3 Minutes, 49 Seconds

"If you only own one album by The Monkees it's gotta be [insert masterpiece here]." Welcome to Rock Solid , where we fill in the blank. Our goal is to pseudo-scientifically determine the best, the beloved, the most classic album in an artist's catalog. Here's how it works: I've consulted two main sources. The All Music Guide pro vides the professional critical point-of-view and Amazon.com offers the fan perspective ( because most people who choose to review albums on Amazon are adoring fans of the artist in question) . The album with the highest combined rating from both source s is the one I'll consider the best. An artist's entire body of work is eligible, with one exception: No comp ilations ( i.e. greatest hits). In each case, I'll also share my personal favorite album by the artist in question, as if you care. * * * I spent a lot of time on the Monkees back in 2009, reviewing all 11 of their albums, plu...

"If you only own one album by Weezer  it's gotta be [insert masterpiece here]." Welcome to Rock Solid , where we fill in the blank. Our goal is to pseudo-scientifically determine the best, the beloved, the most classic album in an artist's catalog. Here's how it works: I've consulted two main sources. The All Music Guide pro vides the professional critical point-of-view and Amazon.com offers the fan perspective ( because most people who choose to review albums on Amazon are adoring fans of the artist in question) . The album with the highest combined rating from both source s is the one I'll consider the best. An artist's entire body of work is eligible, with one exception: No comp ilations ( i.e. greatest hits). In each case, I'll also share my personal favorite album by the artist in question, as if you care. * * * Oh, Weezer. What more can we say about you? You've made us love you, made us hat...

I have never anticipated an album more than I anticipated XTC's Apple Venus, Volume 1 . I caught my first whiff of XTC in 1996 and quickly became a slavish fan over the next couple of years. When I discovered www.chalkhills.org , an amazing unofficial fan site, things got deep. There I learned not only had XTC been involved in a 7-year legal fight with Virgin records since the release of Nonsuch , but that the fight was basically over. A light had appeared at the end of the tunnel. They were soon to be free, and soon to release not one, but two, new albums! My fervor only grew once I got my hands on a bootleg cassette of the demos for said albums (thanks to a kind fellow Chalkhills listserv member). I played that cassette to death. You'd think that already knowing most of the songs on an album would dampen one's anticipation, but it didn't happen in my case. In fact, my desire to hear the final produced versions only grew. My mania for XTC was not to be denied (and ...

Used to be I spent the better part of November and December laboring over a top 10 list of my favorite CDs of that year. It was a sacred process to me, enduring countless revisions and agonizations. Last year I downshifted to an unranked list of "Albums I'm Glad I Bought." It felt right, given my diminished music obsession . So that's what I'm doing again. As I said last year , this doesn't mean I regret buying the other 24 albums I bought this year (well, in the case of Motion City Soundtrack and Weezer it does), but with my focus continuing to fall more on singles than albums, the CDs that stand out are the ones with at least 5 killer songs. UPDATE (February 2011): Upon further listening I've added two more albums into the mix. Welcome, Kings of Leon and Old 97's! Here're this year's faves: Arcade Fire: The Suburbs Check Out: Modern Man , City With No Children , Half Light II (No Celebration) , Deep Blue, We Used to Wait , Sprawl ...

Every year I make a mix of some of my favorite songs. Here's 2010: 1) Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait 2) The Bird and the Bee - Heard it on the Radio 3) Ra Ra Riot - Do You Remember 4) Jeremy Messersmith - Lazy Bones 5) Belle and Sebastian - I'm Not Living in the Real World 6) Field Music - Them That Do Nothing 7) Stars - Fixed 8) Robbie Williams - Heart and I 9) Jimmy Eat World - Heart is Hard to Find 10) Broken Bells - The High Road 11) The Roots - Right On 12) Vampire Weekend - Giving Up the Gun 13) Cloud Cult - You Were Born

"If you only own one album by Prince it's gotta be [insert masterpiece here]." Welcome to Rock Solid , where we fill in the blank. Our goal is to pseudo-scientifically determine the best, the beloved, the most classic album in an artist's catalog. Here's how it works: I've consulted two main sources. The All Music Guide pro vides the professional critical point-of-view and Amazon.com offers the fan perspective ( because most people who choose to review albums on Amazon are adoring fans of the artist in question) . The album with the highest combined rating from both source s is the one I'll consider the best. The declared winner will be subjected to the Th riller Test (do I need to explain the name?), a set of 4 criteria an album should meet to be considered a masterpiece. Those are 1) at least 3 hits, 2) great album tracks that sh/could have been hits, 3) no filler, and 4) memorable cover art. An artist's entire body o...

Nonsuch is the 10th XTC album, but it was the 3rd for me, purchased at a Circuit City for $5.99 in the infancy of my XTC fandom. At the time, I didn't know much about the band other than that I wanted more of their music. I already owned Oranges and Lemons and Waxworks (a collection of early singles), and wasn't sure where to go next. I bought Nonsuch because I thought it was a latter-day "best of" compilation. Why did I think that? Well, the sheer number of songs (17!) was one factor, but mostly it was the back cover. Each track was given a box and an illustration, lending it an air of individual importance. Plus, the album title seemed like a insouciant nod to the thrown-together nature of hits collections. And though a listen and a look at the interior liner notes proved me wrong, I'd still say I wasn't too far off. Afterall, Nonsuch does contain all of XTC's major themes: the peaks and valleys of romance, war, human nature, and societal ills...