I've always been a fairly normal sort.  I drank a bit too much in my younger days, but I wasn't addicted.  I didn't do drugs.  But I did have an addiction, and some (my wife included) would say that I'm still addicted.  I'll admit it, my name is Michael H. and I'm a music addict.  There, that's been said.

All of the albums (and songs) listed came to me at a distinct point in my life, either good or bad.  It is because of that connection that they still mean so much to me, and most likely always will.

Before you read any further, please note that this list of the top twenty albums of all-time is my list, and as such is not debatable.  These sorts of things are subjective, and this list surely is.  Feel free to send your comments, but the only thing that will make me change this list is a new album that completely changes my thinking, and by virtue of its greatness squeezes its way into my top twenty. 

1) London Calling - The Clash

This album still gives me chills.  From the opening notes of the title track through the fading harmonica of the closing track "Train in Vain", this album is an ode to the past and a challenge to the future.

This album was a turning point for me.  Until this point I couldn't convince many of my friends that punk music was great music.  This double-album was all I needed to sway my Aerosmith / Journey / Bad Company listening friends that there was more to hear than what was on the radio.  I can still remember my pal Mark Klekowski making me play the tune "Clampdown" over, and over, and over.

London Calling also contains (as I've mentioned) the song "Train in Vain", which proved that punk bands could make the charts in the U.S.  It is also to this day my favorite song of all time.

1987 was an introspective year for me.  I was 23 years old, not sure of what I wanted to do with my life.  I had recently broken up with my first true love, and quite frankly, I was feeling empty.

Enter The Joshua Tree, which I still feel is the most spiritual rock album ever made.  It is an album of love.  Love of a personal nature, and love of a religious nature.  This album definitely filled some holes in my life and was the ultimate R_x for a bruised heart.

It also brought U2 from "up and coming band" status to "the greatest rock n' roll band in the world" status, a position I feel they've held for the past seventeen years.

Talk about timing.  Both of my parents had passed away in 1990.  My anchors were gone and I was definitely adrift.  I was as angry and empty as I've ever been in my life. 

In 1991 Nirvana gave us Nevermind,  an album packed to the brim with angst.  But in my reality it was very therapeutic and was in a way a method for me to release my own anger.

This was the thinking man's head banging album, great melodies mixed with muddy guitars and slashing drums.  Add a pinch of biting lyrics and you've got the perfect musical meal.  I would definitely suggest that anyone who needs to release some frustration should listen to this.

I'd heard the Sex Pistols debut Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and thought it was good.  I'd heard the first two Ramones albums and was much more impressed with them.  But it was the Clash that set me on the punk music course.

The Sex Pistols seemed too contrived, and the Ramones seemed too fun-loving, but the Clash were everything I loved about punk.  Political, insightful, inciteful, lyrically advanced.  They blended raw punk with reggae and ska rhythms, and were writing lyrics that were far and away more powerful than any of their peers. 

Some day my kids will playing music and proclaiming the artist to be "the best ever", to which I will retort by pulling out the first four Clash albums and say "top that".  I hope for their sake there are musical acts that mean that much to them as the Clash meant to me.

Okay, I'll admit that Pink Floyd is probably best listened to on mind-altering drugs.  But as I've mentioned, I didn't do drugs.  But back in 1979 I would occasionally sneak a drink, as I did one night at one of my Horan cousins wedding.  Me and cousin Danny Pawlowski were loading up on Sloe Gin Fizzes, and we were getting a decent buzz.  I went home that night and put on The Wall.

Whoa, talk about deep!  I listened to all four sides, laying on my bed with the headphones on and staring at a dot on the ceiling.  At that point I think I realized why all of those people were dropping acid in the '60s.  It definitely "expanded my horizons". 

So my advice to you is to mix a few Sloe Gin Fizzes and listen to this classic, with the headphones on, while staring at slight deformities in your home's architecture.

The Ramones were the smart-ass band that all musicians secretly wished they could be in.  The difference between the Ramones and all of the copycats that followed is that these four boys from NYC always approached their subject from a more intelligent point of view.

Rocket to Russia is chock-full of two minute gems questioning everything from the President to the Pope, and all authority figures in between.

Gabba Gabba Hey!

The Jam were somewhere in that gap between the punk bands of the '70s and the Who of the early '60s.   This is the Jam's third album and it's the one where Paul Weller went from good songwriter to genius.

Songs such as "It's Too Bad", "To Be Someone" and "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" proved that punk could be literate, while still providing some great jams.

Steve Earle is what country music should be all about.  He's as far from the Nashville "Big Hats" as they come, which makes his music far more real than anything Tim McGraw could muster up.

Any failed athlete that listens to "No. 29" and doesn't walk away with a tear in their eye must not have a heart.  Springsteen's "Glory Days" covered the same subject, but nowhere near as well.

"The Rain Came Down" is probably the most heart-felt ode to the American family farmer there is, and "I Ain't Ever Satisfied" speaks to anyone who has ever felt that they haven't achieved what they should have.  Pure heart, pure genius.

XTC are more clever than you, XTC are better educated than you, XTC can write a better tune than you.  Yet somehow you can walk away from listening to one of their albums without feeling that they're talking down to you.

These guys are England's more literate version of the Ramones,   and over the years they've managed to lose the punk edge while still maintaining the punk credibility. 

I'd been a fan of this band previous to this album's release, but had never really taken the time to explore their abilities in depth.  While visiting my pal Ski at Illinois State University we attended a frat party that had this just released album blasting throughout the house.  While everyone else was spending their time getting drunk I was just leaning on the bar, listening intently. 

The guy running the stereo and I became fast friends, since he was  a big XTC fan and I kept requesting "Senses Working Overtime" and "No Thugs in our House" over and over.  What a great night.

The Alarm had the misfortune of playing second fiddle to U2 in the "heart on your sleeves" department.  That's too bad, because these guys really were talented, and they emoted true passion in their music, especially on Strength.

Like U2 this band wasn't afraid to talk about their redeemer, or their lives.  The impassioned cry for help in the song "Strength", or the loving memories of "Father to Son",  or the pain of seeing labor strife in their hometown in "Deeside" seems so real that you begin to believe you are watching a movie of the events in question.  That's what great music should do; make you think and make you feel.

As a side note, when my wife and I were beginning to discuss the plans for our wedding we talked about which song we wanted to use for our first dance as a wedded couple.  I mentioned that I'd always hoped to use "Walk Forever by My Side" from this album.  Sherry mentioned that she'd always wanted that one as well, which was weird, because I'd never even realized that she was a fan of the Alarm.  The closing lines of the song, "all my days are yours", just seemed so appropriate.

This comeback album is loaded with great tunes such as "Sledgehammer", "Big Time" and "Red Rain".  But the reason it's in my list is because it contains my favorite love song of all time, "In Your Eyes".

I dare anyone to listen to this song and not feel the emotions deep inside of them, it's just that good.  Passion, baby, it's all about the passion.

The Waterboys were a great, up and coming rock band from Scotland before this album.  Band leader Mike Scott moved to Ireland to write their next album and fell in love with traditional Irish music.  What came of that combination of rocker and Irish trad music is Fisherman's Blues.

Not only is this a great, warm album, but it also gave birth to a new genre of Irish Trad Rock bands, such as the Saw Doctors and Black 47.  Give it a listen, you'll feel like you're at a pub on the windy west coast of Ireland listening to the local musicians having a "sessiun".

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover that middle-ground somewhere between Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Byrds.  Petty is just a great songwriter, and this album is a document of the point in his career when he fully began to realize his potential.

From start to finish it is loaded with great tunes, either balls-out rockers or southern tinged melodies, with "Here Comes My Girl" being my personal favorite.

In much the same way that the Joshua Tree seemed to come at the perfect time and place, U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind arrived just when it was needed most.  I personally know quite a few people who found comfort (especially post-9/11) in the very personal songs contained on this disc.

It's a record of the band as they enter their forties, and the introspection and retrospection that comes with that moment in time.  "Beautiful Day" speaks to those of us that can't seem to stop and smell the roses, while "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" is the perfect reminder that we all have tough times, so deal with it.  What a great, honest album.

Pearl Jam could have easily repeated the formula of their debut album for Vs., their sophomore effort.  But they chose to turn down the guitars a bit and dig a little deeper, bringing some fantastic songs to the table and showing why they deserved to be one of the few Seattle grunge bands that deserved more than the title "Grunge".

"Daughter" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" showed a softer, more heart-felt side of the band.  But fear not, you thrashers, because tunes such as "Animal" and "Rearviewmirror" kicked out the jams with the best of them. 

Scotland's Big County was the third member of the "Celtic Trio" to come of age in the early '80s.  Along with U2 (from Ireland) and the Alarm (from Wales), Big Country found an audience for their guitar driven tunes in the U.S.  Unfortunately for them they always played third fiddle to their Celtic brethren.

This album is full of bagpipe inflected guitars, deep lyrics, and warm pride of place.  This band loved their homeland, and were able to bring you there in song.  "In a Big Country", "Fields of Fire" and "1000 Stars" make you feel as if you are traversing the Highlands in a kilt, playing a loud guitar.

While this band has sold millions of albums, I don't believe they've ever truly received the critical acclaim that they deserved.  "We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions" was the first double-sided hit single, but these weren't even the best songs on the album.  "Sheer Heart Attack" is a balls to the wall rocker, and was a progenitor of speed metal. 

"Sleeping on the Sidewalk" gives guitarist Brian May a chance to show his bluesy side, while "Get Down, Make Love" was quite possiblY the dirtiest song my twelve-year old ears had heard up until that point.  It left a lasting impression, because somehow, some way, I too wanted to get down and make love.

Anger.  These guys owned it.  RATM were angry, and this is their masterpiece.  I could go into detail,  but they say it best in the words from "Guerilla Radio", "turn that sh*t up!"

R.E.M. were so damned different than everyone else in 1983, and Murmur,  their debut album, highlights that being different can be great.

No one could understand much of what singer Michael Stipe was saying in the songs, but he did it so well.  "Radio Free Europe", "Talk About the Passion" and "Perfect Circle" were far ahead of much of the music coming out at the time,  and they were a great preview of the what was yet to come.

To this day I still get people asking me "what the hell is Cowpunk?"  The best answer I have is to tell them to listen to this album.  Former members of the L.A. punk band the Dils decided to combine that punk feel with their southwestern country music roots, and came up with the classic.

The sweet voices of brothers Chip and Tony Kinman combined with the blazing guitar of Alejandro Escovedo makes for some great tunes.  "Amanda Ruth" and "The Conductor Wore Black" are personal favorites that would definitely make it onto my desert island collection.