Jeremy's 300 All-Time Favorite Albums: Nos. 256 to 241
- petsch6787
- Feb 11, 2017
- 16 min read
Other Pages in this list: Nos. 300-286 Nos. 285-271 Nos. 270-257 Nos. 240-225 Nos. 224-209 Nos. 209-192 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
Well folks, another week has passed us by, and what have we seen? Trump continues doing unspeakable things in the name of neo-nazism, the football version of Donald Trump won the Super Bowl, so I can only assume that this is never going to end and Disney movies are going to start having the evil queens kill the good-hearted princesses, and the little kids will fall out of the sky along with their house being held up by balloons. Our world is falling apart. On to the music!
256. The Offspring - Smash
Year of Release: 1994
It's funny the kinds of songs that kids pick up, especially because they rarely even understand what the song is trying to say. For instance, the two songs that I remember glomming onto as a small child were Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash and Come Out And Play by The Offspring. I guess that isn't that surprising since both are built around simple guitar parts that my little brain could wrap itself around and both feature pretty clear sing song lyrics for a young child to remember. Also, I don't think that young Jeremy understood that The Offspring were singing about gang violence, how was I supposed to know what the lyric "If you're under eighteen, you won't be doing any time" meant? Children don't know about the legal criminal age and the gang related issues that the early nineties hath wrought. I just thought it was about sex, similar to their other single from this album Self Esteem, which is definitely about sex. But alas, twas not. I really started to get into this full album though, sometime around freshman year of college, my most vivid memory being me listening to this album while waiting in the parking lot of a Jewel in Woodridge for the bus that would take me back to U of I. Also, Not the One is my jam, yo!
Song: Not the One
255. Sbtrkt - Sbtrkt
Year of Release: 2011
This SBTRKT album came out in 2011 when EDM was starting to get popular. I was foolish enough to think "Hey, I like electronic music, and now electronic music is getting popular, this will be great, I'll actually be into what's being played on the radio." I was wrong. I thought that more attention on this kind of music would mean more artists, which would mean more directions explored within the genre, but instead what we go was the Country Music-ification of electronic music. Everything came out sounding exactly the same, and no one seemed to care as long there was a big ass drop right in the middle of it, just make the same dumb bass heavy beats. What a bummer. I bring this up because this album is when I realized that the popular electronic stuff was moving away from me. SBTRKT's debut album is an understated affair: simple beats, usually with a guest singer featured (Sampha sings on half of the tracks, Jessie Ware makes two appearances, and Little Dragon also makes two). It's probably my favorite representation of the kind of electronics that sad British artists seem to major in, with all of the instrumentation coming from one keyboard, lots of open space, the opposite of the noise assault of EDM.
Song: Wildfire
254. Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Year of Release: 1999
Before the flurry of albums that Trent Reznor released from 2005 to 2009, there used to be a minimum of five years in between Nine Inch Nails albums, so I imagine after waiting for five years for the follow-up to Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails fans were probably jacked up that The Fragile was being released as a double album. It might have taken five years but at least it's twice the content! However, when I was but a boy, I lugged around a little leather booklet that had CD's in it (Not to be confused with the much, much bigger leather booklets that I held all of my CD's in. Those stayed at home, where they were safe.), and when things are put into a CD booklet, each disc becomes its own entity. So technically, coming in number 254 is the first disc of The Fragile, because I never ever listened to the second disk, it was boring, it was kind of a precursor to Year Zero in that way. But the first disk of The Fragile finds Reznor further dabbling in the types of soundscapes that would eventually garner him an Oscar for Social Network's score, with Reznor at his most patient. The first disk has radio friendly alternative (We're In This Together), creepy lurkers with chains rattling in the background (opener Somewhat Damaged), and also has insane instrumentals (the fuzzed out Just Like You Imagined, and the War of the Worlds-esque Pilgrimage). This album isn't Reznor at his most electronic or angry, but rather a nice balance of both. It's an album released during a time that was about to yield us a world of boy bands and female pop singers ruling the world. The apocalypse of this album makes sense.
Song: Just Like You Imagined
253. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Year of Release: 2009
I tried numerous times in high school and college to try to get into Animal Collective. I read about them all the time, they were constantly praised by the music magazines that I read, and two years prior to this album, one of their members, Panda Bear released a solo album that kind of blew my mind (more on that in about four spots) but every time I tried getting into Strawberry Jam or Feels, I was always left unmoved. But then, Animal Collective released Merriweather Post Pavilion at the end of my senior year, and it all finally clicked. On this album they finally found the right balance between being avant-garde and being accessible. I remember asking my friend Rick if he knew this album when it came out, and he replied "I really love My Girls." and I responded to him, "Me too."
Song: My Girls
252. Rise Against - The Sufferer and The Witness
Year of Release: 2006
Chicago's Own! Whenever I listen to this album, I have the most vivid memory from the summer after Freshman year, when I was working at the landscaping company. I drove around in a pickup with a trailer behind it, filled with a rider mower and weed whackers, and I would mow the lawns of the Troy school district schools (except for the High School, they must have had their own landscaping crew or something). One of the schools had a playground behind it, and then about an acre of open grass, and at the back of the lot there was a baseball field. Mowing this entire plot took about two hours, and I would rock the Red Sony Discman with noise-cancelling headphones so I could drown out the lawnmower noise and just listen to either the Cubs game that was on or to one of the fifteen rotating CD's I would bring with me on a day to day basis. Every single time I listen to this album, it brings me back to one specific day of mowing that plot, no cares in the world, listening to my favorite Rise Against album. Literally no musical content in this particular write-up. If you don't know what Rise Against sounds like then you obviously aren't from Chicago and have never played Madden.
Song: Worth Dying For
251. Sahara Hotnights - Jenny Bomb
Year of Release: 2002
I know exactly where I heard of this band: from a magazine that no longer exists called Blender. Blender was basically Maxim but about music. Every issue had some sort of list in it, which would range from Best 50 Albums of the Year to 20 Greatest Songs to Live Your Life By. Some of those lists got ridiculous. Also, every issue would have a pictorial with a half naked music celebrity. Despite how ridiculous that all sounds, for a good run before internet news took off, Blender was right in my musical wheelhouse and was a great source for Young Jeremy to find new CD's to purchase. In this magazine I discovered Sahara Hotnights, a Swedish all girl garage rock band. I'm pretty sure they have also been on a Madden game at some point (don't factcheck that), but I'm one hundred percent sure that they rock old school style, with power. The opening track is called Alright Alright (Here's My Fist Where's The Fight?). Sahara Hotnights will take it to the edge, with very little provocation. They remind me aesthetically of Joan Jett. This album is also one of two that super stick out from the days that I used to bring this not small enough CD player in the bathroom to listen to when I was showering. Moral of this memory: Showering is boring. Showering is less boring if you are listening to Sahara Hotnights.
Song: Fire Alarm
250. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
Year of Release: 2010
This was supposed to be the final LCD Soundsystem album. They were calling it quits after this one, they made a documentary about their final show. But then James Murphy announced last year that they are getting back together to make another album. It's like, the band didn't break up for acrimonious reasons, they just thought that it had run its course; what changed from 2010 to 2017? But whatever, I digress. This album is full of great dance tracks. The nine minute opener Dance Yrself Clean, slowly builds while Murphy sings quietly over a simple 80's keyboard beat, before the track explodes, also the video is of Kermit the Frog singing this song on a roof with some other Muppets backing him up, Abbey Road style. In that documentary I mentioned earlier, all of the concert footage is framed by an interview of James Murphy by Chuck Klosterman, one of my favorite writers and my definite favorite interviewer. This past year I saw Chuck Klosterman give a talk, and someone asked him about being in that movie, and he said that when he was asked to do it, it was based off of an interview that he had done with Murphy earlier that year. Klosterman said yes, expecting he would get to have a new interview with Murphy, but they wanted him to just recreate the earlier interview, word for word. So they did. Klosterman said he was OK with it because it wasn't his movie, but that he was pissed now that he wasted his time since they are getting back together. That doesn't really have anything to do with my liking of this album, or anything, just a little anecdote for y'all.
Song: I Can Change
249. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Year of Release: 2007
There are a couple of albums that I can point to throughout my life and say "this album changed the way that I listen to music," and Panda Bear's solo outing, Person Pitch, is one of those few. When Person Pitch came out, I'd never heard anything like it. This album sounds like if a DJ discovered a bunch of old masters tapes of Brian Wilson recording Beach Boys tunes in a shack in some part of the desolated wilderness in the Deep South and then that DJ decided to play with every delay and reverb effect that he (or she, we are equal opportunity round these parts) had on his sampler. The way it changed my perception of music was that I had never enjoyed any music that was as abstract as this album before. There's only seven tracks, and two of them are twelve plus minutes, but they never seem to drag because amidst all the noise and waves crashing, there is a constant pop song progression maintained. Panda Bear's vocals are delayed and echoed so it sounds like he's singing through water, and the whole album gives off a sunny impression that makes it perfect to booze to in Champaign during the summer when the campus is mostly deserted and everyone that is still there is very tan and very ready to drink.
Song: Take Pills
248. Slowness - For Those Who Wish To See The Glass Half Full
Year of Release: 2013
Slowness: one of my life's biggest mysteries. Where did I hear of this band? Why don't they ever play any shows outside of San Francisco and Europe? Why don't they have a Wikipedia page? So many questions, never to be answered. Slowness reminds me a lot of My Bloody Valentine in that they are both Shoegaze and Dream Pop (although MBV was dream pop before that was even a thing), but Slowness is more interested in making traditionally composed rock songs, though they do bleed into the prog side of things with their long guitar led interludes. Speaking of guitars, the ones on this album are layered to the dickens, which helps to fuzz out some of the heavier songs. Slowness performs as a trio, with both guitarist Scott Putnam and bassist Julie Lynn singing harmony, their voices mingling together to sound like they are being played through an old radio. Maybe this is music made by ghosts. That would explain the lack of general information. Slowness: The Ghost Band!
Song: Calm and Dispel
247. Screaming Females - Rose Mountain
Year of Release: 2015
Screaming Females are the band I most often find myself having to turn down while I am on the train because I know that my headphones are certainly too loud and people can probably hear my music. Actually, not probably. Definitely. One time I was on the Red Line and the greasiest dude I have ever seen pulled on my shirt and I took off my headphones and he asked if I knew that there was going to be a Screaming Females concert in a couple of days, because he had heard me listening to them. That was when I knew: too loud. Marissa Paternoster (the only actual female in this trio) wails both as the singer and the guitarist. Like seriously, I have only been listening to them for two years, and I would rank her as one of the best guitarists I have ever listened to. I was supposed to go see them last year, but the night of their concert also happened to be Game 7 of the World Series when the Cubs were victorious, so it sucked that I missed the concert, but good that I had already taken the next day off from work to be hungover from the concert, so I didn't mind the game going long. Also, Ripe has one of the meanest guitar hooks running in the background of the whole song. Listen below. Learn something about Rock and/or Roll.
Song: Ripe
246. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel III (Melt)
Year of Release: 1980
Peter Gabriel, why do you have to make things so difficult and self title your first four solo albums? When you do things like this, I have to just make up my own version of an album title so that it differentiates this self titled album from the others. It's confusing! I'm just going to use the popular nickname Melt. Strangely, despite this album being released seven years before I was born, I also learned about it from Blender magazine. In one issue, Blender made some arbitrary 500 Best Albums Ever list, and the two Peter Gabriel albums on that list were this one and So. My mom had So on CD when I was growing up so I knew that album, but because of that list, it always stuck in my head that Melt was worth listening to and when I started exploring eighties music in college, this album was one of the firsts (possibly THE first) that I downloaded. The first side is amazing, Intruder is super creepy, being sung from the point of view of someone who has just broken into an inhabited family home. Also I love the percussion on No Self Control, and how crazy that song gets. Start is a pretty little saxophone interlude before the amnesia tale, I Can't Remember. Also, this album has a fun new benchmark in my life in that I was listening to it last Friday when I got on the Blue Line in Oak Park and within two stops realized that on two separate sides of the one train car in which I was sitting, there was someone smoking crack, and a group of people shooting up. 1) Blue Line is trash! It's the spider vein running up Chicago's leg. Seriously, I could make up metaphors about the Blue Line all day. 2) I would like to point out that this did not actually take place in Chicago, so all you city haters, take a seat. 3) Peter Gabriel, you crazy!
Song: No Self-Control
245. Tame Impala - Currents
Year of Release: 2015
I first heard of Tame Impala back in 2010 when their first album Innerspeaker came out. Innerspeaker was considerably more psych rock than Currents, which treads mostly along the Chillwave synth lines. I didn't really get into that first album much, except for an instrumental called Jeremy's Storm, which always stuck with me. Imagine my surprise when Tame Impala started garnering attention for their second album Lonerism, I was like "That lo-fi rock band? They're popular?" But then Currents came out and made it to the top of everyone's year end lists, and after giving it a few spins, I could see why. No longer was Tame Impala mucking around in DIY prog-indie rock waters. No, now Tame Impala was splashing around confidently in some sort of technicolor waterfall, exploring the various stages of a relationship and the cyclical nature of it all: get into something new, it runs its course, feel shitty, think maybe you should try it again, and over and over again. Every time that I listen to this album I like it a little more.
Song: The Moment
244. The Juan MacLean - In A Dream
Year of Release: 2014
Never have I tried harder to get anyone that I know interested in an album as I did with this one. I got really into it during the last year of me working at the pet food company, and my life was a freaking slog. Just repetitive, every day. And then I found this gem of a record, basically an eighties pop-dance album made in 2014 made by the duo of John MacLean and former (current?) LCD Soundsystem member, Nancy Whang. I burned this album onto numerous blank CD's and handed them out to people in my life, and it never caught on with anyone. I don't get it. It's a shame because this album makes me dance on a weekly basis. Here I Am is my favorite song from 2014, and this album was my favorite album of that year, but I guess it is probably telling of the way my brain regards 2014 that my favorite album from that year only made it to spot 244 on my all-time list. I was going through my personal exploration of the Pet Shop Boys discography that year, so I suppose it makes sense that the few albums that made it into my periphery were dancey to the max. I certainly wasn't dancing in the real, getting out of work at 9:30PM, before my hour and a half long commute home, oof, tiring. In A Dream was a star shining through the inky darkness of those times, shining bright.
Song: Here I Am
243. Gorillaz - The Fall
Year of Release: 2011
When you hear the description of this album "Gorillaz album recorded mostly on an iPad over 32 days while on a North American tour in 2010" you would think that the album would be slight. Who would have the time and patience to make something amazing while also touring and being exhausted, and to do so on an iPad of all things? But Damon Albarn did it. This album came out only a year after the wonderful Plastic Beach, and it stands in stark contrast with its predecessor. While Plastic Beach was lush with sound, beautiful production, and filled with guest appearances, The Fall only features people who were touring with Gorillaz: Mick Jones plays guitar on Hillbilly Man and the late Bobby Womack is featured on the gorgeous guitar ballad Bobby In Phoenix, and it features a much more stark computer generated feel, as appropriate for using the iPad to create beautiful sounds. But just because the production is a bit starker and colder, does not mean you should write off this album. It's actually quite wonderful to hear the things that inspired Albarn as he traveled our fine continent. You can feel the isolation he feels from being on tour for a month, and the constant state of being in a foreign place leads to finding pieces of home where ever he can get it; in Revolving Doors, "I sit in a diner, while the Beatles play." I really love this album, the songs are more instrumentally meditative, you get the idea that he created a beat he liked on the iPad and then started building around it. Also, it's nice that the best song on the album is Shy-town. Representing Chicago all the way back to the UK!
Song: Shy-Town
242. Com Truise - Galactic Melt
Year of Release: 2011
Alright boys and girls, today we are going to learn a new word. Who here knows the meaning of the word "spoonerism"? No one? Alright, let me tell you, a spoonerism is when you switch the first letters of two words to make a new set of words. For example, the DJ known as Com Truise is a spoonerism of the name of the best action hero of our generation (except for The Rock). Com Truise makes electronic music that sounds like it was made in the eighties. Like, you know when you watch an old tape and the sound warps for a half second like a bubble was released somehow? That's basically the main theme of this album. Play the song that is in that video down there, Air Cal, the first forty five seconds of that song will explain the words I cannot create to describe this album. There's the eighties melting synth beat, the eighties drum machine, and then there will be a second eighties beat. That's every song, but they are all great. I saw Com Truise play at Lincoln Hall a couple of years ago and two things stood out to me: 1) This music totally holds up live, even though you would think that the easy slow flow wouldn't be conducive and 2) Com Truise is a white guy with a beard and he came out wearing a turtleneck and skinny chain. His onstage persona is living in this music, for sure. Also, Com Truise is signed to Ghostly International which is an electronic record label that does a lot of stuff with Adult Swim. Most of the music in their bumps is from Ghostly International, shout out to them!
Song: Air Cal
241. Pixies - Bossanova
Year of Release: 1990
I have two extremely vivid memories of listening to the third Pixies album in two extremely different settings. The first was playing it in my dad's van as we were on our way to my Uncle and Aunt's house in Aurora for a birthday party. The second was listening to it while I was walking from my dorm to FAR to get dinner with my friends that lived over there Freshman year of college (despite the fact that the cafeterias by my dorm were much better than the one in FAR, with the sole exception of FAR's Soul Food Night, then ya gotta get there for the live DJ during dinner). Bossanova was about the time that Frank Black got sick of Kim Deal, he wrote all of the material, and this album has much less of her on it than the first two, but it doesn't really suffer at all, I kind of wish that Frank Black's solo albums sounded more like Bossanova. The album is very full of surf rock and a couple of songs about space and aliens. I actually kind of like this album more than I like Doolittle, but Doolittle is going to be listed higher for some other reason, I'll get to it later. I think Bossanova was the last great album that Frank Black had left in him. This is the chillest Pixies album for sure. It’s nice in these winter days to just sit back with your eyes closed and listen to Bossanova and pretend you are surfing the analog wave that they are putting out.
Song: All Over the World
What a fun bunch of albums! Really makes you feel good! So much love all up in this blog post. You like stuff? I like stuff, too! Whoo! See ya next week!
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