Scott 2 is such a paradox, isn’t it? On one hand, it’s Scott Walker at peak Scott Walker—baritone croon so dramatic it could part storm clouds, lush orchestrations dripping with grandeur, and lyrics that seem to swing wildly between torch song sincerity and absurdity. On the other, it never quite lands. It’s as if he’s standing on the edge of brilliance, staring at it, but refusing to take the final step. The album opens with Jackie, a Jacques Brel cover about a seafaring gigolo that somehow involves ass-slapping and drug smuggling—already telling you this isn’t Sinatra territory. Then there’s Plastic Palace People, this long, strange, floating piece that feels like it should collapse under its own weight but doesn’t. And Black Sheep Boy is the rare Walker moment that nails intimacy without losing the theatrical veil. Sure, Hazlewood had the gravitas, Bowie perfected the art-pop croon, and Morrison weaponized darkness with more menace. But Walker’s appeal is that he lived in the in-between. Too weird for pop, too pop for the avant-garde. That tension is exactly why Scott 2 still pulls you back in—it’s endlessly interesting because it never gives you the satisfaction of being fully good or fully bad. And let’s be real: only Scott Walker could sing about “naked derrières” with a full orchestra behind him and make it sound like high art. I don’t know if I like it, but I get a kick out of listening to it.

Spent the evening with Strangeways, Here We Come, The Smiths’ grand exit, released in 1987 just as the band imploded. It’s dark, dramatic, and strangely elegant. An album that proved they had one more classic in them before Morrissey and Marr finally went their separate ways. Even without the baggage that followed, this record feels like a goodbye, with Johnny Marr’s guitar work shimmering one last time before slamming the door shut. At its core is “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,” the band’s late-career masterpiece. It opens with the sound of miners on strike, setting a bleak stage, before unfurling into one of the most devastating ballads of the decade. Morrissey’s voice is full of bitter yearning, but it’s Marr’s orchestral sweep and layered guitar textures that make it timeless. It’s the kind of song that makes you sit still and feel the weight of being human—proof that The Smiths weren’t just a great band, they were the band for alienation. Of course, revisiting The Smiths now means confronting Morrissey’s post-Smiths spiral into nationalism, narcissism, and outright bigotry. That’s the hard truth: the voice that once gave solace to outsiders now often reads like a parody of reactionary outrage. But here’s the dilemma—Strangeways is still brilliant, because Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce were brilliant. Maybe the only way forward is to hold both truths at once: acknowledging Morrissey’s downfall while preserving the power of the music they made together. After all, “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to anyone who’s ever needed it.

Pink Floyd’s The Wall is one of those rare double albums where almost every track matters. A full-on rock opera about isolation, paranoia, and self-destruction, it’s big, theatrical, and somehow both claustrophobic and massive. The songs themselves are ridiculous in their range. “Mother” is tender and suffocating at once. “Goodbye Blue Sky” turns a lullaby into a nightmare. “Young Lust” gives you the sleaze and swagger before dropping you into the emptiness of “Hey You.” “Comfortably Numb” is one of the greatest things they ever did—arguably one of the greatest things anyone ever did. And “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell” are pure menace, the sound of power tipping over into something darker. But here’s the rub—Roger Waters, the architect of this grand vision, has since turned into… well, let’s just say not the kind of person you want to spend two and a half hours at dinner with. Like Morrissey and The Smiths, that makes returning to The Wall complicated. The saving grace is that it’s not just Waters. Gilmour’s guitar still cuts like a razor, Wright’s keys give it atmosphere, and Mason anchors it all. They pull it back from being just Waters’ indulgence and make it timeless Pink Floyd. In the end, The Wall survives not just as Waters’ concept, but as Pink Floyd’s collective masterpiece—a strange, sprawling monument that still towers, even if its creator casts a long shadow. When you make it to those final notes, you really felt like you've gone through something. How rare is that. How great is that.

Spent the evening with Strangeways, Here We Come, The Smiths’ grand exit, released in 1987 just as the band imploded. It’s dark, dramatic, and strangely elegant. An album that proved they had one more classic in them before Morrissey and Marr finally went their separate ways. Even without the baggage that followed, this record feels like a goodbye, with Johnny Marr’s guitar work shimmering one last time before slamming the door shut. At its core is “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,” the band’s late-career masterpiece. It opens with the sound of miners on strike, setting a bleak stage, before unfurling into one of the most devastating ballads of the decade. Morrissey’s voice is full of bitter yearning, but it’s Marr’s orchestral sweep and layered guitar textures that make it timeless. It’s the kind of song that makes you sit still and feel the weight of being human—proof that The Smiths weren’t just a great band, they were the band for alienation. Of course, revisiting The Smiths now means confronting Morrissey’s post-Smiths spiral into nationalism, narcissism, and outright bigotry. That’s the hard truth: the voice that once gave solace to outsiders now often reads like a parody of reactionary outrage. But here’s the dilemma—Strangeways is still brilliant, because Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce were brilliant. Maybe the only way forward is to hold both truths at once: acknowledging Morrissey’s downfall while preserving the power of the music they made together. After all, “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to anyone who’s ever needed it.

My musical wish this year is for someone to write a new song that has the feel and depth of “Red Rain.” That opener from Peter Gabriel’s So still hits with it's moody, cinematic, heaviness that takes me back to a decade of soft lightning coming through window shades. The guy was building a universe. And yeah, everyone knows “Sledgehammer” was the monster single, with the claymation video and the horn section making MTV history. But So is bigger than one song. “In Your Eyes” became a generation’s love letter. “Don’t Give Up” with Kate Bush is one of the most empathetic duets ever recorded. Even the deep cuts sound like they were carved out of stone. Listening back, what gets me is how modern it still feels. The textures, the way Gabriel leaned into technology without losing the humanity. It’s been nearly 40 years and So still sounds like the future. Makes you wonder why nobody’s chasing that kind of ambition anymore.

Pass.

Beatles harmonies. Bar room piano. The loss of one of our greatest songwriters. Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 was the last studio album he’d release in his lifetime, and while it’s not my favorite of his (that’s XO), it’s undeniable in its importance. It’s sprawling, ambitious, and stacked with classics. Sure, you’ve got the obvious ones—“Son of Sam,” “Somebody That I Used to Know.” But dig deeper and you’ll find “Stupidity Ties,” which for Elliott is practically an epic, stretching out his melancholy into something widescreen. Figure 8 wasn’t the quiet confessional anymore. It was Smith seeing how far he could push himself. And that makes it just as haunting today as when it first landed. Wouldn't mama be proud?

Pink Floyd’s The Wall is one of those rare double albums where almost every track matters. A full-on rock opera about isolation, paranoia, and self-destruction, it’s big, theatrical, and somehow both claustrophobic and massive. The songs themselves are ridiculous in their range. “Mother” is tender and suffocating at once. “Goodbye Blue Sky” turns a lullaby into a nightmare. “Young Lust” gives you the sleaze and swagger before dropping you into the emptiness of “Hey You.” “Comfortably Numb” is one of the greatest things they ever did—arguably one of the greatest things anyone ever did. And “In the Flesh” and “Run Like Hell” are pure menace, the sound of power tipping over into something darker. But here’s the rub—Roger Waters, the architect of this grand vision, has since turned into… well, let’s just say not the kind of person you want to spend two and a half hours at dinner with. Like Morrissey and The Smiths, that makes returning to The Wall complicated. The saving grace is that it’s not just Waters. Gilmour’s guitar still cuts like a razor, Wright’s keys give it atmosphere, and Mason anchors it all. They pull it back from being just Waters’ indulgence and make it timeless Pink Floyd. In the end, The Wall survives not just as Waters’ concept, but as Pink Floyd’s collective masterpiece—a strange, sprawling monument that still towers, even if its creator casts a long shadow. When you make it to those final notes, you really felt like you've gone through something. How rare is that. How great is that.

Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home is 60 years old, and I’ve probably heard it more times than I can count. It still doesn’t get old. “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm” kick off the electric side, then you flip it for “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” In between, you’ve got “She Belongs to Me,” “Gates of Eden,” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” All heavy hitters on their own. Almost every track belongs there. That’s not something you can say about many records. How does an album continue to be this timeless?

Nothing sounded like Fear of Music when it came out, and it still stands completely on its own. Talking Heads and Brian Eno took paranoia, disco grooves, and post-punk anxiety and mashed them into something that shouldn’t have worked. “Life During Wartime” is an apocalypse you can dance to. “Heaven” plays like a hymn for people stuck in line at the DMV. And “I Zimbra” opens with nonsense poetry and ends up sounding prophetic. It’s jagged, it’s funky, it’s weird as hell, and David Byrne somehow makes fear sound like a party invitation. Even 46 years later, this record still feels like it’s from another planet.

I’ve been spending the evening with Dire Straits’ 1978 self-titled debut. Just a perfect album. What an arrival this was. Knopfler’s fingerpicking guitar, that unhurried groove, and songs that felt like they’d been around forever the moment you heard them. Of course “Sultans of Swing” was the breakout, but the whole record is loaded. “Water of Love” set the mood. “Six Blade Knife” had so much swagger it later found its way into From Dusk Till Dawn. And “Wild West End” is still one of the most romantic, street-level ballads in rock. It didn’t sound like punk, disco, or prog, yet somehow it cut right through all of them. A band fully formed from day one.

Ending my night listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. 55 years on and that title track still stops me cold. Absolute goosebumps every time. I can remember singing El Condor Pasa and Cecilia in the backseat of my mom’s car like it was yesterday, and I still get the same feeling now as I did then. The Boxer is an anthem. The Only Living Boy in New York might be the most beautiful thing they ever recorded. And even Baby Driver, Keep the Customer Satisfied, and So Long Frank Lloyd Wright feel like classics. One of the rare albums where every track feels carved in stone. sail on, silvergirl

I’ll be seeing Pixies tomorrow at Bourbon & Beyond, so let’s close tonight out with Surfa Rosa. It’s not my favorite Pixies album (that’s Bossanova) and it doesn’t even have my favorite Pixies song (that’s Monkey Gone To Heaven), but Surfa Rosa is just undeniable. The opening drums of Bone Machine that set the entire foundation, and it never really let's up. Rambling verses that shouldn’t be possible to sing along to, but we all try. Weird-as-catchy bursts like Broken Face. Radio staples in Gigantic and Where Is My Mind (over-covered, sure, but c’mon, Fight Club made it eternal). The pure fun of Tony’s Theme. The relentless drive of Vamos. No skips all the way through, though by the time Brick Is Red rolls in, I’m properly worn out. Pixies didn’t just influence a generation, they made chaos sound like order, and order sound like chaos.

Tonight is a Steely Dan night. Tonight is a Pretzel Logic night. This one’s sneaky—it doesn’t have the sprawling jams of Aja or the polish of Gaucho, but it’s absolutely loaded. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” opens with one of their most iconic hooks, “Any Major Dude” sounds like a cosmic pep talk, and the title track is pure Dan wordplay perfection. Then there’s “Parker’s Band,” their little love letter to Charlie Parker, and “Monkey in Your Soul,” where Donald Fagen sounds like he’s trying to sweet-talk you and insult you at the same time. It’s tight, it’s weird, it’s brilliant. Basically, it’s Steely Dan. Tonight’s pretzel is twisted just right.

Do you remember how completely original and fresh this album from The Streets felt in 2004? Mike Skinner wasn’t rapping like anyone else. He was just talking, storytelling in his everyday Brummie accent, and that made it sound even cooler. It was like eavesdropping on a night out in the UK and it kept getting funnier the more it spiraled. And of course, Fit But You Know It was an instant classic. It was rowdy, cheeky, catchy as hell. But the whole of A Grand Don’t Come for Free worked as one big story, a concept album about losing a thousand bucks, chasing love, and trying to sort your life out. The beats were sparse, almost barebones at times. It was grime, garage, hip-hop, kitchen-sink drama, and soap opera all rolled into one. And for a minute there, The Streets felt like the most original voice in music. He didn't quite launch the way some of us expected or hoped, but he sure made of helluva legacy with this one.

Tonight’s final listen is David Bowie’s Station to Station. It’s the record where we meet the Thin White Duke—Bowie’s cold, aristocratic alter ego—right in the title track, which creeps in like a slow-motion nightmare before roaring forward. Then he pivots with the sly wink of “Golden Years,” almost playful if you ignore how hollow he really was at the time. “TVC15” runs like a math equation in motion, all angular rhythms and twitchy repetition. “Stay” slams the accelerator down and never lets go, while “Wild Is the Wind” croons with cracked Sinatra glamour. Six songs. That’s it. Six tracks where Bowie shapeshifts more than most artists manage in their whole careers.

Final thoughts tonight: Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1969 debut. It’s one of those albums that somehow makes me nostalgic for a time I wasn’t even alive. That’s the strange trick of music—you put on headphones, cue up Guinnevere, and suddenly you’re in the same room they were recording in. You can hear the air. It’s actual time travel. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes kicks it all off as a mini-epic, Wooden Ships sails you into a different world, Helplessly Hoping is fragile and eternal, and Long Time Gone feels like it could still be blasting out of any protest rally today. These songs were already near perfect, but when CSN took them on the road, they grew even bigger. By the time we got 4 Way Street, they weren’t just songs anymore, they were untouchable works of art. Not a bad debut, huh?

There are so many moods and dark worlds to get lost in when listening to Nick Cave, especially from album to album. Tonight the choice is Murder Ballads. It’s not usually the first one I reach for, but there’s no denying it’s an incredible piece of work. The storytelling is feral and mythic. “Stagger Lee” is pure chaos, “Lovely Creature” is a twisted folk tale, and then you get both PJ Harvey and Kylie Minogue playing doomed lovers in the shadows of his baritone. Cave writes like no one else. Leonard Cohen once asked, “You want it darker?” And Nick had already been living in the basement. And then—after all the carnage—you get Death Is Not the End. A gentle, aching lullaby of resurrection. It hits like a prayer at the end of a funeral. I'm here for the service. For the melodies. For the madness.

You’d be hard pressed to find a better album opener than “The Thrill of It All.” It’s dramatic in a way only Bryan Ferry could pull off without toppling into self-parody. And while Roxy would go on to release bigger albums—Siren, Manifesto, Avalon—this one doesn’t need a qualifying asterisk. Country Life stands tall all on its own. It’s commercial and arty in the same breath. Glossy, but with fangs. At times it’s even relentless but they always find the pocket. Ferry sings like he’s half in love and half in peril. The cover was banned or censored in multiple countries. Ferry apparently met the German models on the front in Portugal the week before. I'd love to hear their side of the story. It’s glam, it’s gothic, it’s absurd, and it all totally works.

It’s chaos. It’s genius. It’s a 20-year-old woman writing gospel-pop-funk-Broadway-jazz songs with no concern for whether you can keep up. And good luck trying. Her voice is all over the place in the best way: belting one second, whispering the next, often just teetering on the edge of falling apart. But that edge is where she lives. That’s the appeal. This isn’t some timeless classic that floats above the era. It screams 1968. But not in the Hendrix/Zeppelin/“turn on, tune in” way. This is the other 1968: sweaty, theatrical, soulful, complicated. It’s the version of the late ’60s where the band sounds like a jazz-funk pit orchestra trying to survive a bus-and-truck tour of Hair. That whole energy stuck around too. Just listen to the first season of SNL and tell me it’s not the same band spirit. “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Sweet Blindness,” and “Eli’s Comin’” got covered by everyone from The 5th Dimension to Three Dog Night, but Nyro’s versions are the ones that feel like something. “Poverty Train” hits like a protest song being sung from the back pew of a church that’s about to burn down. And “Emmie.” A love song to another woman, in 1968. That wasn’t nothing. She was 20. Just 20 when she made this. And while plenty covered her songs, no one ever really caught the feel of them. Only Nyro could make chaos sound that divine.

Al Green's Let's Stay Together. He didn’t bury the lead. He opened with it. That title track kicks off the album like he knew exactly what he had: a soul classic in real time, complete with those silky horns and a vocal that could charm the smoke off a cigarette. Swagger for days. And then it just keeps coming. “Old Time Lovin’” is as sultry as the name suggests, with Al practically cooing through a Marvin Gaye-style slow jam. His cover of “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” turns a Bee Gees ballad into something soft, pleading, and devastating. And “It Ain’t No Fun to Me” as the closer. Sounds like it was recorded at 3 a.m. with one take to get it right. The whole thing runs 34 minutes. No bloat, no filler, just Al Green at the absolute top of his game.

It’s ok

This one’s kind of a trip. By the time they made Triangle, the Brummels had already fallen through the cracks of the British Invasion copycat game. So they reinvented themselves as a West Coast psych-folk outfit, and it’s gorgeous in that weird late-60s way where nobody knew if they were writing hits or hymns. Sal Valentino’s voice carries these songs like “Magic Hollow” and “Painter of Women” into a space somewhere between fairy tale and acid hangover. Jack Nitzsche’s production didn’t hurt either; he draped the whole record in orchestral haze, which only makes it sound stranger and sadder. It’s one of those albums that didn’t make sense commercially, but feels essential if you want to understand how folk-rock mutated after Pet Sounds and before the Byrds went full-on country. It didn’t sell, of course. But fifty-plus years later, Triangle sounds less like a lost experiment and more like a secret manual for how American pop was trying to rewrite itself in 1967. You didn’t own this one unless you were really digging through the racks—but if you did, you probably held onto it like buried treasure.

Scott 2 is such a paradox, isn’t it? On one hand, it’s Scott Walker at peak Scott Walker—baritone croon so dramatic it could part storm clouds, lush orchestrations dripping with grandeur, and lyrics that seem to swing wildly between torch song sincerity and absurdity. On the other, it never quite lands. It’s as if he’s standing on the edge of brilliance, staring at it, but refusing to take the final step. The album opens with Jackie, a Jacques Brel cover about a seafaring gigolo that somehow involves ass-slapping and drug smuggling—already telling you this isn’t Sinatra territory. Then there’s Plastic Palace People, this long, strange, floating piece that feels like it should collapse under its own weight but doesn’t. And Black Sheep Boy is the rare Walker moment that nails intimacy without losing the theatrical veil. Sure, Hazlewood had the gravitas, Bowie perfected the art-pop croon, and Morrison weaponized darkness with more menace. But Walker’s appeal is that he lived in the in-between. Too weird for pop, too pop for the avant-garde. That tension is exactly why Scott 2 still pulls you back in—it’s endlessly interesting because it never gives you the satisfaction of being fully good or fully bad. And let’s be real: only Scott Walker could sing about “naked derrières” with a full orchestra behind him and make it sound like high art. I don’t know if I like it, but I get a kick out of listening to it.

Do I love this album because I’m a product of my time or is this just an incredible record? The Contino Sessions hit in 1999, when trip-hop was fading, big beat was getting goofy, and UK rock was scrambling for relevance. Death In Vegas slid in and made something grimy, cinematic, and cool as hell. “Dirge” set the mood—bleak and hypnotic. Then they pulled in Iggy Pop for “Aisha,” which sounded like the Stooges on ketamine. Dot Allison floated ghost-like through “Dirge” and “Broken Little Sister,” while Bobby Gillespie slithered across “Soul Auctioneer.” It was electronic, but it was also rock. It was narcotic, but still full of menace. It sounded like a hangover , which fit the era perfectly. Or at least that's how that era feels to me, looking back. So maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s genius. Either way, The Contino Sessions still feels like 3 a.m. in a basement club that I shouldn’t have been in, and maybe that’s the point.

Is Innervisions Stevie Wonder’s greatest album? It might be. By 1973, Stevie had gone from child genius to full-on visionary. He played almost everything on the record himself and used it to call out racism, religion, drugs, and politics—all without losing the groove. “Living for the City” hit like a punch. “Higher Ground” felt like a second chance. He was only 23, blind, and still saw more clearly than everyone else. Three days after the album came out, he nearly died in a car crash, which makes “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” feel almost eerie. This was the moment Motown grew up and Stevie was rewriting what pop could be. So yeah, maybe Songs in the Key of Life was bigger. But Innervisions hit hardest.

How about What’s Going On? Released in 1971, it wasn’t just Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece, it was a miracle it existed at all. Motown didn’t want it. Berry Gordy thought protest songs would tank sales. But Marvin had just lost his singing partner (Tammi Terrell), his brother had come back from Vietnam traumatized, and America was coming apart at the seams. He wasn’t interested in pop anymore. He wanted truth. So he made an album that felt like a single, continuous thought. The songs flow into each other like chapters in a sermon or movements in a suite. He’s mourning, questioning, and pleading, but he’s also making you move. That’s the trick: the groove saves the grief. Even “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”—a lament for the planet—sways like it belongs at a summer block party. It’s protest you can dance to. Philosophy you can sing along with. And over 50 years later, it still sounds like the most beautiful cry for help ever pressed to vinyl. Spin it. Stream it. Listen to it or just dance. You’re rewarded any way it happens.

“Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge.” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message changed everything. It’s a 44-minute time capsule of 1982. Loud, funky, and fed up. You can trace a straight line from it to everyone from Public Enemy to Daft Punk. Even Duran Duran tried to copy its cool. It’s Nasty, but She’s Fresh. It’s like a jungle sometimes… and it still makes you wonder how an album can be at once so of the time and timeless.

Bonnie Prince Billy’s I See a Darkness is the sound of a man peeling his skin off. It stripped everything about the genre down to its bones. The whole album is a ghost story.

AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Bon Scott’s last ride. Mutt Lange produced. They figured it out here. Scott died six months later. Greatness becomes myth becomes legend. Fuel of the gods.

Louis Prima’s The Wildest. Vegas before Vegas. It’s not just jazz. More like a party that never sobered up. I've got my earbuds in and do not care what I probably look like to anyone else. God, I love this album.

KISS’s Destroyer. Ace Frehley’s guitar never sounded bigger or meaner. “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “Beth.” Ace is gone, but this one’s forever.