Jack Dudzic's Top 20 Albums

As part of the “What would I take with me to a desert island?” series, I came up with a list of my favorite albums—the ones I can’t imagine living without. Each of them had a huge impact on my sensibilities and my way of perceiving the world back in the day, and I still listen to them regularly today. Even though I know every one of them by heart, I still get goosebumps when I hear the accordion in “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” by Arcade Fire, the restless keyboards opening “The Logical Song” by Supertramp, or the incredible rhythm in Chuck Mangione’s brilliant track “Children of Sanchez.”

These albums span different decades, genres, and emotions. Some songs still bring tears to my eyes, while others make me want to jump for joy. I used to listen to some of them at night on Radio Trójka; others remind me of the hum of a reel spinning on a wonderful four-track Grundig. This music smells of vinyl and brown cassette tape. It reminds me of the weight of a portable cassette player, bravely lugged over to a friend’s house to copy Genesis or Yes albums.

I’m well aware that some of these albums are absolute relics to today’s listener, but who today can sing like Ian Anderson or play guitar like Mark Knopfler? Speaking of the latter, my list includes as many as four albums featuring what I consider to be the greatest guitarist of all time—the fourth being Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train Coming.” Honestly, any Dire Straits or Mark Knopfler album could have made this list, but if I had to choose, these are the ones I’d pick.

A long time ago, I owned a few of these albums, and each one had its own story. For instance, I bought Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” from a friend because he’d dropped it and the edge of the record was chipped. It was kind of a bummer because “Highway Star” didn’t start until the two-minute mark, but really, it was all about that guitar solo—the one that made everything else fade into the background (luckily, it didn’t start until the four-minute mark).

Apart from vinyl records brought back from abroad, one source of this music was Radio Trójka, and above all, Piotr Kaczkowski’s wonderful radio shows. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always possible to record them all. For this reason, for example, I only had a fragment of the album “Skynyrd’s First and… Last” for years—because my friend ran out of tape while recording it—and I didn’t get the complete version until 20 years later, when I found a CD of that album at a music store in Lublin. Incidentally, you won’t find this album on Spotify, as it’s a very rare release in the band’s history.

Selecting 20 albums from the 1960s to the present is extremely difficult, subjective, and doesn’t capture the full scope of the phenomenon that can be described as “my music.” In a broader list, I’d certainly include two more Beatles albums (definitely *Revolver*!), as well as albums by Rush (*Moving Pictures*), Budgie (*Budgie*), The Police, Dead Can Dance, Jethro Tull, Mumford & Sons, Republika (“Nowe sytuacje”), Paul McCartney, Mike Oldfield, Phil Keagley, Michael Card, or the duo Angus & Julia Stone. For the list below, however, I chose the ones that made my heart race and played an important role in my life.

And no, I don’t think “Dark Side of the Moon” is Pink Floyd’s best album—for me, “Wish You Were Here” is a much more atmospheric album, and you can listen to it over and over without ever getting tired of it. The same goes for the band Yes and their album “Tormato,” which I haven’t grown tired of at all in several decades, and “Don’t Kill the Whale” is, for me, one of the best songs ever written.

It might come as a surprise to see a totally old-school album by Krzysztof Klenczon and the band Trzy Korony on this list, but back in the day, it was such a hit for me that I still often return to that album today, and it still evokes the same emotions.

I couldn’t live without these albums. This is my absolutely beloved and completely biased Top 20 of all time (in no particular order).

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles *
2. Tormato – Yes *
3. And There Were Three – Genesis *
4. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd *
5. Skynyrd’s First and… Last – Lynyrd Skynyrd (album not available on Spotify) *
6. Machine Head – Deep Purple *
7. Breakfast in America – Supertramp
8. Danger Money – UK (album not available on Spotify)
9. *Equinoxe* – Jean Michel Jarre
10. *Slow Train Coming* – Bob Dylan
11. *Brothers in Arms* – Dire Straits *
12. *Golden Heart* – Mark Knopfler *
13. *Sailing to Philadelphia* – Mark Knopfler *
14. Live in Dublin – Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band
15. Krzysztof Klenczon and Trzy Korony – Krzysztof Klenczon and Trzy Korony *
16. Funeral – Arcade Fire *
17. Relish – Joan Osborne *
18. Live Killers – Queen *
19. Children of Sanchez – Chuck Mangione
20. In Warsaw – Locomotiv GT (album not available on Spotify) *

* A red star means I have this album in my vinyl collection, and you can read about it in the MY VINYL section.

And one more thing. There’s one album missing from this list that should be here but… was never released. It’s the recording of Sting’s exceptional Christmas concert, “A Winter’s Night… Live from Durham Cathedral,” recorded in 2009 at Durham Cathedral in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, northern England. Unfortunately, the material was released exclusively on DVD 🙁 I actually prefer this concert to the album from which most of the songs performed that night are taken. Either way, the music from this event is a staple of my December–January playlist, and nothing will change that.