Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Our Top 10 Favorite Albums Of All Time | Ear Biscuits Ep.298

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

From albums that have influenced their own music to albums that evoke memories of long distance relationships and California drives, R&L count down their top 10 favorite albums of all time in this episode of Ear Biscuits! Also be sure to check out our playlist with a song from each of these albums on the Rhett and Link Spotify account! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is mythical. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast, where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett.

This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are talking about our top 10 favorite albums. Uh-huh. Now, I'm excited about this, because I love albums. Oh, well, this is what you would like to do every week, if we could. This was a very difficult process for me. We've talked about this way more outside of this podcast

than we should have, just qualifying what went into this list. You know, it's not the top 10 best albums of all time. It's not the top 10 best musical, musically album. It's just like, for me it was a combination of albums that are meaningful and albums that I just think are really good, but I'm very preemptively self-conscious about it because when I started looking at it, I was just like, man, I don't know how to put these

in order, I've got more than 10 honorable mentions, I feel self-conscious about my number one, like there's just lots of qualifiers coming in to this because it's a very difficult exercise. It's like asking me what my favorite food is. Of course, I don't know what your list is, but you've told me what you just said about your number one, I'm shocked that you're self-conscious about your number one

because I thought I knew what it would be. And now I'm questioning that. For me, we don't have to get into that. Really? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I thought I knew you. I thought I knew your number one. My number one is gonna be,

I think you're gonna be like, really? I think that's what you're gonna say. Well, okay. Because I literally said that to myself when I got done. This was an easy process for me because it's something that I did like two years ago when I, maybe, I don't know when I started

my record collection, but when I started collecting physical vinyl albums, the way that I did that was the albums that were my favorite over the course of my life. And really the criteria was what albums, like complete artistic releases that are works from a particular point in time. I don't know if you know what an album is,

but that's my definition. That meant something to me, that were very meaningful to me. I mean, the thing with both of us is, you know, at our with both of us is, at our experience in our 40s, how old are you? Are you 44 yet? I will be soon. At 43. We both experienced albums growing up.

I mean, we listened to tapes, then we listened to CDs. You know, when an artist put out a complete work, that was the main way besides the radio, of course, that we would experience what an artist wanted to put out. It wasn't single oriented and it was physical. It wasn't streaming and everything wasn't at our fingertips. So whatever you acquired, it had a way of, it had a lot of potential meaning to you

because it became an active, physical, repeatable part of your life in a limited pool, depending on what your music budget was, of how many albums you could buy. And that was the only way that you could enjoy, like you said, it was the only way you could really enjoy music outside of the radio was you had the tape, you had the record.

And obviously we've completely transitioned into a single, this music streaming has just turned this into just a singles industry. But there's a bias towards albums for us that will never go away. Because the majority of our life, we experienced our life through albums. And I mean, for me, there were many, you know,

we both love music so much. I know it's, you know, sometimes I try to like, maybe, we've talked about the fact that you perceive that I kind of like, I got the corner on being a music lover but I readily acknowledge. But no, but this is something that has been in your mind your entire life. When you found out that Emmy, your stepsister liked music,

you thought that you couldn't like music. So you've seen music as a thing that has to be like possessed by you personally. But I don't actually see it that way. And that's what I'm acknowledging that music has been a huge part of both of our lives in our friendship. I think you'll see from my list that like, you've had an absolute,

you've had a tremendous impact on my music taste and I'm excited to talk about that. I'm also excited to have some visual aids here. I got, I'm gonna show, I brought in some albums. Now of course we never bought albums. We bought tapes, then we bought CDs, but now I'm going back and buying albums because I don't have my tapes.

Well actually I do still have a lot of my CDs. Yeah and I have fully, I still value the album, but I'm not a collector. It's not in my personality to collect things. Right. And so I've actually had to resist because what is in my personality is to get interested in things and to go through phases. And I've actually had to resist because what is in my personality is to get interested in things and to go through phases

and I've actually had to hold myself back and make a definitive decision that you're not gonna be that guy who gets a record player and gets a, you've got too many things already so don't do that. Don't get a really nice record player and start collecting albums so I'm never going to do it. So you can have that. I'm so, yeah, it is an active hobby of mine.

And maybe that's the only difference we can point to. But so putting together my top 10 list was really easy for me. But again, there is some overlap in my list between what would be my favorite albums and what I believe are the best albums that I like of all time, there might be a few that would overlap.

And maybe that's different for you and how you put your album list together. I'll say upfront, there's some definitively bad music on my top 10. Yeah, I got some of that too because it meant something to me at the time. And I will be showing the records. So if you're, for the video viewing,

well, I guess that's a viewer out there. If you're watching on the YouTube channel. Okay, so we'll get into that in just one second. Do wanna let you know that, you know, you're listening to a podcast, which means that you might listen to other podcasts and you're listening to podcasts that have us on them, which may mean that you want to listen to other podcasts

that have us on them, well, you know what? We are on A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. The episode that I made a guest appearance on talking about my favorite regional barbecue, that is out right now. A Hot Dog is a Sandwich is the Mythical Kitchen podcast hosted by Josh and Nicole over the Mythical Kitchen. You slinging some hot takes over there?

I haven't listened to it yet. Yeah, strong, hot takes with maybe there's some mustard. I don't know. And then Link is gonna be on the next episode talking about picky eaters because, you know. I know one. It's just a coincidence that he happens to be on that particular episode.

Plugged into that world. Let's get into it that he happens to be on that particular episode. Plugged into that world. Let's get into it, man. Let me hear your number 10. I want, should I go first? I think you should go first because I know what my number one is and I'm not self-conscious about it and that would be a better ending.

Okay. Number 10 is 311. I'm so glad you did this. Number 10 is 311. I'm so glad you did this. The 311 album, self-titled 1995. What we called their blue album. Right. I think it was their third album? Yeah, it was the one that got the radio play.

It was the one that people cared about. Okay, and this is on the list. Well, can I ask you, is it on your list? It is not on my list, but it should have been. Okay, so the reason that this is on my list- Because it's very meaningful. Because this was 1995. We had not too, basically right around the same time

that we started the Wax Paper Dogs, we were beginning to write music. I was learning how to play the guitar. Again, we've told the story before that when we started the band, we were literally doing things like wearing cowboy hats and white t-shirts tucked into jeans and boots and singing together, not in harmony, two melodies.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone, whatever the actual name of that song is. We sang Country Roads by John Denver. And then- That's a different song. But we were interested in other kinds of music. We just couldn't play it or sing it. 311 comes out and I remember literally being in the back of the church van going on a trip somewhere

and listening to 311 on my headphones and trying to teach myself how to play drums while listening to 311 on my headphones and trying to teach myself how to play drums while listening to 311, which incidentally, I figured out how to do the keep the hi-hat rhythm, not that I'm a drummer, while listening to 311, but it was- Oh, really? It was influencing the way that we thought about music. And also I think if you could unearth

some of those Wax Paper Dog song, we've only found one, you would see that we weren't doing a great job of emulating what they were doing, but it was just like, it was the reason that we had bleached hair and shaved heads and earrings and big jeans was what they were doing. We changed a lot and then some, some. Know that we have always been down, down.

If I ever didn't thank you, then just let me do it now. This is what I could not do. I couldn't give you one lyric from this album. So that's down. That was a song that was on the radio and it just blew our mind. It was a hybridization. I mean, so much of what-

It was truly innovative. A mythical approach to things, not just food, but obviously food, has been how we like to hybridize things. And maybe 311 deserves a little bit of credit because that's why we had the confidence to shift. It's like, hey, we like rap. We can do it on our like distorted guitar terms.

We can really try to emulate these guys. We thought we could do what they were doing. So we switched everything. But I will say just quickly, definitively, I'll do this at the end of every one of these. It does not hold up. I've tried to listen to it with my kids. I've done that with every single one of these albums.

And especially Shepard, because me and Shepard share a lot of musical taste and it just, it doesn't, there's a couple of good songs and then a lot of like, what is happening here and why is he saying that, what he's saying? It was 1995 when you could say anything in a song. Lyrics, it just, as long as it was words, it was okay.

Yeah. So give them a little grace there, but it just doesn't hold up musically in my opinion. But for the time and what it meant to me, it's on the list. It can be cringy, especially with like, some people may level some sort of reggae approachy. There's definitely some appropriation happening there. Okay, I'm gonna give you my number 10,

which this is so meaningful to me, it had to be on the list because it is the first album that I ever purchased. Of course, I purchased it on tape in 1988 after going over to your house and seeing that you had his previous albums and hey, as a 10 year old, there's nothing better than like really silly, funny songs. And not only is it making my top 10 list

for being the first tape I ever owned, I still have it. Weird Al Yankovic, even worse. This is the, I kept the tape all these years since I was 10 years old. Look at this, does it have any notes inside in the liner notes? Of course the album art is Weird Al Yankovic impersonating Michael Jackson in his Bad era.

And I'm not referring to anything that came out about him later. I'm talking about his album called Bad. Yeah, because the first album that I ever bought. Had buckles all over it, zippers. Okay. Actually his had, Weird Al's had buckles all over it and I guess that was the joke.

I never got that till now. It's not zippers, it's buckles. I never saw that. I really regret not bringing this in and having Weird Al sign it when he was on our show. But it, you know, it had Phat on it. It had Stuck in the Closet with Vanna White. I don't remember many of these songs.

I didn't listen to it that much. I just listened to Phat a lot, because that was the single. Well, you're gonna be surprised because, you know, my first Weird Al album that I ever bought was Weird Al in 3D and it's not in my top 10. And the only reason, it's on my honorable mentions, the only reason I didn't put it in my top 10

is because I just categorize Weird Al in a different place because it's parody music and it means a lot to me and it helped influence the way that we think about music and the fact that we do comedy music. So it probably should be on my top 10, but for some reason it just felt like, because it's not original. Listen, I want your 311 and you want my top 10, but for some reason it just felt like, because it's not original. Listen, I want your 311 and you want my Weird Al,

that's cool. So Weird Al in 3D made my honorable mentions, but not my top 10. Give me a number nine. Number nine. I'm assuming that this artist is on your list, but probably not this album. Number nine for me is John Mayer's Continuum.

Okay. Now let me be clear, this phase, so this is 2006, I wasn't into John Mayer in the Room for Squares era, right? Me neither. Continuum was my, like all of a sudden, I just was like, this guy is doing something that I absolutely love musically. Now I actually prefer the next phase of John Mayer's music.

Yeah. Paradise Valley. Paradise Valley. Those like three sort of kind of country albums. That's the John Mayer that's my favorite, even more so than the latest John Mayer, which I would still love. But the album itself that is for me is a musical masterpiece and I can listen to it at any time.

Except for that one Jimi Hendrix cover. Like Bold is Love. Honestly, I'm like, I lose a little interest. Okay, well, yeah, I'm not saying, okay, it's not every song is perfect. It's a little too blues rock, but everything, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was nominated for album of the year, but it didn't win the Grammy.

But it was, I mean, waiting on the world to change. Not my favorite song, Belief. Belief is an interesting song to listen to because our beliefs have changed since we first, they were starting to change when we started to, when that came out, but they've completely changed now. Yeah. I think about that line, belief is beautiful armor,

but it makes for the heaviest sword, like punching underwater, you never can hit what you're trying for. Right. Yeah, I mean, he's got a way with words, you know he's gonna show up on my list, so I'm gonna step back on this one, but it is a good, Vultures is my favorite song on it.

Well, it's just, it's a, you know, a lot of the things that made my list are things that when I listened to them, it's, you know how every once in a while you see a movie and you're like, this changes things for me in the way that I think about movies. Yeah. And again, as an adult, it was kind of difficult.

It was easy to do that as a kid. And some of the albums on this list changed the way I thought about music. Like that's why 311 made the list. But for me, this was like, I haven't really been listening to anything but country and rap for most, like growing up a lot, you know? Yeah.

And all of a sudden it was like, this is like blues, rock? I don't know how I would even categorize it, but all of a sudden I'm on board, you know? Yeah. And I've kind of been on that train for a while. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express

will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in?

Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, terms apply. All right, my number nine is right here, For Everyman by Jackson Browne, released in 1973. This is his second album. And then, I mean, this is his parents' house

on the cover of this thing. It's like this grotto looking situation. Then when you pull out the album sleeve, he's gone. Ooh. He's gone. I know you love Jackson Browne. Jackson Browne, Jackson Browne is on my honorable mentions, but it did not make my top 10. There's famous people all over this album.

You got Bonnie Raitt, you've got some Eagles playing in here. He co-wrote Take It Easy with Glenn Frey and released it on this album. The Eagles also released that song on their debut album. And that's the version that everybody knows. But this album really flows, man. It's such a good album from start to finish. But the reason why this is on my list

is because when I was working at IBM as an industrial engineer, I was friends with another guy who we co-op together and then we both got full-time jobs and we connected over music. And he introduced me to a lot of music. He was like my musical Sherpa. If you met him, you only met this guy in passing,

Matt Hungate. I don't know if the name rings a bell for you, but shout out to Matt Hungate. We have fallen out of touch and man, I owe you so much for all the music that you introduced me to and we would connect over and we would talk about this album, what the songs meant and it's,

so this is a combination of, this could potentially be one of my favorite albums, even now. I mean, it's just an amazing experience. I like, I just, the vibe of it is great and of course, Jackson Browne is such a good songwriter. The dude, there's layers and layers of what you can discover from this guy.

And one of the things he liked to do, which he did on this album, is he had these songs that had this really pronounced innuendo, Redneck Friend being the one on this album. Elton John played piano on that. But what's the one about his hand? That's not on the album. Rosie. Rosie.

So anyway, like, because my father-in-law introduced me to Jackson Brown and he would play that song and he would be like, what do you think this is about? It's like a test. And then if the answer was, well, this song is about masturbation. I didn't want the conversation to end in that way.

But no, I would put Jackson Brown on my top 10 best artists of all time. Favorite artists. Without a doubt. He's so good. You can still go out and see him. You know, around here in LA. Well, my wife was at the Largo for the, they had like a bluegrass thing.

Like the guy, I don't know, it was the guy from the, I know what you're talking about. That bluegrass band was doing like a weekly thing. And then all of a sudden Jackson Brown comes out. Isn't that cool? On, you know, it's like a crowd of like 200, 250 people. And Jesse's a huge fan. So I was mad that I didn't go that night.

That won't prop up. But it's cool to have somebody in your life that introduces you to new music and not having an older brother, your older brother was that for me and for you in a lot of ways, especially when it came to the gangster rap of the late 80s. What's your number eight?

My number eight is Southeastern by Jason Isbell, 2013. Now Jason Isbell is probably my favorite artist currently making music. I think he, as John Mayer said, is the best lyricist of our age. He said that? Yeah, he said Jason Isbell is the best lyricist of our age.

I heard it the first time. And I think, without a doubt, I agree with that. Like if you just listen to the things that this man says in his music, no one else is doing it. Now, and musically, I think it's great as well. I love watching him, I love seeing him in concert, but so it was difficult to just narrow it down to one album.

But you have to. So Southeastern and then Something More Than Free are like, sort of like representing the new era when he left the drive-by. Well, he was always kind of doing his own thing with the 400 unit, which is his band, but he was also in the drive-by truckers. And I don't know exactly the timeline.

I was not a fan of the drive-by truckers at all, musically. Little too rocky. But then the story goes that he basically kind of sobered up and got himself straight and then started making this music starting with Southeastern being the first album kind of after that time. And so this album is like intensely personal.

And it's just, I mean, I can just go back to this. I mean, and Jason Isbell is a family favorite. So some of the ones on this list, one of the reasons is because every single person in my family loves to listen to this music. And so this music will be playing in our house all the time. So Jason Isbell is playing in the house all the time. But yeah, if you haven't familiarized yourself with what's

now he won, I can't remember which album, he won a Grammy for- I think it was Southeastern. For best Americana album, which is a sore spot for me at least, and probably for Jason as well, because I think the easiest way for me to sum it up is what he's doing is too good for country music.

What he's doing is too good for Nashville. Now he also is pretty outspoken and his politics are not really in line with what most country music is, but he gets categorized as Americana. He's making country music. He's just making really, really, really good, soulful, introspective, thoughtful, meaningful country music and Southeastern, number eight.

Boy, this is gonna be a really good one-two punch with my number eight. You texted me one day, I was at home, it was a Saturday morning, I was just putting around the house and you said, you gotta listen to this album. I didn't realize that like weeks earlier, we had actually gone to Amoeba record store.

I'm pretty sure it was me and you and we had seen this album. Okay, yep. And then I went back home and I didn't ever listen to it and I don't know if that's what prompted you to listen to it, us seeing it and discussing the album cover. But when you texted me, this album, I immediately started playing it right there.

And I just, I was standing behind my couch and listening on my speakers. And I had like, it was almost like the most spiritual, like a purely musical experience can be like, I can't remember being so floored by an artist and a particular album ever. I'm surprised this is your number eight only. Yeah, because I'm definitely building it up.

But I was- Because I know what you're gonna say. I was absolutely floored from the first like note that he sung and then all the way through the album as an entire experience, it was what I was always hoping to find and becoming convinced that it would never exist. Because of course, it's an idea that people might have

to try to do this type of thing. I'm talking about Sturgill Sampson, y'all. All right, this is his second album, Metamodern Sounds and Country Music. You can see why we're drawn to the album cover because it's got this mixture of astral projection, like cosmos superimposed with old timey portraiture. Well, but you know the real story of how we got introduced

both to Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell. Shout out to Matt Harmon. Oh, you think he did that? I know for a fact that Matt Harmon- Sorry, I didn't mean, thank you, Matt. That Matt Harmon sent me a text and was like, both Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell were recommended in the text

and I had never heard of either one of them. So actually Matt Harmon has done a lot for, you know, you're talking about Matt. He's a sharp one. I guess he gotta be named Matt. Gotta be a Matt, yeah. But he's done a lot for me. Now he's got some recommendations that I don't always,

I'm like, okay, now I see where our tastes diverge. He goes into this genre deeper and- But Sturgill and Jason Isbell. This is my pick. This is my pick. But I'm talking about Matt. Matt has done a lot for me musically. Turtles All The Way Down is the,

I mean, the main single you might remember, but you know, at first I was like, this guy is channeling Waylon's vocals and Merle's sensibility with some George Jones inflection. Like, I don't know, it just brought together everything I loved about classic country into an album where he had things to say and he had an experience that he wanted to convey.

He was talking about experiences he's had and conclusions he's come to, but then he presented it sonically in a way that takes you on a journey. So this is another one of those places that overlaps with one of my favorite albums. This is my number three. Your number three.

So I need to talk a little bit more about it before you take it off the table because you're taking one of my top three albums. So it is your, you're not gonna come back to it. Yeah, we don't, yeah, let's not come back to it. If we have crossover, we talk, just like when we do movies, you talk about it at that moment.

So hopefully you won't take my number one. So. Yeah, I can see this being your number three. Again, if this was my favorite albums, I think it would be higher. Now again. But not most meaningful. I am a bigger fan of the body of work of Jason Isbell

than I am of Sturgill Simpson. I just connect more with Jason's music on a more consistent level with everything that he does. Sturgill goes into the bluegrass stuff, which I'm kinda like, I kinda just tolerate it. I'm not a huge fan of bluegrass. But this album. This album. This album is a perfect album.

And the fact, the subject matter that he is willing to take on, again, I think one of the reasons I'm drawn to Sturgill and to Jason, and I don't have anybody except maybe some old people that we'll talk about in terms of people making country music today, I don't wanna hear you talk about a tractor or your beer or your Friday night like that kind of shit.

I get it and I respect it, but that's not what I am interested in hearing people sing about it, because that's what people are all singing about on the radio. Everybody's doing the same songs over and over again. These guys are talking about real stuff. I mean, Sturgill's talking about psychedelic drug

experiences and he's putting it into a perfect country song. It's wild. And he's also talking about questioning the foundations of reality and the faith and the worldview that you were brought up with. I mean, you know what I'm saying? So I think that it's just, it was bold and it was as far, it was as authentic of a throwback

as you can be coupled with as innovative as a message as you can have. You put those two things together. You get a number three? You get number three from me. Now this reminds me, we're not playing any of this music. I wish we could. If we could solve that problem in an elegant way,

then I'd be doing a listening party with Britton a lot more. I would be coming up with music programming for you Mythical Beast, but we just can't, there's no elegant solution that, there are solutions, but none of it's coming together. So what we're doing for this is we're respecting the opinions of our lawyers.

And we want artists to benefit if you play their music and that's really the crux of it. So what we're gonna do is create a playlist of one track from each of these albums in the order that we're presenting them to you on our Spotify account, the Rhett and Link account. So we'll tweet that out. But if you go to the Rhett and Link Spotify account

and then look at our playlist there, there's other playlists too, but this will be one of them. All right, so- And we'll probably just pick like the biggest single, you know, from each one of those albums. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for'm gonna guess for some of you that thing is anime hi i'm nick friedman i'm leah mary and i'm leah president and welcome to crunchyroll presents the anime effect it's a

weekly news show with the best celebrity guests and hot takes galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. All right, so number eight's your number three. Sorry for stealing your thunder. This has gotta be on your list. I don't know what number it is.

Number seven, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. He's the DJ, I'm the rapper, 1988. Yeah, here it is right here. I found this record at like some weird shop in Highland Park and I was like, I gotta get it, even though they're charging like $35 for this thing. First thing, you know, on the tape, it's not quite as obvious, but it's-

It's just Jeff. Just Jeff on the front. You gotta turn this thing over, and with the tape, you turn it over, and I can't remember exactly how- You think Will Smith's all about Will Smith? Well, in his seminal album, he's not even on the freaking cover.

He starts with, he's like, hey, he's the DJ. I'm the rapper. Now, I think that this was so significant for both of us. What number is it for you? This is my number five. Okay, so my seven, your five. At least in 1988. So the reason that this is so significant for me is,

now we talked a little bit about like my brother introducing us to rap and specifically gangster rap and like NWA straight out of Compton, that kind of thing. None of that made my list. And one of the reasons is, is it was too much for me at the time. I loved it, it was scandalous. I had no idea what they were talking about,

but I had no idea what they were talking about. I was a little white Christian kid in the middle of Buies Creek, North Carolina. It don't matter, just don't bite what? I didn't understand anything that they were talking about and they were rebelling against. But the thing that Will Smith very, very astutely understood

is that he could make this, and I don't know where his mind was at, but what he ended up doing was he created something that kids of all shades, all across America would be, I remember when Linwood Campbell stood up in the bus on a field trip and rapped, parents just don't understand word for word. I was like, that was my introduction.

I was like, Linwood, what was that? Yeah. I was like, that was the coolest rap and the funniest rap and the most relatable rap that I've ever heard in my entire life. It was fun, it connected with a middle schooler. It had a sense of humor, the entire album. I mean, you got Nightmare on My Street

where it's like this story about him coming downstairs and Freddy Krueger's watching Letterman on his couch. Yeah, and they were a duo. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think that that connected with us as well. In fact, during that time, so this is 88, is when we were inventing our rap alter egos. Yes, our rap personas.

And I was MC Sky. And I was DJ Straw Beat. And I have no clue what that means. Straw Beat. Yeah. I don't know. Oh, MC Sky just meant I was tall and I was an MC. I wanted to be the DJ because, I don't know. Oh, MC Sky just meant I was tall and I was an MC. I wanted to be the DJ because, I don't know, I was just drawn to that role and you know what?

They gave him props on this album because- Maybe I'll get on the album cover if I'm the DJ. I mean- So much for that. DJs were the center of hip hop and then over time, it became about the MC, but like smart MCs would always give their DJs props. And that's why he's on the front of this album. Because I think Will Smith knew,

talk about the sky, the sky is the limit for this guy. I mean, look at him now. I also find like this inspiration from the fact that he was a kid when he made this album. There's this crazy story of him going broke after experiencing the success and the touring of this. And then he was completely broke when he tells the story of Quincy Jones giving him an opportunity

to make the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. You should Google, I don't know what you would Google, but just Google Will Smith tells the story of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. You should let him tell it, it's a great story on YouTube. And again, so I haven't been doing this with everything, but this, it doesn't hold up, okay? I actually listened to it last night

and it was so much of the time that it's so cheesy. It's, I mean, it's just so cheesy that our tastes have changed so much, but hell, but listen. There's some good tracks, though. But if you listen to Straight Outta Compton now, it still totally hits. Like, I mean, it's-

Not every single one, but yeah. But you're like, ah, like, but this is sort of just like- If you listen to express yourself. You're kind of laughing at this when you go back, you know? But at the time it was the perfect recipe for kids. And Ready Rock C, their beat boxer, was considered part of the group back then.

But yeah, I mean, there's a couple of, like Time to Chill, got a great sample. Yeah, it's really once he starts rapping that you're like, this isn't the way people rap anymore and it's kind of hard to listen to. It's endearing, but yeah, it's just nostalgic at this point.

But it was my number five because as a 10 year old, like having that little tape, like dual tape deck where you're recording stuff off the radio and when you do buy an album, you buy it wherever you can get it. It's like, mom's not gonna take me all the way to Raleigh to buy an album every weekend to buy tape. I went to the T-Mart in Anger.

Quite a selection. With my grandma just to get some fried chicken and they had tapes right at the counter and they had this tape and I bought it. And I listened to that thing religiously and I memorized every single bit of it. Like I was just obsessed with it. And it was like, I wanted to be them so badly at that time.

And that's why we were writing raps and we were like- Doing the talent show thing. And rapping them on the playground. It was all because of them. And then I discovered when, I think Cole, did he have the CD? This CD? Yeah, it might've been a tape.

I don't think so. I was listening to it, he was listening to it at his house and I realized his tape or whatever it was had twice as many songs on it as mine. Yeah, because there's the extended version that's got like 20 songs or something on it. No, I had bought a bootleg tape from T-Mart and they weren't, they were so lazy,

they didn't even put all the songs on it. It was Xeroxed, like the cover was black and white. Oh, really, okay. Yeah. You got a bootleg, T-Mart's shady, man. It was like dot matrix printed black and white cover. Like I just thought that's what it was. Oh, and you saw the real thing.

Yeah. But it does have a lot of, how many songs does it have on it? I don't know. A lot. It doesn't list them on the back because Fresh Prince takes up the whole thing. Okay, what's-

It is two records. What's your number seven? Okay, yeah, I'm going backwards on my number seven. This is the only record that I don't own that maybe I need to buy because I mean, it is my, I'm putting it in my number seven. This is the only record that I don't own that maybe I need to buy because I mean, it is my, I'm putting it in my number seven. This one's a little tenuous, but it does mean a lot to me. From 1997, Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan.

Whoa. I mean, I know you know this album. Well, she's a, I love her and listen to, but singles, a compilation, I couldn't even have named the album. What song, is Your Love Is Better Than Ice Cream on that album? No, that's the next one. That's a good song though.

This one's got Building a Mystery, Sweet Surrender, and Eddie, I do believe I failed you. Yeah, yeah, it was great. It's got, I don't know how well it holds Yeah, yeah, it was great. I don't know how well it holds up, but I think it does. It's definitely got this strong 90s vibe and the production is very assertive in this ethereal, moody way that, even though it came out in 1997,

so we were freshman year, leaving high school, going off to college, by junior year, I mean, it was just a, it was something, it was an album that I kept going back to. And- Did you get this through like BMG Music or something? Most likely, yeah. Because that's how-

But you liked it. And I think you may have introduced me to it. I loved Sarah McLachlan. Because you and Greg loved Jewel and these female singer songwriter types of that era. What we really said, you know what, we started eating that stuff up. Yeah.

Jewel, Pieces of You, now that you said that- That is a good album, right? That should be on my list, but it's not. It's such a delicate album. But if you listen to it now, which I actually recently did, I listened to that song about Adrian. Oh, that's sad.

And also you forget how the choices that artists would make the way that she sang, it's like nails on a chalkboard now. Like you won't be able to take it if you listen to it. I mean, this you can definitely take. And so by the time Christy went away for the summer before our senior year, and that's when we were having a long distance relationship all summer and I was trying to figure out and go through my systems

to like understand if we should be married, if I wanted to propose to her. And of course, by the end of the summer, I did, like the day she got home, I've told that story before of us getting engaged, but this album, I kept going back to it because emotionally it was where I was. Like, it was just kind of like this, it wasn't about the lyrics as much as just the vibe of just,

it kind of had this aching sensation to it that I just wanted to sit there and listen to the entire album and just ache with missing Christy and just feel it. Well, she's the- So this is what I kept going back to. She's like the queen of melancholy. I tend to be pretty melancholy.

And I remember when we were getting ready to move into the house in Chapel Hill and I was doing the drywall downstairs to like turn the basement into like a livable space. And I did all the drywall myself. Never will do that again. But that drywall is multiple steps. And I had a compilation that had Sarah McLachlan

and Tori Amos and some other very like, just some sad melancholy. And I would sit down there and like sand, sand the seams on the sheetrock. It probably really slowed down your process. You gotta listen to some like- It'll make you cry, man. Up tempo stuff.

But yeah, if I listen to it now, it takes me back to laying on the, like I took a trip to Wisconsin and I was like couch surfing. And I remember sleeping on the floor and just putting this music on and just concentrating this music on and just concentrating all of my attention on missing Christy.

And so now when I listen to this album, it transports me back there and that's the experience I get. And that's why it's number seven, because it's that moment of I've got a big decision to make and my heart already knows the answer. My head's really getting in the way. And so it's actually a good reminder

when I go back and like listen to this album that like I could be more in touch with my heart and- And adopt a- Enjoy myself a little more probably. And adopt a pet from a shelter. Enjoy myself a little more probably. And adopt a pet from a shelter. My number six is Billy Joel, Innocent Man, 1983. This album is a musical masterpiece.

I think it goes without saying. But for me, this is, you know, that, okay, I'm six years old when this thing comes out. I'm really getting into it when I'm like seven, eight, nine. It was the sit in your room and sing with Billy Joel. It was the first time that I'm like completely unselfconsciously like just putting it in the jam box and just singing. Whoa.

Whoa. I'm down girl. So it's like, it's just so good. And first of all, this was sort of the convergence for me. I didn't know, by the way, that he did all the parts. He tracked all those vocals until like a couple months ago. This was the convergence of MTV

and having the music at home. You remember the music video for that? I remember the- White t-shirts. Uptown Girl, it's, you know, the whole album, and again, I didn't understand enough about music to know that he had made a decision to move into this doo-wop 50s throwback place. So in other words, like you've got John Mayer today in 2021

going back to kind of the 80s, you know what I'm saying? You go back 30 years or so. Well, in the 80s, Billy Joel was going back 30 years to the 50s and bringing back this doo-wop thing, which I didn't make the connection, even though my parents had like Frankie Valli records and stuff that I would listen to. I was just like, I love what this guy is doing.

And he also has that, he sort of sings with a little bit of a air. You know, he's got that like, he sings with a little bit of an accent. What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Yeah, he sings with this sort of accent. Is that song on that album, do you know? I don't.

Innocent Man, great. I mean, Innocent Man is, again. He could go in so many directions. I was a huge Billy Joel fan and I followed him all the way until we didn't start the fire. I mean, I followed him into the fire. Okay. And then after that is when I kind of stopped following him.

But this, I think this is just the definitive album for me in the way that it changed my relationship with music and that it became something that I would sit in my room and I would sing. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, there was some music at the time that I couldn't really sing along with. Not that I was sounding good

when I was singing along with Billy Joel, but it was just like, this is, it gets into your soul and you wanna sing, you wanna dance. Have you gone back and listened to that album like in it start to finish recently? Last year on a trip, road trip somewhere, I was like, let's listen to this album

that was one of my favorite albums as a kid, start to finish. And we did, and like, I knew that Shepherd would be into it. And I would say that I didn't immediately say to myself, man, I gotta keep going back and listening to Billy Joel. It wasn't like now I continue to go back and listen to that album. So I do, now, first of all, it's timeless music.

It was timeless when it came out and it's still timeless. So it does hold up. Some of the songs do, but I don't know. It's just something, I don't connect with it in the same way that I used to. And my kid, and Shepard will like listen to like, Shepard still listens to Elton John as an example, like, and he's incorporated Elton John

into his Cool Songs playlist on Spotify. Nice. But he hasn't incorporated, maybe Piano Man, I think, maybe is on that list, but he hasn't gotten a lot of Billy Joel on the list. I'll talk to him about it. Maybe it'd be better coming from Uncle Link. Not that he would ever calls me that.

Can you get him to call me that? No. Okay. I can't even get him to call me dad. So I'm at my number six. This is gonna be where I bring in the Fleet Foxes. Okay. And I've picked Helplessness Blues from 2011. Oh, look at that, look at that cover.

Boy, that's hipster. Boy, look at that. Look at the back. Look at these hipsters back there. Even got Father John Misty playing the drums on this album. What the crap? Yeah, man, for reals. Right down there?

Yeah, that's him in the corner, I believe. So I was introduced to Fleet Foxes. Keena Grannis started out on YouTube as a musician. She covered the White Hymnal song. I'm missing a word from the title, I can't remember it, but that was on a previous album. And I'm like, this song is amazing. Why do I not know about this?

And I discovered Fleet Foxes and then, but this album is special to me because when it came out in 2011, I was anticipating it because I just gotten into them and there's nothing more thrilling than really getting into an artist that A, has a body of work that you can get into, or if they're a current artist,

that they're about to release a new album. So it's like, I'm getting in and the wave is still crescendoing. This album is great. Yeah. From start to finish. I can't tell you the names of any of the songs. I can't tell you half of what he's talking about,

but it evokes nature and it evokes on like a gut level is how I describe it. You know, he's from Seattle. He's Robin Pecknell, the guy who's like basically writing these songs and orchestrating all these harmonies and everything. But for me, I associate this with our move to California. I remember when this album came out,

we were filming Commercial Kings and we had shot the episode with Chuck Testa. And then we had to get up the next morning and we had rental cars. It was like me and you and Daniel, our like director and still good friend, Daniel Strange. He was in the back seat, me and you were in the front seat. We're talking about music.

This album had just come out. I hadn't had a chance to listen to it. So my first experience of listening to this album was driving from Ojai, California on two lane roads, like winding roads through the mountains of California to try to get up to- Reno. Reno.

For the roller skating. Nevada. And- So yeah, just so you know, the Chuck Testa commercial and the Roller Kingdom commercial were both shot during the same like trip. And then for five days of each other. Yeah. In the same five days.

But when we were driving, it was like, it kind of felt like you put your destination into Google Maps and then it sends you on this road that ends up being a private road that literally, we were driving through washes where the road would go down into whether- I remember this drive. Whether it was a flash flood,

like the stream would come across the road and you would have to turn around if that happened and drive like four hours to go another route to get to where you were going. But it was absolutely beautiful. Daniel got sick and had to go to sleep in the back seat because the road was so windy. But when I listened to this song,

yeah, it already evokes nature, but it evokes that imagery of driving through California. We had just moved. We were still even calling it temporary, but this sound is now associated to me with California, because there's so much nature that we've experienced here, and Fleet Foxes is always a part of that for me.

And it really opened up that entire genre that is now like a bucket that I keep filling, where like, whether that's going back to some Bon Iver or like really getting into Lord Huron. Yeah. This was the watershed moment, really this album. And that I can experience that drive that we had and we were being so creative

and like there was so much of our future ahead of us and it was actually working. We took a huge risk moving to California. We were making a television show that we believed in and for the first time and it was so exciting. So all of that is wrapped up in this album from me and puts it at number six. Yeah, it's more a vibe than it is an earnestness

and a clarity, which I think you'll see once I get to my number one, that like I'm finding and seeing myself, I love Fleet Foxes and Lord of Huron and that vibe, I listen to that music, maybe more than anything besides like a Jason Isbell at this point. But the sort of the clarity and the earnestness of like what is being said and like you can understand

the lyrics is a value for me that I think that I have underestimated until I put the list together, right? Because this is for me, this is a vibe. And musically, it's like some of the best music that's been made in the past 20 years. But I didn't put, you know, it's not on the list because it feels like I can't tell you

what he's talking about. And I don't know why that's how I interpret it. And that is a difference. Like for me, it's like having a vibe and the melodies and definitely having a hook and definitely having, especially if you're throwing in harmonies, then I'm done. It's like, I'll figure out what the message later.

Taking a little bit of a left turn. And again, this is the disclaimer of when I begin to get self-conscious about my list, but I cannot, and I had to put him at number five, Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks, that's the album, self-titled 1989. So that's his first album, what's on that? So this is like- It's not No Fences. No, so I couldn't, it got down to Garth Brooks

and No Fences, because No Fences is- Huge. Like Friends in Low Places. Yeah. Garth Brooks. He was like mega star after that tour. But I looked at both track lists and I was like, which one did you really end up listening to the most? And I think it's Garth Brooks, Garth Brooks. It's a little bit unpolished.

Now, first of all, you know, there's a lot to say about Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines. We won't say anything about Chris Gaines. Wow. I never saw Garth in concert and I understand that like, oh, he puts on an amazing show. I don't care. I wouldn't care. We went to some shows, but we didn't care about shows. I wouldn't care about a Garth in concert and I understand that like, oh, he puts on an amazing show. I don't care. I wouldn't care.

We went to some shows, but we didn't care about shows. I wouldn't care about a Garth Brooks concert. I don't care that he's gonna be like on a harness. Like this slightly dad bod dude, like going up a ladder and coming down on a harness. I'm not interested. I'm shameless up here on this cable. There's a whole lot about Garth Brooks

that is embarrassing to me and embarrassing to this day. And I mean- You're not a fan of the man, you're a fan of the music. Well, no, there's this whole thing. I don't know if you've seen it, you know. Oh, I've seen it. We were on Tom Segura's podcast.

I love what he's doing with Garth. And you know how Tom Segura's like whole army has flooded all of Garth Brooks' social media with like theories about Garth hiding bodies and murdering people. Because Garth has this, obviously somebody was gettingth Brooks' social media with like theories about Garth hiding bodies and murdering people because Garth has this, obviously somebody was getting him to do social media kind of feel to all his stuff. Anyway, I find all that hilarious.

But Garth is inclusive. I think he's coming out. I mean, I think I saw him on a billboard talking about inclusivity and the LBGTQ, all that stuff. Yeah, I don't know about, I don't know anything about the modern Garth. I think the way I said it is the way that Garth is saying, you know, all that stuff.

If that's true, I'm for all that stuff. If that's true, that's awesome. I think he's for. But I'm talking about the fact that growing up, listening to country music that was on the radio and not really being a fan of anybody who was really doing anything currently. And again, sometimes people come along

and there's this seminal moment where all of a sudden you're like, this is different. This is being done on a different level. Now you go back and listen, I don't go back and listen to any Garth Brooks, mostly because he's not on Spotify. I mean, the dude's not even on Spotify. You gotta go to Amazon.

And this is like relatively recent, like just in the past few years. You can listen to him on Amazon Music? Amazon Unlimited Music, which I don't, I guess if I'm primed, do I have, I don't know. I'm not interested, that's not how I do it. So he's kinda held out, so I don't really listen to him. My suspicion is, you know,

Garth has never been an incredible singer, you know, that's not what he's known for. Again, I wasn't impressed with the performance. It's just something about the time, the place that I was at as a kid. You loved it. You know, in 1989, I'm 12 years old. You know, I've been sitting in my room

singing Billy Joel for years. I'm ready to sing something else. And I remember, this isn't on that album, but there's a, a dream is like a river, that song, which is No Fences or One After, I don't know. He made a bunch of stuff in the 90s. And like, I would be driving with my family

and the song would come on and like, my dad would be like, Rhett, sing this one for us. Like literally, like I'd be like in the back, I'd be in the back seat singing for the family. And there's a dream is like a river. Like really trying to get it just right. Ever changing as it flows.

You know, and it's like- The dance is on that. Yeah, the dance is a hard song to sing, even for Garth. But it just- The dance. It was just this, you know, it's that timing of something that immediately you're like, find yourself thinking about these songs,

singing these songs on a regular basis. There was an emotional quality to it that no one had really done in country. Country was about bar rooms and drinking. And all of a sudden you got this guy who comes along and he's like, I'm gonna talk about how this, the life of a cowboy, but from this introspective place. And maybe people were doing it before that,

but I didn't hear it until Garth. Yeah, I do think- And his name was Garth. I do think that it was a little more writerly. I do think that. Yeah. I knew that you would have Garth on your list, man. All right, so my number five, we've already talked about, he's a DJ, I'm the rapper,

which brings me to my number four. Well, should I then do my number four so we can keep it the pace to go? Because we've also talked about my number three already. Okay, so you've talked about my number four, so I'll just, yeah, give me your number four. My number four, now, okay, so we talked about this ahead of time, so I don't know.

I thought the plan was was we were each gonna pick a Merle Haggard album, right? So this is my Merle Haggard album that I have chosen. Okay, all right. So one of the things that we, we talked about the fact that we were not introduced to Merle in album form. We were introduced to Merle through a compilation,

Marlboro Country, my dad had, which was literally an album that a cigarette company put out and it had a couple of Merle songs on it. I think Oki from Muskogee and Ramblin' Fever is what I remember. Maybe that's not right. I remember I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver. And so then we ended up getting Merle albums,

but then making Merle compilation albums, which we talked about in the Book of Mythicality, where I would sit there and like come up with like- Merle wall-to-wall. Wall-to-wall Merle. Merle wall-to-wall one. Merle wall-to-wall three. And so that's how I've always experienced Merle.

And he's got so much music that even to this day, when I go back and I look at an album that comes out in that era, that's my favorite era, which is late 70s, early 80s, I'll be like, oh, there's like two songs on this album I don't think I've ever heard, right? But I have made an effort in the past few years to be like, okay, Spotify makes it easy. I can just listen to the whole album.

Yeah. And so in my effort to narrow it down to what I think is my favorite Merle album, I waffled back and forth, to narrow it down to what I think is my favorite Merle album. I waffled back and forth, but I landed on 1979, serving 190 proof. Can't argue with that one, man. That is, I would agree, that is my favorite album of Merle's. It's a great album.

Of course, Footlights is on that, which we covered on our Mythical Society record. And we performed on tour with Britton playing the, nailing the guitar solo. Yeah, I mean, I got more to say about Merle. I wanna save it. Okay. Because it's a higher number for me

and I want it to be commensurate with that discussion. Since you stole my thunder for both of these, now I'm giving you my number four, which for me is continuum. So I didn't talk about it when you did because I didn't know that's what we were doing. Oh, wow. I chose continuum because when we,

this is about family for me. Like when you were talking about Jason Isbell and how your family all listens to him and is a fan of his because that's what's playing in the house, for us, that's definitely John Mayer. I mean, we went to his show pre-pandemic at the Forum and of course you were there and Britton was there, but all of my family was there except for Lando

because he really didn't want, no, Lando was there and he fell asleep. It's like my whole family was there because we were all such big fans of John Mayer. I think my kids were there too. I think at least one of them. Jesse wasn't there. Jesse didn't come, yeah.

Going to that show represented how important his music was to our entire family. And then when we got there, what we didn't know was on that particular night, it was like an anniversary of the release of Continuum. So he played the entire album from start to finish. And that was the only night, as far as I know, that he did that on the entire tour.

Even though he was playing the forum again the next night, he didn't do it again there either. Right. So that was like a huge treat and it was something that we experienced as a family and then when we, you know, over the course of the pandemic, he was doing his Instagram live stream show, Current Mood, and Lily and I especially connected over that

and we would build our schedule around watching it. And we just connected so much with what he was doing and the fact that he was talking about his experience and connecting with people's experience, dealing with coronavirus and what that meant socially and emotionally, mentally. But yeah, I had to pick this album and I put it at number four because it's meant so much

to me and Lily's relationship and really our entire family. And so now when I go back to this album, it not only takes me to that show, but it takes me to our experience as a family going through quarantine. And I kind of, if I had my way, I would bookend it with the Cy Brock album, which kind of, you know,

this was on the front side of the pandemic for us. And then, and it was something I was already passionate about. But then on the back end, he releases his new album and that's something we got to experience too. I had already recommended it. My number four. Wow, okay.

Well, I get that. And if I was talking, if we were talking just best, like from a musical standpoint, that's gotta be top five. Okay, so we've already talked about my number three, which was the Metamodern Sounds and Country Music, Sturgill Simpson.

Did you know that? Oh, so then I need to talk about my number three. Yeah, did you know that, I actually just saw it last night, that Stevie Wonder had an album called Modern Sounds and Country and Western Music. So Sturgill's album title- Ray Charles. Yeah, Ray Charles.

Yeah. So- It's a reference to that. Yeah, I didn't know it was a reference to that. I thought he just came up with it. Yeah, I didn't know about that album until, like over the past year, somebody was writing about it. And I was, I need to check it out.

Yeah, he plays, it's a country album that Ray Charles does that's like critically acclaimed. So we should both listen to it. All right, so my number three is not De La Soul's Balloon Mindstate, but I'm just making the point that in this slot, this is the album I would pick as one of my favorites of all time.

But what I'm putting as my number three is A Tribe Called Quest, Low End Theory. This is an amazing album, it came out in 1991, Cole had it, and while we were listening to Young MC and MC Hammer, I would go over to his room and he would be listening to this and I bought it and I got obsessed with this album and I just feel venerated all these years later

that like apparently I did have good taste because this is an absolute classic. Yeah, it holds up. I wouldn't say that it holds up in every single way if I was being picky, but like, it's an ad, I mean, it basically does and it's a classic. Musically it holds up. To say anything negatively, yeah, there's a couple of,

like, there's a couple of ways that they talk about things. Mostly five talk. But may he rest in peace. Right, yeah. The thing about the low end theory for me is, we were living history. Like this album came out, Cole bought it right then. I heard it, I went out and got it,

I became obsessed with it. And now all these years later, when there's all these hip hop documentaries coming out and analysis, people point to how important this, excuse me, I'm not getting emotional. You're getting choked up. At this point, I'm just literally getting choked up. People talk about how classic it is and we lived it.

I mean, it wasn't our experience. I'd never been to New York City. I'm not a young black man and I never was. I'm not a young black man and I never was. And, but it was a privilege to even be well outside of the circle of that experience as just some clueless white boy. But I'm glad that I can say that I did connect with it. Now, part of it at first was that it wasn't explicit.

So I didn't feel guilty about listening to it and memorizing it and rapping it. And so it took the place of a DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in that way, because I was older and I wasn't gonna be that guy anymore. But so I could, with my conscience intact, I could really get into this album. But it really was like, that's when I started to understand

how samples worked and how hip hop was constructed, which was really, I'm still fascinated by it. I think with the way that my brain works, I'm more of an editor and I don't like to create something from nothing.'t like to create something from nothing. I like to create something from something. And I think that's why I have such a deep connection to hip hop because that's how they did it.

They took what they had and they made it into something else and they made an absolute masterpiece. And so now it's again, just the living the history of it and going back and being able to celebrate it. It's kind of like saying, well, I was there for it, at least in my own experience, you know? And it, I don't know, it just, it ends up meaning so much that I'm gonna pump that thing

all the way up to number three. And it informs how I listen to music now. Because once you have an experience of discovering a classic album, along with when it's released, you have this expectancy that like, this can happen again. People are releasing albums all the time.

And so it's like, if To Pimp a Butterfly comes out and you're listening to it before you, people tell you that it's an instant classic, you're part of the experience. So I think because of how I experience low end theory now, it is how I experience music in general, with an expectancy to find those moments where, like I described with Sturgill Simpson,

or the first time I listened to Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, that was like, this is gonna be a part of my life forever. And I love that feeling. And I give, and that's what this album means to me. Number three. That was an honorable mention, didn't make my list because I didn't feel like I dug in deep enough for it to,

but that was sort of the fuel for our talent show. Tribe Called Quest was the fuel for our talent show performances. That's right. My number two. 1994, Weezer. Oh! The Blue Album. Again, this is very much-

How middle-aged white guy of you. Yeah, this is, again, there's that, but there's also, again, I think 94 was probably the year we started the band. Yep. And again, like the way that they were thinking about music and it just felt so different than anything that had already happened.

Like Nirvana Nevermind is on my honorable mention. It would never make my top 10 because it just didn't feel like it was for me. It felt like it was too rebellious for this little conservative Christian little white boy in Buies Creek. But Weezer felt like, okay, yeah, I can, you take your car to work.

It's like, I've never surfed before, but like, I feel like this is, this subject matter. And it didn't seem like he had either. Right. Embracing the nerdiness and the sense of humor. It was very accessible to us and exciting for us in that way. It was simple, but it was melodic. And that's what drew me to it.

It was melodic. I loved what they were doing with, you know, rhythmically on the guitars. And then subject matter was, it's like, I don't quite understand My Name is Jonas. Like, I don't think I've ever, you know, I'm sure I could listen to it, but like, I don't know exactly what's happening here,

but like, I could write down what he's saying. And you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you can hear it. There's a sort of an earnestness to River's approach to writing lyrics. But again, not something I would have said before this list that like I end up kind of connecting with. But really it was musically what was happening

and it felt like it was a little bit of a safe, manageable rebellion in the midst of where I was. Again, we're listening to sort of rap and country. Rap obviously felt like a rebellion, but country felt like, obviously Garth Brooks was a super safe thing that like my dad could say, I like that as well.

Why don't you sing this one, Rhett? But my dad's not gonna ask me to sing Weezer in the back seat. Why don't you sing the sweater song, son? What is that racket, you know? But as a Southern kid in that setting who was beginning to play music and had just bought himself this electric guitar,

sitting there and thinking like, this feels like I could do it. Like, I feel I can do a bar chord here and then here. I think I'm Weezer. So many kids who were starting bands at that time. It begged for it. Thought that they were Weezer and thought that they could do what those guys did.

Every once in a while I can kind of pick something fast. You know, so I just think it was so influential in what we were trying to do musically, which again, a lot of this translates to the way I think about my own music and songwriting. You know what I'm saying? Which is like, how does it translate into the way that I think about melody and I think about rhythm

and not like, I'm not saying like, hey, I'm working on a Weezer album, but at the time that was, if I came to you with like this little riff, I either had 311 or Weezer in mind. Yeah. I was ripping both of them off on a regular basis. We never gave Pinkerton a chance,

but I do think that the Blue Album holds up. It rocked my world when I found out, this is like two weeks ago, that, okay, well, I don't have this album. This is not on my list. Wow, okay. But I am thinking about buying this album because I'm now expanding.

It is a meaningful album to me for all the reasons that you said. What does the front of the album look like, just from memory? All four guys just standing on a blue background with their hands in certain positions, like behind their back. Do you remember anything about the shoes?

In my mind, they're all cut off cowboy at the bottom of the record, but maybe I'm wrong about that. They're cut off at the ankles. Okay, yeah. There's a version, and I couldn't have, I don't think I could have told you that, but I have no way of knowing

because the thing that rocked my world was the existence of an album where you can see their shoes. There is a version that if you're a collector, it's like an overseas version. It's the same exact album, nothing's different at all, except the picture on the front, you can see their shoes. And let me tell you, it was not, it's worse. Like something about cropping it at the ankles

was brilliant. Well, they all probably had on like Converse All-Stars or something. No, it was like, it was more fuddy-duddy shoes. It's like the shoes weren't cool. And I don't know if that's the reason. Guys, you gotta cut your shoes off. They were uncool and that made them cool,

but even they were so- Somebody was. Somebody. Somebody figured it out. Somebody was like, your shoes aren't so uncool, they're cool, they're just so uncool that we need to cut them off of the album. They're really actually uncool.

I would love to get one of those. Like that's the hazard of being a record collector with my, the way that I think. Now I gotta get that one. My number two is released in 1991. I think it was released basically the same time as Low End Theory. There's a whole thing about 1991

and the albums that were released that year, like the classic albums. I mean, you knew I was gonna pick Blood Sugar Sex Magic by Red Hot Chili Peppers because you know, from the moment like, Give It Away came out on MTV and then Under the Bridge came out and David Rogers performed it at our eighth grade talent show

but he had to stop the tape abruptly before all the backup singers. I'm done, I'm done, that's it guys. I was obsessed with this album and it was so off limits. Like, I mean, I'm sure there was parental advisory on it and it wasn't that we didn't listen to a bunch of rap that way,

but to listen to a rock album and to really get into the funk of it. Yeah, because the only thing we could have on that list was sugar. Right. We definitely couldn't have sex or magic in Buies Creek. I think this is the Chili Peppers' fifth album.

Definitely their fourth, but it was the first one we got into and then I've been a dedicated fan ever since, even though you rip his lyrics, his lyricism apart, and I can't argue with that. Again, I love a vibe and I love a feel. It's incredible. And this means, this is my 16 year old experience.

Like there's this forbidden world out there where you're covered in tattoos and you're embracing sexuality. And it all comes through bass guitar and funk and it references rap, but it does it in this way that only a guy like Rick Rubin could bring together. I mean, it's an absolute classic. People might argue that there are better

Chili Pepper albums came after this, but just the raw creativity that went into this thing. These guys were kids. I mean, I went back and listened and watched the documentary that, they went into Harry Houdini's, the house that he used to live in, and they lived and recorded this whole album there.

And, you know, they were, you look at the documentary and they're just kids, just trying to, just coming off the streets. Putting socks on their wieners. Coming off the streets and they're just kids, just trying to- Putting socks on their wieners. Coming off the streets of LA and just going hard on instinct. And if you were to combine- It just transports me to being 16.

And I think that they really, if you take Weezer 311 and you have a third ingredient to what we were trying to do as a band, Red Hot Chili Peppers easily, easily, now they were the most difficult to pull off. So we never actually did it. I thought going into this that a Red Hot Chili Peppers album might be on my list.

And then when I looked at them, I started realizing that I had- You don't actually like, you're not actually a fan. I had experienced Red Hot Chili Peppers in single form. And I looked at this album and I was like, man, there's probably like five or six songs on this album that I don't even know if I've ever heard. So I could never say that I experienced it as an album.

It was more like, there's like 10 songs from there, like the 90s that are like, I really, really like and kind of influenced us. But yeah, it just wasn't an album experience. I mean, as a fan to this day, I would put them definitely notches above what Weezer accomplished. But I mean, in terms of a harbinger

for 90s alternative rock and everything that came from that movement, they were definitely on the, they were ahead of that. But I love it. I play it in the house and really loudly sometimes and everybody just kind of leaves the room. Okay, my number one. Okay.

And by this point, you know what my number one is. So we can get into that. Well, since- You're self conscious. Actually, I don't, I feel like I don't. Oh, it's gotta be the Merle album. Yeah, I didn't, I feel like I don't, oh, it's gotta be the Merle album. Yeah, I didn't put, again, the reason I didn't give that spot,

even though Merle is my all-time favorite artist, is because, again, it was difficult to narrow down to an album. Yeah. This is gonna be a head scratcher for you, I think. Then you'll be like, oh, okay. I mean, I don't have a guess. And again, this is like asking me what my favorite food is,

and then it was kind of like process of elimination and this ended up being a number one. So this is not a strong number one, but I think my favorite album of all time for like all the reasons together is Emotionalism, Avett Brothers. Okay. All right, I did, okay.

Now- All right, let me hear you out. Okay, so first of all, again, it goes back to what I really value in music. The Avett Brothers have an earnestness in their music that my honest assessment of where it has gone to in the past couple albums is that it's actually gone beyond something that even I am into. Yeah.

Like I don't consider myself a fan of their most recent work. It's too much, like I had to let go. Because it got too earnest. But this, you know, and they did some stuff really early on that was a little bit like all over the place musically, they were figuring themselves out.

Emotionalism represents for me the beginning of an era in which they had it kind of, now this is pre-Rick Rubin, but it was like, they had it all locked in in terms of what the sound was and what the message was and what the harmonies were. I'm a big fan of them, love seeing them live. I've seen them live like on New Year's Eve a few times. They're from North Carolina.

My family has probably played more Avett Brothers music in the house than anybody else on this list. And again, there is this sort of like window of time in which is like, this is when they were really doing it. But I remember it was actually Greg, our friend Greg Hartsfield who introduced us to the Everett Brothers and he did it with this album and the first song on Emotionalism.

Die, Die, Die. Die, Die, Die, which at the time, you know, so you're probably better at remembering the exact lyrics, but like nobody knows, basically nobody knows what happens before, like they phrase it in a funny way, that's basically nobody knows what happens after you die. Yeah.

But the way that they were talking about these existential issues in a way that there was this sort of reverence for this understanding of God, but also this sort of bold questioning of certainty around those things, which again, this is, I mean, 2007, I was beginning to ask some of those questions and my faith was beginning

to unravel even that long ago, right? But I don't know, it's just the heart. For me, I'm a huge, you know, I'm a musician myself. So I definitely am a, like, when you talk about the different elements of something musically coming together, that gets me excited. But I think I'm more of a songwriter than I am a musician.

And so that's why I'm gonna connect mostly on an emotional level with, when I'm thinking about the songwriting, when I'm thinking about the message behind it. Then if you can bring in a great packaging for that message, that just makes it better. And just something came together on this album. A little banjo ain't never hurt nobody.

I just felt like it was for me. Do you know what I mean? Like this is me kind of personified musically. And they're from similar places as us. They're of a similar age. They went through similar phases too. Cause you know, had this really like hard, heavy metal sort of like punk phase.

Yeah. Like just as, you know, musically on their own, not as the Avrett brothers, just being brothers who had a band, you know, they were ECU and they were kind of doing that thing. To me. And then they kind of were like, let's go a little bit back to our roots and let's,

when me and you sing harmonies that are serious harmonies, or even to our, most of our harmonies are stupid harmonies, stupid songs, like we end up, we've been heavily influenced by the way that they approach harmony. That's my favorite part. The production and like the blood harmony, I think was something that like, it did blow me away when I first heard it.

And I was like, I absolutely love what they've done. The first, in the first half of that album is great. Second half loses me a little bit because it gets a little aggressive. Well, there's so many songs on that album that towards the end, it's kind of like, it fizzles out. You guys were just kind of throwing demos on there.

But the first half, oh, I mean, especially if, because I love those harmonies so much, it's like, it really does it. Didn't make my list, I think I'm overly influenced by, it was a special time in our lives when it's like, they brought me back out to seeing shows too. It's like, I wanted to see these guys. They're great.

And it was like, oh yeah, I should see other people. Yeah. So it was an obsession at a certain point. And that's the reason why I own that record because it does mean something to me. It's an honorable mention. For my number one, I had to put, once I started to think about Merle,

I was like, I mean, who are we kidding here? And I know you agree with this, that like he means so much to us and to our friendship that I had to put it on there. We channeled our passion for music in high school into Merle. Like we were so, and I think it coalesced our friendship, you know?

For sure. Cause we discovered it. And then I remembered like my aunt Vicki had albums. I would borrow those. When you started driving and then I got my license, we would go on excursions to find another one of his tapes that we hadn't found yet. And some, I remember sometimes I would come home

with a tape and then I couldn't wait to get home and call you and tell you, I found a new Merle album. There was no, we had no way of finding out how many Merle albums existed or what they were called. There's no Wikipedia. Like there were ways, but we didn't know any of them. So I would just, the only way was to go to a store and find it.

I remember calling you, I found a new Merle tape that I've never seen. And it's a complete album, it's not a compilation, it's not a retread, it's called Out Among the Stars and the cover looks horrible. It's like an illustration of him. And then we listened to it and you're trying to figure out where it fits in his body of work and I'm giving it to you

so that you can add it to compilation tapes. And you're right, we didn't end up listening to the tapes. We would transfer those to compilations and leave out the songs that we didn't like so that we could listen for wall to wall, meaning from the, as long as a tape would allow, we would cram three albums worth of songs on like one of those extend play

once you take out a few of the duds. But at a certain point we did, I mean, I eventually started collecting Merle albums so that we could hang them on the wall. And it was a representation and a continuation of the experience that we had in high school. Like, I don't even know if I understood that's what I was doing when I was collecting

those Merle albums off of eBay and hanging them in every single studio that we've ever had, including our office right now. But yeah, it's my collection, but it represents our friendship and something that became a permanent part of our identity. I mean, definitely our brand, you know? But also who we are as people.

Like we love Merle so much that like, I can easily get emotional right now talking about it. When he died, I remember the meeting that we were in. And I remember thinking, am I gonna have to walk out of this meeting? And then like not walking out of the meeting and then saying, okay, I can compartmentalize this. But it's the musical focus of our friendship

in a way that all of our experience with the Wax Paper Dogs and I'm so glad that you like applied that filter to incorporating a number of albums into your list from that because it was so important. And it's only overridden in our friendship by I think our Merle experience where it was like, it was just about the enjoyment. It wasn't even about what we were gonna create.

It was about the experience of being together. And we would talk about the experiences from the albums, from the songs. The fact that he chose to write about certain songs. The album I picked is, "'I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall.' Somehow I still have this tape." Now I remember that your dad had this tape

and then I got a copy of it because- Yeah, he had that. It has my favorite Merle song, which this was released in 1978. My favorite song is I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall, the title of the album too. Incidentally, it's a song that he didn't write, which makes me feel weird about it being my favorite,

but it is what it is. The production on this is, you read about the album now and it didn't do well. It was one year later is when he released "'Servin' 190 Proof," and everybody, that was like a renaissance for Merle. But I listened to this and the production and the subject matters that he talks about.

I mean, this has the immigrant on it. That's, I mean, that's relevant today. All of these songs are, so many of these songs are so good, but like on the B side, life of a rodeo cowboy and there ain't no good chain gang are great. But the best song in this album, it's been a great afternoon. Yeah. I mean, the fact that he's this album, it's been a great afternoon. Yeah.

I mean, the fact that he's got a radio hit out of a song where he's talking about being hung over and the only way he can get over his hangover is to have an enthralling sexual encounter in the early afternoon. And the celebration of that is something that was hilarious to us as conservative high schoolers. It's like he snuck things in that we were like,

well, I couldn't show my, I couldn't let anybody know I was listening to the Chili Peppers or if it was Dr. Dre, but he snuck it on the radio and talking about all this kind of stuff. Well, and that's interesting because, I mean, that's just, that's essentially just racism at that point, right? The fact that old white country dudes

can talk about things that are pretty explicit. But it was veiled language. It was veiled, but I mean, not very, you know? It was the fact that like, yeah, I can sit here and listen to this with my dad, but you know, if a guy's gonna be rapping about his sexual exploits, that's a different, that's off limits. That was just part of the sort of the white culture

that we were in. Could you have predicted that this was my pick? I knew that would be your album. Okay, okay. Because for me, it got down to that, serving 190 proof in big city. It was kind of that, he was just doing so many amazing things at that time.

I think that was 81, so yeah. I kinda, again, I was like, I gotta pick one. And I went with 790 Proof just because I was like, I think that I have more favorite songs on this. It made me feel bad that I didn't put it in number one. But again, I stand by not putting it in number one. I agree with everything that you just said, but because there's not,

Merle Hager's my all time favorite artist, but it's just, I never really experienced the albums. I would take him and make him do the compilations. And so it just didn't, it didn't come together. Oh, my feelings aren't hurt. Well, this is a good conversation. I know you're wrong. One of the things that kind of came clear to me

as I was speaking of racism, that kind of came together for me as I was looking at this, as I was like, hmm. And again, I actually, it registered with me and then I made the decision to not go back and change it to try to present myself in a different light. Cause I wanted it to be an honest assessment of what I've connected with over my life.

All 10 of my albums are from men and nine out of 10 are from white men. I'm a white man, which might explain some of it. But to me, it was this message of like, okay, these are the albums that I've kind of connected with or have like influenced me and been meaningful or been my favorite musically. Again, there was lots of different reasons

that went into it. And it's, you know, you might ask yourself like, okay, well, why isn't Lionel Richie on the list? Lionel's not on the list, even though he would make my top 10 favorite artists. He's not on the list again, because I experienced Lionel in compilation and greatest hits.

And it wasn't so much, I would experience the albums when they came out. Cause it just, I wasn't, I found Lionel later, found Lionel in college. But ultimately, to me, it was just a little bit of a wake up call. It's just like, oh, you know, kind of moving into your second half of life here

as a middle-aged white man, thinking about being more intentional about not just falling into the music that is obviously made for me by people like me and just being more intentional, it's seeking out, thinking about the representation in my musical taste, essentially, it was a little bit of a wake up call for me.

I mean, obviously I've been into hip hop for a long time and made my honorable mentions and that kind of thing, but it isn't like something that I have been as conscious of as I would like to be. Yeah, well, I think because of the criteria of these are just like meaningful moments in my past. I think it is indicative of like having a narrower view. Like, yeah, I mean, I was very narrow

in how I approach music for a long time. I would only listen to one, I was only into one genre in like middle school and high school, you know, like, especially at those times as a kid. But I mean, for me now, I think I've got a pretty diverse listening palette. So, but this list doesn't represent that.

Yeah, I agree with that. Because it's more about a timeline of experience for me, but I would love to make just favorite albums. And I think that that would come to bear in a good way on that. Before you give your rec, just because you already had all this figured out with your list, I wanna just quickly run through ones

that didn't make the list that I still recommend as albums. Okay. Fuji's The Score. Oh yeah. Honorable mentions, Miseducation of Lawyer for me. I didn't put for obvious reasons, I didn't put Michael Jackson on the list, but Michael Jackson's Thriller was obviously one of the most influential albums for me personally,

but he's disqualified himself. All your favorite bands, Dawes, Awaken My Love, Childish Gambino. One of my favorite like from the past like 10 years. Under the Radar, Kershier Branches, David Bazan, which from a deconstruction standpoint, I highly recommend, means a lot to me. Jackson Browne, Jackson Browne, Mark Cohn, Mark Cohn.

Illinois's Sufjan Stevens. Oh yeah. And then I already talked about Nevermind, Nirvana, Low End Theory, Tribe Called Quest was on my, and then Blood Sugar, Sex and Magic was a, those were the ones I had to move out of the top 10. Yeah, I mean, I don't think my, I don't have any honorable mentions

because that's just, I have so many favorite albums. It's just a different list for me. The overlap is just so little that I'm not gonna do that. And I'm also not gonna make a recommendation besides- Because that's what this whole album, the whole thing was. My recommendation is a reminder to go to the Rhett and Link Spotify

and look at the playlist there that we've created. So you can listen to some of this music and then you can drill down and like go to the album that the song that we picked for the playlist is on if you wanna listen to the whole album. If you know how Spotify works, that is how it works. So you can do that. Thanks for listening.

Tell us where you crossed over with us and where you diverged. The power of music. Hashtag your biscuits.