People that know me well may have been wondering where the heck was Oasis on my list so far. After all, with the “goes-without-saying” exception of The Beatles, Oasis is pretty much my unquestioned favorite band. Yet, I have not even briefly mentioned the Mancs once in this series. In any one of these “favorite albums” lists I’ve made in the last fifteen years or so, (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory essentially always held the top spot, my absolute favorite album for a very, very long time. So what’s the story? When I sat down to make this list, I knew MG was one of the big elephants in the room. I penciled it at #1 out of habit, but knew to do this right I had to really put it (and the rest of my top 5) under a microscope. But this isn’t an essay on why Morning Glory is inferior to X or Y, it’s a love letter on why I have such strong feelings towards the album and a band that questioning it not being #1 at all is a big deal, and that anyone that immediately writes off such a notion is a chump.

After some consideration, we’re going to just skip talking about #2. Besides after the ecstasy of writing two thousand words on my favorite band, and album that was my favorite for so long last time, I just couldn’t wait. How important is second place anyway? How could I wait to talk about my favoritest band, and most conclusively favorite album? (Spoilers: both of which are The Beatles.) After talking about Oasis, where else can you go but The Beatles? And not just The Beatles, but The Beatles! The Beatles by The Beatles, the huge 1968 double album! (Okay, I’ll stop having fun, The White Album.) Nevermind was the bedrock of my musical world, but The White Album was the earth and the soil. The single album that shaped my musical taste and no matter how “far out” I thought my musical journey had become, the album I could always return to and find the roots of what I was listening to. A truly transcendent album, my favorite.

Neutral Milk Hotel, we really have reached the end of this now haven’t we?