1.21 Gigawatts!

Inspired by a posting on The Onion's A.V. Club, I have compiled a list of my favorite album releases for each year I've been alive. In compiling this (with the help of Wikipedia listings of albums released in given years), I realized a few things, including (but not limited to):

• Most of my favorite music is older than I am,
• I don't really listen to all that many full albums (I had to have listened to the whole thing for it to be considered), and
• There were some really dry years (musically speaking).

At any rate, here's the list.

1983: X, More Fun in the New World
1984: Yngwie Malmsteen, Rising Force
1985: "Weird Al" Yankovic, Dare To Be Stupid
1986: Genesis, Invisible Touch
1987: Guns N' Roses, Appetite for Destruction
1988: "Weird Al" Yankovic, Even Worse
1989: Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw and the Cooked
1990: Social Distortion, Social Distortion
1991: Nirvana, Nevermind
1992: Dada, Puzzle
1993: Junior Brown, Guit With It
1994: Weezer, Weezer (The Blue Album)
1995: Tears For Fears, Raoul and the Kings of Spain
1996: Hootie and the Blowfish, Fairweather Johnson
1997: The Aquabats, The Fury of the Aquabats!
1998: Shakira, ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones?
1999: John Williams, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace soundtrack
2000: Flogging Molly, Swagger
2001: Cake, Comfort Eagle
2002: Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights
2003: The Darkness, Permission To Land
2004: The Hives, Tyrannosaurus Hives
2005: Electric Six: Señor Smoke
2006: TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
2007: ComputeHer, Data Bass
2008: We Are Scientists, Brain Thrust Mastery

I have to say, some of these picks are a little disappointing (1996, I'm looking at you), but it is what it is. Some years were pretty obvious, at least to me ('89 and '92); other years - mainly more recent years - had some tough picks (sorry, Good News For People Who Love Bad News). At least I only had one winner by default - way to go, Genesis! Overall, I have to say this a reasonably representative cross-section of my musical collection, or at least that which was released over the last 25 years.

Now accepting callers who would like to sing along,
Regis