My All Time Favorite Albums
Feb 23rd, 2011 by Ashley
There are a few albums that I listen to through the years, over land and sea. Some of them mean more than music to me, especially those which I got in contact with in my teenage years, such as Debbie Gibson’s Think with Your Heart and Madonna’s Something to Remember. Things we read or listen to when we grow up usually have deep, if unconscious, impact on us; they tend to help develop our taste, shape our opinions. Sometimes a piece of music defines a period of our lives. We all have that one song which is associated with a certain event; whenever it’s played, we’re brought back to the place and time, sometimes against our will. Even when we’re happy and content with our present lives, a strong rush of emotion, which makes no sense whatsoever, invades our hearts as the first few notes reach the air. And there are albums that simply stood the test of time and remain beloved to me.
This is by no means a condense list of what kind of music I like or what bands or singers I generally prefer. More often than not, an album secures a place in my all time favorite chart while its artist not even being regarded as one to my liking. And some of the bands/singer (e.g. Cake) I deem my all time favorite didn’t make this particular list at all.
The following is the list in my personal chronological order (backward):
The Clientele – God Save The Clientele (2007)
Soft and dreamy like puff pink cotton candy. Delightful and carefree like a stroll in the park in a breezy, sunny day. It relaxes and transports you into a world of light colors and happy thoughts. For me, it’s a listening experience of no burdens. Because, you know, some music exhausts and demands. The Clientele tolerates and understands; better yet, they comforts.
The Strokes – Room On Fire (2003)
Call it serendipity, call it fate. I came to know the Strokes rather late, rhyme unintended, in 2007. I discovered this marvelous album at Borders. As if coming out of weak signaled radio station, Julian’s voice meandered through the wall of steady guitar and bass, like a message struggles to be delivered. I was instantly mesmerized. Their music intoxicates; it draws you into crazy, spinning madness that is in their head. Although it is my belief that you have to experience an entire album as a whole (especially those which efforts were put into its track order), I still have my personal favorites. Automatic Stop, Under Control and The End Has No End are probably the ones that engage my emotions the most. Somehow, they channel the glooms buried within me and bring out a tearless sorrow, or rather, forlornness, in the sense you read in a Romantic poems.
Strays Don’t Sleep – Strays Don’t Sleep (2006)
Another, if not the most, precious find at Borders. It’s THE album to play on the road, especially when we leave the city and suburbs behind and enter long roads sandwiched by the green green grass. When the air is crisp and clear, windows rolled down, Matthew’s rough, yet helplessly tender voice carries poetic whispers dancing light-footedly. The calm and tender hum betrays a hint of fragile longing, yet its gently piled melancholies don’t overwhelm.
Green Day – Warning (2000)
Warning is the only Green Day album that I like. It’s one of their less liked albums, but it speaks to me, musically and lyrically.
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Robbie Williams – Swing When You’re Winning (2001)
Been a fan of Robbie for a long time. When he released his very first solo album, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I said I liked it mostly because I liked him. But when I got my hands on Swing (after RW’s Sing When You’re Winning), I fell in love with it presently and completely. Surprisingly, his timbre is just right for the genre; his quirkiness just makes the music even more fun. His Royal Albert Hall DVD is definitely worth checking out. Despiting being all the things Rupert Everett said when introducing him during the concert (a little thin boy in a boy band who turned into a big fat slob in a rehab clinic, the most paranoid man in showbiz), he’s no doubt a great performer.
Firewater – Psychopharmacology (2001)
I still remember that not particularly sunny afternoon. It must have been a weekend, or Christy and I couldn’t have ventured into the city of San Francisco. It was the summer of 2001; we were taking language courses at UC Berkeley extension. I remember listening to this album at the second floor of the Rasputin on Powell. Within the claustrophobic shelves of the record store, Firewater’s neurotic, edgy sounds of music wrapped me with excitement which was yet foreign to me. At first encounter, Tod A.’s voice might seem dry and monotone; yet it quickly draw you into the mesmerizing head of his and you fall into a world which looks familiar yet something is not quite right, in a good way.
(to be continued…)
hi~ I am a new visitor.
the articals you wrote give me some opportunities to sharpen
my English learning.
I will continue.
^^