Al Green's Greatest Hits (ranked 52 on the Top Albums of All-time)

Maxwell - Urban Hang Suite

I'll go with the obvious:

Madeon - Pop Culture (in case you haven't heard it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA

In my mind, De La Soul was the forebearer of all the experimentation that happened in the early 90's. Early rap music had such a machismo aspect to it that even the women were expected to "act hard". Anything that veered out of that lane was called 'soft'. Pioneers like Public Enemy would experiment and layer depth of sound to their songs, but it still had that hard edge (aside from the Flav songs).

De La Soul showed that you could lose that edge, incorporate hooks, absurdism, musical flourishes and other experimentation into rap and still be seen as cool.

That next wave of college kid rappers that followed them were pushing rap in all different kinds of directions. Fusing jazz, pop hooks into the sound. They were dubbed the Native Tongues.

So, by the mid-90's you had artists like Warren G, Biggy, Tupac incorporating huge hooks in their music and no one even batted an eye or viewed it as 'soft'.

I listened to a Roth interview a decade ago and he explained how he grew up on Jazz music. Oftentimes, jazz ensembles would have vocalists that would riff over the beats (known as Scat).

With that context, his vocal stylings made perfect sense.

Sunshine on my Shoulders by John Denver

I hate that song.

I don't spend a moment thinking about the artist when I'm consuming art.

I don't get into hero worship or creating my identity around what I consume. That would be the only reason I would think you would even care about the personal lives of the painter, the director or the composer of a piece. Maybe you would get interested in the history of it and then you would go down that path, but it shouldn't change how you feel about the work itself.

Artists are almost always unbalanced individuals. It's usually what drives them to that path in the first place. Joe the Accountant, living in the suburbs, isn't writing brilliant comedy or revolutionizing sound. You dig into any of them and you're probably going to find something untoward.

I was first made aware of this about 5 years ago when I visited Mammoth Cave. They go to some lengths to stop the spread (sanitize stations for your shoes), but they even admit that it's near impossible to stop tourists from dragging in spores from the outside.

The Underdog by Spoon sounds like a lost Billy Joel hit. Check it it out.

https://youtu.be/q1hZVDLkJDc

The rest of their stuff is more diverse, but that song fits the bill.

Quincy Jones’ Thriller

Never forget the other piece of the magic that helped make those formative MJ albums.

In your case, this drug could've been great. So, maybe I'm being close-minded.

Maybe there is a future where (like how we treat HIV patients) there is a 'cocktail' of drugs that can delay T1 diabetes for decades. This is just one ingredient of that cocktail. That would be a goal worth pursuing.

As the father of a type 1 diabetic, I don't really understand the purpose of this drug.

Unless you have a pronounced history of it in your bloodline, and can be more proactive on checking it in your child, type 1 diabetes strikes out of nowhere. Mostly in childhood and it can be at any age. There are no real signs leading into it. By the time you notice changes in your child, it's too late.

edit: I understand the historical significance, in that it attempts to attack the root cause of the disease and maybe this is the first step in a long process to defeating it, but I just think the practical application of this particular drug is pretty useless.

The song I still come back to on this album is "Kissing a Fool". The last single released from the album.

George's take on Sinatra-era songwriting. The arrangement, the instrumentation, it highlights the range in his voice and how this hushed song builds into that frenetic ending (and then the resignation of realizing that it's not meant to be) is brilliant.

I was buying a Tori Amos and NIN CD, started a conversation with the clerk checking me out and we were talking about Tori. Her eyes get wide as saucers and says "You will LOVE Portishead!". I never heard of the band and just kind of gave her the "Yea, I'll be sure to check it out." Thinking she was just trying to upsell me.

Fast forward to a few months later and they made an appearance on SNL and I was absolutely hooked! She was right. The very next morning I went out and bought both CD's (sadly, she wasn't there).

Once you make the playlist, you have to listen to it at 1.5x speed.