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Silly List Slogs: My 40 Favorite Albums Celebrating Decade Anniversaries In 2024

In praise of albums turning 20, 30, 40 & 50 over the last year. As for those now 10...
Silly List Slogs: My 40 Favorite Albums Celebrating Decade Anniversaries In 2024
Brian Eno in 1974. Pop-rock phantasmagoria in his head, lots of knobs with which to get it out.

Creepy, eagle-eyed readers of this blog (there could be one!) will notice that in previous years this Silly List Slog contained fifty albums. The problem is, I didn't keep up with new music much in the '10s (wasn't writing as much, felt alienated from pop and indie, exploring the past on streaming was more novel and fun). While I do try to fill in the blanks here and there, today I can only name five or six albums from 2014 I'd actively celebrate turning 10 (gold medalist: Loudon Wainwright's I Ain't Got The Blues (Yet)). Maybe I'll work a little harder in 2025, and find out what a Tame Impala or Selena Gomez full-length sounds like. But I sure have plenty to celebrate from 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004! With a bonus archival release from each year as well!

1974

  1. Brian Eno, Here Come The Warm Jets
  2. Bill Withers, 'Justments
  3. Randy Newman, Good Old Boys
  4. Harry Nilsson, Pussy Cats
  5. Richard & Linda Thompson, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
  6. King Crimson, Red
  7. Bob Dylan/The Band, Before The Flood
  8. Mott The Hoople, Live
  9. Neil Young, On The Beach
  10. Joni Mitchell, Court And Spark

There are two live albums above, but they're souvenirs from super-recent victory laps, so I rate them as "new" releases. I don't know when archival live releases became a thing to do for rock bands, especially those in no position to take victory laps at the time. But the Velvet Underground's 1969: Live With Lou Reed might be the first I know of with real purpose beyond cashing in. The double-disc reveals how confident the group was on stage between the self-titled album and Loaded, drawing out the classics and tossing out some impressive unreleased stuff as well. The Cowboy Junkies learned their version of "Sweet Jane" here, and it's this version the local alternative station would play in the '90s.

The Replacements, truly willing to dare.

1984

  1. The Replacements, Let It Be
  2. Harold Budd/Brian Eno, The Pearl
  3. The Bangles, All Over The Place
  4. Prince & The Revolution, Purple Rain
  5. R.E.M., Reckoning
  6. John Prine, Aimless Love
  7. Los Lobos, How Will The Wolf Survive?
  8. Husker Du, Zen Arcade
  9. Bruce Springsteen, Born In The U.S.A.
  10. This Mortal Coil, It’ll End In Tears

While putting this post together, I discovered The Velvet Underground's boggling vault release VU was released in February 1985 despite the 1984 copyright. Now lacking a 1984 release to discuss, I'll note that if your response to Zen Arcade is that you just don't get the big deal about Husker Du, 1994's The Living End - recorded during the band's final tour in 1987 - would actually be their first LP I'd throw at the curious. The late material is looser than on record, and the early classics are tighter: Zen's "What's Going On" is still a nervous breakdown, but here one that would blow Van Halen off the stage. Though the band would soon fall apart, The Living End sounded like a victory lap in alterna-crazed 1994, and still does today.

Guided By Voices, giving teenage me a role model for rocking in loose shirts and comfortable jeans.

1994

  1. Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
  2. Nas, Illmatic
  3. Weezer, Weezer
  4. Low, I Could Live In Hope
  5. Portishead, Dummy
  6. Latin Playboys, Latin Playboys
  7. Sebadoh, Bakesale
  8. R.E.M., Monster 
  9. Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 
  10. Sloan, Twice Removed

East River Pipe has put out some fantastic albums on Merge over the years. 1996's Mel was so good EMI wanted to make one-man-band FM Cornog the new Primitive Radio Gods, giving him moolah he got to keep when the label closed US operations a year later. But my favorite of his full-lengths may still be Shining Hours In A Can, a compilation of songs from early cassette and 7" releases. Cornog's gift for echo, jangle and dark, frank, unassuming narratives was evident right from the beginning, making Shining Hours less juvenilia than an early hits comp.

The Hives, too cool for 2004.

2004

  1. The Hives, Tyrannosaurus Hives
  2. Eagles Of Death Metal, Peace Love Death Metal
  3. Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse
  4. Mountain Goats, We Shall All Be Healed
  5. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous
  6. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
  7. The Flatlanders, Wheels Of Fortune
  8. Tegan & Sara, So Jealous 
  9. Travis Morrison, Travistan
  10. Devin The Dude, To Tha X-Treme

Before Les Savy Fav returned in 2007 with the sweeping Let's Stay Friends, it looked like the best album by New York's gnarliest art party would be Inches, a dope compilation of stand-alone singles from 1995 to 2004 that the band claimed was conceived as a dope compilation of stand-alone singles from the get-go. I believe it not just because they're self-aware enough to think "we should make sure we have an amazing comp of previously vinyl-only shit someday," but because the album flows beautifully in backwards chronology, growing rougher but no less anthemic.

A whole bunch of these albums appear on My Top 300 Albums Of All Time, in case you're hungry for more lists of old albums. More! All other requests can be sent to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.