“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 Albumism Founder & Editor-in-Chief Justin Chadwick’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 Cardigans | Long Gone Before Daylight
Stockholm Records (2003)
Though many critics incredulously didn’t embrace the record as they had the band’s previous efforts, for me, 2003’s Long Gone Before Daylight is The Cardigans’ crowning achievement musically, lyrically, and thematically. It’s also the album that proved, once and for all, that frontwoman Nina Persson is one of the most gifted and underappreciated songwriters working today. I’m still grateful that I had the pleasure of catching them perform the songs live during their corresponding tour at Brooklyn’s now defunct venue Southpaw, and I’m eternally thankful that an album as beautiful as Long Gone Before Daylight exists.
Cocteau Twins | Heaven or Las Vegas
4AD (1990)
The magnetic music that Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde conjured together during their 14-year recording career represents the triumph of substance over artifice, as alluded to in the title of their sixth studio affair. The final album they recorded for the revered 4AD label before embarking upon what would prove to be an ephemeral major-label adventure, Heaven or Las Vegas is the greatest triumph within the group’s incredulously prolific output comprised of eight studio LPs and a bountiful assortment of singles, B-sides, EPs and compilations.
Juxtaposing a heightened accessibility overall relative to its preceding material with the Twins’ enduringly idiosyncratic sound, all propelled by Fraser’s otherworldly yet noticeably more lucid voice, Heaven or Las Vegas remains a striking specimen of celestial beauty.
John Coltrane | A Love Supreme
Impulse! (1965)
A Love Supreme is unequivocally numero uno on the list of my most cherished jazz long players of all time. And while the record is a Coltrane-dominated affair, to be sure, it’s primarily the flawless synergy and graceful musicianship exhibited by the foursome of Coltrane (tenor saxophone, vocals), McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums) that inspires my unconditional admiration.
It's one of the most magnificent collections of songs I’ve ever heard, and likely ever will. Not to mention quite possibly the most apropos title of an album ever. My love for A Love Supreme is supreme indeed.
De La Soul | De La Soul Is Dead
Tommy Boy (1991)
De La Soul’s sophomore album was a not-so-thinly veiled reference to the death knell, once and for all, of the so-called D.A.I.S.Y. age and more precisely, all of the ridiculous assumptions and associations unfairly assigned to this talented trio since 3 Feet High and Rising’s release two years prior. For nearly thirty years since, Posdnuos, Dave and Maseo have blessed the world with undeniably addictive music, infused with their distinctive, Native Tongues-flavored mix of wry wit, unabashed humor, beautiful beats, and of course, plenty of soul. And anyone with a pulse can benefit from listening to De La Soul is Dead, the most masterful of De La Soul’s multiple masterpieces.
[Note: De La Soul Is Dead in its entirety is not currently available via streaming platforms.]
Doves | Lost Souls
Heavenly (2000)
When Jimi Goodwin, Andy Williams and Jez Williams release their long-awaited fifth album The Universal Want this September, no less than eleven-and-a-half years will have elapsed since their most recent studio jaunt, 2009’s Kingdom of Rust. Hopefully, the band’s new material will compel their new and seasoned fans to revisit their sterling repertoire that precedes it, beginning, of course, with their Mercury Prize nominated debut Lost Souls.
A haunting and melodically majestic excursion that’s—no pun intended—easy to get lost deep within, Lost Souls represented a creative recalibration for the group originally known as Sub Sub, in the wake of a 1996 fire that gutted their recording studio and galvanized the creative pivot in the band’s musical identity. For me personally, for the past two decades, Lost Souls has functioned as a welcome antidote I’ve revisited over and over again, particularly when I’ve felt irresolute or stifled, its cathartic powers inspiring me to reflect, reassess and reset.
Fleetwood Mac | Rumours
Warner Bros. (1977)
I was born in October 1977, eight months—nearly to the day—after Fleetwood Mac released their watershed album Rumours in early February of that year. And while my parents’ voices undoubtedly figured prominently in my earliest aural experiences, I’m also convinced that three other voices made an indelible mark on my blossoming brain: Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie.
Even if completely unknowingly, I suspect that Rumours, a staple of my parents’ record collection that they played often during my incubation, was the record that first fed the curiosity that would subsequently evolve into my full-fledged love for the album format. Indeed, if there is a single album to which the earliest seeds of Albumism can be traced, it’s unquestionably Rumours.
It's a masterwork of emotion, passion, and the steadfast conviction in the power of music to overcome even the toughest challenges of life and love. “Celebrating our love affairs with albums past, present and future” is Albumism’s core mission, and my love affair with Rumours is unconditional and eternal.
Hooverphonic | A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular
Columbia (1996)
Though the group originally known as Hoover has released ten studio albums across their 25-year career (many of them superb), their dazzling debut LP A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular remains, at least for me, their most accomplished moment to date. It’s not the most lyrically expansive or intricate song suite by any means, as the words, by design, assume a secondary role behind the multi-textured, exquisitely executed arrangements. But the arresting, atmospheric soundscapes coupled with the lush vocals of Liesje Sadonius—who departed the group after this inaugural effort—make this an immersive, rewarding listen.
Ivy | Apartment Life
Atlantic (1997)
Arguably the most obscure entry in my list, relatively speaking, this New York City based trio’s second studio album is as sublime as indie-pop gets. While the shimmering melodies crafted by the group’s Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger (the late musical everyman best known for his work with Fountains of Wayne) have stuck with me for two decades now, it’s the seductive and sincere vocal stylings of the Paris-born Dominque Durand (also Chase’s wife) that still resonate most profoundly. Seldom has a group made the vicissitudes of finding and preserving love in the big city sound so endearingly romantic as the members of Ivy do here on this gorgeous LP.
Kacey Musgraves | Golden Hour
MCA Nashville (2018)
Already critically acclaimed both inside and outside of Nashville for her cleverly irreverent brand of country-pop after three excellent major-label albums dating back to 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park, Golden Hour’s arrival a few years ago solidified her status as one of the most adept songwriters working today. Her multiple GRAMMY Award triumphs at the 2019 ceremony—including the much-coveted Album of the Year accolade—offered further evidence of this fact.
With lush arrangements offering the perfect soundscapes for Musgraves’ introspective and evocative musings, the thirteen sublime songs contained therein can conjure the most lucid of daydreams among even the most stoic of listeners. A “Slow Burn” of an album this is decidedly not—it charms you immediately upon impact and summons you back again and again to indulge further.
I’ve listened to Golden Hour far more than any other album over the past two years, and even the recent vicissitudes of its creator’s real life haven’t dimmed its radiant glow as one of the purest testaments to the power of love you’ll ever have the pleasure of hearing.
OutKast | ATLiens
LaFace/Arista (1996)
After being blown away by André 3000 and Big Boi’s landmark debut LP Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994) two years before ATLiens made landfall on Planet Earth, I never imagined that the duo would transcend, let alone replicate, its greatness. But they did. And they accomplished the feat not by creating a repackaged carbon copy of the tried-and-true.
Instead, with ATLiens, they expanded their musical palette and lyrical acumen in imaginative, transformative ways. And in the process, these two dope boyz from down south proved that they were no short-lived sensation, but rather peerless visionaries already placing their indelible stamp on hip-hop history. And although their time recording together would subsequently prove ephemeral, their next three recordings—1998’s Aquemini, 2000’s Stankonia and 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below—all but guaranteed their rightful place among the pantheon of hip-hop’s most influential and iconic figures.
“A dope album is one you listen to without skipping forward or winding through anything,” Big Boi told Vibe magazine in October 1996. “That’s what [ATLiens] is.” Precisely.
Over the Rhine | Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings
Self-released (1996)
A crystalline collection of redemptive reveries, Good Dog Bad Dog is fueled by Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler’s empathetic examination of life’s duality in its many forms, as its title suggests. Across the album’s thirteen songs, the husband-wife duo eloquently traverse the universal, fundamental human dichotomies between happiness and pain, hope and despair, love and loss, the saintly and the sinful—the recognition and reconciliation of which ultimately empowers us to lead fulfilling lives while enriching the lives of those who surround us.
While each of Over the Rhine’s albums possesses its own unique and irresistible charms, Good Dog Bad Dog will forever be the most inspired, the most vital, the most indispensable. Once referred to as the “little record that could,” for me, it’s the big record that always has and always will.
R.E.M. | Automatic For The People
Warner Bros. (1992)
It’s a rare thing to witness a band—let alone a band with seven studio albums and a dozen years of performing together already under their collective belt—follow their global commercial breakthrough LP with their most critically salient effort of their career. But this is precisely what the world observed when R.E.M. released their exquisitely crafted eighth studio album Automatic For The People on October 5, 1992, roughly a year-and-a-half after their massively successful 1991 LP Out of Time.
A noticeably more plaintive and subdued song suite than its precursor, Automatic found the group resisting the invariable temptation to embrace all-out rock-pop in exchange for refining the sophisticated, poignant songcraft they had carefully cultivated since their 1983 debut Murmur. "My feeling was—not in a negative way—is that it was kind of a down record with a lot of minor keys,” guitarist Peter Buck confided to Billboard in 2017. “And we were at the age when Michael (Stipe) was thinking a lot about mortality, so I didn't expect it to be a huge hit."
While the Andy Kaufman inspired “Man on the Moon” and solemn, sympathetic “Everybody Hurts” remain the most recognizable songs from the album due to their ubiquity across radio and MTV, it’s arguably the handful of other less immediately familiar tunes that truly define Automatic’s staying power. Album opener and lead single “Drive,” “Try Not to Breathe,” “Nightswimming,” “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” and my personal favorite, “Find the River” all rank among R.E.M.’s greatest compositions of their storied recording career.
The Roots | Do You Want More?!!!??!
DGC/Geffen (1995)
Musically, what initially struck me—and still excites me—upon listening to Do You Want More?!!!??! is the profoundly unique aural experience of the album. It simply doesn’t sound like any other hip-hop records that were being produced in the mid ‘90s, and certainly not like anything you’ll hear today. The Roots are the quintessential class act, and Do You Want More?!!!??! is one of the most magical, masterfully executed albums—hip-hop, jazz or otherwise—ever made. An irrefutable gem.
Propelled by the harmonious confluence of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s deftly executed percussion (the album’s sonic foundation), Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter’s commanding rhyme flow (which warrants recognition among the master class of emcees like Rakim, Jay-Z, and Biggie), and the headnod-inducing production wizardry of The Grand Negaz (among others), Do You Want More?!!!??! is damn near flawless. Just shy of perfect, because no album can be completely devoid of flaws, right?
Trouble is, after 25 years of wearing this record out, I’ve yet to locate any flaws here and I always—as its title suggests—want more of the Legendary Roots Crew’s superb second LP.
Sade | Love Deluxe
Epic (1992)
If ever there was a band whose musical output embodies the notion of “quality over quantity,” it’s unquestionably Sade. Throughout the past thirty-six years, the group has delivered just six studio albums, and half of these have arrived in the past twenty-seven years. Celebrated together, Sade’s recorded repertoire—while sparse relative to other artists who are prone to falling victim to the “haste makes waste” approach to recording—is one of the most consistently revelatory and rewarding discographies you’ll ever lay your ears on. And for my money, Love Deluxe remains their magnum opus, its unequivocal brilliance still shining as bright as ever nearly three decades on.
Saint Etienne | Good Humor
Creation (1998)
If this list was reframed as the 20 Discographies I Can’t Live Without, well, Saint Etienne’s nearly 30-years-strong canon would unquestionably be one of the first five or so that come to mind for me. My affection for the grace and grandeur of Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs’ music runs deep, so selecting just one of their albums to include here proved an exercise in both contemplation and consternation. Foxbase Alpha (1991), Tiger Bay (1994) and Finisterre (2002) all made convincing cases, but each ultimately fell just a notch shy of their 1998 masterclass Good Humor.
The trio’s fourth studio album and first recorded with an outside producer (Tore Johansson, notable for his work with The Cardigans), Good Humor found them stepping away from their comfort zone, at least sonically, relinquishing their reliance on synths and drum machines in favor of a wholly more organic, retro pop sound. Nevertheless, from both a thematic and lyrical perspective, their proven penchant for merging the melancholic and wistful with the romantic and sanguine remains fully intact and irresistible.
Jill Scott | Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1
Hidden Beach (2000)
“(Inspiration) comes from listening to hip-hop. (Inspiration) comes from R&B. (Inspiration) comes from listening to jazz. (Inspiration) comes from Jill, ya hear me?”
This declaration—laid out in the minute-long “Jilltro” that introduces the proceedings of Ms. Scott’s debut album—encapsulates what then ensues across the LP’s subsequent 72 minutes. Hip-hop, R&B and jazz are indeed all part of Scott’s musical mélange throughout. Her performances are truly inspired from beginning to end. And you can’t help but want to hear the entirety of what she has to say across this captivating collection.
Who Is Jill Scott? is a sensuous, effervescent collection of love songs, which doesn’t necessarily distinguish it from the myriad other R&B albums that emerged before and since the turn of the century. What differentiates it, however, is its complete absence of cliché and superficiality in favor of unequivocal sincerity and substance, a distinction unmistakably evident within Scott’s nuanced, more conversational approach to unleashing what’s on her mind. When Scott speaks and sings—with her dynamic vocal range and unparalleled phrasing that seamlessly fluctuate from softly reassuring to magnetically powerful—you have no choice but to believe and empathize with her, while pressing repeat on this endlessly gratifying affair.
Tony! Toni! Toné! | Sons of Soul
Wing/Mercury (1993)
Arguably the Oakland bred trio’s finest hour on wax and one of the most engrossing albums recorded in the ‘90s, Sons of Soul bridged the waning remnants of the New Jack Swing era that preceded it with the neo-soul paradigm that would materialize by the middle of the decade. While the group’s first two LPs Who? (1988) and The Revival (1990) reflect their signature melding of retro and modern soul, Sons of Soul and its follow-up House of Music (1996) are the most fully realized embodiments of the band’s convergent aesthetics between old and new.
Both albums were also harbingers of the brilliance that was yet to come by way of Raphael Saadiq’s subsequent solo career, which is still going as strong as ever, as evidenced by his latest offering in a string of triumphant solo recordings, 2019’s Jimmy Lee.
The Verve | Urban Hymns
Hut/Virgin (1997)
Though I’ve also since grown to adore The Verve’s first two LPs A Storm in Heaven (1993) and A Northern Soul (1995), as well as Richard Ashcroft’s subsequent solo recordings, Urban Hymns is the album I’ve played more fervently than any other during my lifetime. Ashcroft’s yearning vocals and earnest lyrics combined with Nick McCabe’s sprawling guitar handiwork is still such a riveting pairing for me. No matter how many times I drop the needle on the record, it still floors me. I’ve loved Urban Hymns from the moment I first heard it, and I always will.
Stevie Wonder | Songs In the Key of Life
Tamla (1976)
Seldom before or since—if ever—has there been as impressive of a consecutive streak of albums as Stevie Wonder cultivated during the mid ‘70s. Music of My Mind (1972), Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) and the ambitious double-album Songs in the Key of Life (1976) are all indisputable masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination. The latter continues to mesmerize me more than any of Wonder’s other LPs. For it’s the most emblematic of his uncanny penchant for merging the personal with the universal in his songwriting, the fruits of which have always reflected the essence of the human condition more powerfully and poignantly than most of his peers. Imperative listening, then, now and forever.
Pete Yorn | musicforthemorningafter
Columbia (2001)
I still vividly recall that spring morning back in 2001, as I, nursing a mild but manageable hangover from the night before, strolled the aisles of one of my most beloved haunts, the massive four-story Tower Records on the corner of East 4th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Upon exploring the new release display near the store’s entrance, my eye was drawn to a black and white image of a moppy-haired, good-looking dude gazing stoically into the distance. Pete Yorn.
The album’s title (musicforthemorningafter) seemed fitting enough, considering my moderately cloudy mindstate at that moment, so I scooped the disc up and brought it back home to my Brooklyn apartment. As I embarked upon my initial listen to Yorn’s debut LP, I harbored no preconceived notions beyond mere curiosity. But what I heard was an unexpected revelation, and musicforthemorningafter became a record I played incessantly and recommended to friends frequently for months thereafter.
As a 23 year-old still only months removed from relocating to New York City from Los Angeles at the time, I took solace in the youthful restlessness that Yorn, just three years my senior, conjures across the album, in his attempts to reconcile whether he’s a hopeful or hopeless romantic. Ultimately, across the entirety of the album, Yorn seems to suggest that it’s perfectly forgivable to fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, as best evidenced by reflective lines such as “Waiting for a bottle of truth / I'm just a lonely guy in my youth” from the soaring track “Black.”
Not just music for the morning after, mind you, these are songs that I’ll eagerly return to time and time again across my entire lifetime.