Maybe it’s owing to my short attention span or perhaps it’s a lack of appreciation for albums as a whole but it’s rare that I can put on an album and listen from start to finish. I’m from the mix tape generation where you pick your favorites from a CD and then you wear out that cassette. There are a few albums that make the grade. It’s funny, though, because the albums that I can listen to start to finish aren’t necessarily my favorite albums.
For example, here are some favorites that don’t make the list.
Low End Theory
This is one of my favorite albums of all time. “Scenario” alone makes this a desert island disc. Regardless, I still skip “What?” and “Infamous Date Rape.” So, it’s out.
Endtroducing…..
This is another album that I can’t live without. It’s a genre defining album that sounds as great to me now as it did twenty-two years ago. But I always skip “Why Hip Hop Sucks in ’96” and “(untitled)” and sometimes I’m just not in the mood to listen to “Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain.” What’s with the dialogue at the beginning?
Led Zeppelin IV
This was probably my first favorite album of all time. Stairway’s on it for Christ’s sake! But “The Battle of Evermore” always gets skipped. Even in the seventh grade.
Check Your Head
This is my favorite Beastie Boys record and I’m a Beastie Boys fan. The only problem is there are a few too many padding tracks like “Funky Boss” and “Mark on the Bus” that are just sort of filler between songs like “So What’cha Want” and “The Maestro.” Also after “Professor Booty” I usually just switch it off without listening to “In 3’s” or “Namaste.”
The Queen Is Dead
This was my first Smiths album and probably my favorite. “Frankly Mr. Shankly” and “Vicar in a Tutu” get skipped, though. In any event, I usually just stick the the albums of singles. I read a Smiths bio and Morrissey struck me as such a prick that I’m pretty comfortable being that kind of fan.
Okay, so, you’ve got an idea about my criteria, fickle as it is. So, without further ado, here they are…
Albums I Can Listen to from Start to Finish
Kind of Blue
This choice is as basic as it gets. But it’s only obvious because it’s a classic album and I still listen to it in its entirety.
Transatlanticism
On Death Cab’s subsequent albums, I could really only cherry pick a few favorites to listen to but this one just works for me. The album varies its tone throughout from the anthemic opening of “The New Year” to the melancholy “A Lack of Color” at the end, switching it up throughout with songs like the poppy “The Sound of Settling” to the quiet “Passenger Seat” and “Death of an Interior Decorator” (which annoyed me at first and almost became skippable enough to not be in this list but now it’s a favorite). Even at forty I can’t escape the appeal of emo heartbreak lyrics.
Bon Iver
Justin Vernon’s previous effort For Emma, Forever Ago was sad and beautiful and “Flume” and “Skinny Love” will always be favorites. Bon Iver’s self-titled follow up was a stylistic one-eighty from For Emma. Vernon was now backed by a full band providing a tapestry of sound instead of his previous locked-in-a-room-in-Wisconsin-with-an-acoustic-guitar sound. To be honest, I probably couldn’t name a track off of Bon Iver without looking it up but once I start this album, I can’t stop.
Gimme Fiction
My favorite Spoon singles are off of their earliest records – Telephono and A Series of Sneaks – when they were a little sloppier and a little indie-rockier. In fact, after their subsequent album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, I pretty much lost interest in the band. Much like Grey’s Anatomy, I found myself being periodically surprised that they were still around. But Gimme Fiction, despite its association with Will Ferrell’s blue period movie Stranger Than Fiction, just works for me start to finish.
Slanted and Enchanted
I was roughly ten years late discovering this album, so it ended up being the soundtrack of my early oughts rather than my early nineties like it should have been. If there’s a brattier, indie-er record out there, kindly point me towards it because it’s that very tone of this record that makes me love it. To be honest, I almost kicked this off the list for “Chelsea’s Little Wrists” but much like a Law and Order judge, I’ll allow it.
