Lists are tough, especially when the list is basically saying, “Here is the music that makes up who I am.” It’s like you’re distilling yourself (which is impossible) into 14 albums (which is restrictive, and impossible).

I’m sucking it up, though. I had a lot of albums that probably “should’ve” been on this list, but while “Nevermind” blew me away the first time I heard it, and “Daydream Nation” still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, I had to find a rubric other than “these albums are really cool.”

So, no, I didn’t include “Nevermind” or “In Utero.” I didn’t include “Slanted and Enchanted” or even “The Unforgettable Fire” or “The Joshua Tree.” I didn’t even include “OK Computer,” for goodness sake. I mean, what kind of list is this, anyway?

I tried to include the albums that were not only seminal in their own right, but were also somehow seminal to ME. Yes, “Nevermind” blew my mind, but when I hear it today I’m not whisked back to a moment. Before I jump into this album, however, I will list a few “Honorable Mentions” that would’ve made the list if it were longer:

• Temple of the Dog — S/T
• U2 — “The Joshua Tree”
• Death Cab for Cutie — “Transatlanticism”
• The New Pornographers — “Twin Cinema”
• Rufus Wainwright — “Want”

Now that we’ve dispensed with that interminable introduction, I present the album that edged its way past all those nostalgic postmarks. Big Thief have become one of my totem artists. Adrienne Lenker and Buck Meek craft gorgeous, lyrical songs that have a lived-in ease about them — like a pair of jeans you’ve worn for years — but can also cut you to the bone.

And while I find each one of their albums just as good if not better than the last, it was “Masterpiece” that I fell in love with instantly, the one that forever stamped them on my heart.

The album opens with “Little Arrow,” a slow, scratchy, haunting acoustic guitar ballad in which Lenker seems to be watching old movie reels of a past life, memories buried somewhere and then brought to light projected on a wall. It’s an eerie opening to the album, but then Lenker’s personal history is a strange one.

She was born into a cult, for one thing, and then, at the age of five, a railroad spike fell from a treehouse and hit her in the head, nearly killing her. Her family spent several rough years wrenching themselves from their religion, and yet somehow by the age of 13 she was on her way to becoming a pop star, but ultimately walked away from that path. It must’ve been a disorienting way to live, but her ability to capture all the turmoil and confusion and beauty of it all in her songs is a wonder to behold.

Like the unmarked family photo that comprises the album cover, “Masterpiece” feels like a musical photo album, with songs that capture people, places and moments. “Lorraine” is the steamy memory of a lover with “burning hands;” in “Paul,” a narrator recalls the exciting but dangerous relationship she had to leave; and “Randy” seems to have a narrator suffering from Alzheimer’s? madness? as she talks to someone who may or may not be there.

Even when the stories are poignant or sad, Lenker seems to be able to summon a sweetness and humanity in her songs that draws me in. “Masterpiece,” my favorite song on the record, is muscular folk-rock tune that seems to tell the story about an older couple reminiscing about their years together, strolling through the past together from place to place.

But everything on this record is not filled with sweetness. “Real Love,” another powerful standout, declares simply, “Having your face hit/ Having your lips split/ By the one who loves you/ Real love, real love, real love makes your lungs black/ Real love is a heart attack.”

Lenker has yet to turn 30, but she’s lived much longer than her years suggest. It’s an audacious thing to call your first album “Masterpiece,” but in my opinion, the title is well-earned.

I came to Sufjan Stevens through a strange path — and by strange path I mean specifically The Danielson Famile, a Christian freak-folk collective that makes some distinctly WEIRD music…which I happen to love.

Stevens was a loose member of the group, playing drums mostly, and singing background vocals. In my pursuit of Danielson lore on the interwebs, I read about him as an “up and coming” artist that I should be paying attention to.

Back then, I was an emusic subscriber (remember those days?), and I grabbed a copy of “A Sun Came,” an amazing, if sometimes uneven, album. The song “Rake” was especially mesmerizing to me. Stevens’ voice sounded like a broken whisper over a simple picked guitar, singing “you are the rock/you are the rake/you are the one when I watch myself.”Little did I know the song was just an early glimpse of the emotional heights he could reach.

On “Michigan,” Sufjan created a mysterious lens through which to view his home state — a concept album riddled with chiming bells, melancholic vibraphones, organs, oboes, banjoes, piano and haunting vocals that tell stories of desperate people, historic local attractions, industrial lore and so much more.

The album opens with “Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid),” a slow, sad ballad for a once-great American industrial town. Stevens whispers “Since the first of June/Lost my job and lost my room/I pretend to try/Even if I try alone.” It’s an unexpected and emotionally jarring way to open the album, but one that feels especially intentional.

The journey through Stevens’ Michigan is by turns sad, exultant, contemplative and ecstatic.

Songs like “Say Yes! To M! Ch! Gan!” is a driving, whimsical, sometimes forlorn-sounding tune, sung by a narrator who has left his home and longs to return. “Holland” is a sparse, guitar and piano ballad about summer memories near Lake Michigan, and “Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)” sounds like the soundtrack to a ’50s-era educational film about the car industry — “Henry Ford, Henry Ford! Public Trans! Public Trans! Pontiac! Pontiac!”

The music on this album is beautifully orchestrated with Stevens playing most of the instruments himself. If that weren’t impressive enough, he produced the album and distributed it on his own label, Asthmatic Kitty, which he founded with his stepfather.

There are 20 songs on this album, some of which, like “Taquamenon Falls,” are just instrumental interludes, but each of them serves an emotional and almost narrative purpose. Stevens is telling a story with his music, leading you from place to place, giving you the space and time to experience his home, its people and its history.

It was the first of what was to be albums covering all 50 states. He only finished two of them (“Michgan” and its sister project, “Come On Feel The Illinoise”), but both are wildly ambitious musical documents, and more than that, they’re just stunningly beautiful.

I remember reading this issue of “Rolling Stone” sometime in ’96, and they asked a bunch of artists — everyone from rappers to rockers to weirdos — about their favorite albums from that year.

On just about everyone’s list was Beck’s “Odelay.” You have to understand, in 1996, grunge was still dying its slow death, but Bush had just released “Razorblade Suitcase,” Alanis Morissette released “Jagged Little Pill,” and No Doubt burst on the scene with “Tragic Kingdom.” Rock was still alive and well on the radio in ’96.

I don’t know if you ever listened to Beck’s major label debut album “Mellow Gold” all the way through, but honestly, some of those songs were unlistenable. That was a CD that countless music junkies bought on the strength of his hit song, “Loser,” only to find that he was a good and proper folk-rap weirdo.

With this second major-label album, however, and with the production help of the Dust Brothers (who produced Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique”), Beck perfected this mashup of blues, folk and hippie psychedelia and made it palatable — and INSANELY listenable — for beat junkies like me.

Admittedly, the album sounds like a bit of a mess.

“Devil’s Haircut,” kicks off the album with a wall of guitars, and then a weird, pulsing groove with these spacey flourishes. “Hotwax” starts with an off-kilter dobro lick and breakbeat, and then settles into a moseying blues-tinged rap with distorted guitar riffs and harmonica scattered in between. “Lord Only Knows” is basically an up-tempo blues song with woozy slide guitar throughout, peppered with some crunchy rock guitar vamps. Then, in a disorienting turn, “The New Pollution” is this ’60s-flavored pop song with subdued guitars and a saxophone solo.

I mean, it’s all over the place! But it’s also an addictive, exciting listen.

“Derelict” is probably the album’s weirdest track, heavily echoing the jangly, broken grooves on “Mellow Gold,” and both “Novacane” and “High 5 (Rock the Catskills)” are raucous, noisy rap songs that could’ve been featured on a Beastie Boys record. Like the Beasties, too, Beck’s lyrics are mostly silly, delivered with a disaffected sneer.

There are surprises around every corner of this album. The back half features the hit song “Where It’s At,” and then veers directly into “Minus,” a messy punk-rock song.

If you take a stroll through Beck’s discography, you’ll find him chasing dizzying paths through genres and themes. He never seems satisfied with settling into a certain type of music.

Through it all, however, he has an ear for melody, an addiction to groove, and a flair for the obscure — all of which, on “Odelay,” anyway, adds up to an undeniable classic.

A lot of people say grunge died when Kurt Cobain killed himself.

I would argue that Kurt’s death was like a bullet in the gut for grunge, but the death was much, much slower.

I watched mournfully as Soundgarden broke up after putting out a disappointing follow-up to “Superunknown” in 1996. By that same year, Pearl Jam put out a couple of albums that just didn’t resonate with me at all. And to top it all off, there were wanna-be’s aplenty — the Candleboxes and Creeds of it all that just added a putrid sepsis to the gut wound.

It’s no wonder I went in search of something else.

Truthfully, 1994-1998 was kind of a musical desert for me. I turned to hip-hop here and there, but my favorite groups were putting out hit-and-miss albums. I turned to old mainstays like U2 and REM, but the former had gone chasing techno music and the latter was just kind of all over the place.

I couldn’t tell you what winding roads led me there, but I found my oasis in the world of soul, funk and R&B. It started with Jamiroquai’s “Return of the Space Cowboy,” the Brand New Heavies’ “Brother Sister” and G Love and Special Sauce’s self-titled album.

I needed more, and kept falling down a rabbit hole that led me to D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar,” Erykah Badu’s “Baduizm,” Maxwell’s sexy “Urban Hang Suite” and Mint Condition’s “Definition of A Band.”

And while all of these albums were on heavy rotation, none of them stuck with me like “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”

“Miseducation” combined the nastiest grooves with the most boastful raps, the most stirring melodies and harmonies with the most sweat-drenched slow jams I’d ever heard on one album — and not a bad song on it.

On top of all that, it’s a concept album about love — interspersed with a teacher talking to children about their misconceptions, misunderstandings and mixed-up feelings surrounding love — is it just a feeling or is it more?

And in between those admittedly adorable discussions, Hill answers her critics “Lost Ones,” assails the music business “Superstar,” dwells on fond memories of growing up, “Every Ghetto, Every City,” and gets honest about her decision to have her child, “Zion.”

Hill’s veins are split wide open on this album, especially on the love songs, which are full of longing and heartbreak. “Ex-Factor” opens with the line, “It could all be so simple/But you’d rather make it hard/Loving you is like a battle/And we both end up with scars.” She carries this same theme through “When It Hurts So Bad” and “I Used to Love Him” to haunting effect.

“Nothing Even Matters,” a duet with D’Angelo, is one of the best slow jams ever recorded — in my opinion anyway — and drags the beat with longing and yearning that builds and builds over the course of the song.

“Miseducation” is the document of a strong woman confronting her life, her history, her loves, her work, and how all of those things contribute to her happiness and wholeness. She’s wrestling with what ultimately matters, setting fire to all of it so that only the gold can stay.

The result is a beautiful, danceable, rewarding listen.

I don’t think we talk enough about how great the early aughts were for music, especially indie rock.

I mean, think about it — The Strokes, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, The Walkmen, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Thermals, etc. etc. — all put their first albums out there in the early 2000s. It was just an explosion of really good indie rock, despite the fact that boy bands were ruling the charts at the time.

Interpol’s first album, “Turn on the Bright Lights” is, in my opinion, one of the shining moments of this era, and it’s an album I honestly can’t get enough of.

If you’ve read about Interpol, you may hear them (favorably or horribly) compared to Joy Division. And to be sure, lead singer Paul Banks’ disaffected baritone is eerily similar to Ian Curtis. But honestly, I think that’s where the apples-to-apples comparisons have to end.

Don’t get me wrong, like Joy Division, “Turn on the Bright Lights” veers towards darker soundscapes. There’s an overarching melancholy running through the album, nowhere more poignant than on “NYC,” a ruminating, sad sort of love letter to the city.

But even with the dark overtones, this album rocks in a way that Joy Division doesn’t.

With “Turn on the Bright Lights” and its follow-up, “Antics,” Interpol had one of the most underrated rhythm sections in indie rock. Banks and lead guitarist Daniel Kessler strum out alternating staccato, dissonant, sometimes shimmering guitar licks while bassist Carlos D finds these intricate countermelodic bass lines. Among these sometimes repetitive grooves, drummer Sam Fogarino finds a way to make them feel funky, even danceable.

“PDA,” “Obstacle 1” and “Roland” are all pulsating rockers that show Interpol can be loud and aggressive without losing their emotional core, and contemplative, slow-building overtures like “Hands Away,” “The New” and “Leif Erickson” show their impressive dynamic range.

“Turn on the Bright Lights” is a rock album with drama…for those lovesick, forlorn rockers who steal away to their rooms, write poetry, and then crank up their amps to 11.

You ever hear an album that just carries you away? Just takes you somewhere else entirely — into a memory or into an emotion you can barely describe?

Jeff Buckley did that to me.

I can still remember the night I heard him for the first time. A few friends and I were in the car on the way back from downtown Savannah. The moon was HUGE and full that night. Andrew put this tape in the player, and we all just sat in silence, windows rolled down, as the songs carried us away.

It was his voice that got me first — a wailing tenor wrapped up in longing, sounding at times like some foreign shaman entranced in a spell. Then it was the strange guitars, songs that sounded like they came from the middle ages. I mean, how does a song like “Corpus Christi Carol” or “Mojo Pin” end up on a rock record?

“So Real” has always been the standout track for me. These slow, building verses over swirling, trippy guitars as a heartbroken narrator reminisces over a lost love. Suddenly, it explodes into this ear-shattering, screaming murder of chaotic guitars and then silence. Then he whispers, “I love you…but I’m afraid to love you.” There’s so much lust and fear and longing and danger wrapped up in that one line. It’s breathtaking.

I never thought Buckley got the wide recognition he deserved. He had a minor hit with the song “Last Goodbye,” which was a kind of adult contemporary style rock song. His cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has become the standard version of the song because Buckley sounds like a broken-down angel singing it.

There are straight up rockers on the album, too. “Eternal Life” is an absolute screamer, and both “Grace” and “Dream Brother” bring a lot more guitars and energy. All of them display some incredible chops for a guitar maestro who rarely gets the respect he deserves. Check out some of his live videos to see more of what I’m talking about.

“Grace” is an album I’ve listened to more times than I could count, and never just one song. This is an album you block out time for, an album you intentionally sit with, ruminate over, and let carry you wherever it wants to take you.

I fell in love with jazz slowly.

At first, I was introduced to “fusion jazz,” which grabbed from rock, funk and R&B music to create this smooth, sometimes syncopated, progressive sound. I enjoyed listening to musicians who were just insanely talented like Dave Weckl, a drummer who played like he literally had eight arms, or John Patitucci, who played a fretless electric bass like a maestro.

But I didn’t get HOOKED on jazz to the point where I was listening to it at home until a friend let me hear “Time Out.” Not only was there the staccato rhythms and odd time signatures that I loved in fusion, but there was also an unassailable cool that I couldn’t resist.

My first listen to this record was like a full-contact high. “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” starts off with this crazy 2+2+2+3 time signature, and then settles into a laid-back shuffle that feels seamless. “Strange Meadow Lark” is a beautiful, chill ballad, followed by one of the coolest jazz songs ever, “Take Five,” that absolutely swings in 5/4 time.

The back half of the record is just as fun and whimsical. “Three to Get Ready” alternates between two stanzas of 3/4 time and then 4/4 time.”Kathy’s Waltz,” features a Brubeck piano solo that sounds COMPLETELY disconnected from the rest of the song, only to slide right back in as if he never left. “Everybody’s Jumpin’” feels more restrained than it sounds, but still has moments of almost spastic piano and crescendos, and “Pick Up Sticks” swings with the same cool and bravado as “Take Five.”

Dave Brubeck was my gateway drug into Miles Davis, Ramsey Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker and other ’50s bop-jazz greats, and by the time I got into college, hip-hop was soaked in jazz, too, so it seemed like I was surrounded by it all the time.

Not that I minded.

Whether it’s chopped up and laced over a Clyde Stubblefield breakbeat or left alone to swing as intended, cool jazz is a singular experience, and “Time Out,” in my opinion, is one of the best of its kind.

I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I think “It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” is hip-hop’s punk rock record.

Right off the top is just NOISE. A crowd is hyped up, an announcer introduces Public Enemy, and immediately a siren cranks up and runs for what feels like FOREVER. The effect feels dangerous, chaotic, and that’s just the beginning!

The music kicks off with “Bring the Noise,” which absolutely assaults the ears with frenetic bits and pieces of screeches, bleeps and bloops, and whacked-out, staccato horns — all of which is being carried by this sort of new jack swing beat.

In the midst of all this chaos, Chuck D, who sounds like an amped-up radio announcer for the political underground, shouts “BASS! How low can you go? Death Row? What a brother know…”

I was in 10th grade when I first heard this song, and it just erupted with life and anger and pride and resolve!Chuck D wasn’t on the mic to talk about himself in relation to other rappers. He was talking to ME!

He was talking about real issues for people of color — systemic racism, exploitation, the threat of white nationalism, the music industry — and how they can find self-empowerment in the midst of it all.

The entire album just EXPLODED with energy. It was political, it was loud and aggressive and sometimes angry. I mean, isn’t that punk rock?

Just a casual glance at the track list — “Mind Terrorist,” “Louder Than A Bomb,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” “Rebel Without A Pause” — looks like the songs were plucked from a Black Flag record.

And while their songs are every bit as socially conscious and aggressive, they are also INFINITELY more FUNKY.

Don’t laugh, because I’m serious about this one.

311 is as widely reviled as they are revered, and while they’ve dropped some truly HIDEOUS songs in more than 20 years as a band (there’s no consensus on the WORST song, but a lot of fans argued about it here), they still make one of the most interesting music hybrids (nu metal meets reggae meets funk meets pop meets rap?) I’ve ever heard.

And on “Music,” their first album, I honestly don’t think they did it better.

In high school, I was in a garage band with my friends James and Joey, the Staubes bros. I couldn’t have asked for better musical compatriots because the two of them were more musically diverse than anybody I’ve ever met before or since. We’d geek out about Chick Corea, Dave Weckl and John Patitucci just as much as we’d get worked up about Nirvana or Soundgarden.

So, for music fiends such as ourselves, this 311 album ticked a lot of boxes. First off, they have an INCREDIBLE rhythm section. Drummer Chad Sexton is an absolute BEAST, and plays this super-crisp, snappy piccolo snare which makes the grooves feel EXTRA tight; bassist Aaron “P-Nut” Willis is just as comfortable with a reggae dub as he is with a heavy rock riff; and lead guitarist Tim Mahoney brings a metal edge to everything they play.

“Welcome” gives away the game from the outset. It opens as this funky, reggae-infused groove, with a laid back, sung melody, and then it quickly kicks up into this lumbering, rap-heavy rock riff that meanders into these jazzy transitions which lead into even more sections of the song. It almost feels like a musical maze, and for music nerds like the Staubes bros. and myself, it was sheer ear candy.

“Unity” was the track we selected to cover for our band’s repertoire, and I still think it’s one of their all-time best. It opens as an uptempo, nu metal grind, and then suddenly slows down into a head-banging dirge, only to speed up again slightly into this building crescendo, where it stops and then starts the cycle again.

Songs like “Visit” and “Paradise” show off lead singer Nick Hexum’s ability to carry off a really pretty melody over the heavy rock riffs, where songs like “Freak Out” and “My Stoney Baby” show off the rhythm section’s ability to play just about ANYTHING without missing a beat.

This album absolutely ROCKS, but has one glaring weakness — the lyrics. 311 are not renowned for their lyrical prowess. On “Hydroponic,” Hexum raps:

Everything I eat is from the Earth, right?
I am what I eat, straight up Earth, right?
Nothin’ but a walkin’ sack of Earth
Nice to meet you, how do you do?
Guess what? Yeah, you’re one, too!

The words are honestly abysmal sometimes, but with beats this funky and grooves so heavy, who really cares? I mean, it’s worked out for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for just as many years, right?

I think Counting Crows gets a bad rap sometimes, like maybe they’re lumped in as some kind of low-rent Hootie and the Blowfish or something. I don’t know why.

Despite the disrespect, Adam Duritz is one heck of a songwriter and, though I’ve never met him, he seems, too, like a transparent, REAL human being.

I think I’d heard “Mr. Jones” on the radio before I’d heard anything else on the album. I remember thinking it sounded a lot like Van Morrison, which was cool, I guess.

I REALLY heard the album for the first time in a friend’s car as we travelled home from a long night of revelry. The first track, “Round Here” starts with just a simple, picked guitar riff and then builds and builds and builds into this wailing crescendo that almost had me in tears.

The characters who run through the songs on this album are down-and-out, broken-down people dealing with loss, heartbreak and a longing for something real. I loved the emotion packed into the lyrics and in Duritz’ voice (I mean, just TRY listening to “Raining in Baltimore” without all the FEELS), and those words and sounds resonated with me in a powerful way.

Most of the songs on “August and Everything After” are slow burns. “Perfect Blue Buildings,” “Anna Begins,” “Time and Time Again” and “Sullivan Street” all have the same building emotion found on “Round Here,” but each finds a different way to get under your skin.

“Omaha,” “Mr. Jones” and “Rain King,” on the other hand, are welcome, more uptempo reprieves from all the deep emotional dives, but even then, Duritz never lets up on the lyrical contemplation.

In “Rain King,” probably the most exultant number on the album, Duritz sings:

I said mama, mama, mama
Why am I so alone?
I can’t go outside, I’m scared, I might not make it home
But I’m alive, but I’m sinking in
If there’s anyone home at your place
Why don’t you invite me in?

Lyrics like these were just grafted to every single synapse of this wayward college kid’s brain, and the album was on heavy repeat for the better part of a year. It’s a therapy album, a way of working through the complex emotions that separate us and bind us together.

It’s a haunting, passionate and beautiful ride. Well worth a listen.