Albums are tough, because you have to listen to all 8-12 tracks for so-many-minutes and enjoy (almost) every single moment. In the climate of singles, streaming/radio, EP's, CD's, MP3's... the "Next" button is easy to resort to. I can't claim these are the greatest or most relevant of all time (well, some of them are), but certainly my personal favorites are represented below. While several may not be considered the "best" in an artists discography, and others may not seem to deserve being on a list next to another, I find each album special, personal and relevant. One has to stick to their guns after all...

Albums

Baishou Ecstasy Shiina Ringo

Live, classy jazz from the vocally stylized, guitar wailing, electronica inflected darling of Japanese indie rock? Oh Yeah. Opening with Autumn Leaves in French in an uncharacteristically low rasp, she then proceeds to strip her performance down, committing her songs to an orchestral treatment and taking them to a completely different place. Once you get there, looking back at her previous work, it all makes sense. Then you look forward and that all makes sense too.

Adult-Tokyo Incidents Tokyo Jihen

Aaaand... I'm gonna tack on Adult from Tokyo Jihen. Technically, this is not a Shiina Ringo solo, so I can feel ok about throwing it on here. The opening sequence is about as hot as you can make an opening sequence. There's a loose feeling for most of it, like the band is jamming to the acoustics of velvet banquettes and naugahide table tops with whiskey rings. They toss time signatures around like smoke in a club, but the production is still clean and posh. The end kind of tapers off into the quirky rock that later Tokyo Jihen albums bring to the table, and closes with some relatively safe low tempo selections. But the end of the set is the end of the night, right? Maybe that's just how they roll. (By the way, It's not lost on me that the album is denouncing a slick lifestyle choice. Shiina is known for statements about identity and culture politics, and that never gets lost in Tokyo Jihen, but... who cares?)

Discovery Daft Punk

Sure, Daft Punk had those early singles, then later went on to rock stardom with Human After All, and street glam with all those Hip Hop collabos, but Discovery was the first big opus. This album solidified the sound that would become their signature, and is their least ironic/self assessing, most effervescent concept album. Oh, and fun. Do you see a trend here? I loved Technologic by the way, but they already conquered the template with Harder, Better, Faster Stronger.

Black on Both Sides Mos Def

Trying to escape downtown LA after a dingy night in some club, caught in the traffic of fans celebrating, by sideshow, the Lakers consecutive championship win, I had this conversation...

Me: Whats this you're playing? (Cue noises from an angry youth slapping a ho)
Legit Gangsta Boy: (Insert any Hard Rap title here. Keywords = Scarface, murder - not particularly creative, bling...
Me: You don't ever get tired of this? What about (insert beige Hip Hop here).
Legit Gangsta Boy: That shit is boring. That shit is not real Hip Hop. That shit is gay shit. Real hip hop (to pp) is deez nuts and then I cap the other guy.
Me: What are you talking about? Some of those early MC's were into having a good time, as in, you know, like, fun. Let me list you... (check, check check). Let's get jiggy with disco...
Legit Gangsta Boy: Ahcch. You always get angry when you hear this shit. You so cute. I'll just turn it off then.
Me: Ok. (Thaat's riiiight... Turn it off!) 

Tired of gangsta rap, misogyny, profanity; the lady killer jams about bitches, baby mamas, booty; the party poppers about drugs, money, and the game; champagne swizzle, fur and diamonds. Didn't want to hate, but didn't relate. Instead, I headed to the underground where ladies dressed like normal people. Sometimes misogyny made an appearance, but at least it was clever. There was room for the weird and the well read, the angry yet thoughtful, the modest and self loathing (took any pages from Devin, Drake?) These were artists coming roundabout in their narrative. It wasn't the golden age but it was a kind of renaissance. I don't think Hip Hop will ever be quite be so innocent or optimistic again. 

As a poor college student eating sale hot dogs with kraft mac & cheese, I saved enough money to buy only one CD. I scurried down to the nearby (now defunct) Tower Records and had a tough choice before me - BlackStar, or Brand Nubian. Suffice it to say, that until Mos Def came out with Black on Both Sides a year later, I slept on BlackStar. But when I finally got the Mos Def solo, I was able to get it on wax.  Now, when you slap vinyl on a turntable, you give it your full attention. You let the album play through because it's a pain to keep walking back over there to move the arm if you want to hear a certain song on repeat. You can't walk away to stir mac & cheese because eventually the needle slips off the track. At the end of one side, you need to float the record on the reverse and study till it's over. And meanwhile you are lying on your bed reading the sleeve. I played that record again and again in this manner. Countless times. I was moving backwards through history.

**Curiously, Odd Future reminds me of early Pharcyde but evil. And Kendrick reminds me of the early South but darker. That says something about the times I guess. Lyrically tight, channeling internet angst, the new crews of real Hip Hop are compelling.

Somethin' Else Cannonball Adderley

Hip Hop self indoctrination, as with many people, involved taking forays into Jazz, Disco, Funk, rare Motown, obscure R&B and Rock. This was slog through the snow back in the day. I had to go into Amoeba/The Warehouse/Rasputin/nameless used record store, and sing to the stringy haired dude behind the counter to get what I wanted. I bought a lot of crap. Sometimes, a stranger would see me flipping and say, "Yo, You have to hear this girl... This is limited reissue", and palm me a record under the counter as if there were narcotics inside. And they were usually right. All those dusty samples were an aural record of a culture, breadcrumbs of knowledge, revealed by the new. How else would I have known about them?

Somethin' Else wasn't one of those moments. Cannonball Adderley, Miles David, Hank and Sam, Art Blakey were "discovered" through methodical heavy wonking; tourist reading at Barnes & Nobles about the heavyweights of Jazz, revisiting Brubeck albums, hashing out compilations of vocalists. And it just so happens that sometimes canonical is canonical for a reason.

It's been three weeks since you were looking for your friend
The one you let hit it and never called you again...
Who you gonna tell when the repercussions spin?
Showing off your ass cause you're thinking it's a trend
Girlfriend, let me break it down for you again
You know I only say it cause I'm truly genuine
Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem
Baby girl, respect is just a minimum
Niggas fucked up and you still defending 'em
Now, Lauryn is only human
Don't think I haven't been through the same predicament.
Let it sit inside your head like a million women in Philly Penn
It's silly when girls sell their souls because it's in
Look at where you be in, hair weaves like Europeans
Fake nails done by Koreans
Come again

And I was, like, ohhh sh*t. She put the 16 year old franchise in its place and threw out a political solution. For sure, she was better off without Wyclef, personally and musically. Scarred, yeah maybe. But what doesn't kill you, makes you a different person.

Let me tell you 'bout this girl, maybe I shouldnt...
I met her in Philly and her name was Brown Sugar...

What you probably remember best was Sh*t, Damn, Motherf*cker, a smooth bluesy track that makes jealousy and retribution seductive. We miss you D.

Mystery Faye Wong

In the celebrity cesspool that was Chinese pop, Faye Wong was an anomaly, an artist who did arty films and made arty music. She channeled a bit of Teresa Teng, but with an unusual tone, fine like struck glass. And her voice just became more ethereal, abstract, operatic. All the while she was navigating a complex landscape of political/tastemaking factions (Communist Mainland, the Canto-pop industry, Western influences). But before she was Faye Wong - The Queen, Guardian of all things Chinese, Asian Bjork - she was just another singer. It was the release of 100,000 Whys in mandarin, I'm Willing on the tracklist, that showed me. She covered, of all people, Tori Amos with Cold War, which was ripped from Silent all These Years. The culmination of big forces at play, this album was not. Not yet. But it was the first time I understood that contemporary Chinese music didn't have to be insular or slight, that it could be experimental and unique. She never did fall too far from the tree. Her work was always in the confines of Chinese pop, but with the Faye flavour.

Music Typewriter Moreno Veloso

Gentle, slightly off kilter rock and wistful Brazilian ballads. The soundtrack of despondency.

Tender Armchair (อาร์มแชร์)

Indie Thai Rock. Known internationally as Thai Pop. Hydrocortisone for despondency. Also check out their album Design, which has digital twists.

The Little Mermaid Disney

Cause Part of your World and the Reprise. Because the score is amazing. Because Ursula is the most luscious of villains in Disney-dom. Because it signaled the return of the Disney feature, so it was really, kind of, like your first time. And finally, because... if you've been around the block, then one miiight, perrrhaps, be ashamed of the 16 year old franchise. But at 16, the spell of the 16 year old franchise is a shameful thing to break. I chastise you cads.

The House Connection: Volume 1 Richard "Humpty" Vission  and Bad Boy Bill

ON FOUR TURNTABLES!! Banging away NONstop with quick killer cuts (If you got a big ole booty SAY YEAH!!) till you are delirious, exhausted, and your ears are bleeding from listening to this mix. And THEN, and then... Dick and William pillow your hard landing with the drum n bass remix of Aphrodite's Wishing on a Star, so cold, so refreshing. And in this context, not a bit corny. Let's do that again tomorrow night, you murmur as you stumble into the sunrise.

Of course the dialectical counterpart to House Connection 1.0 is this sinuous glissando of lasers...

Tranceport 1 Paul Oakenfold

Purple by Gus Gus being the highlight and 1998 by Binary Finary being the anthem.