The next installment from a year-long series of essays surrounding 25 of my favorite music-oriented people, places, and things from the last 25 years.

Don’t even think about asking me how many records I’ve listened to since the year 2000. I have absolutely no idea. Rest assured, it’s a lot. So, picking 25 or so albums to celebrate is a daunting task at best.

I tried to make the criteria simple: the album has to have been released between 2000 and 2025, and it has to have had a lasting impact on me. In other words, I’ve played it more than a few times since the album’s release. It can’t be called “lasting” if I play the album once or twice and then shelve it for years.

Even so, some records I love have been shelved for quite some time. Not because I changed my mind about them, but because music never stops.

New albums are released. New obsessions are born. That doesn’t reduce an older album’s value. It’s just the way music works. For me, anyway. I can’t stay in place. Musical discovery doesn’t grind to a halt after I fall in love with a record. That record is not the destination, but part of a never-ending journey.

Most importantly, this list is personal. Charts and popularity have nothing to do with my choices. These are simply records I’ve loved over the years. Maybe the artists have since faded into obscurity or have failed to make another album I deem to be as good as the one I celebrate. It happens. My focus is on that one record. It is a moment in time.

This is not a ranking. This list will be more or less alphabetical. Until it isn’t.

(Wanders over to media shelves and vinyl racks, where he pulls discs and records out for examination and deep pondering.)

Well, then. Let’s see where this adventure takes us.

ARCADE FIRE, The Suburbs (2010). Where on earth did these guys come from? I remember hearing a lot of buzz about Arcade Fire, but not paying it a ton of attention. Then I accidentally saw them on Saturday Night Live. How a band can sound dark and bouncy at the same time is a complete and utter mystery to me. But what I heard was working, and I needed to hear more!

So, like so many others, I found myself in a record store picking up a copy of The Suburbs, then taking it home to dig the hell out of it. Originality is tough to come by in the music industry, but there it was whirling away in my CD player. Jaunty grooves, floating voices, fascinating arrangements … I can’t say I’ve heard much like it since. This album represents one of those happy accidents that walk through my door every now and again.

THE BEARS, Car Caught Fire (2001). By the time I learned about power-pop quartet The Bears, they had long since ceased to exist. A band that sounded like The Beatles on steroids had become a true victim of a record label economics. Which only made sense, because band‘s first two albums, released in the eighties, were just fantastic.

Lucky for us, The Bears came out of hibernation (sorry … I couldn’t help myself) soon after the turn of the century. Adrian Belew (guitar and vocals), Rob Fetters (guitar and vocals), Bob Nyswonger (bass), and Chris Arduser (drums and vocals) had been convening quietly when their schedules permitted, producing the batch of songs that became Car Caught Fire.

The songs are personal and reflective, starting with the opening blaze of “Life in a Nutshell.” Time added a nice layer of songwriting maturity on top of what was already there. Hope, love, loss, reflection, and depth add up to a remarkable mix of songs from a band that should’ve destroyed the charts. Alas, they were just too damned smart for radio.

JEFF BECK, You Had it Coming (2001). Jeff Beck had two indisputable reputations: one for being one of the greatest and most influential guitarists on the planet; the other for taking an eternity between album releases since the eighties. All that changed with the new century.

Beck releases Who Else? in 1999 to worldwide acclaim. Like everyone else, I lapped that album up. Naturally, we assumed that would be it for a while. So, imagine our shock when You Had It Coming appeared just two years later! The was much shorter than its predecessor, but it was every bit as influential, particularly for me.

I was deep into my own guitar playing by this time, and You Had It Coming was positively rocking my world. Particularly by way of the album’s opener, “Earthquake.” In addition to Beck’s usual fire and fury, he managed to turn harmonic feedback into an elongated note during his solo break! I was gobsmacked! Jeff Beck is a bad man!

The rest of the album is just as exciting. Few guitarists express themselves with a guitar the way Jeff Beck did. And he was able to do it while incorporating more modern grooves and styles rather than relying on his seventies heyday. This is the mark of a true musician.

To our delight, the albums kept coming right up until Beck’s sudden passing in 2023. While I loved just about everything about Beck in the new century (I even created a playlist around it), nothing knocked me on my bottom quite like this album.

ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO, e (2009). When he wasn’t being kept busy by King Crimson or of his many cameo appearances on other artists’ albums, Adrian Belew was on a constant quest to create the perfect “power trio.” He didn’t feel the need to have more than himself as the band’s guitarist, given his highly innovative use of loops. What he needed was a bassist and a drummer.

Belew found what he was looking for in Julie (bass) and Eric (drums) Slick, aged 20 and 18, respectively, at Paul Green’s School of Rock in Philadelphia. The siblings could already handle the complex works of Frank Zappa (whom Belew played for in the seventies). So they were more than up to the challenge of Belew’s compositions.

Belew was so excited by what he was getting from the Slicks, he decided to create an instrumental suite called e. The trio recorded the 40-plus minute work live in the studio. On more than one occasion, they were able to capture the magic in a single take!

This album is Belew at his most innovative and intensely creative. I played the daylights out of it when it was released. It still gets more than the occasional play these days.

BRYAN BELLER, Scenes From the Flood (2019). I learned about the remarkable talents of bassist Bryan Beller by way of his many appearances as a band member for Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, and others. He’s also one third of The Aristocrats, a stunningly exciting band that also features guitarist Guthrie Govan and drummer Marco Minnemann. So, I got more than a little excited when I learned about Beller’s solo album Scenes from the Flood.

The album does not disappoint. I found myself floored over two CDs stuffed with 18 songs clocking in at almost 90 minutes. Beller’s bass sound is distinct, and beautifully accompanies everything the music holds. He’s also a laid-back vocalist with a keen sense of lyricism. Best of all, he knows how to share the stage with his fellow musicians. It’s Beller’s album, but he knows the world belongs to every participating musician.

I spent a good chunk of this album working on closing my dropped jaws. Come to think of it, I still do.

BENT KNEE, Shiny-Eyed Babies (2014). No doubt one of the most innovative and forward-thinking albums I have ever heard. From the day I first heard them, Bent Knee has been playing a serious role in my musical existence.

Six spectacular musicians meet at the Berklee College of Music and create an absolute powerhouse of what has been called everything from progressive rock to avant-pop. But no label fits them. Bent Knee is just Bent Knee, making themselves a genre in and of itself.

Shiny-Eyed Babies was my first Bent Knee purchase. And while I love all the music they’ve released since, this album remains my favorite.

JAIMIE BRANCH, Fly or Die II: bird dogs of paradise (2019). Jaimie Branch had a lot to say. She spoke with her trumpet, playing some of the more innovative modern jazz of this era. And she spoke with her voice, pointing out the horrors and inequities of the modern-day United States. And people in the know were listening.

This was one of those albums I had to absorb in chunks, because the content was so heavy. But once I was able to take it all in, I found it to be nothing short of brilliant. My fandom was instant and solidified. Jaimie was also a wonderful person and one of my favorite interview subjects.

It pains my heart to talk about Jaimie in the past tense. She had issues in the past, and those demons came back to haunt her in 2022. It wasn’t long before the demons took her from us. Such a damn shame. Such a waste of a wonderful human being. I’m so glad to at least have the music to fill me up again.

JACOB GARCHIK, Ye Olde (2015). Trombone, three guitars, and drums. I’ve said it a hundred times: this kind of arrangement simply should not work. Oh, how wrong I was. Jacob Garchik’s trombone straddles an interesting line between progressive rock and jazz to create a most fascinating musical hybrid. Its charm sneaks up on you. Once it has its hooks in you, it doesn’t let go. Time spent dissecting this music is time well spent.

DAVID GILMOUR, On An Island (2006). There is no separating David Gilmour from Pink Floyd. But his solo works, particularly this one, do a terrific job of identifying that band’s musical soul. Gilmour’s voices — be they sung or played on guitar — positively soar on this album. I thought I knew who my major guitar playing influence was until I heard this album. Now that I’ve gotten serious about playing again, I know where to find the roots for my own solos.

GOGO PENGUIN, v 2.0 (2014). As much as I love jazz, the traditional sound, mostly from the sixties, was beginning to feel a little stale. I hoped to find something from the new century that took things to a different level. Enter GoGo Penguin.

This British trio went about showing me how traditional jazz could be turned on its ear and take me in fascinating new directions. What I heard was the traditional piano, bass, and drums trio. What I heard was a trio that embraced not only jazz, but the music of artists like Radiohead and Amon Tobin as well.

It was their album v 2.0 that hooked me. In addition to its rock-solid grooves, the band was able to play riffs that sounded like they were being remixed in real time. Listen to the stutter-step performances toward the end of “One Percent.” I swore my CD was defective and skipping all over the place. But the band was making those sounds on purpose! It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before or since. A “desert island” disc? Without a doubt.

GOV’T MULE, High and Mighty (2006). I had been well aware of Gov’t Mule for the better part of a decade by the time this album was released. I had spent just as much time ignoring them. I’d had my fill of blues-based bands, I thought. There was no need to add another one to the stack.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I don’t remember what got me to Mississippi Nights in St. Louis to see this band. It might’ve been a friend of mine who was still very much into blues-based bands. When guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes walked onstage, I thought he was the guitar tech with his long, slightly disheveled hair and ultra-casual clothing. Then he started playing with the rest of the band behind him. What I heard completely changed my thought processes on guitar tone forever.

Haynes’s tone was as smooth as glass. Piercing, soulful, blistering … he put it all out there, and I was picking it up just as quickly. The man was and remains a powerhouse. And his high-powered and gravelly singing voice was the perfect accompaniment.

All my preconceived notions went right out the window. I was a fan for life. High and Mighty solidified the point and drove it home. This cat and his bandmates could flat-out play, and this album stayed in personal heavy rotation for quite some time.

There’s much more to come. Stay tuned for Part II.

#CirdecSongs

If you’re enjoying this or any of my other content, please like and follow. It really helps me out. Thanks!

If you would like to have your music reviewed or have your band photographed while in Chicago, contact me at cirdecsongs@gmail.com