My criteria = Rocked my world: unlike anything I’d heard before it changed my relationship with music and has stuck; meaning still listen to on a least semi-regular basis and can’t imagine living without.
In chronological order by release date:
Dookie, Green Day (1994)
My very first CD, it’s proven a keeper. When I started driving this was one of my favorites (btw, another good driving album but didn’t survive my switch to public transportation: Make Up the Breakdown, Hot Hot Heat). And Dookie came out when I was in middle school so the cursing was pretty exciting at the time.
Odelay, Beck (1996)
I remember getting Odelay for Christmas and put it on while helping my mom make breakfast, and I remember just thinking, damn, this is amazing. It was a new direction for me and I still love this album and it will remain my favorite Beck album because of the amazement at discovering that music could be like this.
OK Computer, Radiohead (1997)
I resist ranking, but this one might be my #1 ever. Similar to Beck in that I came to Radiohead at a very impressionable point in the establishment of my taste in music and it completely floored me from the beginning. I will never stop listening to this album, and it will always be my favorite Radiohead album. It changed everything for me. I’d heard of them from The Bends but was still pretty young at that point and got into that album only a little bit later (and adore it) so OK Computer was my Radiohead-awakening even though it gives me less cred.
The Color and the Shape, Foo Fighters (1997)
Maybe this is a dorky pick but this is a really solid album and has always been one of my favorites. My copy still has a sticker on it listing clean/dirty tracks from my days at my high school radio station, WAHS. This wasn’t life-altering so much in the musical boundaries it probed as it was one of the early albums I loved as a full-length effort and one that has stayed in my life.
Things Fall Apart, The Roots (1999)
My freshman year of high school I told Charlie McWain I didn’t like hip hop because there were no instruments (I was a music snob and really into “alternative”). He told me to listen to The Roots, he loaned me this album, and everything changed…
Labor Days, Aesop Rock (2001)
… Then, my sophomore year of high school, I started hanging out with this group of guy friends and they introduced me to a lot more hip hop. Labor Days is another one that stuck. I remember when my boyfriend played “Daylight” for the first time, and seeing Aesop Rock perform at the Shelter with Mr. Lif and Cannibal Ox. This album led into a lot more indie hip hop (see honorable mentions below) and has consistently remained in my life and reminds me of that group of guy friends.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco (2002)
This album broke my heart and I am among the many who love it fiercely. I came to it it randomly when we received at sample copy at WAHS, senior year of high school, and it’s been on consistent rotation since. It’s one of those albums where sometimes it’s the only answer, the only thing that will work at that moment.
Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State, Sufjan Stevens (2003)
I came at this randomly, intrigued by the title (as a Michigander) instead of through a review or a friend. I say this not to prove how cool I am, but because that initial quiet surprise I found in how much I loved Greetings from Michigan is one of the reasons it got under my skin. Sufjan’s thing is getting a little stale for me now, but this album will never leave my life.
Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, TV on the Radio (2004)
This was a “Holy shit, music can do this!?!” album for me when I hadn’t been to that place in a long time. I was finding new music and liking it, but mostly just excellent examples of what I already knew. But THIS, this was an album that I knew was something different and something earthy and real and that still comes through today. Plus it’s seriously sexy.
Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf Parade (2005)
A sneakier “Holy shit” than TVOTR, but one that still sometimes I just think “DAMN this is good.” And the whole thing is good and it still feels fresh and raw and it’s so just exuberant and fulfilling. I still listen to this one on the regular and I think I always will.
Arular, M.I.A. (2005)
When I think of Arular I think of the first summer day of 2005 on the U of M campus in Ann Arbor, when suddenly everyone is outside at once, and blasting this and just feeling really cornily alive and happy and at the same time completely amazed at this music and what I was hearing and knowing it was so much and something honest and new and just really damn fun to listen to.
Boxer, The National (2007)
The first time I heard this I knew it was good, but then as I got to know it Boxer just got under my skin and into my brain and has stayed there and I know that it’s a masterpiece. That’s the exact word for it. Heartbreaking and beautiful and brilliant and triumphant, to me it’s a perfect album and another one that I just need to listen to sometimes, it’s the only answer at that moment.
Honorable Mentions
Boys and Girls in America, The Hold Steady (2006) / The Stage Names, Okkervil River (2007) / Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit (2008)
I adore these albums. I was a little bit late to the game on each of them but from the first listen had no idea how I’d lived without them. For me, each is that kind of album that just feels like home; it’s not really groundbreaking or anything but it’s just a really, really good album and I know will be on regular rotation for a long, long time.
Nia, Blackalicious (2000) /The Lucy Ford EPs, Atmosphere (2000) / Deltron 3030, Deltron 3030 (2000)
In my sophomore year of high school, I got into hip hop. I almost immediately got snobby about it, as I am wont to do with music. These three albums were integral parts of my awakening but unfortunately I don’t listen to them as much anymore.
Paul’s Boutique, Beastie Boys (1989)
Obviously, I didn’t start listening to this when I was five years old in 1989, but I got really into the Beastie Boys for a while in high school and will always love this particular album; I go back to it sometimes on particular kinds of summer days.
