Pop
Colors by Beck
Colors
Beck
2017
Find someone who looks at you like I look at this album!
Colors has to be one of my favorite albums of all time because I’ve gone whole weeks with it on repeat. Beck truly found magic here with every track enkindling a fun and energetic world I want to live in. My only problem is picking just one track to recommend because I love them all.
Recommended Track: Dreams
On by Echobelly
On
Echobelly
1994
This album is so utterly and thoroughly 1990’s rock that I was surprised I didn’t get bored with it after a couple of songs. Instead, it reminded me of what I loved about 90’s rock in the first place: short pop songs that never overstay their welcome, a wall of guitar sounds, and a fresh vocalist that makes you want to listen again so you can sing along.
Recommended Track: Great Things
Submarine by The Marias
Submarine
The Marías
2024
The cover artwork perfectly visualizes the swirling feelings that Maria Zardoya invites us to swim through in this album. Some tracks have you bopping happily through little currents while other tracks pull you into longer waves of emotions. The musical momentum never approaches anything close to an inescapable riptide which makes it great for repeated listening.
Recommended Track: Run Your Mouth
Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
Punisher
Phoebe Bridgers
2020
This is a special album. It’s somebody’s deep favorite that they discovered at just the right moment in their confusing youth. Phoebe expressing complex emotions they could not otherwise recognize or understand within themselves. Maybe their friends love it too and they share their love together on a car trip. Or, maybe their friends don’t get it so they play it loud in the cocoon of their headphones. They cry to it and hug their pillow to it and they fall asleep with it playing on repeat. This is a special album.
Recommended Track: ICU
Do It Again by Röyksopp and Robyn
Do It Again
Röyksopp, Robyn
2014
Hey, somebody got their chocolate in my peanut butter! As a fan of their prior collaboration in “The Girl and the Robot," hearing them together again really showcases how strong they sound together. This collaboration limits both acts tendency to produce navel-gaze tracks and more confidently express the best parts of themselves. I can only hope they meet up in this way again.
Recommended Track: Do It Again
Bodyparts by Dragonette
Bodyparts
Dragonette
2012
The exuberance, passions, and myopia of youth. Finally being out in the world, making your own decisions. Your body is new and yearning for you to get out there and use it. You will always have things this together. This can’t possibly end. None of this will end.
Recommended Track: Giddy Up
Limits of Desire by Small Black
Limits of Desire
Small Black
2013
This album feels like the quiet, internal rush of discovering a new love. Even though your head is swirling, your senses are heightened and you can’t keep them out of your thoughts. Have you hit the relationship jackpot? When can you see them next? Have you finally found someone thinking the same about you?
Recommended Track: Free at Dawn
Evergreen by BROODS
Evergreen
BROODS
2014
When the outside world is frozen over with winter, it’s comforting to have music that matches. Evergreen’s icy pop pairs perfectly with long walks through the snow, alone with the difficult thoughts you meant to explore once you had the time.
Recommended Track: L.A.F.
After Laughter by Paramore
After Laughter
Paramore
2017
Never have sad lyrics sounded so peppy and exciting. Like Neko Case and Rachael Price, Hayley Williams has a super-powered voice that transforms and elevates even the most middling of tracks into something special. I couldn’t care less about the drama around Paramore and just enjoy their musical experimentation.
Recommended Track: Rose Colored Boy
A La Sala by Khruangbin
A La Sala
Khruangbin
2024
This album is contemplation in the half-light between moments of the day. The sounds of your mind facing inward as your eyes look out to something beautiful that stopped you in your tracks and caused you to reflect for a time. As someone who doesn’t really care about lyrics, Khruangbin is a band I wish I had discovered sooner.
Recommended Track: May Ninth
EUSEXUA by FKA twigs
EUSEXUA
FKA twigs
2025
Apparently conceived during her exploration of Prague’s nightclubs, Twigs has created an album that is creative and fresh. The production work is where this album really soars, reaching back farther than her contemporaries for pop and electronic influences and weaving each track into surprisingly different directions. The best compliment I can give this album is that, whenever I dip back in to listen to a track, I always end up listening to the whole album from wherever I started.
Recommended Track: Girl Feels Good
Aja by Steely Dan
Aja
Steely Dan
1976
There comes a time in every middle-aged, music loving, dad’s life where he has to admit, even if begrudgingly, that Steely Dan made some pretty great music. Their new affection might stop at one or two tracks but, if they are like me, they will find this entire album to be a tight seven-track masterpiece. Each track is pop enough to keep them accessible but jazz enough to reward deeper listenings.
Recommended Track: Peg
Antisocialites by Alvvays
Antisocialites
Alvvays
2017
This sophomore album is a continuation of the same propulsive energy that drew me into their sound. The shoegaze-like distortion from their first album has been pulled back to reveal more of Molly Rankin’s beautiful vocals and the album is all the better for it. I will always make time for earnest pop like this.
Recommended Track: Hey
Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths
Jump Rope Gazers
The Beths
2020
Ballads may be popular but they suck the uniqueness from many bands and weigh them down. I miss the raw, youthful punch of The Beths first album. Their sophomore effort includes just enough energetic tracks to save it but the energy drain is palpable. I’m rooting for their third album to be a rediscovery.
Recommended Track: Dying to Believe
Expert In A Dying Field by The Beths
Expert In A Dying Field
The Beths
2022
This album is a breath of fresh air. The Beths have crawled their way out of the boring balladry in their sophomore album and recentered themselves into the energy that made their original so compelling. They’re not regressing either as these tracks mature their sound into more complex arrangements. More like this please!
Recommended Track: Silence Is Golden
One Second by Yello
One Second (Remastered 2005)
Yello
1987
Less wandering than their previous albums, this is where Yello truly found their focus and created a masterpiece. Entirely separate bands can trace their sounds to individual tracks from this album. (For example: KMFDM and the track Si Señor The Hairy Grill)
Recommended Track: Hawaiian Chance
Technique by New Order
Technique
New Order
1989
When the former members of Joy Division were becoming New Order, they spent significant time taking in the new sounds coming out of New York City’s club scene to transform their sound. It makes sense that, at the end of that decade, they would choose to evolve again by soaking in the Ibiza club scene to find their sound of the next decade. The result was a blend of fresh house beats and alternative rock that I repeatedly come back to.
Recommended Track: Fine Time
SVIIB by School Of Seven Bells
SVIIB
School Of Seven Bells
2016
This posthumous album wouldn’t exist without the courage of Alejandra Deheza diving back into her lost partner’s laptop to find the musical pieces he left behind and resolve them into a finished album. The process must have been healing because, even though the pain of her loss is evident, an intimate hope permeates throughout.
Recommended Track: Ablaze
Songs From The Cool World by Various Artists
Songs From The Cool World
Various Artists
1992
Easily one of the most influential albums to me ever. This has been in my yearly rotation ever since I bought it on tape back in 1992. Before this album, British meant The Beatles but after my ears were opened to the then-new electronic dance sounds coming out of the country, my tastes were forever changed.
Recommended Track: Papua New Guinea - 7" original
Hello by Poe
Hello
Poe
1996
When I bought this album in the middle of my sophomore year of high school, I had no idea that I was about to listen to a piece of art. It’s a crime that so few people know about it. This is the album that birthed Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and helped her brother, Mark Danielewski, write the novel House of Leaves. Listen past the 90’s grunge tracks and you’ll find artistic fusions of electronic, jazz, and hip-hop.
Recommended Track: Dolphin