Spoon: They Want My Soul

Spoon's 2010 album Transference was an oddball of an album. It seemed like a reaction to the easy catchiness of their previous effort, 2007's fantastic Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Transference zigged where you expected it to zag, and was full of unexpected stops and starts. It was well enough reviewed when it was initially released, but opinion seems to have turned on Transference since then, with many early reviews of Spoon's latest album, They Want My Soul, hailing it as a return to form for the band after a previous misstep. 
And while Transference wasn't bad, there's no denying that Soul takes after Ga Ga Go Ga Ga, with its catchy melodies and production sheen. There are plenty of similarities to be drawn between those two albums: they are mostly the same length (37 minutes vs. 36), the same number of songs (10), and once again Spoon displays the same knack for infectious songwriting.
The album kicks off with rocker "Rent I Pay," which comes out of the gate with a hard-hitting drumbeat courtesy of the great Jim Eno. It's followed by "Inside Out," which is full of empty space and seems content to just let its programmed beat and keyboards wash over you for five minutes. "Do You" is the obvious highlight, a song reminiscent of great Spoon singles of the past like "The Underdog" or" I Turn My Camera On" in its catchiness and in the immediate impact it makes on the listener.
And that's perhaps the most apt description for They Want My Soul: immediate. Following up an album that seemed almost a little too concerned with defying the expectations of the listener, Spoon has abandoned that approach for one that's closer to hitting the listener in the face and saying "hey look, a great Spoon song."
It's hard to believe Spoon has been doing this for nearly 20 years, and even harder to believe that, almost 20 years in, they've crafted one of their best albums to date. It's not quite Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or Kill the Moonlight, but it certainly belongs in the discussion.
Grade: A

The Radio Is Irrelevant

Earlier this week, I was on YouTube, listening to a song that had been popular a few years back, “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects. (This is not something I’d normally be listening to, it just got in my head that day… anyway…) The top comment for the song struck me as odd. It said “I love this song! I miss hearing it all the time!” 

Clearly he or she was referring to the days when the All-American Rejects were extremely popular on the radio. The main reason I found this comment odd is because this person was listening to this song on YouTube, which means he or she can, in fact, hear it all the time. It’s on the internet! For free! You can hear it as much or as little as you like!

This brings me to my topic, the irrelevance of the radio. Radio stations were once the only way of discovering new artists, or really of hearing any music that you or your friends did not own. Being played on the radio was once the goal of any artist hoping to become popular and grow an audience. However, so much has changed today that this is no longer imperative, or even important, for a new artist.

     Take, for example, High Violet, a 2010 album by The National. The National, for those unaware, are a highly critically praised indie rock band, known for sad songs and their frontman’s deep baritone. Hardly Top 40 fare. Yet High Violet debuted on the Billboard 100 at #3, shattering their previous highest place on the chart by 63 places.

     In the past, success of an album largely hinged on the strength of its radio singles. So how did the singles for High Violet do? Well, the only single from High Violet was “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” released four months before the album. “Bloodbuzz Ohio’s” highest position on the charts? Sixteenth, and that was in Belgium. The song failed to chart at all in the United States, getting little airplay even from rock stations.

     So how to account for the increased sales of High Violet? Start with the fact that “Bloodbuzz Ohio” was available for months before the release of the album on iTunes, YouTube, Pandora, The National’s own website, and a myriad of other online music sites. It received positive reviews from online music reviewers, being voted “best new music” by indie heavyweights Pitchfork Media. This positive press, coupled with the widespread availability of the song, was the most significant factor in High Violet’s sales.

     The internet is what has changed all of this. There are now so many different ways of hearing a new song or album that the radio is just not nearly as important as it used to be. These days when a band comes out with a new song, they generally post it to their website. Soon a video is posted to YouTube, and the song goes up for sale on iTunes and for streaming on Spotify. This is the way most people now find out about new music, and all these people have already heard the song before radio stations even get hold of it.

So we don’t need the radio for music discovery anymore. What does that leave? Radio stations are now most played in cars and in stores. Yet even this is declining. Many cars now come with Sirius radio, which is more split up by genre, and stores have access to Sirius as well as Pandora. The majority of cars now also come with a hookup for an iPod, or a CD player at the very least.   

The radio will likely always be used by people who want to hear some tunes on the way back from work, and don’t really care what they are. But for those serious about music, there are a host of more viable, and more convenient, options for discovering and hearing music. So, to the person who commented on that YouTube video, never fear. You can listen to “Move Along” any time you want.

The Top Ten Albums of the 2000s

No one can decide what to call last decade--it doesn't have an easy nickname the way the sixties or the nineties did. So I'm just going to call it the 2000s, by which I mean 2000 through 2009, and count down the top ten albums (one per artist) of a very strong decade in music.

10. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
I've heard the criticisms of this album: yes, it's a bit pretentious and Harvard-y (assuming that's a word), but it works really well despite all that. It's always hard to look past a band's image or perception to just hear the music and judge it on its own merits, but if you can get past that with Vampire Weekend, you'll be rewarded with songs like "Oxford Comma" and "Walcott." And if you have no problem with Vampire Weekend's image, you probably already love this album.

9. Muse: Origin of Symmetry
On 1999's Sunburn, Muse was a shameless Radiohead clone, but the potential was there for them to become something more than that. That potential was reached on Origin of Symmetry. In later years, Muse's bombast and theatrics would become so overblown that the band has nearly become unlistenable; but in 2001, this sound was fresh, and it was great. The songs on Origin of Symmetry manage to sound epic without also feeling pretentious (cough, The Resistance), and highlights like "Citizen Erased" are multipart guitar-led odysseys that can still make those of us who had the misfortune of slogging through The 2nd Law remember why we cared enough about this band to do so.

8. Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf
This is a matter of personal preference only, but I think this is the best album that Dave Grohl ever worked on. I'm certainly not arguing that this is more important or relevant than Nevermind; there's no argument to be made there. I'm just saying, for me, this is the best project he was ever involved with. Queens of the Stone Age is that rare band that maintains mainstreamn popularity solely based on quality, something that is all too rare, and even more rare for a metal band. The reason you'll still hear "No One Knows" on a modern rock station is because it's damn good, nothing else. The different voices and styles heard throughout this album provide a nice change of pace and prevent Songs for the Deaf from getting stale. Not that there was any danger of that; aside from the silly radio gimmick, this album is tremendous. It's metal for those who like it and those who don't; an impressive feat for an extremely polarizing genre.

7. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Adding horns to a band's sound isn't always a good thing, but for Spoon, it directly spawned their two best songs: "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and "The Underdog," both from this album. Few bands can match the run of good albums Spoon had in the decade between 2001 and 2010, and this one, from 2007, was the high point. And while it's not all because of the horns, they have more to do with it than you might think.

6. The National: Boxer

Boxer is a slow burn of an album, one that you don't realize is so good until you've heard it the second time, and by the third time, you're wondering how you never noticed this vocal melody, or that drum part, or that piano intro. The two adjectives most often used to describe The National are "consistent" and "sad," which belies how exceptional they are at being consistently sad. Consistency is boring until you remember how remarkable it is; that's what makes Boxer so deceptively great.

5. The Strokes: Is This It

They hype for this album was overwhelming; good thing it delivered the way it did. They were supposed to "change rock music," what they did instead was make one of the decade's defining albums, which should be good enough for everybody. Not every band has to start a musical revolution; the reason a band like Nirvana is so important is because of how rarely something like that is. Is This It isn't Nevermind, but it doesn't need to be; it's still fantastic.

4. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
The Crane Wife contains two twelve-minute songs. I'm sure I turned a good number of people off the album with that one sentence, but it's actually those two twelve-minute songs that are the main reason this album is so good. Both are actually in multiple parts, and they showcase both Colin Meloy's ability to write lyrics that actually tell a compelling story (which is a rarity), and The Decemberists' ability to stretch the same concept over a long period of time and create something that changes, but works together. And isn't that really what an album is all about? So if you can get over the long track times, you'll find something fantastic here.

3. The White Stripes: Elephant

I debated for a very long time whether to include this album or White Blood Cells, which is pretty much every bit as good. I eventually decided on this one (obviously) for a few reasons: it's a better length than White Blood Cells, which is a bit long; but mostly that, aside from "In the Cold, Cold Night," which doesn't need to exist, I can't find a single flaw with this album. There's a reason fans of old-school blues rock flocked to this album after hearing "Ball and Biscuit," but Elephant goes beyond bringing back blues rock; it solidifies the White Stripes' sound as something brand new, something unmatched by anyone else (including present-day Jack White himself). Forget about the obnoxious college kids chanting the "Seven Nation Army" riff at football games, and instead remember why they started chanting it in the first place: because it's damn catchy. 

2. Arcade Fire: Funeral

Childlike innocence is a wonderful thing, but it's also one of the hardest moods or feelings to recapture as an adult. That's what's so incredible about Funeral; it manages to bottle the spirit of childhood innocence and turn it into music. There's a reason Arcade Fire became such a buzzed-about indie band in 2004; the likes of this album had rarely been heard. Now they're one of the biggest bands in the world (or at least they think they are), but they have yet to top this, and they probably never will. But that's to big expected; something like this could likely only be achieved once, and really, they're lucky that they managed to do so at all.

1. Radiohead: In Rainbows

There's a moment on "All I Need," the fifth track on In Rainbows, around the 2:45 mark. "All I Need" is a slow burn of a song at the beginning, carried by a great bassline and Thom Yorke's soaring, reverbed-out vocals. But at 2:45, the piano starts building up, and suddenly the cymbals crash in, and it's a little like a dark room has suddenly filled with light (but for the ears) and the song which was once so minimalist finishes with a huge sound.

There are a lot of things I could say to explain why In Rainbows is, in my opinion, the best album of the decade, but that's the one that stands out to me. Kid A was the big statement, the reaction to OK Computer that somehow managed to be completely different and yet very nearly as good. But In Rainbows is beauty in music personified. It doesn't define the decade the way Kid A does; but for me, this is the best music released in those ten years, all captured by that one moment. 

The Top 10 Albums of the 1990s

This list contains, in my own opinion, the ten best albums of the 1990s. All opinion of course, and I tried my very best to limit it to one album per artist (with one exception here). Now, the list:

10. Pearl Jam, Vs.
This is one instance where I decided to forego the "one album per artist" rule. (Hey, I made the rule up, so I get to decide when to ignore it). The '90s were, for me at least, a very top-heavy decade, with a few top artists making incredible albums, but a big gap between them and the rest of the pack. It doesn't help that the late '90s were largely a wasteland for good music, with cookie-cutter pop songs, "nu metal," pop-punk, and half-baked Nirvana and Pearl Jam ripoffs dominating airwaves and ears. But with multiple great albums by the likes of Nirvana, Radiohead, and several others, someone had to be on here twice, and my choice was Pearl Jam. On Vs., Pearl Jam advanced their sound past that of Ten, which is a great album in its own right, but is a little heavy on the melodrama ("I don't question our existence, I just question our modern neeeeeeeeeeeeeeds" from "Garden"). Later Pearl Jam albums demonstrated the band's sense of fun, which ended up being one of their best attributes. It all started here--the Pearl Jam who made Ten would never have included a song like "Blood," and few bands could write a song like "Daughter" at all.

9. Weezer, Weezer (Blue Album)
Before the variety of multicolored Weezer albums hit store shelves and ruined their reputation, Weezer began their career with an album that excels at re-creating certain elements of classic rock. But while most bands at the time looked to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath for inspiration, Weezer was emulating the aspects of classic rock that had been largely ignored in the years following, drawing inspiration from bands like The Cars and Cheap Trick. The result is a unique and well-written album that holds up 20 years after its release, and remind us why we ever cared about that band that punished our ears with "Beverly Hills."

8. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Some music is great, but it's not for everyone. You may be able to appreciate a beautiful Mozart sonata, but that doesn't mean you'll ever listen to it on your own, or even think of it when you're looking for music to play. That's me with this album. I think the songwriting's excellent, and this album inspired many bands that I love, such as the Decemberists, but for whatever reason, I could never get into Neutral Milk Hotel. (I suspect it has a lot to do with Jeff Mangum's voice only a mother could love). Despite all this, the songwriting si so strong that I could not deny Aeroplane a spot on this list. And hey, it never hurts when your band is approved by April from Parks and Recreation.

7. System of a Down, System of a Down
A lot of metal is weird, but this is weirder than most. Be prepared for 40 minutes of odd shrieking and stop-and-start metal. And if you're OK with that, this is one of the better metal bands out there, mixing hardcore punk with Eastern influences, making each of its albums a unique experience. This album is unique in their catalog--it's not the best, but it's the rawest and has a menacing tone that stands out and haunts the listener.

6. R.E.M., Out of Time
I know Automatic for the People is the critical favorite. But for me, the best R.E.M. album has to be Out of Time, which boasts not only their best song, the incomparable "Losing My Religion," but flows just as well as an album as Automatic does.

5. Daft Punk, Homework
One of the most innovative albums of the decade as well as one of its best, Homework brought dance music into the 21st century a full three years early. Highlighted by "Da Funk" and "Around the World," in 1997 people had rarely if ever heard anything like this. The good news: it was only going to get better for Daft Punk from here.

4. Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine
Many of the bands of the early '90s are blamed unfairly for those that came along later in the decade, seeking to emulate them but instead bastardizing the genre and retroactively hurting the original band's reputation. This is true of pretty much every band in this top five, but none is it more true than for Rage Against the Machine. Fusing rap and metal was a unique idea in 1992 when this album came on the scene, and as the later efforts of bands like Linkin Park and Papa Roach showed, RATM caught lightning in a bottle here. It definitely helps that they have something to say, but it's mostly due to the fact that RATM's musicianship was so strong, particularly from bassist Tim Commerford and guitarist Tom Morello, that it cannot be denied.

3. Nirvana, Nevermind
1991 was a special year. The '80s and all the musical  excesses that came with them-from Depeche Mode to Def Leppard--were over, and people were looking for something else to fill the void. Enter Nevermind. Nevermind was one of the first alternative albums to enter the mainstream, something that still remains a rare achievement; just think of the likelihood today that a loud, sloppily-playing punk band like this would become a cultural phenomenon. It just doesn't happen. That's what's so unique about this album.

2. Radiohead, OK Computer
OK Computer was the perfect album for the end of the '90s and the dawn of the new millennium. It communicated all the uncertainty that comes with the increasing influence of technology in our lives, and looking back, it comes across as a haunting purveyor of things to come. It also features some of the finest songwriting I've ever heard, from straightforward piano pop like "Karma Police" to unique songs like "Climbing up the Walls," their magnum opus, the sprawling, six-minute, multi-part "Paranoid Android." In short, OK Computer is all you need to forget that Radiohead ever released "Creep," which is probably just what they wanted out of it.

1. Pearl Jam, Vitalogy
It's not the most relevant or important album of the '90s, or the best-selling, or the most favorably reviewed. But for me, this is the best the '90s had to offer. Many people don't realize it now, but before Kurt Cobain's death, Pearl Jam was a much bigger deal than even Nirvana. They were a phenomenon, the likes of which we really haven't seen since. And this was weighing on the band members, particularly Eddie Vedder. On Vitalogy, Vedder took a larger role in the songwriting than he ever had before, practically dominating the creative process, and he used this outlet to express his frustrations and anxieties about having attained the celebrity that he never really wanted. This album is the best of all forms of Pearl Jam: from the character studies ("Better Man," "Nothingman") to the classic rock-style anthems ("Last Exit") to the weird ("Whipping"). And yes, it could do without the nine-minute sound collage that is "Stupidmop," but if you pretend that song doesn't exist (as I always do), Vitalogy is a nearly perfect listening experience for fans of this style of music, and it sums up the decade as well as any other album.

The Top Ten Albums of the 1980s

Same rules apply as the 1970s list: one album per artist unless it cannot be avoided, and of course, all selections are strictly opinion. Now, the list:

10. AC/DC: Back in Black
AC/DC is famous as a band that really only has one trick up its sleeve. Well here was where that trick was at its best. After the death of Bon Scott, few would have expected the band to rebound in such a way. Brian Johnson's voice was fresh on Back in Black, and hadn't yet devolved into the frightening-sounding caricature it would later become.
 Essential tracks: ''Hell's Bells, " "Shoot to Thrill."

9. Metallica: Ride the Lightning
In the decade in which metal as we know it was largely invented, it seems necessary to give a spot to the decade's most influential, and best, metal band. And though many prefer Master of Puppets, I believe Ride the Lightning was the band's best achievement; their sound was never fresher, or heavier, than it was here.
Essential tracks: "Fade to Black," "For Whom the Ben Tolls."

8. David Bowie: Let's Dance
This is far from Bowie's best--he was on an all-time roll in the mid-'70s--but when Bowie decided to try his hand at Nile Rogers-produced dance music, there was no way it couldn't work. And while Let's Dance has some clunkers, it's also home to some of Bowie's best-ever songs, which is really saying something.
Essential tracks: "Let's Dance," "Modern Love."

7. REM: Document
REM's fifth album was the first one that set them on the path to greatness; everything that people love about this band today--the lyrics, the jangly guitars, the band's songwriting prowess--can first be traced back to this album.
Essential tracks: "The One I Love," "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

6. Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair
The most '80s-sounding album ever is also one of the decade's best efforts. if it weren't for the fact that it really only has six worthwhile songs--subtracting "Broken," which is one minute long, and "Listen," which is an eight-minute sound collage--this album would rank much higher. No other album captured so perfectly the sound of a decade, and Big Chair also contained some of its best songs, while perfectly capturing the excesses and flaws of the '80s as well: just look at that album cover.
Essential tracks: "Head over Heels," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

5. Michael Jackson: Thriller
Come on. There's no way a top '80s albums list could leave this one off. The album that basically invented modern pop music as we know it, Thriller catapulted Michael Jackson, who was still probably best known as the 5-year-old singer from the Jackson 5, to a level of superstardom that no one in music has matched since. Quincy Jones' production is excellent here too.
Essential tracks: "Billie Jean," "P.Y.T."

4. U2: The Joshua Tree
This was before Bono really became Bono, and before a million Coldplays and Travises started mimicking U2's style, making it ubiquitous and bland. This was when U2 was writing killer songs like "With or Without You," and aided by Brian Eno's production, became the rock stars we know them as today. U2 wouldn't be able to charge $300 a ticket in 2014 without an album as good as this in their past; after all, it's not like people go to their shows to hear "Vertigo."
Essential tracks: "With or Without You," "Where the Streets Have No Name."

3. Joy Division: Closer
After a crucial member of a band dies early, that band's last album becomes overrated in retrospect in many cases. This is not one of those cases. Closer is a brooding, dreary masterpiece, as well as the most depressing album ever to make such heavy use of synths. But when the remaining members of Joy Division formed New Order after Ian Curtis' death, it wasn't the songwriting that was missing; it was his lyrics, which become even more haunting knowing now what was soon to happen to him.
Essential tracks: "Isolation," "Heart and Soul."

2. The Clash: London Calling
OK, OK, so maybe this is cheating a little bit. After all, London Calling was actually released in the UK in late December of 1979. But it was released in the US in 1980, and most people heard and enjoyed it in the '80s, so I decided to include it here. (And hey, it's not that easy to find top albums from the '80s. I needed this). The Clash were one of the earliest punk bands, and yet many will argue that London Calling isn't a punk album at all. And you know what? They'd be right. But here's the thing: it's better for it. After all, the mid-'70s incarnation of The Clash never wrote a song as good as "Train in Vain." Or "London Calling," which has survived being included in seemingly every movie or TV show where a character goes to London. The Clash needed to move beyond punk to string together an album as good as this extra-long masterpiece.
Essential tracks: "Train in Vain," "London Calling."

1. The Smiths: Meat Is Murder
It's my belief that no band sums up the '80s quite as well as The Smiths. The songwriting was incredible, but the production decisions would only have occurred in the '80s, and really bring some of the songs down. (Really, does there need to be a mandolin in "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want?" Really?). But that's all OK, because a vocalist like Morrissey only comes along once in a decade. Ditto for a pair of songwriters like Morrissey and Johnny Marr. And this album, which kicks off with their best song, is their high point, and consequently, the high point of the decade.
Essential tracks: "The Headmaster Ritual," "How Soon Is Now?"

The Top 10 Albums of the 1970s

This is strictly opinion, of course. I should note that I tried to mainly keep it to one album per artist, unless they had two that just had to be on the list. And the '70s were home to many of the greatest albums of all time, which means plenty of all-time classics will be sadly unrepresented on this list. But let's get started:

10.Elvis Costello: Armed Forces
While My Aim Is True sounds like the '50s, Armed Forces is where Elvis Costello really developed and grew into his own signature sound. I actually prefer the overall sound of this one over My Aim Is True; that being said, it just doesn't stack up with it on a track-by-track basis. Still a classic, though.
Essential tracks: "Accidents will Happen," "Goon Squad,"

9.Marvin Gaye: What's Going On
For the most part, disco, funk, and soul (three of the premier genres of the '70s, tended to be singles-based and were rarely able to string together great full albums, This is the exception. Here, Marvin Gaye really had something to say (rhyme unintentional, I swear), and with that voice, the world was listening.
Essential tracks: "Mercy Mercy Me," "What's Going On."

8. Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division served as the precursor to many of the great '80s alternative groups (and arguably invented alternative music itself) by proving here that music could be dance-y and mopey at the same time. This album is notable in how unique it was; nobody sounded like these guys in 1979.
Essential tracks: "Shadowplay, ""She's Lost Control. "

7. Blondie: Parallel Lines
there is a tendency to dismiss Blondie that existed both then and now,and it exists because the group decided to name themselves Blondie, a mistake which would have really hurt their chances of being then seriously - if their music didn't sound as good as this, that B. A phenomenal power-pop masterpiece, Parallel Lines has also aged remarkably well.
Essential tracks: "One Way or Another," "Heart of Glass."

6. Boston: Boston
This album sold very well, but for some reason, perhaps because of the nature of its recording, Boston is not afforded the respect that most of the other albums on this list receive now, But it should: This album is classic cock in at its absolute peak, from the soaring vocals of Brad Delp to the harmonized guitars. And besides, who doesn't love them some "More Than a Feeling?"
Essential tracks: "Peace of Mind," "More Than a Feeling"

5. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
Never has a band in such turmoil came off sounding so good. By this point each member of Fleetwood Mac had basically slept with all the others, but it didn't matter when they got to the recording studio. Lindsey Buckingham's ability to write quality songs is first-rate, and that was on full display here. A doesn't hurt that this album contains my all-time favorite song,"Go Your Own Way."
Essential tracks: "Go Your Own Way," "The Chain. "

4. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
An album that has been in the news recently thanks to a (very timely) lawsuit against "Stairway to Heaven," Led Zeppelin IV has often been overshadowed - that is, until people listen to it again, and they forget all about everything surrounding it,and just listen to one of the forest albums ever assembled. Led Zeppelin was a very polar band; when they were bad, they were truly awful, but when they were good, no one could touch them. And this is their one album without a single misstep.
Essential tracks: "Black Dog," "When the Levee Breaks."

3. Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True
Rarely does an artist kick off their career so well. My Aim Is True is the '50s personified, and yet updated for the new decade. And like many of the mid-'00s '80s style bands, you can easily make the argument that this is the better than any of the '50s artists it was emulating. Plus, none of those bands wrote a song like "Watching the Detectives."
Essential tracks: "Watching the Detectives," "Miracle Man."

2. Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
Epic is definitely the only word I can use to describe many of these songs--"Born to Run," "Thunder Road," "Jungleland;" all of these are epics, but they don't come off as pretentious or heavy-handed. Bruce Springsteen pulls them off with aplomb, and manages to make each of them feel important, and at times, genuinely moving.
Essential tracks: "Born to Run," "Thunder Road."

1. David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust*
*Yes I know its full name, but when you name an album something that long I reserve the right to never, ever call it that.
Forget about the storyline; the storyline is dumb. Forget about the rock opera aspects of this album, or the fact that Bowie for some reason decided to throw a Kinks cover in there, when it would be perfectly fine without it. Few artists, from any time or any decade, have managed to string together a succession of songs this good. So many times I have been listening to a song off Ziggy Stardust, say, "Lady Stardust" for example, marveling at how good it is, and then been blown away when I realize that it's the seventh best song on this album. Ziggy Stardust isn't perfect, but it's better than any rock opera about a space being named "Ziggy Stardust" has any right to be, and it's the best album of the 1970s.
Essential tracks: Everything but "It Ain't Easy."

Update

So, this blog has unfortunately been dark for a while. There was just a lot going on and I couldn't find the time to continue updating it for a while there. I'm sure this disappointed my legions of readers, but fear not, legions (who totally exist), this week we return with a series on the best albums of each decade. And, of course, a picture of Jeff Ament wearing a ridiculous hat: