These are my personal collection’s top 10:
1. Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland
My best friend Chris was killed in a car accident when we were 20. We played this album over and over, and over, and over. I’ve bought better copies over the years, but this one is the one I can touch sometimes, and touch him, remembering that we’ve both touched it so many times. Smelling vinyl reminds me of the stereo in front of my bed with records underneath it. This album epitomizes the times I sat in front of that stereo and listened to records with Chris. We would discuss the finer points of Hendrix solos, guitars, albums, album years, his life, and dream. We loved this album together.
2. Meet the Beatles – Mono
3. Beatles Second Album – Mono
—-> Beatles concert program 1965 USA Summer Tour
My mother bought an estate at auction, of a nurse who died without family or a will, in order to furnish a second home. I saw these two albums plus the concert program and asked to have them. She gave them to me, and I’ve treasured them for years. I played this album twice, once with a glass of wine with my wife, and once while my friends Glen and John were over listening to records. Otherwise they’re just in archival plastic not touched.
I often wonder why she had them, if she bought them new, and if she was at one of those legendary 1965 concerts, which only happened between August 15, 1965 and August 31, 1965 with 11 shows.
4. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, Reissue on 180g
I bought two of these. For my friend John and Laura’s wedding present, we gave them this album with tickets inside to Roger Waters performing live version of Dark Side of the Moon, and said that we were going to go with them. We said that we’d do all the driving and not to worry about that. We arrived at their house in a limo and the four of us went to an incredible Roger Waters show.
Forever forward, John and Laura, and Shirley and I have this connection to this album. Every so often I get a package in the mail that has a prism, or a cut out, or something having to do with Dark Side. See, we didn’t know at the time, but Laura’s mom, now deceased, said that she listened to this album while giving birth to Laura, and how much her mom loved the album, so on… and now Laura listens to Dark Side and feels a connection to her mom. I’m glad to have had a part in her connection to her mom, during the show, afterward, and now.
This album is among my favorite audiophile recordings of probably the best recording ever cut on vinyl.
5. Thin Lizzy, Jailbreak
Every-time my friend Glen would come over to have some beers and listen to music, he’d ALWAYS throw this particular version of Thin Lizzy’s album on and listen to Jailbreak. It got to the point where we memorized the skips in the record so much that it became “our” version of the songs. John would sing it including the skips when we’d hear the normal version. I tried to take a picture of the huge gouges on the vinyl. I don’t know why it’s so beat up, I don’t remember treating this album any different than my other albums.
6. Kid Rock, Devil Without a Cause
This is the album my wife and I played when I started listening to vinyl again. I suppose I started buying and listening to vinyl again around 1998 when my friend Sean turned me on to some of the garage/stoner rock releases on vinyl. I went to shows and started buying the vinyl on the shwag tables. At a record store one day last century, Shirl said “ooh get this Kid Rock album”, and I said OK. So over the years we’ve put it on, always in a festive, partying mood, and it’s carried us through the years always singing along and guzzling beers. This album reminds me of some of the great times I’ve had listening to music with my wife.
7. Goatsnake Flowers of Disease
As I just mentioned, my friend Sean and I would go to a lot of stoner/garage shows over the years. We particularly loved Goatsnake. This album reminds me of a lot of good times, listening, and discussing music with Sean. He turned me on to a whole lot of great music. He has a taste that differs from mine a lot. I like musicianship, and Sean likes emotion. An artist can be totally out of key, or poorly recorded, or otherwise unlistenable to me, and Sean doesn’t even hear any of that. What a gift, to overlook the outside and truly see the inside of music. He also does that with people.
8. Sleep, Dopesmoker
This is an epically unlistenable record. Which is exactly why it’s on the list. I bought it Matt Pike at a High on Fire show. The song Dopesmoker is over an hour long, and split among 3 sides. The first side is almost all a drum introduction to the rest of the song. That in itself is worth buying this album. He also explained that they put the moon in the center of the gatefold in order to facilitate the rolling of illicit substances, i.e. a light background so that smaller, green particles can clearly be seen. The fact that the original label wouldn’t publish it, for the cited unlistenable reason, and that they fought to release it anyway (locked in legal battles with London Records), and held out for over almost 10 years, and that this song is reputedly the very reason the band broke up, is worth including this album in the top 10, for sure!
9. Big Black, Songs about Fucking
Way back in 1991, my friends John and Doug and I were like the three musketeers. We explored boundaries in music, life, emotion, and everything else 20 somethings do with newfound freedoms while in Europe. We discovered this band, Big Black, with frontman Steve Albini, who went on to produce many great bands. We listened to this album as if we were studying it for some hidden message, with the vigor of Charles Manson waiting for his message from the Beatles. This was unlike anything we’d ever heard before. It was a gift from beyond. It’s sloppy, angry, meaningful, artistic, avant garde, and so much more. I bought this particular album much later, at a friend’s record store, but it reminds me of Germany, in my little room, paying such close attention to this album. It’s a timepiece, a memory holder of our time together. Hey, the album is pretty good too 
10. Kiss, Alive II
I think I was 7 years old when I bought Kiss Alive II. I carried this album with me since. I used to play the album and pretend I was either Gene or Ace with a broom for a guitar, and I think that was when I got my first guitar, so sometimes I’d be Gene or Ace with an acoustic. My mom dressed me up as Gene one year for halloween, which I won for “most scariest”; the judges didn’t know who Kiss was. I would put this on and open the gatefold on my bed and pretend I was in Kiss. I believed, while this album played, in my head, that I was actually Kiss – in the way only kids can believe-pretend. I was lost in this album, in the fantasy that was Kiss, the music transported me to rock stardom, and I actually believed that the members of Kiss were supernatural figures from somewhere else, each with a “persona”. I dreamed I was at that concert, over and over, until I discovered Jimi Hendrix and became friends with Chris.
So when I see and touch this album it reminds me of my first idea of rock stardom, my first idea of rock and roll, an over-the-top fantasy world where all the girls love you, your spike boots can kill nemeses, and guitars should be played with one hand in the air.
This list was a lot harder than when thought about posting it. I thought, “oh hey, top 10… that means my favorite albums, that I happen to own on vinyl…” Unbeknownst to myself, my favorite albums don’t have much to do with the actual music on them. It’s ironic, and self actualizing, that I put experiences on the vinyl in my collection. I thought that I liked my records because of the music that was recorded on them, but I actually place memories, and friends, inside the same part of my head that enjoys music. I’ve always just thought that it would be in the same part of my brain where good books reside – that they’re just my favorites because I liked them. Actually what’s happened is that I enjoy music that I’ve shared with those closest to me.
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