☆ Favourite Albums Of All Time (Part 1)

Originally I was going to make a list of my top albums from 2024, but the problem I ran into was that 2/3 of my top albums have posts made for them already on here. As such I decided to pivot and make a post about all my top albums of all time. These aren't in any particular order. All links will be Youtube ones for accessibility.

Amputechture By The Mars Volta

This album has been a long time favourite of mine. I was introduced to this album in 2021 I believe and it kickstarted my attachment to one of my favourite genres of all time, Progressive. Amputechture is a Progressive rock album centering around themes of religious apocalypse. It's sounds are a cacophony of anger and desperation that's truly a unique listening experience. Most people don't meet this album where it stands in my experience though as it's songs tend to be on the longer side, one even going to 16 minutes. If you decide to give this one a chance it will engulf you in it's twisted arrangements, entangling you in it's grasp. 

Favourite Track

 Day of the Baphomets

Favourite Lyrics

'Unwrap my corpse

And let it thaw

In the eye of the needle

I can't get out

They'll check my wrist

I'll faint a pulse

I'm not the human

You thought I was'

From Tetragrammaton

If you are going to give any song off this album a listen I hope it's my personal favourite. Coming in at a whooping nearly 12 minutes this song is an EXPERIENCE. It will drag you through the pits of hell. Multiple arrangement switches, multiple vocal styles and even a bongo solo towards the end. It's an experience and a half. Other songs I highly suggest would be Tetragrammaton and Meccamputechture.

Gizmodgery By Self

My tag line when trying to sell this album to people is to compare it to the stylings of Lemon Demon, but that's a truly accurate representation. Gizmodgery is an album entirely made with only toy instruments. As such it has this kind of plucky retro vibe to some of it, almost bordering on midi-esk background instrumentals. The topics aren't your usual ones either, most of the songs being a bit bizarre in different ways. This album came out in 2000s and yet I never hear anyone talking about it. This is one of the most slept on albums on my top albums list, which is saying a lot as some of these albums are by artists with only 10k-100k monthly listeners or even less on platforms like Spotify. Recently some of the songs have began to get a bit more popular with their introduction into pop culture through things like animatics, which I am not mad about. Listen to this album you won't regret it.

Favourite Song

Pattycake

Favourite Lyrics

'Let's pretend

It's 1978, we're playing Pattycake

And Baker's Man

Let's pretend

The popsicles we ate all gave us stomach aches

On our neighbor's lawn'

From Pattycake

Spirit Phone by Lemon Demon

Speaking of lemon Demon... Queer person loves Spirit Phone, fork found in kitchen honestly. This album just can't be shamed out of me though despite the fact that it's such an obvious pick. I have a deep seeded interest in parapsychology and ufology that wraps into this album delicately. Back in 2019 I had a huge hyperfixation on Invader Zim, aliens, retro arcades etc.. Through a tumblr post of some art of Dib Membrane I found 'Touch Tone Telephone' off of this very album and fell in love. Little did I know it was about to become a staple of the most obnoxious chronically online person you knows playlists for characters that don't fit the lyrics at all. No matter what I just can't leave this album behind, it's 80s vibe and esoteric topics hook me in even 6 years later after my first listen.

Favourite song 

When He Died

Favourite Lyrics

'Don't hang up yet, I'm not done

I'm an expert, I'm the one

The one who was right all along

Better to be laughed at than wrong'

From Touch Tone Telephone

Traveling Without Moving By Jamiroquai

This album is another recently picking up steam with the memes that have emerged about the song Virtual Insanity, but I have been a fiend for the psychedelic funk that Jamiroquai is still making to this day since 2020. With this album it really was a moment of being like 'okay I need at least one Jamiroquai album on my top albums list, which do I pick?' and this one came out on top. There are some tracks on here that some people may find a bit strange, but I have deep media and emotional associations with. For example the track Didjerama. This song reminds me of one of my favourite pieces of media of all time, Just Roll with it; Blood in the Bayou. It's a Call of Cthulhu horror live play Mini campaign in the JRWI podcast. The hypnotic, droning sounds mixed with that of the outdoors always makes me think of the bayou in the podcast, horrors lurking just below it's surface. It makes me skin crawl. Perhaps this album is one of those ones that's just for me.

Favourite Track

High Times

Favourite Lyrics

'Summer in your smile,

Well it makes me feel

So real.

(So real)'

From Alright

Forever by Mystery Skulls

A pivotal experience I think many around my age that had internet access remember is seeing the video 'Ghost by Mystery Skulls Animated', it was definitely one that I at least had. When I was about 13 years old I was in my uncle's suite connected to my aunt's house and he wanted to show me something cool. He proceeded to put that video on and it completely changed me. Years later I rediscovered Mystery Skulls and the continued animated series based on their music and fell once more in love with it all. This is one of the most important Synth-Pop albums of ALL TIME in my incredibly biased opinion. I think that it holds up over a decade later. The blend of electronic and synth over violin, piano and multiple other more classical instruments is fucking BRILLIANT. Even now as I listen to it once more while writing this post it invokes all the emotions I have felt over the years while listening to this album and experiencing it time and time again. It's a must listen, with no exceptions. A front to back listen of Forever is something everyone needs to experience at one point or another, I just so happened to have mine while I was in the most formative portion of my development. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Favourite Track

The Future

Favourite Lyrics

'The spell you got on me, it's like magic

Got me feeling like falling in love

Got me feeling like I'll never give up on

Got me feeling like I'll never give up on you

It's like magic'

From Magic

1 by The NYchillharmonic

I have already made a full length post about this album so I'm going to link it below but go on more so about my favourite track and such and save the explanation for my full length recommendation for this album. I will say though for those not feeling like clicking and reading a more comprehensive look at this album that this is a small modern 21 piece orchestra from New York that deserves every little bit of attention it gets. 

My Full Length Blog About The NYchillharmonic

Favourite Track

Blumen

Favourite Lyrics

'Under land and over seas

Endless possibilities

I believe in what I see

Reflected staring back at me'

From Wax Garden

Silo by The Altogether

What if I told you that Brian David Gilbert of Polygon and Youtube fame actually was one of two lead male vocalists for a gentle folk/jazz inspired band with some of the most beautiful songs you may ever hear... Would you believe that? Because it's absolutely true. BDG I believe has since left The Altogether since the release of Silo, but he was in this album and his voice is sweet honey. It is so nice to see him put his talent for singing into a serious endeavor for once. This album is gentle... This album is sun through a window on a summer morning while you lay under the covers with your beloved, this album is butterflies and grass fields. A couple years ago I was introduced to this album and it has since still held romantic importance to me. When I think about love and all those gentle fluttery feelings this album is the first thing to come to mind. 

Favourite Track

Follow Through

Favourite Lyrics

'And I seem to be in a haze

Entranced with how the light plays

Within your hair, a love affair

Of fireflies'

From Follow Through

Creature by Ask My Bull

One day I was sitting on the bus perusing Spotify's suggested albums for me when I spotted this album cover pictured above. I click and choose the song catfish just to see what's up. I'm met with this messy tangled chaotic fusion of jazz instruments. It feels as if the music itself is having a fist fight half the time. Truly there isn't enough jazz instrumental music with electric guitar in it these days. Creature is a lyric-less progressive jazz...rock album? It's a bit hard to explain. You only really come to understand Creature by experiencing it. This album feels like it's playing with you in a macabre manner, toying with your ears as it goes on. Some of the songs make me feel this unexplainable horror, almost as if i could throw up from the tension building deep inside me any moment. It's so sad that one of the only things Ask My Bull is known for is their work with Vewn on 'Catopolis', a popular Youtube animation they made music for a couple years ago. Even then their work isn't even recognized for that unless you look into it. If any of this has interested you PLEASE go listen to creature.

Favourite Track

Army of Swans

This is it for the time being, I started this expecting I would be able to put them all into one post, But I ended up writing this for multiple hours. I will create a second part in the coming days. If you listen to any of these albums tell me down below what you thought, though ultimately my posts are more so for my friend Marmalade and my partner Hotel4Frogs.

Until next time my friends!