It should be noted before we get started that these are not top 5 most important albums of all time. These are not the top 5 albums that made the greatest contribution to music. These are the top 5 albums that made the greatest contribution to me. This won't be terribly long, but it will be terribly honest. Enjoy looking through the musical lenses of my life as it has been so far (that sentence was a bunch of trite crap or somewhat inspiring depending on what mood you are in when you read it).
5. Dave Matthews Band-- "Before These Crowded Streets"
This was the first album that my brother and I salivated for in anticipation. I remember going to a Wal-Mart and Chris and I immediately searching to find the CD and begging my parents to buy it. I was 15. When we put the CD on we were taken to another world. That's right you cynical pail indie rockers. I was taken to another place by a Dave Matthews CD. Sue me. I loved it and I still do. The rhythm section plays so many tight licks on the 2nd track alone that it should make someone uncomfortable to be around the opposite sex in fear of what the rhythms might inspire or conjure. But it is the last five tracks that give the album meat. They are heavy; they are soaked in reverb, echo, and mystical background noise ( helpfully supplied by like a thousand different guest musicians); they radiate with the depression and hopeless searching for only God knows what that would later define the bootleg "Lillywhite Sessions" (which they scratched for a more studio friendly "Busted Stuff" that wasn't half as good, but I still bought it). "The Stone" takes us down a dark road and Dave wants us to come along but probably doesn't think we will. Then "Crush" hits every teenager like a ton of bricks with Dave's obsessive wistful thinking about a girl and his love for her (I had a crush at the time I got the album. She crushed me in a different way which we will talk about when we get to No. 1). "The Dreaming Tree" is that odd-metered song that seems like it effortlessly came from some magic land where Dumbledore probably hung out with his other gay wizard buddies. Then "Pig" gave me hope for living out the day Roman-style except for the fact that I never left the room because I kept listening to the track.
And then there was "Spoon". Just when you think Dave is going to end on a good note he gets that creepy Canadian chick (no not Celine) and sings about how God is a sadistic puppet master. This is essential stuff for a moody wallflower teenager who wasn't even accepted by the wallflowers.
4. Bright Eyes-- I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
I owe Conor Oberst a great deal of gratitude. At the ripe old age of 23, he finally taught me to love music that wasn't clean. Conor's voice is dirty, broken, sad, shaky, playful, and hopeful all the day long. This album starts with him telling a story about an airplane crash. I gotta be honest. I think I know what he is trying to say, but I am not sure. I also don't care because I could listen to this broken man talk all day. If my trombone playing sounded like him I would be a construction worker or a bum because I would have never gotten into music school. But he took his faults and made them something beautiful and special. I like to think of it like this: he took his sin and made it grace. In "Road to Joy" Conor Oberst acknowledges my point: "I could have been a famous singer if I had someone else's voice, but failure's always sounded better..." It doesn't hurt that Bright Eyes is a lyrical genius who always makes his lyrics complete and perfect poetry. Each song tugs at my heart strings because every single time he gives us a new sad melody with a melancholy instrumental backdrop and new important revealing words. Each track is captivating to me in every sense of the term.
This album was the main ingredient to the soundtrack of LaPorte where I did my student teaching. Northern Indiana is a flat place which I think makes it that much more emotional. When there is nothing outside to look at you find something inside. Thank you Conor for making me search inside and also for finally being able to fall in love with punk music and indie rock. I owe you 12 bucks.
3. U2-- All That You Can't Leave Behind
A lot of my friends don't like U2. I get it. They are a little pretentious and not scared to make a big public spectacle of themselves, but then they make big introspective rock anthems that inspire actual introspective people. Then they save the world, do a press conference, and curse on MTV so they are considered legit.
But personally I truly feel that U2 is the greatest rock band of all time. People would argue The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Clash (Americans can't put out good rock and roll BANDS because we don't get along enough with anybody to do so-- of course I guess The Beatles aren't a good example of the positive end). But I think that those bands were too isolated in themselves (not so with the Rolling Stones anymore). I don't think you can be great if you are a recluse. I just don't. Rock stars are supposed to be rock stars and there is nothing wrong with that.
With all that said, this U2 album was the sweetest most personal album they created. I bought it in 2000 and went into my room to play it. I had never heard anything like it before. It was my first big rock album (I had been a jam band, jazz, R&B guy). Each song had so much drama and inspiration but they also fit together so well in a humble, almost cute, way. This is a love album written by men with children and a humble heart. When people say they hate U2, they are really saying they hate late 80's Rattle and Hum U2. When I say I love them I am talking of the U2 of the new millennium. Each song is tragic and hopeful at the same time. There are a couple of big fun rockers, but the songs that get me are "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Kite", and "Peace on Earth". The production is simplified but not without some well placed synthetic keyboard horn parts and Pro Tools-style instrumentation. "Kite" is the tune that inspires me the most. He is letting someone go on their own (U2 have always been great about leaving room for an open ended interpretation-- even for themselves). At the same time he seems like he is still trying to prove himself. But the hope in the end is that this person won't be going forever: "Who's to know when the time has come around/Don't want to see you cry/ I know that this is not goodbye" So much of that hope and at the same time letting go. Once you put this in the backdrop of 9/11, the message goes from personal to global and then U2's talent of adjusting to the times takes on a whole new level for a country that doesn't even belong to them. When I think of American patriotism, I think of Bono. Sorry if that offends someone. Just don't forget what all you can't leave behind (and read Jeremiah 33:3).
2. Coldplay-- Parachutes
There isn't much I need to write about this. The songs themselves are strong but simple and kind of whiney (although there is some great melodic bass playing throughout the disc). I wouldn't even say it is the best Coldplay album. That has got to be A Rush of Blood to the Head (although the new Viva la Vida is great too). But this album stands as high as it does for pure sentimental reasons. It is the album of my first year of college. The greatest soundtrack. The greatest and most confusing time of my life is scored by Coldplay. Nearly every single night of my freshman year my roommate and I would put that album on, and the first notes of "Don't Panic" would put us at peace and eventually to sleep. Parachutes even resolved a few conflicts for my roomy and I. We never had to say anything. We just pressed play. All of our grandstanding and bragging and being mean and dumb could dissolve and we would let Chris Martin-- the crowned prince of all wimps-- put us back in our place. This man said what we really thought,and the only way we ever humbled ourselves in front of other people is by saying we liked Coldplay. They would respond the same way. My roomy and I both found and lost girls through that album. Coldplay was always there to both pick us up and kick us while we were down at the same time. Chris Martin was the quintessential sentimental goof. Something that most men really aren't aloud to be. But we could get away with it by listening to the man who was paranoid about spies and trouble and shivers and peeing on himself. He made us right again. Parachutes was the drug that we needed every night to get through the next day, and if we didn't get that drug we would find it eventually.
1. Lauryn Hill-- The Miseduction of Lauryn Hill
I like an album that is arranged like this: hot tracks, experimental approach and mid tempo tracks, gut-wrenching sentimental tracks. Lauryn did it. Now I know what you are thinking. How could I possibly have a top five list this personal and the artist I relate to the most is a pseudo-Rasta independent black woman hip-hop artist. Simple. Lauryn Hill wrote the perfect album. That's it and that is all there is to it. The perfect album. And when I bought that disc as a 16 year old kid, at first I thought I was cool for listening to this funky hip-hop track ("Lost Ones"). Imagine me dancing to it in my bedroom. Go ahead and imagine. Yep it was that awkward. The beat on the album was incredible--this beat was deep in the pocket with Lauryn singing as behind the beat as soulfully possible. Then I keep listening and all of a sudden Carlos Santana was on there (before he broke loose with Supernatural), so I felt smart for being able to spot that ("Zion"). And as the album got deeper, it started breaking my heart. This lady new exactly as I felt but could express it better than even Dawson's Creek could. The songs that did it for me weren't the big important tracks. They were the two hidden tracks at the end that were last minute throw-ins, and one of them was a cover ("Can't Take My Eyes Off of You"). The other one was so simple but so well-executed ("Tell Him"). I would listen to those tracks over and over and over again searching for answers. According to Lauryn, the strength was in her all along. And that is why I keep listening to that album to this day. I am trying to dig deeper to find out how she got strength from within. I don't believe in that concept. I still come from the broken philosophy where we have to turn to The Creator for the answers we need (and even then we don't get them all the time). Now in 2008 Lauryn is a broken woman. Britney Spears gets all this press for he brokenness and redemption, but Lauryn Hill took a much greater fall from grace. We still haven't heard from her since the MTV2 acoustic crapfest. I hope she has redemption within her. It would give her Miseducation a whole new glow, and I think I need that for my favorite album of all time. It needs a new glow.
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