My Favorites

1. The Bends

Radiohead (1995)

Favorite Song : Nice Dream

I can distinctly remember the moment I understood this album.  The song “Just” had come on with a great, chunky guitar mute intro.  From then on, it was guitar megalomania.  This album is my favorite because it showed me the range of capability of the electric guitar.  It did so while also striking to the despondency my soul was feeling at the time.  Thom Yorke’s vocals were captivating.  Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien’s guitar work was haunting and exceptional.  After hearing this album, I understood there was a next level in rock music and art in general.

It really opened my eyes and was a huge influence on how I learned to play guitar.  I was eager to turn the gain up and see the sounds that could be produced simply by the percussive motion of striking the strings.  As a guitar geek, The Bends and OK Computer were crack cocaine to my ears.  It showed me the amazing range of manipulating a guitar’s sound waves.

2. Figure 8

Elliott Smith (2000)

Favorite Song : I Better Be Quiet Now

I believe that if the Tower Records where I bought this had any other Elliott Smith album on sale, I probably would have bought that one and have put it here instead of this one.  Falling in love with Elliott Smith’s music was inevitable and Figure 8 was my deep dive into his music.  My introduction to him, though, was a year earlier in 2002, when I saw him live in Chicago.  I did not know he would be there, as I went to the show that night to see Wilco, who was touring following the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  While standing around in GA waiting for the show to start, a friend told me Elliott Smith would be the opening act and he’s famous for the song “Miss Misery.”

I didn’t realize that I’d see the person that would shape the way I learned to play guitar and approach songwriting for years to come.  I must say I didn’t quite fall in love with his music that night.  His set was weird, to say the least.  He seemed to have trouble finishing songs, and would spend long periods of time making mumbling apologies and excuses.  His set was almost forgotten when Wilco came on and performed an amazing show.

At the Tower Records a year later, I saw Figure 8 and remembered that the stuff I managed to hear during his set was music I enjoyed.  When I came across this album, I remembered the chords and how different his music was.  I gave it a try and it was exactly what I needed at that point in my life.

I wasn’t and never will be a music theory guy.  I just understood that Elliott Smith’s chords and transitions were different and his melodies extremely well-crafted.  He made prolific use of modified chords in complicated progressions.  They were so different than the stuff on the radio in the early 00s, which used mostly power and barre chords.

Once I heard his music, I knew I had to know how to play his songs.  I had to know the secret of how he could make music that connected so well to a hidden emotional place in people that one doesn’t really consider that often.  I’ve learned much more about songwriting from Elliott Smith’s music than any other artist.  To me, his music was a reminder that true craftsmen of music exist and that there is an artistic beauty around us.

I was extremely sad when Elliott Smith died in 2003.  To me, he seemed like the troubled big brother that made it.  He had a major label record deal, Oscar nomination, and a lot of fans.  However, one never really knows the person.  I imagine he must have been extremely troubled, as that beautiful music must have come from someplace most people don’t understand.  RIP.

3. Oh, Inverted World

The Shins (2001)

Favorite Song : One by One All Day

This album is what I would call modern shoegaze.  It invokes the feeling of confused youth.  It expresses excess youthful energy in a world full of custom and order.  It does this with loopy keyboards and bright guitar.  It does so with James Mercer’s pleading voice.  It does so with the untraditional drumming and song structures.  It’s sweet and wondrous.

This is by far my favorite Shins album and probably always will be.  I say this because I don’t believe the original lineup will ever happen again – and to me that lineup is how I remember this band.  This album sounds like what it is… four dudes getting stoned in a New Mexico basement.  I love this album because it appears humble, but is actually amazingly complex.

James Mercer is a true master of melody.  I wouldn’t even begin to know how to craft such complex melodies, especially in coordination with all the guitar arpeggios and strumming.  It takes daring to come out with an album like this in 2001.  It’s so subdued and genious at the same time.

4. Come on Feel the Illinoise

Sufjan Stevens (2005)

Favorite Song : Chicago

Yes, I lived in Illinois for 8 years, but that is not why I love this album.  I love this album because it is a pinnacle in musicianship.  Sufjan Stevens is a reminder that there are true music nerds out there who painstakingly compose every note in every part.

There are so many moving parts – horns, guitar, strings, backing vocals.  I honestly don’t know how one person can arrange all of those different sounds to create such a masterpiece in baroque pop.

5. Gish

Smashing Pumpkins (1991)

Favorite Song : Crush

Yes, Siamese Dream is the better album.  It better be for how much it cost to make.  Gish, though, is my favorite SP album.  What I like most about this album is how well it does shoegaze with its limited resources.  Shoegaze, especially before the era of digital recording, was notoriously expensive.  It required many tracks, lots of tape and lots of post-production.

According to lore, this album was made for about $30,000 in a small studio in Wisconsin and it’s amazing the airy, dreamlike sound they are able to get with what sounds like a few guitars and maybe a dozen pedals.  The songs “Rhinocerous” and “Crush” are a couple of my all-time favorites.

In this album, one can hear the restraint used in the guitar playing.  It’s not an overprocessed signal going through too many guitar pedals like so much of SP’s later stuff.  Billy Corgan’s voice in this album is also much less nasal, for lack of a better word, and he sings like a lost, but cautiously optimistic soul.

In this album, his sense of alienation and depression are obvious and so perfectly translated to his guitar.  There is a humility in this album that is lacking in future SP releases.  I think Billy Corgan is ultimately egocentric, but I don’t think it had come to fruition yet in this album.

6. Blue Album

Weezer (1994)

Favorite Song : The World Has Turned and Left Me Here

I distinctly remember first hearing this album.  I was riding in a car on the way to a quiz bowl meet when the captain of the team, who put on a cassette tape of this album in his ancient Ford Explorer.  It was 1998 and living in the suburbs with no good independent radio stations, I didn’t really come across Weezer naturally.

I imagine “Buddy Holly” had some airplay, but that was a few years before when I was in middle school and listening to trash.  At the time, I didn’t have cable television and missed the boat on MTV as well.  So, it was with fresh ears that I heard this a few years later and instantly became a fan.

The “wall of guitars” sound was prevalent in the 90s.  I didn’t think it could be done any differently than Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Oasis, etc.  However, Weezer managed to have their “wall of guitars” sound different and more optimistic.

This album used “wall of guitar” in harsh juxtaposition to relaxed verses to express a tranquility quickly turned into frustration and anger.

Rivers is also a great soloist and it irks me that his name doesn’t come up as among the best guitarists of that era.

Thematically, this album hit home for me as well.  As a somewhat emo teenager, I could relate to songs like “Say It Ain’t So,” “Undone,” and “Only in Dreams,” which are all about watching the girl get away and trying to overcome some inner obstacle to keep it from happening.

Needless to say, I borrowed that cassette and dubbed it that very same day.  I’ve been a Weezer fan every since.

7. Discovery

Daft Punk (2001)

Favorite Song : Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

I admit I used to automatically dismiss anything that was considered techno or electronic.  To me, techno music was made by musicians who mixed machine noise while rolling on ecstasy.

I shamefully continued to think this way well into college.  Sure, I had seen “Da Funk” on MTV and thought it was interesting.  However, it didn’t resonate with me and I barely remembered the name Daft Punk until my college roommate told me I had to listen to Discovery.

My roommate would regret sharing this album with me because I played it ad nauseum in our dorm room for weeks and weeks to come.  Ironically, my least favorite track on this album is probably the lead single “One More Time.”

The rest of the album left me awestruck. “Aerodynamic,” “Digital Love,” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” are among the best songs I’ve ever heard.  To have them all on the same album is a musical gift.

I also felt that this album was lyrically their strongest effort.  I know they are going for the whole robot motif, but I heard the humanity within this duo when I heard songs like “Digital Love” and “Something About Us.”

Weirdly, my kids know of Daft Punk because of their Grammy-winning Random Access Memories from 2013.  To them, it’s weird that I know of them.  I would brag that I’ve known of them for years and that I was the cool one for once.

8. Armchair Apocrypha

Andrew Bird (2007)

Favorite Song : Heretics

“Thank god it’s fatal, thank god it’s fatal” are some of my favorite lyrics of all time.  Andrew Bird is, like me, a Northwestern grad and I’ve seen him live on numerous occasions as a result.  He lived in Illinois at the time and made trips back to campus somewhat regularly.

I saw Andrew Bird live before I listened to albums and I have to say that I was impressed, but not wowed by his performance.  He was solo and occasionally had a drummer.  He used a loop pedal to record sections that would then repeat as he played live on top.  Great violinist, but I thought I would soon forget about him as I would so many other acts I saw live while living in Chicago.

When I heard Mysterious Production of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha I thought there was a disconnect between the genius, masterfully sweet and restrained sounds I listened to and the guy with the weird, spinning megaphone on stage that I saw play live earlier.  I would find out that his live performances vary and are sometimes drastically different than his recordings.  This album, though, was obviously painstakingly crafted as it hits on all marks.

9. Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop

Stone Temple Pilots (1996)

Favorite Song : Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart

I feel that this band did not receive the credit it was due back in the 90s.  The singles that came out on the radio honestly did not sound distinctive enough to me to acknowledge them any more so than the huge 90s acts like Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, etc.

I gave them another listen in college and finally understood that therewas something different about this band.  I feel Tiny Music was a manifestation of Stone Temple Pilots at their best.  What sets this band apart is that they don’t need the “wall of guitars.”  The merit of the musicianship alone, I believe, make them supersede their peers.

In addition to thinking that Scott Weiland’s voice was the best of the 90s, I also believe the DeLeo brothers were among the best and most underrated guitarist and bassist duos.  I love how Rob DeLeo’s bass always seems to be doing something, as if saying that it’s bored with just playing accompanying root notes.  The bass will go up and down the fretboard just for the hell of it and sound good and funky doing so.

Dean DeLeo is also a fantastic guitarist. If I can describe his guitar work in one word, I would say that it’s seamless.  Like his brother’s bass work, there’s always something going on with his guitar lines.  His solos are also amazing.  I think the song “Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart” is a pinnacle of how amazing their work is.

It was with a heavy heart when I learned of Scott Weiland’s death in 2015.  RIP.

10. Microcastle

Deerhunter (2007)

Favorite Song : Nothing Ever Happened

While living in Chicago after college, I had several friends who were into what I’ll call ambient or noise rock.  This is stuff like The Books, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, and a handful of others gaining popularity in the mid 2000s.  While I respect any artist for going out and taking a chance with their brand of music, these bands were simply not for me.

Around this time, the band Deerhunter was recommended to me.  I didn’t want to like this band because it had been classified as ambient rock.  I kind-of wanted to just dismiss the whole genre.  I fell in love with this band quickly, though.  What set Deerhunter apart for me was that it was driven by guitar noise, more so than keyboard noise.

I also discovered that guitar noise can be contained and controlled.  To me, this was like learning that weather can be controlled.  As a guitar player, one gets used to the fact that distortion and noise was oftentimes wild.  The untamed nature of a distorted guitar is behind the whole spirit of rock music.

With Microcastle, I learned that weather could be controlled.  The noise from guitar could be tamed and made musical.  This is especially true in the choruses from songs “Nothing Ever Happened,” and “Little Kids.”  I loved how each noisy swoosh or delay seemed to exist with intended purpose.

Deerhunter is now one of my favorite bands making music today because they made noise melodic to my ears.