Jeremy's 300 All-Time Favorite Albums: Nos. 285 to 271
- petsch6787
- Jan 24, 2017
- 16 min read
Other Pages in this list: Nos. 300-286 Nos. 270-257 Nos. 256-241 Nos. 240-225 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
Hello, Hello, Hello! Welcome to the second installment of my musical exploration of the first twenty nine plus years of my life. If you missed the first set of albums, please feel free to click on the link above and go check it out. It's never going away, you can do it when ever you want. Take your time. Anyway, this week we have albums 285-271, lots of chillwave on this one (inadvertent!) and also a fair amount of ambient music. Let's get this started, here is number 285!
285. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Year of Release: 2009
Sometimes things don't work out the way you originally plan. For instance, I originally planned to graduate college in four years, but I ended up graduating in four and a half, and for that extra semester it didn't make sense to get an apartment because all the leases were for the whole school year. Alas, I ended up spending a semester in a graduate student dorm by the name of Sherman Hall. That semester was the first time I ever really lived alone, and during that time I listened to a lot of music and watched a lot of Illini basketball on my laptop. It was during this period that I really started listening to shoegaze; specifically Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub and this album by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. To be honest, I often forget that some of these songs aren't actually Teenage Fanclub songs, they sound so similar in style, but I think The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are better at creating concise shoegaze pop songs, while Teenage Fanclub would sometimes stray into heavier tones and long guitar breakdowns. But more specifically this album still sticks with me because it was one of a couple that I would listen to while I was eating my various meals a day in the cafeteria alone (since I was the only one of my upperclassmen friends that had a meal pass). It sounds lonely, but it was actually nice, I could read the newspaper, eat my waffle (that waffle iron was amazing), cereal, soup, and my three little glasses of soda and my two little glasses of milk (one for drinking, one for cereal). I miss Illinois dorm food.
Song: A Teenager In Love
284. Washed Out - Within and Without
Year of Release: 2011
When I first moved to Chicago, I was working at the Lincoln Park Zoo. I worked in the Horticulture department with my friend Brian. I would get out of work at like four and drive back up Lake Shore in the traffic to Roger's Park. And then I would get home, take off my disgusting work clothes, and listen to one of three chillwave albums, this Washed Out album being one of them. That time period I was really into chillwave. This entire album sounds like it was recorded either on a surfboard on a wave, or actually submerged in the wave. It's so full of sunny disposition, especially for such stark production. It was pretty appropriate considering we moved into the city in August (so, quite hot!) and also we moved onto a beach. Within and Without is the beach in music form. It sounds like the twinkling waves crashing. I have listened to this album a whole lot of times.
Song: Echoes
283. Perfume Genius - Too Bright
Year of Release: 2014
Usually when an album vacillates between quiet and loud, it's from a metal band like Deftones, who are switching between a gentle thunder before unleashing a furious bolt of lightning and shaking the speakers. However, when I say that Perfume Genius's Too Bright goes from quiet to unspeakably loud in a matter of seconds, it's a different story. Opener, I Decline, is just Mike Hadreas singing over a piano, soft and achingly beautiful. Two tracks later on Fool, Hadreas starts the song singing over a simple upbeat synth beat, before the beat drops out, and it's only Hadreas quietly singing over a Pink Floyd-esque foreboding synthsphere before his voice erupts unfathomably loud over it all, and then it goes quiet and the upbeat synth beat returns with male background singers popping up for the first time. The standout part of this album is the five track stretch of My Body, Don't Let Them In, Grid, Longpig, and I'm A Mother. It's during this section that you can really feel the studio presence of Portishead's Adrien Utley, who contributes throughout the album. My Body devolves from it's Portishead-esque bass line into a crushing wave of crunch while Hadreas cries out "I wear my body like a rotted peach, you can have it if you can handle the stink" and that leads into the Simon and Garfunkel cast off Don't Let Them In, before getting to the danciest track on the album, The Grid, which sounds like Tron (appropriately). Longpig is a straight up Marble Madness synth beat, followed by the muddled I'm A Mother. On I'm A Mother, Hadreas's voice is barely even audible, hardly a whisper, the music composed entirely of a softly throbbing synth beat. The first time I heard this song, I figured that the version of the album I downloaded was corrupted because I'd never heard a song produced that way. Now, it's my favorite song on the album, you can hear the pain in his tone, as he speaks from the voice of the devil, the mother to "the smoke that rolls."
Song: The Grid
282. Pet Shop Boys - Super
Year of Release: 2016
Super is Pet Shop Boys' second album with dance producer extraordinaire Stuart Price (this is not the last Stuart Price produced album on this list, that's for sure), and together they create an album full of clean, crisp dance tracks. I just wrote about Super for the 2016 list, and once again I find myself at a loss to think of something new to say about this album, so let me just wax poetic a bit about Pet Shop Boys, in general. Super is Pet Shop Boys' thirteenth studio album, the first was released the year before I was born. Their music has spanned the entirety of my life, and I like every one of their albums. It's nuts. Thirteen albums! And they are all good! On my iTunes, I currently have 1222 albums, so I don't typically waste my time listening to stuff I don't like, there's just not enough time in the day, but all thirteen Pet Shop Boys albums never even leave my iPhone (Which is only 12 GB, so space is tight on there). I think The Beatles are the greatest band ever, but even with them I don't much care for The White Album. My personal favorite band is No Doubt, and if you read this entire list, you will not find their self-titled debut album on here, because it's not great. It's unbelievable to have thirteen great albums make up your entire catalogue. I love them, I love how much they like to dance, how they still act like what they do is an art: they create costume themes for each album, each tour has it's own theme and light show. I once read an interview with Neil Tennant where he described his musical partner Chris Lowe by saying, "Chris is only concerned with one thing: euphoria." That statement is all you need to know, being concerned with creating euphoria leads to lengthy dance beats, putting the sound ahead of the members of the band. PSB 4 LYFE.
Song: The Dictator Decides
281. Aphex Twin - Syro
Year of Release: 2014
This is one of two albums in this post that I would consider one of my Thinking Man's album, a name given because I will turn them on when I need to focus on something. For instance, when I started listening to this album was when I was working in Des Plaines, and I would turn this on and read a book, so I wouldn't have to listen to the people who think talking on the bus is an acceptable thing to do (unless you came on with someone, that's different, but people who just start up conversations on the bus, You Are Weird). Syro was Aphex Twin's first released music in nine years, and it's his most accessible work since his first studio album Selected Ambient Works 85–92, and yes I see the irony in me calling an album accessible that has song titles such as 4 Bit 9d Api+e+6 and Syro u473t8+e (piezoluminescence mix). Syro is all bloops and bleeps, and it takes a few listens to really start to appreciate what you are listening to. When Aphex Twin isn't working for me is when I never reach that Ah-Ha! point, but every song on Syro reveals something beautiful behind the skittering snare beats. XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix) is a beautiful, sprawling ten and a half minutes, that sounds like what a robot might listen to on a cross country train ride, possibly undersea. I'll put that song as the video below, since that description doesn't really make any sense. CIRCLONT6A (syrobonkus mix) and Syro u473t8+e (piezoluminescence mix) both sound like the Casino level from Sonic the Hedgehog so that should give you a pretty good indication of what this album is all about. Syro is the first time in a long time that Aphex Twin sounds triumphant, and it is definitely a good fit.
Song: XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix)
280. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Year of Release: 2009
This is album number two of the three chillwave albums I was listening to on repeat during those early Chicago zoo days (we won't see number three for a while, because it's better than these Neon Indian and Washed Out albums). Psychic Chasms literally sounds like acid. Like if someone took some acid, and then went down to the beach and played volleyball with some kids and splashed around in the water. Laughing Gas (a staple at all parties at the first apartment) opens with loops of someone laughing being intermixed with zany synths, this album is a lot of fun. Psychic Chasms channels the seventies in a 2009 kind of way; it's very bright, but composed around drum machine beats, like a sunset on an 80's looking computer, pretty but pixelated. This is a good album to listen to on a summer drive.
Songs: Mind, Drips
279. Zomby - Dedication
Year of Release: 2011
Dedication is a thirty six minute album comprised of sixteen 1 to 3 minute tracks. Each revolves around a central beat and the idea is expanded before it abruptly ends. I have issues getting into Zomby's other albums because he never seems to get the balance correct between song length and how amazing a beat is, generally lingering too long on his abrasive beats and when he finds a fire beat, he cuts it a minute in. However, Dedication is the one album where he finds that proper balance. Riding With Death follows a bubbling beat in the forefront with a skittering treble beat in the back. Animal Collective member, Panda Bear lends his vocals on Things Fall Apart, sounding like a computer created companion who is singing out to a digital pool as he wades in for the last time. Salamander and Lucifer, back to back less than a minute song vignettes, lead into the sing-song playground beat on Digital Rain, then to the barren plains of Vanquish, before leading into the Grand Theft Auto style cruising beat in A Devil Lays Here, the best song on the album. Also, there are a lot of random gunshots throughout the first half of the album.
Song: A Devil Lay Here
278. Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking
Year of Release: 1984
The first solo album of former Pink Floyd member, Roger Waters, sounds like a fever dream. This album is an exploration of the various voices and sound effects that Waters employed on The Wall five years earlier, but rather than exploring his usual themes of fear and paranoia through the lens of a spiraling out of control rock star, he explores the idea of whether it is worth ever settling down with one person or if man is meant to roam, through the eyes of a man on a road trip who has picked up some hitchhikers and what happens in reality and in his dreams during this real-time portrayal. I like side two and all, but the real masterpiece of this album is the first side, tracks 1-6 which unfold as one long suite, starting with the acoustic ramblings of opener 4:30 AM (Apparently They Were Travelling Abroad) before Eric Clapton's (who joined Waters's band for this album) guitar and David Sanborn's saxophone erupt to begin 4:33 AM (Running Shoes). After a dream-like jaunt through a German beer party and getting a hotel room, we get to the best song on the album 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution) which churns along like a Pink Floyd song with Clapton instead of Gilmour, ending with the nightmare image of the female hitchhiker eating a dog as a sandwich. Side Note: Since this album was released in 1984, it fell in that time frame when people were transitioning from Vinyl to CD, so my dad actually had this album on both formats. The Vinyl cover was uncensored, but the CD had a black bar over the model's bare butt. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if the Vinyl cover is the first butt I ever saw of a non-family member.
Song: 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution)
277. Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
Year of Release: 2008
Flight of the Conchords are hilarious. Let's just say that first and foremost. But lots of people are hilarious, so what sets them apart from other equally hilarious people? I guess for me, it's the fact that their music is so good, and that they are frequently parodying a more niche song style than your usual parody band. For instance, the opener Foux de Fafa is a send up of a Serge Gainsbourg song, where all of the french phrases are sexually uttered but are being supplied by a Beginner's French book. The We Are the World parody Think About It contains the following lyrics "There's people on the street getting diseases from monkeys...Now there's junkies with monkey disease, Who's touching these monkeys, please, Leave these poor sick monkeys alone, They've got problems enough as it is." Or when Jemaine starts his verse on Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros with "They call me the Hip-Hopapotamus, My lyrics are bottomless" followed by awkward silence for the rest of the verse. This is before we even get to Robots, arguably their most famous song, about "the distant future, the year 2000" from the perspective of robots who have killed all the life on Earth and the chorus of the song is "The Humans are Dead." Business Time is a seduction song from a man to his wife, after the spark has long gone, with sexy lines like "You lean in and say something sexy like, 'I might go to bed I've got work in the morning.'" or "Next thing you know we're in the bedroom. You're wearing that baggy old ugly t-shirt you got from your work several years ago. Mmm, you know the one, baby...with the curry stain. Oww!" This album makes me laugh every time I listen to it, and it makes my sister laugh which is good enough for me.
Song: Ladies of the World
276. Deftones - Gore
Year of Release: 2016
The first line of this album is "There's a new strange Godless demon awake, inside me" which is appropriate because this album does take a bit of a step away from the two albums Deftones had released prior. Where Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan were extremely aggressive first and melodic second, we find the roles reversed on Gore. There are still songs that are fucking savage, Doomed User is as heavy as anything on the last two albums, as well as Geometric Headdress. Acid Hologram sounds like its title: acidic, full of holes in the chorus, but still led by Stephen Carpenter's brutal guitar, which shrieks when things break down. (L)MIRL opens with a wilting guitar line in the distance before the grimy distorted bass lines come in, and then opens with the line "I don't miss you, I don't care where you are now, You're a ghost to me, Left with my taste in your mouth" before Carpenter's guitar fuzzes out and launches them into the chorus. Deftones are one of my three favorite bands, I've been listening to them basically my entire teen/adult life, and they will make many appearances on this list, the further down we get, the more interesting the Deftones reviews will be. Gore may be a run of the mill Deftones album, but all of their albums are so good that even run of the mill makes it on my Top 300!
Song: Acid Hologram
275. The Hood Internet - The Mixtape: Volume Six
Year of Release: 2012
Let me tell you about a game. A game called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. But that name sounds ridiculous, you say? Surely a game like that could not be good, you say? Well, if you said that, I feel shame for you. It's on the PS3 and it's basically soccer but instead of people, you are rocket cars, it's all about speed and geometry, and Brian had it on his PS3 when we moved into the first apartment in Roger's Park. And we had no cable for the first month we lived there, so we got some good mileage out of this game, and when we would play for hours on end, this mixtape would be playing the entire time because it was one of a few albums loaded up on his PS3 and also because it is amazing. The Hood Internet are a Chicago DJ duo who make mashups of rappers and singers over electronic and indie music. Mash-ups can be hit or miss, but The Hood Internet hardly ever misses, and they most certainly don't on Volume Six, the best of their mixtapes (although Mixtape Volume Ten, Trillwave Vol 2, and Trillwave Vol. 3 give it a run for its money). My favorite track on the album is Polish City, Neon Indian's Polish Girl in the background with Tyga rapping Rack City. It's better, by far, than actual Rack City. And Some Creeps is better than TLC's actual version of Creep. Basically if you listen to The Hood Internet, you will have some of your favorite songs ruined because they will improve upon them. Oh yeah, and the last song on this mixtape is a mashup of Age of Innocence and Lion King's Circle of Life.
Song: World of Swimsuits
274. Neon Indian - Era Extraña
Year of Release: 2011
I started listening to Psychic Chasms only a couple of months before Era Extraña came out so the two kind of meld together into one big album for me, which I suppose is why it is not surprising that they are only ranked six spots apart. Era Extraña left behind the sunny, acid wash of Psychic Chasms, and moved into a clearer new wave direction, more like the sound of a sentient arcade game creating music under an 8-bit moon and stars instead of an anthropomorphic sun wearing sunglasses like the last album. It's certainly a step forward, the songwriting is improved on this album and the mix of new wave with other genres yields some surprising results; Blindside Kiss is awash in an effects haze a la My Bloody Valentine. I worked at Lincoln Park Zoo from July of 2011 until Thanksgiving that year, and when I started I was working as part of a team with Brian, but then Brian got a new job in September and it was too late for the Zoo to hire someone else so I took over the whole gig as a one man team which meant a lot of listening to music while I was walking around, moving plants, digging up stuff, and all the other fun aspects of that job. Every time I listen to this album, it brings me right back to those days. Also, I think Fallout is the only music video created by Adult Swim. (I could be wrong, there could be others, don't fact check this statement).
Song: Fallout
273. Moby - Ambient
Year of Release: 1993
When most speak of ambient music, it's usually categorized with beatless soundscapes a la Brian Eno's Music for Airports, and honestly I find that stuff pretty boring. I mean, sure if you actually wanted to play that album in an airport, it would work just fine as white noise, but it would be super boring to just flip on at home, unless you are planning on taking a nap. However, an ambient off-shoot that I happen to love is ambient techno, which could basically be described as gentle electronic music. This pre-fame album by Moby consists of a bunch of these ambient techno tracks compiled from his early DJ days. I have listened to this album a lot, like so much so that the first three tracks on this album are three of the four most played songs in my entire musical catalogue. Heaven has been played more than twice as many times as any other song. The reason for this is because this album is perfect for putting on when you are trying to read but are on public transportation, it's the other Thinking Man's album, perfect for thinking. It's loud enough to cancel out the rudes but not intrusive enough to prevent you from being able to focus on what you are reading. I have already listened to it twice today. It's also so calming, without this album, I would have surely gone insane at some point during the dead of winter as I was riding a bus at midnight with a bunch of rando stragglers. It finds that perfect balance between being soft but not boring, being interesting but not rattling my brain out of my skull. I love this album, and I imagine I will forever.
Song: Heaven
272. My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Year of Release: 2003
I first started to listen to My Morning Jacket during my freshman year of college when Z came out, which my dad had a copy of. And when Z started making my frequent rotation, I turned to the other My Morning Jacket CD my father had, It Still Moves. Much to my surprise, I found an album much different than its successor. It Still Moves was without the spacey Radiohead overtones but still had all of the guitar. This album has so much guitar on it, I can't think of any other way to describe it than Southern Guitar Rock. Whether its the acoustic stumblings on Golden or the slow electric churns on Master Plan before leading into One Big Holiday, possibly the best guitar anthem My Morning Jacket has ever made. This is certainly the last album with which one could compare My Morning Jacket with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Every song on this album is the perfect soundtrack for sitting back on a warm summer evening, drinking a beer with your dog (the dog gets a beer, too), and watching the sun set down over the horizon. When I returned to school for sophomore year and was living in an apartment that had a porch attached to my bedroom, I spent many a night sitting outside on that porch, listening to It Still Moves. Side Note: Saw them live my Junior year, they played at Foellinger Auditorium in Champaign, which on regular days is a lecture hall. It was awesome, they played for three hours, and that is not a big place, they tore the roof off.
Song: Dancefloors
271. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
Year of Release: 2007
This album is really the last great thing that James Mercer created, it's sad. He made three great Shins albums, then after this one he fired all the other members of the band, made a mostly boring album with his new duo Broken Bells with super producer Danger Mouse (he makes a couple of appearances on this list later), then a super super boring Shins album where it was just him and a bunch of rotating players, and then another boring Broken Bells album. I want there to be more good Shins music, but it just hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, back to the actual good stuff, Wincing the Night Away is a progression from the previous two albums in that it is both more experimental and the production is cleaner. Australia is essentially a perfect indie rock song. Sea Legs is anchored by a strutting rhythm section, creating as hip hop a beat as Dre. I can understand why Mercer broke from the path and tried new things after this album, because once he mastered the Shins sound that he had been working on for three albums, where else was there to go in that space?
Song: Sea Legs
Alright, two weeks down, we've seen some Pet Shop Boys, a Deftones appearance, a man on fire, Brick killed a guy with a trident. It's been something. See you next week!
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