“What really matters is what you like, not what you are like.”
– Nick Hornby, High Fidelity (1995)
Readers who have enjoyed our interviews from time to time know that we typically ask artists to share their five favorite albums of all time at the end of our conversations with them. No matter who the artist is, it’s always fascinating to discover which long players have impacted their personal and professional lives. A few of our interview subjects have even scoffed at the standard five-album limit, rattling off upwards of a dozen or so titles and second-guessing if they’ve made the right choices.
Today, and considering that we’re still in the midst of the year 2020, we’re excited to reveal our writers’ respective lists of their 20 all-time favorite albums. We all reserve the right to change our minds about these choices in the future, but for now, here are the indispensable albums that we can’t live without and the reasons why.
Explore Jeremy Levine’s 20 favorites below, click the “Next” button at the bottom of the page to browse the lists or return to the main index.
The Allman Brothers Band | Eat a Peach
Capricorn (1972)
The Allman Brothers use every tool in their toolbox—jazz, hard rock, psychedelia, improvisation, the blues—to create something that only they could. The centerpiece, of course, is “Mountain Jam,” a mammoth improvisational odyssey that has outlived the album and taken on a life of its own. Other, shorter masterpieces like “Little Martha,” “Aint’ Wastin’ Time No More,” and “Melissa” let the Allmans match their improvisational virtuosity with unforgettable songwriting.
Julien Baker | Turn Out the Lights
Matador (2017)
The first time I heard this album, I was listening to it on headphones in my kitchen, the morning it came out. Standing over a potato I was in the middle of chopping, and I started to cry during “Happy To Be Here.” Not many albums can do this the first time you hear them, but Julien Baker’s ability to reduce complex feelings into just a few words, in the context of a perfectly-managed soundscape, makes her songs feel like they’ve been written onto your heart forever.
The Band | The Last Waltz
Warner Bros. (1978)
Even though The Last Waltz has a troubled place in The Band’s history, it’s a beautiful swan song. Its greatest asset is its maximalism, its demand that you structure your entire day around it, the ritual that unfolds around watching its legion of guest appearances each Thanksgiving.
Then there’s the music: Rick Danko delivers a masterful vocal performance on “It Makes No Difference” and other Band staples like “Up On Cripple Creek,” “Ophelia,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” are given brilliant readings. The guest appearances are all wonderful, but I’m partial to the joyful groove of “Such A Night,” the tender beauty of “Helpless,” and the affirming full-group treatment of “I Shall Be Released.”
The Beatles | Abbey Road
Apple (1969)
The Beatles are a goofy band who got too serious for their own good, but Abbey Road is where they lay bare all of their kooky splendor. In addition to some of the spectacularly fun cuts on the first side of the record, the medley is a perfectly constructed patchwork of incomplete tunes that crash into each other with joyful abandon.
The Beatles helped turn Rock & Roll into an Arts Race, and while I love some of that stuff, Abbey Road is a reminder that artistic reaching doesn’t need to happen at the expense of youth, humor and fun. To me, this album is The Beatles telling us that that they know that this is true deep-down, even if they can’t fully reconcile it in time to save their own band.
Bon Iver | 22, A Million
Jagjaguwar (2016)
I couldn’t tell you the first thing about this record. I have no idea what it means in a way that I can express in words—but the many textures and sounds that converge are somehow deeply meaningful in a way that just doesn’t work with text. Maybe that was the point, the reason it sounds the way that it does. Even though it took me a long time to “get” this album, it’s now indispensable.
Phoebe Bridgers | Stranger In the Alps
Dead Oceans (2017)
Why not: Phoebe Bridgers writes lyrics like Hemingway wrote novels. She cuts her stories down to the smallest details, assuming that the crumbs she’s picked are strong enough to paint a full picture (and she’s right; I know everything I need to know from “Why do you sing in an English accent? / I guess it’s too late to change it now”). Her voice is straight-up dreamy and her song structures are astonishingly diverse, helping keep Stranger In the Alps meaningful after dozens of listens.
Miles Davis | In A Silent Way
Columbia (1969)
Stravinsky delivers an aphorism in one of his Harvard lectures that defines how In A Silent Way works: changes reward the listener in the short term, but repetition rewards the listener in the long term. I love Tony Williams’ hi-hat on the first side of this record, chugging forward and leaving space for Dave Holland to build minimalist grooves. The solos find a way to both respect empty space and agitate. With the maximalism of Bitches Brew on the horizon, In A Silent Way has the exact number of notes that it needs—and not one more.
Bob Dylan | Blood on the Tracks
Columbia (1975)
Unlike most Dylan records, Blood on the Tracks has one unified purpose: to be sad. With all of the smoke and mirrors and multiplicities found in the rest of the catalogue (like, what, exactly, is Blonde on Blonde up to?), it’s refreshing to hear Dylan work his magic on just one question: how can you recover from lost love?
It doesn’t hurt that the songs are some of his best; “Tangled Up In Blue” and “Shelter From The Storm” are acknowledged masterpieces, but I’ve got a soft spot for “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” and the hilariously long “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts.”
Explosions In the Sky | The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
Temporary Residence/Bella Union (2003)
A journey through sudden and dramatic dynamic shifts, a nearly-too-long trod through despair and euphoria, and the whole time, you don’t know where it’s going to end up. Then, about two minutes before the end, there’s a five-note guitar lick and, somehow, you know that you’re home. You suddenly know what the title means. I have no idea how they did that, but it feels the same every time.
Father John Misty | Pure Comedy
Bella Union/Sub Pop (2017)
While a lot of people think of Pure Comedy as indulgent, pretentious, and overly intellectual, I see it as a deeply emotional work. Father John Misty fully believes that restoring personal relationships outside of modern entertainment is the only way to restore the social contract—and to make sure that you believe him, he built a monument to the concept. The centerpiece is “Leaving LA,” a song in my personal favorite ultra-niche genre (the very long song with a bunch of verses and no chorus), which is as melodically beautiful as it is harmonically rich and emotionally wrenching.
Craig Finn | I Need a New War
Partisan (2019)
How’s this for the least punk sentence ever: I got into The Hold Steady via The Grateful Dead. When I found out that Joe Russo (founder of Dead tribute act Joe Russo’s Almost Dead) played on I Need a New War, I gave it a spin having no idea who Craig Finn was. I fell in love with the storytelling by the time that first harmonica break hit in “Blankets.” I’ve spent the last year turning this record over and over, tracking the stories, relishing how Finn’s voice bounces over the instrumental parts and inhabits the spirits of his characters. Without the manic propulsion of The Hold Steady behind him, Finn relies on subtler versions of musical tension to support his narrative—giving us room to breathe and take it all in.
David Ford | Let the Hard Times Roll
The Magnolia Label (2010)
Expansive at a mere forty-four minutes, Let the Hard Times Roll is a kitchen sink album with one central message: nobody’s making it out of this life unscathed. With his cutthroat lyrics and spectacular vocals leading the way, David Ford goes straight for the heart. The rest of his catalogue is spectacular, but it all orbits around the multiplicity of Let the Hard Times Roll.
Guster | Ganging Up on the Sun
Reprise (2006)
Guster’s career has three eras, each of which has a representative work. There’s the Bongo Era (1999’s Lost and Gone Forever) the Synth Era (2019’s Look Alive) and the Indie Rock Era (Ganging Up on the Sun). While the two other eras are a little bit weirder and thereby a little bit more interesting, the Indie Rock era gives us some of Guster’s best songwriting and album sequencing. Ganging Up on the Sun gives us singalong majesty in “Captain,” beautiful lyrics in “Hang On,” and the singular journey of “Ruby Falls.” It has been a constant companion, soundtracking many, many road trips.
Hozier | Hozier
Island/Rubyworks (2014)
If the only thing this album had going for it was the man’s voice, I’d probably still consider putting it on the list. His vocal performance is unparalleled—everyone knows about the soulful heights of “Take Me To Church,” but my personal vocal performance is “Sedated,” which builds its power from the ground up, gathering a strength and clarity that we don’t usually hear from pop vocalists.
But then there’s also the songs. Lyrically and instrumentally, there’s nothing quite like Hozier; the un-awkward 5/4 of “From Eden” and the soft beauty of “Cherry Wine” show that this is a songwriter who will use every tool in the toolbox—flashy or otherwise—to reach us.
Neutral Milk Hotel | In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Merge (1998)
More than any other album I’ve ever heard, Aeroplane constructs a universe. It’s carved out an aesthetic territory for itself, where two-headed boys float in jars and bridges burn and twist around. The instrumentation is bizarre—acoustic guitar, lo-fi fuzz, singing saws, accordions, two separate horn-driven instrumentals. As if that weren’t enough, it also features the simplest and most heartbreaking final verse I’ve ever heard on an album.
Phish | Live at Madison Square Garden: New Year’s Eve, 1995
Rhino/JEMP (2005)
Contrary to popular belief, Phish’s shows are not compendia of aimless noodling sessions; what’s really happening is a complex relationship between meticulously composed music and full-band improvisation. Nowhere does this relationship manifest more clearly than on this recording: the fugal complexity of “Reba” is followed by a patient, blissful jam; the darkness of “Mike’s Song” gives way to a dreamscape; the straight-ahead rock and roll of “Runaway Jim” becomes experimental and lurching. The recording also has narrative, a jet-like propulsion toward one destination: “You Enjoy Myself,” the band’s quintessential song, which is given one of its finest recitations at the end of this very long and special night.
Bruce Springsteen | Live/1975-85
Columbia (1986)
Near the end of disc one (of five), Springsteen lays out the central argument of his career: that rock & roll can do anything that an author or a lawyer or anyone else can do. He then spends the next four discs relentlessly proving his case, with a tour de force performance of some of his most energized music (“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Born To Run”) and heartbreaking readings of some of his most desperate work (“Racing in the Street,” “The River.”) Like his concerts, this record is really long, but at its end is a spiritual satisfaction that we know we’re going to get from the moment we hear the opening piano on “Thunder Road.”
Bruce Springsteen | The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
Columbia (1973)
I showed restraint in only putting two Bruce Springsteen albums on this list. While his career is littered with magic, my favorite installment in the studio output is the sophomore record, with its loose sound and overfull tales. “Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” is essentially perfect on its own, and the entire second side is a masterclass in narrative and song structure. The transition from “Incident on 57th Street” into “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is the stuff dreams are made of, while all the emotion in the world seems to sit in Springsteen’s delivery of the “He’s Singing” lyric at the end of “New York City Serenade.”
The Vienna Chamber Orchestra | Tchaikovsky/Dvorak: Serenades for Strings
Naxos (1997)
In college, I played bass in a small orchestra. My very first semester, we played this Tchaikovsky piece and it fascinated me. It’s not only intensely melodic in every part (even the supportive bass parts are a delight), but every gesture is a response to something that’s come before it in a previous part. This works on a macro level, too: the third movement is a brilliant display of Tchaikovsky’s dense imagination, while the transition to the fourth movement is an ingenious bridge between that sound and the frenzied finale. Each of these complex relationships are perfectly captured in this recording, and pairing Tchaikovsky’s work with the soothing pastoral approach of Dvorak’s Serenade in E offers counterpoint to the heavy first half of the album.
The Who | Quadrophenia
Track/MCA (1973)
There are two kinds of albums: albums that are Quadrophenia and albums that are not. The Who use four sides of a record to tell a story about a question that’s essential to the human experience: how do I try to be myself while gaining acceptance from others? Quadrophenia is simultaneously progressive and punk, sensitive and vengeful, rendered complete by the finest instrumental and vocal performances that The Who ever put on record. It’s everything rock music was made to do.