Twelve Albums That Shaped Me: David Hanlon’s Sonic Compass

Below is a list of my twelve favourite studio albums, each accompanied by an overview of why I chose it. Over the past few years, I’ve dedicated a great deal of time to listening deeply to full albums by a wide range of artists. I’ve always been a music fanatic and love discovering exciting music—by “new,” I don’t just mean modern releases, but also music that’s new to me. I enjoy exploring older records just as much as contemporary ones.

I write this wondering what compels me to spend so much of my time searching for new sounds—especially when it comes to the studio album. Beyond the simple joy of listening, what drives this deep devotion to musical exploration? There’s something about unearthing hidden gems and obscure artists that sets my pulse racing.

As a poet, I’m endlessly fascinated by the creative process and by art itself. An album is a complete artistic statement—a curated collection of songs unified by vision and intention. A single is just one puzzle piece; the album is the entire picture. That’s what draws me in: I want to understand the full story.

This deep dive into albums spanning over seventy years of music has been profoundly rewarding. The more innovative and boundary-pushing the record, the more it expands my mind and nourishes my inner growth. These twelve albums are especially precious to me. They’ve done just that: helped me grow, reflect, and understand myself more deeply. They’ve challenged me, healed me, stimulated my mind and spirit. They’ve held my hand and grabbed my heart.

This list isn’t about declaring these albums unmitigated masterpieces—I’m not interested in making objective claims. Music is deeply personal, and I’m far more fascinated by why an album becomes someone’s favourite. On a personal level, what does it touch in them? What makes it resonate?

I’m not claiming these records are flawless—few, if any, albums are. But just as we humans have flaws, so do the albums we love—and that imperfection only makes them feel more alive and human to me.

I hope you enjoy reading about them, and that it inspires you to explore these sonic treasures—or to reconnect with your own favourite records.

There are many more albums I love, but these twelve contain everything I crave in a record. As you read through the list, you’ll see what I mean.

12. Terry Callier – What Colour is Love (1972)

Terry Callier’s richly soulful voice finds its perfect counterpart in the majestic arrangements of his third album. Producer Charles Stepney—who also helmed Minnie Riperton’s stunning Come to My Garden (also featured on this list) — blends soul, jazz, folk, funk, and orchestral flourishes into a soundscape that feels at once cinematic and intimate, earthy and otherworldly, soaring yet hushed. Tracks like “Dancing Girl” and “You’re Gonna Miss Your Candyman” stretch out to filmic proportions, unfolding with patience, drama, and a deep emotional pull.

11. Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? (2020)

Jessie Ware completely reinvented her sound for 2020’s sleek and luxurious What’s Your Pleasure?, shedding the downtempo soul and sophisti-pop of her earlier work in favour of a bold resurgence of disco, nu-disco, funk, Hi-NRG, and ’80s dance-pop—all filtered through the futuristic production of Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford.

Throughout, Jessie’s vocals are breathy, sultry, and intimate — both delicate and commanding. She masters it all, from the pulsing groove and infectious, sexually liberated title track to the grand, gospel-influenced closer “Remember Where You Are,” where sweeping strings and layered vocals evoke the cinematic and spiritual grandeur of Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs”—an influence Jessie deliberately sought.

10. Portishead – Dummy (1995)

Cinematic might be the quality I admire most in my favourite albums—alongside intimacy. That makes sense, given my love of film and my degree in it. Dummy, Portishead’s debut, is a prime example of an album that masters both.

Released in the early 1990s, Dummy stands as one of the earliest and most defining statements of the emerging trip-hop genre—a style that fused hip-hop, jazz, soul, dub, and more. But Portishead made it uniquely their own: layering vintage jazz and soul samples with twangy, spy-film guitar licks, lo-fi textures, and hauntingly cinematic arrangements.

With Beth Gibbons’ intimate, torch-singer voice at its centre, the album evokes a deep, aching vulnerability—fragile and exposed. It feels like the soundtrack to a modern film noir: both soothing and unsettling, coolly detached yet heartbreakingly human.

9. The Avalanches – Since I Left You (2000)

One of the most dazzling and ambitious sample-based albums I’ve ever heard, The Avalanches’ debut Since I Left You was created entirely from over 3,500 samples—sourced from obscure vinyl records, film and television clips, radio snippets, and forgotten pop songs.

Spanning genres as diverse as disco, funk, soul, jazz, lounge, exotica, hip-hop, pop, electronic, and psychedelia, the album is a rich, genre-blurring tapestry. It stands as a landmark in the plunderphonics genre, where countless samples are stitched together in recognizable form to create entirely new compositions.

Since I Left You is endlessly inventive, warm, and nostalgic—a colourful collage of sound that is both joyously danceable and deeply human. Heart, soul, memory, and melancholy are embedded in its infectious grooves and intricate melodies, making it one of the most emotionally resonant electronic albums ever made.

8. Laura Nyro – New York Tendaberry (1969)

As I write this list, I continue to uncover musical qualities that I deeply value and connect with. I’m drawn to sophisticated melodies and intricate arrangements—music rich in depth and nuance.

Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry is filled with such riches. She emerged as part of the late-’60s wave of singer-songwriters influenced by the Brill Building tradition—a hub of New York-based songwriters known for crafting emotionally resonant, melodically sophisticated pop hits.

Laura took those foundations and made them deeply personal, fusing them with raw, poetic lyricism. She was a true visionary, often employing rubato (fluid tempo shifts) and free-flowing song structures to create emotionally dynamic, unpredictable compositions.

On this love letter to New York City—brimming with romance and heartache—she weaves together elements of soul, gospel, doo-wop, show tune, pop, rock, folk, and rhythm and blues. Her emotive vocals—plunging into the depths of both pain and joy—alongside her distinctive piano-based compositions, result in one of the most idiosyncratic, intimate, and expressive singer-songwriter albums of the 1960s.

7. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966)

This album is a classic for good reason. A groundbreaking work that reinvented pop music, Pet Sounds weaves found sounds and unconventional instruments—like the theremin, timpani, and bicycle bells—into a lush soundscape of baroque orchestration and symphonic pop.

The Beach Boys’ gorgeous vocal harmonies are on full display, layered into complex arrangements that remain bright, immediate, and deeply accessible. The songs are as emotionally rich as they are musically inventive, with lyrics more personal, introspective, and vulnerable than the band’s earlier work.

That emotional honesty is married to a warm, detailed and immersive production that draws you in completely. Pet Sounds stands as one of the richest, grandest, and most transcendent pop albums ever recorded.

6. Kate Bush – Hounds of Love (1985)

Unhappy with the production of some of her earlier work, Kate Bush built a studio on her farm in England to reclaim full creative control.

The result was Hounds of Love—a futuristic, propulsive, and emotionally transcendent album that stands as one of the most innovative and revered art-pop records ever made.

Split into two distinct halves, Side A features some of Kate’s most iconic, hook-laden songs, including the timeless juggernaut “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” and the wildly immediate title track. These songs are rhythmically gripping and emotionally charged, fusing pop accessibility with sonic audacity.

Side B, titled The Ninth Wave, is a conceptual suite that tells the surreal story of a woman adrift at sea, teetering between life and death. It’s among the most ambitious and exhilarating progressive pop/rock ever recorded.

Kate weaves together cutting-edge synth textures (notably through the Fairlight CMI), samples, classical instrumentation, pounding drums, folk and ambient passages, and even Gregorian chant to create a mythic soundscape steeped in mystery and wonder.

The result is immersive, disorienting, and utterly singular. Her lyrics are vulnerable, surreal, and fearless. Her voice is a marvel: untamed, expressive, and resonant in one breath; gentle, lullaby-soft, and otherworldly in the next.

Throughout the album, Kate seems to channel some cosmic force—her vocal performances dart and shift like the aurora borealis, dazzling across epic emotional scales. The effect is breathtaking.

5. Minnie Riperton – Come to My Garden (1970)

Minnie Riperton’s debut album is a thing of immense beauty and elegant grandiosity—a hugely underrated, show-stopping work that radiates bliss and all-encompassing romance. The title couldn’t be more apt: Come to My Garden sounds like a bloom in progress—intimate as a hidden courtyard, yet expansive as the vivid splashes of colour unfolding in petals and sunlight.

A masterclass from producer Charles Stepney, the production is as lush, cinematic, and staggering as Terry Callier’s What Colour Is Love—perhaps even more so. It’s a stunning and innovative fusion of jazz, chamber pop, orchestral soul, and psychedelic flourishes. My favourite albums blend genres in organic, effortless, and unexpected ways to create something bigger and bolder—and Come to My Garden does this in abundance.

Minnie’s voice is majestic: both soaring and soothing, powerful yet featherlight. Her use of the whistle register evokes birdsong with astonishing grace. It’s more than a vocal showcase—it feels like nature itself singing through her. Minnie’s garden is one of the most transportive, healing, and heavenly places in the world of music.

4. Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023)

Lana Del Rey hit it out of the park with her 2023 album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd—a sweeping, deeply meditative work that’s massive in both musical and lyrical scope. While some of her earlier albums occasionally suffered from heavy-handed production, here there’s an incredible amount of space. The songs are given room to breathe, and they bloom because of it. And what songs they are. Ocean Blvd is home to some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. Minimalist piano ballads unfold slowly, incorporating gospel and choral elements with staggering grace and clarity.

Lana’s voice is quietly captivating—intimate and exposed, never needing to shout to be heard. The lyrics are spiritual, vulnerable, contemplative, and deeply personal. The album takes bold risks: its sprawling length, raw lyricism, and genre-fluidity make it one of her most ambitious works yet. “A&W” is a standout—shifting from a cyclical folk intro into a glitchy, hypnotic trap section, an unexpected and thrilling left turn. The album returns to those sonic textures at the end, with tracks like “Fishtail” and “Peppers,” creating a kind of surreal, late-night afterparty energy—like a party at the end of the world, but thoroughly Lana-fied.

“Fingertips” is perhaps the most haunting moment: a stream-of-consciousness epic that feels like reading a private letter or overhearing a prayer. It’s raw, meandering, and emotionally overwhelming in the best way. Much of the album carries the stateliness and solemn beauty of a great church choir.

Dense and diaristic, the album feels less like a pop album and more like a literary experience—part memoir, part confessional. Lana confronts religion, death, memory, grief, family, and meaning with honesty and emotional clarity. The album title itself refers to a real tunnel in California, now closed to the public but known for its beautiful mosaic walls. Lana uses it as a potent metaphor—for visibility, legacy, and her fear of being forgotten.

3. Tori Amos – Boys for Pele (1996)

And on to another album just as large in scope and vision—if not more so—both sonically and lyrically: Boys for Pele. Clocking in at over 70 minutes, it’s an incredibly bold, brave, dense, eclectic, complex, and wildly ambitious work. Tori Amos doesn’t just push boundaries here—she obliterates them. This is an album that breaks all the rules and bends even the furthest limits, musically and lyrically.

Born from the aftermath of a romantic breakup, Boys for Pele emerges from spiritual and emotional excavation. Tori travelled to South America, where she took ayahuasca and, according to her, met the devil—a vision that helped her confront her inner demons. This experience manifests vividly in tracks like “Father Lucifer.” The album plays like a purging, a ritual, a reckoning.

Tori has always been wildly gifted—accepted into the Peabody Institute at age five, only to be expelled later for “musical insubordination.” That spirit of defiance permeates this record. She refuses to be boxed in or silenced by societal expectations, stigma, or industry conventions. Her first hit, “Me and a Gun,” was a harrowing a cappella account of her rape—proof from the start that her art would never flinch from pain or truth.

Boys for Pele was recorded both in New Orleans and inside a church in rural Ireland, lending it an eerie, sacred, southern-gothic atmosphere. The album is dominated by the harpsichord; an instrument rarely used in ’90s pop or rock. Here, it becomes central—a baroque backbone giving many songs a medieval, timeless quality, even as the music feels bracingly modern. In truth, it transcends any clear temporal or genre boundary. These songs don’t just sound otherworldly—they create their own world. Boys for Pele carves this world with the intricacy and conviction of a cathedral.

The title refers to the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele—fierce, fiery, transformative. Tori envisioned throwing every man who had wronged her into that volcano, and this album is her act of ritual incineration. It’s fierce and uncompromising, yet incredibly vulnerable. Both angry and tender, mournful and alive, it covers emotional extremes with brutal honesty and intensity.

Throughout, she tears down and rebuilds: religion, patriarchy, language, gender, identity, and self. The music is richly textured and unconventional—layered with baroque and avant-garde detail, incorporating fragments of jazz, classical, Appalachian folk, industrial noise, and experimental pop. From this wreckage, Tori builds something feral and free, transforming ashes into wild self-discovery and deep healing.

2. Janet Jackson – The Velvet Rope (1997)

Rounding out the number two spot is Janet Jackson’s genre-blending triumph The Velvet Rope. A staggering achievement in scope, lyricism, and innovation, it remains one of the most progressive and emotionally resonant R&B albums ever made. Its influence reverberates through today’s landscape, echoed in the work of artists like Beyoncé, SZA, Solange, and FKA Twigs.

Janet weaves a rich tapestry of styles into the album’s R&B foundation—trip-hop, house, rock, electronic, techno, funk, folk, quiet storm, even early hints of footwork. The result is a soundscape deeply rooted in its era yet strikingly ahead of its time. Even now, it sounds as vital, boundary-defying, and emotionally immersive as it did in the late ’90s.

The title refers to the velvet rope that separates access—both literally and metaphorically. It speaks to boundaries: emotional, sexual, and societal. Throughout, Janet’s bold and unflinching lyricism confronts desire, self-worth, depression, trauma, identity, and healing. It’s defiant and queer, personal and universal, danceable and meditative. It confronts shame, celebrates vulnerability, and dares to be radically honest.

Patient, textured, and transformative, The Velvet Rope is both a cry and a balm. Few albums in the genre have gone as deep—or covered as much ground—with such grace, courage, and power.

1. Björk – Vespertine (2001)

And here it is: my favourite album of all time by my favourite artist of all time. Björk’s artistry is on another level. She’s released countless forward-thinking, creative art-pop albums, but Vespertine is my absolute favourite. It perfectly embodies the qualities I seek in an album—cinematic yet intimate, sophisticated and sonically layered, emotionally rich, and completely unique in its soundscape.

Vespertine weaves together detailed microbeats, warm strings, celestas, intricate electronic textures, ethereal choirs, and lush orchestration. The production is otherworldly—frosty yet intimate. Microphones were attached directly to the instruments to capture a rare sonic closeness. Björk’s voice is close-miked throughout, breathy and sensual—sometimes delicate and whispery, other times soaring and ecstatic.

This is a headphone album like no other, the most intimate I’ve ever heard. It gently pulls you into its private, icy, celestial landscape. The album harnesses the beauty and power of vulnerability, letting it shine and melt the sonic chill. The title is named after the Latin word for evening, vesper—referring to things that appear or come alive at night, like nocturnal animals or blooming evening flowers. Night is often linked to stillness, introspection, and privacy—all of which bloom throughout the album’s soundscape.

“Pagan Poetry” stands as the emotional core, where intense love and desire reach their climax. Tracks like “It’s Not Up to You” and “Unison” build to sublime peaks of blissful unity and oneness with nature. The rest of the record is calm, deeply immersed in the wonder of love, nature, and intimacy—gratitude falling softly all around, like the footprints in snow heard at the beginning of the spellbinding “Aurora.”

Björk described the chaos of the Homogenic tour and her longing to retreat into peace and privacy. She envisioned Vespertine as an album about domesticity—hibernating, cocooning, and cozying up at home alone. It perfectly captures this tranquillity and introversion. And as a listener, you feel privileged to be let into her magical inner world. Everything is so close, so personal—like being entrusted with her deepest secrets. It’s album as osmosis, as magic: quietly moving through your skin, blooming in the still night air of your heart.