Tag: The Best Of
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Echo & the Bunnymen ‘Ocean Rain’ (1984)
Like any good cultural steward of teens who came of age in the mid-aughts I watched Donnie Darko on Halloween evening this past Friday after taking the kids trick or treating. It’s a fantastic film with a world-class soundtrack that adds so much depth to the film. At any rate, the movie opens up with…
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Charmer ‘Downpour’ (2025)
It’s relatively rare nowadays that I listen to an album from a band that is 1) Completely brand new to me 2) Was found organically and not recommended by a friend 3) Impresses me so much that I listen to it for a week plus before writing an article about it. Charmer’s Downpour is the…
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Rage Against The Machine ‘Rage Against The Machine’ (1992)
Rage Against the Machine is synonymous with my experience of becoming politically aware during my early teen years. I’ll never forget borrowing their album Evil Empire from my friend Ryan Polk in seventh grade, sneaking it into my house to avoid the peering eyes of my mom (who definitely wouldn’t be happy with the rabble…
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Muse ‘Absolution’ (2003)
In the pantheon of great alternative rock bands in my generation there’s few who come close to Muse in my book. This is a band who simply isn’t just fun to listen to (although they most certainly are) but also frankly a band who made me recognize the transformative nature of what rock music can…
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Lana Del Rey ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ (2019)
I’ve always understood how Lana Del Rey could be beloved by so many but never understood why she was so beloved if that makes sense. The cinematic qualities of her music, classic Americana nostalgic undertones, and romantic sentimentality of her music felt incredibly compelling at face value. But there was always something that felt sort…
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Saosin ‘Translating The Name’ (2003)
When Saosin dropped Translating the Name in 2003 I was just getting into post-hardcore scene. And holy shit did this album hit like an earthquake. I remember listening to this 15-minute EP almost non-stop with my friends riding around in my buddy Mark’s white Jeep or Nick’s pickup truck. It basically became our gateway to…
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Dr. Dre ‘2001’ (1999)
Everyone (and I mean everyone) in my age group got a massive hit of nostalgia as soon as they saw this album cover come across their internet browser. To say 2001 was a formative album for anyone in their mid-30’s to their late-40’s is an understatement. This was the album that served as a soundtrack…
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The Vandals ‘Look What I Almost Stepped In’ (2000)
The Vandals are one of those bands I loved before I had any idea of their significance in the punk rock genre. I first stumbled upon this album during middle school when I was basically mainlining punk records directly into my veins and it stood out for a couple of reasons. The first was how…
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Related to Strangers ‘GHOST’ (2025)
Today we cover the creative process behind the debut album of my band Related to Strangers. You’ll get an inside look at what the songs are about and the process we took to write the album. Hope you enjoy.
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Thrice ‘The Artist in the Ambulance’ (2003)
To say this The Artist in the Ambulance is one of my favorite albums of all-time might be an understatement. This is one of the best post-hardcore heavy rock albums of all time. Today we explore why.
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Sam Fender ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ (2019)
I’ve been a massive fan of Sam Fender ever since I heard his sophomore album Seventeen Going Under, an auto-biographical collection of short stories masquerading as songs from his childhood. Fender has earned comparisons to my all-time GOAT Bruce Springsteen over the years due to the profound level of personalization in his music as well…
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Wisp ‘Pandora’ (2024)
It’s not often I immediately replay an album I’m hearing for the first time from a new artist. Listening to one album per day across over the last two and a half years will do that to a man, creating an insatiable desire to find the next thing that will delight the ol’ eardrums and…
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Steely Dan ‘Gaucho’ (1980)
For all intents and purposes Walter Becker and Donald Fagen from Steely Dan were psychopaths. These dudes completely redefined what the word meticulous means during their grueling studio sessions, displaying an obsession with perfectionism that basically dragged everyone involved along with them down into a never-ending rabbit hole. The recording of Gaucho is probably the…
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Incubus ‘Make Yourself’ (1999)
Make Yourself was a musical revelation for me the first time I heard it. It was one of the first albums I can remember playing on repeat on my trusty blue Sony Walkman CD player. This album legitimately went everywhere with me in the early 2000’s– baseball practice, family road trips, walks to a friend’s…
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Elton John ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ (1973)
By the early 1970s Elton John was already a cultural phenomenon. His self-titled debut and Honky Chateau had already accelerated his rise from London’s pub scene to international superstardom. All of the elements that made him one of the defining artists of the past 50 years were beginning to truly bloom– his flamboyant stage presence,…
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Rancid ‘…And Out Come The Wolves’ (1995)
Released during a time when punk was flirting with mainstream acceptance, Rancid’s …And Out Come The Wolves stood out with its unapologetic grit and raw authenticity. Tim Armstrong’s sneering vocal delivery that just barely hits the right note is immediately recognizable for anyone who is even remotely familiar with punk rock, his raspy tone dripping…
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Pink Floyd ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ (1973)
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon stands as one of the most profound explorations of human fragility ever captured. It’s one of my favorite albums of all-time for literally a hundred reasons, an introspective and powerful concoction of musical genius mixed with thematic brilliance. This is an album that makes you think and…
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The Killers ‘Hot Fuss’ (2004)
The Killers’ Hot Fuss remains one of the most electrifying debut albums in alternative rock history, a record that blends the grandeur of synthesizer-driven melodies with the grit of heavy, intricate guitar work. Tracks like “Mr. Brightside” showcase the band’s technical prowess, with its instantly recognizable riff being deceptively difficult to play (seriously that thing…
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The Goo Goo Dolls ‘Dizzy up the Girl’ (1998)
Buffalo, New York in the mid-80s was the unassuming cradle of The Goo Goo Dolls, a scrappy trio carving their niche in the hardcore punk scene. With John Rzeznik’s gritty guitar riffs and Robby Takac’s punk ethos their sound was raw and in your face aggressive (yes, really). They were far from the polished, radio-friendly…
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Wunderhorse ‘Cub’ (2022)
Two years ago I set out on a mission to listen to one album per day. I’m beginning year 3 of that journey starting today, and there’s no album more fitting to kick off 2025 with than Wunderhorse’s debut album Cub. It’s an album that demands to be listened as a cohesive whole, and one…
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Lynyrd Skynrd ‘Pronounced Leh-Nerd-Skin-Nerd’ (1973)
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s story is as quintessentially American as their music. Formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964 by a group of high school friends—Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, Larry Junstrom, and Bob Burns—the band began honing their craft in garages and local dives. By the time they released their self-titled debut album in 1973…
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Dawes ‘Stories Don’t End’ (2013)
Taylor Goldsmith possesses a rare gift for distilling the quiet beauty of everyday life into poignant songs that feel deeply personal and universally relatable. It’s everywhere in Dawes music– the idiosyncratic descriptions of the mundane going-ons of everyday events, the subtle character observations of quirky personalities, the romanticization of life itself. There’s no better storyteller…
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Green Day ‘Dookie’ (1994)
In 1994 Green Day’s Dookie exploded onto the music scene like explosives duct-taped to someone’s spine (yes that is a “Having A Blast” reference), vaulting the band into the mainstream. They were born in the gritty punk clubs of California’s East Bay right up the road from me, in an underground scene where DIY ethics…
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Tame Impala ‘Currents’ (2015)
With Currents, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker takes a bold step away from the introspective isolation that characterized his earlier albums, marking a profound evolution in his artistry. It manifests itself in many ways– the lyrical themes, the musical structure, and the instrumentation. Parker’s approach to this album reflects a desire to explore the complexities of…
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Stevie Ray Vaughan ‘Texas Flood’ (1983)
In the heart of Texas, under the blazing sun, there lived a man named Stevie Ray Vaughan. He may have walked and talked like a man, but by all accounts he was a sorcerer from another dimension, whose fingers danced upon his ridiculously heavy strings as if they were alive. Legends whispered that he was…
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Mannequin Pussy ‘Patience’ (2019)
Outside of the stellar band name (you’re lying if this one didn’t catch your eye immediately), Mannequin Pussy is a pretty exceptional punk rock band. I first heard Patience earlier this year and was immediately gripped by its earnest accessibility. The album strikes a balance between chaotic energy and profound vulnerability, filled with intricate melodies…
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Miles Davis ‘Kind of Blue’ (1959)
Kind of Blue is one of those albums you see everywhere– best of lists, college dorm rooms, your father’s vinyl record collection, a poster in a music store. It’s undoubtedly the de facto initial phase of the “I’m expanding my musical tastes and diving into jazz” starter pack that all music lovers hit somewhere around…
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The Matches ‘Decomposer’ (2006)
My love for The Matches was first sparked by their debut album E. Von Dahl Killed The Locals. It was one of the first pop punk albums that truly felt personal to me in a significant way– as I wrote earlier this year when reviewing the album: There was a point in high school where…
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Eminem ‘The Slim Shady LP’ (1999)
In my generation there were few albums which had more of a cultural impact than Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP. The album’s gratuitous depictions of violence, drug usage, and feelings of anti-social behavior (a euphemism if there ever was one) absolutely took the world by storm when it was first released in 1999 and led…
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My Bloody Valentine ‘Loveless’ (1991)
Every once in awhile an album comes along that completely changes the trajectory of music history. The Velvet Underground inspired a legion of miscreants to start their own bands in 1967 with their lo-fi avant garde production quality, Eric B. & Rakim’s 1987 magnum opus Paid In Full introduced complex rhyme structures that changed the…
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Bob Dylan ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ (1963)
It’s taken me forever to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in this case) on Bob Dylan for a variety of reasons— this is America’s historical orator, one of the greatest musical poets of all-time, a man of substance and supreme conviction. One of the reasons my wife and I named our son…
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The Strokes ‘Is This It’ (2001)
There are great musical achievements that stand the test of time. There are bands who are just fucking cool. And there are bands who catch fire out of nowhere before capturing the attention of the entire world. It’s not often those traits intersect so perfectly that the Venn Diagram ends up looking like a circle.…
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Dennis Wilson ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’ (1977)
Out of all the albums I’ve listened to over the last year in a half (529 plus in a row, and counting) the one that has come out of the woodwork and struck me completely by surprise is this one. I’m not a huge Beach Boys fan by any stretch of the imagination, and outside…
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Casey ‘How To Disappear’ (2024)
Casey’s 2024 album How To Disappear marked a return for the Welsh based five piece after a five year hiatus where there future was uncertain. The band broke up in 2019 after lead singer Tom Weaver suffered severe health complications, reuniting a few years later once they realized they collectively had more to say. The…
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Van Halen ‘Van Halen’ (1978)
Imagine you’re 16 years old, sitting in your bedroom at home, and your older brother bursts into your room with a new album from an unknown band named Van Halen that just released their debut album. You’re getting into rock and roll so you flip it on and you hear the guitar playing of Eddie…
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Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Californication’ (1999)
Is there a song that’s skippable on Californication? That’s the question I posed to a friend of mine in the midst of injecting the Red Hot Chili Peppers magnum opus into my veins over this past Memorial Day weekend. Out of all the top-end albums in the Peppers discography, from Stadium Arcadium to Unlimited Love…
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