The Seven Albums Nobody Needs to Own

Maybe this one is among them.

What a pleasant surprise!

Opened my mailbox this morning and saw the latest Must-Have List from Flavorwire, the webified agglomerator of all things cultural that daily provokes its way to optimum pageclicks via every socially approved way it can:

The 50 Albums Everyone Needs to Own

Go ahead, click on the link. Because you want to see if what you think is important is also what they think is important, right?

Especially as concerns music, because that's an important part – maybe the most important part – of your life.

But you're no sheep, are you?

Fuck, no: You're an individual, with tastes and opinions that are strictly your own, honed over a life of decades – and, in fact, many of the lyrics that accompany your musical preferences reflect that vital truth.

Not that you're a rebel, exactly, no. That'd be going a bit too far. That'd be pretentious, that'd be fronting – and you're not one to front, only fake people front. And you don't need any "rebel" status or whatever, anyway. Because the simple fact is that you're unique, that's all, and, since most people are merely blind followers of whatever advertising or the social herd chooses as a leader, your own preferences in music just happen to be off the beaten fucking path.

Just a fact of life, man, no big deal.

So you'll click that link to see what's up with this Flavorwire list. And if what you think is important is reflected in that list, then, okay, Flavorwire – or whichever Flavorwire list-compiler it is this time … then, OK, they know what they're talking about – as far as your opinions coincide.

But if what you think is important isn't in that list, or – perhaps worse – things that you think are the musical equivalent of dogshit are in the list, then, whoa, that list has obviously got some major problems, doesn't it?

No, actually, the list has no problems.

The list is just a list, and Tom Hawking's many choices are pretty right on, are almost relentlessly unstupid, and although one doesn't actually need to own any of these albums, as the man himself admits up front, there is much food for thought and a few appreciated recommendations that –

That's just one person's opinion.

You ever hear somebody say that?
To you, maybe, when you've said something they disagree with?

That's just one person's opinion.

You ever notice how whoever's saying that is – unless he or she has, like, severe D.I.D. or something – simultaneously dismissing the worth of the very statement they're making?

Anyway – look here, music lover, it's:

THE SEVEN ALBUMS NOBODY NEEDS TO OWN:

1. The album that your ex-girlfriend loved and that you pretended, on your first date, you liked more than you actually did, because you thought your enthusiasm for it might help get her into bed with you.

2. The album that you never really liked but that your boyfriend gave you for the first anniversary of when you started dating, which anniversary was almost precisely three weeks before you dumped his ass for a guy who wasn't so into metal and drinking.

3. The album that your parents bought you for your last birthday because they think you're still into that band you were nuts about when you were thirteen years old.

4. The album that was the last album a once-great band recorded after they lost their creative passion and totally sold out to some major label because, well, there were all these bills to pay and nobody was getting any younger, man, all this fucking street cred bullshit is overrated.

5. The album that you bought at a thrift store because you thought it'd be cool, in an ironic sort of way, to display it on the wall above the stereo in your apartment.

6. The album on which some guy you used to work with at your old job played drums on three of the songs.

7. The album that makes you want to kill again.