This week, I had my second speaking engagement in promotion of the book, graduating from the library scene to the patio at Maine Beer Company, where I hosted a guessing game. I asked the crowd to give me numbers between 11 and 1,000 (you have to buy the book to get 1-10), and played 30-60 seconds of a song from the album corresponding to that number on my list.

When someone called out #912, I flipped to page 15 and found “At Mount Zoomer” the excellent sophomore effort by Wolf Parade and had to play more than a minute of centerpiece “California Dreamer”. It took some time to build, opening with just an organ and whispered vocals, but by the time the full band kicked in, the patio was rocking.

No one in the audience knew what band we were listening to. The best guess I got was Of Montreal, and it’s true that Wolf Parade hails from Montreal (oddly, Of Montreal formed in Athens, GA), but it came as little surprise to me that there were no Wolf Parade fans in the room. Silences after other song clips (no one knew Prefab Sprout or The Clipse either) made me feel a bit alone as a music nut in a brewery full of regular people out for a beer and some entertainment.

Playing Wolf Parade for this crowd felt entirely different. It made the whole ridiculous project feel justified. Someone asked me for my 912th-favorite album and I gave them the rapture. “California Dreamer” is an epic, a tour de force capable of converting the masses to indie rock. “At Mount Zoomer” isn’t even my favorite Wolf Parade album, but I just told thirty-something people that I like 911 albums more than the balls-out banger I played for them. It sold a couple books.

I don’t know how many people took my advice and went home and listened to Wolf Parade for the first time, but if they did, they heard more than “California Dreamer”. “Call It a Ritual” is as catchy as the album is esoteric. “Fine Young Cannibal” is a smooth, keyboard-driven earworm. Closer “Kissing the Beehive” flaunts the band’s musicianship and the skills of two-songwriter attack Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug, showcasing every idiosyncrasy in their oeuvre over 11 minutes.

Not every song on “At Mount Zoomer” is perfect. I like 900 albums more than this one. But the high points fly high enough that I’d recommend it to a fan of any persuasion. I’m humbled to have the chance to introduce people to music like this.

That’s my 912th-favorite album.

In the wake of singer Scott Hutchinson’s recent suicide, his bandmates enlisted the help of a cadre of musicians who happen to be Frightened Rabbit fans to release the tribute album “Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight'”. After one listen, I’m not ready to assess the merits of the covers that comprise it, but I dare anyone to listen to “Tiny Changes” without immediately reaching for the album it honors.

A tribute album is a great way to celebrate, interpret, or show affection for an inspiring artist. The musician performing the tribute is pressured to be true to the original while adding enough spin to make it worth the rerecording. The one element of Frightened Rabbit’s music to which devotees can’t possibly do justice is the vulnerability in Hutchinson’s quivering brogue. Whether it’s the longing on “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms”, the anger and sympathy in “Keep Yourself Warm”, the tragedy of “Poke”, or the brief foray into joy that is “Old Old Fashioned”, Hutchinson’s voice is the center of the band’s greatest work.

A listen to “The Midnight Organ Fight” in 2019 is quite a roller coaster. Opener “The Modern Leper” is still the highlight, a breakup song loaded with allusions to illness and death, but somehow uplifting enough to leave the listener begging for more. “Floating in the Forth” is perhaps its antidote, a more direct accounting of the protagonist’s post-suicide desire to walk, fully-clothed, into a river where he’ll float away from his heartbreak. The track is saved by the line “I think I’ll save suicide for another day”. Sadly, though, that day came a decade later, in a manner eerily true to the song that portended it.

To chalk a listen to this album up to an exercise in masochism is to miss the joy it brought, and still brings. The charging outro to “My Backwards Walk” still sounds determined to find hope in heartbreak. “Fast Blood” is as much triumph as trial. And “Head Rolls Off” is both funny and sincere, offering the line that would give name to the tribute album: “and while I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to Earth”.

Hutchinson’s changes to Earth may be tiny to the majority of its 7 billion inhabitants. To Frightened Rabbit fans, though, Hutchinson was a poet, a fighter, a role model, and an artist who conspired with fate to bring his greatest gift to the ears of so many people who needed to hear it. “The Midnight Organ Fight” is the most wonderful of the many documents of Hutchinson sharing his gift.

That’s my 304th-favorite album.

Jason Isbell is many things: a skilled storyteller, a strong vocalist and guitar player, an advocate for those without a voice, a survivor of addiction, a soldier for progressive values in a conservative minefield… On his best album, “Something More Than Free”, his knack for melody outshines all of these attributes.

The second half of “Something More Than Free” is full of perfectly adequate songs like “Speed Trap Town” and “Hudson Commodore” that lament and celebrate life’s trials and triumphs. The songs are rooted in country but not far from folk in their social consciousness and lyric-first production.

The first half of the record is sublime. Opener “If It Takes a Lifetime” kicks things off with the pep of a recovered alcoholic celebrating a new lease on life, weary of speed bumps past and present, but committed to a brighter future. It’s “24 Frames” and “How to Forget” that really steal the show. Both are showcases of Isbell’s uncanny knack for melody- equally worthy of pop radio and the country canon. They’re earworms, loaded with emotion, from regret to nostalgia to heartbreak to hope.

“Flagship”, “Children of Children”, and “The Life You Chose” are cut from the same cloth- pop songs if there’s room for such introspection in pop, country songs if there’s room for such beauty and depth in country.

Every album in Isbell’s growing catalog shines a light on his ability to tell stories from places personal and provincial. Only “Something More Than Free” supplements that ability with a string of melodies that deliver Isbell’s introspection and elocution in such sweet packages.

That’s my 580th-favorite album.

Neko Case is my favorite singer. I don’t know what is means to have a favorite singer. Is it the singer naturally gifted with the best voice, the singer most talented at using that voice to produce sound, or the artist who writes songs that best fit her voice? By any of those definitions, the answer for me is Neko Case.

My favorite album featuring Neko Case’s voice is not a Neko Case album. The New Pornographers’ first two efforts, “Mass Romantic” and “Twin Cinema”, both make better use of the Canadian ensemble’s range of voices and styles. Case’s 2016 collaboration with k.d. lang and Laura Viers rivals anything in her solo catalog. But the album that best showcases the most satisfying voice I’ve ever heard is “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood”.

Neko providing her own harmonies on “A Widow’s Toast” sends shivers down my spine every time. She comes across as an angel who just might have a dark side, and layering her voice over itself suggests those two sides may coexist moment-to-moment. I can’t think of anyone else qualified to elicit nostalgia from listeners the way Neko does on “That Teenage Feeling”. The gospel hoedown “John Saw That Number” comes out of left field, not matching the tone of much of the rest of the album, but Neko’s sweet but sturdy croon ties it into the rest of the affair.

Any moment Neko Case’s voice pumps through your speakers is a divine one, but the highlights of “Fox Confessor” come toward the beginning and end of the album. “Hold On, Hold On” is a love letter to a stranger, dipping into Case’s country roots while celebrating that devil-loving dark side. Closer “The Needle Has Landed” doubles down on those aforementioned harmonies, showcasing Neko’s vocal range and ability to write a more complex song without sacrificing pop sensibility. When it fades to a close, you’ll want the repeat button close at hand, because listening to any other voice will feel like a letdown.

That’s my 476th-favorite album.

Last week, I saw the National in concert in Portland, Maine. They’re one of the great bands of the early part of the 21st century- consistently excellent, popular, and critically acclaimed. They put on a good show. Of the two acts who took that stage in Portland last Thursday night, The National were a strong second best.

Much of The National’s appeal stems from the rich baritone of Matt Berninger. Their music seems tailor-made to his natural gift, and it always fits within their formula- on record, anyway. In person, Berninger takes center stage, though he occasionally leaves the stage to share crooning duties with zealous fans. For the most part, though, he stands there, singing and gesticulating- pointing to his head when he sings the word “mind” and pinching his fingers together when he sings “small”. His gift is real, but it’s more nature than nurture. This comment intends to disparage Berninger and The National only by comparison to last week’s opening act, Courtney Barnett.

On record, Barnett’s charm is in her attitude. She writes nerd rock, packing jokes and subtleties into every song, loading more syllables into a bar than one might have thought reasonable before the release of her 2015 debut, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”.

On stage, the wordplay isn’t half the story. She wields quite an axe. Songs like “Dead Fox” and “Need a Little Time” use the guitar as an accent on record. Courtney’s got something to say, and after she makes you laugh or ponder, she bangs out a quick solo for good measure. On stage, it’s the vocals that set up the solos and the solos that bring the house down.

At times, Courtney is so subtle in her shredding that the viewer might think it’s her bassist tearing into a solo while she calmly keeps rhythm. At other times, she walks away from the mic and rips into her guitar like it’s an extension of her body. At even odder times, she puts the guitar on top of her head and picks at it from there, piling on distortion and earning raves from the crowd. At all times, she’s completely in control of her gift, one that certainly requires natural ability, but that has clearly been honed over the years. She’s a performer of the highest grade.

A National album is better than a National show. A Courtney Bartnett show is better than a Courtney Barnett album. Nevertheless, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit” is an all-timer, loaded with cheeky numbers like “Pedestrian at Best” and “Nobody Really Cares if You Don’t Go to the Party” and hard rockers like “Aqua Profunda!” and “Dead Fox”. Barnett is in total control of her world, whether playing with precision in the studio to complete her stream-of-consciousness thoughts or blowing away live audiences with guitar histrionics.

That’s my 247th-favorite album.

So often, what makes a rock album great is noise. Intense, furious noise that fills every cubic inch of airspace with guitars, drums, keyboards, shouts, claps, harps, electric jugs, combs…

Iron and Wine’s calling card, at least early in his career, was making so little noise that every sound carried more meaning. Debut “The Creek Drank the Cradle” is full of lovely melodies blissfully rendered, but so sparse that the absence of background noise is almost haunting. Third album “The Shepherd’s Dog” added a piano, an organ, and a vibraphone and sounded like an actual band.

Each of those records is fantastic in its own right, but Iron and Wine struck the perfect balance with the album in between, “Our Endless Numbered Days”. The plucking that opens “On Your Wings” is richer than any sound on his previous album, indicating that bandleader Sam Beam doesn’t intend to make a career as a hermit, self-recording in a country shack. That track includes as many as- gasp- three instruments at once, filling that airspace that defined the debut. Second track “Naked As We Came”, though, is gentle rumination on corporeal existence that would have felt in place on “Creek”.

These twelve songs enrapture the listener for an hour, sometimes lifting above a whisper, but moving the listener more with emotion than with a beat. “Free Until They Cut Me Down” is both an outlier in its bass-driven liveliness and a contender for the best song on the album, though the spare and haunting “Sodom, South Georgia” may be a better fit for that title.

While it’s easy to observe an evolution over Iron and Wine’s first three albums, Sam Beam as a singer and as a songwriter doesn’t veer too far from the ever-so-shallow groove he dug in the mattress of the indie scene. His worldview is skeptical, cognizant of human suffering and injustice, but reverent of nature and hopeful that we can do better.

That’s my 319th-favorite album.

I have a complicated relationship with Bruce Springsteen. I avoid much of his extensive catalog, but four of his classic albums show up in my top 500, with a fifth, more recent effort in the 700s. I recognize his greatness more than I want to listen to him- with one exception.

“The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle” was released just as classic rock was fighting for its last breath. Despite Springsteen’s continued critical and commercial success as the classic rock formula gave way to prog and punk and disco, his second album might be Springsteen’s only proper contribution to the classic rock canon. It’s hard, fast, and alive, driven as much by guitars and keyboards as by the brass that would dominate future efforts. Even if the sax that makes “Rosalita” soar begat so much future cheese, it serves here as vital punctuation toward the end of a seven-track record loaded with heart, muscle, and depth.

I see myself squarely outside of The Boss’s target audience, but then, I’m not sure who his target audience is. He’s built a long career out of sympathizing with the downtrodden, blue-collar American. I’ve had the fortune of a white collar and few treads on my back. His politics line up well with mine, but we may view the world’s ills from different angles.

Springsteen’s particular brand of working-class heroics grew from Bob Dylan’s, which in turn grew from the roots of American folk music. While Dylan, like many of his forbears, voiced the travails of Hattie Carroll and Rubin Carter as a concerned spectator, Springsteen stayed closer to home, adopting his New Jersey protagonists’ personalities, singing in the first person about shotgun weddings and draft orders. This is a gutsy approach, bypassing the broad appeal of generic cries for social justice and inviting the listener into the boardwalks and back porches of his hometown, betting that his storytelling ability and the rich sounds of a deep backing band would make the listener care about characters whose likeness they may never meet.

Where “The Wild” first proves its mettle is at the 3 1/2-minute mark of opener “The E Street Shuffle”. There’s a false ending, street noise filling in as the band fades into a classic blues outro, only to be reinvigorated by guitar and a swell of percussion, with horns jumping in to amplify the celebration. Springsteen’s later music was not devoid of joy, but to me, this is the band at its apex, letting loose with jazzy gusto.

The album comes alive again with the three epics that comprise side two. “Incident on 57th Street” is a massive tale of star-crossed young lovers surviving on the streets. “Rosalita” is a more joyful young love affair that gets the whole band involved. Closer “New York City Serenade”, which opens with David Sancious’s classical-inspired piano intro, is a total outlier in Springsteen’s catalog but a fitting ending to this album.

Throughout the late ’70s and into the ’80s and beyond, Bruce Springsteen made music adored by fans and critics alike, taking on controversial topics and giving voice to those without privilege while remaining popular enough to pack stadiums and penetrate suburban grocery store speakers. Even those of us not consistently won over by Springsteen’s sound have to recognize his songwriting talents and the power of his various backing bands. On “The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle”, all of these talents came together to create a rock and roll record worthy of those who came half a generation before him.

That’s my 124th-favorite album.

Any dissection of Oasis’s work starts with a reference to The Beatles. “The best British band since The Beatles” was the devotee’s refrain, while the critic said they rode the Beatles coattails to mediocrity.

What this reduction misses is that everyone who made music over the past fifty years was influenced, directly or indirectly, by The Beatles. What pop music doesn’t sound a little like “Love Me Do” or “She Loves You”? Heavy metal took tips from “Helter Skelter” and “I Want You.” Hip-hop was built around the way George Martin used the studio as an instrument on “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper”.

Through this lens, perhaps the highest praise a band can receive is that they’re the most authentic interpretation of the founders’ vision. That may very well be Oasis, who peaked with their second release, “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”.

Almost 25 years out, these songs are hard to evaluate without nostalgia playing a powerful role. “Definitely Maybe” made Oasis an overnight sensation in the UK, but it was “Morning Glory” that blew them up in the US. There was no escaping “Wonderwall”, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, and “Champagne Supernova” in ’95, and by 2000, they may have been even more omnipresent. That’s a testament to the greatness of the music.

Everyone with an acoustic guitar in their living room has played “Wonderwall” and everyone in their vicinity sung along. “Champagne Supernova” might be the most radio-friendly 7 1/2-minute song ever recorded, justifying every second of its running time. “Cast No Shadow” and “Hey Now” are as strong as the singles and stand up today as well as they did in the ’90s.

If Oasis are just interpreting The Beatles, they’re spanning the entire catalog. Straightforward pop-rockers “Roll With It” and “She’s Electric” would fit on “Beatles For Sale”. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is simple-but-slick “Rubber Soul” fare. “Morning Glory” and “Champagne Supernova” take enough chances to fit on the white album. “Cast No Shadow” is a more mature statement, worthy of “Let It Be”.

Of course, Oasis were more than Beatles mimicry. These songs are intricate but brash, street-tough but melodic. Liam Gallagher is a punk, but the band add beautiful backing vocals at times. Two guitars play off each other, adding drama and force, but rarely steal the show from the songs themselves. Two untitled instrumentals remind us the band members can play, but Liam won’t let them steal the show.

America’s obsession with British culture ebbs and flows. It may be that it’s peaked twice in the past century: once in the ’60s when The Beatles ruled the world and once in the ’90s when Oasis did.

That’s my 157th-favorite album.

There’s a moment at the end of “Fade to Black”, right in the middle of Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning”, where Kirk Hammett rips into a guitar solo that sounds an awful lot like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”. Just attempting to mock “Free Bird”, one of the most ambitious guitar workouts ever recorded, is a bold choice, but Hammett doesn’t stop there. After the brief homage, he raises the stakes, showcasing his signature speed and dexterity by opening “Trapped Under Ice” with an absurd solo and launching into another one after a brief first verse.

While certainly owing to Black Sabbath and gleaning from Judas Priest, Metallica had few forbears and no peers in the trash metal genre. Many have imitated, but few have lived up to the band’s fury and virtuosity. As such, it’s a challenge to compare “Ride the Lightning” (or the band’s other mid-’80s masterpieces) to other music. The genre most ripe for comparison may actually be opera.

I’ve often called Derek & the Dominos’ “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” the greatest guitar album of all time. Multiple guitar legends (including Eric Clapton and Duane Allman) tear through 14 blues-rock songs tied together by themes of love and loss, dueling with each other and writing a coda to a period of ingenuity and ambition we now know as classic rock.

I can’t imagine Clapton or Allman accomplishing what Hammett does on “Ride the Lightning”. They wrote better music, sure, and could jam with a rock band like few who ever lived. But Hammett’s hands are enchanted with such ridiculous dexterity that I’m not sure they’ve been matched since, and they never did better work than on “Ride the Lightning”.

These songs are ridiculous. Here’s one chorus:

Fight fire with fire
Ending is near
Fight fire with fire
Bursting with fear
We all shall die

Here’s another:

Flash before my eyes
Now it’s time to die
Burning in my brain
I can feel the flame

Taken as a sum of its parts- songwriting, singing, and playing- “Ride the Lightning” doesn’t measure up against the Laylas of the world. But if we’re willing to focus only on the musicians- Hammett’s and James Hetfield’s guitars, Lars Ulrich’s bombastic drums, even Cliff Burton’s almost-lead-worthy bass- this is a classic.

This is where the opera comparison comes in. A Metallica album, more than most rock albums, is a celebration of skill. “Fade to Black” may be the only song on the album with any sense of melody, but who needs melody when the band can conjure every sound you’ve ever heard and some you never imagined you’d hear with their instruments? Hammett is the lead soprano, sharing her innate gift with the world. The songs are written not to be studied, interpreted, and covered, but to give Hammett and the band a chance to showcase their powerful tools.

You may prefer the even rawer fury of “Kill ‘Em All” or the more fully-realized “Master of Puppets”. All three are classics in the same vein. Give me “Ride the Lightning”, if only for those few minutes in the middle when Kirk Hammett announces to the greatest guitarists in rock history that he can do it better.

That’s my 418th-favorite album.

One wonderful thing about music criticism, or, perhaps more accurately, music exploration, is that, given the breadth of music available, one man’s deep dive is another man’s dip in the mainstream. I listened to so much music in compiling this project that, at times, it felt like I’d listened to everything, but there was always more to hear.

Now, when I say “everything”, I can’t possibly mean everything. There are probably tens of millions of albums I’ve never heard and never will hear. I never intended to explore everything. Rather, I hoped to empower this project with resources that would guide me toward all of the critically and/or popularly acclaimed music within the many genres I typically enjoy.

I cut out classical music entirely- that’s a different project. I only listened to the electronica that critics and fans tend to agree is best, because I could spend years diving through that genre, maybe enjoying one of every five records, and barely scraping the surface. I probably listened to fewer than 100 country albums, but I was strategic in my choices.

Sometime in 2017, as I first entertained thoughts about the project becoming a book, I heard about Gene Clark. I’d heard many Byrds albums, including all three from the period during which Clark was their lead singer, but at the time, I couldn’t have identified him as that singer.

A real audiophile may read this and wonder how committed I am to exploring popular music. In the right circles, Gene Clark was pretty well-known. While “No Other” failed to sell upon its 1974 debut, music historians know it well and seem to hold it in high regard. Some of the twenty-plus musicians who contributed to the album were coveted musicians- country stars, members of The Allman Brothers Band and The Byrds, and Bob Dylan’s ’70s backup singers among them.

Perhaps my lack of exposure to Gene Clark’s solo work until this point stems from his steadfast refusal to conform to any genre. He has a country singer’s voice, and these songs aren’t lacking twang, but the arrangements to too rich and textured to be country songs. He had folk roots, but what folk artist recorded under his own name with twenty musicians in the studio? Much of the playing is jazz-caliber, but there’s far more string than brass here. It’s a rock album, I suppose, in that only rock’s tent is wide enough to incorporate all these other styles, but this is not your father’s- or your son’s- rock record.

“No Other”, Some Misunderstanding”, and “Lady of the North” employ melodies so warmly familiar that, on first listen, you might think you’ve been hearing them for years. All three songs, though, seem to occupy multiple genres minute-by-minute, dodging from Peter-Paul-and-Mary melodies to Steely-Dan solos to gospel singalongs employing Phil Spector’s wall of sound treatment. “Strength of Strings” is the centerpiece and strongest track, an epic blues lament with power and humility.

These eight tracks showcase songs that would still be great in the hands of lesser musicians, performed by musicians capable of recording great music written by lesser songwriters. If it’s a country album, I might be a country fan. If it’s a folk album, take me to Newport.

If you’re a top-40 fan, Gene Clark may feel beyond obscure to you. If you’re an American of a certain age with a turntable and a love for rock and roll, you may recognize him as canon. Whatever boundaries you put around your definition of great music, there’s room for “No Other” inside.

That’s my 355th-favorite album.