Fun fact: In the same amount of time you’ve just spent scrolling Netflix’s landing page, you could have been transported into a brilliant musician’s creative realm by simply putting down the remote and listening to an album from start to finish.
It’s a lost art, and remarkably therapeutic. We reached out to our favorite music writers with a simple question: Given our stay-at-home circumstances, which album have you been listening to most from start to finish, and why?
Johnny Mathis, “Open Fire, Two Guitars”
Neither over- nor under-delivering on the promise of its title, this quiet 1959 classic is one of the romantic pop crooner’s sparsest yet most sublime: just Mathis, his voice so supple it sounds almost wet, accompanied by guitarists Al Caiola and Tony Mottola in an expertly designed program of standards including “When I Fall in Love” and “Embraceable You.” Mathis could sing anything, of course; now in his mid-80s, he still can, as his recent rendition of Pharrell’s “Happy” (!) made clear. But with the arrangements as restrained as they are here, “Open Fire” emphasizes depth of tone over breadth of ability. It’s a dream to get lost in.
—Mikael Wood, Times pop music critic
Jules Massenet, “Manon”
What music provides necessary escapism, roller coaster melodrama and a patina of doing something nourishing? Seems as good a time as any to get into opera! Jules Massenet’s “Manon” is a fine place to start. The Victoria de Los Ángeles’ 1959 recording conducted by Jean Paul Morel is on Spotify and features one of the all-time greats. Two and a half hours of gorgeous arias, charming comic interludes and superhuman vocals remind us what real bodies can sound like in this era of FaceTime happy hours. The album is a whole afternoon away from the news, yes. But older music is also a reminder that humans have been around a long time, and have lived through much worse than this.
—August Brown, Times staff writer
Van Morrison & the Chieftains, “Irish Heartbeat”
This 1988 summit meeting between the mystic poetic soul man of Irish popular music and the leading proponents of the country’s folk traditions was, and is, a thing of wonder. Morrison’s voice takes revelatory twists and turns to get to the heart of folk standards such as “The Star of the County Down,” “Carrickfergus” and “Raglan Road,” while the Chieftains’ instrumental virtuosity lifts that voice from the depths of despair to the pinnacles of ecstasy time after time.
—Randy Lewis, Times staff writer
Paul Simon, “Graceland”
Paul Simon wrote “Graceland” in the mid-1980s, describing a worldwide struggle to balance feelings of seemingly unlimited scientific advances (the boy in the bubble) and unexpected terrors (the bomb in the baby carriage), yet the album addresses today’s complexities just as powerfully. The music is joyful and warm, frequently inviting you to step onto the dance floor. Simon’s words, meanwhile, strive for an essential healing. Ultimately, he tells us, we all will be received in Graceland.
—Robert Hilburn, former Times pop critic
Nina Simone, “Black Gold”
By the time Nina Simone played the Philharmonic, the auditorium had been remodeled three times to improve its sound; many musicians who performed there continued to gripe about the room’s overabundant reverberation and lousy bass response. But the way “Black Gold” captures those quirks is part of what makes it so great. When Simone sings Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” it sounds like there are miles of open country between her voice and the hushed small-group arrangement — congas, electric and acoustic guitar, everyone seemingly trying to play more quietly than everyone else, to the point that you can swear you can hear the cord on Simone’s mic bumping against its stand.
—Alex Pappademas, freelance
J Dilla, “Donuts”
However big your place is, it has limits, and suddenly we all need to create a big world out of our very real physical limits. That’s what the Detroit-born hip-hop producer J Dilla did brilliantly on 2006’s instrumental album “Donuts”: Use a brace of obscure soul samples and homemade beats, snatches of words whose meanings here are always open-ended, to create a universe of strong feelings and weird inner moods. Dilla, who died in 2006 at age 32, produced hits for the Roots, D’Angelo, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. But on his own personal masterpiece, he built something quirky and probably personal, though you’ll never know why.
—RJ Smith, freelance
Billie Holiday, “Lady in Satin”
Recorded in 1958, a year before her death at age 44, Billie Holiday’s (pictured right) “Lady in Satin” is filled with light and love. Her testimony is sacred: Song transforms pain into beauty, music mitigates fear and the deepest blues births the greatest joy.
—David Ritz
R.E.M., “Murmur”
When R.E.M. released their first full-length album, “Murmur,” in 1983, the album’s distinctive, mysterious sound earned it a fond nickname: Mumble. The nickname referred to singer Michael Stipe’s lack of enunciation and the way he smeared syllables, turning lyrics into mysteries. The songs are clever and gorgeous, but at the forefront, there’s a young man who isn’t sure how clearly he wants to communicate. “Murmur” isn’t sure what it’s saying. Blurriness is central to its concept — it’s a watercolor, rather than a high-res digital photo. Additional listens only compound the frustration. But the songs are gorgeous, their moods are clear, and if an album isn’t sure what it’s saying, you can’t ever get tired of what it’s saying.
—Rob Tannenbaum, freelance
Kate Bush, “Hounds of Love”
To be fair, “Hounds of Love” demands active, loud listening at all times, not just during a lockdown: Bush’s skyscraping vocals soar over verdant instrumentation — thundercloud synthesizers, theatrical arrangements, splashes of stringed instruments — to create lush, escapist music. But during this period of great anxiety and uncertainty, “Hounds of Love” feels like a lifeline — an album offering emotional solace and a promise of better days.
—Annie Zaleski, freelance
Pretenders, “The Singles”
The quicksilver way Chrissie Hynde’s songs transpose from personal meanings to sociopolitical ones and back is forever crystallized by “Back on the Chain Gang.” But “Middle of the Road” and even her cover of “Stop Your Sobbing” can work the same magic, depending on your mood. Perhaps luckily missing from this compilation: “My City Was Gone,” which might be too painful to hear nowadays even if “Talk of the Town” or “Message of Love” didn’t provide, if not a cure-all, then palliative therapy.
—Tom Carson, freelance
Dirty Three, “Whatever You Love, You Are”
With the Australian trio Dirty Three — the aching violin of Warren Ellis (pictured), the hypnotic guitar of Mick Turner and the drumming fireworks of Jim White — it can be easy to miss that there’s no singing here at all. The instrumental phrasings at play on their fifth album “Whatever You Love, You Are” mix post-rock with free jazz, and it’s pure poetry. This quietly epic LP has barely left my turntable over the last week; maybe that’s because its very nature seems to expand the dimensions of whatever room it’s playing in. “Whatever You Love, You Are” evokes the multitudes of the night sky on its cover — a darkness to get lost in, a North Star to guide you back, comforting and overwhelming in equal measure.
—Jenn Pelly, freelance
Kim Gordon, “No Home Record”
For some of us, tense times require tense music. On her first-ever solo record, Kim Gordon offers not easy listening but the disruptive approach she established during her decades in Sonic Youth. Now relocated back to L.A.., this longtime queen of the NYC underground stretches out again through layers of noise and melody, guitars and electronics, taking cues equally from the Stooges and underground hip-hop, with lyrics that are jagged and impressionistic. From the opening cellos of “Sketch Artist” that sound like fabric tearing to the deep throb and dread of “Murdered Out,” Gordon is dependably uncompromising, reflecting on tensions past and still to come.
—Steve Appleford, freelance
Sade, “Diamond Life”
Sometimes the genre we seek refuge in is quiet storm, the Smokey Robinson-coined, late-night-radio, sensual-soul subgenre. Sade’s “Diamond Life” is a perfect specimen, where studio-strict but somehow still loosely jazzy arrangements float like Arctic icebergs through Sade’s ocean moon tides.
—Molly Lambert, freelance
Luther Vandross, “The Night I Fell In Love”
There is so much love here. To record “The Night Fell in Love,” Vandross retreated with his crew to the tiny island of Montserrat. Session players became a band. And because Luther sang his vocals with them, you feel the exchange between vocals and instruments. An underlying tragedy of “The Night I Fell In Love” is that Vandross, who as a performer came of age at the macabre height of the AIDS era, was unlucky in love. These fears and melancholy make “The Night I Fell In Love” wildly relevant. The album presses college nostalgia buttons, but it’s also a reminder of what can be created in an era defined by a deadly virus. Luther’s “Love” shouts back at the havoc, then and now.
—Danyel Smith, freelance
Miranda Lambert, “Weight of These Wings”
If any complaint could be made about Miranda Lambert’s stunning double record “The Weight of These Wings,” it’s perhaps that modern life doesn’t allow for enough time to really take in and savor such an in-depth collection of music. But what better time to slow down and appreciate this 24-song collection that’s about letting go of existence as we know it and feeling strong enough to lead with your heart, even when things get tough? Lambert’s singing about the end of a relationship here, but thanks to her precise yet poetic lyricism, it’s as universal as it gets.
—Marissa R. Moss, freelance
Sampha, “Process”
Sampha’s long-gestating debut was born out of the loss of his mother, and the intensity of that pain informs much of “Process.” The experimental singer-songwriter interrogates love, anxiety and solitude over throbbing R&B beats and delicate balladry that play like diary entries scribbled during a stretch of sleepless nights. “Process” offers a sublime reflection of the way grief manifests in the body, and listening to it during these times of calamity feels especially transformative.
—Gerrick D. Kennedy, freelance
Abbey Lincoln, “Devil’s Got Your Tongue”
Abbey Lincoln, the Chicago-reared jazz stylist-songwriter who passed away in 2010, was a musical philosopher who adventurously explored social and spiritual precincts of the human condition. Re-listening to "Devil's Got Your Tongue" in the midst of our current anxiety-inducing crisis, Lincoln’s singing sounds like a gift, reminding us of the inevitability of replenishment when we most need to hear it.
—Jason King, professor, New York University
Avalanches, “Since I Left You”
The turn-of-the-millennium, sample-laden equivalent of an old suitcase plastered with travel stamps from sunny vacation spots around the world, “Since I Left You” was released at the peak of Napster-mania, and this group of Australian DJs’ balmy wanderlust was equaled only by the seemingly limitless new world of obscure recordings at their disposal. “Since I Left You” is wholly comprised of samples — anywhere from 900 to 3,500, depending on whom you ask — which lends itself toward the archaeological type of deep listen. Let your brain relax, close your eyes, and follow the greeting offered 45 seconds into the album: “Get a drink, have a good time now, welcome to paradise.”
—Eric Harvey, freelance
Sly and the Family Stone, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On”
“There’s a Riot Goin’ On” is pop music’s greatest work of disintegration. Released in 1971, “Riot” was a stunning about-face, the Family Stone’s famed optimism curdling into cynicism and slow-boiling dread. Officially credited to the group but largely the work of Sly alone, “Riot” is the sound of paranoia, alienation and obsession, a record so exhaustively picked-over that it becomes the sound of its own process. It’s sticky and intoxicating, every sound compressed to a choke point, simultaneously surreal and immediate. It’s also a sublimely funky and indescribably soulful suite of dark humor and ragged beauty, one of the great headphone masterpieces of the late 20th century.
—Jack Hamilton, pop critic, Slate
The Waterboys, “Fisherman’s Blues”
Pared down from nearly 100 songs recorded over two years, “Fisherman’s Blues” starts with a dream of escape (“I wish I was a fisherman / Tumblin’ on the seas”) and ends with a legend of lure, faeries stealing a child away from a world “more full of weeping than you can understand.” It’s like a songbook of fables, rendered for an anxious world that everyone, all alone, is trying to find a way out of. It’s music for facing strange times on strange boats, and it never lets us down.
—Josh Kun, professor of communication, USC Annenberg School
Genesis, “Selling England by the Pound”
This Peter Gabriel-era (pictured) Genesis album can instantly transport you to a sonic landscape both whimsical and incredibly romantic. This 1973 session represents everything that was wholesome about British prog-rock: the limitless imagination and genre-bending eccentricities — that epic piano intro on “Firth of Fifth” evokes Rachmaninoff — all seeped in a quirky, Lewis Carroll-like sense of humor.
—Ernesto Lechner, freelance
Kacey Musgraves, “Golden Hour”
“Golden Hour” has been a record with repeat visitors since its 2018 release. But now, more than ever, solace can be found within the high highs and low lows of the record. Musgraves’ sincerity on the album is something that’s provided comfort, at a time where isolation from loved ones and life is illuminated. For moments where empowerment is needed, turn to the discofied “High Horse,” which is as vulnerable as it is a kiss-off. But “Golden Hour’s” closer, the piano ballad, “Rainbow,” is cathartic: ideal for tears to stream down your face as the world stands still.
—Ilana Kaplan, freelance
Wu-Tang Clan, “Wu-Tang Forever”
This 1997 double album is black art exploding above the top of the charts. It almost made pop irrelevant. The celebratory “Reunited” sets the Wu’s agenda: to lyrically challenge pop-rap. The project’s dark sonic tone is cemented when Ghostface Killah recalls witnessing a friend’s murder (“Impossible”). Rapping loudly along to RZA’s boasts on the sinister “Duck Season” is irresistable “Forever” is stunning in sequence, but this album is malleable, and works on shuffle or in any order the listener loves.
—Elliott Wilson, chief content officer, Tidal
Carla Morrison, “Amor Supremo Desnudo”
The Tecate native’s acoustic remake of her own 2015 album, “Amor Supremo,” highlights Morrison’s performance chops, guitar prowess and ballad mastery. “Tierra Ajena” (Foreign Land), featuring Ely Guerra, questions a lover’s actions; “Todo Pasa” (Everything Happens) examines life’s chaotic moments without losing all hope; and “Vez Primera” (First Time) reveals a torn soul on a discovery of self-worth.
—Justino Aguila, freelance
Japandroids, “Celebration Rock”
You’re not hearing a static-filled malfunction of your turntable as “The Nights of Wine and Roses” opens — those are fireworks foreshadowing 35 minutes and 10 seconds of explosive punk. Filled with anthems that are instant sing-alongs and lyrics that ponder both lost youth and a generational call, the frenzy fades with a finale of more fireworks, signaling the end of the 21st century’s best rock album to date.
—Vanessa Franko, digital director of entertainment, Southern California News Group
