rinue | Super Geeky Music Meme

In this one, you pick an album from every year you've been alive. It can be a favorite now, or a favorite then. Wikipedia's lists of albums by year are helpful. It is a weirdly fun thing to do. It's astounding how immediately apparent it is which one album is the one album - it's like one just floats out. It's also a hell of a time waster, and probably not that interesting for other people to read.

1980 - London Calling, The Clash (US Release. It came out in the UK at the end of '79.)

1981 - "Under Pressure", Queen and David Bowie. Okay, it is not an album. But the single released in '81.

1982 - Avalon, Roxy Music. [Obviously, Thriller is the best. Obviously. But that told you nothing about me - it just affirmed that the best album ever was the best album ever.]

1983 - Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes

1984 - Stop Making Sense, The Talking Heads

1985 - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, The Pogues. I have not heard this (except a bit in My Own Private Idaho), or heard of it, but how could I not love it instantly upon discovering its existence?

1986 - Graceland, Paul Simon & Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I have known every word and note of this album for almost as long as I can remember.

1987 - Louder Than Bombs, The Smiths

1988 - I'm Your Man, Leonard Cohen

1989 - Doolittle, The Pixies

1990 - Flood, They Might Be Giants

1991 - Star Time, James Brown

1992 - Apollo 18, They Might Be Giants. Pretty much all I listened to during my early teen years was TMBG, late-period Beatles, and the occasional Enya. This one includes a song with a very long palindrome. Also out this year: Little Ol' Cowgirl, my favorite Dixie Chicks album. Back when they were less pop and more cowgirl. The initial lineup. The real one.

1993 - In Utero, Nirvana. I prefer the Unplugged takes of these songs, but when this came out? Wow. It is worth mentioning that from about 1998 to about 2000, I had a special love of music that would annoy other people - this, The Stooges, Lou Reed, Alien Sex Fiend.

1994 - Rubberneck, Toadies. I'm from Dallas. I must be loyal to Rubberneck, regardless of its not being better than Portishead's Dummy (an all-time favorite). It's like supporting a sports team which is not necessarily the best. I can also say: Dummy is eternal, but Rubberneck is '94. Even if it's no The Downward Spiral.

1995 - The Bends, Radiohead

1996 - If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian. (Much love for Odelay.)

1997 - OK Computer, Radiohead. How could it be anything else.

1998 - Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, Jeff Buckley

1999 - When the Pawn..., Fiona Apple. Another of those albums I know every word to, and which inspired a series of short stories. (Shout out to 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields, The Fragile, by Nine Inch Nails, Agaetus Byrjun, by Sigur Ros, Steriolab's Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Twilight, and The Seduction of Claude Debussy, by the Art of Noise.)

2000 - Kid A, Radiohead. Perhaps you are sensing a pattern. Also: Jesus 2000 was a good year for music. Tegan and Sara's first major release; Bloodflowers, by The Cure; And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out; Parachutes; The Sophtware Slump; Johnny Cash's American III: Solitary Man; the O Brother soundtrack. You can tell that '99 is the year I started seriously buying albums and following music.

2001 - Vespertine, Bjork. (Beating out, we note, Radiohead. And the American Astronaut soundtrack. And many others.)

2002 - Come Away With Me, Norah Jones. Because I went to high school with her. And she's really nice.

2003 - Hail to the Thief, Radiohead. But if we discount Radiohead, because they always win, then Fever To Tell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (Other contenders: Speakerboxx/The Love Below, and The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place. But I spend more time dancing around to "Y Control" than to any other song. And by "dancing," I mostly mean jumping up and down.)

2004 - Real Gone, Tom Waits. Mainly because I didn't put down Alice back in the 2002 slot.

2005 - Takk..., Sigur Ros

2006 - The Eraser, Thom Yorke. On July 11. (An album I listen to just as much is The Trials of Van Occupanther, by Midlake, and you should buy it now if you don't already own it. Brilliant, brilliant, post-apocalyptic prog-folk electronica. Genius.)

2007 - Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem

2008 - is not through, and so much good has already come out. In Rainbows, Third (Portishead), Vampire Weekend, Ghosts I-IV, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust... It is too much to take without falling over. How did we get so lucky?