Five Albums from Years Ending In Five

For recent birthdays I’ve been selecting albums to represent years in my life. In the first installment, it was 1983, 1993, 2003, 2013, and 2023. The next installment, we incremented a year, so: 1984, 1994, 2004, etc.

For this year, it was 1985, 1995, 2005, 2015, and 2024/2025 (an album released since my last birthday.)

Why?

Partly it’s a way of revisiting what was happening in music over the course of my life. As a kid I lived a very scrupulous form of Mormonism and took adults’ warnings about the corrupting influences of music at face value. This led me to a very narrow set of musical tastes (think symphonic movie soundtracks, 1940s big band jazz, new age synthesizer, and Chuck Mangione) so I missed a lot. Selecting albums from the years of my life is an attempt to reduce the cultural ignorance that’s often a downside of a bookish and puritanical childhood.

It’s also the anti-Spotify. I gave up Spotify two years ago, in spite of the fact that it had opened the musical world to me when I first joined the service around 2012. Eventually Spotify’s recommendations became a rut. Quitting it was the beginning of an experiment asking whether one can have a rich and fulfilling musical life in the 2020s without the drip-feed rental of a streaming service.

Process

The general process is to find lists of albums and listen to them. Wikipedia has articles listing the albums released on many years, and of the top albums by sales in basically any year. Rateyourmusic.com has per-year rankings for any given year, filterable by genre and many other things. I preview albums on Bandcamp if possible, or on YouTube (yes, a streaming service, with an ad blocker). If I like the album, I purchase it either for download or as a CD. (Sometimes a CD is cheaper, or it’s more available.) Bandcamp is by far my preferred place to buy music as they offer downloads of high-quality audio for cheap.

The artist-album model is a different mode than the currently more prevalent everything’s-a-single approach. Albums are to individual songs what a novel is to short stories: it’s a work of greater complexity, able to take a range of views and moods. It was the main form of prior generations of artists partly due to the physical constraints of vinyl, tapes, and CDs. Yet even while technological development has removed these limitations, the album remains artistically valuable – with a side helping of inviting you to pay attention to a thing for an hour at a time. Shocking!

I listened to something like 80 albums to select this year’s five. There are probably thousands that could be considered – obviously in a given year a huge amount of music is released.

Criteria

There were a few requirements:

That it be new to me. Not necessarily that I had never heard of it, but that I was not previously an appreciator of it.
That it not be too similar to albums selected in other years. (I want there to be diversity of selections across years. For example, not using Prince’s 1985 album because I used Purple Rain for 1984.)
That it was released in the given year.
That it was not produced longer than a year or two before its release.
That it be not much longer than an hour, i.e. not take over the presentation of the set.
That it be great – work musically, and have something that I could appreciate.

Observations

I don’t know what to do with music post-2015 or so. It really stood out to me this year that 2015 in particular was a year of deconstruction and stagnation-with-experimentation. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly is apparently considered by many the greatest hip-hop album of all time, but it isn’t even pure hip-hop—it’s a portmanteau of hip-hop with jazz, or was it jazz with hip-hop? Not a synthesis of the two genres, but alternating between them. One of the top pop albums of the year, Meghan Trainor’s Title, is sarcastically titled, and essentially a throwback to 60’s doo-wop. Sophie’s Product, another top-rated pop album of 2015 with a snarkily generic title, is so essentialized and self-conscious that it functions as a parody of what a pop album was, or supposedly ideally should be. It’s deconstructed pop. None of these highly influential genre entries takes its genre seriously, or sees working in a genre as quite good enough, at least not any contemporary one. It’s as if there’s nothing left to say musically, so what’s said is either everything at once (jazz AND hip-hop! But not jazz-hop…), or the negation of the value of saying anything at all (pop music suuucks so baaad, baa-byy!), or to repeat (with only slight modification) what was said 50 years prior. This while rock was transitioning into museum piece status, the prior greats in late-career indulgence, and the energy focused on recreating the past. (See also: Brexit, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the McRib sandwich.)

Are the self-aware rejections of genre, the pretentious mashups, and the obsessive longing for what-was a hiccup, a moment of postmodern experimentation whereby we recover the value of shared concepts? Or the farthest growth of the Enlightenment project wherein the leaves curl back on themselves and begin to brown? Clearly, I’m thinking too hard about this. Time for some…

Selections

1985

This one is perhaps not going to be a revelation to anyone, but it has much that works for me. First, having recently realized I am a fan of early Genesis (with Peter Gabriel) I have become more interested in the members of that band, including Phil Collins whom I only previously knew from, I think, the soundtrack to Disney’s Tarzan.

No Jacket Required also has a lot of synthesizer, of a particular kind that I find very pleasant. Perhaps that’s a sign that I was born in this period. Maybe I heard synth tones in the womb, who knows? (Good synth also largely led to my selection of Madonna’s debut album to represent 1983.)

Others considered for 1985:

Sade – Promise – 4 Nov 1985 – really liked it; chill and classy
Tears for Fears – “Songs from the Big Chair” – 25 Feb 1985 – it’s good!
Kate Bush – Hounds of Love – 16 Sep 1985 – really good, though it trails off toward the end; or maybe I just didn’t get it yet
Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms – 17 May 1985 – let’s say it has some homophobic language which is probably why it got covered in Empire Season 1 (2015). But is a pretty fun album otherwise, with some recognizable songs.
John Fogerty – Centerfield – 14 Jan 1985 – I remember being bored
Prince and the Revolution – Around the World in a Day – 22 Apr 1985 – good but too much like the prior album which was featured last year
The Smiths – Meat is Murder – 11 Feb 1985 – didn’t make a big impression; some well-known songs and a chill vibe, might need another listen
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy – 18 Nov 1985 – don’t remember it, I was playing a game
The Cure – The Head On The Door – 30 Aug 1985 – don’t remember much
The Replacements – Tim – 18 Sep 1985 – fine

1995

Gangster rap was far from accessible to 12-year old me. Profanity, sex, drugs, violence – there was no way I was going to listen to it, even if my parents had no objection, which they certainly did.

So what I knew of it was from parody, like Weird Al’s Amish Paradise, and maybe from songs on movies or TV shows. But I never really engaged it. And somehow, with all its recommendations recommendations recommendations, Spotify never got me there.

My entree into appreciating hip-hop was through Deltron 3030, a sort of space opera rap album recommended by my brother, and still very cool. Next was Hamilton, which I also heard about through word of mouth, because everybody was raving about it. (And it is excellent.)

Two years ago, I chose Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) by Digable Planets to represent 1993. It’s non-gangster rap, I’d say sort of nerd rap, and it really connected for me. But the harder stuff I heard while selecting a 1994 album, I just wasn’t ready for.

But like the taste of blue cheese, sometimes it takes a few attempts for a novel flavor to stick. And Tupac did it for me. Is the gangster stereotype pretty annoying for black people? Yes. Yes it is. But it also comes from a real experience that’s movingly captured here. Me Against The World is excellent; heartbreaking; channels rage, for sure; it’s tender; it’s inspiring.

Others considered for 1995:

Genius/GZA – Liquid Swords – 7 Nov 1995 – pretty good, really liked the opening, but got a bit samey later, then stronger again
Björk – Post – 15 Jun 1995 – it’s good
Radiohead – The Bends – 13 Mar 1995 – one of the great albums
Pulp – Different Class – 30 Oct 1995 – great. Dirty. I really liked it.
Three-6 Mafia – Mystic Stylez – 25 May 1995 – really good. Definitely trashy. Sounded less good over speakers.
The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – 23 Oct 1995 – Epic. Getting to know this album was to get to know myself.
Soda Stereo – Sueño Stereo – 15 Aug 1995 – bien!
Susumu Hirasawa – Sim City – 2 Aug 1995 – really cool
Goodie Mob – Soul Food – 7 Nov 1995 – pretty good
Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx – 1 Aug 1995 – pretty good!
Friday (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – 11 Apr 1995 – pretty good, less so than 2Pac
Pink Floyd – PULSE – 29 May 1995 – lots of good stuff but too long and not really from 1995
Tom Jobim – inédito – 1995 (but recorded in 1987) – good! Just the wrong year
Mencken/Schwartz – Pocahontas – 30 May 1995 – good, not new to me
Death – Symbolic – 21 Mar 1995 – it’s death metal; it’s all the same to my ears; I like some of the guitar work
Donkey Kong Country 2 – 1995 – Doesn’t do that much for me
Pavement – Wowee Zowee – 11 Apr 1995 – meh
Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith – 21 Jul 1995 – not my genre
Faith No More – King for a Day Fool for a Lifetime – 13 Mar 1995 – meh, not my thing
Guided by Voices – Alien Lanes – 4 Apr 1995 – kinda early Genesis-y. Really short.
Blind Guardian – Imaginations From The Other Side – 5 Apr 1995 – occasional moments, but not my genre.
Fugazi – Red Medicine – 14 Aug 1995 – not bad, not great, occasional good moments
The Pharcyde – Labcabincalifornia – 14 Nov 1995 – meh
Cap’n Jazz – Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes… – 1995 – it’s emo, in a bad way
Van Halen – Balance – 24 Jan 1995 – meh
Bruce Springsteen – Greatest Hits – 27 Feb 1995 – not my thing
Michael Jackson – HIStory: Past, Present & Future – Book I (HIStory Continues) – 20 Jun 1995 – some good. Kinda cheesy.

2005

I was surprised how heavy this was, and how much I liked it. As rock gets into its bronze age, non-English music is seen increasingly carrying the torch. Boris is a Japanese band that’s often characterized as sludge metal, noise, and similar, but whose members reject even the general label of “heavy metal”.

This is probably the heaviest, “dirtiest” sounding rock music that I’ve found myself liking. I have no idea what they sing about since it’s in Japanese. But you get the idea. Just… give it a listen sometime.

Others considered for 2005:

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Cold Roses – 3 May 2005 – I like the grittier country-ish sound. Gets rockin’. Really good.
Dave Matthews Band – Stand Up – 10 May 2005 – pretty good!
System of a Down – Mezmerize – 17 May 2005 – really interesting! I’m not sure, but… in a good way!
50 Cent – The Massacre – not a full listen; makes me think of “American Fiction” haha; I like the sound pretty well but it feels stereotypical somehow
Mariah Carey – The Emancipation of Mimi – 12 Apr 2005 – strong opening, but slips into more generic-feeling material, but it’s not my genre; to 16:18
Nujabes – Modal Soul – 11 Nov 2005 – maybe another time, I need some non-hiphop next in the lineup
Gorillaz – Demon Days – 24 May 2005 – kinda like it, but it also feels too predictable, maybe because of how much later Damon Alburn I’ve heard? to 15:30
Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth – 3 May 2005 – I am finding it a bit repetitive. Pretty dark, not my favorite.
Audioslave – Out of Exile – 23 May 2005 – pretty good, I did zone out halfway though
George Strait – Somewhere Down in Texas – 28 Jun 2005 – nice sound, kinda cheesy, feels like the fake distilled sanitized version of rurality
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois – not a full listen; probably not my jam (wasn’t back in the day)
Coil – The Ape of Naples – 2 Dec 2005 – not a full listen; I’m not into it

2015

As mentioned above, 2015 was a tough year for me to find an album for. I wound up with this really nice singer-songwriter entry with an unusual-sounding voice and a 5% pretentious lyrics. (It relates to Ulysses by James Joyce.) Others also went through “bookish and puritanical childhoods” and do pretty cool things from that vantage point.

Others considered for 2015:

Björk – Vulnicura – 20 Jan 2015 – also reviewed Björk Post for 1995, which I was a fan of. Kind of meandering… Good!
Fall Out Boy – American Beauty / American Psycho – 16 Jan 2015 – “You look so Seattle, but you feel so LA” – really good!
Eliza Soares – A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo (The Woman At The End of the World) – 1 Oct 2015 – pretty nice, I have no idea what it says!
Big Sean – Dark Sky Paradise – 24 Feb 2015 – not too bad
Various – Empire Season 1 Soundtrack – 10 Mar 2015 – covers Dire Straits’ 1985 “Money For Nothing” from Brothers In Arms included in this year’s reviews. Pretty good.
Kamasi Washington – The Epic – 5 May 2015 – somewhat laborious jazz, but some fun sounds. Feels like 1974 or so. It picks up and is pretty good. Color me skeptical of the Malcolm X rehab. A lot like “To Pimp a Butterfly” regarding Tupac, but a more flattering portrait, papering over the grosser stuff.
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly – 15 Mar 2015 – very jazz-influenced… in a bit of a bad way. Repetitive. On purpose – it could pay off, I’d have to revisit. I’m just not into most of it stylistically; it’s pretty somber. It believes in race quite a bit. And gang identity? I like the messages of anti-victimhood, anti-gang-violence. Very talky. Very class revolutionary and embraces class violence. Prophesies race-based violence.
Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion – 24 Jun 2015 – naaahh, not my genre
Sophie – Product – 27 Nov 2015 – ugh, not for me. Like, horror-dance. Kinda shitty, then “deconstructed”. Austere art that’s there to not give you what you want. For masochists.
Julia Holter – Have You In My Wilderness – 25 Sep 2015 – not into it
Mgła – Exercises in futility – 4 Sep 2015 – nah, not my genre
Lil Ugly Mane – Third Side of Tape – 29 Apr 2015 – listened to the first two or three sides, not into it
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 – Interstellar Intercourse 星間性交 – 21 Dec 2015 – I guess people use this while having sex. For just listening to? Not my thing.
Earl Sweatshirt – I don’t like shit, I don’t go outside – 23 Mar 2015 – a drag
Jeff Rosenstock – We Cool? – 25 Feb 2015 – I really dislike the faux-dorkiness of this sort of punk. Some good guitar.
Meghan Trainor – Title – 9 Jan 2015 – I’m not the target audience, obviously. Some nice messages of self-acceptance, but also in a bit of a vapid and resentful way. The music itself is very basic – feels like parody almost; the album title ‘Title’ fits. Pretty confessional about some bad habits, so relatable, but also normalizing some dumb shit. I sound for sure like a dad right now. Very high school / early college.
Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – 13 Feb 2015 – dislike. There were maybe two songs that I kind of liked, the rest… no thanks. Stylistically, and personally. I just feel like I wouldn’t want to hang out with the guy.
Imagine Dragons – Smoke + Mirrors – 17 Feb 2015 – Fine, doesn’t do that much for me – maybe I’m just burned out
Kelly Clarkson – Piece by Piece – 27 Feb 2015 – okay, pretty overplayed on this first track. Kinda cheesy. Not my thing.
Death Grips – The Powers that B Disc 2 – 19 Mar 2015 – meh
Travis Scott – Rodeo – 4 Sep 2015 – also meh, really not my style

2024/2025

The rule was to be released in the 366 days following my birthday in 2024. (366 to account for leap year.) I didn’t do a general search but kept on eye on Wikipedia’s lists of 2024 albums and 2025 albums.

I also didn’t search too hard because I loved the hell out of No Name as soon as I heard it. Is rock declining? Maybe it’s being kept alive by work like this. I’m not sure it paves new ground, but it keeps a wonderful tradition vital. Isn’t that the norm for music in human history?

The White Stripes’ Elephant was my choice for 2003, so apparently I’m a sucker for Jack White’s music.

I did less of a search process and more just followed along as the year progressed. Other albums considered:

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Flight b741 – 9 Aug 2024 – I really dig it. Like No Name, it sits at the junction of blues and rock, apparently a sweet spot for me. I’m not big on the band’s prior albums, this one being a stylistic anomaly and more of a throwback. Another sign of the backward-looking tendency in rock, and in fans like myself seemingly
Glass Animals – I Love You So F***ing Much – 19 Jul 2024 – didn’t do a lot for me, feels too derivative of prior successes
cóclea x canut de bon – No esperan por nadie – 10 Jan 2025 – rocks pretty well. Pretty good. Chile is keeping the fire alive.
Mac Miller – Baloonerism – 17 Jan 2025 – not too bad
The Weeknd – Hurry Up Tomorrow – 31 Jan 2025 – eh, I’m not a big fan

Concluding Stuff

Splicing this music search process onto my birthday parties has been an experiment. I’m not sure it really pays off for my guests, but what I was attempting was to somehow bring the inward experience of hearing this music to my connection with other people. The old yearning for the interior and exterior worlds to be joined somehow. I do get a lot of that from the poetry and wider writing world, but music was my first love. Maybe that means I need to go to more concerts. Or maybe I need to work on some chords and start playing again. Did you know there are 4095 possible sequential scales with no repeats in a 12-tone music system?

Is this a good way of exploring music? I’d say… definitely, yes. Spotify was a little too sanitized for me. Its recommendations had a tendency to keep you where you already were. Being forced to go to multiple sites for information on music and bands also makes for a richer experience – I don’t just get the artist, album, and track name in isolation in some playlist, as fun as that can also be. And I like knowing that, versus a streaming subscription, the vast proportion of my money is going directly to the artists in question (through Bandcamp) or at least (when buying a used CD) helping support the market price of the artists’ music. Is it harder? Yes. Harder, but better for what I’m currently looking for.

Catch you later.