Changes constantly, but here goes:
1. U2 - Achtung Baby: This is the most beautiful album I've ever heard. Such a dark, heartbreaking record and such a groovy one at the same time. You feel like you're at a party, but you just know that you've been looking at the wrong girl for too long, and you're going to be in for it when you get home. Every song has a double meaning, all centered around a broken relationship. Our boys at their best.
2. Metallica - Master of Puppets: Heavy metal, despite what the U2 fans may think, is not a genre of mindless screaming and guitar wankery. Not when done correctly. This is heavy metal at it's finest: aggressive yet atmospheric. For every bit of anger, there's a moment of sorrow to go with it. Masterfully written and executed. The lyrics take on manipulation. The songs just sound good. Listen to "Orion". Best instrumental I've heard.
3. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run: This album sounds like being a young man America during the summer. It's filled with images of escape, cars blazing down highways, and girls in the summer. It's got just about everything a young man deals with in the summer: love, sex (see the last verse of Jungleland), violence, friendship, betrayal, etc. Just a beautiful, cinematic album. I listen to it all summer long, it's like a movie that I'm living.
4. Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker: This album is what it says it is. His most aching collection of country tunes, sung well and produced beautifully. "Oh My Sweet Carolina" ranks among my favorite songs of all time. And "In My Time of Need" is the best song Johnny Cash never sang.
5. The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street: This album is my favorite Stones record because it seems to be the Stones at their most experimental and most carefree. "Rocks Off" is the perfect album opener, and "Tumbling Dice" is the Rolling Stones best song, in my opinion. The album just SOUNDS dark, it SOUNDS druggy. Check out "I Just Want To See His Face", it sounds like an old church tent revival in the South. And "Shine A Light" is pure soul.
6. The Killers - Sam's Town: I might like this one so much because of the obvious Springsteen influence, but I love this record. Top to bottom, I think the songs are fantastic. Brandon Flowers sings with such urgency and the songs are so big, they're so epic. Check out "Why Do I Keep Counting?"
7. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: This is the album of my adolescence. I listen to these songs, and some of them remind me of the town I grew up in. When I hear "To Forgive", I see the old High's Dairy Store and the drug dealers who used to hang out behind it. I remember that back alley. I remember sneaking to girl's houses, watching my older friends take them into the back rooms and wondering what went on back there and what it was like. This album sounds like me, growing up. It's one of those nostalgia things.
8. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound: This is one that I thought would leave me after the springtime, but still hasn't. I haven't taken it out of the CD player since. Punk rock meets Springsteen = good tunes.
9. Green Day - Dookie: I like this album for the same reasons I like Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It just takes me back to a place in time that I liked very much.
10. Jay-Z - The Blueprint: In my opinion, the finest hip hop album made to date. Jay at his most vulnerable, arrogant, poppy, and dominant. He's the King now, but this is where he was crowned, over a bed of Kanye West's beautiful soul beats.
Honorable mention:
U2 - Zooropa: Listening to Zooropa is like going to another world. It's so sonically weird and beautiful that you don't know exactly what you're listening to, but the soul is so prominent underneath all those trash synths. The stories are bizarre, but even something like Babyface, a story of a man in love with the woman on TV, is such a lonely story underneath that pop exterior. And when Bono sings "and I threw away the key" at the end of The First Time as Brian Eno's piano comes in, I get caught up in it everytime. And "The Wanderer" still holds its place as one of Bono's best lyrics to date.