Some people spend their whole lives preparing the answer to this question: What albums are on your personal all-time Top 10 list?
Tori Amos: Toss-up between Little Earthquakes* and Scarlet’s Walk
Vertical Horizon: Everything You Want*
Aimee Mann: Lost In Space*
Conan the Barbarian Soundtrack
Liz Phair: Somebody’s Miracle
Garbage: Garbage
Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience
The Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack. (The special edition has some decent covers, too, though only the Fiona Apple version of Sally’s song really made an impression.)
Nina Gordon: Toss-up between Tonight and the Rest of My Life and Bleeding Heart Graffiti
Evanescence: Evanescence (I almost listed the Rent cast album instead, but when I thought about it, there’s still a lot of recitative on the recording.)
This is mostly in no particular order, but the ones that came to mind immediately are marked with asterisks. I made a point not to list more than one album by the same artist, but it was tough to pick a favorite Tori album — and I can’t quite choose between the two Nina Gordon albums.
Overall, these just don’t have a single bad track on them. Though I’ll admit I don’t have “Me and a Gun” in rotation on my playlist — it’s just not a song you want to hear unexpectedly…kind of like Vienna Teng’s “Passage.”