Sam's Top 5 Top-To-Bottom Albums!

Picture it: Christmas Day, 1999. A little girl tears into a big box with her name on it. She's been saving it for last but gets more and more ravenous with each scrap of wrapping paper that gets ripped away. Finally, she sees a brand name: Sanyo. She squeals with excitement. "A stereo!" She shouts. With a new millennium just a week away, this combination CD/cassette player represents more than just a flashy new piece of tech. It's a method of self expression. No longer will she be at the mercy of whatever music her parents feel like listening to on a Saturday morning, or after dinner when the washing up needs to be done. Now, she is free to curate her own tastes in the comfort and privacy of her own room. Now, she is finally free.

That little girl was, of course, me. And I still have that stereo to this day. Even as personal listening devices became more digital, I still bought CD's and listened to them well into the 2010's. I would go to HMV, blow the majority of my paycheck there, then go home and sit on the floor of my bedroom, listening to what I just bought while I pored over the liner notes.*

But not all albums were the same. Some of them found me at just the right moment, in just the right mood, and imprinted themselves on me in a way that changed my life forever. Some of them even altered my path. 

This, my friends, is the magic of the top-to-bottom album. 

Also referred to as a "no skips" album, a top-to-bottom album is an album that, to you, is so perfectly composed, you don't feel compelled to skip a single song. Discovering a top-to-bottom album is a beautiful experience. It's a phenomenon that has a way of finding you exactly when you need it, whether you're an angsty teenager experiencing her first true heartbreak, a twenty-something in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, or a carefree youth about to have the summer of your life.**

Below are some of my favourite TTBA's. They've all found me at a significant time in my life, and have the special power to transport me back to that time. I'm going to include a little bit about the recording process of each album, where I was in my life when the music found me, and my favourite lyrics. I hope it reminds you of your own special albums, or maybe you'll discover a new favourite in this list. Musicians work really hard to curate albums so that they're listenable from beginning to end, and it's not lost on them that a whole album in this day and age is a huge time investment to ask of somebody. I hope that through reading this post, you'll be reminded that it's worth it. 

1. "19"-Adele

Backstory: Fresh off of MySpace fame, Adele's debut album was her chance to "get a boy off my chest and include all the different kinds of music that I love."^[source] With an artful blend of blues, soul, pop, and electronica influences, the album was, of course, a smash, and was the beginning of a slew of age-themed albums about love and heartbreak that we all know and love.

Where I Was When I Found It: Where else? Fresh off of my first proper heartbreak. The first boy I ever loved had taken me to our school's semi-formal, kissed me, told me he wasn't "ready for a relationship", then promptly  started dating another girl a few weeks later. I was crushed, but still hopelessly in love with him. I don't remember how it found me, but somehow I discovered the song Chasing Pavements and it became my go-to crying song for the rest of 2009. "Should I give up," I thought to myself, "or should I just keep chasing pavements? Even if they lead nowhere?" Eventually I chose the former, and thank god I did, because it inspired me to listen to the rest of the album. From the yearnful plucking of the first riffs of Daydreamer to the prideful roar of Hometown Glory, the album proves over and over again that it is so, so aptly named. Adele's lyrics perfectly embody two of the biggest issues 19 year olds grapple with-falling in love and leaving home. 

Notable Lyrics: Each and every time I've turned around to leave/Feel my heart begin to burst and bleed/So desperately I try to link it with my head/But instead I fall back to my knees-"Melt My Heart to Stone"

2. "Folie a Deux"-Fall Out Boy

Backstory: Okay look, this whole list could have been Fall Out Boy albums. They are, far and away, my favourite band. But I wouldn't do that to you, so I chose one that not only found me at an important time in my life, but carried me through a couple more chapters as well. French for "the shared madness of two," the album was actually the quartet's most collaborative project since they first started out. After the band's last album Infinity on High, guitarist Joe Trohman sat down with lead singer Patrick Stump to voice his concerns over his lack of input on previous projects, and insisted on a more collaborative process. They all agreed, and the band didn't notify their record label that they were working on new music-a risk that put a time limit on the amount of time they had to work on the album, but allowed them to make music the way they did before they were signed, before they became famous.^[source] 

Where I Was When I Found It: You will never have to twist my arm to buy a Fall Out Boy record. By 2008, the band had been firmly cemented into idol status in my mind, and I was anticipating the album as soon as the layout of their website changed the day they announced it. I loved it, I wrote a bunch of the album's lyrics on my mirror in Sharpie, but then a year went by, and the worst news dropped. 

Fall Out Boy was going on hiatus. 

They swore it wasn't the end. That they just needed a break. And as an adult who has suffered from burnout on many different occasions, I get it. They had been working pretty much nonstop since their debut album From Under the Cork Tree came out in 2005, and they needed to pause. Start families. Put down roots somewhere. But deep in my adolescent soul, it was a soft way to say it was all over. And right when I had started high school too! I listened to other music, and revisited FOB's other albums, but the fact still remained in my head: Fall Out Boy was done. 

Thankfully I was wrong. Fall Out Boy came back in 2013 (just in time for my first quarter life crisis). But until then, Folie a Deux covered a lot of bases for me. Disintegrating relationships, saying goodbye to things you thought were forever, and moral dilemmas...I gotta give them credit, they gave me a lot before they went away. I will always love them for that.

 Looking back, I think the fact that all four members contributed equally is what makes it so special. When my old friends drifted away from me, or when I broke up with my high school boyfriend during my first year of university, or when I felt lost and frustrated with my post-secondary choices, I could always come back to this album, and feel the same four guys who had always been there for me were still around. I looked to it for comfort then, and I still look to it for comfort now. 

Notable Lyrics: Oh baby you're a classic/Like a little Black dress/You're a faded moon/stuck on a little hot mess-"Tiffany Blews"

3. "The College Dropout"-Kanye West

Backstory: This may be the one album on this list whose history I don't have to Google. It is just so iconic that you can almost tell the story of it like an old folktale (it's also fully chronicled in the album's closer). 

Kanye was once an in-house producer for Roc-a-Fella records, making hits for the likes of Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and even Janet Jackson. At the same time, he was fighting to secure a record deal as an artist. Desperate to keep him from going to another label, he was signed to Roc-a-Fella while still being viewed as a producer first and foremost. You have to remember that at this point in the industry, producers were not seen as potential recording artists like they are now. They didn't have their own albums like the Mike WiLL Made-It's and the Metro Boomin's of today. 

Then, after a particularly late night in the studio, Kanye fell asleep at the wheel of his car and was involved in a near-fatal car crash. His jaw was completely broken and had to be wired shut. The crash served as a catalyst for Kanye, and two weeks later he recorded a song called Through the Wire-with his jaw still completely shut. 

The rest is history. Through the Wire first appeared on his Get Well Soon...mixtape, and eventually found its way onto his premiere album The College Dropout, which proved to the industry-and the rest of the world-that Kanye was a force to be reckoned with.^[source]

Where I Was When I Found It: With Fall Out Boy on hiatus, I started to look into rap music-a genre nobody around me had ever shown interest in when I was growing up. I can't recall for sure, but I think I bought TCD on a bit of a whim. My friend Lydia had found the video for The New Workout Plan on YouTube, and we both liked it because it was funny-watching all those women go through a literal obstacle course of working out and wrangling children while a bunch of rich men waited on the other side to see who would be their trophy wife. 

I liked the album enough to listen to it from start to finish a bunch of times, and I continued to like Kanye's music all throughout high school, but it didn't really mean something to me until I was in my first year of university. I had gone to X University (formerly known as Ryerson) for social work, but it soon became apparent that it was not for me. I was panicked. This was what I was supposed to do for a living. If I couldn't stick it out, what else was I going to do?

Enter The College Dropout, and more notably its skits. 

     "You know what college does for you? It makes you really smart, man. All you kids wanted to talk in the back of the class? Not me, I LISTENED. Okay? I was a hall. MONITOR. This was meant to be! You know how many classes I took, extra classes, extra classes, no I have never had sex but you know what? My degree. Keeps. Me. Satisfied. When a lady walks up to me and says "hey do you know what sex is?" I say "no I don't know what it is, but I bet I can add up all the change in your purse very fast."-School Spirit Skit 1

This skit alone made me think. Hard. Like, why did I go to school for social work? Why did I make this decision? It certainly wasn't for myself. I went back and listened to the whole album intently. The entire project seemed to be asking me, "why are you doing this?" And the only answer I could come up with was "because it's what I was told." I asked myself "told by who?" And I thought of all the teachers and adults who had pushed university on me, and told me it was the only way to ensure I would make money when I was an adult. And then I pictured myself as a social worker and I hated it. Then I listened to School Spirit Skit 2

     "You keep it goin' man, you keep those books rolling! You pick up all those books that you're gonna read and not remember, and you ROLL, man! You get that associate's degree okay? Then you get your bachelor's, then you get your masters, then you get your master's masters, then you get your doctorate, you GO man!"-School Spirit Skit 2

I realized I was only doing it because I thought it was a respectable title to have on a college degree and that's it. And it was going to take so much damn time. And I didn't even like the subject! But then I remembered... I was freshly 19 years old and nobody could tell me what to do anymore. So for the first time in my life I asked myself what I wanted. And the first thing that came to mind was acting. Not long after that I applied to the University of Waterloo for their Drama program, and started my journey as a professional artist. 

Notable Lyrics: Lock yourself in a room doin' five beats a day for three summers/That's a different world like Cree Summers/I deserve to do these numbers/The kid that made that/Deserves that Maybach/So many records in my basement/I'm just waitin' on my spaceship-"Spaceship"

4."Ctrl"-SZA

Backstory: Beginning in 2014, SZA's debut album solidifies her as a reigning queen of modern R&B. The project features a handful of different producers, who all took turns sending beats to SZA that she would then listen to and pick from what she liked. The entire process seems like a bit of an organized mess from what I can tell, but hey, who am I to talk? As I write this my office is a cluttered disaster of sticky notes, empty plastic sleeves of crackers, and old Christmas chocolate. But from that mess Ctrl was born, and it was a certified summer hit. 

Where I Was When I Found It: My partner Cameron introduced me to this album the summer it came out, and it was on a steady rotation for the entire season. We were still in school, travelling back and forth between his parent's house in Mississauga and my house in Kitchener. Whenever one song off this album came up in the shuffle, we couldn't resist putting on the whole album and just listening to it all the way through. 

I can't say that I've gone through even a little bit of what SZA talks about on this album. I've never been left on Valentine's Day, or been ghosted by a dude after travelling to his city specifically to see him, and I've never been with a dude that is openly creepin' around with other women. But SZA spins such an emotional tale with her voice that it puts you right there with the characters in her songs and you feel everything alongside them. For me, it is a master class in sympathizing. 

Notable Lyrics: You don't have shit to say to me, I ain't got shit to say to you. And step on. Also you Black heffa yeah you, you stand your ground. 'Cause I feel the same way, if you don't like me, you don't have to fool with me. But you don't have to talk about me or treat me mean. I don't have to treat you mean. I just stay out of your way. That's the way you work that one.-"Garden (Say It Like Dat)"***

5. "Mama's Gun"-Erykah Badu

Backstory: Badu's third studio album was recorded at the Electric Lady Studios in New York, while two other important neo-soul and rap albums were also in the works-Common's Like Water for Chocolate and D'Angelo's Voodoo. Having taken some time off after having her first child she returned with her frequent collaborator Questlove. The album was met with a lukewarm reception by critics, but the fans loved it. "When I started to tour again," Badu said of the album's reception, "and saw all the people show up who knew the words, it was confirmation that the work is not always for commercial success. It's also for spiritual upliftment."^[source]

Where I Was When I Found It: Lockdown, beloved. I was in lockdown. I was still working at a grocery store, and on nights I didn't have to go in the next day, I would sit on my front stoop and listen to music late into the night. I was trying to listen to new albums, or at least albums that were new to me, and I put on Mama's Gun. The first few opening sounds had me right away. It's all whispering and muttering. Badu is worrying to herself-"why are all these voices in my mind...I have to write a song...I have to remember to turn on the oven and warm up the apartment...I need to take my vitamins...stop it...why won't they stop..." And then Penitentiary Philosophy quickly crescendoes, percussion blasts, funky electric guitars riff, and Badu sings "here's my philosophy/living in a penitentiary." It just fit the vibe of the time so perfectly. I kept listening.

"Didn't Cha Know" reflected all of my mid-20's worries and fears about where I was headed in life. "Cleva" built me back up and made me feel like I could conquer the world even if I didn't look like the world's idea of a conquerer. "In Love With You" made me cry on those long lonely nights when I missed my partner so dearly but also silently pledged eternal devotion to him if I survived this pandemic. And do not even get me started on "Orange Moon" or "Green Eyes." Along with "What a Catch, Donnie" off of Folie a Deux, those two songs are pieces you should play only if you want me to burst into tears immediately. They are such raw and uninhibited expressions of love, the likes of which I don't think I could ever conjure within myself had I never listened to this album. 

Pitchfork wrote "released in November 2000, it embodies the millennial tensions of that pivotal year." For the first time in my life, I could not agree more with Pitchfork. Sadly, these tensions have followed this millennial into the 2020's, but Mama's Gun is a soothing balm to have around when it all becomes too much. 

Notable Lyrics: Time to save the world/Where in the world is all the time/So many things I still don't know/ So many times I've changed my mind/Guess I was born to make mistakes/But I ain't scared to take the weight/So when I stumble off the path/I know my heart will guide me back-"Didn't Cha Know"

Closing Thoughts

Top-to-bottom albums are special things. They transcend the average radio hit and drill right to the centre of our brain. It's not easy in this hustle-heavy society to break through and enchant an audience for the entirety of your project. I hope this post inspires you to revisit your favourite TTB's or maybe peruse one of the albums listed here, and appreciate the fine art of enjoying something you started from the very beginning to the very end. It's a beautiful thing to be so paralyzed by a piece of art that you sit and listen to it for an hour or so. And I think everyone deserves that kind of beautiful, magical experience.

*I learned so much from reading the liner notes of my albums. I don't know what the modern day equivalent of reading liner notes is, but whatever it is, we should all be doing it. 

**I may or may not have been all three at one point or another

***Okay so this isn't a lyric per se, but y'all better listen to SZA's grandma!