Favorite Albums A to Z

I enjoyed doing my Abecedarian List so much, I wanted to do some more, under more specific categories of pop culture. We'll start with this list -- my favorite albums, A to Z.

I tried mostly to pick albums I haven't really mentioned before -- or at least, not very much -- on this blog. So no, you don't have to hear again how Who's Next is the greatest anything ever. (Except you just did!) I didn't repeat any artists on the list. And I tried to pick albums I genuinely love, and have listened to over and over again, all the way through. For example, I was thinking of putting the Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me under K. But when I thought about it, I realized that while I think it's brilliant, I don't really listen to it that much, and when I do, I mostly hit the highlights, and skip a lot of songs. So -- it's out!

I had trouble on a couple of letters, neither of which were Q or Z. In fact, Q and Z were surprisingly easy. No, where I got stuck was X, as you might expect, and Y, which you might not. I know I didn't. I'd have thought there'd be a bunch of albums I could pick and choose from under Y, starting with "You" or "Your" or "You're" or "Young" or "Youth" or whatnot. Turns out, not so much. Not among albums I'd honestly consider favorites. Even Yellow Submarine, or Yo! Bum Rush the Show -- I couldn't list them, because I just don't like the whole albums that much.

I had to bend the rules a little. For Y, I went with an album I own on vinyl, by an artist I worship, but truthfully, though it's a very good record, I really don't play it much, or know it very well. And for X, I flat-out cheated. Sorry. (But at least I cheated with a frickin' awesome album.)

Also, I'm never sure if people are aware of this or not, but on almost all the pictures on this blog, there's some alt text you can read if you hover your cursor over the picture. Each album picture below features one of my favorite lyrics from the album in question (except the jazz albums -- I suppose I could've said "toot-tweedly-boo-bop," or something).

And here we go: Frickin' Awesome Albums, A to Z!

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Appetite for Destruction

Guns N' Roses

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Copper Blue

Sugar

Dookie

Green Day

Empty Glass

Pete Townshend

Fearless

Hoyt Axton

Gordon

Barenaked Ladies

Highway To Hell

AC/DC

It's a Shame About Ray

The Lemonheads

John Henry

They Might Be Giants

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

A Love Supreme

John Coltrane

Moondance

Van Morrison

Nebraska

Bruce Springsteen

One by One

Foo Fighters

Piano Man

Billy Joel

Quadrophenia

The Who

Rum Sodomy & the Lash

The Pogues

Stranger Than Fiction

Bad Religion

Troublegum

Therapy?

Utopia Parkway

Fountains of Wayne

Van Halen

Van Halen

Whatever and Ever Amen

Ben Folds Five

eXile in Guyville

Liz Phair

Young, Neil

Neil Young

Zenyatta Mondatta

The Police

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Posting will be spotty over the next few days; my friend Forrest from Austin is coming to town today, and I've also got relatives visiting on Sunday. But don't let that stop you from carrying on Positive Thinking Week for me! Why not try an A to Z list yourself, as Tosy and Cosh and Byzantium Shores have done?