The DV Staff

These are *not* reviews of 25 favorite albums—rather they are 25 of our favorite reviews, of any album, in any genre. These mostly take one of three forms: reviews where our staff stretched and bent the form, taking fresh approaches to writing about the music; reviews of albums that caught our writers by surprise, in a good way; or reviews of albums that our writers absolutely detested. Each of these reviews is uniquely memorable in some way. Presented in alphabetical order by writer:   Carole King – Tapestry by Jeff ClutterbuckKid Rock – Greatest Hits You Never Saw Comingby Pete Crigler Sugar…

These are 25 reviews of favorite albums, as opposed to 25 Favorite Reviews. Some of these might be acknowledged classics, but the heavy hitters can be found in 25 Albums For The Ages. These are 25 albums that were uniquely special to that particular reviewer, presented in alphabetical order by artist:    Alan Parsons Project – I, Robotby Duke Egbert Allman Brothers Band – Eat A Peachby Christopher Thelen Big Big Train – The Underfall Yardby Jason Warburg Big Star – Radio Cityby Denise Henderson Kate Bush – Aerialby Duke Egbert Johnny Cash – American Recordingsby Christopher Thelen Creedence Clearwater Revival…

These are 25 of the albums that mattered most, that influenced others, that left an indelible mark on our collective consciousness—25 albums for the ages, presented in chronological order:    Miles Davis – Kind Of Blueby Jason Warburg Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylanby Christopher Thelen James Brown – Live At The Apolloby Sean McCarthy The Beach Boys – Pet Soundsby Jeff Clutterbuck The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandby Jason Warburg The Kinks – The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Societyby David Bowling Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced?by David Bowling The Rolling Stones –…

The Daily Vault has played host to a wide variety of features over the past 25 years, from interviews and concert reviews to book and film reviews, our notorious opinion essays, and our expansive retrospectives and rankings columns. What follows is a somewhat representative but typically eclectic sampling of our favorite features from the past quarter century. Most are single pieces, though in the name of being true to the “favorite” label we’ve also included five features in their entirety: our retrospectives, Darren Paltrowitz’s long-running music news column “Keeping Up,” our rankings feature, “20 Albums That Influenced Me” from our…