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the personal site of eric a. Farris
Since is doing it, here goes. My favorite albums made in the past 20 or so years. No order, really. I can’t do that.
You know I couldn’t leave the Sweet stuff off of this list, and this is the one that I keep turning to. From Someone to Pull the Trigger to Devil with the Green Eyes, this gets my vote as best Matthew Sweet album. Oh, yeah, Time Capsule is on this one too, which would easily make a best songs in recent history. But that’s another show.
Perhaps a bit too obvious? I’ve loved everything the “new” Alanis has done, and the first one still has the most impact to me. I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I had gone through this album for the first time, putting down the headphones as the last strains of Your House finished reverberating. I was blown away, and continue to be.
My love affair with Amy and her music date way back to Age to Age, which is definitely (1) a Christian album, and (2) a very long time ago. As she’s changed musically, and I religiously, I’ve followed her, and even sat patiently while she tried that sickeningly sweet pop stuff like Heart In Motion and House of Love.
Behind the Eyes, though, is a deeply personal album. She said once in an interview that she debated recording the entire album with just her voice and guitar, which would have made things real interesting, but as it stands this is one of the gems. Songs like Cry a River and The Feeling I Had make me proud to be a fan of hers. This was recorded during her break-up with her first husband, and the pain all comes through. Deo Gratis.
I only have this one on cassette, unfortunately, so I’m going from memory here, but The Bridge is Billy at his most entertaining (which is saying something). Add Cyndi Lauper, and, oh yeah, Ray Charles to the mix, and it’s just good music from beginning to end.
If there’s someone who inspires me to sit down at my piano, it’s George Winston. I remember where I was the first time I heard it: 3rd floor Bingham Hall, Berea College, Berea, KY. A friend Jason in the room across the hall had it going, and I was completely entranced. If you can’t be moved listening to Thanksgiving, check your damn pulse.
For some reason, this one’s hard to find. If Winston can’t inspire me, Liz always does. I haven’t heard a song from her that I didn’t completely like. This album, again just a cassette for me, is my favorite of hers. Solo piano done how the wood and steel themselves would have wanted, if they knew how good they could have sounded when they were put together.
There can be little doubt of the songwriting power, both musically and lyrically, of this band. ANEA, their debut, is the one that I can listen from beginning to end and feel everything from power to frailty, love to hate, joy to sadness. For goodness sake, it starts with Round Here and ends with Murder of One. The stuff in between is just creme filling. Really, really good creme filling.
Yeah, it started that whole Gregorian-chant-meets-Pan-Flute-meets-BeatBox weirdness, but it’s one of the treasured parts of my collection. That album got passed around the place I worked at the time so much that we all bought a copy. Good from start to finish to start, many a meditative session has started with this classic.
My favorite band (well, probably) at their shut-up-and-play best. Three of the four (vinyl) sides recorded during the Abacab tour, Phil, Mike, and Tony (with the usual live help from Daryl, Chester, and Leland) bring the house down. While there are some most excellent jamming tunes here, the real gems are to be found in the studio tracks, the fourth “side,” from Paperlate to Evidence of Autumn. Kinda sappy, yeah, but you never forget your first time.
During my high school years, I could not get enough of Kitaro. Everything he did, I thought, was incredible. While there’s a whole lot of weird fun going on in Astral Voyage, it’s this album that I keep reaching for. There are some very powerful forces at work here, and this man is able to perfecly harness them.
While there is nothing like 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, which gets my vote for best recorded music, ever, that’s pretty much the only song on Rock Action, (well, there is the excellent Take Me Somewhere Nice). With Happy, though, Mogwai put together a beautiful collection of songs with hardly any let down. With Hunted by a Freak, Kids Will Be Skeletons, and Ratts of the Capital all on one album, cue this one up… and stand back.
If country music all sounded like this, I’d be a fan. As it is, these guys expertly blend traditional country, a little bit of punk, and bawlsy bar rock to create an almost perfect album. While I can pick one or two songs out that I could leave, the good stuff on this record is really, really, really good. Over half the album’s songs get five stars from me on iTunes, which, while not a record perhaps, is pretty good for a country band. Wonderful stuff.
When I first heard that Spin magazine named this album the best of the last twenty years, I thought “but that’s not even the best Radiohead album!” But then I started looking at all my favorite Radiohead songs. While the first two (The National Anthem, and Creep) are on other excellent attempts, the rest of the songs are on… yep. you guessed it. OK, maybe it is the best Radiohead album. It’s certainly one that I wouldn’t do without. Exit Music still gives me goosebumps, Let Down still leaves me feeling a bit sub-human, and Paranoid Android continues to blow me away with just sheer musical genius. Yeah, it’s due all the credit it’s being given.
This was almost Rattle and Hum, the cassette of which I literally wore out, it was really close, but this album affected me in such a way, it can’t lose to the double set, as good as that was. What’s so special about Joshua? I was a late-bloomer when it came to music with a beat, and this album was like, well, it was like… I think John Mayer said it best: “It was everything I liked, and like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” Yeah, that’s it. While the debate may rage on over where U2 peaked, they were certainly up there then.
Another cassette-only. I love Vangelis’ music so much, and this is my favorite of his. There is no track on here that doesn’t completely move me. Makes me glad that I can create a little music of my own. I can only hope to reach such heights. From the opening track to The Will of the Wind (which, until I heard Mogwai’s 2RM1W, was my favorite piece of music), to the ending lyrics (“It’s a great morning, man”), this is incredible stuff.
Almost made the list: