I've been putting off finishing this post for a while. Not because I don't have opinions, but because narrowing a lifetime of music listening down to ten albums feels borderline irresponsible. I've probably changed my mind four times since I started typing this back around Christmas of 2025.
So here's the deal: this is not a "greatest albums ever made" list. It's not ranked. It's not meant to be definitive or objective or academically defensible. These are ten albums that mean something to me — either because they were there at the right moment in my life, or simply because they are, without question, absolutely brilliant. Usually both. If your favourite didn't make it, I promise it wasn't personal.
The Beach Boys — Pet Sounds (1966)
There are albums that are great, and then there are albums that make you wonder how any human being actually made this thing. Pet Sounds is the second kind. Brian Wilson built something in 1966 that most producers still can't fully explain, layering orchestration, vocals, and studio experimentation into something that feels simultaneously intimate and enormous. It's melancholy and joyful at the same time, a musician friend of mine referred to it as pop songs that are not pop themed. This record rewards deep listening every single time. God Only Knows might be my favourite song of all time. That's another post though.
Nirvana — Nevermind (1991)
If you were alive and paying attention in the early 90s, this album hit you like a freight train. And it was no different for me. This album changed the music I listened to, almost immediately. Poison was my favorite band when I was 13. My neighbour, who was much older than I was into music and played in a band. He gave me a couple of tapes of a band he wanted me to check out. They were both by Nirvana, one was Bleach and the other was Nevermind. After that the hair metal went away. I still remember being bitter that I couldn't go with him to see Nirvana when they came through Edmonton, cause I wasn't 18 yet.
Pearl Jam — Vs. (1993)
A lot of people go straight to Ten, and I get it I love that album too. But Vs. is where Pearl Jam became Pearl Jam to me. It's heavier, angrier, and more varied than Ten (I remember my first impressions of Ten were that all of the songs sounded the same to me, maybe it was Eddie's voice) — Animal, Daughter, Rearviewmirror, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town all on the same record. It came out of the gate like it had something to prove and never let up. This one gets played loud in this house.
Beck — Morning Phase (2014)
Some albums just feel like a specific time of day. Morning Phase is early morning, just before the rest of the world wakes up, a cup of coffee going cold beside you. It's patient and hushed and achingly beautiful. Beck made this as a spiritual sequel to Sea Change over a decade later and somehow managed to capture the same quiet devastation. It won Album of the Year at the Grammys and honestly — for once — they got it right.
Wilco — Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001)
The story behind this album is almost as good as the album itself — Reprise Records rejected it, Wilco streamed it for free online, and it became one of the most critically beloved records of the 2000s. Poetically just. It's a record that reveals itself slowly, with layers of experimental texture underneath what are, at their core, really great songs. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart alone is worth the price of admission. If you haven't spent real time with this one, you owe it to yourself. I have a lot of great memories listening to this one on road trips back when it came out.
The Who — Tommy (1969)
The original rock opera. Tommy is one of those records that feels genuinely larger than life — conceptually ambitious, musically wild, and somehow still listenable as pure rock and roll without knowing the story at all. Pete Townshend was writing on a level that most people never reach once, and he did it before he turned 25. Pinball Wizard became one of the most recognizable songs in rock history, but dig into the full album and you realize it's just one piece of something much bigger. I thank my Dad for giving me this album as a kid.
Radiohead — OK Computer (1997)
Thirty years on and this album still sounds like it was made in a parallel dimension. OK Computer arrived in 1997 and immediately made most guitar music sound quaint by comparison — not because it abandoned guitars, but because it used them as just one colour in a much bigger, stranger picture. I don't know what more to say about this album other than it was unique and awesome when it first came out, and still is.
Weezer — Pinkerton (1996)
Pinkerton was a commercial disappointment when it came out — Rivers Cuomo himself famously disowned it for years — and it has since become one of the most beloved cult records in alternative rock history. It's messy and embarrassing and confessional in a way that I didn't appreciate when I was younger. I did however, enjoy it from the start. I remember hearing it in my friend's car for the first time and was blown away. I didn't even know it was Weezer at the time.
The National — High Violet (2010)
High Violet to me is like two albums in one. The first half and the second half have very different feels, but go great together. There are so many great songs on this record that I'm sure at least one will end up on the all time favourite songs post, whenever that is finished.
Neil Young — Harvest (1972)
Harvest is comfort food for the soul. It's warm and unhurried and it sounds like it was recorded in a barn because, in part, it was. Heart of Gold became Neil Young's only number-one single and he's famously ambivalent about that — said it put him in the middle of the road and he preferred the ditch. Fair enough. But Harvest is more than Heart of Gold. It's Old Man and The Needle and the Damage Done and a record that just feels like something your dad would play on a Sunday morning, and I mean that in the absolute best way.
A Few Honourable Mentions (Because Ten Was Never Going to Be Enough)
Look — I said ten, but I'm incapable of leaving without acknowledging a few more.
The War on Drugs — I Don't Live Here Anymore (2021) — The most recent record on this list and one that floored me completely. A massive, warm, heartland rock record with so much going on underneath the surface. This one I played non stop during those beloved Covid-19 years.
The Doors — L.A. Woman (1971) — Jim Morrison's last studio album with the band, and arguably their most charged, cohesive record. Riders on the Storm alone earns its place in history. I believe Jim sang vocals in the bathroom for some or all of this record too, which is kinda cool.
The Beatles — Abbey Road (1969) — I almost didn't include this because putting Abbey Road on a favourites list feels like saying water is one of your favourite beverages. Of course it is. It's water. But I'd be lying if I left it off.
There it is. My ten — plus three, because apparently I have no self-control. Ask me again in six months and I guarantee at least two of these will have swapped out for something else. That's the beauty of music. There's always more to love.
What's on your list?