Steve Hyden over at the A.V. Club Blog presented a challenge (that he found via Idolator) that no compulsive list-maker could hope to resist. Especially one whose post-vacation malaise has made doing actual work all but impossible.
The concept is relatively simple: choose one album from each year that you've been alive. Within that framework, however, some questions arise almost immediately: Are you simply choosing what you currently consider the best album from that year? The "most important" album from that year? The one you liked the best during the actual year in question? Rather than sticking to a rigid set of rules, I've decided to cut the baby in half, essentially presenting two lists at once. For each year I've chosen the album I currently consider the overall champ, along with the album I would have chosen at the time. For the years in which infancy and toddlerhood would make the choice impossible, I'm going with the albums that resonated most clearly in my early childhood. In other words, those that my parents probably played the most around the house. (It should be noted that the two most important albums of my childhood, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and The Beatles' Abbey Road, were released before I was born.)
And so, with the benefit of hindsight, I give you...
THE ALBUM AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Decade 1
1974
Then: Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark
Now: Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
I could really have given this one to Joni in both categories, but I used the option to pull in another great album (which itself just barely edged Gram Parson's Grievous Angel).
1975
Then: Fleetwod Mac - Fleetwood Mac
Now: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
So after the relative ease of 1974, I realize how effing impossible this is gonna be. In the "Then" category, only Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here got stiffed. BUT, 1975 was a ridiculous year for music: Born to Run, Blood on the Tracks, Natty Dread, Tom Waits's Nighthawks at the Diner, Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Black Sabbath's Sabotage, and Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised all came out that year. Am I gonna have to keep naming all the runners-up? I'll try to control myself, but I had to give you a taste of just how difficult this is gonna be.
1976
Then: The Eagles - Hotel California
Now: The CBGB trifecta: the self-titled debuts of Blondie, The Ramones, and The Modern Lovers
The Eagles barely edged ELO's A New World Record, which is odd because my dad hated The Eagles. Proof that not even our parents can counteract cultural ubiquity.
1977
Then: TIE: Fleetwood Mac - Rumors; Steely Dan - Aja
Now: Iggy Pop - The Idiot/Lust for Life
Okay, there's a lot of cheating going on already, but this year represents the essential split between my mom (Fleetwood Mac) and my dad (Steely Dan), and I couldn't hope to ever pry these records apart from one another. As for the Iggy records, I own a French vinyl pressing that contains both full albums, so I honestly consider them as one work. ("The Year Punk Broke" was also tough, with debut albums from Wire, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Television, and Talking Heads.)
1978
Then: Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits (1974–1978)
Now: Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
Finally, a weak year in both categories.
1979
Then: Pink Floyd - The Wall
Now: The Clash - London Calling
A pair of massive (if unoriginal) candidates mark the end of the 1970s... and the end of my Chicago childhood. California, here I come...
1980
Then: Billy Joel - Glass Houses
Now: X - Los Angeles
A weak album year, even in retrospect. I suppose I was listening to the radio in the car all the time, since we had moved to southern California. So albums don't seem to have as much resonance as singles like "Another One Bites the Dust," "Funkytown," "Rock With You," and Christopher Cross's "Sailing."
1981
Then: Journey - Escape
Now: X - Wild Gift
Although I am a massive X fan, this still blows me away. As Steve Hyden noted in his list, 1981 was a barren graveyard. With MTV newly ascendant (we got it right away in L.A.) and the transition from "classic rock" and punk to "new wave" and hardcore in full bloom, there just weren't many brilliant albums to chose from. As for my younger self, I was transfixed by radio and MTV as well, and was surprised to see that even on albums I recognize from the time (including the Journey album above, the Go-Gos' Beauty and the Beat, and others), I really only know the big singles. This is also when my taste had become totally independent of my mother's, who would have chosen Juice Newton's Juice and Dan Fogelberg's The Innocent Age.
1982
Then: Men at Work - Business as Usual
Now: Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Yes, I liked Business as Usual just a little more than Thriller. As for my choice of Bruuuuuuce... well that was surprising given the great hardcore stuff out at the time (Black Flag, Bad Brains, etc.), but Nebraska just slays me every time I hear it.
1983
Then: Duran Duran - Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Now: REM - Murmur
By the age of nine, I was utterly torn between wimpy dance music (Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, etc.) and wimpy metal (Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Quiet Riot). My mom, in the meantime, was addicted to Elton John's Too Low for Zero.
1984
Then and Now: Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
It was close on both ends, with childhood favorites like "Weird Al" Yankovic's In 3-D and Duran Duran's Arena and such current classics as The Smith's self-titled debut and The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime all taking a backseat to the Purple One's greatest masterpiece.
Continue to the second decade (1985–1994).
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