What I thought I'd do today is have a quick look at what are currently my 5 favourite albums, I'm hoping that eventually all 108 will have an episode of their own where I can get a bit deeper and play some of my favourite tracks and I'm sure the 5 albums I talk about today will get their own shows sooner because its good to shout about the things in the world that you love.
So these are my current 5 favourite albums based on objective measures such as my brain shouting "That’s a great record" when I see the cover, my fingers typing "that’s a great record" when prompted on social media and my mouth going "oh, that’s a great record" to anyone who'll listen. To be honest one of them is always on this this list and then theres maybe 9 or 10 that could get there depending on my mood but right now, in September 2024 these are my favourite 5 albums.
Don’t forget you can listen to the podcast complete with my favourite tracks from these records over on MIXCLOUD
If you've followed the show at any point or seen our socials you'll know just how mad I am about Pearl Jam, they've been my favourite band for 30 odd years now. You know how some bands are your favourites for a few years or you grow out of them or they make something a bit shit but for me Pearl Jam has stuck around and I've hoovered up everything Pearl Jam or Pearl Jam adjacent, so all the solo albums and side projects, whether that’s Vedders solo stuff of Stone Gossard’s work with Brad or Ament’s power pop trio RNDM I'm here for all of it
Over the last 5 or 6 years, maybe a bit more to be honest, whenever I've put an album on to sit down and just enjoy without skipping and that, its been Riot Act which may seem like a hipster pick but I really love it
It's their 7th studio album but the second with Matt Cameron officially in the band and it really feels like a real collaborative effort and things are really coming together creatively...also you know how No Code felt like a bit of a reset after the rollercoaster ride of Ten, Vs and Vitalogy, Riot Act feels similar with hindsight because after this there starts to be bigger gaps between records and touring becomes the focus and making a new record seems like a reason to take a break from the road to recharge before heading out again.
Also I reckon Vedders voice is at its best on this album, like 10 or 11 years of touring has taking a toll and while its not quite the powerful rock voice we heard duetting with Chris Cornell on Hunger Strike, it's got a richness and a tone of just a bit fucked up but yeah he sounds amazing on here
My favourite tracks are Save You, Cropduster, I Am Mine which is one of the few things I can actually play on guitar, Green Disease and Help Help because 1 . its great and b. its so far away from the stuff on Ten it kind of highlights my point
Another artist I've loved for nearly 30 years and make no secret of is Ben Folds. I honestly think he's the finest songwriter of the last 3 decades and when it comes to composing and arranging he's a bit of a genius. But, in a similar fashion to Pearl Jam, because I've lived with his music for so long its really hard to pick a favourite album, actually I rarely listen to his albums as they were released and usually just hit shuffle on an All Ben Folds playlist but this album is the one I always recommend to people as a good entry point and to be honest, we've just got a car for the first time in 3 years so i've had it on loads and its really a good record
The Sound of the Life of the Mind, the 4th album and 1st in 13 years from Ben Folds Five although in that time Ben Folds had also released 3 solo albums, some EPs and collaborations with writer Nick Hornby on Lonely Avenue and with William Shatner on his record, Has Been AND worked with various universities across america on an A Capella album of his songs
Some of my favourite tracks on here are Michael Praytor (5 Years Later), On Being Frank, Draw a Crowd with its lamenting hook "If you can't draw a crowd, draw dicks on a wall" Do it Anyway is a fun track made even cooler by featuring Fraggles in the video but the title track co-written with Nick Hornby is an absolute masterpiece.
If you'd asked me a month ago then we might not be talking about this next record, don't get me wrong, its always well up at the top of my all time favourites but maybe in that second tier, and maybe thats because I've taken it for granted for so many years that And Out Come The Wolves is just about perfect
So after kind of getting into punk, or at least that 90s West Coast stuff in 1994 with Dookie, Punk in Drublic, Smash and Stranger than Fiction, when Rancid released this a year later i was just hooked..and right from the start with the atmospheric build exploding into the kick your ball off opening bars of Maxwell Murders it was just fast and aggressive and everything I needed a few weeks before my 16th birthday but it was also the record that sent me back to stuff like The Clash and The Damned and those punk CD compilations you'd get of 75 songs across 3 CDSs full of really random stuff like Peter and the Test Tube Babies or X ray spex or whatever.
My favourite tracks are probably Junkie Man, Avenues and Alleyways, the big tracks Ruby Soho, Timebomb, Olympia, Journey to the End has been a favourite for a long time but as my kid is just getting into them I thought I’d ask him and he says the best track is Lock, Step & Gone
Another artist who I just adore is Jason Isbell, I didnt know anything about him until I heard him on Marc Marons podcast in 2014 where he played Elephant off his album Southeastern and all of a sudden I'm in the supermarket, openly weeping on the cauliflowers. So naturally I grabbed Southeastern and loved it and then I went back to a couple of previous records which were good but not quite on the same level as Southeastern so I just stuck with that for ages until maybe the end 2020 and he came up again on my Apple music and I saw that there like 3 more records since and I gave them a spin and was hooked.
Any of his albums could be in this top 5 today, and yes Southeastern is far and away his best, best, record but it’s a really tough listen at times and I'm not always in the mood for a cry but the one I probably listen to most at the moment is The Nashville Sound from 2017.
It's really tight, 10 songs in 40 minutes and it takes you on a bit of a journey, my favourite tracks would be Cumberland Gap, Anxiety, Hope the High Road. and If We We're Vampires (which makes both me and Mrs Jones cry every time)
Right then, the album that has consistently been my favourite forever and when I'm asked for my favourite record I don't even have to think about is....
Pixies. Doolittle
And I shouldn't really have to say much else. I think it's wonderful and absolutely everything you could want in an album, like it rocks but it has a really cool vibe but it's really dark and weird and its lyrically abstract and brings influences from all kinds of over artforms...it's just amazing
It pulls you in with Debaser and then Tame kicks your arse and Wave of Mutilation gives you a singalong chorus and Here Comes Your Man feels like it's 100 years old and recorded yesterday at the same time.
It's a record of opposites really, there's so much going on but the instruments are quite sparse and the arrangements are complex despite sounding so simple...its more than the quiet quiet loud stuff. Black Francis vocals are just all over the shop in the best way and Kim Deal deals in some proper groovy baselines
I didn't get into it in 1989, I was 10. But after they were cited as an influence on Cobain I went and checked them out and while I think there's great stuff on all their albums I always come to Doolittle. It's an album I have to listen from start to finish and to be honest, I used to just really love the first half of the record with the "Big Units" if you will, Debaser, Wave of Mutilation, Monkey Go To Heaven but as time has passed I'm definitely more into the back half of the album, stuff There Goes my Gun, Hey, La La Love You... the rolling baseline of Gouge Away is just epic
I think it's a perfect album and I wouldn't change a note and I listen to it loads, like maybe once a week and then I'll often just get to the end and press play again, its just that good, but if I had to pick a favourite track from my favourite album it would be No.13 Baby
So that was my Top 5 albums right now, like I said over the coming little while they'll all get standalone episodes where I can get a bit deeper, play some more tracks that sort of thing
Ranked! My Top 5 Albums*