Having suggested that people writing reviews for BlogCritics ought to post "favorite album" lists to provide some context for their reviews, I suppose I'm obliged to post such a list myself. Of course, being a naturally contrary sort, I'll do this in a slightly idiosyncratic manner.

As noted in another recent post, I have some fairly strong opinions on what constitutes a good album, that go beyond just having three or four good singles. A really great album is a collection of songs that all work together, and add up to something more than the sum of the individual tunes-- mediocre songs should be lifted up in the context of a really great album, and sound better than they would on their own. It's also crucial that none of the songs be actively bad or annoying.

I've sometimes referred to this (with characteristic humility) as the "Perfect Album" concept, but it's a little tricky to concisely nail down exactly what I mean. It's important that all of the songs be at least reasonably good, so I've sometimes said "They're records on which all the tracks are good" or "They're records you can put on 'Random Play' in a CD changer without needing to skip tracks," but there's more to it than that-- you can make a good shuffle-play album out of a dozen tracks that all sort of sound the same, and don't really suck. Buffalo Tom has a few such albums, to pick a name off the MP3 collection, but none of them make the Perfect Album list. It's important that the songs all fit together well, which is part of why I exclude "Greatest Hits" packages from consideration, but live albums are off the list as well, just to be difficult.

I should emphasize that this isn't really a "favorite albums" list per se, or a good indicator of the sort of thing I play most frequently. There are lots of albums that make regular appearances in my CD player that aren't listed below, usually because of one or two actively irritating tracks, some of them great records by almost any standard. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan, but Blonde On Blonde misses out because "Rainy Day Women" is so goddamn annoying, and Highway 61 Revisited doesn't make it because "Ballad of a Thin Man" bugs me. It's also limited to records I actually own, so while there's a chance that Born to Run or London Calling might belong on the list, the fact that I don't have them on CD disqualifies them from consideration. And all the usual disclaimers apply: Tastes Vary, all IMAO, YMMV. HTH, HAND.