The Annual
"Most Influential CDs" lists
Every year I round up the 10 or so CDs that had the most influence on my musical thinking that year. It's been going on since I started it with George Tucker in 1998 and other friends normally join in, add their two cents, and I throw it all together in an unformatted mess and send it back out to everyone. Click on the links for good recommendations for must-hear albums; Links are to pdfs except for a couple years in which you have an streaming podcast too.
2023: pdf version only- NEW!
2022: pdf version only
2021: pdf version only
2020: pdf version only
2018: pdf version only
2017: pdf version only
2016: pdf version only
2015: pdf version only
2014: pdf version only
2013: **Click to hear mp3 version**
2012: **Click to hear mp3 version**
pdf version2011: **Click to hear mp3 version**
pdf version2010: **Click to hear mp3 version**
pdf versionPrevious years:
- Catch a Fire - Bob Marley and the Wailers
- Haile I Hymn, Chapter 1 - Ijahman
- Harvest Uptown, Famine Downtown - The Soul Syndicate
- Funky Kingston - Toots and the Maytals
- Jezebel - Justin Hines and the Dominoes
- Marcus Garvey - Burning Spear
- War Ina Babylon - Max Romeo
- Police and Thieves - Junior Murvin
- The Harder They Come (soundtrack)
- Columbia Colly - Jah Lion
- and 2 English band albums in the style:
- Handsworth Revolution - Steel Pulse
- I Just Can't Stop It - The English Beat
- Lick My Decals Off, Baby - Captain Beefheart
- We're Only In It For the Money - The Mothers of Invention
- Stage Fright - The Band
- Live Dead - The Grateful Dead
- A Wizard, A True Star - Todd Rundgren
- John Barleycorn Must Die - Traffic
- Abraxas - Santana
- Message In a Bottle - The Police
- Black Sea - XTC
- Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan
- Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
- Transition - John Coltrane
- The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - Charles Mingus
- Blues & Roots - Charles Mingus
- The Pablo Solo Masterpieces - Art Tatum
- Three Quartets - Chick Corea
- The Inner Mounting Flame - The Mahavishnu Orchestra
- Third - Soft Machine
- 8:30 - Weather Report
- ...And His Mother Called Him Bill - Duke Ellington
- Mulholland Drive
- Vertigo
- A Clockwork Orange
- Brazil
- Blue Velvet
- Gran Torino
- Goodfellows
- Unforgiven
- Raging Bull
- No Country for Old Men
- Fargo
- Lost Highway
- Taxi Driver
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Rear Window
- Bad Santa
- The Usual Suspects
- Kurosawa's Ran
- Kurosawa's Dreams
- 8 1/2
- The Godfather I & II
- Dr. Strangelove
- Chinatown
- L.A. Confidential
- Once Upon a Time in America
- 12 Monkeys
- Twilight Zone
- Ironside
- Star Trek
- Mannix
- Mission: Impossible
- Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Fawlty Towers
- Twin Peaks
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- The Sopranos
- Monk
- Breaking Bad
- Better Call Saul
- Game of Thrones
- The Knick
Top 10 Music Lists
This seems like a good spot to lay out these lists for my favorite albums in several musical areas. I get asked this a lot, so I'll post them here.
Top 10 Jamaican Music albums:
(in no order)
Top 10 Rock albums:
(in no order)
Top 10 Jazz albums:
(in no order)
25 Movies I've watched repeatedly (and will do so again)
TV series I watched faithfully:
