When you're a kid, picking your favorite song or album isn't hard but as you get older and your collection grows and grows it gets harder and harder to decide what you like best. About a month back I decided to challenge myself and list my personal favorite 20 records of all time and in order.

When I started I had no idea which album would end up at no 1. I had a couple of guesses as to which albums would end up on the list and which would be higher than others, but as I started picking the actual 20 records I surprised myself on quite a few choices. Just when I felt confident in my picks, I came up with another 10 records or so that should be in the top 20 and had to start over. Once the list was done and I was pretty happy with it I stil changed the order more than a few times but now I'm finally(?) done. And it feels good! I had no idea I love some of the albums as much as I do, but it all makes sense now and I can actually say I know which album is my favorite of all time. Granted the list will probably change over time but as of october 2014 I feel it reflects my musical taste up till this point.

The challenge: I'm calling out any and every board member to try and list your top 20! Once you've managed to narrow it down to 20, try and rank them in order from #20 to #1.

The criteria: It's your personal top 20, not what you necessarily concider the 20 most influential or important records in music history but albums that mean a lot to YOU. It can be albums that bring with them specific memories, albums that opened your ears to a new type of music, albums that have a strong effect on your mind or your emotions every time you hear them, albums you've listened to your entire life or just good music that you go back to every now and then. What criteria is more important than the other? You decide, it's your list! Try to write a line or two why you picked the specific album and add a clip if possible.

If more than one or two people decide to take on the challenge, maybe we should have a separate thread for each person?

I'll start adding mine shortly.

Damn homie , that's a tough one !! I'm gonna try to sit down with that one later . Top 20 is tough , top 50 would probably be tough . Great challenge though ....

Great thread G.

This is gonna take a while though. Some soul searching is in order.

Being that this is personal top 20, it's all about digging thru the emotional database in your mind.
The where were you when ___________ was playing.

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“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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^^Glad to see some enthusiasm. It is tough, very tough but it's doable. I'll start off with my countdown...

#20 Mustafa Özkent ve Orkestrasi - Genclik Ile Elele (1973)


I owe this very site the discovery of this fantastic album. It's been roughly a year since I heard it for the first time but the effect it has on me whenever I play it, makes it an essential part of my musical library. The drums on this perticular album appeal to a very basic need for rhythm, more than many other percussion based recordings. I just can't stop moving when I hear it. My neck always hurts towards the end, it gets me into a trance-like digging right from begging. It has perhaps the biggest physical effect on me of any record I've ever heard.







#19 Poor Righteous Teachers - New World Order (1996)


Wize Intelligent is my all time favorite mc and this is perhaps his finest moment. He has everything that I look for when I want to listen to an mc and with such versatility, quality and super dope beats, make it impossible for me to leave it off the list. How is this not one of the albums people mention first whenever they talk about great hip hop albums of the 90's?








#18 Budos Band - Budos Band III (2010)


This album convinced me that funk was not dead and that it could be done just as good, or in this case, almost better than in the 1970's. It's a very cohesive album without being even the slightest bit boring. In fact if I could've dreamed together a funk album today just by pure wishes, this would be it! It opened up my ears to a whole lot of new bands and record lables. If this would've come out back in the days, people would concider it an absolute essential classic. I'm convinced! It also has a soundtrack-feel to it and my imagination always runs wild when I listen to it.







More to come...

# 17 KRS One - Return of the boom bap (1993)



This album was very hard to get a hold of where I live back when I was absessed with anything KRS put his name on. To this day the moment when I finally found it, is probably my most vivid memory of recorddigging. Not only is it a fantastic album that has really stood the test of time but it brings back memories of teenage rap obsession and early stages of recordhunting.






#16 Gang Starr - Moment of truth (1998)



Another vivid memory. I was watching a music channel and all of a sudden "You know my steez" came on. I really hadn't liekd mych of Gang Starrs releases up to that point (I do now though) and as soon as the video ended, I jumped on the bus and went straight to the record store. And it had 20 dope tracks? That was a first for me. At that point I was really stuck in the golden era oh hip hop and wasn't checking for much new stuff coming out. This album convinced to never stop checking for what is out at the moment.







#15 Black Moon - Enta da stage (1993)



At first I got really confused. I thought Black Moon was the name of Black Sheep's album. When the confusion finally settled I was listening to something that I liked much more than Black Sheep (nothing against them but I rank Black Moon higher). To this day this is probably the album that makes me feel the most like a bad ass ><







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 09:35PM by GMM.