December 17th, 2008 I was recently think­ing about which albums would rank as my favorite albums of all time (quite an honor! ), and with the excep­tion of two or three, I’d say my top ten was set in stone around the time I was 14 or 15 years old: Smash­ing Pump­kins – Siamese Dream Weezer – Blue Album Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon Foo Fight­ers – The Colour and the Shape Iron and Wine – The Creek Drank the Cradle Copeland – In Motion Nir­vana – Nevermind Metal­lica – …And Jus­tice for All Radio­head – OK Computer Mars Volta – De-​Loused at the Comatorium While I’m sure that this holds true for most folks, it’s funny how the music that you listen to during your ‘formative years’ gen­er­ally stay with you tend to shape what you listen to in the future as well. I’ve prob­a­bly heard most of the above albums a few hun­dred times each, and I could still put any of them on repeat all day and be totally content.

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Julien Peter Benney says: December 18th, 2008 at 1: 58 am “the music that you listen to during your ‘for­ma­tive years’ gen­er­ally stay with you tend to shape what you listen to in the future as well” is some­thing that has not been true for me! As a child, I lis­tened on the radio to highly com­mer­cial 1980s music, for the Eury­th­mics to For­eigner to Madonna to Phil Collins to Ice­house, and with hind­sight I deplore living in such a cul­tural waste­land as sub­ur­ban Aus­tralia is. People there listen to the most pop­u­lar and catchy music with little thought for any­thing else. More­over, Australia’s sub­urbs are so community-​oriented that there is no room for cre­ativ­ity, with the result that not a single artist of any type remotely famous world­wide ever devel­oped from places like Melton or Wer­ribee or Cran­bourne or Pak­en­ham or Cragieburn.

Though I tend to be very sus­pi­cious of tech­nol­ogy, the Web has been a boon for me because it has allowed me to get to know much supe­rior music crit­i­cism than I could find even in trendy inner-​city book­shops. Now, aided by such writ­ers as Joe S. Har­ring­ton and Piero Scaruffi, I can only look with embarass­ment at liking what I did when i was a boy. Daniel says: December 18th, 2008 at 9: 53 am Well, I was hoping to get another list from folks, but I guess this will do as well.

Just because some­thing is catchy or pop­u­lar doesn’t mean it’s always bad. rick says: December 18th, 2008 at 3: 42 pm I’ll take a stab at this. A mix of my old and cur­rent favorites: agreed on Pink Floyd agreed on Metal­lica LTJ – Losing Streak Michael Jack­son – Thriller Triv­ium – Ascen­dancy AC/DC – High­way to Hell Black Sab­bath – Para­noid Ozzy – Bliz­zard of Ozz Life of Agony – River Runs Red Slip­knot – Iowa I know I’m all over the place.

Every­thing from clas­sic rock to ska/punk. Daniel says: December 18th, 2008 at 3: 59 pm Oh man … Thriller is so close to being in my top 10. Still one of the best albums after all these years. It’s basi­cally a ‘best of’ album all in itself.

Erik says: December 18th, 2008 at 4: 14 pm Here I go. With these I’m pretty much talk­ing about albums that I’ve worn out. Stone Temple Pilots – Core Alice in Chains – Jar of Flies Metal­lica – …And Jus­tice for All Soundgar­den – Supe­run­k­nown Sev­en­dust – Sea­sons All That Remains – The Fall of Ideals Less Than Jake – ALL ALBUMS Triv­ium – Ascen­dancy Ante­rior – This Age of Silence The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow Audioslave – Out of Exile Lag­wagon – Double Plaid­inum The Skoi­dats – The Times Mephiskaphe­les – Max­i­mum Per­ver­sion Snoop Dog – Dog­gystyle Weezer – Blue Album Stuck Mojo – HVY 1 Machine Head – Burn My Eyes Fear Fac­tory – Deman­u­fac­ture Pan­tera – Cow­boys From Hell MU330 – Crab Ran­goon IPS – Full Cat­a­log (prefer the “McGreevy” period) Spine­shank – Strictly Diesel Life of Agony – River Runs Red Wow this list sucks. Erik says: December 18th, 2008 at 4: 27 pm Whoops, forgot one of my stoner metal favorites.

Down – Nola rick says: December 19th, 2008 at 1: 57 pm I think Thriller is as close to the per­fect album as you can get. Just about every song was released as a single, and the ones that weren’t were just as good. Jon Kantro says: December 23rd, 2008 at 7: 32 pm I would cer­tainly have to agree with Smash­ing Pump­kins and Radio­head.

I per­son­ally would pick Machina and Kid A, then again I’m younger and to each his own. I remem­ber seeing The Mars Volta twice after De Loused came out. They were phe­nom­e­nal.

It’s too bad John Theodore left the band and that their latest albums have been hit and miss. Anyway, nice list oth­er­wise. Leave a Reply Posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 4: 27 pm and filed under Lists, Rants, music.

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