How about we share those albums from our collections we want to highlight to the community? A similar but different approach from our ‘What’s Spinning’ threads. All time favorites are good, but they don’t have to be. The albums can have stood the test of time or can be fresh love affairs. Highlighting just one record is already enough. It can be a top ten or twenty or have no ranking at all. It can be genre specific or not. I had enough fun going through the exercise, that I came up with many. The question when curating the records was ‘Might this listening experience be time well spent for someone else here?’ We would get to discover exciting unknown music and could revisit classics which lay dormant in our own collections.
I begin with singer songwriters. There’s more from other genres but I would like to wait and see what we collectively come up with.
- The Covers Record, Cat Power
- At Folsom Prison, Johnny Cash
- Live In London, Leonard Cohen
- I See A Darkness, Bonnie “Prince” Billy
- Vulture Prince, Arooj Aftab
- Philharmonics, Agnes Obel
- Rid Of Me, PJ Harvey
- Inner Song, Kelly Lee Owens
- Lullaby For Liquid Pig, Lisa Germano
A number of people have already looked at the thread and there are no replies yet. I’m speculating why. Maybe I am impatient and posts are in the works. Maybe publishing personal highlights is a daunting proposition. I spoke to an employee of Antenne Bayern - a German mass audience radio station - about two years ago. He told me when they have a list of twelve favorite tracks from someone they inadvertently have his psychogram. So when we give our highlights we reveal ourselves to a degree. But then, music taste is just that - taste. I see no right or wrong, no better or worse. There can be majorities for this or that album from an artist. Or wider or less wide support from critics. Or more or less support from (diehard) fans. Or majorities for this or that genre. But there’s no right or wrong anywhere to be seen. A brief look at Metacritic reveals how different even the opinions of respected critics on one and the same album can be. And then, this is a very civilized place. I can’t imagine anyone starting a taste debate or judging anyone for their music choices.
I would want to widen the challenge. I was aiming for music we adore. Let’s add sound quality or general recording aspects to the mix, if desired. We are audiophiles after all.
“Art is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone will have their own interpretation.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
While we are at it, here are some more albums I would like to highlight for you. The first two are from the indie pop genre and the rest is from the wider electronic music genre. They range from readily listenable to more acquired taste.
- Spiderland, Slint
- So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star
- Wait For Me, Moby
- Obsidian, Jónsi
- Matriarch, Liyv
- Okovi, Zola Jesus
- Love, Disorderly, Thomas Azier (from this list the one I’m most in love with right now)
- Feast Beast, Clark
- Selected Ambient Works 85-92, Aphex Twin
- Supermodified, Amon Tobin
- Aleph, Gesaffelstein
- Rk4, Kobosil
- Monad V, Perc