Late last year, I completed an epic five-year journey: the best 1,000 albums ever project comprises a thousand articles, each about an album that holds meaning in my life.
And if that’s not enough for you, I was crazy enough to rank the thing from #1,000 (Living in Darkness by Agent Orange) all the way to #1 (Nevermind by Nirvana).
Here’s the homepage or landing page or whatever if you’re interested in learning more about the project, and here’s a flattering piece about me and the best 1,000 albums ever from Greater Long Island.
After about six months of letting my brain chill a bit after completing such an audacious (some might say insane?) quest, I found myself bouncing around my vast list of album pieces, dabbling here and there into the music tied to each.
And as I’m wont to do, I found myself starting out from the “bottom” of the list, and dropping favorite songs from each album into a Spotify playlist.
In the case of Living in Darkness, that includes not one but two versions of “Bloodstains” – “Original” and “Darkness” versions, of course – as I’ve become obsessed with both over the years.
Over a period of months, during work sessions, I greatly enjoyed working my way through all 1,000 albums with my “ear goggles” strapped on, as the Beastie Boys might say.
I found myself selecting songs quite liberally and with no real rules – I simply added the ones that are exciting me the most at the current moment. So in many cases – though certainly not all – that meant not picking the “expected” or smash hit songs from a given album.
The Beatles’ “Yesterday” off of Help! didn’t make the cut, for example, in favor of tracks like “The Night Before” and “Another Girl” and “It’s Only Love.” Every Beatles track is a smasher in its own way, of course, so I simply went with my vibes and let it fly.
In the end, there are 2,030 songs in all, working out to roughly two songs per album on average. Which feels like a pretty sweet sweet spot, I’d say.
Another way to look at it is that at 122.5 hours, this is a playlist that I can confidently say offers an astounding array of incredible musical choices.
Dabble, dive deep, sample, and sift. As Beck says in “Hell Yes”: please enjoy.
And without further ado, here it is: the best of the best 1,000 albums ever Spotify playlist:
A few further thoughts on the background of creating and producing this playlist.
My man Adam, a stalwart supporter of my music writing efforts and an outstanding guitarist, songwriter, and bandleader in his own right, had encouraged me some years back to create an easier way for people to sift through the thousand articles that comprise the best 1,000 albums ever. This prompted me to create index pages and, eventually, the project’s homepage, which leads to all of them (and you can find navigational links on every page of Pop Thruster these days as well).
One other great related anecdote: Adam took to sharing a selection from the best 1,000 albums ever each night with his two kids, sampling songs from each (which, super cool, yes?). However, “controversy” erupted when his daughter discovered to her shock and horror that there were (sorry Swifties!) sadly no Taylor Swift albums that made the best 1k albums cut.
This imbroglio culminated in the kids creating their own original protest song, not asking but demanding that a Swift album be added to the project post-haste.
Please know that I took this passionate missive under advisement, where it remains to this day.
On an ever so slightly more serious note, running through the entire stack of 1,000 albums from back to front gave me yet another opportunity to assess the rankings of the list. This is something that I agonized over many months, and I will freely admit that the agony hasn’t ended.
Which is a long way of saying that there are plenty of albums that I would move around if I were updating this project today.
For example, I’ve been a huge Descendents fan for many years, and have a healthy sampling of their albums that made the best 1,000 albums ever.
Milo Goes to College was placed at #494, which I think we can all agree is very respectable. So what’s the problem, right?
The problem is that I’ve become newly obsessed with the album over the last year or so. But obsessed maybe even isn’t a strong enough word. I’ve listened to it a troubling number of times during both work and intense gym sessions.
There’s no way I’d have it at #494 if I had to re-rank it right now. Top 200 easily. And more likely Top 100 I’d say.
For kicks, here’s “Catalina” – a scorching punk rock song that name checks both The Doors and The Beatles! – which on some days is my favorite song on Milo Goes to College.
And that’s a slight taste of what going down the deep rabbit hole of ranking and producing the best 1,000 albums ever has been like.
For those of you who have participated in the journey in any kind of way and gotten something out of the experience, that has made it all worthwhile.