Why is Bachelor’s Doomin’ Sun on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Because sometimes music can save your life, and sometimes music can save a best 1,000 albums ever list (or both?).
What does Bachelor’s Doomin’ Sun mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I love the All Music description of Bachelor’s music as a combination of “intimate grunge” and “woozy indie pop.” That is a description I’m all in on both in terms of accuracy and a sound that I find fresh and compelling. See much more below for the path that lead me to finding and selecting this album for best 1,000 albums ever status.
I’m most taken with the “intimate grunge-y” aspect of the album. “Stay in the Car” might be my favorite song, which sounds like a dreamy, fresh power pop smasher that would surely make the Fastbacks (an incredible band in their own right) proud. Ellen Kempner (who also fronts the band Palehound) and Melina Duterte’s (who also performs as Jay Som) vocals are absolutely a perfect combination.
The video is tripped out and fun as well.
“Back of My Hand” has a Smashing Pumpkins circa “1979” vibe but with crisp power pop very much its own. It cruises and glides and, much like “Stay in the Car,” demands to be played while out on the open road.
“Anything at All” has an ethereal and poppy Foster the People vibe with some grungy guitar theatrics thrown in for good measure.
This album also sounds like
I hear so many wonderful influences on this album, but will go with The Breeders, Pixies, Sleater Kinney, Foster the People, and the Fastbacks for starters.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Bachelor’s Doomin’ Sun
So, I got kind of stuck for a while in terms of churning out entries in this here best 1,000 albums ever list for mostly reasons that have nothing to do with this list (a beloved pet died, a beloved new pet adopted, major house project, and typical work-life toils, to semi-borrow a great Kerouac description, for starters) but with some reasons having to do with where I was.
I hit a patch of albums that I had initially selected that, when coming back to them, didn’t feel quite as “top 1,000” worthy as I had hoped. And then meanwhile, “real life” time passed and new music kept getting produced. In this particular instance, I had selected a 1990s album by a hip-hop artist you might have heard of. There’s one song on the album that is ecstatically great, with part of the reason for that being the sample that’s pulled from an iconic 1970s song. The problem was the rest of the album, which just didn’t bring all that much to the table, frankly.
Put the above together, and I came across Bachelor and Doomin’ Sun and it’s simply the kind of glorious collection of songs that demands to be on a list such as this. Or, much more specifically, it demands to be on my list.
So if nothing else, it’s the album that got me unstuck and is fully an album where if I can turn one person out there onto it, I fully feel I’ve done something to pass some worthy creation out into the world and into someone else’s ears and head.
And there’s something close to perfect in that act, don’t you think?
Some stats & info about Bachelor – Doomin’ Sun
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock, Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Power Pop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Doomin’ Sun released? 2021
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #939 out of 1,000
Bachelor’s Doomin’ Sun on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.