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Silly List Slogs: My 50 Favorite Albums Enjoying Anniversaries In 2022

Happy 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th & 50th Anniversary To These Fine Records, Compact Discs And Digital Files!
Silly List Slogs: My 50 Favorite Albums Enjoying Anniversaries In 2022
Randy Newman, at peak glam, in 1972.

Album anniversaries! They're such a thing these days, inspiring reissues and oral histories and reflections and clicks. Sweet clicks. Who am I to ignore it? Here's my ten favorite albums from 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 years before 2022. Plus an extra EP or compilation from each of those years that I think is particularly swell.

1972

  1. Randy Newman, Sail Away
  2. Stevie Wonder, Talking Book
  3. Rolling Stones, Exile On Mainstreet
  4. John Prine, Diamonds In The Rough
  5. Tom T. Hall, We All Got Together And...
  6. Bette Midler, The Divine Miss M
  7. Lou Reed, Transformer
  8. Paul Simon, Paul Simon
  9. Nick Drake, Pink Moon
  10. Big Star, #1 Record

Also released in 1972 was Bo Diddley's Got My Own Bag Of Tricks. His first double LP compilation, and it's a sweet one.

ABC in 1982. Who topped my chart? They did! They did!

1982

  1. ABC, The Lexicon Of Love
  2. The Cure, Pornography
  3. Richard & Linda Thompson, Shoot Out The Lights
  4. The Fall, Hex Enduction Hour
  5. Queen, Hot Space
  6. Dave Edmunds, DE 7th
  7. Cheap Trick, One On One
  8. Descendents, Milo Goes To College
  9. Mission Of Burma, Vs.
  10. Adam Ant, Friend Or Foe

Chronic Town, yo. Chronic Town. I gotta remember to buy the new 40th anniversary t-shirt. Gotta let the people know I'm about that '80s R.E.M. swag.

1992

  1. Pavement, Slanted & Enchanted
  2. Sugar, Copper Blue
  3. Das EFX, Dead Serious
  4. Lungfish, Talking Songs For Walking
  5. Basehead, Play With Toys
  6. Flaming Lips, Hit To Death In The Future Head
  7. Giant Sand, Center Of The Universe
  8. The Cure, Wish
  9. R.E.M., Automatic For The People
  10. Luna, Lunapark

John Cale's Fragments Of A Rainy Season is a live album - solo voice & piano or acoustic guitar - that doubles as a best-of (right down to the "Hallelujah" cover Jeff Buckley would later cover). It's as crucial for fans as either Paris 1919 or Fear.

Kelly Osbourne in 2002. If you haven't heard this album...shut up! It's fantastic.

2002

  1. Kelly Osbourne, Shut Up!
  2. Rocket From The Crypt, Live From Camp X-Ray
  3. Weezer, Maladroit
  4. Northern State, Dying In Stereo
  5. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
  6. Interpol, Turn On The Bright Lights
  7. The All-American Rejects, The All-American Rejects
  8. Clinic, Walking With Thee
  9. Good Charlotte, The Young & The Hopeless
  10. The Flatlanders, Now Again

Rocket From The Crypt's Hot Charity could hypothetically be my favorite album of 1995, but it was perversely only released as a severely limited edition LP at the time. In 2002, it was released on CD, combined with their terrific 1999 vinyl-only EP Cut Carefully And Play Loud. Carefully was the last RFTC release original drummer Atom Willard played on, in part frustrated that this kick-ass shit was coming out on vinyl only in the '90s.

2012

  1. Hot Chip, In Our Heads
  2. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Americana
  3. Beak, >>
  4. Dick Valentine, Destroy The Children
  5. Mountain Goats, Transcendental Youth
  6. Saint Etienne, Words And Music By Saint Etienne
  7. Evil Cowards, Moving Through Security
  8. Lee Ranaldo, Between The Times And Tides
  9. Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel…
  10. Guided By Voices, Class Clown Spots A UFO

The Flatlanders - a near-mythic early '70s Austin band featuring Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely & Butch Hancock, whose only album was released only on 8-track, were long represented by the adored 1990 compilation More A Legend Than A Band. Long established as solo artists & songwriters, they reuinited in the late '90s, still great (see the 2002 list). Then long-lost early '70s demos were discovered and released as The Odessa Tapes in 2012. Despite collecting dust for decades, they're arguably even better than the stuff that got put out on More A Legend.