Vic's Picks: Our Favorite Albums Ever
Vic's Picks has the music-loving staff of Victrola sharing our bests, our favorites, our recent discoveries, and our musical memories.
For this edition of Vic’s Picks, we asked the Victrola team the hardest question to ask music lovers: What is your favorite album ever? Here’s what they said:
Ryan: Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains The Same
Account Manager
“Lots of memories of being younger jamming out with my friends with air guitar and trying to air drum to John Bonham.”
Andrew: The Strokes, Is This It
Director of Music & Content
“This is an impossible question, so I'm going with the album that meant the most to me when I was 15 years old: The Strokes' Is This It. I heard them sometime in fall of 2001 when the video for "Last Nite" played on MTV 2 while I worked on my homework on my family computer (god, I wish for the days when the computer was something you went to). I didn't know them, had never heard of them, but suddenly it felt like the aperture of my world opened up, a little bit. Here were these guys, five or six years older than me--and 5 or 6000% cooler than me--making rock music that felt as important as the classic rock I'd been raised on. I've owned 3 CD copies, and 3 vinyl copies in my time, and a career highlight was getting to put out a vinyl edition in a previous job. Long live Julian Casablancas.”
Noah: Incubus, Morning View
Senior Amazon Operations Specialist
“Good from start to finish. Brings back a lot of memories”
Josh: Tom Petty, Wildflowers
Director of Sales
“I can listen to this album from beginning to end and love every moment. Tom’s ability to craft a story and effortlessly layer in the melody is unmatched on this masterpiece. There are so many hits, and it brings me back to one of the best times in my life.”
Lydia:Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
SAP Support Manager
“When I heard “Skinny Love” for the first time (following a high school breakup), it immediately resonated deep within me - and quickly pulled me into the world of indie folk music. 18 + years later, this album has gotten me through subsequent breakups, bad work days, sleepless nights and everything in between. It is an album that quiets my brain and helps me ground in the present. Plus - Justin Vernon is also from my home state of Wisconsin :)”
Nick: Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You
Receivables Analyst
“Every song is great at one of the rare peak times in music. It rocks effortlessly with lyrics that seem to connect on a lot of different levels for a lot of people.”
Lydia: Joni Mitchell, Blue
FP&A Analyst
“It's so beautiful and pure. It's raw, honest and relatable. You can feel every emotion from Joni, and the poetic lyrics bring out every emotion in you when listening. To evoke such a wide range of emotions, from deep sorrow to happy tears, in an album is one of the reasons I love listening to music especially appreciating full albums. Luckily Joni has soo many great albums that make it hard to pick Blue as my favorite.”
Ed Post: Nirvana, Bleach
Customer Success Manager
“The album sounds so loud and fuzzy and fun. It really got me excited about music when I was younger.”
Santina: ILLENIUM, Awake
Product Content and Marketing
“It's a no skip album full of feels. I remember exactly where I was during its release in 2018 and every moment of listening to it for the first time. I personally relate to so many of the album's overall themes and specific lyrics, and out of the 50 ILLENIUM sets I've seen, I've heard these songs live so many times and I'm wildly grateful every. single. time.”
Amy: John Mellencamp, Lonesome Jubilee
Marketing Director, Customer Experience
“Growing up Hoosier, this was the soundtrack to the summers after I got my driver's license, worked at a hardware store, graduated high school, swam in quarries, went to concert venues in the middle of farmland, and drove around town blasting the radio for absolutely no reason at all. It still brings back the feeling of having no idea what the weight of the world really feels like.”
Stacy — My Champaine and Acid vinyl
AR/AP Analyst and Office Administrator
“I never go to record shows with a plan; I like letting albums find me. But Champaine and Acid? That one found me in a way I’ll never forget. It wasn’t the gold cover, perforated into a hundred acid tabs (none of which were missing), or the bizarre mushroom-and-camel artwork. It was a sticky note that said: ‘If you know what this is, tell me. $50 off.’ The vendor had no idea what the album was. No record, no reviews, nothing...even Discogs came up empty. The clear vinyl, etched with strange sayings along the edge, had 11 tracks by Hary Melen, Cheetahoolee, and The Cardinal.
“I spent hours searching online, asking other vendors, digging for clues. All I found was that Joseph James Montelbano, who is credited on the album for his concept, was a musician from Maywood, Illinois. That was it.
“I still don’t know if it’s worth anything, or where it even came from. But showing it to people, watching their curiosity light up? Priceless, every time. Champaine and Acid isn’t just an album. It’s a mystery."
