Long time user and lurker. Hitting the forums with my first installment of random albums. {TLDR: Listen to Blue State's 2000 album Nothing Changes Under the Sun if you're fever chasing late 90's nostalgia}
Over the last decade + I've gotten good at aggregating and accumulating a semi-curated music library. I've listened to a lot of albums but many more remain untouched. Now that I've caught up to what 2025 had to offer I'm spending some time hitting shuffle and listening to 10 random albums at a time. I've already done this a good bit, but this is the first post. I won't list rank them as much as I'll try to add in some points that can help you find little nuggets among the volume.
... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - So Divided (2006) >>> I ended up opting for their more well regarded 2002 album Source Tags & Codes. Well worth a listen if you want early 2000s rock.
Beyoncé - HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM >>> I promise I don't do this often... but I also opted for a different album of hers, 2022's RENAISSANCE. Could only make it about halfway through. I've never been a B fan... but don't tell the people I've been dating...
The Bird Calls - Old Faithful (2024) >>> decent american album. just decent.
Blue States - Nothing Changes Under the Sun (2000) >>> easily my favorite album from this list. captures 90's/early aughts electronic / indie sound that I've noticed a lot of artists are trying to recapture (the Lolla aftershows this year are poluted w/ 90's sound... which I think is a good thing)
Bob Marley & the Wailers - Natty Dread (1974) >>> i skipped this one bc I've heard all i want to hear from Marley and i much prefer dub to reggae...
Buddy Miller - Universal United House of Prayer (2004) >>> too religious for me... but putting that aside it was decent but overproduced modern country... too bland.
Carré - Soft Fascination (2024) >>> Cute Mad made it into my eclectic electronic playlist, all other tracks not worth the time in my opinion and Cute Mad would only make it 60-90 seconds in a DJ set of mine (if I was a DJ...)
Could Nothings - Cloud Nothings (2011) >>> i've always written off cloud nothings bc i never liked their breakout 2012 album, Attack on Memory. this listen inspired me to give them another chance and worst case scenario come out with the opinion that their self titled LP is the only thing i'll ever like from them... side note if you want a deep cut Toro y Moi song that likely got very overlooked check out the Cloud Nothings / Toro y Moi split single "I Will Talk to You". Toro y Moi is hit or miss for me based on when the album came out (hits in the beginning and is consistently missing in the present day). That said this may be a peak song in that timeline/bell curve of my love for the band / person or whatever.
Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death (2025) >>> i don't like this genre, but if you like hair metal i assume you'll like this. i was headbanging a little, ngl (not gon lie)
Denzel Curry - King of the Mischievous South (2024) >>> i've heard this one (many times) already, one of my favourite rap albums from the last few years (his follow up Strictly 4 the Scythe is even better imo... or at least more solid through and through). Black Flag Freestyle will play at my funeral, with that leading into an interlude, into G'z Up, into another interlude paying homage to Three 6 Mafia, and finally into Sked. This band of songs goes on my mount rushmore...
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I like the premise of this thread and it’s great to see others posting new topics. I’m definitely going to participate in your thread. I’ll take a look at the albums that you’ve posted.
Excited to see where this takes you and I'll be making notes on stuff I need to check out now that I myself am also finally finishing catching up on all the 2025 albums I've had on my list. _________________ My overall top 100 is far from fleshed out at this point, so here are some charts I am actually proud of:
Top 100 Albums of 2025
Over the last decade + I've gotten good at aggregating and accumulating a semi-curated music library. I've listened to a lot of albums but many more remain untouched. Now that I've caught up to what 2025 had to offer I'm spending some time hitting shuffle and listening to 10 random albums at a time. I've already done this a good bit, but this is the first post. I won't list rank them as much as I'll try to add in some points that can help you find little nuggets among the volume.
You should make some more charts, man! Your annotations are top-notch, and once you get past this strange fear of yours about later-period Wire albums, the sky's the limit! (Don't forget, 154 is Robert Pollard's second-favorite album of all time. I only have it at #7.) 😄
(Also, the "list" tags don't do anything if you don't put bracketed asterisks [*] at the beginning of each line in the list.)
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Blue States - Nothing Changes Under the Sun (2000) >>> easily my favorite album from this list. captures 90's/early aughts electronic / indie sound that I've noticed a lot of artists are trying to recapture (the Lolla aftershows this year are poluted w/ 90's sound... which I think is a good thing)
They're still around — in fact, they have a new album coming out on July 24th. Unfortunately that's the same day as the new Robyn Hitchcock album, so of course all the worldwide media attention will be laser-focused on that instead, but that doesn't mean it won't ultimately be successful.
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Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death (2025) >>> i don't like this genre, but if you like hair metal i assume you'll like this. i was headbanging a little, ngl (not gon lie)
Well, really, the band to check out is actually Creepoid, who have the advantage of not being a hair-metal band (though they do have hair, or did, anyway). Also, I just realized I somehow forgot to add their self-titled second LP to my 2014 chart, so thanks for reminding me! I'll just go and take care of that right now.
[list]
[*]... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - So Divided (2006) >>> I ended up opting for their more well regarded 2002 album Source Tags & Codes. Well worth a listen if you want early 2000s rock
I'm not familiar with So Divided by Source Tags & Codes is a good album. If I had to pick a favourite of theirs it would be either
Back with a second installment. I don’t know how to respond directly with quoted text, so i’ll just respond directly at the end of this write up… for now here are more words and albums. Boiled down… listen to Devendra Banhart if you haven’t already. Because most of these weren’t amazing, I’ll comment that I caught a Vinyl Williams show who is a criminally overlooked artist.
>Devendra Banhart - Ape in Pink Marble (2016) >>> recommend a listen >>> I knew they were a highly regarded artist and i was happy to see this in the shuffle. Did not disappoint. A relatively unique sound with folk and lo-fi tones - can’t put my finger on influences or influenced by - which is a compliment. I look forward to exploring their discography.
>DJ Fett Burger - Ephemeral Lightspeed (2020) >>> skip >>> a single w 3 remixes. Maybe, just maybe, the break beat of the original track makes it as the third song of the end credits of the inevitable cash grab that will be the 6th installment of the Bourne movies (i hesitate to count the bourne legacy as one… but technically it’s in there…)
>Gleaming Spires - Songs of the Spires (2010) >>> skip >>> i loathe those born in the late sixties who had to grow up with the hot garbage of the 80s… there… I said it… this album with classics like track 2 “Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?” and others that I didn’t even make it to bc I couldn’t take it any more… it makes me wonder
>The Lumineers - Live from Wrigley Field (2024) >>> skip, unless you like this band >>> high quality live recording. Not my type of music. I know people who went to this concert (as I live in Chicago)... who goes to a concert in a baseball stadium… millennials who like the Cubs and mediocre mid-2010s alt-pop I imagine… I did listen to “Ho Hey” which phonetically feels… off… just to capture the nostalgia of high school parties hosted by people who overused the phrase “Wanderlast” (overused = used more than 0 times) in twitter posts.
>Man… or Astro-Man? - What Remains Inside a Black Hole (1995) >>> give the band a try if you like the Pulp Fiction sound track or surf riffs >>> One note, but fun band that just (from what I can tell) has and does surf riffs. They are playing a show at The Empty Bottle this year but tickets were ~$50 a piece… couldn’t do it in addition to the intangible cost of dragging a friend (or what was once a friend) to that show… I thought this was the band that did the X-files theme but apparently i was wrong…
>The Minus 5 - Dear December (2017) >>> skip >>> originally made aware of The Minus 5 through one of those “most obscure albums of top contributors” album of the days on this site. Listened to their self titled LP back then but didn’t log and forget much about it. The curse of this process is the occasional holiday album in June… that said this is one I wouldn’t listen to on the snowiest of days in December….
>Various Artists - Wizzz! Vol. 2: French Psychorama: 1966 - 1970 (2008) >>> if you like 60s psych listen >>> some fun break beats in here. Nothing super special. The third track, Maintenant je suis un voyou, was a bit special. Otherwise solid listen through and through. Makes you wonder what it would have been like listening to music like this in a French club in the 60s would have been like… instead i’m in my spare room on my computer typing this…
>Prince - Diamonds and Pearls (1991) >>> skip >>> confession. I’ve never consciously listened to a Prince album start to finish. I find his discography intimidating. Of what little i’ve listened to his work, Controversy stands out as my favourite song which i was first exposed to by arcade fire on their tour of reflektor (the one and only stadium show I’ll ever go to). As for this album, if you couldn’t tell I felt the need to say other things before I commented on it… I didn’t like this album.
>Tribalistas - Tribalistas (2017) >>> skip >>> i eat up MPB from the ‘70s and ‘80s but I’ve never really explored it outside of those decades. This wasn’t bad and it wasn’t great. I look forward to exploring post 2000s MPB a bit more. Maybe.
>Various Artists - Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982, Disc 3 (2024) >>> skip >>> experimental rock music from the seventies… just listen to Night Flanger by Yello and the rest is can get ignored from this disc.
w/ response to Johnnyo - thanks! I gave tao of the dead a listen and it was also a great album. Much different than the one i listened to through this list, but great in it’s own regard. Interesting to see how their sound changed over a nine year gap!
Cheddar - appreciate you!
MadhattanJack - admittedly I listened to the album and wasn’t into it :/ i even tried listening to it at an english style pub. Didn’t help :/ Enjoyed Creepoid’s Horse Heaven!
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>Man… or Astro-Man? - What Remains Inside a Black Hole (1995) >>> give the band a try if you like the Pulp Fiction sound track or surf riffs >>> One note, but fun band that just (from what I can tell) has and does surf riffs. They are playing a show at The Empty Bottle this year but tickets were ~$50 a piece… couldn’t do it in addition to the intangible cost of dragging a friend (or what was once a friend) to that show… I thought this was the band that did the X-files theme but apparently i was wrong…
Man...or Astroman? did the theme music for Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ("In the not-too-distant future, next Sunday A.D., there was a guy named Joel, not too different from you or me")... The X-Files theme is called "Materia Primoris" and was recorded by Mark Snow for the The Truth And The Light: Music From The X-Files (1996) soundtrack album — Amazon link there, sorry — which oddly enough hasn't yet been added to the BEA database, maybe because it's all 90's FM and PD synthesizers which started to sound cheesy to some people almost as soon as they were invented.
I guess it's fair to say Man...or Astroman? does mostly surf riffs — personally I'd say that's damning with faint praise, but the guy insists on playing a Stratocaster with heavy use of the whammy bar, so that's just what it sounds like. Maybe now he'll try some different guitars because of the lawsuit.
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>Tuxedomoon - Buy or Die! Ralph Records 1972-1982, Disc 3 (2024) >>> skip >>> experimental rock music from the seventies… just listen to Night Flanger by Yello and the rest is can get ignored from this disc.
Well now... you're referring to Disc 3 of the 2024 Box Set, which contains the first side of Yello's classic Solid Pleasure album. Everyone should give that a listen (Side 2 is "just okay," but Side 1 is brilliant). TBH though, most people would probably agree with what you're saying. There's a lot of Renaldo & the Loaf stuff on that disc that's practically unlistenable, but there are also two tracks from Tuxedomoon's equally-classic Desire LP, which hasn't dated as well as the Yello album (it's often excessively melodramatic) but is still worth a listen in its entirety, if you ask me. It's their best album, and I would say by a fairly wide margin.
Ralph Records is an acquired taste overall, but there are some tasty bits in there along with the weird-for-the-sake-of-it stuff, at least for people like me who are always desperate for more "hipster cred" in order to make posts like the one you're reading now, assuming you've read this far.
I'm not aware of this album but Devendra Banhart is a quite unique talent and I love most of his work. I've heard it described as Freak Folk, which I think is quite a nice description
Installment three. Special shout out to MadhattanJack and Johnnyo for writing equally as long responses to my posts - I appreciate the responses - it motivates me to keep this on among other things! My shuffle does 20 albums which I break into two separate posts and I will say I was happy with what came out this time across most of the 20! I now see my library sorts by artist name… so all compilations will fall on every other post to the extent they get sucked in…
In summary, in this batch I found a two new favourites and a few worthwhile listens. Camera Obscura’s Biggest Bluest Hi-FI taking the top spot. In total 4 listens. This took longer because I wrote an accompanying write up (posted after this) on a friend of mine that you may find interesting. At least skip to the end of it and look at his website.
... Camera Obscura - Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi (2001) >>> listen, and listen many times >>> Camera Obscura falls into my too long of a list of artists I know I’ll like but haven’t put in the time to listen to (see Devendra Banhart on my 9 June post…). Up until now, I’ve listened to only one of there songs over 100 times… side story… I saw Ducks Ltd. on 29 Jul ‘25 at The Empty Bottle and was blown away by their cover of Loyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken. I walked out of there with my partner seeking out the source of the song knowing I needed more which led me right back to Camera Obscura (ducks ltd. has since put out an EP with a polished version of that cover which I recommend). I wished I cried more - the last time I got a good wale out was back in 2015 when my childhood dog died in my arms - however listening and singing this song gets me pretty close.
Anyway. As for this album it plays great cover to cover. I can’t compare it to the rest of their catalogue but i imagine in a few weeks i’ll be able to. I have a soft spot for Ivy, and this is like a less BPM Ivy album with subtle production. This album makes me want to dance in the kitchen, the shower, and the walk in closet I’ll never have (or at least that you all will never realize i have (had)).
Don ZIlla - Ekizikiza Mubwengula (2021) >>> skip, maybe listen to ‘ automated’ >>> Mid-tier electronic album. Not really my style or speed. Probably my first Uganda log if i had to guess.
Girls Aloud - Tangled Up (2007) >>> skip >>> 2007 pop… in a bad way…
James - Wah Wah (1993) >>> skip >>> not much to say on this one. Mostly just some partial songs and nothing inspiring…
John Fahey - The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites (1964) >>> listen >>> Not sure much about the background of this one, but it’s been on my mental listen list for a while so i was happy to see it pop up. A nice calm folk/blues instrumental album.
Jon Hopkins - RITUAL (2024) >>> skip >>> admittedly i’ve never been too keen on their work. Even back when Insides came out and i was all over the top of the pops indie scene I couldn’t get into it… this sounds like a soundtrack. Maybe it is. Not for me personally. If you plan on implanting yourself into a TRON world, wearing black spandex, and doing some sort of tron tournament to the death (i’ve never seen the films) then maybe you’d want to throw this in your ears while on the tron cycle (assume that’s what they are called).
The Lightning Seeds - Jollification (1994) >>> go for a listen, but for all the wrong reasons >>> I don’t like brit-pop, i don’t like pop much in general. Odds were stacked against this one from the onset… however, a wildcard was played at the very beginning that swung the odds heavily in the opposite favor. Was it my love of strawberries? No. Was it that i’m falling in love? No.
What I wasn’t ready for was the lead singer, Ian Broudie, sounding like Dan Bejar. Instant pass on all biases and preconceived notions I had heading into this listen. The subtle ‘bah-bah-bahs” plaguing music of the mid nineties were music to my ears - literally. Broudie’s vocal proximity to Bejar cleansed this album of any and all of its sins - final verdict from me is a solid listen. Would listen again.
Michael Jackson - Invincible (2001) >>> skip >>> first things first, fuck Michael Jackson. Fuck privileged elite who can get away with so much and get away with it. I find ignorant privileged people to be the worst of the worst, not even counting his interactions with children, animals, etc. In the words of Twain - I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure. My take on it - some people die too early… some people die too late… interpret that as you may…
Back to the action.
1998-2003, not counting every possible 5 year range between 1980-1989, my least favourite half decade out there. Barron wasteland. That weird bass + piano + bass lick combo sound is not for me even though it would have been engrained into a lot of the pop music on for me as a kid… just not for me…
Not sure what producers, artists, and the world were thinking in this era of music (broadly speaking). I couldn’t make it through this album, so i listened to most songs partially. Honestly, excluding Thriller, which is top to bottom amazing, i don’t listen to Michael Jackson. This blog isn’t about live music, but i’ll give him credit, he is the epitome of ‘song and dance’ when so many artists only bring the song and not the ‘dance’ to live music. Stage presence is so imperative and he arguably set the precedent and the foundation for what has become stadium shows (of which i’ve never really been to or experienced, but they make people happy and indirectly the world a better place - so we’ll give Michael credit for that…)
The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ (2015) >>> listen for sure >>>I don’t believe in coincidence or fate. I just enjoy trying to draw arbitrary and imaginative lines between two seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts. In this case, it’s a very easy line to draw. The week I listened to this was the week I got to see a good friend of mine, Bill, for the first time in two years - whose favourite band is the mountain goats. There are 532,763 songs in my library, 457 of them by The Mountain Goats. That’s a 0.08577923% chance a Mountain Goats album is picked… combined with how we ended up meeting up… incalculable. See my following post for more on Bill.
As for the Mountain Goats, they have an intimidating discography. This is the first album where i would have been made aware of them back from my days of being a sheep and using pitchfork + stereogum + other unnamed online publications to dictate what I listened to.
High on my mental list (List #1) is creating a formal mental list of visionary/ creative things that I want to deliver to the world (List #2) for no more reason than to entertain myself. On List #2, would be creating a list of things I want to do and maintain through BEA (List #3) of which on that list would be a list of custom charts that explore how I think about music through different lenses (List #4). At the top of List #4 would be a custom top 100 chart for my favourate album covers (List #5) of which this album cover would make the short list.
I’m not into lyrics normally, but for this album i decided to give it more attention than others - so i read all lyrics for each song as I listened. I assumed from the album cover and the titles of the song this is a made up story of a wrestler’s journey through amateur / semi-professional wrestling (WWE style). I was wrong, but enjoyed them none the less.
It makes me sad that I don’t look into or consume more lyrics because it shows just how much more to music and an album there can be and I choose to consumer my music in a more efficient way. I’m sad not because i could be happier but because there will always be much more art that’s worthwhile consuming that I’ll never find the time in my life to consume. I consume so much more than I create and give back… which is something I’m working on but something we as society can work on as well relative to resources, time, and happiness.
MadhattanJack > you’re totally right… it was weird b/c I was looking at their albums in my library and was like I don’t see X-files in here but I’ll write it anyway… MST3K is something i’ve dipped my toe into but never fully explored. Crazy that it will likely be lost to time because of licensing and stuff… if you know where to look you can get the old stuff though even from public broadcast TV!
On the guitar stuff - I could only make it halfway through IP law is an anti-passion of mine (: ha, still very interesting stuff though! Thanks for sharing!
On Ralph Records - not surprised to hear there are some nuggets on that label based on what I heard on disc 3. On hipster cred - i feel you.
Johnnyo > I listened to both! Both were fantastic! I didn’t google the beard though - I likely would have quickly fallen into a serious bout of beard envy (:
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Bill . A teammate, a former work colleague, a mentor, and most importantly - a friend. To understand our relationship, you’ll need to first understand a bit about me - I’ll assume you haven’t read any of my other posts or writings before.
I was born on 30 April, 1994 just before midnight to and . Fast forward 27 years. I’m a rising team leader/consultant at and I play a lot of tennis (and I’m good at it). A newer friend of mine (who was big in the Chicago DIY scene in the early 2000s) recruited me to try out “platform tennis”, which is basically an outdoor winter variant to tennis that’s more boring but gets you outside in the winter. I wasn’t good at the beginning, but was learning and rising through the ‘ranks’ of semi-organized men's platform tennis in Chicago. After my first season, I earned a spot on a higher level team that was captained by Bill. When I first met Bill, it was an early Sunday morning practice. He was hung over from partying the night before and hardly said a word… not a very impactful first impression… However, I got to know Bill much better over the following few weeks. Bill is a certified genius. He isn’t gifted athletically, but he makes up for it in his analytical approach to competing. I’m relying on my skeletal muscle to get to balls that I should have been better positioned to return and he’s relying on home-brewed algorithms to analyze the weaknesses of opponents.
I won’t bore you with too much LinkedIn-detail, but in short Bill and I both worked (he still does and I no longer do) at . He is basically the head person of the information technology approach for the Olympics. It wasn’t until two years later that I came to realize he was into (an understatement) music. In passing, he mentioned he was into punk and that a favourite label of his was going under and that he bought it so it could survive. It was only possible because he agreed with the label founder that the founder could do “whatever the fuck he wanted so long as the bills get paid”. If it’s not apparent, Bill has more money than one individual human should have, however, this is one example among many where he puts it to good use and invests in and supports the arts. He’s on a first name basis with most musical industry leaders in Chicago, not because it’s a pet project of his to be known, rather it’s a passion of his that runs so deep he cannot help but allocate a portion of his brain power (which amounts to more than my entire brain is capable of) towards advancing and maintaining the space.
Bill’s encyclopedic knowledge of labels, bands, band members, venues, behind the scenes people, etc. is unmatched. In the five years I’ve known Bill I think I’ve gotten two bands past him that he wasn’t at least aware of… Sexyy Red (which shouldn’t even count) and Amyl & the Sniffers (which he somehow wasn’t aware of… he was basically able to tell me all the Australian labels they weren’t on or else he would know who they were…). That said, I’ve never once felt like I was being flexed on. I think, I don’t know I just think, his intent is to educate and spread awareness rather than to sound pretentious or turn it into a contest of sorts which I find to be the case in the limited instances I’ve attempted to talk music with people. It could also be my consistent imposter syndrome that warps my perspective…
Time passes, life happens, and BIll and I went almost two years without seeing each other until two weeks ago. Another hobby of mine is board games. In a moment of vulnerability, I posted on the Chicago board game facebook page asking if anyone was interested in trying out some japanese trick takers I wanted to get to the table (if you know you know). I got one random brief response by a fellow called Chris. I invited Chris and his friend Dan into my home, along with a friend of mine, to play board games about a month ago. It turns out both Chris and Dan know Bill on a personal basis - their sons all went to the same high school and they’ve known each other for years. This inspired me to reach out to Bill to connect - that last time I messaged him was wishing him luck just before the Olympics.
So I reach out to Bill, and in true Bill fashion he’s super responsive and ready to get at it. I told him to pick what we do because he has actual taste and I’ll do anything. He comes back almost immediately with dinner and catching The Hotelier show. Classic Bill. At dinner we catch up on our lives, he tells his stories, I tell mine, then we get into music. I mentioned the hardest question to answer is when someone asks your favourite band… impossible… i’d rather be asked when the last time I checked for lumps on my testicles was… at least i’d have an answer…
I mention this site and my attempt to start to inventory my thoughts… and he mentions a website he built himself that inventories every album review he’s done, every concert he’s ever been to and every blog post he’s ever done. There is so much to unpack in those thoughts - but I’ll highlight a few and then share the site.
Essays - as he meditates on music or has discussions, when posed with interesting questions he will proactively research, answer them, and write about the process and the conclusion
Album ratings - he has built an algorithm that allows him to search a city and it will spit back his favourite band that ‘captures the sound’ of that city - all automated
Concerts - he’s inventoried every concert he’s been to and has an automated summary of it
Beyond the website - he has modified jriver with a modified algorithm that leverages the underlying algo used by most media streaming services (which is an open source algo developed by some ivy league people at some point in history) to provide highly tailored recommendations within his library.
Finally, he developed an algorithm to analyze all shows and albums he’s listened to that displays his statistically favourite artist… which is the Mountain Goats and which is why we are here (me writing and you reading) this.
His website is graniteandtumble.com. Don’t fuck with his shit.
This is just the tip of the Bill iceberg. It was good to see you a few weeks ago Bill - much love.
///
I don’t know what a ballad is. Hopefully this counts.
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MadhattanJack
