD purchases of his life. Now granted these weren't the first musics he'd ever bought (I had a ton of random cassettes, I'm looking at you Chumbawamba!) and they weren't even the first CD's he owned (I had received the Men In Black Soundtrack as a gift. A gift that I still own), but they were the first CD's he had ever purchased and they were very special. One of them was 14:59 by Sugar Ray (that album didn't make the list, but it almost did, it was one of the last to get cut) and the other was Americana by The Offspring. I feel like The Offspring have a weird history in the public because a lot of their singles are super gimmicky: Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), which still totally holds up, and Why Don't You Get A Job?, which still totally doesn't hold up. However, the best part of this album are basically all of the rest of the songs, when The Offspring stops trying to be Fucking Hilarious (remember when they followed this album with the single, Original Prankster? Vomit.) and just stick to being the punk band that they are. Also, mad props for the psychedelic closer Pay The Man, a vast departure from the rest of their work but still stands atop the hill with the best tracks of their career. I know the inside of this CD jacket like the back of my hand and will never forget the words to any of the songs. "It's Americana my way!"
Song: Staring at the Sun
238. The B-52's - The B-52's
Year of Release: 1979
When I got hired at the investigations agency I used to work at downtown, I was put onto a two man team in charge of making sure subpoenas were served out of state, where our in house servers weren't licensed. This team was me and a young gentleman by the name of Anthony, who had very similar music taste to me. Anthony eventually quit because the job was too stressful aka our boss was an underqualified dick who listened to fucking wrestling intros and slept his hangovers off after he rambled in two hours late. But the short time that we spent together in that little office really had an impact on me: first he introduced me to The AV Club, a website I have frequented every day since then, and he also taught me how amazing the first B-52's album was. The B-52's get something of a goofy rap because their two most popular songs (Rock Lobster, which is on this album and Love Shack, which is not) are definitely kitschy, but the side of them that is lost is the amazing guitar band they were before Ricky Wilson died in 1985. It's appropriate that the first actual instrument you hear on this album is WIlson's guitar strumming through Morse code feedback to open the album on Planet Claire before all of the manic space effects set in and get you ready for the crazy adventure you are about to embark upon. Also, Rock Lobster may have some weird lyrics, but the full version of that song is killer. This is not my fave B-52's album (more on that at a later date) but it's a classic that makes you want to dance this mess around all night.
Song: Lava
237. R.E.M. - Reckoning
Year of Release: 1984
When I was in Junior High, I received one of my favorite Christmas gifts that anyone has ever given me. Christmas in the Petschke household has always been a big deal, since we had four kids in the house, we would each make extensive lists of what we wanted and usually most of everything you received (except for the clothes) would have come from the list. I was especially crazy about people buying me CD's that weren't on my list; I have very specific musical tastes, I don't like people wandering off-list like a bunch of wayward sailors. But my brother Connor wandered off list and got me R.E.M.'s greatest hits album from when they were on the IRS Record Label, before they moved onto Warner Bros and released Green in 1988. I had not asked for this album, but it was right in my wheelhouse, I have since grown to love most of R.E.M.'s material from those years (including Reckoning, their second album) in no small part due to that CD that my brother psychically knew I was going to love. In my opinion, Reckoning is a huge step forward from their debut Murmur. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) and (Don't Go Back To) Rockville are both College Rock classics but R.E.M. really shines on this album during the slow tracks, like the creeping Camera, or the gently paced Time After Time (AnnElise). Reckoning is definitely my favorite of the IRS R.E.M. records.
Song: So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
236. Beach House - Bloom
Year of Release: 2012
My feelings on the order of the Beach House albums seem to be in direct contrast with the general music listening community. For some reason, everyone loved their third album Teen Dream (which I think is beyond boring) but my faves were the two bookends to that album: the chamber pop classic Devotion (an album I will delve further into later in this list) and their fourth album Bloom (which was then followed by Depression Cherry, an album I also was not into but the music scene was pimping mad-style, but alas, who am I but a man with his small opinion?). I imagine if people still used paper dictionaries and if said dictionaries contained the term Dream Pop, you would find an image of this duo. Victoria Legrand's voice is so lush and overarching, it sounds like a dream itself, as well as her and Alex Scally's occasionally churning but generally fuzzy keyboards. Bloom is a darker album than Teen Dream was, and really I think that's what sets it apart; the contrast between the pain felt in the soul of the songs and the brightness of the instrumentation. This album sounds like it could be playing in an actual beach house, assuming that the beach is located next to some eighties video game pixellated waterfront.
Song: The Hours
235. Blink-182 - Take Off Your Pants and Jacket
Year of Release: 2001
You know how you have those weird random memories from when you were a kid that don't really have any emotional significance but just always stuck with you? For instance, when my parents split up, I was just entering High School and my siblings were all still at the elementary school so in the morning when I got ready, I was the only one awake because my dad had already left for work and I would read the newspaper and eat breakfast and I still have a distinct memory of eating Cocoa Krispies and reading a review of the new film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Don't know why I still remember that, the human brain is weird. Another such random memory is off me sitting at the dinner table and my father telling me what the new Blink album was called and me cracking up. Blink-182 have a special road into my heart; their albums seemed to coincide with my young teenage boy feelings in a way that few other bands ever did, and this album was mostly about divorce and love lost, and as a fourteen year old I was feeling both pretty heavy. Of all the Blink albums, this one probably has the worst singles: Rock Show is a generic throwaway, First Date is fine but super super simple, Stay Together For The Kids was great, no hate on that one. However, all of the rest of the album tracks are great, especially the four song run to end the album. I got dumped my junior year of high school on the day after Homecoming, and in my heartbroken state I made a four song Blink mixtape and tied it to a teddy bear and gave it her (sad, that poor misguided little fool, little did he know what life had in store for him later, to think that getting dumped was the worst of junior year Jeremy's worries, what a sensitive little boy I was) and two of the four tracks were from that four song closing run: Everytime I Look For You and Please Take Me Home. She didn't even realize the songs were Blink-182 songs. What the hell? "Everytime I look for you, the sun goes down."
Song: Everytime I Look For You
234. Tapes 'n Tapes - The Loon
Year of Release: 2005
I don't remember a band dropping from a critically acclaimed debut to a complete non-story second album as quickly and harshly as Tapes n' Tapes did. When The Loon came out, they were on all of the year end lists and with good reason. The songs on this album vary from being guitar led indie bangers (the first three tracks) to the slow paced and starry eyed (In Houston). But even that track eventually gets pretty riotous during the chorus, when the guitar turns into something resembling a chainsaw before everything slows down again for the next verse. Another slow one is 10 Gallon Ascots, which slowly flows on a Joey Santiago like guitar lick. It's a shame that when Tapes n' Tapes released their next album, it was missing all of the eccentricities and flair of this album, they stripped out all of the Pixies influence and replaced it with something mediocre. A Damn Shame.
Song: In Houston
233. Spice Girls - Spice
Year of Release: 1996
I was nine years old when this album was released, and I never owned it, yet somehow, The Spice Girls are parts of many of my childhood and adulthood memories. Here's a little rundown of some key ones 1) See the video for 2 Become 1 with Kyle Wood and Dan Griffin at a sleepover, 2) Debate which Spice Girl is the hottest while standing on top of a fifteen foot mountain of fertilizer, 3) Watch Spice World numerous times at Kelly Temper's house, 4) Karaoke Spice Up Your Life numerous times throughout college, 5) Spice World is the backdrop of an adult experience that I can't exactly describe in this space, but let's suffice it to say, it helped me figure out to ditch a dead relationship. But any way, I really only downloaded this album like two years ago, and started really listening to it when I was working at the Pet Food company. Spice is a really great dance record; it's got tons of 90's dance staples which I love, like random trip hop stuff, and white chicks rapping, and female empowerment. The Spice Girls star burned so bright, it could only maintain for a couple of years. We miss you ladies, and maybe Posh can get her act together and we could get a proper reunion!
Song: Last Time Lover
232. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
Year of Release: 2001
When my mom moved out of our house, the first long term place she moved was a house in Bolingbrook where we had one tiny little TV, so I found myself listening to the radio there a lot, usually the Top Nine at Nine on Q101, and right around this time Bleed American was number one on the list for a number of weeks in a row. I asked for the album for Christmas that year, along with a number of other albums, and my little brother, Keenan, also asked for it, but didn't ask for any other albums, so of course he got it as a gift and I did not, so I didn't dive into the entire album until later, my Senior Year of high school. The fall show that we did was called The Curious Savage. Usually a fall show would be a cast of like twenty five people, but this show was only a cast of eleven so we double cast the show, and each person only performed on half of the nights. On any given night, the cast that was not performing would be in the auditorium watching the show, and this had a strange effect on the back stage atmosphere: my character had a lengthy amount of scenes off in a row and no one would be backstage (including tech since that show only had one set) so for my thirty odd minutes off, I would just sit back there and listen to the second half of this album. It was a strangely lonely time compared to all of the other shows that we put on which were always beehives buzzing full of activity and actors and tech homies. Everyone seems to have their own emo story to go with this album, which is a good indication of how universally loved it is. Also, Sweetness was one of the first songs I ever downloaded on Napster.
Song: Sweetness
231. Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry They Washed Away, No More Stories, The World Is Grey, I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away
Year of Release: 2009
Yeah, that album title is definitely a mouthful. Mew are a Danish band that can often seem bipolar, fluctuating between gentle ballads like Island to intense guitar stadium bangers like Repeaterbeater. I got into this album when it first came out, and I was finishing my Super Senior semester at Illinois. I am sure I've mentioned previously but I was eating a lot of meals alone in the dorm food courts at the time, and this was one of the albums I was pumping a bunch when I would eat my delicious Beef Barley soup with whatever assorted rolls they would have on hand. I loved the ISR food court, just thinking about it now is making me hungry. The second song on this album, Introducing Palace Players, has such a great guitar riff as the backbone for the entire song that I find myself having difficulty listening to that song in public without convulsing to the rhythm in a way that alerts people near me that I am having some sort of medical episode, so I mostly have to just save it for inside the apartment, where my cat Easton has long since given up on trying to understand any of the terrible things he has seen me do with my body.
Song: Introducing Palace Players
230. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Year of Release: 1979
I came to Joy Division in kind of a backward way. My junior year of high school, I started getting really into Interpol, and in every single review of every single Interpol album, they would be compared to Joy Division. So, I thought to myself, I should download some of this Joy Division. And I downloaded this album on Napster, and, while I had downloaded individual songs prior, Unknown Pleasures became the first entire album that I ever downloaded. Pretty quickly into Junior year, I realized I didn't want to take French anymore, so I dropped it and I got to take a general study hall during that period, and in that study hall, I played this album for Amanda Nguyen and was like "Dude, listen to this, it sounds like Interpol," ignorant of the fact that this album was a pretty big deal. She's Lost Control is my goth jam. No other band before or since Joy Division (and that includes New Order) has ever been able to so adeptly express the spirit destroying force that day to day life can be in musical form, which I have to imagine is what Ian Curtis was trying to put out there, before he took his life. While New Order was plenty successful and will make many appearances on this list, none of the former Joy Divisioners ever seemed to be able to fill the lyrical shoes that Curtis had left vacant.
Song: She's Lost Control
229. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Year of Release: 1992
Aphex Twin's first album was released at about the same time as Moby's Ambient, making the early nineties my special period for releasing albums that I would listen to while reading. I had always known who Aphex Twin was but it wasn't until I heard Window Licker on Grand Theft Auto V that I started getting interested, and then I downloaded all of his albums and found that this one was the only one that I even remotely enjoyed (Syro hadn't come out yet.....well I guess the Richard D. James Album has a couple of good tracks too). The difference between this ambient album and the followup that Aphex Twin would release two years later is that this album is actually accessible and interested in traditional song structure while Selected Ambient Works Volume II is mostly just abstract soundscapes and none of the tracks on that album have actual names, just corresponding pictures. Sounds super pretentious, right? The songs on this album are gentle and beautiful, so calming. Special shoutout to the Willy Wonka sample in We Are The Music Makers.
Songs: Ptolemy
228. Radiohead - OK Computer
Year of Release: 1996
I suppose that most Radiohead fans would consider it sacrilege that I have OK Computer ranked this high, or that I have it ranked as my fourth favorite Radiohead album, but we all have different tastes, and that's what makes the world great (ice cream also makes the world great). I started listening to this album my Senior year of high school, but it didn't really make a special impact until the end of Freshman year of college, basically when I started drinking. My friend Claire would play Subterranean Homesick Alien and Paranoid Android as part of our "We are officially drunk, let's start singing the words to the same fifteen songs over and over again" playlist. This was also the same time that my dad gave me his minivan (a glorious gold Ford Windstar that I drove into the ground; when I eventually sold it to a junkyard, it may or may not have had vomit on the windshield), and when Freshman year ended, Kaitlynn and I went to go visit Claire at her boyfriend's house, and we blasted this album on the way there. Later that night, I fell asleep on a couch watching Conan in Chicago.
Song: No Surprises
227. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Year of Release: 2003
A lot of Lames heard about The Shins from Garden State, but by the time that movie (which I will still defend to this day, I don't care if Zach Braff turned out to be a douchebag in general, he at least made one beautiful piece of art) had come out, The Shins were already two critically claimed albums deep. I will admit that while I was ahead of the Garden State curve, I was still probably behind the cool people curve since I didn't hear about The Shins until their second album, Chutes Too Narrow, was getting mad publicity in my main music hang, Blender Magazine. This album is a nice combination of the mumbly indie pop from Oh Inverted World, and the extroverted singing style that James Mercer would start using exclusively after this album (I kind of prefer his mumbles). Once Mercer took full control of the band after their third album, everything fell to shit, leaving us with a valuable lesson: Sometimes collaboration can be what's best for the finished product. Still though, this is a near perfect indie album, and every song on it is a classic. "Step into the night."
Song: Saint Simon
226. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Year of Release: 2011
I rest assured that PJ Harvey can go to her grave having known that she created a perfect album. Let England Shake is about the relationship her native country has with war, a concept upon which the entire history of England is based around. The album starts by lamenting that the years of England's global dominance are over, and at what price did the people of England pay for those years (centuries, really). The Last Living Rose is about life springing again from a war torn landscape. The Glorious Land starts with a low bass line before a wartime trumpet appears off-beat in the background three times to signal the start of battle. On the aching centerpiece of the album England, Harvey expresses "I live and die through England, It leaves a sadness" while she sings in an Indian style in the background, reminding us of the effect that England had on the countries that it colonized, but that it no longer has because those countries are justifiably free from the "Withered vine reaching from the country that I love." I was really into this album when I was delivering pizza for Leona's so this album always reminds me of driving down the darkened side streets of Roger's Park, filling my car with unemployment money gas, clinging to any kind of artistic expression to help me escape the vicious circle.
Song: England
225. Bear In Heaven - I Love You, It's Cool
Year of Release: 2012
This Bear In Heaven album sounds like what My Morning Jacket would have sounded like if after Z, Jim James had his heart broken and they ditched their guitars entirely and completely committed to the synthesizer sound they had started developing on that album, which is to say, exactly the album I had hoped My Morning Jacket would have made instead of the hit and miss affair the Evil Urges was. I love this album because I love synthesizers and keyboards, I always have, and I imagine I always will. I suppose it probably helped that when I started listening to this album, I was also in the process of falling in love (for the last time?). The longing that is the keystone of singer Jon Philbot's voice is the perfect match for the chorus of The Reflection of You, "I wanna tell you secret things (but) my lips won't say anything that make sense, I wanna run to you but my legs won't respond, I wanna know exactly what you are, If you come dance with me I think you will like my moves, If you get next to me I will have nothing left to prove." I listen to this album on a weekly basis and I most definitely have it ranked too low on this list. Also, Sinful Nature has my life's battle call: "Let's get loaded and make some strange things come true."
Song: Idle Heart
That's it folks! Seventy six albums down, two hundred twenty four left! Next week: Chupacabaras take over the White House!
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