Earliest albums are mostly skippable. What you want to hit are; Land of rape and honey, the mind is a terrible thing to taste and Psalm 69. They were on a hot streak. After that it gets more hit or miss. First two Revolting Cock albums are well worth checking out too.

What the hell, I'll bite. I'll even give you 3 of my favorite songs:

Edit; spotify's too limited. Good luck.

Distance to substance
He (hips)
Stigmata

I'm eagerly looking forward to not listening to it.

Have you considered making crappy playlists of bad songs on Spotify for your friends as an alternative?

Worked with a guy who was a jazz purist. Crap he'd play sounded like someone taped a goose to a drum kit, shoved a sax up its ass then kicked it down a long flight of stairs.

People always say "I like everything but country and rap." There are country and rap groups I like. Apparently for me it's the sound of a goose and a drum kit kicked down a long flight of stairs.

Gin and Juice

Hey Ya

Obvious answer is obvious

While I don't agree, I totally get you. I'd suggest trying Sophia (side project from God Machine).

Every Day

Dude. On the Run is an awesome track (especially listening to it with headphones).

just gunna drop this here

Gen Xer here. I was a teenager in the 80s and it was the music I grew up with.

When talking about mainstream 80s music (not metal or early alt), I don't think it's aged well. There was a very homogenized, go-to sound for the bass and synths that massively date the music and make it much less timeless than the people who haven't heard anything besides a top 40 song in the last 30 years realize.

I finally completely caught up with his catalog at the start of lockdown...then he released 6 more albums.

Black Crowes
Yo La Tengo
SPC ECO
Van Morrison
David Bowie
Ryan Adams
Guided by Voices
The Cure
Holly Golightly
Bardo Pond
Low
Reverend Horton Heat

I'd go for the Cure, REM, or Ministry over Morrissey but overall pretty close to what my top 5 would be.

I used to have a literal wall of CDs. Think I was somewhere around 2500 when I started selling them off. Had a ton of bootlegs, imports and various rare recordings of all my favorite artists.

I kind of miss interacting with the physical product - the art work and reading the liner notes and what have you, but can't imagine going back. Streaming is crap, I still use high bit rate MP3s. Not losing that much in sound quality but it is a whole hell of a lot easier listening to exactly what I want when I want.

Dylan can smell colors you can't even hear!

Weird that your favorite groups span 40 years and people are acting like you're only listening to today's top 40.

It's a broad selection and I'll give you props for that, but you are kinda cherry picking the most popular of each genre. You're not limiting yourself to one style of music, but you could be digging deeper.

Tell you what, we're going to put my facts against your feelings. OP asked which was better to make it as a musician, Seattle or Dallas. I said Seattle was a better choice and Texas is harder to make it.
You'll find Seattle at the top and Dallas in the middle

You'll find Seattle at the top and most Texas cities at the bottom

And from Dallas itself

Maybe think a little before giving shitty advice, huh?

You're talking dozens of bands that made vs thousands that tried - and that's not even getting into how many were born and/or started in Texas but relocated to a different scene. Outside of Spoon, name me 10 new Texas bands on major labels from the last decade.

Had a group of friends that I can say without hyperbole were as good, if not better, as any major act out there. I've seen easily 500 live shows in my life and I count their performances up there with any group I saw on a label. They were making a name for themselves and did a short tour with a major act.

There motto was "we're going to prove a Texas based band can make it."

You've never heard of them because of that.

Big problem was they went with local, indie labels starting out and while they went into the studio at least 3 times, none of the Texas producers were good enough to capture what they were doing live in the studio.

Do some bands make it out of Texas? Yeah, a few but not many and usually not until they relocate. Outside of Spoon, the Old 97s were one of the biggest bands out of Texas in decades and I'm willing to bet more people hadn't heard of them than had when watching the Guardian's of the Galaxy holiday special.

You can start in Texas, but you're going to want to relocate eventually anyways. Just far more opportunities to get discovered on the west coast than by the gulf coast.

Beat me to the punch. First thing I thought of.

It was written specifically about and to help Ethiopia...and he wanted to use Ethiopia in the song, but it just didn't flow so he went for the more general "Africa."

Plus you can't expect Americans to give money for a country they're not totally sure exists or not, better to use a word they know.

Steve has an odd catalog. There's this constant pull between doing what he wanted to do, not really knowing what he wanted to do, doing what was popular and trying to sell records so, yeah, it's a little weird and uneven.

He comes from a folk and blues background but started off playing psychedelic rock. He hit a comfortable (ish) stride in the 70s where he managed to fuse his background with a slicker, more arena rock style. While he managed to get one radio hit out of it, he didn't pull off the next transition into a new wave sound off in the early 80s as well. After that he pretty much went back to his roots and stuck closer to his blues background.

It is uneven but, damn, there are some amazing freaking songs in his catalog, even from the earlier years. It takes digging but there are some true gems in there.

This is the correct answer.

I always hope there's no cop around when that song hits the radio, because I'm sure as hell not driving the speed limit until it finishes.