Kevin's Top 500 Favorite Albums

81: Paranoid - Black Sabbath (1970)

As the only Black Sabbath album to make my Top 100, Paranoid essentially serves as the original template for popular, dark heavy metal. Black Sabbath was more groundbreaking because it was the debut, but Paranoid produced at least seven canonized heavy metal classics that are just as meaningful, dark, and influential today as they were in 1970. If it’s so important to heavy metal and if I’ve declared Black Sabbath as a band that’s critically important to my music library, then why does Paranoid “only” peak at #81? Unfortunately, no matter how much I absorbed Black Sabbath’s music, it will always be historical rather than something I lived through. Sure, many of the songs on Paranoid and other Black Sabbath albums go straight to my heart and get me headbanging with fury. But my first exposure to Paranoid was through many of the overplayed songs on 94K Rock in the early 1990s. Like hearing Iron Maiden or Dio, Paranoid sounded old - like dinosaur metal. “War Pigs” always lumbered along with some sense of mystery and magic but eventually grew tiring on the umpteenth listen. I did always enjoy “Paranoid” and “Iron Man,” but more like how I enjoyed “Number of the Beast,” “Man on the Silver Mountain,” or “Dream On.” Great classic stuff, but dated and not of my generation. It was only until I began exploring rock history and the catalogs of important bands that I listened to Paranoid in its entirety. I found that I knew pretty much all of the songs and realized that 94K Rock must have slipped in songs like “Fairies Wear Boots” into their playlists more than I’d remembered. Listening to Paranoid’s songs all in a row turned it into a different experience. Suddenly, there was sustained mystery, a dark aura, highs and lows, and absolutely brutal riffs. I learned here that Black Sabbath took sudden, random left turns and seemed like they had complete ADD. Songs might take radical turns so that they sounded like different songs...and then go back to the original riff with no subtlety or warning. Most importantly, I sensed through all of the rough sound and amateur playing that a people’s band emerged that had tapped into a completely new area of music. Led Zeppelin may have already released two or three albums by this point, but they had a sexiness and majesty that made them seem like gods not of this Earth. On Paranoid, Black Sabbath sounds like a people’s band. Even in the late 1990s, I found that the songs on Paranoid struck a nerve. They were angry, intoxicating, heavy, and addictive, cutting through any blues or depression I felt. And better than any other Sabbath album, Paranoid remains the most focused with the best songs. I swear there is something otherworldly going on here, as the songs have a strange atmosphere that I can’t quite explain. They add up to one of the most influential albums in my life and one of the best heavy metal albums ever.

"War Pigs" begins with one of the most famous, gloomiest heavy metal riffs ever. The sirens add to the feeling of menace, and the spare verses are brilliant. I pause when Bill Ward plays those soft hi-hat notes, counting them as Ozzy sings over them with his howling, terrifying voice. Tony Iommi essentially creates modern dark heavy metal with his riffs, and the almost eight minutes allows the band to stretch out fully. Yet, they never sound progressive. Instead, the song builds power just through repetition of the same heavy riffs. As a counterpoint, we have the brief, catchy, famous single “Paranoid.” It’s one of the rare heavy metal classics that pretty much everyone knows and has heard a zillion times. I’ve grown tired of the song over the years, but every now and then it will catch me anew to impress me with its concise power. The band wrote it as a throwaway in less than 30 minutes - showing that they were peaking creatively at this time. For me, “Planet Caravan” shows how Black Sabbath was unlike any other hard rock or heavy metal band. Despite their heavy ferocity, they weren’t afraid to get soft and have a reflective moment. Of course, that probably meant most of their fans getting high to this song, but there is also a reassuring, peaceful feeling here - the other side of the brooding coin. I always found that songs like “Planet Caravan” expressed my sadness in the context of my anger. When the anger went away, this is how I felt - perhaps when going to sleep or sitting in my room in the dark. It’s lonely music for lonely outcasts, and just as essential to Paranoid as the heavier songs. Side one concludes with “Iron Man.” As much as I’ve heard this song over the years, I’m still stunned at its power. The riff is BRUTAL - kicking the ass of most metal bands even today. The song’s power comes from the band’s lack of subtlety. They don’t give a shit, at all, about class or credibility. They are simply playing loudly and kicking ass as hard as possible. Ward’s drumming is absolutely crushing, messy, and thundering. When I’ve drummed to this song, I’ve easily lost myself in some other world. The main riff is great enough, but when the song shifts into the overdrive tempo, things get insane. Just listen to Geezer Butler freaking out on the bass while supporting Iommi’s soloing. I am gone by this point as the band shifts back to some of the best heavy metal riffs ever created. The closing section is also awe-inspiring, with the entire band contributing 100% to this blessed noise. One of heavy metal’s - and rock music’s - most amazing moments.

Things calm down a bit on side two, but not much. In fact, it’s the same heaviness but weirder and more tortuous. "Electric Funeral" starts with a slow riff that feels like a cartoon monster chasing me down a dark alley. Ozzy and Iommi are in sync with the vocal and riff almost comically, but the lack of subtlety works. Black Sabbath often worked best when they kept the music this simple. Yet, they make a left turn, getting so frantic it sounds like they will almost lose control of the song...until they suddenly return to the original riff. “Hand of Doom” begins with a foreboding bass line from Geezer Butler while Ozzy keeps the verses relatively quiet. By contrast, the chorus is an onslaught and hints at future, darker heavy metal acts such as Judas Priest, Metallica, or Slayer. The almost separate song in the middle is brilliant, taking the song in a completely different direction. Iommi’s guitar tone is awesome and Ward propels the song along nicely. The lyrics are quite penetrating, talking about drug use with Vietnam veterans - a topic that many other artists wouldn’t touch until decades down the line. While it’s not my favorite song on Paranoid, “Hand of Doom” is probably the most pioneering and forward-looking. “Rat Salad” is the one non-classic on Paranoid, sort of like Black Sabbath’s version of “Moby Dick.” I remember once playing this for my friend Vinnie back in the late 1990s. As a burgeoning jazz drummer, he felt this song was a disgrace to all drummers and that it was a shame that something like this could become so famous while many other talented musicians suffer in obscurity. Sure, “Rat Salad” is not a dose of drumming genius. Yet, it has a ballsy, punk-like element to it. In other words, you don’t need to get technically trained in college to drum. Just fucking play, and mean it. “Rat Salad” actually ended up inspiring my own drumming when I’d practice in my parents’ basement or jam with my friend Adam. Paranoid closes out with the masterpiece “Fairies Wear Boots.” There is something mystical and magical in the way the song opens. Throughout its six minutes, we’re always guessing as to what the band will play. It’s like a crazed blues song, shifting moods and tempos quite randomly. The lyrics and vocals are inspired - at turns silly, menacing, and fantastical. The perfect closer to a masterpiece album. Other Black Sabbath albums have great moments and three others made it into the Top 200. But only Paranoid fires on all cylinders while helping pioneer the genre of heavy metal and remaining relevant 45 years later. I felt the power of these songs when I heard a brilliant cover band performing many of them at Bonnaroo in 2015. They still sounded fiery and relevant for a new generation of listeners. Perhaps Paranoid sounded amateurish when it came out, but these songs have become as eternal and important to me and generations of heavy metal fans as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and John Lee Hooker became to early rock and rollers. This is music that will never die, and it will always bring out the eternal adolescent in me.

82: Something/Anything? - Todd Rundgren (1972)

Inside the Something/Anything? album sleeve, there is a picture of Todd Rundgren standing on a coffee table, arms raised, fingers making peace signs, and facing a curtained set of windows blocking out bright sunlight. Strangely, this room looks a lot like my College Towers living room area during the August 2001 to May 2002 period when I lived in this apartment complex in Kent, Ohio as I finished grad school. It’s appropriate because I listened to Something/Anything? a great deal during my 24th year as my schooling ended in an explosion of creative ideas, a desire to abandon academia, a lingering master’s thesis that almost became impossible for me to complete, a miserable set of students during my final semester, a depression begun with my failed Jenny Lewis meeting in August 2001, and a pining to visit my friend Todd in Colorado for his wedding in July 2002. During this last year of schooling - my last year since starting preschool in 1981 - I was a supernova of repressed creativity trying to maneuver this energy through the shoals of tedious 80+ hour weeks. Something/Anything? felt like my prolific creativity, rabid energy, and limitless potential during this year. Its songs indeed suggested that I, too, could do something, anything! Indeed, it was during my third year of grad school that I actually compiled my past writings and called it Potential while also developing the ideas of a supernatural espionage story that I would write for most of the 2000s. Similarly, 1972 found Todd Rundgren at a point when he felt like he could do anything. The variety of songs on this double album is stunning, with nary a weak spot. In a way, Something/Anything? is frustrating because Rundgren made pop songwriting look easy - almost too easy - as if he had mastered it and now had the freedom to make obscure, difficult music the rest of his life. He creates Carole King-style soft rock, power pop, gauzy ballads, art rock, all out rockers, and funny songs. If I had discovered the album in isolation, it would have maybe gotten into the 100s or 200s. However, it acquires greater emotional poignancy because it overlaps with my parents’ music. Something/Anything? sat in their record collection for many years until AllMusic pointed me to it. I actually listened to the album on vinyl first and was blown away. I realized I had actually heard “I Saw the Light” and “Hello, It’s Me” at some point in the past, as they sounded just as familiar as a James Taylor or Carole King song. And there’s something mystical and magical about Something/Anything? - pushing it far into the Top 100 - that reminds me of what it might have felt like for my parents bumming around Utica as 20 year olds in 1972. The songs ooze with the feeling of that year, capturing a magical time in music and culture like a snapshot. Maybe Rundgren ran from this album for the rest of his life, but it’s not only his best album by far but also a defining album of the early 1970s - as much as Tapestry or Sweet Baby James.

“I Saw the Light” begins Something/Anything? with one of the most definitive songs of the early 1970s and one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s...just...perfect. As if Carole King were male, Rundgren sings gently and with a bit of a wink. The melody and atmosphere sound like 1972, as if Rundgren took a snapshot with this song. Whenever I hear the song, I feel like my parents have this album on or are listening to MOR radio in the late 1970s or early 1980s. "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference" is in the same mode although more laidback. It’s just a beautiful soft rock song with a lovely melody. "Wolfman Jack" switches things up by rocking out like all hell. It’s an intoxicating tribute not only to the legendary DJ Wolfman Jack but also the freewheeling role of fringe DJs in popularizing much of the most vital music of the 1960s. "Cold Morning Light" is rather convoluted and never generates momentum. Yet, it’s still intriguing, especially that moment when Rundgren lets the line “But in the cold morning light...I...see…” hang for a beautiful few seconds. "It Takes Two to Tango (This Is for the Girls)" seems purposely difficult and complex despite the simple lyrics. Even when Rundgren gets a little whimsical, the melody is still so strong. “Sweeter Memories” ends side one with one of Rundgren’s most underrated tracks. Its atmosphere, slow pace, and guitar work all make me think of some imaginary late evening in the early 1970s as I’m staring out a window or driving somewhere, mulling my life over. Side two’s "Intro" is strangely aimless and pointless. Rundgren could have been a lot more focused and humorous here if he wanted. But "Breathless" is a prog rock-like instrumental that reminds me of the middle section of Rush’s “YYZ” that would come almost 10 years later. Parts of the song foreshadow Rundgren’s stupid brainless songs like “Bang on the Drum All Day” but other parts feature some of the most magical keyboards I’ve ever heard on album. For me, these sounds evoke my College Towers days as I worked on grad school work into the night. I’d stare out my windows, watching birds ascend on my patio railings and dip their beaks in little pools of water left behind by melting snow. Lazy days during which it felt like grad school would never end. "The Night the Carousel Burned Down" again has a beautiful melody but at times loses my interest - balancing on the boundary between pleasant and aimless. The carousel sounds gets annoying after repeated listens. "Saving Grace" almost starts to get a little samey - a rare moment when Rundgren’s prolific output looks a little facile. He speeds up and slows down the song’s great melody, and I’m reminded of an artist like Phil Collins in the 1980s who mastered pop songwriting so well that he could get lazy about it. However, "Marlene" makes up for it. It reminds me of songs on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness toward the end of the second side that capture adolescent crushes perfectly. Because I began to look back at adolescence a lot during my final year of grad school, this song struck a nerve as I remember past crushes and wondered where the time went. Parts of the song also sound like Stevie Wonder’s work on Talking Book, showing Rundgren’s knowledge of current production techniques circa 1972. Rundgren somehow pulls off "Song of the Viking,” making it sound both like the atmosphere of his other pleasant 1972 songs and also like a Monty Python skit given a great soundtrack. "I Went to the Mirror" ends side two on a strange note. He begins the song sounding like Chris Cornell about 15 years before Soundgarden came into existence. It’s got a startling, grungy sound that turns sillier and more chaotic as the song goes on. As Rundgren experimented, he hinted at future musical sounds that would become popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

The second half of this double album begins with the interesting "Black Maria," sitting somewhere between hard and soft rock. It’s got a great spare groove and riff, sounding like a dingy hard rock band out of a bar in the early 1970s. "One More Day (No Word)" builds on a simple, bouncy riff that sounds like something preprogrammed on a Casio but Rundgren again saves the slight nature of the song with a great melody and emotional delivery. With "Couldn't I Just Tell You," I concur with most critics that this is one of the most definitive power pop songs - up there with bands like Big Star or early Cheap Trick. As upbeat as it is, it’s got a slight melancholy feel that gives the song extra emotional punch and depth. It feels a lot like my ups and downs about life at 24 - getting through the present by looking forward to the future. “Torch Song” almost rivals “Marlene” in beauty. It feels like looking back on a bygone era, similar to how I looked back on adolescence and my waning days of college in early 2002. The song takes me back to winter days in Kent turning to spring as I often just got through another day. "Little Red Lights" ends side three with an odd Jimi Hendrix tribute. Rundgren again accidentally foreshadows 1990s music when his vocals sound a hell of a lot like Layne Staley. The song veers around a lot, sometimes picking up speed, sometimes sounding like Hendrix, and sometimes sounding like grunge. The almost five minutes give Rundgren some room to have a guitar workout and looks ahead to his work with Utopia. While we’ve had many bizarre moments so far on Something/Anything?, nothing prepares us for side four. Suddenly, we’re live in the studio with Rundgren and A-list studio musicians playing some new songs Neil Young-style after barely any rehearsal. For some reason, Rundgren opens up with two bad recordings of him playing in early bands before starting with the song “Dust in the Wind” (no relation to the Kansas song!). It’s beautiful, rich, and sad, building up into a gospel-like flourish by the end. Here, the extra vocals (especially the female vocals) really help the song. “Piss Aaron" and "You Left Me Sore" border on losing me, but again somehow Rundgren rescues these moments with compelling melodies. However, Rundgren is clearly getting sillier on this fourth side - but that’s forgivable after three other brilliant sides. "Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me" and "Slut" are less silly but still retain elements of silliness. The former is probably my least favorite song on the album. Rundgren’s vocals are a bit strained and harsh here. “Slut” kicks way more ass as a sleek, loose hard rocker with un-PC lyrics by today’s standards. It’s a fun song in the truest sense, resting on the music more than the lyrics. I left “Hello, It's Me” for last. While “I Saw the Light” magically evokes the early 1970s, “Hello, It’s Me” does it 10 times better. Every second of the song evokes a specific moment in time. For some reason, I imagine myself in two different eras - one imagined, one real. I imagine my parents in Utica in 1972 - what the buildings and flavor of downtown felt like, what the bars felt and sounded like, and what aging Baby Boomers looked like when they were teenagers or in their early 20s. And I think of my own life at Utica College with people as late teenagers and in their early 20s in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This song captures the flavor of being that age - living in the moments, realizing only too late that little flashes of brief memories now are gold - visiting my friend Aurora in an apartment during a brief time she lived in Utica, driving with friends to the Uptown Theater to watch a movie, wandering the Utica College campus in search of my morning’s Green Mountain coffee, or trudging through the snow on the Kent State University campus for the umpteenth time back and forth from College Towers to Satterfield Hall. Overall, Something/Anything? is a soundtrack for an idyllic early 1970s and my own idyllic late 1990s and early 2000s. This nostalgia, prolific creativity, and future ambition all roiled together during that last year of grad school when I almost went crazy from social isolation and delusion. Something/Anything? perfectly captures that psychological crossroads of past, present, and future at age 24 - when my mental input and output was so youthfully intoxicating that I almost couldn’t stand it.

83: New Moon Shine - James Taylor (1991)

Despite going platinum in the early 1990s, New Moon Shine gets overlooked in James Taylor’s catalog nowadays. It was the first album that showed a return to substantial art after a spotty 1980s track record. In 1991, people bought New Moon Shine from loyalty but didn’t really pay much attention to the songs - as seen by James Taylor’s 1993 Live quickly overshadowing New Moon Shine and 1997’s Hourglass becoming his critical return to the spotlight. However, New Moon Shine features some of James Taylor’s most touching, deep, and sad songs that confront profound topics. Plus, this album holds extra nostalgia for me because it came out in the early 1990s when a few key things happened. One, my friend Jon reintroduced me to James Taylor from a completely different perspective. He let me borrow New Moon Shine and it was a rare non-hard rock or heavy metal foray into my parents’ music. Two, New Moon Shine represented the feel of home with my parents in the early 1990s - laid back and quiet as opposed to my volatile adolescence and high school existence. It was the sound of Baby Boomers in their early 40s. And three, I was looking for songs that captured the sadness of adolescence, no matter what genre. New Moon Shine made more sense once I got into bands like Extreme, Counting Crows, and Cranberries. I didn’t always need Nine Inch Nails or Alice in Chains to wallow in sorrow. All taken together, New Moon Shine captures the multifaceted flavor and feel of the early 1990s from a different point of view compared to my heavy metal revolution. The album connected my parents’ music with my high school music and offered some of the first continuity between 1970s artists and my 1990s life. As time marches on, I find many of the songs make me cry - which is a huge reason why this “average” James Taylor album made it to #83. Songs like “Copperline,” “Shed a Little Light,” “Like Everyone She Knows,” and “The Water is Wide” make more sense as I get older. I, too, now think about happy times when I was younger, desire true peace among humankind, feel empathy for those who haven’t entered a long-term relationship at a late age, and contemplate a life well lived when it eventually comes to a close. Taylor hits upon all of these themes on New Moon Shine, and while some of the songs may sound a little corny or dated they don’t detract from the power of the few songs that never fail to bring genuine tears to my eyes.

Just listen to the opening of “Copperline.” We take James Taylor for granted. In any era he produced music, no one else can sound like this. His refrain “down on Copperline” is sung with such beauty and aching nostalgia, and the musical arrangement evokes some ideal semirural setting with wood smoke, moonshine, and first kisses. Poet Reynolds Price wrote the lyrics, and they are beautifully brought to life by Taylor. We feel like we’re remembering our own pasts through these details, and I recall my slower paced youth growing up in Sauquoit, New York. Like a great Hemingway story, we get details like his daddy dancing and the pain of not being able to go back home when things change too much (“all spec house and plywood”). It’s a past we cannot return to, and I feel the happy memories of my own past and the pain of so many years having passed. I give Taylor credit for writing “Down in a Hole.” A lot of it feels more experimental than usual and he addresses darker subject matter that he normally avoids or covers up with happier music. It does have a 1950s doo wop breakdown in the middle but eventually returns to its brooding. "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' 'Bout That" is the hit to please casual fans and adult contemporary radio circa 1991. It’s not bad and has a good drive, but it’s the kind of happy, cliche, upbeat song that the most popular aging adult contemporary artists produced around this time. On paper, “Shed a Little Light” looks like it shouldn’t work. The whitest of white singer-songwriters singing a gospel-inflected song about Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet, it works - and so beautifully. The opening a capella section often brings tears to my eyes. The blend of male and female vocals is just gorgeous. Once it kicks into the main part of the song, it sounds a little dated like early 1990s adult contemporary radio. Yet, the song itself is strong and pays off. It may fall short of becoming an anthem, but it remains a rousing, emotional high point of Taylor’s concerts today. “The Frozen Man” might actually be James Taylor’s deepest song since the days of Walking Man. The subject matter is utterly unique for popular singer-songwriters. He sings about a frozen man brought back to life about 100 years after he died and that it would be worse to be brought back to life. Taylor raises the age-old philosophical issue of whether it’s better to live forever or to just die, given more focus at the time because of new technological possibilities. He doesn’t mince words when he sings, “See here, when I die make sure I’m gone. Don’t leave them nothing to work on.” One of Taylor’s most thought-provoking moments.

Again, on paper “Slap Leather” doesn’t seem like it should work. Yet, it’s a musical homage to 1950s rock and roll while using Dylan-like stream of consciousness lyrics to rant eloquently about society circa 1991. The lyrics are still relevant today, hinting at our reality show, celebrity-obsessed culture. “Like Everyone She Knows” is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard in my life. The opening acoustic introduction alone can make me cry and features some of Taylor’s best guitar playing. Then, the lyrics. It’s a rare song about someone who isn’t necessarily wallowing in depression but certainly feels the weight of years while remaining romantically alone. Even though the song is about a woman, I completely relate to the lyrics. It’s really about adult depression. What’s the good of going on anymore? Maybe I should just leave the city and go back home? Just that feeling of being alone and wondering in the solitude of my apartment why I haven’t found someone. Then...Taylor gives an inspiring payoff. Wait it out. It’ll come along. In other words, despite the sadness, don’t give up and don’t get desperate. No truer words, and ones I hear in many inspirational spiritual texts. This song grows in stature as I get older and I’ve wept to it so many times over the course of my life. “One More Go Round” gives me goosebumps because it evokes the feeling of the early 1990s so well. It’s music playing at my parents’ home on some gloomy Upstate New York evening, perfectly capturing this time period with its clean, polished, tasty musical arrangement. "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha" is pleasant but unnecessary. Taylor turns it into pleasant early 1990s adult contemporary fodder but he adds nothing to Sam Cooke’s original. “Native Son” sounds like an above average outtake from Never Die Young. It hints at PTSD long before it became a national topic, supported by dignified, gentle, compassionate music. “Oh Brother” also feels like a Never Die Young outtake (and even mentions the phrase “never die young.”) The song reverts back to Taylor’s lighter 1980s fare and doesn’t quite carry the weight of the best New Moon Shine songs despite a well-crafted arrangement. And then...we come to “The Water Is Wide.” I have to be careful listening to this song because its emotional impact is always so heavy. Even as recently as a few days ago, I listened to this song in a Comfort Inn in Greencastle, Pennsylvania on my way back home after a beautiful vacation spent at my parents’ home seeing family and friends. I thought about the recent memories still aglow in my mind, time gone across the decades, and the pain of getting older. The Scottish lyrics go back to the 17th century and strike a raw nerve with Taylor’s beautiful voice and acoustic arrangement. The song evokes my childhood, those early 1990s days, and all of the days that have passed since. I think of an ideal love, or maybe the relationships and marriages that I see amongst my friends and family. Like Avalon or the Gray Havens, there is the idea of two lovers eventually dying and going somewhere to be together forever. I had several moments during my recent vacation when I saw friends and family members stressed, overworked, and exhausted by adult cares. I thought of them - like it was just yesterday - when they were young, with limitless childlike or adolescent energy, full of zany wit and hilarity. Now, they were getting up early, working hard jobs, and barely holding it together to relax in the little bit of offtime they had. Although Taylor sings of love here, I also feel him singing about life:

O love is handsome and love is fine
the sweetest flower when first it's new
but love grows old and waxes cold
and fades away like summer dew.

And so this is what happens to all of our lives. New Moon Shine got released when James Taylor was 43. It’s definitely an album for one’s early 40s, and I sense that it will continue to grow in meaning as I approach that age. The best songs unapologetically reflect on the past with biting, painful, and yet joyous nostalgia. They also give hope despite personal and societal setbacks. Even the lesser songs capture the flavor of those early 1990s days when I felt safe in my little Sauquoit bubble at my parents’ house, with music like this playing in the background. There comes a point when you’ve stopped chasing musical trends and you instead focus on what is spiritually real and meaningful. I came back from my recent vacation transformed in some unexplainable way, simply by sticking close to family and friends, observing the best parts of their lives, and noting that I need to simplify, create a beautiful living space, and pour myself into a few meaningful relationships. New Moon Shine finds life once again by continuing to serve as a relevant soundtrack as I get older and pay less attention to the rat race and social media chatter.

84: Some Great Reward - Depeche Mode (1984)

Most casual Depeche Mode fans typically like the band’s two most well-known albums - Music for the Masses and Violator - along with maybe picking up some greatest hit compilations and a few 1990s albums post-Violator. However, I find that 1984’s Some Great Reward blows away even other classic Depeche Mode albums with its pioneering music, influence, and captivation. A few years ago, I stumbled on Some Great Reward in an academic way as I familiarized myself with Depeche Mode’s discography beyond the obvious albums. I expected to simply note the album and file it away, but instead I found the missing link between New Romantic electronic pop and the industrial rock popularized by Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and Ministry. And Some Great Reward clearly extends its influence into 2000s indie pop like Junior Boys, Postal Service, and School of Seven Bells. Sure, bands like the Cure were already staking out some gloomy Gothic territory with their 1980s alternative rock. But Depeche Mode broke ground by taking bleak lyrical topics like depression, avoiding any cuteness or cleverness (which I don’t tend to like in bands like the Cure or Nick Cave), and providing a cold, dark, electronic backdrop that sounds stark, Gothic, and grand. Trent Reznor later took this sound up another notch with Pretty Hate Machine, but Some Great Reward needed to come first. Unlike other Depeche Mode albums that tend to lose focus at times or throw in an unnecessary song, Some Great Reward maintains a compelling interest throughout and breaks ground with each track. It’s an album I wish I discovered in high school, but I still appreciated its mood when I listened to it only a few years ago. Depeche Mode are unapologetic in their mission and focus. Primarily, this is accessible music for depressed teenagers who want to sulk and have a mysterious band with an attractive lead singer understand them. Dave Gahan sounds both sexy and dark - rather like a Jim Morrison for the 1980s - instead of effeminate and whiny like a lot of 1980s alternative rock singers. Upon relistening to Some Great Reward to write this post, I became addicted to it all over again. A few songs threaten to lose my attention through primitive sound effects and maybe too minimal of an arrangement, but each song ends up offering something unique, grand, and magnificent to my musical library. Similar to how Genesis’s Nursery Cryme found its way into my music collection like a long lost friend, Some Great Reward eventually found a home in my Top 100 as an album that sits alongside some of the most influential albums in my life. I cannot recommend it enough.

“Something To Do” shoots out of the gates with a pre-Nine Inch Nails cold, industrial dance beat while Gahan sings of boredom and depression. The first lines out of his mouth are “My little girl won’t you come with me?” The narrator goes crazy with boredom, talks about a gray sky over a black town, and sings “I can feel depression all around.” Unlike more subtle or poppy bands, Depeche Mode attacks their keyboards like percussion and the song’s relentless tempo never lets up except during a few horribly abrupt moments. The song is exhilarating but it’s not fun or happy. “Lie to Me” chills out a bit and allows Depeche Mode to offer up warmer yet still Gothic melodies and repeated lines. The chorus feels like the ecstasy within depression, the pain that makes you feel like you’re still alive. The harmonies during the chorus are gorgeous while the electronic foundation dominates but doesn’t overwhelm the song. “People Are People” is an anomaly, the only Depeche Mode song that would hit the American Top 40 until songs from Violator. Taken separately, it’s quite a good electro pop New Wave song that predicts the sound of the Pet Shop Boys just a year later. It also helped get some American recognition for Depeche Mode early on in their career. “It Doesn’t Matter” seemed at first like a slightly boring minimal song, but it grew on me as I recognized the continuity from Bowie’s Berlin trilogy and some of Brian Eno’s experimental work. You can hear how Depeche Mode made Bowie and Eno’s work more accessible and they foreshadowed how Nine Inch Nails would also rely on the same influences to make albums like The Downward Spiral. “Stories of Old” benefits from Gahan’s vocal delivery as he pronounces phrases like “disastrous effects” with stentorian gloom. The music is a little less serious and sounds dated at times, but there are some brilliant moments here that continues the album’s mood.

Side two is uniformly strong and impressive - often startlingly so. “Somebody” is a beautiful piano ballad that offers an interesting twist at the end. However, I care less about the lyrics and more about the human feeling of the song. I admire that Depeche Mode had beautiful warm moments like these among the cold electronic pulses - similar to how we find moments of humanity and beauty within the coldness of everyday life. “Master and Servant” offers up Depeche Mode’s controversial, naughty side. In this ode to sadomasochism, “Master and Servant” features Gahan singing some stark, powerful, and almost lifeless vocals about dominance and submission. The music sounds bouncy and contrasts interestingly against Gahan’s vocals. “If You Want” teases with a long intro until it kicks into a relentless, driving techno beat. I detect song structure similarities with later industrial bands like Skinny Puppy who often used long intros to build up to the song’s aggressive payoff. “If You Want” served as an opener for Depeche Mode concerts in 1984 - for good reason. The final track owes something to Joy Division during its beginning, but its bleakness rests more in simple, cold, electronic beats rather than guitars. “Blasphemous Rumours” is a definitive Depeche Mode song that targets its teenage audience going through depression and self-harm. In this obviously melodramatic song, a 16 year old girl tries to slit her wrists, turns 18, finds Jesus Christ, and then goes on life support after a car accident. Depeche Mode directly confronts God on this song, not able to reconcile what happens to people when they cheat or don’t cheat death. If you just look at the lyrics, the song appears juvenile like bad high school poetry. The chorus is also unexpectedly bouncy but it’s the verses I find most impressive. Here, we look ahead to albums like Music for the Masses and Violator but I feel Depeche Mode outdoes their later work during these moments. The verses sound so bleak, Gothic, and hopeless, with Gahan delivering the lyrics like he’s both angry and about to cry at any moment. I feel like I’m staring at a gargoyle on top of a cathedral while comforting a sobbing woman in my arms. No other artist evokes this combination of feelings for me. Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Skinny Puppy all have too much macho aggression while early 1980s electronic pop artists stayed too light and harmless. Some Great Reward ends on this grand note - the ninth of nine songs that only in hindsight carved out an entirely new subgenre of music that would bear more fruition in the late 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. It blows away every other Depeche Mode album and, I feel, stands as their greatest, most accessible, and most pioneering work.

85: Forever Your Girl - Paula Abdul (1988)

One of the strangest times in my life took place between sixth and eighth grade. At a time when I quickly realized I was not attractive to girls, outcast, and ostracized from popular kids, I also became the most “normal” I’ve been in my entire life. I stopped obsessively listening to Top 40 music and actually became disinterested in most music from 1988 to 1990. It didn’t help that most Top 40 music switched to raunchy hair metal, R&B, and early hip-hop that didn’t relate to my 11-13 year old mindset. I collected baseball cards, became a part of the sixth grade All County band on trumpet, and got into Nintendo. These were the days when my interests seemed to coincide with the mainstream, and I had a crush on the most beautiful and normal of girls. She was in All County with me and stole my heart. However, this normalcy also created the foundation of my later high school depression and rebellion. Despite knowing immense amounts of trivia about baseball teams, hanging out with some of the most popular honors students, and riding Nintendo’s peak during the era of Super Mario Brothers 3 (even impressing my seventh grade math class that I had beaten the game), my peers never quite accepted me. Seventh grade especially made that apparent. In sixth grade, I felt we were all still kids to a degree as we finished out at the same elementary school where I had gone to kindergarten. In seventh grade, we got shuttled over to a new building in Chadwicks, received a period-to-period class schedule, and grew up fast. Suddenly, everyone around me dated, looked forward to dances, and wore better clothes to look good. I dropped behind. I had no idea what happened, still clinging to my baseball cards and Nintendo and wondering how in hell something like dating could even happen. It became clear in my classes that I was considered ugly, socially awkward, and a “nerd.” This hurt me immensely, especially as people compared me to Paul from The Wonder Years. In sixth grade, I had to watch the most popular guy in my class start going out with the girl I liked. After I found out, I remember thinking to myself in bitter pain, “Oh...why would I have even thought that she would want to go out with me?” That relationship continued into seventh grade where it made more sense. Popular, attractive people got to go out with each other. People like me were Paul - relegated to the sidelines as comic relief, the butt of jokes, and unimportant. I was a stock character, not a full-fledged human being. It was during seventh grade when I began to withdraw and go silent instead of playing the role that people wanted. I got angry when I watched TV shows like The Wonder Years and Full House, seeing how society wanted to pin me down as the “nerd” character. Seventh grade thus became one of my loneliest years - a time when, no matter how “normal” I became, my attempts at socializing with my peers didn’t matter. The sequel to this tale gets picked up in other essays, but Forever Your Girl focuses here on sixth and (especially) seventh grade.

During this 1988-1990 musical dry spell, an exception was Paula Abdul. The songs on Forever Your Girl represent a time when despite my frustrations and depression about school, I desired an ideal. That ideal included my crush liking me back, the popular kids hanging out with me (like at All County), and going to dances. But none of that happened. Yet, Paula Abdul’s songs evoked an ideal dance, party, talent show, or band hangout where I was liked, accepted, and having fun - just like everyone else. Unlike most other Top 40 hits, Paula Abdul’s songs always had an innocence to them despite the cutting-edge New Jack Swing feel. On her MTV videos, her dancing and natural charisma won me over. She wasn’t a supermodel - she looked like a pretty woman who I might see at the mall or who might be one of my teachers. While her voice wasn’t powerful and technically skilled, it was charismatic and cute. The entire package was appealing, fun, and endlessly relistenable. Abdul’s videos for “Straight Up,” “Forever Your Girl,” “Cold Hearted,” and “Opposites Attract” all got endlessly played on MTV and radio - for good reason. “Straight Up” was my introduction to Paula Abdul and I still remember catching this video on MTV in the living room with my family. The black and white visuals made Abdul seem mysterious and heightened her dance moves. With its spartan beat and staccato notes, the song itself benefited from Abdul’s light, wispy vocals. Catchy as hell, it won people over without going into the gutter or using gimmicks. It was just a damn good pop song circa early 1989. “Forever Your Girl” is even better and perfectly encapsulates my crush in late sixth grade, capturing my pre-junior high innocence. The song feels like sixth grade love and completely dates itself to 1989 with its beats, sax, and production. When I hear the song today, it takes me right back to those spring days leading into summer, when despite the popular guy going out with my crush I still felt the 12-year old pleasure of that intense affection. “Cold Hearted Slave” hit #1 around the time I started seventh grade, and it was appropriate. While it’s in no way a risque song, the video felt like the barrage of starting seventh grade and feeling like how everything around me seemed sexualized. Again, it’s a spartan, direct song but this time with a mean, aggressive feel that was refreshing to hear on Top 40 radio. Abdul’s peak occurred with “Opposites Attract,” one of my favorite songs and videos of 1990. This song represents a last desire for normalcy in mid-1990 before The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons began to lay the foundation for my high school rebellion. In the video, Abdul looked so stunningly pretty and the entire song evoked an ideal (but unsubstantial) junior high romance that I wanted to experience with my crush. Before the doom and gloom of high school emerged and the bullying and ostracization began to weigh on me, I actually felt like the song “Opposites Attract” during the peak Nintendo days of Super Mario Brothers 3.

Four songs representing this junior high era wouldn’t be enough to make the entire Forever Your Girl album a startlingly high #85. The rest of the album extends the feelings these four songs give me and also represent the best sounds and styles of this rough 1988-1990 era. “The Way That You Love Me” is a great illustration of how overproduction tended to mar otherwise solid pop songs. The beats and sound effects dominate, although Abdul delivers her vocals with enough humanity to penetrate through like sunshine. “Knocked Out” is arguably better than even the four smashes and only made it to #41. That’s a shame because it’s got one of the greatest, sugary choruses of the late 1980s. I close my eyes and I’m playing Nintendo or walking the hallways of seventh grade, maneuvering through my strange new environment. “State of Attraction” reminds me a lot of Madonna but mixes up her style with riff-heavy guitars and hard beats. Maybe it’s not as good as the other songs, but again it’s so of its time. The chorus especially evokes 1989 with its chords and production. “I Need You” is more generic but still represents effervescent pop of that era - the kind of songs that remind me of shows like Full House or what you might hear in the background of a junior high dance. “Next to You” is a bit of a throwback to early- to mid-1980s pop songs like what you’d find on Michael Jackson’s Thriller or on Top 40 radio circa 1985. I miss these kinds of lush, overproduced 1980s ballads with their innocence and lack of cynicism. The album ends with the respectable if undistinguished “One or the Other.” It’s my least favorite song on the album but still evokes seventh grade and the soundtrack of those days. Overall, Forever Your Girl serves as a time capsule, viscerally taking me back to the days when I painfully transitioned from elementary school to junior high. Forever Your Girl represents the ideal junior high school experience that I imagined in my head and that never came to fruition. Today, Abdul’s songs sound innocent and silly - as they should. This is a phase I outgrew along with many other crucial yet disposable stages that led me toward the road to adulthood. However, I’m glad that more than 25 years later every song on Forever Your Girl feels magical - as if I’m playing Super Mario Brothers 3 or watching The Wizard. Despite depression and a realization that I didn’t fit in, I still experienced some hope in sixth grade that eventually got crushed out in seventh grade. Forever Your Girl - with its innocence, conscious aversion to raunchy lyrics, and pure surface fun - is the soundtrack of my pre-teen ideals, dreams, and desires to fit in before they died.

86: Avalon - Roxy Music (1982)

Avalon is a strange, delightful surprise in my Top 100. While I had known about and liked Roxy Music for many years starting in the late 1990s, I didn’t necessarily consider them as one of my top of mind bands. Two of Roxy Music’s classic 1970s albums, Siren (#288) and Country Life (#359), made it onto my Top 500 but not in any dominant way. Then, out of nowhere, Avalon became a sleeper hit in my music collection. Critics often ranked it five stars, so I had collected it at some point among Roxy Music’s other classic albums. I was underwhelmed the first few times I heard it. It seemed nebulous, wispy, and ended too quickly. But then...I returned to it over and over. Avalon kept intriguing me, as if it changed every time I listened to it. Sometimes, it felt like slinky, cheesy lounge pop. Sometimes, it felt like the death of early 1980s smooth music. Sometimes, it felt like art rock taken to its logical conclusion, a last significant gasp of the original Roxy Music sound. And sometimes, it felt like New Romantic music in the style of the most sophisticated Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, or ABC songs. Yet, all and none of these feelings quite describes Avalon. The music floats in and out of my life with the mystery of Avalon itself, captured by the album’s cover. Despite being released in 1982, Avalon is a rare, adult album that has come into prominence in my life just over the last two or three years. It especially reflects my life from 2014 to the present as I’ve settled into a peaceful, urban, and cultured existence full of fiction, music, business, socializing, traveling, and spirituality that now comprises and enhances my life. Turmoil still exists under the surface, as there are moments on Avalon that feel like subtle echoes of Roxy Music’s earlier agitation and frenzy. Yet, like my own life, these are old aspects of my personality that remain within me but don’t rule or dominate anymore. They inform my current personality, reminding me that I came from a darker place but that I’ve arrived at some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Overall, Avalon feels like most days in 2014 or 2015 - staring out at Atlanta’s skyline from my balcony, attending the occasional networking event or visiting a client, working on writing for myself or work, and sitting with a beer on the weekend with a friend in some Atlanta neighborhood. Avalon also holds the promise of romance. While I’ve largely given up on romance and dating, perhaps an adult version of something that I’ve long thought dead may reawaken soon. In that sense, Avalon also gives me hope - realistic, adult hope.

“More Than This” beautifully opens up the album with Bryan Ferry’s aching voice and Roxy Music at its most musically peaceful. When I first heard it, the song’s title seemed to both promise and withhold that there was indeed “more than this.” The song feels like I’m already looking back over various peak moments of my youth, noting that things were “fun for a while.” For such a seemingly complacent song, it offers me a feeling of settling some debts with my past as if I had just gotten past some serious rapids and I’m now looking back over the calm of the peaceful lake where I’m now drifting. “The Space Between” gets darker and more abstruse, detailing the “space between” that separates two people in a relationship. It’s stylish like a Sade song yet serpentine and complex like pure art rock. It captures a shadowy, hard to pin down feeling about my own identity that represents how I see myself nowadays - especially as my own identity is often elusive to myself. The title track perfectly represents two simultaneous feelings - sadness that the party is over but a promise of magic still to come. Bryan Ferry packs more emotion into the first line than most singers pack into a full song: “Now the party's over, I'm so tired…” That’s pretty much how I’ve felt in the past two years after expending so much energy during the first 10 years of my Atlanta career. However, the rest of the song details the promise of magic to come - in what turns into a GQ version of “Box of Rain.” After the verses and choruses are over, the “Avalon” refrain settles into one of the most beautiful musical passages that I’ve heard in the rock era. I close my eyes and imagine myself ballroom dancing with a beautiful woman at my current age - to create happiness in the moment for both of us rather than fulfill some unrealistic lifelong Disney fantasy. This is where Avalon has the most impact on me. It tells me that while my illusions may be dashed and eradicated, and while my career may have settled into a complacent groove, that doesn’t mean that my youthful desire for magic has disappeared. It’s just changed through the years - and I need to create that magic in moments rather than fantasize about some abstract destiny waiting to meet me.

The rest of the album maintains a stunning quality even after these three initial masterpieces. Instrumentals like “India” and “Tara” are interesting as well as serving as transitions and closers. “While My Heart Is Still Beating” features some of Ferry’s most expressive vocals, shaming David Bowie’s attempts at agonized romantic music. Unlike a more superficial album by Roxy Music’s imitators, Ferry uses this aching, moody song to question everything and ask where’s it all leading. Old school Roxy Music may have disappeared but the art rock saxophones still weave their way into these smooth songs to add a bit of dissent and intrigue. “The Main Thing” contains a subtle, dark electronic pulse and more of Ferry’s haunting vocals. This is where Roxy Music’s crazy background helps give Ferry a wide emotional vocabulary to help nail the song. The music is wild, with the female voices and saxophone creating an atmosphere of late night bar-hopping in some sophisticated city. “Take a Chance with Me” opens up with a snarled, tortuous intro like many 1970s Roxy Music songs before entering into a mostly normal, pleasant pop song that is shocking in its straight-forwardness (although slight Roxy Music touches creep in like mist). “To Turn You On” is again more straight-forward and the lyrics evoke the feel of wandering around a city at night with someone you’re romancing and pining for. Ferry again vocally squeezes the most out of the lyrics. There’s a feeling of adult desperation here. He’s not out of control, but he’s certainly still got feelings. “True to Life” is my least favorite song on the album but it’s still intriguing and arty. From my vantage point in 2015 looking into 2016, Avalon is a rare Top 100 album that perfectly represents my mentality now. Many other album posts talk about adolescent turmoil or young adult struggles, but Avalon is late 30s music that reflects upon getting past my volatile early years and wondering what’s next in my life. Clearly, life is not over, but reaching 40 means a lot of adventures have already gone under the bridge. During this time in my life when people grow more conventional, worrying, negative, and petty, Avalon reminds me to stick with the dreamers - the ones who made it to Avalon like me - who similarly find themselves beaten up, illusions stripped, but still awed, intrigued, and curious about the magic and mystery of life despite society’s self-absorption, negativity, and cynicism that surrounds them similar to how armies surrounded castles back in the days of King Arthur, eventually driving him to Avalon.

87: Pretzel Logic - Steely Dan (1974)

Steely Dan is one of my favorite bands of all time. Not surprisingly, they’ve been barely represented so far. Can’t Buy a Thrill made it to #246 while the less impressive Countdown to Ecstasy only ranked at #402. Because I often listened to the entire 1972-1980 Steely Dan albums as a Friday ritual during the 2000s in both grad school and at my first job, I developed a particular anticipation and liking for each album as the band evolved. For all of Steely Dan’s current stature, they started out slightly wobbly. Can’t Buy a Thrill was not representative of where Steely Dan’s sound would end up. While it had definitive classic rock songs such as “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ in the Years,” the overall sound felt like a band that hadn’t gelled and even featured vocals from someone who was not Donald Fagan. Countdown to Ecstasy then would play, and I grew slightly disappointed for a spell. There were some great songs and Steely Dan finally began to gel a bit, but the overall mood and tone was colorless and bitter with only some occasional beautiful moments for respite. And then...we came to Pretzel Logic. THIS is the first glimpse of the Steely Dan that we all know and love. Something happened here to help Steely Dan transcend the first two albums and create a sound so unique that no one has bothered to ever imitate it. Pretzel Logic introduces everything about Steely Dan that places most of their albums in my Top 100. Lush, jazzy, bluesy, snide, clever, and full of a stylish, urban attitude that still places Steely Dan in the realm of outcasts. In high school, I felt like an outcast but listened to music that made me feel like I belonged. In the 2000s, Steely Dan felt like outcast music in the true sense. Despite Steely Dan’s massive popularity, they appeal to their hardcore fans through this stylish sense of embracing the feeling of not belonging. As Donald Fagan often describes in interviews, their music was a combination of rock, jazz, blues, R&B, and science fiction. I especially related to this purposefully strange blend during grad school and my first job in Atlanta as I realized my interests grew so eclectic that I had trouble becoming a joiner. I felt uncomfortable around writers, young professionals, fantasy and science fiction fans at DragonCon, or social media enthusiasts. Narrowing my focus into a particular area appealed to me less and less, and that was the key reason I left grad school. Pretzel Logic was the first of many Steely Dan albums that represented the true feelings of my 2000s eclectic nature. Like Steely Dan, it makes me difficult to pin down and hard for me to join any social set, but Pretzel Logic is the soundtrack of my particular kind of aesthetic especially in the mid-2000s as I navigated my way through Atlanta.

"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is the first Steely Dan hit that sounds like their definitive sound. The verses are beautiful with the spare piano, and the chorus brings in a mid-1970s classic rock rush of sound. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter nails the solo. It sounds so of its time because Baxter would later join the Doobie Brothers and give us much more soloing on many classic rock songs. In 1974, a song like "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" could actually make it to #4 on the Top 40. It’s a definitive opener but outdone by “Night by Night,” one of my favorite songs of all time. An anthem of sorts, this song helped define my attitude during the 2003-2005 period as I scrapped and survived long enough to finally feel a sense of job security and get my own apartment without a roommate. To survive and thrive during this period, I needed this kind of attitude - a day by day, night by night mentality so that the overwhelming nature of what I attempted didn’t do me in. To find a job, succeed at that job, network when I’d never networked before, travel around the state to places like Savannah, live with roommates, and make sure I had enough money to do everything didn’t mean I had to let go of a certain curious, optimistic, academic attitude about how I learned and absorbed all of my new experiences. Other people worry and obsess about the day-to-day while I kept my eye on lofty goals and a philosophic way I wanted to approach life that was equal parts Gandalf and Scott MacDonald. My attitude had to be tough and a bit callous in order to dodge the naysayers, and “Night by Night” symbolized that attitude. I plucked out lines like “when he tried to hang that sign on me I said take it down” because it felt like how people wanted to label me and pin me down - and I wouldn’t let them. "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" seems like it shouldn’t work but the song ends up as a moody, lush song about something inexplicable with lines “any minor world that breaks apart falls together again.” “Barrytown” is even better, and another of my favorite songs during the mid-2000s. It’s got a sad, nostalgic, wistful feel as I’m suddenly an observer of my own life and youth passing me by day after day. With lines such as “I like things like they used to be” and the beautiful harmonies on the bridge, the song seems to evoke a murky but nostalgic past of some sort. "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" is a ballsy way to end side one with a modern yet straightforward cover of this Duke Ellington classic going back to 1926. In case you wonder if Steely Dan’s appreciation of jazz was authentic, this dead-on cover that captures much of the playful spirit of the original should be an end to all argument.

Keeping with the classic jazz theme, side two opens up with "Parker's Band,” a rare euphoric Steely Dan song that seems to sail along on optimism and joy. Just listen to the way the drums propel the song along, especially during the verses, and how the chorus joyfully sings about Charlie Parker’s band. Steely Dan rarely sounds this happy. "Through with Buzz" is an odd 90 second song that somehow works during its short timespan. The lyrics are silly and clever, but the music crams in a lot of intriguing ideas especially with the strings that come to the forefront but never overwhelm. This transitional piece leads us into the title track which is arguably one of Steely Dan’s five best songs. Everything about "Pretzel Logic" defines Steely Dan: the bluesy verses, the gorgeous jazzy harmonies on the chorus, and the of its time yet timeless feel of the lyrics and music. Throughout the 2000s, the line “Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago” always gave me chills. I experienced reverse nostalgia, knowing as I listened to the song that it captured days gone forever as I was living them. A song like “Pretzel Logic” allowed me to slow time down in the 2000s and better appreciate each moment I lived, savoring these still youthful days during which I figured so much out about my life and identity. No second of the song is wasted. Especially listen to the guitar: its absence on the first verse, its spare but essential contribution on the second verse, and the note for note perfection of the guitar solo once it’s unleashed. There are many moments during the song that feel mysterious and timeless, like the song serves as a meta-observation on nostalgia. "With a Gun" is a short, tightly coiled song that starts out like a folk-rock Beatles song off of Help! The harmonies are beautiful, there are twists and turns aplenty, and again the song seems to showcase a happy, joyful Steely Dan getting carried along on their own momentum. "Charlie Freak" is my least favorite song on the album but still delivers the goods. It’s spare, driven by the piano and drums until some tasteful guitars add texture. We conclude with "Monkey in Your Soul,” a rare danceable Steely Dan song that delivers up a funky beat to get people on their feet (actually feeling like the beginning of a mid-1960s Rolling Stones cover of an R&B song). It’s a great example of how much variety exists on Pretzel Logic. Steely Dan once again sounds like they’re having a blast, thoroughly enjoying this moment when they discovered who they were. Once Steely Dan focused their sound on later albums, I found the payoff to be even greater than Pretzel Logic. However, Pretzel Logic is the first classic Steely Dan album that enters the cherished realm of the Top 100. It captures the feel of my early Atlanta days perfectly, Steely Dan at their most playful and fun, and the point when Steely Dan truly became Steely Dan. And even more exciting - Pretzel Logic pointed toward their next four albums, all of which built upon this album and ranked even higher in my Top 100.

88: At Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers Band (1971)

The high ranking of At Fillmore East isn’t totally surprising, but the album cracking the Top 100 is not something I would have predicted when I first started to listen to it in the early 2000s. When I first moved to Atlanta in 2003, that first year was primarily about survival. I was still my Upstate New York collegiate self making my way in Atlanta’s business world like Balki tackling Chicago in Perfect Strangers. I knew I’d turned a corner when I lasted at my first job past three issues of the magazine I edited - one more than the most “senior” previous managing editor had edited before me. So, I knew I could survive, but 2004 took me further into my new life. My experiences that year entrenched me as a member of the Atlanta business community for real. An important moment arrived when my boss and team recognized my one-year anniversary at an office party with some new hires and our departing publisher in attendance. In front of the entire room, both my boss and the departing publisher told everyone that they knew I was special and not just an average employee when “everyone” in Savannah seemed to know me. My boss had visited Savannah on a business trip, and he said that many business contacts (unsolicited) asked about me. In other words, my year of in-person and phone networking trying to get news and help promote the Georgia technology industry had paid off. I really cared about this community, and the people I contacted felt that care. This situation set me up nicely for a four-day, all expenses paid business trip to Savannah in June 2004 to interview a CIO and get a grand tour from influential members of Savannah’s economic development community. I didn’t realize that this trip would change my life and influence my entire career attitude. So what in hell does this have to do with At Fillmore East? This double live album became my soundtrack during my first and subsequent drives down to Savannah. Maybe I didn’t listen to it every single time during a trip to Savannah, but I listened to it enough times so that the album evokes my Savannah trips from beginning to end - blurring together like my own Remembrance of Things Past set of overlaid memories. The album represents how Savannah strangely helped me come into my own in Atlanta, like an unsolicited mentor who gave me the right mental preparation to meet my challenges in the bigger city. The Allman Brothers Band came out of Macon, and Macon was the middle ground between Atlanta and Savannah that marked (sort of) the halfway point. At Fillmore East feels like the South - not only the new, slightly slower, more hospitable environment where I found myself but also an array of new music strands (blues, Southern rock, country, jazz) that I would explore during my second phase of life. Yes, it’s an older, classic rock album, but At Fillmore East represented the promise and potential of my new life in Atlanta, full of adventures and learning.

Highlights are hard to discuss, as the entire album feels like one of those live performances that’s more of a two plus hour experience rather than a set of individual songs. I originally bought and preferred the Deluxe Edition of the album - which isn’t raw and ragged like the complete version or truncated like the original version. The first six songs are relatively concise blues classics turned into definitive Southern blues rock songs. “Statesboro Blues” and “Trouble No More” are solid openers. Then, “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin” starts to establish the Southern magic that my drives to Savannah evoked. There’s something about the chords during the chorus that give me chills and make me think of mysterious Southern nights driving on I-16 or hanging out at some pub in Savannah. “Done Somebody Wrong” is pure fun, representing a kind of joyous blues that I grew to like more during the 2000s as I found this kind of roots music able to both cheer me up and comfort me in despair. Jethro Tull long ago familiarized me with “Stormy Monday Blues” on 20 Years of Jethro Tull, but the Allman Brothers Band’s “Stormy Monday” is a much better and more magical version of this T-Bone Walker classic. Here, the music starts to get dreamy and less straight-ahead, more evocative of that special stew of influences that only the Allman Brothers Band could concoct. But At Fillmore East becomes At Fillmore East with the 13 minute rendition of “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Here, the Allman Brothers Band truly take off and never land again until the album is over. What can I say? Duane Allman and Dickey Betts transcend their guitar solos and ascend to heaven several times during these tried and true songs. Despite songs like “You Don’t Love Me,” “Whipping Post,” and “Mountain Jam” reaching lengths of 20, 25, and 30+ minutes, they never feel boring at any point. I am spellbound every time, listening to a band with mastery of the blues transcend that genre with jamming that is less Grateful Dead and more Miles Davis. At Fillmore East becomes a rare jam-based album that never feels like what we think of as jamming - aimless, excessive, and indulgent. Instead, I feel like we get the car warmed up with a few short blues songs and then soar onto some spiritual plane for the remainder of the album. The songs soothe and comfort while also injecting me with joy, energy, and fire. By the time At Fillmore East ends after more than two hours, I am exhausted in a good way - like the feeling of seeing it’s dawn after an all night hangout or walking back to my tent to crash in the early morning hours at a music festival.

This kind of happy exhaustion made sense back in the mid-2000s, and At Fillmore East serves as the definitive soundtrack of those days. When I relistened to the album for this post, it all came back. That initial battle to escape Atlanta’s “gravity” by heading south - first battling traffic to shed 85, pass 285, and eventually get past traffic jams that last up until 675. The still crowded 75 South that remains slightly claustrophobic even past 475 down that commercial stretch as I approach Macon and “take a left” onto Interstate 16. And it’s I-16 that really feels like At Fillmore East. I always knew I had shed Atlanta by this point. Savannah was still about 160 miles away, but I savored the miles. Traffic dies away to nothing, and I crack down my window to smell the warm or hot rural, non-city air. There aren’t many exits, and I noted the strange Georgia city names as I drew closer to Savannah. At Fillmore East played as the air seemed to grow lazier and quirkier, with that sharp paper mill smell. I grew excited as I saw more hurricane evacuation signs, signs clearly noting Chatham County and the Savannah International Airport, and the exits for 95. I slow down, and the short building tops and churches of Savannah pop into sight, as if they’d been hiding the entire way. I had arrived, and I never knew quite what was going to go down from the time I arrived until the time I left. Often meeting up with my friend and mentor Chris, I’d plunge into the quiet yet tourist filled streets, overhung by huge trees, Spanish moss, and beautiful old buildings. I’d look for a particular coffee shop, restaurant, or bar where the adventures would begin. After parking my car and settling in, I’d often encounter a variety of interesting new people, get whisked around different eating and drinking establishments, and maybe catch a networking event, lecture, movie, or musical performance. Unlike Atlanta, Savannah wasn’t afraid to mix together disparate elements: people, culture, styles, and businesses. The entire time, I’d feel electrified from a business and career perspective - always learning something new, meeting someone who expanded my network, or simply revitalizing my energy through Savannah’s energy. And Savannah had plenty to give. I experienced a perfect blend of work and play, remembering that life isn’t all about dreary work. It’s meant to be enjoyed - to slow down, drink that beer, eat that food, flirt with that woman, and talk all night about politics, economics, business, creativity, life, the universe, and everything. Eventually, the original reasons I showed up - to report on Savannah’s place in the Georgia technology industry - became forgotten as more than a decade passed since that visit in 2004. Savannah lured me back over and over again, more for what it did to my life and less for what it did for my career. Every minute I spent in Savannah always felt like a dream, as if the spell of Forsyth Park, the squares, River Street, the ferries, the quiet nooks, the centuries-old buildings, and the back patio of the Sentient Bean all surely welcomed me but ultimately couldn’t last more than a few days. After all, Atlanta beckoned. But Savannah taught me more how to live and thrive in Atlanta than Atlanta itself ever did. That bundle of feelings that I’m trying (and probably failing) to describe here is encapsulated perfectly in At Fillmore East. That’s why it also serves as the soundtrack for the times I’d take my leave of Savannah and return to “reality” with fresh ideas and energy. I always grew sad when I instead left those quiet streets, like leaving fantasy characters behind in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and saw the churches and low-topped buildings in my rear view mirror. And then I’d backtrack, savoring 16 as long as possible until 75 eventually appeared and I slowly got assimilated back into the bustling, overworked, overscheduled metro Atlanta crowd once again, with only At Fillmore East accurately conjuring up the feeling of what I always had to regretfully leave behind time after time.

89: ...And Justice for All - Metallica (1988)

...And Justice for All is Metallica at their most joyless, progressive, inaccessible, technical, and angry. In other words, my kind of album! After Cliff Burton died, Metallica grieved in such a mean, repressed way that they let out all of their fury on ...And Justice for All while also eliminating Jason Newsted’s bass. Many people see this absence of bass as a production mistake or a way to sabotage and haze Newsted, but I view it as another sign of Metallica’s mourning. Burton’s bass was such an essential element of Metallica’s sound that - whether accidental or not - its absence is appropriate in the context of this album. That being said, ...And Justice for All is still the least impressive of the original five Metallica albums. Rather like Led Zeppelin’s Presence, there is something insular and impenetrable about the songs that makes ...And Justice for All difficult for casual fans to like. And yet…#89 is an extremely high ranking. For many hardcore heavy metal fans, ...And Justice for All presents a technically progressive Metallica at the top of their instrumental game. Even Metallica’s more progressive outings after Metallica (St. Anger and Death Magnetic) are tainted by the band’s satiated, rich status as rock stars who sell out every concert and receive endless praise from critics. ...And Justice for All is the last Metallica album that feels like the underground version of the band that got to the top of the metal heap by becoming the most creative, technical, and uncompromising heavy metal band of the 1980s - leading the fight against all things hair metal and Top 40. Fans of bands like Slayer, Dream Theater, and Opeth wish Metallica made more albums like ...And Justice for All. To be fair to Metallica, they were the best heavy metal band of their era and so, similar to the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, they didn’t want to rest on their laurels once they conquered a mountain. Unlike AC/DC or Slayer who refined and mastered a core signature sound, Metallica sprawled out with each album and always wanted to try new things. With ...And Justice for All, Metallica took thrash metal as far as you could technically go. Other bands tried to top ...And Justice for All (with maybe Megadeth’s Rust in Peace serving as the best attempt) but could not do it without evolving into new alternative metal genres. Similar to Pantera’s The Great Southern Trendkill, there was just nowhere to go after ...And Justice for All. For me, ...And Justice for All danced on the boundary of being an essential high school album. The songs weren’t as memorable or meaningful as Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, or Metallica, but they were brutal, heavy, and tapped into my high school gloom perfectly. Setting aside “One” for now, the rest of the album presented an extreme version of the thrash metal I loved in high school and its sound captures my gloomiest days of adolescence with surgical precision.

Metallica once again began their album with the same structure and flow as Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. “Blackened” bludgeons like “Battery” or “Fight Fire with Fire.” Yet, the chorus still pares down the noise enough to give the song interesting dynamics. Hetfield’s vocals and Ulrich’s double bass drums are connected like telepathy. The abrupt slowdown brings the song to a delicious crawl until firing back up again. The title track is one of those songs that bands like Dream Theater or Opeth wish that Metallica would have done more often. At almost 10 minutes, it’s a technical progressive metal epic of massive proportions. It’s got a relentless riff that carries most of the song, enough rhythmic shifts to keep me off balance, and a strong lyrical message. It can bore at times, but Metallica rarely attempted such epics and so I just allow the momentum of the gloomy song structure to carry me along. “Eye of the Beholder” is much more straightforward and unvarying, making it a little less exciting. But the song is so well-written, with little nuances and shifts that keep it interesting, that it serves to transition from “...And Justice for All” to “One.” Metallica hits a double home run with “The Shortest Straw” and “Harvester of Sorrow.” In later years, I rediscovered “The Shortest Straw.” It’s deadly and complex, unleashing like a tightly coiled snake. I think it took me some extra years to admire after I had explored more 1980s and 1990s thrash and progressive metal in depth. There is not a wasted second, and many parts of song keep me guessing and off balance. “Harvester of Sorrow” is a bit more straightforward, but it’s more atmospheric and foreboding. I first heard it when Live Shit: Binge and Purge came out in 1993 and 94K Rock played a live version from this box set one night. Just the name of the song alone signifies much about the tone of ...And Justice for All. We almost lose momentum and focus with the goofy beginning of “The Frayed Ends of Sanity.” I don’t know why so many artists gravitate to the Wicked Witch of the West’s “theme song” from the Wizard of Oz as a supposedly hilarious allusion. The rest of the song is more straightforward - not my favorite, but it fits with the tone, mood, and technical complexity of the album. On the surface, “To Live Is To Die” is a bit of a comedown, but I always liked it because it’s a brooding eulogy to Cliff Burton. It’s supposed to feel this way - gloomy, meandering, plodding, and sad. But we end on fire with the blistering “Dyers Eve.” Holy shit! It’s almost too much. In terms of sheer playing, Metallica at its finest. It’s like they knew all future thrash and progressive metal fans would be pissed off at Metallica’s later maturity, so they crammed everything great about progressive thrash metal into five minutes. There isn’t a wasted second here, and there are times when the fury and complexity is so tightly wound that I can’t even contain my headbanging. One of metal’s greatest moments.

I saved “One” for last because it’s an incredibly special and influential song. It fits with the mood of ...And Justice for All but also transcends the album because of the song’s quality and magic. When I first got into Metallica through Metallica, I enjoyed their heavy, dark sound through commercially accessible, radio-friendly thrash metal with the edges sanded down. “One” was my first glimpse into the heavier 1980s Metallica that would end up meaning more to me in the long run. One night, I saw the black and white video for “One” on Headbanger’s Ball. I was spellbound, less by the overt story that showed clips from Johnny Got His Gun and more by the images of the angry, lean, and mean members of Metallica playing this song with no adornment. They reflected how I felt in 1992 and 1993: dark, depressed, and outcast. While “One” is about someone who can’t move, speak, or hear, it related to me metaphorically in a way that’s probably similar to how The Who’s Tommy related to people during the late 1960s and early 1970s. “One” symbolizes my feelings of being depressed, bullied, and cast out of mainstream high school society. And I didn’t want to fit in. “One” defined two core feelings perfectly. The beginning of the song captured my overwhelming sadness and depression with its spare guitar and barely restrained vocals. As the song kicks into higher gear, my anger simmers and builds up until my fury is unleashed. That moment when everything comes in - drums, guitars, and Hetfield’s screeching vocals - is one of the greatest defining metal and musical moments of my life. All of my rage came out as if it had been repressed in me before, and I now had a way to express it. “One” is Metallica’s greatest moment because it captured these universal feelings for me and for all of its fans. It’s also Metallica at its best, somewhere on the cusp of its underground foundation and commercial future, balanced perfectly between these two eras. “One” deservingly broke Metallica to the mainstream, but it also began the slow decay of what originally made Metallica special. I have many favorite Metallica songs, but “One” remains to this day a Top 10 favorite song of all time across any genre. It still makes me quite emotional because it takes me right back to the darkest days of 1992 or 1993 when I sat in my bedroom, isolated from anything truly fun in high school, not fitting in at all, and living in my head with fantasy novels and Stephen King-esque stories. No matter how much I’ve broken out, evolved, and lived ever since 1993, I will never ever forget where I came from. “One” and ...And Justice for All are stark reminders that no matter how sophisticated or at peace I may have become, my modern identity originated from a dark place where I felt like an outsider, shut off from everything fun, alone, and with only my intellect and creativity to sustain me. There are better, more influential Metallica albums but none that capture the purity of that dark, isolated, and alone feeling I had during 1992 and 1993 before I began to socially blossom in 1994.

90: Angel Dust - Faith No More (1992)

I had a friend, John, in high school who tended to hate almost everything (or at least claimed to hate almost everything) and liked only a few, select, narrow pop culture items that met his approval. He was not a reliable arbiter of taste, so his narrow-minded opinions didn’t mean much to me. Yet, his one major musical influence on me was getting Angel Dust into my hands. I had liked Faith No More’s song “Epic” but didn’t get curious about the band beyond this song (like most people). One day in band or at lunch, John INSISTED I borrow Angel Dust and check it out. All right, all right, I said. I took it home, listened to it, and...liked it? I didn’t know. When I got into bands like Metallica, Alice in Chains, and Pantera in high school, my grunge and heavy metal tastes became extremely narrow and conservative. I would harshly attack and make fun of anything that existed beyond those boundaries, with rare exceptions (like Jethro Tull). Angel Dust featured many things I liked about heavy metal: heavy riffs, gloomy melodies, and metal vocals that veered toward death metal. Yet, what the hell was up with all of the lush keyboards, the funky bass, the spoken word sections, the near-rapping, and the fragmented musical styles blended together in incomprehensible ways. I insisted to myself that I didn’t like it, and yet I did. There were certain songs I wanted to hear again like “Midlife Crisis.” In hindsight, I see how Angel Dust reminded me that I had liked a lot of synth-pop from the 1980s (like Duran Duran or ABC). Faith No More blended that sound with early 1990s heavy metal and grunge - confusing me in a delightful way while tricking me into revisiting the music of my childhood. Angel Dust became part of my canon of high school heavy metal albums, but despite parallels with the heavy metal music I liked there just wasn’t enough metal on the album to justify its place next to Metallica or Alice in Chains. Angel Dust was truly something different. The familiarity of metal wafted me in and allowed me to embrace the different other styles that I usually avoided. More importantly, there is a distinct feel to this album that helped its eclectic nature not matter much. Its songs evoke high school hallways in 11th or 12th grade or staring out my bedroom window during fall or winter Upstate New York days as sunset arrived between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Angel Dust more accurately represented the complexity and turmoil of my high school feelings than most albums. It feels like the gray clouds of Upstate New York and my moody nature influenced by my environment. Today, I realize that Angel Dust prefigures the postmodern feel of alternative and indie metal. It’s hard to categorize and doesn’t tap into a traditional hard rock and heavy metal history. Angel Dust still feels modern (or postmodern) although many of the sounds evoke new wave, alternative metal, and grunge between 1985 and 1995. Not only serving as part of my definitive high school soundtrack, Angel Dust also broadened my musical palette and opened myself up to exploring more alternative artists such as Counting Crows, the Cranberries, and Beck during my later high school days.

“Land of Sunshine" opens up Angel Dust with visceral purpose. Immediately, I can’t compare it to any other metal. Yes, it’s got metal elements but I also hear New Wave keyboards, funky bass, a moody atmosphere, and social commentary (Here’s how to order!). This song sets the tone of the entire album. Despite throwing me for a loop, I did appreciate the obviously cynical lyrics such as “sing and rejoice!” Mike Patton mocks the cultural filth pit we found ourselves in during the early 1990s, and those lyrical messages throughout Angel Dust kept me hooked when the music threatened to push me away. On “Caffeine,” we get heavy. In high school, I was like, “Okay, here we go.” But there are those keyboards again - like 1990s alternative metal merging with 1980s electronic pop. The death metal chorus contrasts with the warm, gray Upstate New York cloudy keyboards that felt like brooding in my bedroom on a late evening. I related to hearing the platitudes “Relax, it’s just a phase, you’ll grow out of it…” as part of the blather adults fed me as I struggled with my feelings in high school. "Midlife Crisis" is one of my favorite songs of all time and became a definitive high school song. This is the song that hooked me on Faith No More beyond “Epic.” I still get chills listening to the song. It indeed tapped into the 1980s synth-pop I had all but forgotten combined with the anger of early 1990s heavy metal. In some ways, it’s a straightforward pop rock song with a clear melody, but it’s also twisted in melancholy ways. The guitar riffs and the keyboards feel brooding and eerie, like watching a sunset die in the evening. The lyrics didn’t mean much to me except for the line, “You’re perfect, yes, it’s true, but without me you’re only you.” This line gave a bit of extra relevancy to the song as I thought of “perfect” girls who never paid attention to me and how we somehow lived in a symbiotic relationship where we actually needed each other. “Midlife Crisis” evokes high school in a way that still startles me to this day. “RV"  almost made me want to reject the rest of Angel Dust. It seemed like a misfire, and I hated the music. However, I admired the attempt to attack the ignorance and backward thinking of trailer park trash. Angel Dust offered an alternative to that kind of mentality that I often saw in the boondocks of Upstate New York. After “RV,” I entered a stretch of songs that solidified my love of this album. "Smaller and Smaller" is another definitive high school song. I love the spiraling riff, like I’m spinning in a circle getting dizzy. When those keyboards come in, I get chills. The chorus is heavy, with lots of insane screaming. Then, suddenly I’m hearing Enigma-like chanting and more New Wave keyboards. It’s all over the place. This song helped me get deeper into Angel Dust, making the disparate elements more palatable while the lyrics inspired me to stay strong in high school - to keep coming back stronger and stronger no matter how small people made me feel. "Everything's Ruined" falls into the same camp, serving as another definitive high school song that captured a sense of my feelings. Again, I don’t care much about the actual lyrics, but just the sentiment of “everything’s ruined” related to me. The music connotes gray Upstate New York melancholy through the open riffs and keyboards, the brooding chug of the song, and the sad chorus. By this point, I’m definitely not listening to pure metal - but I am listening to songs that emotionally connect with me without any intellectualizing needed.

If Angel Dust faltered like The Real Thing at this point in the album, it would have been similarly relegated somewhere in the 200s. Yet, the album seems to get stronger halfway through. "Malpractice" is ridiculously heavy and served as one of the songs that kept me listening to Angel Dust when I wavered about whether or not I should like this album. This song is scarier and crazier than much of the scary, crazy music I listened to during high school. At times, “Malpractice” sounds like a death metal band destroying the stage, and then we get clean keyboards with bells clanging in the background - or an a cappella break that is sweet and beautiful. I don’t know what the hell is going on, and it’s great. Uncharted metal territory got plowed into my head as I listened to it. Then…."Kindergarten.” While the lyrics are satiric, this song in high school made me wistful for kindergarten and the time that had passed. I was still in high school in 1993 and 1994, and I was already thinking back to kindergarten a decade past. “The swings on the playground don’t even fit me anymore…” struck a nerve as I would look at the elementary school grounds pretty much every day while in high school. This became a perfect brooding song as I realized that high school would soon end and that time had passed more quickly than I had realized it would. The next song, "Be Aggressive,” got my hackles up at the time. I was so defensive and paranoid about any “high school spirit” things that when I heard cheerleaders on “Be Aggressive” I almost skipped past the song. Yet, “Be Aggressive” still delivered, the disgusting lyrics jarring with the cheerleaders’ happy chanting. "A Small Victory" leaned more toward 1980s synth-pop while still including a chugging riff, as if Faith No More knew they had to keep a good balance with me. The result: another definitive high school song. I LOVED this song once I wrapped my mind around it. It’s melancholy, brooding, but not easily definable. The key line became, “It shouldn’t bother me, but it does.” Faith No More captures another complex feeling, the fact that I knew I let things bother me in high school that shouldn’t. A key reason this album cracked the Top 100 is because it doesn’t trail off - even toward the end. As track #11, “Crack Hitler” is weird and menacing. There are moments that actually sound like ABC and yet other moments that are as heavy and relentless as any metal band. Extremely melodic throughout, “Crack Hitler” makes sudden left turns as the song speeds up and slows down. "Jizzlobber" is just dissonant and jarring, overlaid with open riffs that feel like I’m staring out into the fields of Sauquoit’s semirural farmland during a twilight ride. I’m seething with rage, creativity, and potential on the inside that I want to let out. The screaming is as intense as Pantera at times and yet the song never feels like metal (or, really, any specific genre). We end with the instrumental "Midnight Cowboy,” one of the oddest ways for an alternative metal band to close out an album. Faith No More plays it straightforward, and it’s beautiful. While alien the first few times I heard it, the song became a rare glimpse into how my soul actually felt in high school without all of the angst. Many days, I just brooded, thought, and mulled things over - feeling like there was all the time in the world. The song feels like a lazy adolescent day circa 1993 or 1994. Because of Angel Dust’s genre-breaking music, the way it expanded my mind, the strength of its music from beginning to end, and its relevancy to my high school feelings, the album easily makes the Top 100 and holds up over time as one of the most influential and greatest pieces of music I’ve ever encountered. In relistening to it for this post, I was immediately taken back to those emotionally complex, sometimes frantic, sometimes lazy days of high school under those gray Upstate New York cloudy skies, my future unknown but knowing I was wrestling with life with the right mindset.