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· Jeff Buckley Grace
The most influential album, the most influential artist, of all of my years of listening to music. Many artists try to fuse together a lot of different styles of music, but fail to run a common thread throughout. Andy Wallace took Buckley's eclectic sense of musical taste and produced a masterpiece in every way you could imagine.
· Nirvana Nevermind
I don't know why, but as of late I've been waxing nostalgic for some raw, simple angst-filled Grunge. While this isn't necessarily No. 1 on my list for albums from the Grunge era, the songwriting is superb, the production quality is ridiculously in your face and every song makes you want to play some kind of air instrument.
· Kent Isola
BritPop done Swedish-style ... literally. If you don't like listening to music in another language, don't bother. In my opinion, the music is accessible enough that if you like BritPop, you will fall in love with this album. A track called "Bianca" is a perfect blend of spacey guitars and a sing-along melody with a little fuzziness thrown in there for good measure.
· Ratatat Ratatat
I'm not cool enough to have found this all by myself. A co-worker pointed me in their direction. Ratatat has ended up being quite an endearing little two-person foray into the world of Electronica-influenced, Emo-esque music that'll make you feel like you're playing the original 8-bit Nintendo all over again.
· Dawn Kinnard Dawn Kinnard
Fragile and hauntingly gorgeous, this album makes me think of old houses on the Plains, the taste of dust kicking up from the road and ghosts in rocking chairs. Bluegrass, Blues and modern Folk painted over spacey, atmospheric instrumentation. This was recorded locally (Mind Ignition), and you'd never know it. She does a remake of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" that'll make you teary-eyed.
For more on .andrew., go to andrewmusic.net and bpcband.com.