Top 10 Favorite Albums
So far I’ve been using this blog professionally, to give you updates on various news articles and achievements. I’m thrilled to be sharing those things with you, but I also want to bring some interactivity in the mix by posting some reflections on music and spirituality to generate discussions (see here for 2006’s failed attempt at the same thing). Let’s play “getting to know you” so that you can have a sense of the soul behind these posts!
I just spent lunch catching up with my brother, Greg, before he heads back to college. We started comparing iTunes libraries and musical tastes which highlighted my continued disinterest in/aversion to giving rank or superlative to music that I like. I am very much an intuitive person, many times at the expense of my ability to process the world rationally or articulate an intellectual point to someone. My conversation with Greg got me excited enough to realize I do have favorite music, it’s just that the reason for picking it all is a strange combination of irrational and aesthetic.
I’ve noticed it is easier for me to have favorite individual works. But there are a few albums that have come into my life that I can listen to all the way through over and over again and still feel that profound sense of joy and alive-ness. And, like many people, I tend to fondly associate each album with a certain time in my life. Here they are in something of an order:
10. Henry Purcell, Dido and Æneas
What? A baroque opera? A graduate student in musicology could probably inform you that this is nowhere near the greatest opera of the period, or that I should be checking out other aspects of Purcell’s career. But, hey, I like this one. We’re so used to rich, textural film scores and crazy layers of sound. I like that this music can still feel so powerful and beautiful with only a continuo and an SATB choir. Perhaps I’m a sucker for fairly obvious tonal motion. But man, that choral finale (”With Drooping Wings”)? Takes my breath away.
9. Foreighn Exchange, Connected
I first heard this album over the PA while breaking down after a gig. After hearing the first few beats I dropped everything and asked the drummer “What is this??” This collaboration between local emcee Phonte and Dutch producer Nicolay is a cover-to-cover hip hop masterpiece, especially the beats. You can really lose yourself in the aural space created by the production on each track. The music psychologist in me is absolutely fascinated by Nicolay’s use of microtiming within the rhythmic rhetoric of the drums. When I first moved to Durham, this is all I listened to in the car for a month.
8. Adam Guettel, The Light In The Piazza
Easily my favorite musical of the latter-20th-century (probably because it aligns closer to contemporary opera than Broadway drivel). I spent an afternoon talking shop with Adam once, such a humble and generous guy! After making it’s way to Broadway and going on an American tour, LITP gets it’s operatic premiere (that is, staged by an opera company, not a theater company) in Winston-Salem, NC this October.
7. Jazzanova, In Between
Most of the techno I listen to falls in downtempo/nu-jazz/drum n’ bass/IDM territory. If I had to pick a favorite album amongst all of theseIn Between would be the clear winner. A really catchy blend of old jazz samples, new compositional ideas, sultry vocal hooks, and pseudo-Brazillian grooves. Each track is really multifaceted and tells a story.
6. LP Outsiders, All Purpose Crackers
Although this now-retired band is based out of my hometown, St. Louis, Missouri, I only got hip to this CD after I had moved to North Carolina (and a friend back in St. Louis sent it to me). For me it’s a testament to the gems of independent music culture: somewhere out there, in a town you’ve never visited, there is a band making amazingly high-quality awesome music. I really like the versatile blending of 2 male and 1 female lead singer (and they play trumpet, trumpet, flute, respectively). This was my “I just moved to North Carolina” CD. It has shades of Jamiroquai and Maroon 5 (who hadn’t even formed by the time of this release).
5. Israel, Whisper It Loud
The Christians in the house will recognize the name Israel Houghton as the leader of “Israel & New Breed,” a successful worship music franchise that fuses elements of gospel, jazz, and funk. But years and years before you could see him at every mega-church, he quietly put out this album, which has been out of print for quite some time. My father and I led the youth band at our church when I was a young teenager. Another music director lent us this CD and we fell in love. Simply put, this is some of the most cogent Christian songwriting I’ve ever heard. The arrangements and musicians are dope, the lyrics are poignant (rather than vaguely preachy), and Israel himself is just a fantastic vocalist. Find your own copy on eBay today!
4. Frou Frou, Details
I’ll admit that I got hip to Frou Frou like everyone else: watching the end credits to Garden State in the movie theater. But rather than go get the soundtrack, I went straight for the source. This gets my vote for “Best All Time Pop Record.” The songs are pop. But the production is perfect. Guy Sigsworth really knows how to give you a lot of enveloping ear candy without taking away from the meaning of the song itself. This record is so influential on me that it is difficult for me not to emulate it when trying to work on some electro-pop songs.
3. Dave Grusin, West Side Story
West Side Story easily gets my vote for best work of musical theatre. And lots of people have covered the songs from the show (from Oscar Peterson to bazillions of pop orchestras). But Dave Grusin, arranger for the GRP All-Star Big Band was somehow able to understand the original orchestrations, infuse them with even more jazz and Latin music, and come out with something better than the original (!!). This is my favorite big band album for such lush but rhythmic arrangements, chords that are so angular but still true to Bernstein. And it features some of the best New York jazz cats. My old piano teacher gave me a cassette tape that had “America” on it, and I wore it through until I could get the CD.
2. Kurt Elling, Man In The Air
Honestly, it’s really hard for me to listen to most contemporary jazz albums all they way through. If everyone is covering the same standards or writing the same kind of 7/4-polytonal-hiphop originals, then the end product is pretty hit-or-miss. And let’s not get started on jazz vocalists. Since when did it become OK to add horrendous lyrics to just-fine-as-is Monk compositions? Diana Krall and Harry Connick don’t count. But along comes this guy Kurt Elling, who used to be in Divinity School, is not afraid to explore the full range and timbre of his instrument, and is known to bust out an improvised rendition of a Shakespeare sonnet in the middle of “My Foolish Heart.” Something is going on here. Elling writes strange, spiritual, compelling original lyrics to carefully selected previous jazz works. And I think his pianist, Laurence Hobgood, is an underdog. When he solos, it makes me listen. There is something so clear about his ideas, as if he was playing for you as much as he was playing for himself. Also, I wish I had his job. I’ve met Kurt a few times at shows and IAJE conferences: another guy who is refreshingly humble and very Aware of his musical purpose.
And Eric’s Number One Favorite Album of all time….
1. Katia Labèque Band, Unspoken
If I had to sum up all of my inspirations and passions about music and find one existing work that represented it, it would be this album. Classical/jazz pianist Katia Labèque teams up with electronic composer David Maric and ridiculous drummer Marque Gilmore to produce a tremendously beautiful set of pieces. A really evocative balance of rich piano sonorities, subtle electronics, staggered beats, neo-romanticism, a large harmonic vocabulary (from atonalism to pandiatonicism), with jazz and drum n’ bass influences. But enough of the intellectual labels. I can’t say enough about this album (and you can see I once enthusiastically posted a review). I know Katia and David have long since moved on to other projects, but I would love to see a live tour happen again. Sadly, the way I found out about this music was from my best friend, who had gone to the concert at UNC the night before (I didn’t even know about it) and bought the album there. This is music that breathes and flows. I’d love to make a living doing this.
So there you have it! What trends or themes do you notice in this list? What is missing? What might it say about me? And most importantly, what are you’re Top 10 Favorite Albums, and why? Let the comments begin!
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