A few months back, some of us SoundStage! old-timers published lists of our favorite albums, as well as essentials for any music collection. As I polished off my final list, I was so proud of myself for having included an album released in the past decade—even if just barely. That pride was soon diminished when managing editor Gordon Brockhouse kindly pointed out that although we’d all assembled some darned-fine lists, weren’t we “showing our age a little? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. [But] how about asking our teenage, 20-something, and 30-something children for their recommendations—albums that they think their elders should be aware of?”
Ladles and jellyspoons, I’m here to tell you that when someone utters or types the phrase “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” they think there’s something wrong with that. So, following up on Gord’s subsequent suggestion, I decided to reach out to my daughter, Fiona (aged 31), and her partner, Dan (33), and pick their brains about more recent albums that they felt us silverbacks were sleeping on.
Sadly, neither of them took the bait, although Dan had more to say on the topic. “I may not be a good option,” he replied. “Apparently, I’m old and the albums I listen to are all from 2005 to 2011.”
To that, my wife made some offhand comment about the state of modern popular music, and Dan quickly corrected her on that front: “No, there’s good modern music! I just think I’ve gotten spoiled by not having to listen to albums anymore (although I wish I did). Like, I have specific playlists by genre depending on my mood. So pop/punk, Midwest emo, acoustic folk, country, pop, blah blah, and it’s all centered on artists I like. But I don’t know the last time I listened to an album. I know Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, and Jason Isbell all put out good albums. I just don’t listen to them. Honestly, The Suburbs by Arcade Fire is the most recent album that would make my list.”
For those keeping score at home, that album came out in 2010, when Dan was 17, and I can feel my bones losing density in real-time as I type those words.
Frankly, I sort of gave up on the entire idea of this article right after that conversation, and I filed it away as a seed for a story about the relevance of the album itself as a unit of art in the streaming era. But we writers are always writing in the back of our minds, even when our fingers aren’t on our keyboards. So in the months since, I’ve been bouncing this idea off the other kids in my life—many of whom I know either through mutual-aid/community organizing and/or my local record shop.
I’m fortunate to have all of them in my life, as they keep me young while making me feel far older than I am. One in particular, AJ (aged 26), has even become something of a bonus daughter to my wife and me. We cook for one another, go to the movies together, dine out for birthdays and holidays, and work on our Halloween costumes together. And needless to say, we spend a lot of time listening to music. Once, when I told her that she had shockingly good taste for an embryo, she shot back, “Telling me I have good taste in music just means you think you have good taste in music and I like what you like. You’re not complimenting me; you’re self-congratulating.”
Touché.
At any rate, at some point I asked AJ if she could name five recent albums she truly loves, assuming I’d stump her. The next day she texted me a list of 25 albums with apologies for not being able to whittle the list down any more than that. And suddenly, I had my story. Or at least a story.
Rather than subject you to her whole list of 25, though, I figured I’d spotlight a few that resonate with me and recount our conversations about them. In no particular order, these are the highlights of her favorites, as far as I see it:
Cafuné: Love Songs for the End (2023) is technically an EP, not an LP, but I’m not going to pick nits. I love this one so very much. It’s sort of a modern evolution of shoegaze in some respects, but often reminds me of a more polished, post-pandemic Mates of State, which is the opposite of shoegaze in so many ways.
“I discovered this one on TikTok,” she told me. “And to be honest, I was a little disappointed that the entire album didn’t sound like ‘Shadowboxing,’ the song from the video. But the more I listened, the more I loved the whole thing.”
Flawed Mangoes: Anomaly IV (2025) surprised me at nearly every turn. Of everything I listened to for this article, with perhaps one exception, this one took me in the most unexpected musical directions, despite not being even remotely avant-garde. In fact, it’s shockingly approachable—the sort of thing that nearly anyone could enjoy.
I asked her what resonated with her about the album. “For me, this one really sort of sums up my whole approach to music,” she said. “Like, I know you and Haley* argue about one album versus another album, and how they’re arranged or whatever and how it’s not just the songs on the record but how they relate to the other songs on the record.
“But I just don’t approach music that way. For me, it’s about the experience of sound and how it makes me feel. It’s the sounds of the vocals—if there are vocals—and how those sounds layer over the sounds of the instruments and the beat. It’s also about the mix of sounds you can hear versus the sounds you can only really feel, and whether or not an album can keep me in a consistent mood or feeling. I don’t even know how to explain it, but when all of that comes together the right way, I like it. And when it doesn’t, I don’t.”
Linkin Park: From Zero (2024) is one I was already familiar with, as it’s the band’s first album since the death of Chester Bennington in 2017 and the first with new singer Emily Armstrong. I love some of the tracks, especially “Heavy Is the Crown.” And I love a lot of what Emily is doing with the band. But it just doesn’t resonate with me as a whole album.
For AJ, though, the imperfect nature of From Zero is more a strength than a weakness. “It’s like they’re experimenting, and I can’t wait to see what kind of band they become when they figure out how Emily fits into the mix without the specter of Chester or whatever. And I like that they’re figuring it out publicly. But I’m not sure I’d love it as much if not for having seen them play these songs live. In live shows, the audience kinda takes Chester’s place, so Emily can just be Emily. I like that. But I can’t wait to see where they go with her. It’s just a shame that nu metal fans can be so sexist. I don’t think they’re going to give her a chance.”
Sturgill Simpson: Sound & Fury (2019) was one of two of the outlaw-country singer-songwriter’s albums on AJ’s list, but the other exhibited so many of the qualities that have kept me from truly investing in him as an artist, no matter how much I appreciate his work—namely, the fact that no matter how much I dig that someone is out there making decent country music after a decades-long glut, I’d honestly just rather listen to Waylon and Willie and Kris and the boys instead. The stuff I’ve heard from Simpson simply hasn’t been different enough.
Sound & Fury is different enough, though. It still wears its influences on its sleeve, but those influences are so diverse that I’m shocked the thing holds together. I’m hearing Donna Summer mashed up with KISS and Eminem and Kraftwerk and ELO and ZZ Top, and I have no idea how it all coheres, but it does.
“First off, you’ve gotta give the rest of his stuff a chance,” AJ scolded. “You need to dig deep and sit with it. But yeah, this album might not sound like his other stuff, but it’s just as much who he is as an artist. He does what he wants to do. He makes the albums he wants to make, not the albums a record label wants him to make. I like that. It’s authentic. It’s like the opposite of AI.”
SZA: Ctrl (2017) was another shocker for me. I’m hearing influences ranging from Jay-Z’s Black Album to Solange Knowles’s A Seat at the Table (not exactly a wide gamut, mind you), although it’s all sort of synthesized into something unique.
I asked AJ why I should recommend this to a bunch of boomers and Xers who read my stuff, especially given that they probably don’t have a lot of context for it.
“I mean, like I said, it all goes back to the sound for me. But also, this one is special because it’s nuanced. And vulnerable. It’s really the vulnerability that makes it so special. That’s the theme that makes this an album and not just some songs. But more than anything, I love that SZA is imperfect and the album is imperfect too. It’s not black and white. It’s like she’s not portraying herself as like the good guy or the bad guy. She’s just telling her own, like, truth and, like, her own experiences and her own feelings and thoughts, you know?”
I also chatted about this story with Ty, 26, a young man I’ve grown to know and love while cooking and serving hot meals for our unhoused and food-insecure neighbors. He was a little less forthcoming with albums, because Qobuz playlists and his own “Driving” playlist dominate his listening experience. But he did throw two LPs at me that stuck.
Tyler, The Creator: Chromakopia (2024) hit me pretty hard because it had, at that point, been ages since I’d heard a hip-hop album that truly landed with me from beginning to end. But this one is like a more consistent Childish Gambino (who guests on the album), with some Jay-Z influences thrown in for good measure, as well as some surprises that might not be surprises for people still heavily invested in the rap scene.
The Oh Hellos: Zephyrus (2020) also blew me away. If I had to put it in this-meets-that terms that older folks can understand, it’s sort of The Polyphonic Spree crossbred with Anaïs Mitchell by way of Nickel Creek, but livelier and more upbeat.
I asked Ty how he discovers new music, and he had this to say: “Most of my new music comes from games / videos / movies and the like. When I do go looking for new stuff, I ask my friends who I know have similar taste, or I’ll also Google something like ‘Bands similar to X artist’.”
I asked the same question to Blue, 21, who releases music on the worker-owned digital distribution platform Mirlo under the nom de guerre Virtue Is Dead. But before I got to that question, we had a long and winding back-and-forth that really amounted to a sort of generational cultural exchange, because they were as interested in my music as I was in theirs. “Anything older than, like, 20 years old, it’s hard for me to even know where to start,” Blue said. So we started with their favorites and worked backward.
Alon Mor: Lands of Delight (2019) is, without question, Blue’s favorite album. And I think that tells you something about them. I’m reminded of the stories about one time when Ornette Coleman sat in with the Grateful Dead on a particularly heavy version of “Dark Star,” after which seriously rattled audience members were consoling one another and asking, “Are you OK?” I felt like that after a few tracks of Lands of Delight.
But it also reminded me a lot of one of Björk’s most misunderstood albums, Volta. I was, I’ll admit, a little disappointed that Blue had never even heard Volta, not even the track that most closely resembles what Mor is laying down here, “Earth Intruders.” We didn’t have much time to dig deeper before they threw a much less challenging selection at me.
Deca: The Way Through (2017) is one that I didn’t want to like at first, if only because Blue tried to sell it to me as “probably the best rap album I’ve ever heard.” That’s a bold claim from a child. But I’ll admit, a few tracks in, I was resonating with it hard.
“Wait,” I asked Blue, “Is the whole East Coast / West Coast divide still a thing in rap? This has got a serious East Coast vibe.”
Their reply can only be typed as, “Yeeeeessss!”
“This is really nice,” I said. “It pays tribute to my era of hip-hop without being slavish to it. I’m even hearing some seasoning that reminds me of Del the Funky Homosapien. You fuck with Del?”
“Not familiar,” Blue replied.
“Go listen to Deltron 3030 if you want to explore the roots of what’s going on here,” I told them.
And I think Blue might be as neurodivergent as I am, because they immediately did just that, and the conversation screeched to a halt.
When I next spoke with Blue, I asked how they discover new music. “I guess the same way as everyone else? Recommendations from the bands I already like, recommendations from friends, other projects the band members or artist has worked on, other albums the producer worked on, other bands on the record label, crate digging, and recommendations from curators I follow, mostly.”
I asked for some clarification on that last point. What counts as a curator? “Anything from Anthony Fantano to random people on RYM who have similar taste to me.”
I asked Blue if they ever discovered anything via streaming algorithms, seriously expecting the sort of spittle-fueled rant that would make for some quotable quotes. I was not expecting this answer: “Of course the algorithm has fed me some good stuff. Algorithms are good at what they do. They’re not useless. But I think you should avoid them anyway.”
“Why?”
“The algorithm can be good, but it’s not a reliable thing. It can just spontaneously change or go away. And depending on the platform, if you’re basing your tastes on what the algorithm feeds you, your tastes will be completely driven by and derived from capitalist forces, and I doubt I need to explain to anybody why that’s bad for us all.
“Plus, the algorithm robs you of the intrinsic satisfaction and enjoyment you get from putting in the effort, or even the connections you could foster with existing friends over the music they recommend. It’s way more fulfilling to engage in conversations with people who you find tend to align with your taste … or push your boundaries in a way you like.”
And to that last point, you might have noticed the name Haley above, with an asterisk beside it. Haley, 23, started the radical gardeners’ group I belong to—a bunch of socialists and anarchists who help one another with their food-growing efforts, share cuttings and seeds, exchange produce, coordinate growing schedules, work the soil together, and just generally aid each other in preparing for what we all sort of feel like is an inevitable societal collapse. Kind of like preppers without the white supremacy and with fewer guns. We also have long-term goals of starting a farm or community garden, assuming any of us survives that long. That seems increasingly doubtful these days, but you have to have goals, right?
At any rate, Haley threw me for a loop with her list, because it’s exactly the sort of chaotic mix that sums up my taste. My eyes immediately jumped to the final album in her top five, because it’s been in heavy rotation on my turntable since July of last year.
Wet Leg: Moisturizer (2025) shouldn’t have been out long enough to end up on anyone’s top-five list, though. Hell, I have unpaid bills that have been outstanding longer than this record has been on store shelves.
“Let me tell you about the roller coaster I’ve been on as a result of your picking Moisturizer as one of your top five,” I said to Haley one random Sunday afternoon. “When I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh, Haley Bear and I are going to have to fight about this.’ Typical kid. Slave to recency bias. Get off my lawn. All that.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So I went back and really spent a lot of time with both Wet Leg albums. Because I wanted to mansplain to you why I thought the first one was the better album. And the more I listened to them, the more I realized, oh shit, the new one is the better album. There are songs on the first album that I love more, perhaps because I’ve sat with them longer. But as an album—as a self-contained and consistent work of art—the new one is better.”
“Slay.”
“But what it got me thinking about was this: You know, I’m more than twice your age. At this point, most of the albums that I love most in this world, I discovered them more than 20 years ago. And obviously, I listen to Wet Leg, so I’m always up for something new. But I do have, I think, a sort of gravitational attraction to the older stuff that I already love, and it’s almost like the newer stuff has to prove itself to me. But I’m wondering if you, perhaps given that you’re so much younger, find it easier to get into newer stuff.”
“I haven’t really thought of it like that.”
“Like, were you already into Wet Leg before the new album came out? Did you preorder it like I did?”
“Um, honestly, no. I was watching Heated Rivalry, and “Mangetout” was on the soundtrack. And really, I don’t often like the music much in most stuff I watch, but I think the music director for Heated Rivalry did a very, very good job. Because, instead of just, like, glossing over what was playing at that moment, it caught my attention. It worked with the show, not just as background filler. So I was looking up the music lists for the show and started following a bunch of new artists from that.
“But I listened to Moisturizer for that song, and I just really, really liked the vibe. I’ve gone back and listened to the first album, since I’m obsessed with this one, but the new one is just better. Glad you figured that out yourself.”
“Still, it’s interesting to me that, as an old person, I think I secretly don’t want the new stuff to be better. I want the old stuff to be better, you know? Does that make sense?”
“Honestly, I feel the same thing about Hozier sometimes, but if I really sit down and listen, every new release is like the best he’s ever made … except for his stupid-ass covers of other people’s songs.”
Speaking of which:
Hozier: Unreal Unearth (2023) is the only album on the list about which Haley gave me very specific listening instructions. I had to listen to the original version. None of the expanded editions or re-releases. After a few listens to all the different iterations, I agreed that this was the correct answer. But I wanted to hear from Haley why she was so insistent that the original album was her favorite.
“It’s like with ‘Silver Springs’ by Fleetwood Mac,” she said. Haley and I had talked at length about how they left that song off Rumours because of the constraints of vinyl, and then put it back on when they had room in the DVD-Audio era. “It doesn’t flow. It doesn’t have a place. It’s like, all of the songs that didn’t fit on Unreal Unearth are really good, but playing them all back-to-back, it doesn’t really flow.
“If you listen to the original release, the songs stand by themselves, and they also stand together. I feel like you lose a lot of that when listening to the expanded releases.”
This, to me, hits the nail on the head. The album, which is based on Dante’s Inferno, is simultaneously epic and intimate. It’s somehow familiar but unlike anything I’ve ever heard. I kept wanting to compare it to Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown because that was my best point of reference, but the album rejected such comparisons. It wanted me to accept it on its own terms. It’s now one of my new favorites, too.
Noah Kahan: Stick Season (2022) is another one that I fell in love with immediately. “I hate to fall into this-meets-that reductionism,” I said to Haley, “but this one just sort of feels like Appalachian Arcade Fire to me, if that makes sense.”
“Mm-hmm!”
And I wish we’d talked about Stick Season more, because there’s so much to unpack, but at this point Haley invited me and my wife to a concert she’s going to with her boyfriend in July, and despite never having listened to the artist before, I forked over $50 for tickets immediately—an exorbitant amount of money to spend on luxuries these days, but I’ve just started to assume that our musical tastes are so aligned, if Haley likes it, I’m going to like it too.
She did throw a few faves at me that challenged that, though:
Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023) is an album I’m sure even my dad has heard of. But I’d honestly never listened to a single cut from it before and didn’t have much reason to seek it out until I found out it was one of Haley’s top picks. It was, to be frank, surprisingly enjoyable. Perhaps not one I’d return to, but I can see why it resonates. Or at least I thought I could. I had to ask, though: what makes The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess an album for Haley, and not merely a collection of catchy tunes?
“It’s about the storytelling through-line for me. The lyrics are surprisingly good. But it’s the story that hooks me. She knows who she is, and she’s comfortable with who she is as a person. And I need to hear that sometimes. Music is subjective, and it means different things for everybody. I guess I just sort of really need what this album means to me, on my own terms.”
Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend (2025) also shocked me for several reasons, particularly its 1980s vibe and its unapologetic sexuality. “I love how much of that album is her talking about shitty exes,” Haley says. “But not in a Taylor Swift kind of way. I feel like she’s not telling stories about other people; she’s telling stories about how other people’s actions changed her.”
At this point, I asked Haley a question I’ve asked the other kids I spoke with for this story: how does she discover new music?
“I used to use Spotify. I had never used anything but Spotify until recently. So I had years and years of music built up, and the algorithm had a decent-enough handle on what I like. The algorithms for, like, Discover Weekly were very helpful. But I left Spotify because, you know … evil. And now that I’m on YouTube Music for at least the time being, I’m not loving it. It’s not as good. So for now, finding really new stuff—stuff that isn’t just an easy ‘if you like X, you’ll like Y’ kind of thing—really comes from Tiny Desk concerts.”
We spent a few minutes reminiscing about our favorite Tiny Desk shows, and then I asked her, “Have you checked out KEXP’s YouTube channel? It’s kind of like Tiny Desk but more indie.”
“Slay! I’m always drawn to more indie stuff. I’ll check it out. I’m always down for something new.”
“You know how I’m going to be finding most of my new music in the future, though, Haley Bear?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m just going to listen to whatever you tell me to listen to.”
“Periodt!”
And for those of you trying to keep up with the ever-evolving language, that’s pronounced exactly as one would suspect it might be.
. . . Dennis Burger
dennisb@soundstagenetwork.com
