I mentioned a couple of months ago that I have been obsessed with the latest Paramore album, This is why.

I’ve always liked their music, but I feel like the new album is a fantastic piece of art, where every song is as good (or better) than the song before. There’s nothing in there I would skip over.

When I hear one of the songs in shuffle, or one of my Apple-created playlists, my mind automatically starts singing the next song, and I get disappointed when it doesn’t play.

It feels like an age since an album has had that effect on me. I miss it.

I think the last album that had a similar effect was A/B by Kaleo. Before that, maybe AM by Arctic Monkeys.

Before that, though… I don’t know?

I can clearly pick a handful of albums from my teenage years and early 20s, but the past 15 years or so is much, much harder.

I know I don’t listen to as much new music as I should. Really, I don’t listen to enough music at all.

With ubiquitous access to (practically) everything with Apple Music (or Spotify), I find myself listening to the curated playlists created based on my likes, which always tend to play the same artists and songs back to me. I love Rage Against the Machine as much as the next guy, but it’s a running joke at home that we can’t really play my Favourites playlist at dinner because RATM doesn’t quite fit the mood.

Occasionally, I’ll hear something new that I enjoy, and try to hear more (Kaleo happened that way). But for the most part, discovery has become a proactive endeavour I don’t feel like I have the time or energy to commit to.

Anyway, I feel like I want to make a point of rediscovering perfect albums. I might even blog it along here. I’ll start next week with This is Why because that seems most logical to me.

But I’m definitely open to suggestions. Any perfect albums I should listen to?