My 10 Favorite Albums of Whatever This Decade Is Called

Unlike the video game thread, I’m not going to confuse “favorite” with “best.” Although, reading most all-time lists for video games, they seem thrown together by stupid retards, so I felt totally justified at writing the authoritative list there. It’s likely that nobody will listen to a single quarter note from the albums listed below, but I don’t care.  (For our purposes here, the decade goes from from 2000 to 2009. I know there was no year “zero,” but there was, strictly speaking, no year “one” either, while people were living it. With bulletproof logic like that, I’m sure men of science and passion everywhere can’t wait to expand this entry and get with the shitty pop tunes.)

I’ll try to link to a Youtube vid of my favorite song from each disc. I know that record companies are shutting down loads of vids, but still – I’m choosing Youtube because, of the ten or twelve bit-rotten ways to link to music over the Internet, this way actually seems to be less likely to give us a situation where it turns out that we all built this geocity on rock n’ roll. Additionally, trying to get two straight blank lines in WordPress makes me want to shoot my computer with a chaingun. So, sorry about that.  Here we go!

10. Danger Radio – Used and Abused (2008)

I think I listened to this album a hundred times in the month of May, 2009. That’s, what, three times a day? That’s not that much when you are working a dead-end job, you know. I know I listened to it every time I drove to Pinback’s for BSG Nite, where I was able to carry on like some kind of moping blue mope. If I listened to this as much as I think I have, the track “You All Believe” would have been played five times that. The math here is rough, but so is being the dark and gritty… Ice Cream Jonsey, frankly. And no, I don’t expect any song or album on this list to appeal to anyone who ever reads this, but at least the cover art for the tenth song features a hawt girl. If her legs were any longer, she’d make the robot on News of the World seem like something Aragorn would toss over a busted bridge.

I think most people would like to punch the lead singer in the face, because to look at him, he’s a dead ringer for that really short guy with the frumpy black hair that won the reality TV show about designing clothes nobody would ever wear.

The antagonist of Used & Abused by Danger Radio is : WOMEN.

9. My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade (2006)

I really didn’t want to like this album, because I always thought these guys were a bunch of gays, but they knocked it out of the house for the first five tracks on the album. I can’t remember any album starting off so strongly. In my life, anyway. In my life, that I actually liked. They’ve stated that they were influenced by Queen in their … well, I don’t know what the phase was called, so I’ll call it their “good phase,” but since this definitely sounds like an early Queen album which Queen was incapable of making long before Freddie Mercury died of fame, I’ll allow it.

Years later I’ve still been getting into tracks later in the disc. The one about how the guy’s heroes are selling cars on TV (unfortunately, in the genre of pop punk, you end up having no idea what any songs are called.) There are a lot of people boring the shit out of repressedJapanese businessmen for four minutes and fifty-five seconds with that one. Luckily, the average three-ring binder of available karaoke songs is  far thicker and more effective than chain mail armor, so bring it up with you to discourage katana attacks when you get to the “so wrong, so wrong” bit. THE BEST BIT. I got all the angst out of my system when I wrote Chicks Dig Jerks, but that’s some succulent and tempting angstus steak right there.

Also, the wrong song off this album made it into Rock Band. Which I include only because everyone with two intact ear drums thinks they could select the tracks and DLC better than the poor, trod-upon bastards that actually have to negotiate those deals.

The antagonist of The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance is : YOUR PARENTS.

8. Coheed & Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (2005)

This is an utterly ridiculous album.

Even the name is preposterous.

It’s sort of like if Rob Liefeld had a band.

I dont care – I don’t know how they are live, and I know that the Coheed guy can’t keep the same people in his band for very long, but this is a disc filled with good musicians making music that rocks with really attractive melodies.

The Suffering is my favorite song from the disc. Whatever you do, don’t watch this video. Seriously. Don’t click on that link, we won’t be friends any more.

Okay, I started the video because I’m not obeying anything in this shitty blog post either. “Listen well, will you marry me? And are you well in the suffering?” gets me EVERY FUCKING TIME. And not because it is a bad ass line, or because it’s all rarrrRRrrRr or anything, but because when, well.

When you ask that question, you’re really asking to go down one of two paths. The first is, “I love you with all my heart, and I could not imagine another day without you.” The second is exactly like that, except you’re miserable with all your heart, and couldn’t imagine your misery in any other flavor. Ohhhh, everyone thinks they picked the first, but that’s because we’re all basically scared shitless that we won’t find anyone to tolerate the amalgam of fucking childish, dork-gossamered nonsense we’ve spun ourselves, and entrapped some poor girl, within.

Yet millions of people ask it every day, except in India and most of the Middle East – millions of guys elect to continue their own customized proxy hell by involving a judge, a ring and all their friends and family, and that will never stop  fascinating me.

The antagonist of Good Apollo, (etc.) by Coheed & Cambria is : COMIC BOOKS.

7. The Rocket Summer – Hello, Good Friend (2005)

At least one of the Rocket Summer albums is apparently made by this kid, with him playing every note. I can’t remember which one, so this disc just got elected. For some reason, The Rocket Summer is forever linked with picking up arcade games, which doesn’t make any sense, because I didn’t use my car to get them. So the wires are somehow crossed in my nootropic-addled brain, and the song Brat Pack got synched up with Mr. Do!. Also, if I had unlimited access to other people’s intellectual property, I would make Zork IV a game about the passionate struggle of loss that really matters to the people involved, and roll “Treasures” from this album over the end credits.

The end credits would take place inside a barrow.

This would have been the easiest album to hide, because when I open my CD player to put this in I feel I should take it to the logical conclusion and simultaneously open a lavender salon. I don’t care – if you can’t be honest with yourself on your cyan-themed blog, you can’t be honest with anyone. I will deny this if it’s ever brought up in person, though, lying with passion in the hopes of being forever damned that Tool was here at #7 instead.

The antagonist of Hello, Good Friend by the Rocket Summer is : PESSIMISM.
6. Mae – Singularity (2007)

Pinback: I did a search on my e-mail for the word "singularly" and you were the only person who showed up.

I love the song “Waiting.” After every single failure I’ve experienced since being made aware, I’ve put this on play, closed my eyes, and started to heal. It also reminds me of the Wyoming Incident, which was the first ARG I ever experienced. If you get a good ARG for the first one – before you even know what an alternate reality game is – then you will be affected for the rest of your life. It’s a singular experience I wish everyone could have. I mean, the song is brilliant by itself. It would still be one of my ten favorite songs if I wasn’t listening to it on repeat when learning about a pirate broadcast transmission that took place in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming. The way the feedback of the guitar leads into verses, and how the keyboard appears only when it has something to say always gives me chills. It’s perfect. I don’t even know that these guys can pull the song off in concert, which is sort of why I didn’t go see them last week. I wanted the perfect, studio version of this song to stay frozen in place, in much the same way Ted Williams’s disembodied head hasn’t.

The other songs, like “Brink of Disaster,” and “Just Let Go” are almost as brilliant and haunting, but in the same way Jupiter’s almost as big as the Sun.

The antagonist of Singularity by Mae is : THE NIGH IMPOSSIBILITY OF TWO DECENT AND WHOLLY-COMPATIBLE SOULS ON THE PLANET EVER MEETING EACH OTHER.

5.Something Corporate – Leaving Through the Window (2002)

I listen to this album so much, that – even though I try never to play pop punk around people – the people I live with get sick of this album.

I use “Straw Dog” to get up in the morning. I sing “Fall” like some kind of gaybo on the way home from work, after Daylight Savings is over, so nobody can see, though. “Drunk Girl” is the one song in the world that has my name in it, when the dude says “sure when” quickly. “I Woke Up In a Car” actually makes being homeless a romantic option in an otherwise despicable counter-culture.

I have the Slacker Radio app to play a ‘Something Corporate’ station all day, and it’s mostly this album with a bunch of other songs thrown in from “similar artists” and I don’t care, I have been listening to it regularly for years and probably will for the rest of my life.

Sorry, future children. I mean, for a lot of things, but for the moment, specifically this. Though I guess there’s a good chance that you’re already well aware of this album, having called it the one “pop won’t stop (2019-acceptable-slang-for-“fucking”-probably-just-“fucking”-though) playing.

Also, if Mom looks anything like the girl on the album cover, then that’s why you miserable beasties never get beaten. You’re too beautiful to be struck.

The antagonist of Leaving Through The Window by Something Corporate is :  BOYS.

4. Katatonia – Viva Emptiness (2003)

I have acquired other discs by Katatonia, but as far as I can tell, what I like about this CD – the ‘haunting’ quality of sadness that each track has – was simply not a direction they ever otherwise went to. If there was a CD that could be said to be the soundtrack to Pantomime, it would be this one. I think I listened to Viva Emptiness a thousand times while writing that game.

If I could have stolen one bit from any album in this list, it would be how A Premonition ends. Motherfuckers ended a song with each instrument slowly dying off from the song. nnnggghhhhh arrrgh FUCK I tried to do this once for a song my college band made, but we weren’t able to get it to work and when I heard the idea done to perfection in that song, I was glad we pull it off, because it would have been inferior anyway.

When I grew up, we had an expanse of overgrown field behind our home. My father eventually bought it and turned it into Kentucky blue grass and we had many a pleasant memory playing football back there, blah blah. But before it was tamed, I’d sometimes walk back there by myself in the total darkness of a new moon, with no idea what the earth and life had in store for me – I was so young, anything was possible. Most of this album reminds me of those solitary walks. It is a good album to be alone by. They never did anything else like this, though, although there are theories why bands do something a little more approachable.

The antagonist of Viva Emptiness by Katatonia is : MUST BE THAT AMERICAN GIRL YOU’RE FUCKING.

3. Mae – The Everglow (2005)

A beautiful collection of songs that hint towards a reality that exists just outside this one like a poorly-QAed CYOA book, reachable only in an unconscious, dreamy bliss.

My favorite is probably this one. I hate to cop out, but this disc really needs its own blog post, I couldn’t do it justice here.

The antagonist of The Everglow, by Mae is : HOLLOW ATTRACTION.

2. New Found Glory – New Found Glory (2000)

I was commuting from Fort Collins down to Longmont when the CSU station played “Hit or Miss.” In a very real way, that drive changed my life, as it got me into pop punk. You know how all of you found music that you couldn’t believe existed and blah blah blah? Well, for me, it didn’t happen until I was like 30. It got me interested in music again. They have never been able to jam pack a disc with as many amazing (for pop punk) songs as this one – one of the few CDs I can listen to from start to finish without having a deep desire to skip over any songs.

The antagonist of NEW FOUND GLORY (SELF-TITLED) is : GIRLS.

1. Acceptance– Phantoms (2005)

My favorite album of all-time, and if I were ever to rank my favorite 100 songs, at least four of them would be from this album. I listened to this album every single day when I first bought it, every single day when the worst thing that ever happened to me happened to me and… pretty much every single day since. (I started writing this post last week and came back to this paragraph tonight. I’ve listened to at least one song on it every day since then.) I’m still amazed that something that came out so recently was able to affect me so. In a way, I’m almost glad they broke up with one full CD to their names, because they were never gonna top this. (Okay, that’s not strictly true. I wish they stuck together and made a hundred touching, affecting,

It starts out with the greatest First Three Words Of All-Time. 2008 was a shitty year, and I probably would have been in a lot worse shape if I weren’t able to take some solace in the fact that this collection of music was there for me. There is a certain depth towards loss here that I never knew existed before in music, because nothing else anyone ever lamented ever had anything to do with me. Until this, until now. But at the same time, the fucking thing rocks as well, making it the rare disc that can comfort you in sadness while kicking your ass in. (Well, it’s rare for the genre I listen to, at any rate.) I’ve shouted every word of this album on the freeway, I’ve pointed and sang every single lyric at the ghosts in my home, and I’ve grimly marched on at the park, in the driest of heat and the driest of cold with this band playing along. There aren’t a lot of albums that I’ve listened to that have given me the impression that the authors lives and mine were at all alike. Hell, there aren’t a lot of people that I feel I really connect with on any kind of meaningful, lasting way. For an inanimate object to qualify … ah Christ, sorry. I’m sorry! I could no sooner write an entry on experiencing infinity and/or oblivion.

The protagonist of Phantoms, by Acceptance, is the acceptance of loss without anger left in the heart.