Tag Archives: best albums of all time

  • Built to Spill: Perfect From Now On/Keep it Like a Secret (Favorite Albums of All Time, pt. 8)

    December 23, 2010

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    Built to Spill: Perfect From Now OnBuilt to Spill: Keep it Like a SecretIf I’m forced to choose my favorite Built to Spill record, I like Perfect From Now On a little better than Keep it Like a Secret. But this is my website! You can’t make me choose, and so for this edition of my favorite albums of all time ™, I decide to treat these two records as one.

    What’s a little odd to me about these records is how much better they are than the albums that come both before and after them (sorry, TNWWL enthusiasts, but that record doesn’t hold a candle to either of these. Fact.). It’s not like Doug Martsch has lost his touch – each of the three records that follow Keep it Like a Secret are completely listenable with moments of greatness, and generally they become a bit better with age – I’ve gone back to each of them after a period of months and/or years and upgraded them considerably in my estimation.

    But. These two records are easily the pinnacle and complete statement of what Built to Spill is capable of – constantly shifting, energetic, inventive guitar rock. It’s a genre that really shouldn’t have anything new to say, even in the mid-90s, but for 18 songs, Doug Martsch disproves that admirably, with a perfect combination of 3-minute pop songs, 8-minute slow burns, and just enough guitar heroics to give him something to build on when he wants to do a 20-minute live version of “Broken Chairs” or whatever.

    I also kind of forget how perfect these albums are until, well, every time I put them on. So I’m rectifying that now – putting them forever in their proper place in my personal pantheon (alliteration!) of the best records I’ve ever heard. And to commemorate that, a taste of each:

    Built to Spill: “I Would Hurt A Fly” (from Perfect From Now On)

    Built to Spill: “Center Of The Universe” (from Keep it Like a Secret)

  • Some more of my favorite albums, or, Welcome to Obvioustown

    November 8, 2010

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    Arcade Fire's Funeral, The Cure's Disintegration, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea(I’m counting down (or up – I’m not sure yet) my favorite albums of all time. I’m not sure how long this will take or how often I’ll write one. But this is Part 7. Other posts are linked here.)

    So I realized that in making my best records of all time list, I’ve been gravitating towards albums that, although not critical pariahs or anything, are close to my heart, but somewhat off the beaten path. In part I’m sure that’s because I find them more interesting to write about personally, but it occurred to me that there are several albums that I should probably mention briefly and get out of the way, not because they’re inferior to the ones I’ve already included on my list (except in cases where they rank lower numerically, duh), but because probably everything that can ever be written about them has already been written, and I’m certainly not going to try and one-up Sasha Frere-Jones or whatever. Continue reading »

  • Plastic Mastery: In the Fall of Unearthly Angels (My Favorite Albums of all Time, Pt. 6)

    October 8, 2010

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    plastic mastery(I’m counting down (or up – I’m not sure yet) my favorite albums of all time. I’m not sure how long this will take or how often I’ll write one. But this is Part 6. Other posts are linked here.)

    Today’s entry into the hallowed list (ahem) of my favorite albums of all time would also top a list of the most underrated albums of all time, although that list would also probably be very boring to everyone except me. The backdrop – I’m driving along Orange Avenue in Orlando, probably going to or coming from the hospital, and I’m listening to the local college radio station, and a song comes on that I love and have never heard. Originally, I think that it sounds a little like Portastatic, and I wonder if they have a new record coming out, which is a nice thought.

    However, when the song is over, the DJ doesn’t say who it was, so I call the station when I get to the parking lot of the hospital (aha – that is where I was going) and ask what the song was. They tell me Plastic Mastery – “Before the Fall,” and I write it down somewhere so I won’t forget. Then I go to the record store and I find a copy of the album and buy it, and… there are a couple things that can happen when you buy an album from which you’ve only heard one song. Continue reading »

  • Explosions in the Sky: The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (My Favorite Albums of All Time, Pt. 5)

    September 7, 2010

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    explosions in the skyI didn’t think this album belonged on this list till yesterday, when I was driving to the airport and put it on, at which point I realized a couple of things. 1) “The Only Moment We Were Alone” might be my favorite song of all time. 2) When I get a new album I really love, I frequently kill it over a period of 2-3 weeks – I’ll think about listening to something, anything else, but just can’t see the point. With The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place, I realized that I’ve been sort of portioning it out to myself over a period of years, so as to not blunt its impact. I’ve never overlistened to it, and it’s been intentional – I play it once every three or four months, and then I put it away again.

    The odd thing about this is that I’m not a huge fan of either instrumental music or post-rock in general. Middle-period Mogwai is ok (Rock Action and Happy Songs for Happy People, most notably), but generally I need slightly shorter running times and/or more hooks per capita than long-form instrumental rock music generally bestows. And even within the catalog of Explosions in the Sky, this record is the only one that really does it for me – the first one is ok, the second one a little better, the most recent one less so… but man. This record.

    And why? Well, the title is informally a little longer than it first appears, and that’s sort of the key to what I love about it. I own it on vinyl, and on the otherwise blank fourth side is etched several doves and the inscription: “The earth is not a cold dead place because you are listening because you are breathing.” Instrumental rock of this stripe is good at grandeur and pomp, but less often at resolution and satisfaction. This record is unique for me in that it sounds like life. And hope. And love. If I’m going to apply adjectives to it, they’re less about the sounds and more about the feelings the sounds evoke: it’s hopeful and disconcerting and depressing and uplifting. It’s EITS trying to package the amazing experience of being alive into rock music, and getting pretty damn close to doing it.

  • Portastatic: Slow Note from a Sinking Ship (My Favorite Albums of all Time, Pt. 4)

    August 29, 2010

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    portastatic: slow note from a sinking ship(I’m counting down (or up – I’m not sure yet) my favorite albums of all time. I’m not sure how long this will take or how often I’ll write one. But this is Part 4. Other posts are linked here.)

    I mentioned the other day that this would make it to this list, so this is sort of just a formality, but also… along with Prince, Portastatic is the band that I most credit for whatever musical talent or drive I have. Since I was very young, I loved the romantic ideal (in my eyes, anyway) of one person creating a piece of music. I’ve been in bands and I’ve loved the experience, but with my own songs, I always felt hemmed in by other musicians – not by their talent, which is usually greater than mine, but just by their mere presence, their tendency to play things differently than I would. By having to think about what they might want or like, or whether they’re bored of practicing that song (or if they even like it), or whatever.

    And so I like it best when it’s just me and guitars and drums and Pro Tools, and I can make whatever I want at whatever pace I want. I love Superchunk, but when I heard of Portastatic, which was, for the first couple albums, mostly just Mac McCaughan and whatever instruments he felt like playing at the time, I finally understood what I wanted to do musically. And so I realize that this album probably has far more resonance for me than it does for most of the rest of the world, but then again, maybe not, because it’s fantastic.

    Sonically, it’s a big leap forward from his first full-length Portastatic album  - basically, from lo-fi to mid-fi – but the biggest jump is in the songwriting. Where I Hope Your Heart is Not Brittle is tentative and not quite out of the shadow of Superchunk, ...Sinking Ship is assured, flows perfectly, and embraces its lo-fi flourishes. Lyrically, it’s probably the strongest album in McCaughan’s catalog. There are full-band rockers where Mac enlists the help of friends (“A Cunning Latch“), perfect little off-kilter indie pop songs (“Isn’t That the Way“), an exquisite closer in “In the Manner of Anne Frank,” and, of course, the best song that he’s ever written (ok, maybe), “San Andreas.” And that’s that.

  • Luna: Penthouse (My Favorite Albums of All Time, Pt. 3)

    August 29, 2010

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    luna: Penthouse(I’m counting down (or up – I’m not sure yet) my favorite albums of all time. I’m not sure how long this will take or how often I’ll write one. But this is Part 3. Other posts are linked here.)

    Shortly after Penthouse was named one of the best albums of the 90s by Rolling Stone (or something like that – this isn’t research-o-matic), Luna was dropped by Elektra and subsequently bounced around several labels while releasing albums of subtly decreasing quality until quietly disbanding in 2005 after a small farewell tour. Their career is interesting on a number of levels, but most of all because they seem like kind of a poster child for the difficulty of persisting as a mid-level indie band. They got signed to a major in the 90s, when that kind of thing was happening all the time, and then they just did what they did, which was to make impeccably mannered, tuneful, dreamy indie rock, which, as you might imagine, garnered them plenty of critical plaudits, but not an audience to match. Call them the Arrested Development of indie rock. Continue reading »