For most of us, mak­ing a list of our favorite albums involves no small amount of nos­tal­gia. We remem­ber high­lights from high school and col­lege: songs on con­stant rota­tion after breakups and dur­ing sum­mers of bliss. More so than any oth­er media we con­sume, music—from clas­si­cal to the most com­mer­cial pop—feels deeply per­son­al.

But there are many oth­er ways to relate to music. Bri­an Eno’s jour­ney through the world of record­ed sound, for exam­ple, more resem­bles that of a 19th cen­tu­ry explor­er. He grav­i­tates toward the cul­tur­al­ly exot­ic, makes stu­dious obser­va­tions, and advances hypothe­ses and the­o­ries. In read­ing through an inter­view he gave to The Qui­etus for their “baker’s dozen” series—in which they ask famous artists to name their top 13 albums—one theme emerges in the way Eno talks about music: dis­cov­ery.

And as Eno reminds us in his com­men­tary on his first pick—a gospel record by Rev­erend Maceo Woods and The Chris­t­ian Taber­na­cle Choir—one pre­cur­sor to dis­cov­ery is curios­i­ty, unbound­ed by prej­u­dice or pre­con­cep­tion. It’s an approach that has enabled him to cre­ate some of the most con­sis­tent­ly inter­est­ing records decade after decade (hear 150 Eno tracks here), and to remain rel­e­vant long after most of his ’70s peers have dis­ap­peared.

Eno first heard, or mis­heard, the gospel group on U.S. radio. To his ears, the refrain “sur­ren­der to His will” sound­ed like “sur­ren­der to the wheel,” a cryp­tic phrase that pro­voked all sorts of asso­ci­a­tions. But even after he learned the real lyric, he was hooked on the group’s sound, and want­ed to know more, though he him­self is entire­ly non-reli­gious.

“Why am I so moved by a music based on some­thing that I just don’t believe in?,” Eno asked him­self. His response ranges into philo­soph­i­cal ter­ri­to­ry, then ends on an unex­pect­ed­ly upbeat note. If it sur­pris­es you that one of Eno’s favorite albums is an obscure record by an ama­teur gospel group, take a look at the rest of his picks. We’d expect the Vel­vet Under­ground to appear—giv­en his famous com­ment about their mas­sive influ­ence—and they do. The rest is a col­lec­tion of wild cards. See the eclec­tic list below and stop by The Qui­etus to read Eno’s thought­ful, can­did com­men­tary on each album.

The Dynam­ic Rev­erend Maceo Woods and The Chris­t­ian Taber­na­cle Choir in Con­cert, by Rev­erend Maceo Woods and The Chris­t­ian Taber­na­cle Choir

Farid El Atra­che, by Farid El Atra­che

Umut, by Arif Sag

“Go Where I Send Thee,” The Gold­en Gate Quar­tet (sin­gle)

Fresh, by Sly and the Fam­i­ly Stone

Plan­ta­tion Lul­la­bies, Me’Shell Nde­geO­cel­lo

The Vel­vet Under­ground, by The Vel­vet Under­ground

Ear­ly Works, by Steve Reich

Afro­disi­ac, by Fela Ran­some-Kuti & The Africa ‘70

Glid­er, by My Bloody Valen­tine

Heart­land, by Owen Pal­lett

Grande Liturgie Ortho­doxe Slave, by Chœur Bul­gare Sve­toslav Obreten­ov

Court and Spark, by Joni Mitchell

via The Qui­etus

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Lists His 25 Favorite LPs in His Record Col­lec­tion: Stream Most of Them Free Online

Tom Waits Makes a List of His Top 20 Favorite Albums of All Time

Kurt Cobain Lists His 50 Favorite Albums: Fea­tures LPs by David Bowie, Pub­lic Ene­my & More

Hear 150 Tracks High­light­ing Bri­an Eno’s Career as a Musi­cian, Com­pos­er & Pro­duc­er & Stream His 2015 John Peel Lec­ture

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

If you’ve ever learned to play an instru­ment, espe­cial­ly the gui­tar or piano, odds are you’ve spent count­less hours try­ing to mas­ter the rhythms and melodies of your favorite songs. And odds are at least one of those songs was writ­ten by Messrs. Lennon & McCart­ney. If you’re any­thing like me, you prob­a­bly real­ized ear­ly in the exer­cise that The Bea­t­les weren’t only praised as great song­writ­ers because of their lyri­cism and social and roman­tic insights. Their songs are also packed with inge­nious chord changes, unex­pect­ed time shifts, unusu­al hooks, etc.

What may seem at first lis­ten like a sim­ple tune reveals itself as high­ly chal­leng­ing for the ama­teur musi­cian. I well remem­ber sweat­ing over two of my favorites—“Julia” and “Martha My Dear”—for many days.

Even in mod­i­fied ver­sions that sim­pli­fy dif­fi­cult voic­ings, I strug­gled to mas­ter the let­ter of the songs while still con­vey­ing the spir­it. Sure­ly, that’s a tes­ta­ment to my own lack of skill, and yet the trou­ble I’ve had pulling off my favorite Bea­t­les’ songs has giv­en me all the more respect for musi­cians who make it look easy.

Even a straight-ahead blues like “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road” ain’t easy to sell—far from it. But I’ve nev­er heard any­one do it bet­ter than Tul­sa, Okla­homa-born blues­man Low­ell Ful­som (top). Fur­ther down, St. Vin­cent does a stel­lar live ren­di­tion of anoth­er of my favorites, “Dig a Pony.” A great song can take all kinds of bend­ing, stretch­ing, and pulling and still retain its essence. In Pao­lo Nutini’s smooth, stripped-down, organ, voice, and drums take on Lennon’s “Don’t Let Me Down,” above, the pas­sion remains, even if the impas­sioned shouts have been tamed.

There are hun­dreds more great Bea­t­les’ cov­ers out there, and prob­a­bly hun­dreds of ter­ri­ble ones, too—and many an odd­ball inter­pre­ta­tion that sharply divides opin­ion in either direc­tion (such as Marc Ribot’s machine-shop “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps,” which I hap­pen to love). Just above, we’ve put togeth­er a Spo­ti­fy playlist of over 80 great cov­er ver­sions of Bea­t­les’ songs, culled from sug­ges­tions made by @openculture followers/fans on Twit­ter. (You can down­load Spo­ti­fy’s soft­ware here.) And in the list below, find links to 20 fab­u­lous cov­er ver­sions on Youtube. (Those weren’t avail­able on Spo­ti­fy, but they’re def­i­nite­ly worth hear­ing). In total, you’ll find 100 tracks, by artists rang­ing from Ray Charles, to Joe Cock­er and Sarah McLach­lan, to Pat­ti Smith, David Bowie, and John­ny Cash. It makes for 6 hours of Bea­t­les bliss.

If we’ve missed an essen­tial cov­er, let us know in the com­ments below, and drop in a link if you can.

Jimi Hen­drix — Sgt. Pep­per
The Pix­ies — Wild Hon­ey Pie  
David Gilmour — Here, There and Every­where
Alice Coop­er and the Bee Gees — Because
Kris Kristof­fer­son — Paper­back Writer 
Bryan Fer­ry — She’s Leav­ing Home
Pao­lo Nuti­ni — Don’t Let Me Down
The Fall — A Day in the Life 
Elliot Smith — Because 
Elvis Costel­lo — Pen­ny Lane 
Marc Ribot — While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps
Ben E. King — Don’t Let Me Down
Ike & Tina Turn­er – She Came in Through the Bath­room Win­dow
St Vin­cent — Dig a Pony  
Peer Framp­ton and the Bee Gees — Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band (sound­track)
Ray Charles — The Bea­t­les Cov­ers
Book­er T. & the MGS — McLemore Avenue (Cov­ers of Abbey Road)  
George Ben­son — The Oth­er Side of Abbey Road

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 15 Worst Cov­ers of Bea­t­les Songs: William Shat­ner, Bill Cos­by, Tiny Tim, Sean Con­nery & Your Excel­lent Picks

Peter Sell­ers Cov­ers the Bea­t­les’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” “She Loves You” & “Help!”

Bea­t­les Trib­ute Band “The Fab Faux” Per­forms Live an Amaz­ing­ly Exact Repli­ca of the Orig­i­nal Abbey Road Med­ley

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

We’ve seen var­i­ous per­for­mances of John Cage’s famous silent piece 4′33″. But nev­er dur­ing our decade dig­ging up cul­tur­al curiosi­ties have we encoun­tered 4′33″ per­formed by Cage him­self. That is, until now. Above you can watch a video out­take from Nam June Paik’s Trib­ute to John Cage, filmed in 1973, in Har­vard Square. Boston’s WBGH describes the scene:

In the video he is seat­ed at a piano, with spec­ta­tors sur­round­ing him. He toys with his viewer’s expec­ta­tions by not play­ing the piano, which is what the gen­er­al pop­u­lace would expect from a per­for­mance involv­ing a piano. On the piano shelf there are a pock­et watch and a slip of paper. He keeps touch­ing and look­ing at the pock­et watch which draws the audience’s atten­tion to the idea of time, and that they are wait­ing for some­thing to hap­pen, and he also rais­es and low­ers the piano fall­board. There is also text that appears in this par­tic­u­lar video that says “This is Zen for TV. Open your win­dow and count the stars. If rainy count the rain­drops on the pud­dle. Do you hear a crick­et? …or a mouse.”

Anoth­er uncon­ven­tion­al item to add to the list: Cage per­forms 4′33″ in 1′22″!

For a clos­er look at 4′33″ read Josh Jones’ ear­li­er post on the Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4’33.” For more music by Cage, stream this free 65-hour playlist.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See the Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4’33”

The Music of Avant-Garde Com­pos­er John Cage Now Avail­able in a Free Online Archive

Stream a Free 65-Hour Playlist of John Cage Music and Dis­cov­er the Full Scope of His Avant-Garde Com­po­si­tions

How to Get Start­ed: John Cage’s Approach to Start­ing the Dif­fi­cult Cre­ative Process

What’s that? Exile on Main Street’s in your top 20 favorite albums of all time? Yeah, me too. How about Trout Mask Repli­ca? A lit­tle weird, that one, right? The Base­ment Tapes? Cool… So, uh, how about Bohemi­an-Mora­vian Bands? No? Nev­er heard of it? Seri­ous­ly?

Me nei­ther.

But there it is, the music of “Czech-Bavar­i­an bands that land­ed in Texas… music both sour and bit­ter, and picante, and float­ing above itself like steam over the ket­tle… like a wheel about to go off the road all the time… the most lilt­ing lit­tle waltz… accor­dion, sopra­no sax, clar­inet, bass, ban­jo and per­cus­sion.”

Sounds like the kind of thing Tom Waits would lis­ten to.

And that’s because it is, num­ber 12 on his list of top 20, to be exact, described with just a tiny taste of his idio­syn­crat­ic music writ­ing cour­tesy of The Guardian, who pub­lished his list in 2005 as part of a series “in which the great­est record­ing artists reveal their favourite records.”

Sure, Exile is on Waits’ list, as is the Cap­tain Beef­heart and Bob Dylan. And also Frank Sina­tra, nat­u­ral­ly, and Thelo­nious Monk, Lounge Lizards, Lit­tle Richard, James Brown…

Waits com­pares the expe­ri­ence of see­ing the God­fa­ther of Soul live to a “mass at St. Patrick’s Cathe­dral on Christ­mas… You’d been changed, your life is changed now… every­body want­ed to step down, step for­ward, take com­mu­nion, take sacra­ment… get close to the stage and be anoint­ed with his sweat, his cold sweat.”

He names a com­e­dy album by the late, great Bill Hicks, who was “like a rev­erend wav­ing a gun around.” Leonard Cohen “is a poet, an Extra Large one.” Marc Ribot is “a pros­thet­ic Cuban.” The Pogues “play like sol­diers on leave… whim­si­cal and blas­phe­mous, sea­sick and sac­ri­le­gious….” Sound like some­one you know? It sounds a bit like Tom Waits.

Put his top 20 in a blender and out comes Real Gone. Sort of.

In giv­ing us his list, he gives a dou­ble gift—an inspired col­lec­tion of music root­sy, avant-garde, jazz/blues/Americana, and Oth­er; and a series of mini-essays on the mer­its of each album, each one a mas­ter­ful exer­cise in con­ci­sion and ellip­ti­cal wit. See the full list below, and stop by The Guardian to read Waits’ com­men­tary on each album.

1 In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sina­tra
2 Solo Monk by Thelo­nious Monk
3 Trout Mask Repli­ca by Cap­tain Beef­heart
4 Exile On Main Street by the Rolling Stones
5 The Sink­ing of the Titan­ic by Gavin Bry­ers
6 The Base­ment Tapes by Bob Dylan
7 Lounge Lizards by Lounge Lizards
8 Rum Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues
9 I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen
10 The Spe­cial­ty Ses­sions by Lit­tle Richard
11 Star­time by James Brown
12 Bohemi­an-Mora­vian Bands by Texas-Czech
13 The Yel­low Shark by Frank Zap­pa
14 Pas­sion for Opera Aria
15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks
16 Prison Songs: Mur­der­ous Home Alan Lomax Col­lec­tion
17 Cubanos Pos­ti­zos by Marc Ribot
18 Houndog by Houndog
19 Pur­ple Onion by Les Clay­pool
20 The Deliv­ery Man by Elvis Costel­lo

We’ve added a Spo­ti­fy playlist with many of his favorite albums below. And if you dig Waits’ musi­cal taste, check out this list of his favorite art films.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits, Play­ing the Down-and-Out Barfly, Appears in Clas­sic 1978 TV Per­for­mance

The Tom Waits Map: A Map­ping of Every Place Waits Has Sung About, From L.A. to Africa’s Jun­gles

Tom Waits Names 14 of His Favorite Art Films: Felli­ni, David Lynch & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness