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So I'm a little wary of doing this for a couple of reasons, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway... and I'm going to do my best not to just add my favorite cool-sounding albums, because that sort of thing makes me want to vomit.
I'm going to try this in chronological/biographical
01 Louis Armstrong - Hello, Dolly! (1980-)
This is still one of my favorite albums ever, and one of my strongest memories from childhood... listening to this LP downstairs in the playroom with dad sometimes sitting, sometimes dancing around and clapping. He didn't need to say anything. I learned to love music from my dad in that room, on that record player, with that album.
02 Chicago - The Heart of Chicago, 1967-1997 (1980's-today, in general)
Over the course of growing up in the 1980's, riding around in the back seat of my parents' cars, listening to WISH 99.5, Chicago's music worked its way quietly into my brain stem and lay there dormant until sometime in the early Oughts, when their music took over my consciousness again without explanation or warning. This time, I hung on every horn hit, every brilliant modulation, every excellent turn of a phrase. These guys were men among boys, even in the musician-rich 70's music scene.
03 Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days In the Life Of... (1992)
When I started choosing my own music in the early 90's (ca. 4th and 5th grade), I chose (with the help of my neighbor Dylan) hip hop: The East Coast Family--Boyz II Men, Another Bad Creation, Bel Biv Devoe; Public Enemy; A Tribe Called Quest; Run D.M.C.; Kid N Play... I loved all of it, and still do, but for me, it was all just fun until Arrested Development came along. A middle class suburban white kid in NH all of a sudden was hearing this infectious, passionate message about social justice (Public Enemy went over my head because of their tone, if we're being honest.), and I didn't know what to do with it yet. But I loved it. It's one of the very first cassettes I ever bought for myself. The message and the music hold up today. Long live Arrested Development.
04 Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fear (1994)
To my memory, this is the first CD I ever bought with my own money, and it also holds the distinction of being the first album on which I ever loved every song enough to not skip anything while I listened. Top to bottom, almost every time. I loved Glen Phillips' writing then, and I love it more now.
05 Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot! (1996)
This band ends up at the top of my list of favorite bands always. They blended the traditional jazz sensibilities I grew up with, with southern gothic lyric writing, an alternative musical twinge, and an unbelievable stage presence. They may have been the 2nd concert I ever went to, after Van Halen. I saw them in the gymnasium at St. Anselm College with G Love and the Special Sauce and either B.B. King or Bo Diddley. No joke. It's best to forget, by the way, that they ever ventured into that neo-swing thing (album: Bedlam Ballroom)... terrible idea. Fortunately, the rest is gold.
06 Original Broadway Cast - Rent (1996)
Part of me wants to groan, too, but no. I love musical theater, and this soundtrack was off the chains. The intentional parallel to La Boheme, the melodies, the unbelievable lyrics, the individual and ensemble performances... I sound as though I'm apologizing, but I'm not. It was that popular for a good reason. Also, this album is inextricably tied to memories of my tightest group of friends through high school: Jeff, Katie, Brendan, Jeremy, Billy, Teeny, Lauren, Scott, Margo, Chris, and others. 1996-1999 were great years in southern New Hampshire. This is the album that brings me there.
07 The Brown Derbies - Nightcap (1997/8)
My first collegiate a cappella album was "Hot Tin Roof" from the Yale Alley Cats, and a year or so later, I got this one. From there on, nothing was ever the same for me. Those who know me well know that I've spent no small percentage of the last 10 years singing a cappella in various forms, and while the blame is manifold, this was the most world-altering and inspirational album for me in that regard. This album was pretty incredible for the time it came out, and it's still in my top 3 or so a cappella albums, despite being dated.
08 James Taylor - Greatest Hits (1999)
My mom and sister gave this album to me the day I received my acceptance letter to UNC-Chapel Hill, and for weeks, "Carolina In My Mind" was on repeat, laying the foundation for a strange affection for that state that endures in me to this day. I ended up not taking the scholarship offer there, but I brought the album with me to UNH in the fall. It's difficult to explain exactly why James Taylor resonates the way he does in New England, but his music conjures nothing but vivid images of Boston, Cape Cod, and the people I love in both. Now that's a great album.
09 Guster - Lost and Gone Forever (1999)
I was only at UNH for 2 years, but I'm almost certain I saw Guster there 3 times. They were one of the seminal college bands of the late 90's, and though there are so many great songs across a handful of albums, THIS album... oh man... this album, produced by Steve Lillywhite, was just a magical album in my life at that time. I will never be able to think of anything but UNH when I hear "Lost and Gone Forever," and that's okay. When Guster was in town, it was always a good time.
10 Hyannis Sound - On the Beach (2000)
(it's interesting that this album falls on the 10/11 cusp, as this album/group represents a very literal turning point in my life)
This album was a great white whale of sorts for me. I ordered it because a friend from music camp 4 years prior was singing in the group... and I quickly became fixated on the arranging, the singing, the song choices... everything about it. There was a time when I could have told you each person's part to every song on the whole disc. I auditioned for the Sound in 2000 and while I didn't make it, I was given encouraging feedback. It took everything I had to muster the courage to risk rejection a second time in 2001... and that, to quote Frost, has made all the difference.
11 Martin Sexton - Black Sheep (2001)
12 Great Big Sea - Turn (2001)
13 Jyde - Lyve (2001)
One of the best parts of joining Hyannis Sound was coming into contact with so many (so. many.) incredible people who were intrinsic artists, not intentional ones. Even the guys who weren't in ostensibly artistic career tracks had an unmistakable artist streak in them. And they loved really good music, and introduced me to it. Martin Sexton was the biggest one, for me, of the lot. Anything I could say about him, I either already have, or someone somewhere has, so suffice it to say, this artist and album were transformational for me. Great Big Sea introduced to me the folk music and maritime culture of eastern Canada and the north Atlantic in general, a love affair I haven't been able to shake. Jyde was an a cappella ubergroup that lived/played on St. John, USVI, in 1998-99, and was a creative incubator for one of a cappella's most talented and unique arrangers, Samrat Chakrabarti--after all of these years, still the most artistic person I know.
14 Kurt Elling - Flirting With Twilight (2002)
The most talented singer with whom I've ever sung is Nate Altimari, one of the earliest members of the Hyannis Sound (also of Jyde). I say this unselfconsciously, recognizing full well that I sang with some stinking brilliant singers at Berklee. It doesn't matter. Nate wins. So when in 2002, he handed me Kurt Elling's "Flirting With Twilight," I knew it would be special... I just didn't know how special. In my opinion, Elling is the greatest jazz singer of the last decade, and possibly well beyond that. No disrespect meant to Mark Murphy, Jon Hendricks, and Al Jarreau, to whom Elling openly pays homage. I count them as an earlier generation, not a lesser one.
Casual jazz listeners will enjoy him enough, students will listen in wonder, and some people will miss the boat entirely. It's no matter... more tickets available for me.
15 Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (2004)
I don't really enjoy liking things I'm supposed to like, and it takes a special kind of stubbornness to pick up a trumpet when you're 9 and not pick up "Kind of Blue" until you're 23... but I'm a special kind of stubborn. Anyway, this time I was wrong, okay? I can't think of anyone who shouldn't hear this album. I'll let the volumes that musicologists and historians have written on this masterpiece be my testimony by proxy.
16 Jason Upton - Great River Road (2005)
Backstory: at some point while I was at Berklee, I wrote an email to Gotee Records asking a few questions for a project for my Record Companies class (so I guess summer 05?). I got an email back from Joey Elwood, the label's president, and not only was he incredibly gracious with his time, but he sent me a 30-cd brick of Gotee artists. Among them was Jason Upton, who I put on the shelf until months later, when I was going through some stuff and he came up on my iTunes playlist.
This is without a doubt the most worshipful album I've ever listened to. It won't hit everyone the same way, but I'm truly blown away by Jason Upton. Close runners-up to the "most worshipful album" title are Rich Mullins with (anything, really, but) "Songs" and an album that's about to be mentioned in a minute here.
17 David Crowder Band - A Collision (Or 3+4=7) (2006)
18 Derek Webb - Mockingbird (2006)
I heard both of these albums for the first time when I was interning at EMICMG in the fall of 2006. Crowder shocked me from a musical standpoint, Webb from a content standpoint. Crowder hasn't shocked me since, but I felt that this was one of those rare top-to-bottom albums that one had to be a fool to break apart. Just listen all the way through. You can feel your spirit swell at points.
I had just read "Blue Like Jazz" that summer, and the ideas it presented about God were still competing with the political and religious dogma I had constructed in my mind to protect me from other thoughts. Then came "Mockingbird," and this stripped down, no frills, entirely acoustic album made shards of glass out of what I heretofore assumed were concrete pillars upholding my world view.
19 New World Son - Salvation Station (EP) (2007)
This is that other album that I include in the "most worshipful" category, and I know it doesn't seem to fit. But I heard this EP when I was stuffing mailers in the EMICMG mailroom as a temporary employee sometime in mid-late 2007. This album is magical. This band is magical. It's delta blues meets Blood, Sweat, and Tears meets black gospel church holding services in your local dive bar. This album has soul for weeks. And the guys are just stand-up guys, too. Really. I'm so excited about this album.
20 Michael Gungor Band - Ancient Skies (2007)
This was supposed to be a worship album. It is, I think, but really, it's art rock for the church. I had the pleasure of transcribing every bloody note on this masterful album for the upcoming songbook, and I'm telling you, from a harmony geek's perspective, this is some surprising stuff. This is not I-IV-V worship: there's mixolydian in there (not shocking, but rare in this idiom), there are fully diminished 7 chords, there's modal interchange, and there are some theologically rich lyrics set to beautiful melodies against lush harmonies... and oh yeah, there's that whole bluegrass/shred metal/guitarmony thing, too. Buy this album. I don't know where everyone's been on this album, but buy it.
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