I once heard The Decemberists’ “A Perfect Crime” in the grocery store.

My two favorite albums of 2006, the year I got married, moved to Maine, and established my career, share very few common traits outside of the year of their release. Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” is hyper-charged R&B sleaze- the album that turned a smoky-lounge jazz singer into an international icon. The Decemberists’ “The Crane Wife” is a modern prog rock classic- the album Yes or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer would have made if they had a better sense of melody.

I first heard Amy’s “Rehab” in my car. I was riding home from a Portland (not the Decemberists’ Portland) bar with friends visiting from Brooklyn when the Dap-Kings shook my speakers and a once-in-a-generation voice introduced herself with an omen of her tragic near-future. I asked who I was listening to, got an answer, and owned the album the next day.

Of course, “Back to Black” is so much more than “Rehab”. “Me and Mrs. Jones” is a lamentation of a 21st-century relationship steeped in fuckery. Closer “Addicted” is equal parts hilarious and haunting. Every track showcases the perfectly aligned talents of the Dap-Kings’ classic brass and the singer’s Aretha-for-a-new-era swagger.

Back to that grocery store. When “A Perfect Crime” wafted harmlessly through those Hannaford speakers, I’d heard the band’s prior album, the quirkily excellent “Picaresque”, and as such, was more prepared for their next sonic joyride than I was for “Back to Black”. Still, all three title tracks are beautiful, “Sons and Daughters” is a singalong for a new frontier, and “The Island” medley is the epic Jethro Tull never quite mastered at this level.

“The Crane Wife” slows a bit in the middle, veering from the Japanese folk tale theme that binds the rest of the record by introducing a pedestrian lead single fit for the produce aisle.

Both of my favorite albums of 2006 are fantastic. Neither sounds like anything else that permeated the airwaves in the middle of the 2000s. Both employed extreme songwriting talents and bands capable of maximizing those songs. I agonized over which was my favorite album of 2006 and would occupy more precious real estate toward the end of the book. The Decemberists, while their flights of fancy veer further into exotic realms, fit in well with the esoteric-but-accessible rock aesthetic that’s always occupied a place close to the center of my music tastes.

As often as I still spin “The Crane Wife”, which, more than a decade later, has become one of my son’s favorite albums as well, the one I first heard on a late-night bar crawl is the right answer.

What makes an album great? Is it a critical mass of good songs, united by a theme? Is it a showcase for a great voice and/or a talented band? Is it an artist’s lyrical and melodic interpretation of a moment in time?

I love Kula Shaker’s debut not because it was exactly the album that 1996 needed, but because it was exactly what I needed in 1996. A British band with Indian influences, equally informed by the classic rock I’d grown up with and the Britpop that was just penetrating my consciousness? And the frontman’s mom was in the first season of “Saved by the Bell”? Yes, please.

It didn’t hurt that Crispian Mills likely wrote these songs with 16-year-olds in mind. “Hey Dude” was unapologetic teen bravado. Citing “Tattva” as my favorite song made me feel worldly. “303” was air-guitar heaven.

That I loved an album in high school is not a meaningful criterion for inclusion in the book. I once loved Kula Shaker’s follow-up to this one, “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts”, but it’s hard to spin that one in 2019 without cringing now and then at the manufactured mysticism. Stone Temple Pilots appealed to my teenage brain but loaded their albums with enough filler to make Queen seem consistent in comparison. Cake took the same “sing for the kids” approach but didn’t take enough chances musically to hold up beyond the first summer.

I recognize that “K” is no world-renowned classic. If it came out in 2014, I may have lost track of it in a sea of quality new releases. But in 1996, Kula Shaker was my world, and a listen to “K” in 2019 brings me back to punishment ping-pong in friends’ basements, consumption of Swedish fish at dangerous levels, and my friends’ band turning their speakers to 11 to bang out “303”.

That’s my 822nd-favorite album.

Hi, folks. Welcome to the promotional site for my soon-to-be-released book, For the Record: My 1,000 Favorite Albums of all time.

If it’s not clear what this book will be about, here’s the synopsis I submitted with my copyright filing:

For the Record weaves a countdown of one amateur music critic’s 1,000 favorite albums with a collection of essays about the ways we consume popular music. The Beatles and Nina Simone share ink with Sleater-Kinney and Viktor Vaughn in a kitchen-sink trip through six decades of radio staples and indie nuggets.

After every 100 albums in the countdown, an essay explores a topic like biases that pervade commercial music rankings, the evolution of music distribution channels and its impact on the quantity of great music in different eras, and whether bands really suffer from a sophomore curse. Later chapters offer deep dives into which artists show up most and highest on the list, which musicians appear as members of multiple bands or projects, and which classic-caliber albums evade popular appeal and why.

Recommendations abound for readers stuck listening to the same playlist on every commute or at every party. Fans of jazz, classic rock, R&B, punk, indie, hip-hop, electronica, and even country will nod their heads at celebrations of their favorite records and find new music to bolster their collections.

I’ll introduce an album of the week feature here soon. Leave comments. Tell your friends. Let’s do this.