Favorite Albums

I particularly enjoy mixes (see my birthday playlists and best of the year playlists), but also have favorite albums I like listening to as a whole. These are twenty favorites, not in any order. For each album I’ve chosen a “key track,” which is a favorite or meaningful song (like the first track I heard from it).

Defining “favorites” is challenging, but I’m going with a combination of thinking the album as a whole is good and actually listening to it recently. I’ve pushed some older favorites I don’t really listen to anymore to “honorable mentions” at the bottom in case I want to reinstate any 😉 Last updated 13 June 2024.

Album title and track title link to Bandcamp. Artist name links to website.

Album release dates:

Electronic

Pretty Hate Machine
Nine Inch Nails
1989
Key track: Something I Can Never Have

OutRun
Kavinsky
2013
Key track: Nightcall

Foolishman
The Correspondents
2017
Key track: Tonight

Puppet Loosely Strung
The Correspondents
2014
Key track: Alarm Call

Indie

Vapours
Islands
2009
Key track: Shining

Taste
Islands
2016
Key track: Outspoken Dirtbiker

Arm’s Way
Islands
2008
Key track: Creeper

Ski Mask
Islands
2013
Key track: Shotgun Vision

Out of Love
Mister Heavenly
2011
Key track: Charlyne

The Slow Rush
Tame Impala
2020
Key track: Borderline

Late Checkout
Dent May
2020
Key track: Sea Salt and Caramel

Helplessness Blues
Fleet Foxes
2011
Key track: The Shrine / An Argument

The Ugly Organ
Cursive
2003
Key track: Some Red-Handed Sleight of Hand

Alternative

Isles
Wild Belle
2013
Key track: Keep You

Tonight
Franz Ferdinand
2009
Key track: What She Came For

Jimmy’s Show
Jim Noir
2012
Key track: JJC Sports

Honorable Mentions

Former favorites that I don’t listen to much anymore.

Silent Shout
The Knife
2006
Key track: We Share Our Mother’s Health

Fever Ray
Fever Ray
2009
Key track: If I Had a Heart

Gravity the Seducer
Ladytron
2011
Key track: Ace of Hz

Velocifero
Ladytron
2008
Key track: Predict the Day

Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
2008
Key track: White Winter Hymnal

Hungry Ghosts
OK Go
2014
Key track: I Won’t Let You Down

Kill the Moonlight
Spoon
2002
Key track: Stay Don’t Go

The Lonesome Crowded West
Modest Mouse
1997
Key track: Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine

Living Thing
Peter, Bjorn and John
2009
Key track: Blue Period Picasso

Narrow Stairs
Death Cab for Cutie
2008
Key track: Bixby Canyon Bridge

LIFTED or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Bright Eyes
2002
Key track: Lover I Don’t Have to Love

Demon Days
Gorillaz
2005
Key track: Every Planet We Reach Is Dead