This morning on The Onion AV Club I read about an interesting list-making challenge that’s making the rounds on blogs to pick an album for every year you’ve been alive.  I decided it might be fun to do here for those voters around my age who are hip enough to judge a candidate based purely on his/her musical tastes.

I set a couple of ground rules for myself. The first was that I had to actually own the album (there’s only one exception), and the second was that even though I tried to list what I was listening to around the year in question, the choices have to be something I could still listen to and enjoy today. I also tried to maintain some variety, but a few favorite bands got multiple listings

While I’m not sure my choices are hip enough for the hipsters, in the words of Marge Simpson “And that’s what makes me cool—not caring, right?”

1968  The White Album - The Beatles

1969  Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones (I own it on vinyl but not CD.)

1970  LA Woman - The Doors

1971  Hunky Dory - David Bowie

1972  Close to the Edge - Yes

1973  Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

1974  Pretzel Logic - Steely Dan (I don’t actually own any albums from 1974 which seems to have been a terrible year for music, but this was a good album, and I have a few tracks from it here and there.)

1975  Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

1976  2112 - Rush

1977  Animals - Pink Floyd

1978  Hemispheres - Rush

1979  The Wall - Pink Floyd

1980  Back In Black - AC/DC

1981  Ghost In the Machine - The Police

1982  Pornography - The Cure

1983  War - U2

1984  Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads

1985  Songs from the Big Chair - Tears for Fears

1986  The Queen is Dead  - The Smiths

1987  Music for the Masses  - Depeche Mode

1988  Green - REM

1989  Passion - Peter Gabriel

1990  Goodbye Jumbo - World Party (A very close second would be Ritual De Lo Habitual by Jane’s Addiction.)

1991  Nevermind - Nirvana (Again a real toss-up here with this and Achtung Baby by U2)

1992  Singles Soundtrack - Various (I know picking a soundtrack is sort of cheating, but this also has two of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.)

1993  Siamese Dreams - Smashing Pumpkins

1994  Weezer  -Weezer

1995  Garbage - Garbage

1996  Sublime - Sublime

1997  OK Computer - Radiohead (followed closely by Homework by Daft Punk)

1998  You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby - Fat Boy Slim

1999  The Fragile - Nine Inch Nails

2000 Kid A - Radiohead (This was a real toss-up between this and Mer de Noms by A Perfect Circle.)

2001  Lateralus - Tool

2002  A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay

2003  Thirteenth Step - A Perfect Circle

2004  Hot Fuss - The Killers

2005  Demon Days - Gorillaz

2006  The Crane Wife - The Decemberists

2007  In Rainbows - Radiohead

2008  No favorite yet…