Shortly after I became manically obsessed with Babymetal back in early September, listening to their album for three weeks straight and watching their concert Blu-ray, Live Legend I.D.Z. Apocalypse at every opportunity, I learned that they would be performing at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC on November 4. Naturally, I went online and bought a ticket immediately.
My old pal Tom, whom I haven't seen in two years (because we now live a couple hours away from each other) but who is the kind of guy to say yes to just about anything, agreed to go with me. I told him I'd meet him at the Hammerstein at 6:30, since the doors opened at 7:00. This being a Tuesday, however, and both of us having, you know, jobs, I was a bit late, arriving at the Hammerstein around 6:45, while Tom texted me to say he'd get there around 7:15. There was a line to get in, of course, so I started off in search of the end of that line. I walked to 9th Avenue, turned the corner, then turned again at 35th Street. The end of the line was just across the street from the new hotel they're putting up at 321 W. 35th Street--in other words, directly behind the Hammerstein. Part of me wished I'd just walked up 8th Ave. to 35th to begin with, but then I wouldn't have had a chance to check out the crowd. Without studying it too closely, I'd say it was about equal parts club kids in their early twenties (many of them female, and many of those females sporting Babymetal-inspired outfits), hardcore metalheads (Scott Ian beards, Misfits tattoos), and randos like me (no discernible style, just happy to be there).
Not long after I joined it, the line started to move occasionally, in fits and starts. About twenty minutes later Tom joined up with me, and we spent the next several minutes catching up while the line lurched forward with more frequency. At last, we made it inside around 7:45. Tom bought the first round of beers, which was surprisingly easy. ("Why is everyone in that line?" Tom asked, gesturing to the five people standing to our right, while the bartender on the left was helping no one--until we walked up.) Then we spent another 45 minutes hanging back, to the right of the soundboard setup, as the crowd filled in. At this point I asked Tom if he had any idea what Babymetal is. His answer, which didn't surprise me a bit (Tom being Tom), was no. "Didn't even Google them?" I asked. No, he did not.
So I gave him the barest of background info--just enough to give him context without potentially ruining what I was fully expecting to be his "Holy shit!" moment at the opening riff of the first song. So I said Babymetal is a Japanese pop/metal band, fronted by a sixteen-year-old and two fifteen-year-old girls. They sing songs about bullying and chocolate. And it is completely hardcore, in the sweetest way possible.
Around 8:30, the lights dimmed and a Star Wars-like text crawl, titled "Metal Resistance, Episode II," lit up the LED screen behind the stage. As at the start of Babymetal's "Legend" concerts, we were treated to some Babymetal mythmaking, which led directly into "Babymetal Death," at which point the crowd went nuts.
I was very happy with the order of the set list, which started strong and ended strong. My least-favorite Babymetal songs ("Rondo of Nightmare," "Catch Me If You Can," and "Akatsuki"--which, to be clear, is not to say I don't like them) were perfectly placed in the first half of the show, so that the second half was packed with their best songs and denied me the chance to experience any concert fatigue whatsoever (which, now that I'm 41, is more likely than it used to be). By the time Yuimetal and Moametal skipped onstage for their "Black Babymetal" rap, "Onedari Daisakusen," I was so deliriously happy I could barely stand it.
And the crowd, at least from where we were standing, was fantastic. The two couples directly in front of us were so excited to be there, and completely drunk--but not annoyingly so (although one of the guys was headbanging through "Head Bangya!!" with enough gusto that I was worried at one point he might clock me in the jaw). The mosh'sh pit formed about eight "rows" in front of us, which actually helped to open up our sightlines to the stage, so that was nice. The dozens of smartphones held aloft occasionally obstructed my view, but shifting a little to the right or the left usually solved that problem (and most of these amateur cinematographers didn't hold up their phones for more than a single song). All the metalheads who threaded through the crowd near me were some of the most polite people I've ever encountered in NYC, saying, "Excuse me," and being careful not to tread on any toes as they walked by. In watching some of the videos afterwards (see below), I'm retroactively happy that we didn't push closer to the stage, because apparently that's where all the tone-deaf superfans were clustered, singing along (loudly and badly) with Su-metal. I'm not ashamed to say that that would've ruined the concert for me.
The Hammerstein has a reputation for good acoustics, and I'm sure that's true, though the sheer decibel level of Babymetal's show rendered those acoustics moot at times. (More than once I experienced a literal wall of sound vibrating the air around me so intensely that I couldn't discern any notes whatsoever, but this was a rare occurrence.) Next time I'll be sure to bring my earplugs. But this is by no means a suggestion that Babymetal should've turned down the volume. I'd say the levels were mostly pretty good.
Our three kawaii metalheads were in great form all night, the call-and-response segments in a handful of songs were loads of fun, and the kami band shredded from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed their two solo sets (the first before "Rondo of Nightmare" and the second before "Catch Me If You Can"). I'd love to know which specific musicians played that night; all I'm sure of is that Boh played bass (his shaved head makes him easily recognizable). I'm 51 percent sure that Takayoshi Ohmura was one of the guitarists (he has a fairly identifiable stage presence), though with all the face paint and black hair it's hard to tell from the back of the room. The other guitarist might've been Leda or Mikio Fuzioka, but I just don't know. And I believe Hideki Aoyama was not the drummer, because he skipped the American tour to spend time with his newborn baby. If anyone finds out who the musicians were, I'd be grateful if you shared that info.1
The show wrapped up around 10:00, with the LED screen promising "Metal Resistance: Episode III" in 2015. Tom deemed it "the craziest show I've ever seen," and this is from a guy who's seen the Flaming Lips twice. So yes, he enjoyed it immensely. Another Babymetal fan is born!
Set List (with YouTube links):
- "Babymetal Death" / (alt. closer, incl. partial intro) / (alt. 2, incl. full intro)
- "Iine!" / (alt. from balcony)
- "Uki Uki ★ Midnight" / (alt. closeups)
- Kami Band Solos 1
- "Rondo of Nightmare" (w/intro solos)
- "Song 4"
- Kami Band Solos 2 (see below)
- "Catch Me If You Can" (w/intro solos) / (alt. from balcony)
- "Akatsuki"
- "Onedari Daisakusen"
- "Megitsune"
- "Doki Doki ☆ Morning"
- "Gimme Chocolate!!" / (alt. farther away) / (alt. 2, closer)
- "Head Bangya!!" (part 1) (part 2) / (alt. closeup, first half only)
- "Ijime, Dame, Zettai" / (alt. closeup, but with super-annoying fan noise) / (alt. 2, farther back)
Balcony view, from the end of "Rondo of Nightmare" to "Gimme Chocolate!!"
Balcony view, from "Head Bangya!!" to the end of the show
Pointless Footnotes
1 According to Faygo5000, I was right about Takayoshi Ohmura (who was on the right with the pink guitar [apparently called "Pink-chan"]), Leda was playing guitar on the left, Yuya Maeta played drums, and Boh was on bass (naturally). Here's a nice video showcasing a few of these amazing musicians.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Pink Floyd) As alluded to above, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, and David Gilmour together form the seed from which all my rock music proclivities stem. Multilayered instrumental arrangements, surreal lyrics, beautiful guitar solos, and absolutely no love songs—this is Pink Floyd to me. And Piper, when I first heard it (circa 1987, my freshman year of high school), hit me like a freight train. Though I can’t say it’s my favorite record of all time (because I don’t have one), no other album has affected me as profoundly. These songs contain a transformative power that literally changed my listening preferences the first time I heard them. I can say the same about only a few other albums (Dead Cities, Blue Lines, The Serpent’s Egg, Paul’s Boutique). Of course what one experiences when one is younger tends to have a greater impact than experiences one has when one is older, with more personal history to draw from, but even so Piper is my Rosetta Stone.
Electric Ladyland (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) If Pink Floyd represents all that is profound in rock ’n’ roll, then Jimi Hendrix represents all that is cool about it. Growing up, I may have wanted to hang out with Syd, Roger, and David, but I wanted to be Jimi. When I started playing guitar in sixth grade, Jimi’s talent is what I was aiming for. (My skills never came within a light-year of Jimi’s, of course, but who else would an aspiring guitarist look up to?) Everything about him was cool: his clothes, his hair, even his mustache. If I could’ve rocked the frogged-coat look in high school, I would have. Alas, I stuck to flannel shirts, Nikes, and Levi’s instead—because I was nowhere near as cool as Jimi Hendrix. Ladyland is Jimi’s magnum opus. Of his three studio albums, this is the flawless one. Some might argue that Are You Experienced is superior, but I imagine these are the same folks who might take issue with my preference for the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie over Siamese Dream (but more on that later). As far as I’m concerned, Jimi’s looser, less-focused songs (such as “Rainy Day, Dream Away,” “1983,” and of course the epic fifteen-minute jam “Voodoo Chile”) showcase Jimi’s strengths as a guitarist far better than the radio-friendly hits from his first album. Plus, his cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” is probably the greatest rock song ever recorded.
Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin) I have my issues with Led Zeppelin. Ever since that fateful day in seventh grade, when my friend Matt gave me a gold-label TDK cassette onto which he’d taped Led Zeppelin I and II, I’ve been a fan. Shortly thereafter I devoured Hammer of the Gods, Stephen Davis’s electrifying biography of the band, which inspired my dream (still alive, though far less likely, twenty years later) of fronting a stadium rock band. It’s sometimes hard for me to reconcile my love of the music with some of the band members’ character flaws (Jimmy Page’s affair with a 14-year-old girl, John Bonham’s brutish, drunken antics, etc.) and most of the countless bands that Led Zeppelin spawned (Kiss, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Soundgarden, etc.) don’t hold my interest, but listening to their first album in particular never fails to result in 44 solid minutes of falsetto sing-alongs and vigorous air guitar playing. All I need to hear is Page’s opening riff on “Good Times, Bad Times” bursting from the silence and I am ready to rock.
Bitches Brew (Miles Davis) When I was a kid searching for good music, in that time before the Internet and with far too much Whitney Houston on the radio, I often turned to Rolling Stone and their “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” lists, which seemed to appear in the magazine at least once every year. And every year I saw this album hovering somewhere near the bottom of the top 100 and thought to myself, “Jazz? No way!” Only much later did I discover what I’d been missing: an album that is neither pure jazz nor pure rock, but something new and amazing in between. It also served as my gateway drug to many more great jazz albums (A Love Supreme, Kind of Blue, Bird & Diz, Blue Train), despite the fact that many jazz purists continue to dismiss this album as something other than—or less than—jazz. I’m sorry now that I didn’t trust Rolling Stone earlier, because this album fits right in with some of my favorite, more improvisational tracks on Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland.
Who’s Next (The Who) An album of many personal firsts: “Behind Blue Eyes” is the first rock song I learned to play on my guitar. Shortly thereafter, I experienced my first giddy triumph upon mastering Pete Townshend’s brief (but intense) solo two-thirds of the way through “Baba O’Reilly.” “Bargain” was the first song on the first mix tape I made for a girl I was in love with (the relationship didn’t work out but it was a great mix tape). “Love Ain’t for Keeping” was the first song to make me want an acoustic guitar. Who’s Next is, in other words, the quintessential rock ’n’ roll album. It has songs that are angry (“Won’t Get Fooled Again”), inspiring (“Getting in Tune”), funny (“My Wife”), and just plain awesome (“Going Mobile”). I’m glad Townshend gave up on his Lifehouse project (the scraps of which ended up as a part of Who’s Next), because I never appreciated the Who’s concept albums nearly as much as I did their albums without a unifying theme. And it’s hard to imagine what my life would have been like without this one. (I suppose I would’ve learned to play “Smoke on the Water” first instead.)
Exile on Main St. (The Rolling Stones) In 1971, confronted with owing more taxes than they could pay, the Rolling Stones fled England for France where they recorded the one Stones album that, in my mind anyway, is more Keith Richards than Mick Jagger. For that reason it’s my favorite—even though my favorite Stones songs (“Gimme Shelter,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Paint It, Black,” “Jiving Sister Fanny,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Monkey Man”) aren’t on it. But when you listen to this double album all at once it’s like listening to the history of rock ’n’ roll in 67 minutes. The album has three classic Stones songs (“Happy,” “All Down the Line,” and “Stop Breaking Down”) but the ones that really move me are the oddball tracks: “Shake Your Hips,” “Turd on the Run,” “Ventilator Blues,” and “I Just Want to See His Face.”
Brain Salad Surgery (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) In those formative years of middle school, during which I was learning about the pop music of the past rather than just listening to the pop music of the present, Matt (previously mentioned above), whose LP collection was vast and impressive for a 13-year-old, lent me his copy of Brain Salad Surgery with the following words: “This is the best album ever made.” In high school Matt became quite the guitarist, and the fact that he was also the smartest guy I knew went a long way toward me believing him before I’d even listened to it. But then I listened to it and knew he was right. Or, at least, it sure sounded to me like the best album ever made. Brain Salad Surgery has never been my favorite album for the same reason that neither ELP nor Rush has ever been my favorite band: they’re both comprised of three powerhouse musicians who composed sophisticated songs with sometimes goofy lyrics, and tend to be worshipped by nerds. I am a nerd, and I love plenty of music that nerds love, but I don’t want my nerd music to define me, you know? That said, this album rocks. The opening phrase of the first song, “Jerusalem” (based on Hubert Parry's Anglophilic hymn), blows me away every time. Emerson’s synthesizer arrangement of the fourth movement of Alberto Ginastera's first piano concerto, “Toccata,” is epic. “Karn Evil 9” is a sci-fi masterpiece. “Still . . . You Turn Me On” is a twisted ‘love’ song that I played quite often after a breakup with my high-school girlfriend, and “Benny the Bouncer” is just plain ridiculous, which is a quality every truly good album needs. 
Autobahn (Kraftwerk) One could say 1974 was a lean year for great music. In putting this list together I was stunned by how few perfect albums there are from this year, considering how many of my favorite bands were active at this time. Diamond Dogs is a good Bowie album but not, in my opinion, perfect. Gentle Giant's The Power and the Glory, likewise, is not nearly as good as their earlier records. This left me with Kraftwerk’s fourth album, which is their first great album. Over the years I’ve determined that people either like electronica or they don’t. There’s no convincing the dislikers that they’re missing out on something amazing. To me these songs are soundscapes capable of transporting me to a world that cannot exist in three dimensions. To people who don’t like electronica the songs are insufferable, nonsensical sequences of bleeps, doots, and buzzes. To each his own. This is one of the first albums that taught me the truth behind the cliché “There’s no accounting for taste,” but in a completely nonjudgmental way. My wife thinks Kraftwerk is terrible. I think Hole is terrible. Neither of us is wrong, we just don’t like the same kinds of music, end of story. (But really, Hole is a crap band.)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) Speaking of soundscapes, this album is the ultimate. It is a tribute to at least two things: sudden, life-altering success (as a result of Dark Side of the Moon) and their former bandmate Syd Barrett (a.k.a. the crazy diamond). It also contains my favorite Floyd song, “Welcome to the Machine.” Wish You Were Here seems to be the album where Roger Waters decided that Pink Floyd belonged to him, rather than to the band as a whole. This belief, though it ruined his friendships with the others, worked well enough musically for this and the next two albums. Then it all fell apart. But Wish You Were Here is notable for being the last truly heartfelt Floyd album that presumably reflected the feelings of everyone in the band, not just Waters, whose songs turned increasingly autobiographical from this point forward.
Presence (Led Zeppelin) There is a desperation, an anxiety hovering over the aptly named Presence. Notable for having been recorded in just 18 days, this album sounds like Led Zeppelin on speed, despite the slow tempo of “For Your Life” and “Tea for One.” What is the opposite of Led Zeppelin Unplugged? Because it also sounds like that. Gone were the mandolins of Led Zeppelin IV and the acoustic guitars of, well, every other Zeppelin album. Presence is all electric all the time. When I first heard this album I wasn’t sure if I liked it or hated it. Eventually, I decided I hated it. Later, I decided I liked it. Now I love it. The whole thing is tinged with regret, sadness, and the winds of change. As far as I’m concerned this is the last of Led Zeppelin’s good albums. The band that recorded In through the Out Door isn’t the same one that recorded this album. That’s probably John Paul Jones’s fault, but whatever. The presence felt in Presence is eternal, and that’s enough for me.
Barry Manilow Live (Barry Manilow) Don’t judge me. Barry Manilow is a songwriter and an entertainer, and he excels at both of these professions. When I tell people I love this album they usually assume I’m joking, but this isn’t some ironic, postmodern joke at Barry’s expense—it’s authentic appreciation. My mom had a copy of this album, and my brother and I would listen to it in the basement over and over again, literally, as we set up our Star Wars action figures for the beginning of our epic, days-long battles. This live double album begins with “Riders to the Stars,” and Mike and I would march around the basement to the opening horns, then cry out “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Barry Manilow!” along with Barry’s backup singers as he took the stage. Then we would get down to business, setting up Darth Vader, Han Solo, and the rest of them, eventually taking a break to flip the record to side 2. This side begins with “A Very Strange Medley,” in which Barry sings all the commercial jingles he’d written (for Dr. Pepper, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Band-Aid, etc.). As Barry mentions before he launches into the medley, all his artsy friends hate it but his trashy friends love it. I guess I’d be one of his trashy friends. Anyway, despite the fact that Barry’s current fan base is comprised primarily of late-middle-aged women (like my mom), I can say he has at least one male fan born shortly before this record was released.
The Man-Machine (Kraftwerk) “We are the rrrrobots!” Doot doot-doot-doot doot! Only Kraftwerk could compose an ode to one of the least glamorous aspects of the Space Shuttle program and infuse it with some romance (“Spacelab”). Based on subject matter alone, this is the nerdiest of all Krafterk albums and yet, because it’s Kraftwerk, the album is not at all nerdy. Or at least not pocket-protector, tape-on-the-glasses nerdy but rather Silicon Valley, dot-com billionaire nerdy (in an age long before dot-com billionaires). Just look at the cover: four sharp-dressed guys with elegant haircuts—in 1978. The rest of the music world still had long hair and wore either bell bottoms or biker jackets. (True, everyone on the cover of Blondie’s Parallel Lines, which also debuted in 1978, looked pretty snazzy, but the unruly hair and dirty shoes signified the band’s ostensible punk roots, which Kraftwerk did not share—onstage or off.) Anyway, The Man-Machine is my favorite album of the year not just because there weren’t any other perfect albums released in 1978, but because it was the first to fuse science fiction with electronica—two of my favorite things back when I discovered this album.
The Wall (Pink Floyd) A silly, bloated, overwrought concept album, The Wall epitomizes everything that Johnny Rotten (with his notorious “I Hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt) and the rest of the punk scene railed against in the mid- to late ’70s. But I love every note captured on this album, the beautiful—if flawed—swan song of Pink Floyd (if one doesn’t count The Wall’s coda, The Final Cut, which was more of a Waters solo album, or the abysmal patchwork counterfeits A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, which I don’t). Yes, the concept is astonishingly egocentric, the primary emotions conveyed are both maudlin and melodramatic, and the central metaphor is borderline insulting (i.e., going on tour equals going to war). But listening to this album in high school, at night, while writing bad love poetry and convincing myself I’d never have a truly meaningful relationship with a girl, The Wall soothed my adolescent mind with its adolescent outlook. Plus, David Gilmour’s guitar solos made me weep. Okay, not literally, but close to it. Despite its flaws, I still consider The Wall to be a masterpiece.
Vienna (Ultravox) You know what’s awesome about Ultravox? Synthesizer solos. They’re fun to listen to, and even more fun to sing along to. Listen to “Private Lives” or “Sleepwalk” enough times, and I defy you to resist making goofy noises of support when Billy Currie’s synthesizer goes crazy. If I had to pick a favorite New Wave band, Ultravox would be it. In fact, when I think of ’80s music I think of Ultravox (despite the fact that they released their last good album, Lament, in 1984). Their music defines that entire decade’s sound, at least as far as my own record collection is concerned. 
Mask (Bauhaus) Oddly enough, I had the same experience with Bauhaus that 
1999 (Prince and the Revolution) This is the first album on the list that I heard in “real time,” by which I mean I listened to it shortly after it was released. I was born in 1973, so my favorites records prior to 1981 weren’t discovered by me until years after they were originally released. But by the fall of 1982, entering sixth grade, I began to develop my musical tastes. Michael Jackson’s Thriller was my first “grownup” album (i.e., an album not featuring Howdy Doody or a disco version of the Star Wars theme), followed by Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down and Madonna’s Like a Virgin (which came out in 1983 and 1984, respectively). These albums, which my parents gave to me for Christmas or my birthday, were requested as a result of my friends’ listening habits. Prince, on the other hand, was a choice influenced by my older sister. She loved all things New Wave (Depeche Mode, OMD, Adam and the Ants, Pet Shop Boys, Squeeze, Duran Duran) and she sold me her copy of 1999 for $10. Before that, my next-door neighbor and I would listen to his copy ad nauseam, trying to figure out why Prince was referencing the citizens of Troy in a song about a car. Needless to say, 1999 served as my personal sex education course at the age of nine. In retrospect, it was probably a little early to be listening to “Lady Cab Driver,” not to mention “D.M.S.R.” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” but the lyrics—sometimes baffling, sometimes downright unsettling—made such an impact on me that it defined my musical awakening and kick-started my obsession with rock and roll.
War (U2) Another album I discovered through the influence of my sister, who loved U2 with a passion that can be felt only by teenage girls. I wasn’t a teenage girl in 1983, and I’m still not, but this album is amazing. It opens with a powerful protest song and evolves into a powerful protest album, but in an angry, uplifting way—not in that slightly irritating, self-righteous way that some feel U2, or at least Bono, eventually embraced (myself included). War epitomizes U2’s angry-young-man phase, and they were never this good again. This album still gives me chills.
1984 (Van Halen) Actually, it’s a toss-up whether I consider 1984 or Purple Rain the best album of the year, but since Prince holds the spots for 1982 and 1985, I figured I’d throw Van Halen a bone (for which I’m sure they’re eminently grateful). This being the MTV era, Van Halen first came to my attention through the video for “Hot for Teacher,” and the line “Siddown, Waldo!” became a catch-phrase for my friends and me for the next several years. 1984 is in many ways the perfect album for an eleven-year-old boy. It has kick-ass guitar solos, a heavy drum beat, catchy lyrics, and an adolescent sense of humor. Plus, David Lee Roth was the perfect role model of immaturity for a bunch of obnoxious middle-school kids. But the music is still exciting to a guy in his early forties. “Panama” remains one of my favorite songs to listen to while barreling down the highway at 80 m.p.h. (Alas, I drive a Honda—not a hot-rod convertible.)
Around the World in a Day (Prince and the Revolution) My reaction upon listening to this album for the first time was, essentially, “What the hellll?” After years of equating Prince with funky, straight-up rock ’n’ roll tunes such as “Little Red Corvette” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” I had no idea what to make of this album. The eponymous opening track begins with a fluttery flute solo, segueing into one of Prince’s trademark wails, and things got only more bizarre from there. To be blunt, I did not like it. Not at first, anyway. But the trippy, psychedelic tracks soon grew on me and, later on, I began to recognize the links between them and the albums from the ’60s and ’70s that I had started to absorb into my music collection. Around the World in a Day may not have been the Prince I knew, but it soon became the Prince I appreciated most of all.
Lovely Thunder (Harold Budd) I heard this record’s final track, “Gypsy Violin,” late one night on my hometown’s college radio station, and the next day I begged my mom to drive me to Roscoe’s (my favorite used record store) so I could buy this album. Harold Budd’s haunting piano compositions were among the first instrumental pieces that blew my mind. From his work I expanded my interests to include Vangelis and Tangerine Dream, followed by Brian Eno (who collaborated with Harold Budd a few times) and Steve Reich, then the Future Sound of London and the Orb, then Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and most recently The Knife. Back in the late ’80s I listened to Lovely Thunder primarily at night, while I wrote cathartic diary entries, bad poetry, and juvenile stories. Probably not what Harold Budd had in mind when he composed the album, but it did the trick of transporting me to another world.
Surfing with the Alien (Joe Satriani) Prince’s Sign o’ the Times is a groovy, heartfelt, and occasionally lighthearted album (thanks to tracks like “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” my all-time favorite Prince song for reasons I cannot explain rationally) but this is the point at which Prince’s seemingly endless supply of blah love songs (e.g., “Slow Love” and “Forever in My Life”) start to infect his albums, so 1987 goes instead to electric guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani’s instrumental Surfing with the Alien. Yes, I admit I was first attracted to the album’s cover, which features the Silver Surfer, one of my two favorite Marvel Comics characters (the other being Dr. Strange—not that that has anything to do with this post). But this is a rare instance where an ’80s record with high-concept cover art didn’t disappoint me when I actually listened to it (*cough* Third Stage *cough*). Satriani’s two-handed tapping technique, similar to Stanley Jordan’s (though in a hard rock rather than a jazz style), has to be heard to be believed. As with Jimi Hendrix, his songs tend to evoke a “How does he do that?” response from me. Yet it’s not just his skill that makes this album so amazing. While technically impressive, Satriani’s compositions are also symphonic juggernauts—as opposed to the work of thrash metal guitarists like Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, who play in a way that’s technically impressive but also practically unlistenable. 
The Serpent’s Egg (Dead Can Dance) This (basically) Australian band’s appeal is hard to describe. Not just players of that thing known vaguely as “world music” (what a toothless phrase), but not quite a goth band either. To me, The Serpent’s Egg marked the changeover in the band’s direction from that gothic, 4AD sound to a more sophisticated, less categorizable focus on Lisa Gerrard’s contralto vocalizations (“Echolalia”) and Brendan Perry’s more reflective songs (“Ullyses” [sic]). Then there’s the percussion-heavy “Mother Tongue,” which still gets my blood pumping when I crank it up to 11. The Serpent’s Egg happens to be the last album Dead Can Dance produced while Gerrard and Perry were still romantically involved, so that may also have something to do with its power. 
Paul’s Boutique (Beastie Boys) I don’t listen to a lot of rap. Run-D.M.C. sometimes, A Tribe Called Quest occasionally, The Roots once in a blue moon. I don’t even listen to the Beastie Boys that often, really. I hate Licensed to Ill, with its casual misogyny and homophobia, and its almost distractingly heavy reliance on beats pulled from old Led Zeppelin albums. But Paul’s Boutique is a masterpiece of snot-nosed-punk humor. More than that, it’s an album that literally couldn’t be made today. With 
Violator (Depeche Mode) It’s ironic that the two “Totally ’80s!” bands I love the most on this list are not represented so much within that decade but rather serve as bookends to it. Just as Ultravox peaked, as far as I’m concerned, in 1980, Depeche Mode didn’t blow my mind until 1990, with the songs “Personal Jesus,” “World in My Eyes,” and “Enjoy the Silence.” True, some of the album’s proto-emo tracks are a bit turgid in the lyrics department but still, what a sound! I remember my sister getting a copy of Music for the Masses for Christmas in ’87, and my brother and me mocking her adoration of those English weepers, yet three years later I was completely on board. I just didn’t tell her about my change of heart.
Blue Lines (Massive Attack) This year in music, viewed in retrospect, marks the beginning of the brave new direction in which my musical tastes veered since graduating from high school (also, coincidentally, in 1991). And no album embodies that new direction better than Massive Attack’s Blue Lines. Robert “3D” Del Naja, Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, and Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles were the cooler, less rowdy, British version of the Beastie Boys, emphasizing the mellower beats of hip-hop to create something heretofore unknown and incredible. An album that is dark, soulful, polyrhythmic; a completely new and different kind of music, despite the easily recognizable genres (hip-hop, reggae, soul) upon which it is built. Originally members of the Wild Bunch sound system of Bristol in the ’80s, Massive Attack embraced the collaborative spirit that drove their earlier work and brought in other Wild Bunch alumni, such as Tricky and Shara Nelson, to compose a stunning work of art. It seems perfectly natural nowadays, but at the time I was amazed by the concept of guest vocals. As such, a lot of the credit for this album’s success goes to the aforementioned Nelson, who provided emotionally resonant lead vocals for four of the album’s nine tracks, including “Unfinished Sympathy,” arguably Massive Attack’s greatest song—not to mention one of the greatest songs of the decade. Likewise, Horace Andy also deserves credit for providing his distinctly vibrato, reggae vocals for three of the songs, including the green anthem, “Hymn of the Big Wheel,” which closes the album. Were I ever forced to choose my favorite album of all time, this might just be it.
Dry (PJ Harvey) Madonna may have been my first music crush, but let’s face it: despite the rolling around on that MTV stage and the “Boy Toy” belt buckle, she was kid stuff. Polly Jean Harvey, on the other hand, inspired a full-blown (albeit one-sided and entirely platonic) love affair. Listening to Dry for the first time, courtesy of my brother, was a revelation. This album is what I wish all punk records sounded like; if it did, I’d actually listen to punk. Harvey’s unique combination of raw anger and painful vulnerability, supported by a (mostly) stripped-down guitar/bass/drum trio, is so powerful it’s ridiculous. Her 1993 follow-up, Rid of Me, takes this atom-bomb of rage one step further, presenting one of the best album-opening songs of all time (the title track, “Rid of Me”), as well as the most withering lyric-as-accusation that no man wants to hear: “You leave me dry.” But Dry is a masterpiece all by itself.
13 above the Night (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult) Along with Lords of Acid, the Thrill Kill Kult is my guilty-pleasure holdover from my college days; the kind of band that would scare the bejeebers out of my mom—and no one else. I’ve never found much to like about the Thrill Kill Kult’s first three albums (or their last six, for that matter), but this one’s great from beginning to end. Presenting a more techno sound contra their primarily industrial roots, 13 above the Night is a bit of an anomaly, which probably helps explain why I love it but not TKK’s other albums. It’s so techno it’s practically a disco record, if a disco record could be all about sex and satanism. Combining vocal samples (from sources as disparate as Carnival of Souls and North by Northwest) with grinding beats, TKK creates an aura of disorienting anxiety. Granted, the band’s embrace of these “extreeeme” themes is done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but some tracks, like “The Velvet Edge” and “Dimentia 66,” can be effectively unsettling in the right frame of mind. 
Dummy (Portishead) Beth Gibbons’s quiet sigh near the end of “It Could Be Sweet” sums this album up quite nicely. Morose yet sexy, Gibbon’s beautiful jazz-tinged vocals contrast nicely with the dark, atmospheric electronic noise of her bandmates, Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley. The result reminds me of Isabella Rossellini’s rendition of “Blue Velvet”—that is, recognizable but somehow twisted, with just a hint of menace below the surface, not unlike the first act of a David Lynch movie, before the s**t hits the fan. Like the boys from Massive Attack, Portishead hails from Bristol, and with this album they helped to establish the definitive “Bristol sound” (later known as trip-hop). 
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (The Smashing Pumpkins) This year contains three “favorite album of the year”s, really. Björk’s Post was my first exposure to my second-favorite musician (behind PJ Harvey), and it’s an incredible record. The range (from the teeth-kicking opener, “Army of Me,” to the heartbreaking “Hyper-Ballad,” to the goofball “It’s Oh So Quiet”) sets the stage for Björk’s every-field-is-left-field career to come. The Orb’s Orbus Terrarum is my go-to record for late-night meditations. Perhaps not as sonically rich as The Orb’s Adventures beyond the Ultraworld, but a more unified sound that feels like a single, blissful, 80-minute song. I could put this disc on repeat and listen to it for days. But speaking of sonically rich, Mellon Collie is the kind of record that reminds me of my favorite albums from the ’70s. Here you have a strong leader, Billy Corgan, guiding his band with a firm hand (à la Roger Waters), generating a catalog of songs that speak deeply from a very personal space. But it is the execution of these songs (with James Iha on guitar, D’arcy Wretzky on bass, and particularly Jimmy Chamberlin on drums) that makes them soar. I was never a devoted fan of specific drummers before, but Chamberlin is amazing—particularly on Mellon Collie. And so I have reluctantly given this album the top spot in 1995, even though there are two others that could easily take its place, depending on how I’m feeling on a given day.
Dead Cities (The Future Sound of London) I’ve been trying to write this paragraph for days now, and I can’t figure out how to express just how important this album is to me. In the fall of 1995 I moved from the Midwest to New Jersey, to begin life after college. I was living alone, truly alone, for the first time in my life. I had friends growing up, but I’d always been a bit of a loner, happy enough to sit up in my room by myself, reading, writing, and listening to music for hours at a time. But living 700 miles from home in a cozy little one-bedroom apartment overlooking a lake completely redefined the word “alone” for me. It wasn’t bad, but it was intense. When Dead Cities came out a year or so later, I loved it so much I ended up listening to it on repeat for days at a time until it finally seeped permanently into my brain and became the soundtrack of my early twenties. Before this album, I had Vangelis and Harold Budd and Brian Eno to trance out to, but FSOL was...different. This album is amazing. All of FSOL’s albums are amazing, but Dead Cities shaped the late ’90s for me in a lot of ways that I probably don’t even realize or fully understand. Even in the silence, I can re-experience every soundscape contained inside this album. It’s the rabbit hole of my life.
OK Computer (Radiohead) Radiohead was a “thing” before OK Computer came out, of course, but I didn’t pay much attention. “Creep” is a good song, but their first two albums were otherwise the kind of sophisticated alt rock that I could appreciate but not love. I bought this, their third album, partly because the haunting “Exit Music (For a Film)” at the end of Romeo + Juliet destroyed me and partly because I read in some music magazine that it heralded Radiohead as “the second coming of Pink Floyd.” I couldn’t disagree more (because such a declaration is reductive and insulting to Radiohead—and I say this as a massive Pink Floyd fan), but what a great album. It illustrated the concerns that would come to dominate the minds of thoughtful individuals as we entered the twenty-first century. Plus it rocks. 
Mezzanine (Massive Attack) This is Massive Attack’s last great album. (100th Window is fine but goes on a bit too long—and is really a Robert Del Naja solo record anyway [unless you count Neil Davidge as an unofficial fourth member of the group]—and Heligoland still hasn’t clicked for me quite yet.) Stylistically, it’s a 90-degree turn from Protection and Blue Lines, pushing the band in a darker direction. Apparently they were experiencing “creative differences” during the creation of this album, leading them to work on the twelve tracks separately, though you’d never know it to listen to the songs. The end result, though disorienting at times, is incredibly powerful. And “Angel” is one of my favorite side 1/track 1 songs of all time.
Stereo * Type A (Cibo Matto) This album is bananas. Not as bananas as Cibo Matto’s first album, Viva! La Woman, which was all about food. (Seriously.) But it’s still pretty bananas. I have a hard time describing music even when it’s pretty straightforward, but the styles utilized in Stereo * Type A are all over the map: techno, jazz, funk, heavy metal, hip-hop, and some genres I’ve probably never heard of, all combined to create the poppiest of pop music. Yet nestled within these pop confections are some truly heart-rending tunes: “Moonchild,” “King of Silence,” “Sunday Part II.” Miho Hatori’s voice is so sweet and vulnerable in these songs it kills me. Conversely, the more up-tempo tracks, such as “Blue Train,” rock in a funny, idiosyncratic way that really grooves with me. It’s probably not an album for everyone, but I love it.
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (PJ Harvey) Dry remains my favorite PJ Harvey album for partially nostalgic reasons, but Stories is the album I lend to people who aren’t familiar with her music and want to learn why PJ Harvey is the Greatest Thing In The World™. It is as perfect as perfect albums come. It also contains one of my favorite duets of all time: “This Mess We’re In,” featuring Thom Yorke. Musically, this is perhaps PJ’s brightest album, but her lyrics on most of the songs remain as dark as ever. During a low point early on in my last, and ultimately happiest, romance, the song “You Said Something” carried me through. On the other hand, the song “Beautiful Feeling” served as my anthem (along with Björk’s “Jóga”) when things got better. That’s the power of PJ Harvey. Her music understands pain, but it also evokes bliss. Is there any other song in existence more blissful than “This Is Love”? I don’t think so.
Vespertine (Björk) I like to think of Vespertine as Björk’s stealth album. Whenever I think about my favorite Björk albums, I tend to think of Post or Homogenic, or even Debut. But then I’ll listen to Vespertine and remember: this album is amazing. It’s probably her best album; certainly it is her most intimate, in terms of both subject matter and composition. The quiet moments on this album rival her more raucous songs in terms of emotional power. “Pagan Poetry” breaks my heart every time I hear it. I should also mention that this album came out just a few weeks before September 11, and was on heavy rotation on my stereo for the remainder of that year. The music, obviously, has nothing to do with anything related to those events (in fact, the album is about something so diametrically opposed to those events that one cannot link them even tangentially), but it nonetheless contributed to my own personal mental rehabilitation in those final months of the new millennium’s first year. On a lighter note, my belief is that the only thing greater in this world than Björk is PJ Harvey, and the only thing greater than PJ Harvey is 
Geogaddi (Boards of Canada) Sometimes, music speaks a different language. Sometimes, as with Sigur Rós, the language is literally different. But in the case of Geogaddi, the language I’m referring to is a method of communication beyond words. There’s something special, and slightly creepy, in this album that manifests itself, um, transdimensionally? I know how that sounds (like New Age bullshit, or just plain bullshit), but I swear I’m not normally that kind of hippy-dippy guy. Listen to this album at night, alone, in the dark, and tell me you don’t sense something that is more than the sum of its parts. 
Fever to Tell (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) Karen O is the kind of girl I was simultaneously obsessed with and afraid of in high school: enormously talented, raucous and ceaselessly energetic, funny, too interesting to be universally popular, and cute as hell (in an “I will punch you in the throat if you screw with me” kind of way). Thus, Fever to Tell took me right back to those days of silently worshipping the Kathleen Hanna-types in my teenage world. Listen to her voice in a track like “Tick” and I dare you not to fall for her. She is the ultimate hardcore girl. It’s practically unbelievable that Brian and Nick can keep up with this human dynamo in the studio or onstage. As you may guess, I enjoy watching the Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform as much as I enjoy listening to them, and the 2004 concert video Tell Me What Rockers to Swallow is a fine, stripped-down companion to Fever to Tell. Watching Karen O gnaw on grapes in her kooky silver jumpsuity thing makes me smile every time. (I’m just glad I wasn’t at that show and standing near the stage when she started spitting them into the audience; my admiration goes only so far.)
Uh Huh Her (PJ Harvey) This being PJ Harvey’s third album in the top spot on this list, I’m running out of ways to say that she’s the best thing to happen to music since the invention of the guitar. How about this: “Who the Fuck?” is the most bad-ass song anyone’s ever recorded. More bad-ass than NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” you ask? Yes. More bad-ass than AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”? Um, yeah. More bad-ass than Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”? Yes! Stop naming other bad-ass songs; they’re not as bad-ass as “Who the Fuck?” Seriously. I’ll tell you what else is bad-ass about this album: PJ Harvey recorded it entirely by herself (except the drums, which were added later) in her home studio. Also, I asked the DJ to play “You Come Through” during the dinner service at my wedding reception. Because there’s always a PJ Harvey song on my life’s soundtrack, and “You Come Through” is just about the best song to explain love that I’ve ever heard.
Super Extra Gravity (The Cardigans) The Cardigans went full-on country with their previous record, Long Gone Before Daylight and, though I’m not generally a country music fan, I loved it. Super Extra Gravity is like a hybrid of the Cardigans’ newfound, darker country attitude crossed with the pop-driven edge they had mostly relinquished on their previous record. As such it’s a fitting swan song for the band. The songs are as melancholy as ever (anyone who tells you Life and First Band on the Moon were happy albums wasn’t listening closely enough), but there’s a sense that the voice of these songs, though still trapped in bad relationships (“I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer,” “Drip Drop Teardrop”) or accosted by hypocrites (“Godspell”), has matured, and can leave the mistakes of its past behind—to prepare for an all-new set of mistakes. Super Extra Gravity is a record for grownups. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Cardigans will release another album someday, but with ten years gone, I’m not optimistic. Someone should write a song about that.
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (Neko Case) Speaking of country, Neko Case was the one to make me eat my words, and those words were, “I hate country music.” Of course, Case’s solo albums are not strictly country, but they’re country enough—and my appreciation of them is strong enough—that I have to allow for some love of “country music” in my life. Particularly this eerie, Last Picture Show variety. If David Lynch were seeking a new muse, he would need look no further than Neko Case. The strength is in the storytelling, and in Case’s peerless voice, which seems capable of riding the wind for days and days and days. These are beautiful, haunting songs that stick with me long after I’ve last listened to them. I even try to sing them in the shower sometimes, but it’s impossible. Even the scientific magic of 
In Rainbows (Radiohead) Labeling In Rainbows as Radiohead’s “triumphant return to form” (as many critics and fans did) is perhaps overstating it a bit, considering how great the three albums in between this and OK Computer are, but, still, this is a pretty amazing album. Mark Pytlik of 
Third (Portishead) Contra Radiohead “returning to form” (with 2007’s In Rainbows), Third marks Portishead’s forging of an all-new form. Eleven years had passed since their previous, second album, meaning that Third was almost required to be something entirely new; otherwise, Portishead would merely be stuck in the ’90s, and no nostalgia act is going to release an album of the year. Beth Gibbons still delivers the voice I (and every other trip-hop obsessive) remember(s), but the rest of this album is from another realm. It’s still dark and melancholy, like Dummy and Portishead were, but there’s something sinister in these songs. My hope is that we don’t have to wait until 2019 for Portishead’s fourth.
It’s Blitz! (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) This is the sound of the YYYs all grown up. The raw nihilism of Fever to Tell has not disappeared or even evolved, per se, but it has matured. The foundational chaos in songs like “Tick” has been replaced with the more measured constructions in songs like “Hysteric” and “Skeletons,” products of a decade-long partnership and (because let’s face it, I’m a Karen O fan first) a lead singer in her early thirties rather than her mid-twenties. Put another way: if the YYYs’ Fever to Tell is akin to XTC’s Drums and Wires, then It’s Blitz! is their Skylarking album. It’s the same band, and you can tell it’s the same band, but even so it doesn’t really sound like the same band. 
This Is Happening (LCD Soundsystem) The average James Murphy track contains just the right amount of humor, veracity, and rockability. And This Is Happening contains a bunch of average James Murphy songs. But what is average for James Murphy is pretty much equivalent to everyone else's best material. This is coming out wrong, because it sounds like faint praise. What I mean to say is that every song on this album is just as good as the next one, and the one before it. There's no song I'm "waiting for" while listening to this album, except insofar as I'm "waiting for" all of them. From beginning to end, this album rocks, it makes me laugh, and it makes me think. It is, in other words, the perfect LCD Soundsystem album. Just like all the other ones.
Let England Shake (PJ Harvey) When I read Sasha Frere-Jones’s 
Bloom (Beach House) Beach House has nothing in common with the Cranes, really, but the first time I heard Victoria LeGrand sing "Gila" (from the album Devotion) I immediately thought of Alison Shaw. Which is odd, because LeGrand's voice is almost the opposite of Shaw's (i.e., direct and throaty, whereas Shaw's is twee and airy). The sound of the two bands isn't much alike, either. The early Cranes--which is the era of the Cranes I like best--is percussive and gothic, whereas Beach House is all drone and keyboards. In any case, Beach House sounds--to me--like the direction the Cranes should have gone in when they re-formed in 2000. But I suppose it doesn't matter, since Beach House has gone in that direction for them. Anyway, this album is great. Furthermore, the song "Wishes" has been blessed with 
Random Access Memories (Daft Punk) Tempted as I am to give the YYYs this top spot in 2013, the Knife’s Shaking the Habitual and Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories are even better than Mosquito, and that’s saying something. I personally find it more surprising that Daft Punk's is my favorite of the year because I do not like their other albums. Though I am obviously a fan of electronic music (not so much a genre, I realize, as much as it is one side of the two-sided pop-music coin at this point), and even some house music, I can't listen to more than one Daft Punk song in a row. That driving beat is too much for me. It stops being music and starts being noise really fast. (And their TRON: Legacy soundtrack? More disappointing than the movie itself.) But Random Access Memories is different. This is an album of various '70s-era music styles expertly filtered through Daft Punk's contemporary sensibilities. The result is so funky, so grand, and so deeply affecting that I didn't listen to any other albums for several days after first hearing it--I just kept it on repeat. I have no expectations for Daft Punk's next album, but I can only hope it's half as good as RAM.
