36

Back when I used to keep up this blog I had an annual tradition where I'd add another entry to my 'life lists' of books, film, and music. (If you are seeing this it probably means you still check in and, thus, already knew that!). Someday I just might fire up this blog again, so I figure I'll keep those lists active. So without much fanfare or further adieu, here are the 36th entries on my lists. Just my way of expressing gratitude to those things which have been a big part of my 36th year.

Albums I've Lived By

Arcade Fire - Funeral

This will forever be remembered as the year I (along with many) discovered Arcade Fire (a little later than most). I got the whole discography at once and though I loved them all and really enjoyed 'The Suburbs' it was 'Funeral' which resonated with me most both lyrically and musically. Already this album has ingrained itself upon my psyche to such a degree that I can hardly believe I hadn't really heard it until this year. When I saw the band live in Glasgow it was unforgettable. Between Laika and Wake Up, Rebellion (Lies) and Power Out, this album's songs carried the night for me.

Favourite Fiction

Richard Adams - Watership Down

For some reason (I don't know what compelled us) I picked this up and started reading it to my oldest this year. We were absolutely enraptured with it. One of the best books I've ever read, hands down. One day I was sick but he wanted to read it so bad he worked his way through a whole page reading to me aloud in bed (this book is full of very big words and he did very well).






Influential Non-Fiction

Willie James Jennings - The Christian Imagination

I wrote about this book at length in various places on the blog, such as here. I read a lot of great books this year, but this one triggered my thinking in new ways the most.

Possible runners up this year:
Karl Barth - The Epistle to the Romans
John Howard Yoder - Body Politics





Films that Stuck With Me

Gone Baby Gone

I would love to write about this more one day. I did so on facebook one time but can't figure out how to find it. The acting was brilliant. The story had twists and turns but still felt real and was gripping without being over the top. The sense of place was profound, and the storyline tugged at the mind and heart. I thought the end was poignantly filmed. Casey Affleck's character turns out to be something of a Christ figure, I think, and as he gives of him self one more time for this forgotten young girl the camera pans behind the TV that he's watching and we sense that the onus is on us if this world is going to get any better.

Indie Can Be Popular. Meet The Walkmen.

Hailing from New York City,

The Walkmen are:

Hamilton Leithauser (vocals, guitar)

Paul Maroon (guitar, piano)

Walter Martin (organ, bass)

Peter Bauer (bass, organ)

Matt Barrick (drums)

As a relatively new but hugely appreciative Arcade Fire listener, it was somewhat gratifying to see them receive widespread public recognition at the Grammy Awards last week - even though a Grammy is pretty much meaningless to me as an indicator of good music. It was ironic to see them play their 'corporate-angst' rock - complete with the line 'businessmen will drink my blood' - while a voice-over for Delta airlines took full advantage of the high viewership moment. It was also interesting to see how at peace the band seemed with such irony. Whatever other trappings there are, they seemed genuinely pleased.

Surely music can in some way be subversive of the very medium in which it is shared, and one can be glad that people are connecting with it. Period. I think it is a bit disingenuous when a band pretends it doesn't care whether anyone likes it or whether, indeed, a lot of people like it. Sure, I like bands that aren't caught up in such efforts at popularity, but there is no sense denying that you make music to be heard.

In that vein, I find the Walkmen interview below pretty insightful as well. They talk about wanting lots of people to like their music, wanting to play bigger and better shows, and so on - but they also (clearly) think it really important to themselves also like the music they play (see 13:50). Implicitly, they are saying that this would go away if they were simply making music for a broad appeal. Such is the bind of an artist.

I think The Walkmen are one of the most gifted bands around. The vocalist can soar, the guitar and bass are unique and yet not inaccessible, and the drummer is amazing (and entertaining to watch). Recently we were going around the table naming our top 5 musicians of all time and The Walkmen made my list. I was surprised that several had not heard of them (of course, neither would I if not for my brother). So I invite you to become familiar with them.

Here they play some stuff from the 2010 album Lisbon and answer a few quick questions:



Here they play a song from the 2004 album Bows + Arrows called "The Rat" - maybe one of my favourite songs of all time:



And here is a really cool video for the song "Four Provinces", from the 2008 album You & Me (which I think is their best):

Albums to Live By (5-1)

5. Switchfoot - Learning to Breathe

This honest, enjoyable rock music with song-writing comfortable (but not self-assured) in its own Christian skin came to me at a time when I was searching for such comfort, not to mention confidence, myself. Something about the genuine thoughtfulness mixed with humble optimism really hit home for me, and provided a few anthems for my inner life as a pastor. "Maybe redemption has stories to tell, maybe forgiveness is right where you fell." Something about being allowed that "maybe" compelled me to own it and move with the rest of it. I appreciate the forgiveness theology of Innocence Again and Learning to Breathe, the confession of Erosion, and the hopefulness of Living Simple. The latter song concludes the album nicely by building off of an ancient Simone Weil quote declaring the hope of the world:

"All, will be

made well, will be

made well, will be

made well, will be

made well. . . .

Is this fiction? Is this fiction?

The best gives himself to the worst?

Is this fiction? or divine comedy?

Where the last of the last is the first?"

4. The Choir - Free Flying Soul

"As the sign of the covenant dimmed in your sky, will we ever find gold? Follow all seven stripes across my eyes, am I young or old?"

Thus begins this this "organic" concept album which for years has retained for me a sense of freshness--not the freshness of a blast of air but of newly turned spring soil. I love the downright earthiness of this seamless collection of songs. Salamander, Slow Spin, The Ocean, and Butterfly are containers for every subtle but all the more profound expression of wonder and worship. These are not metaphors. The songs are about animals and things. Period. But as such (and precisely not as mere symbols) they are about so much more. Reminiscent of prayers of Francis of Assisi. Such an anomaly in the world of "Christian music".

My favourite song begins, "Listen to the warbler's melody", and continues: "You must believe it true, when I swear we're alive. Beware the deciever, he's a killer and a liar, your spirit and your eyes are on fire. Celebrate the wonder of lunar light. Listen how the coyote sings at the sight." The guitar parts beneath it are like rolling thunder or seismic activity. Remarkable stuff. It hits the soul through the body.

3. U2 - Achtung Baby

I grew up in the age of youth group videos that scared you away from rock'n'roll. Then in grade 11 my friend phoned in on a whim and got us floor seats to U2's Zoo TV tour. I had heard enough radio to know this would be an event. It was my introduction not only to U2 but to rock music in general. The concert was intended to be an unprecedented bombardment of the senses, everything rock and roll writ large. For me, multiply that effect times 10. I sometimes joke that this is my "other" conversion experience.

Anyway, I listened to this album again to remind me where it should be in my list and suddenly found myself coming back to it repeatedly. Even Better than the Real Thing, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, and One---these are epics of modern music that will always be under my skin. I can still remember goose bumps as Zoo Station crumbles to a start. I absolutely love the song about Judas: Until the End of the World. There are few songs as soaring as Love is Blindness. I can still imagine the Edge seizing 40,000 people at once with its arching solos to conclude the show that fateful November night in 1992!

2. Five Iron Frenzy - Our Newest Album Ever

This is the album that represents a whole crazy half-dozen-year episode of life and music that was the strange, upbeat, and smart ska and punk music phenomenon of the Christian sub-culture that was my early-to-mid 20s. I don't know how to explain what this band did for me. I think it helped find a new way with an old story. It was awesome to have people who shared the faith in such unstereotypical ways, writing music that was hopeful, honest, intelligent, and even fun (not something I normally go for in music).

The difference maker for me was that Reese Roper wrote some really great songs. I'm not sure I've enjoyed reading lyric sheets as much as I did these ones. So, when this band was about to call it quits, I still hadn't seen them, and so a couple good buddies of mine and I drove 35 straight hours to do so. It was worth it. I didn't care that I had to share the experience with a bunch of pre-teens. Every New Day live was a highlight of my life. That song just hits the deepest possible nerve. I'm not sure I even listened to ska all that much in the years after that concert, but a month later my son was born, and his middle name was Reese.

1. Michael Knott - Life of David

Michael Knott has fronted a number of bands and projects, most notably L.S. Underground. (LSU's Grace Shaker is an awesome album too, and I'm kicking myself it isn't on my list. Another one is The Grape Prophet Speaks, which is incredible). But the stuff that got me most was when Mike Knott went solo. This is the pinnacle of his musical achievements in my opinion. When I pick up a guitar to play it is 9 times out of 10 to play a song off this album.

Life of David contains confessions and laments that resonate with the Psalmist without borrowing any words directly. Lots of times it is artful and not overt, and it lets the music take care of things, evocatively. Other times it just comes out and says it:

From The Chameleon:

"I am the adultress,

And the penitent man,

I'm the cunning culprit,

And the little lamb.

I love all God's creatures,

All but one.

This chameleon."

From Halo:

"Hell no . . .

I don't mind if your halo don't glow

like it used to glow

I don't care if you change your mind

every tempting road

She's always reaching out for heaven

Says its a hard place to find

I swear and say its everywhere

Freed is the taker's line..."

For more on Michael Knott, here are some links. Picture. Paintings.

As for my list, well, that does it! Thanks for reading along.

34 Albums to Live By (10-6)

10. U2 - Zooropa

With the exception of the songs Babyface and Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car this album has somehow been my companion in every era of my life. Stay (Faraway So Close) and Dirty Day are great songs, but are bested still by The First Time and The Wanderer. Both these songs have unforgettable lines of pilgrimage put to ominously genuine tunes. Lines like: "Stopped outside a church-house / Where the citizens like to sit / They say they want the Kingdom / But they don't want God in it / Yeah I went with nothing / Nothing but the thought of you / I went wandering."

9. Brian Doerksen & Vineyard - Hungry

I admit I have a love-hate relationship with worship music. Probably Brian Doerksen and Stuart Townend are the song-writers in this genre I respect the most, and Vineyard music was pretty instrumental in my early years of Christian adulthood. Delirious had a double album that made some waves in my life at one point too. But this is the only worship CD I ever listen to anymore. Your Name is Holy is my favourite. It and Hungry remind me of a memorable Youth Conference at college as well. But it is songs like Humble King that, instead of being b-side drivel, likely give the album its staying power.

8. Joel Plaskett - In Need of Medical Attention

This album was written largely from a hospital bed. It closes with the songs Goodbye World and Goodbye, Doctor, and begins with the lines: "I'm sorry father, I didn't want to be the one, to tell you about the news of your son, he was a failure, second to none, and that's not all." Can it get more grippingly authentic and pared down to the soul than this? I think the highlight of the album for me is the song Powerful Lights, where he sings his wish "to hear somebody's voice, other than my own" and two other voices close out the song echoing "other than my own" back and forth. Remarkable.

7. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head

This is epic. This album accompanied us through those first months of parenthood, and is a fantastic piece of work besides. Surely you've heard it.

6. Consider the Ravens

My brother has done some really good stuff with Dave McGregor in The Young Wire Wicks (including an EP that only leaves one begging for more) as well as more of his own stuff since his first few concerts with Nathan Davies as Consider the Ravens. See the links in my sidebar if you want to track that stuff down. But he threw together a CD a few years back which combined one of their shows with some other songs of his own and I just have always sat in amazement of it. The songs really have seeped into me. Ghost at the Window is an eerie epic that gives me the same feeling as a great Dylan song. Alone Together, Lost in Translation, and the live version of I Can't Stand are all gorgeous songs. I can't get over Frankenstein either, from the first lines to the last: "Come to life you wretched no-man / The breath, the ghost of God . . . . Don't come to me for joy / Because I'm lost in the race to be a better man." I suppose it is typical to put your brother in a list like this. But I'd be lying if I didn't put his music high on my list of musical influences.

34 Albums to Live By (20-11)

20. Ryan Adams - Love is Hell

At the end of the day I'm not sure I agree with the title, but I get it. The 16 songs on this album are, every single one of them, just awesome. Shadowlands is deeply moving, and at a certain period of life really found me where I was at and kept me going. Wonderwall makes something new of something old in a brilliant way. And Please Do Not Let Me Go, My Blue Manhattan and Hotel Chelsea Nights are perhaps the most relaxing songs imaginable. I come back to them often.

19. The 77's - Sticks and Stones

Michael Roe and the 77s modelled genuine faith to me, and guided me in many ways through my coming of age. I really ought to write them and thank them. From the heart-wrenching Bottom Line to the saddest song I've ever heard, Don't This Way, Roe knew just how to get real about the struggle. And yet with songs like Nowhere Else and The Days to Come he was speaking out of a very real hope. By the time the song God Sends Quails gets to the repeated refrain "You've can't go back" and resolves, almost relents, into the soft but growing response "You can go on" I'm past suspecting mere sentimentalism and am open to belief. You should read the lyrics to that one. Michael Roe reminds me of Johnny Cash, except no one knows about him. His song 'Til Jesu Comes is on a solo album, but bears mention in such a list nonetheless.

18. Damien Jurado - Waters Ave S.

This is a pretty raw early Jurado album that sunk itself into my psyche my third year of college when I was really finding my legs (shakily) as a human being and potential leader of some sort. Notables are Treasures of Gold and Sarah and such slivers of life as Yuma, Arizona and Wedding Cake. These songs are like the soundtrack to some of the hardest months of one of the greatest years of my life.

17. Sixpence None the Richer - This Beautiful Mess

Classic. This band made a bit of a name for itself but in my opinion never bested this its sophomore release. Circle of Error, The Garden, Disconnect, and Drifting--all these songs are irreplaceable aspects of my life. There was a heartfelt searching and honesty about this album that was a breath of fresh air to my experience of Christianity and in many ways, along with the 77s, another mentor in my burgeoning faith. I think it was with these bands that I first began to appreciate the value of true lament.

16. The Tragically Hip - Up to Here

There were a couple years there where The Hip had their finger on the pulse of teenage life in Canada, or at least in Lower Mainland, British Columbia. It was like their songs coursed through our veins. Fully Completely is probably the album most of my peers would identify with most typically from that era, but it their first album, Up to Here, that I called my own. New Orleans Is Sinking made them famous, but its the b-sides of this cassette that had me hitting rewind and starting over on those many road trips and nights working meaningless jobs in high school. Great stuff.

15. The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Down at the Khyber

I wish I'd known about Joel Plaskett years ago. How anyone can be a Canadian and not know about (and thus love) this musical treasure is a tragedy. Down at the Khyber is a masterpiece of rock and roll, I kid you not. True Patriot Love is the new national anthem, Light of the Moon is an epic up there with the best of them, and Unconditional Love just shows that Joel is not a lyrical or musical pretender but an absolutely talented vocalist and guitar player and a purely enjoyable and thoughtful singer/songwriter. This album would be up there on a list of albums I'd want on a desert island. Musically marooned in Scotland its been like a lifeline to home.

14. Ryan Adams - Gold

Although Love is Hell may stand better as an entirety, this has three of my favourite Ryan Adams songs of all time and thus carries the day. La Cienega Just Smiled, Wildflowers, and Rescue Blues--these are glorious songs.

13. U2 - Boy

I don't know how it is but I am pretty sure this album was recorded in Narnia. Not the Disney Narnia, but the one in your head when you first read the books as a child. I think my conviction in this regard has to do with the fact that I first bought this album around the time when I decided to read the books again as an adult. There is also the song Shadows and Tall Trees and the overall magical quality to the album which doesn't hurt either. Some of the best U2 songs of all time are on their first album: Out of Control, Stories for Boys, and An Cat Dubh/Into the Heart.

12. Matthew A. Wilkinson - Sinners

This is not an attempt at flattering or plugging one of this blogs most faithful readers. Sinners is a fantastic album. Here is a link where you can go listen to it. You will be really glad if you do. I don't often force people to sit an listen to an entire album with me at once but I did so in this case with a good friend at seminary and he was hooked. When the last five years are said and done there are few albums which would evoke as many memories for me as this one. The songs (especially the first five) fit back to back so well and create an ethos so flawlessly that the whole has the feel of a thoroughly accessible concept album.

11. Radiohead - OK Computer

This is probably the best rock album of all time. Let Down is probably the best song of all time. It has overlapping guitar parts with different time signatures, of all things! Sounds amazing. Mention here should likely be made of Kid A and Hail to the Thief, two other Radiohead albums I can't get enough of, but which somehow aren't listed here.

And with that the ground is broken for my top 10, perhaps even more scattered than this 10, which will come along in a week or so. . . .

34 Albums to Live By (34-21)

On my 30th birthday I sent a thank you email to 30 people who'd meant a lot to me up to that date. Ever since I've extended the sentiment toward the arts by annually creating a tribute list to the film, fiction, and now music that has shaped my life. This year: 34 albums I've lived by.

Most of the following became important to me for pretty subjective reasons, but that's not to say I don't highly recommend every single one of them. Anyway, here it is:

34. Bob Dylan - Modern Times

This lyrical genius has over 34 albums of his own worthy of mention, but this recent one, as a whole, has just bled itself into the last few years, injecting a kind of easy-going concern. Spirit on the Water, Thunder on the Mountain--it has sort of an epic calm and maturity about it that I only wish I could begin to reflect.


33. Bleach - Again, For the First Time

This band toured the youth group music scene for awhile when I was really into that, and had one concert in particular that was a fun night for me. They broke up without leaving any real great musical masterpiece, until they just kind of got together again to throw this thing together. It made for several summers of just plain fun windows-down rock and roll for me and my wife. The last two songs, Andy's Doin' Time and Knocked Out, are quite special to me, but quite frankly this is just a surprisingly fantastic, short, simple rock album.

32. Phoenix - Its Never Been Like That

Another fun rock album. One our kids really enjoyed with us, which was fun and has given some great memories. Our older two boys heard several of the songs so often they tried to sing them themselves on numerous occasions. Especially Napoleon Says and Consolation Prizes. I was in a melancholy-lament-music-only phase for awhile there, and this album snapped me out of the overdose and made me sing with the windows down again.

31. Collective Soul - Dosage

My interest in this band died off after awhile, but this album was their best, and has stuck for many years. The last song, Crown, is pretty remarkable stuff, and I have played it along with a sermon on several occasions because it helps me say so much of what I think worth saying; and have even more often needed hearing.


30. Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites

August and Everything After got ridiculous amounts of play time, but this album is the one that lasted for me. Great energy and optimism (which I have needed often enough), without being naive or shallow (which would pretty much ruin it for me). Another pretty quintessential modern rock album, if you ask me.


29. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Bryjin

I'd love to have been at the wedding where the bride walked up the aisle to Staralfur. Geniuses were married that day. What a perfectly beautiful song. A fitting climax to a magical album. I do a lot of reading and writing, and this album has accompanied me in and through "the zone" many times. Don't be freaked away by the odd album cover and the indiscernible lyrics--this band is one of the best things to happen to music these past couple decades.

28. Sufjan Stevens - Come on Feel the Illinoise

A symphonic journey that feels like it could either be a really whimsical joke or a touch of the transcendent, and is probably best described as both. Something about this album just stirs my whole body, mind, and soul. From John Wayne Gacy, Jr. to The Predatory Wasp of the Pallisades is Out to Get Us! there are songs both haunting and joyous scattered all throughout this thing. And in Chicago, when the choir sings "we've made a lot of mistakes" and "you came to take us", I feel like I'm closer to real confession and worship than a great many church songs have ever taken me.

27. Patrick Watson - Close to Paradise

This album has an ethos. Saw them live and it was a really unique, intimate concert experience. At one point Watson was standing on a table in the middle of the crowd singing through cupped hands with nothing but the glow of people's cell-phones lighting him up. I remember one morning a bunch of us were on a road trip and had to get to a conference and were stuck in traffic and were strung out from no sleep and this album brought peace and tranquility back into our lives. Its that kind of music. Canadian too. I love The Great Escape, Luscious Life and The Gift.

26. Coldplay - Parachutes

I absolutely love the song Everything's Not Lost. I can even get worked up about it. Don't Panic is a wonderful opener too. My boys singing along to it is pretty priceless: They call it "sinking like stones" (from the first couple lines). Yellow gets overplayed, but that's because it is a great song; the single that catches your attention for the lilting wonder of the other songs like We Never Change.



25. Tom Petty - Wildflowers

A couple of my friends and I were big Petty fans in high school. I could have chosen a couple of his older albums, but this one has a light, deep, melancholy peace about it, from start to finish. Songs like Time to Move On have seen me through many moves and transitions and times of stress---especially the verse-ending line: "Most things I worry about, never happen anyway." Classic.

24. The Walkmen - You & Me

This is a unique album from a couple years ago that was in my ears a lot around about some of the hardest parts of the PhD application process last year. It kind of has this mood to it like ascending a dark mountain, not sure but suspecting the sun may just be behind the hill. I distinctly remember I had this album on the whole drive home after I was sure I'd failed my GRE exam and all was lost. I also always think he's summoning me by name in Donde Esta La Playa when he sings "Well its back to the battle today / But I wouldn't have it any other way / Cuz tonight, we'll be as crazy as Kooks [Coutts?]."

23. Neil Young- Sleeps with Angels

A friend here in Scotland tells me that Neil Young is one of Canada's greatest exports. I believe him. My friend in high school swore by Harvest Moon but I picked Sleeps With Angels up at a used record store and never let it go. I should say it never let go of me. Just listening to this takes me back to my days bombing around delivering pizza and wondering what life had in store. Change Your Mind is a 15 minute epic, Piece of Crap is a hilarious but true "venting" against commercialism, and Safeway Cart is a song that goes way deeper than the title could ever suggest. In it is one of my favourite lines of all time: "Like a safeway cart rollin' down the street/like a sandal mark on the Saviour's feet." Beautiful.

22. Sigur Ros - Hvarf Heim

Some music accompanies high moments or great memories. Some sees you through tough times and then is there for you afterward as you move on. This is one of the latter. In fact, the video they released along with it, which follows them on a free concert tour in their gorgeous homeland of Iceland, literally stills my anxiety and makes me love humanity again. Hyperbole? Maybe. Wonderful music though.

21. U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind

This is arguably their best record. It was pretty popular, for good reason. Part of the greatness of this album is its timing and its tone. I am not sure I'll ever forget U2's halftime show at the post-9/11 Superbowl, nor the morning of 9/12 when the normally sleazy morning-DJ of a local pop radio station was nearly in tears introducing the suddenly potent song Peace on Earth as the terror the world knows so well began to hit home. From Beautiful Day to New York to Grace, this album mixes lamentation with hope like I imagine few could.

To be clear, these aren't necessarily the top 34 I'd have in my playlist right now or even my naive idea of a top 34 all time albums (though some would qualify), rather, these are 34 albums which have most pressed themselves into my life and stuck. The order of this list is debatable, but I've really tried to be fair to the music of my past, and even if I never listen to it anymore, I have tried to honor the hold it had on me for a time.

As a result I've had a good time reminiscing the last few months about this. As I've done so, some old music has re-impressed itself upon me and revived itself in my ears. I highly recommend such a reflective exercise. Music is a wonderful thing. I'm sure you can relate.

I've really appreciated these 34 albums, for one reason or another. I'll get to the rest of the list later . . .

Best Rock Album of Our Time

Being music month at this side of sunday and all, I'm going to make a bold statement here:

Radiohead's OK Computer is the greatest rock album of my lifetime (post-1975).

I would say it is the best rock album of all time, but I don't feel equipped to make such a call. I can appreciate the Beatles and Dylan albums of the past (and do, immensely) but I don't know if I fully get how awesome and ground-breaking they were in their time; how mind-blowing they would have been for their first listeners; how epically they spoke to their time and brought their hearers to new levels of sonic enchantment and excitement.

But I put Radiohead's OK Computer on again about a week ago and have not been able to stop listening to it. It is just an unbelievable album. It sounds like a concept album but every song can also stand alone as a masterpiece of its own. Of course the music industry is too spread out and demographic-ized and genre-riddled for us to ever have another Beatle-mania, but I think that on a musical level Radiohead is our generation's Beatles. Just when you thought every chord-progression had been tapped out and rock n' roll had reached the point of perpetual recycling, in 1997 Radiohead took you to new places you didn't know existed. I didn't actually listen to this album until 2001 or so, but you get the point. It is never too late to have your life changed.

The 53+ minute, 12 track album begins with Airbag, Paranoid Android, Subtarranean Homesick Alien, and Exit Music (For a Film)---and by the time Exit Music is over one gets the feeling that had it been a 4 song EP it still might be among the best rock albums of all time. I'm not sure if Exit Music was ever the closing-credits-song for a particular film or not, but just listening to the song makes a person feel as if they've just seen an amazing movie. Listening to this song alone would be a better movie-going experience than most movies you actually have to sit through.

Though these first four tracks could stand alone, the album is just getting going. Let Down just might be one of the favourite songs of my life. There are two guitar parts played on different time signatures which catch up to one another every once in awhile and the overlapping effect gives a unity and diversity to the song that just keeps you coming back for more.

This is followed by Karma Police, which is just as musically moving, and includes the intriguing lyric "Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio." It then moves into a chorus which gladly always get stuck in my head on my way to a soccer game: "This is what you get, this is what you get, this is what you get, when you meeeeeesss with us!" This is balanced by the other chorus, which says: "For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself." I just love this song.

Fitter Happier is what seems at first to be a throwaway spoken-word track (in a computerized voice), but which deserves the label of poetry in the highest sense of the term. I can honestly say that I've never skipped this track. It is vital to an album which, as wikipedia puts it, exposes and "emphasises common themes such as consumerism, social disconnection, political stagnation and modern malaise." But it does it with a seemingly random assortment of words, instead of that academic sounding mumbo-jumbo.

The rest of the album is exceptional, at times even beautiful, and I won't go into each track. Probably the only song I don't like all that much is Electioneering, but having said that I think its lyrics quite poignant. Almost inevitably, by the time I've come through tracks nine to twelve---Up the Walls, No Surprises, Lucky, and The Tourist---I am literally shaking my head with amazement at what I've just heard and am more than likely compelled to start it all over again. Think I'm exagerrating? Set aside an hour, turn off the lights, put on some headphones or crank it up, and hear for yourself.

Sure, albums can get old, and this one gets put on the shelf for a time like any other. But if its been awhile, or if you've never heard this album, give it a go again and tell me if I'm wrong. Best rock album of our time.

(By the way, I was thinking of doing a top ten list to go with this, but it kind of dissolves into subjectivity after two or three selections (and who can pretend to have heard them all). Nonetheless, I'd love to hear other suggestions for best rock album of all time, besides OK Computer of course!)