26 Favorite Albums At Age 26

Lately I have been trying to exclusively listen to albums instead of playlists or single songs. While I love making playlists, there is something about a full length album that can tell a narrative in a way no other medium of art can. Writing this at age 26, I decided to document my 26 favorite albums. Nothing about this list is objective; I don’t claim these are the 26 best albums, simply my favorite. Please do not message me about how I left off your favorite album :)

Music taste is a funny thing; somehow a combination of early childhood experience, genetic predisposition, influence from loved ones, and wider cultural trends all come together to make you fall in love with certain sounds. I think the only thing that ties these albums together is that I love them entirely, not just the individual songs in them, and they are the albums I keep turning back to. They all give me that feeling. I think all music lovers will know the feeling. They are in no particular order. 

This record has been in my headphones constantly since it was released. I started listening to Maggie Rogers in 2023 but ‘Don’t Forget Me’ made her into one of my favorite artists. Apparently this album was written and recorded in 5 days?! 

If I had to trace back my love of music, it probably starts with The Beatles. I can remember being in 2nd grade and sitting at the family computer listening to Yellow Submarine and being entranced. We were singing the song in music class so I wanted to listen to the original. This was the first time that music gave me that feeling.  

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were my favorite band throughout my childhood. This was and remains the album of theirs that really connects with me. There is a special combination of sensitivity and intensity that coalesces perfectly on this album. 

I was introduced to Julian Lage my freshman year of college by my guitar teacher. During our first lesson, he gave me 5 guitarists to listen to. I thank God that he put Julian’s name on that list. Julian has become my favorite guitarist of all time. He is one of those rare virtuosos whose technical facility only looks to serve the music. This album is 40 minutes of solo acoustic guitar and is one of the most beautiful offerings of music I have ever heard. 

This album came out right at the beginning of the pandemic, and seemed to hold the collective sense of grief while commenting on the most minute details of melancholy. I think it’s a masterpiece. 

In The Heights is the musical that made me fall in love with musical theatre. It was the first time I ever heard popular music sensibilities paired with relatable characters on stage. 

I know jazz purists put this album down, but I think the trio is playing some of the most tasteful jazz I have ever heard on this record. This album makes me nostalgic for a Christmas that I’m not sure ever existed. I listen to it constantly in December and have even been known to throw it on in the middle of July. 

It’s hard to overstate just how much John Mayer’s music meant to me as a teenager. His guitar playing influenced me tremendously. This album was the soundtrack of my senior year of High School and is still a favorite.

My relationship with jazz has always felt complicated, but this album somehow makes it feel easy. The simple beauty of this album makes it feel timeless.

This album sort of blew my mind and opened up what I believed music could sound like. I played with Kirk for a show in NYC in 2023 and listened to his album after we became Facebook friends. This album taught me that music doesn’t need to be overproduced or played with a metronome or even in tune to be beautiful. This project speaks to something so much greater because truth was prioritized over perfectionism. 

I can’t think of a time when the hits on this album didn’t live in my consciousness, but it was not until a season of major depression that it became one of my all-time favorite albums. So much of my world seemed so grim at that time, but every night, I could lay on the floor, listen to these songs and feel just a bit of comfort

I love classical music, but this is the only classical album on this list. I tend to think of classical music less in terms of the album and more in terms of the composer. This album is a compilation of French romantic music. Poon’s interpretation beautifully captures the tension of nostalgia and hope that I find in the music of Debussy, Ravel, and Rameau. 

It’s hard to think of an album that has influenced more of the musicians around me than this one. This album has just always been in our soundscape. It was old enough to already be a classic by the time we were born, but modern enough to have everything we were after in our own playing. 

Cabaret is my favorite musical of all time. The story, though written in 1966 about pre-war Germany, feels like it is dealing with all of the themes I have been thinking about over these past 2 years - specifically, what does it mean about us to be creating joy (sometimes hedonistic joy) in our lives while ignoring the suffering around us? Anyways, this music for me is all about the performances. Though I choose the 1972 film adaptation as my favorite, I think all of the emcee’s portrayals are so interesting and bring their own commentary to the question I asked above.

Bill Evans piano playing makes me fall in love with music again every time I hear it. This album is especially special because eleven days after the recording, bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in a car accident. Bill subsequently said, “I am thankful that we recorded that day, because it was the last time I saw Scott and the last time we would play together. When you have evolved a concept of playing which depends on the specific personalities of outstanding players, how do you start again when they are gone?”

This album is probably my favorite example of a totally cohesive and satisfying sonic landscape. It is one of the few albums where it almost feels inappropriate to just listen to any one song out of context. 

This album is special to me because I grew up listening to it with my Dad on weekend mornings in elementary school. We’d wake up, make pancakes, go downstairs, and listen to James Taylor. It still holds that sense of simple joy for me today.

For 6 months, my best friend had an old Saab convertible. Abbey Road was stuck in the CD player, so we would drive around CT playing this album over and over. Those memories could get me through multiple lifetimes.

Gosh, I just totally fell in love with this album when I listened to it a few years ago. Enchanting chord progressions, her uniquely beautiful voice, and sweet lyrics make this record an all-time favorite. 

Promises, Promises may not be my favorite musical, but it IS my favorite music from a musical. This 2013 revival is just candy to my ears. Lush 9th chords with amazing performances by Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth. Chefs kiss. 

Some albums just seem to come out at the right time. I really believe that there is a collective consciousness that we can all tune into. The Strokes tapped into something that I think a certain type of person was feeling during the summer of 2020 in America. This reckoning of truth and violence with a sense of distorted time, where everything that was happening was both unprecedented, yet also totally unoriginal. 

There is a sense of spiritual and worship themes in this album that are unstated but come out so clear to me. That suffering, and hope, and marveling, and sadness, are what worship music should be. Part of my problem with most Christian music is that it seems to put the feelings I feel into trite platitudes. This music is not Christian in any explicit sense, but oh boy does it speak to the way I want Christian music to make me feel. 

This album is such a love letter to the California folk music of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Carol King. It just seems to speak to those little, simple truths, that if not stated outloud, are missed. 

What I love about this album is how committed Ben Folds seems to being himself. All of his musical/lyrical weirdness, combined with songwriting mastery, really shines. 

This album seems to speak directly to the way I experience breakups. The language and soundscape she forms speak to everything I feel - Those contradictory feelings of mutual culpability, yearning, self-doubt, and self-righteousness all weaving their way throughout my brain at the same time. 

The world that this album creates is somehow both totally ridiculous and yet also the only thing that makes any sense. The characters seem to both live in my fever dreams but also are the people I see every day; ya know?