It started with a trip back home. As those of you who know me — the majority of the eight of you who still swing by this site — are familiar, I often bring up (and/or advocate for) the myriad enchantments of my beloved city by the lake. Whether we’re talking music, history, food, or even critical philosophical matters such as whether a river can run backwards (it can — ours is the first/only one to do so), I often (possibly annoyingly) find ways to bring up the greatest place on Earth (six years running, no less!) For me the place is magic — a location that enhances almost everything it touches, like bacon or the bulldog currently dozing on my chest — and some of the best times, things, and ideas come out of its friendly (and at times freezing) confines — like this site!
As I wrote about in my first post, the idea started on one of my annual trips home where I’d reconnect with friends and family, talking about the best movies, music, and books they’d found the previous year, stocking up on recommendations and a suitcase full of finds at Myopic and Reckless to get me through the down days once I returned to the dreaded District. It was intended to be a running conversation amongst friends (the now scattered Sunbeams), posted in public to share with passersby who happened to chance on the site. Instead, it’s wound up being a one way transmission to the ether, the mutterings of one man (yours truly) dutifully (pointlessly?) jotting down his thoughts and finds for posterity — for fifteen years running, as of today. (I’ve actually been babbling in public for far longer — the now defunct Music and Movie Review Board and Lines of Lattitude sites captured the crazy from high school through grad school to similarly indifferent effect — but this is the longest running of them all by far.)
In order to celebrate I thought I’d take a look back at my annual year-end lists, which capture my favorite albums of the previous year (as well as my thoughts on the events from the year past), to see how many of them stood the test of time. As such I’ve spent the bulk of the past month listening to those albums — some forgotten, some frequently visited friends — to select the best of the best as a way to commemorate the past fifteen years together. There were over 300 albums to go through, not counting this past year’s haul (313, in fact!) and surprisingly most of them held up pretty well. They may not have the capacity to captivate and awe as they once did, but by and large I still think there’s a ton of good tunes/bands in there and I stand by my selections, thoroughly enjoying the exercise of revisiting them after in some cases a decade and a half apart.
To earn a place on the following list you had to remain in rotation over the years, though, and stand out amongst a pretty solid class of competitors. So what remains are the truly special — those albums that not only stood up to relentless listens for a prolonged period of time, but also kept their ability to amaze after all these years. (Just like me!) There were some ground rules, just to keep things fair: the albums had to be at least a year old (so no entries from our most recent list), they had to represent the best in an artist’s catalog (or at least equal it — so if a classic pre-dates our site, for example, these had to at least match that one to be included), and they had to be top to bottom winners, offering a complete listen vs a collection of mostly good tracks (I allowed one bum song per album, max). Other than that, it was just down to what still moved me — what got me singing (and/or moving) along after all these years.
The former champs stood up well, warranting inclusion two thirds the time, and the majority of the list comes from the top five of the given year, but a dirty dozen come from outside of that, with six either being double digit or unnumbered entries. Some years did better than others (2008 had five entries) while nine others managed just a pair. The albums are not ranked — in part because I’m still recovering from the last effort to rank my favorites, but also because trying to pick the best of the bunch would be like trying to identify the best piece of shaved truffle on top of a perfect bowl of pasta. As such, I left em in chronological order and while there’s no prioritization, there is excellence — loads of it. These are the fabulous forty — a batch of headwreckers and heartbreakers sure to leave a mark.
If for some reason you haven’t listened to some of these bands (or albums) it’s a perfect opportunity to dive in and start rummaging around — because while some are “lightning in a bottle” one and dones, several are from bands who’ve come close to matching these albums several times over the years and are worth further exploration. (Three have multiple entries here (the Keys, Courts, and Walkmen) and several others come close, falling into the category of having at least one classic that pre-dates the site. (Radiohead, Daft, Modest, and several others.)) So pick a spot at random, grab a glass of your favorite refreshment/intoxicant, and settle in for some outstanding tunes. Here’s to fifteen more years of fishing (and maybe as many readers — double digits! Can you imagine?!?)
As always — until next time…
–BS
- The National – Boxer (#2, 2007)
- Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (#10, 2007)
- Daft Punk – Alive 2007 (unranked, 2007)
- Radiohead – In Rainbows (unranked, 2007)
- The Black Keys – Attack and Release (#1, 2008)
- The Kills – Midnight Boom (#2, 2008)
- The Walkmen – You & Me (#4, 2008)
- Justice – Cross (#11, 2008)
- Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (unranked, 2008)
- Neko Case — Middle Cyclone (#4, 2009)
- The Features – Some Kind of Salvation (#8, 2009)
- The Walkmen – Lisbon (#3, 2010)
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat the Devil’s Tattoo (#5, 2010)
- The Black Keys – El Camino (#1.5, 2011)
- The Dodos — No Color (#3, 2011)
- The Vaccines — What did you Expect from the Vaccines? (#5, 2011)
- Grizzly Bear — Shields (#3, 2012)
- Alabama Shakes — Boys & Girls (#8, 2012)
- Parquet Courts — Light Up Gold (#1, 2013)
- Alt-J — An Awesome Wave (#4, 2013)
- Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal (#1, 2014)
- White Denim — Corsicana Lemonade (#7, 2014)
- The Districts — A Flourish and a Spoil (#4, 2015)
- Father John Misty — I Love You, Honeybear (#5, 2015)
- Shakey Graves — And the War Came (#6, 2015)
- Black Pistol Fire — Hush or Howl (#6, 2015)
- Kanye West — The Life of Pablo (#1, 2016)
- Bon Iver — 22, A Million (#2, 2016)
- Frightened Rabbit — Painting of a Panic Attack (#10, 2016)
- The Orwells – Terrible Human Beings (#1, 2017)
- Manchester Orchestra – A Black Mile to the Surface (#8, 2017)
- Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats — Tearing at the Seams (#1, 2018)
- The Hunts — Darlin’ Oh Darlin’ (#2, 2018)
- Andrew Bird – My Finest Work Yet (#1, 2019)
- Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains (#2, 2019)
- Pottery — Welcome to Bobby’s Motel (#1, 2020)
- Run the Jewels — RTJ4 (#2, 2020)
- Muzz — Muzz (#4, 2020)
- Lord Huron — Long Lost (#1, 2021)
- IDLES — Crawler (#3, 2021)