I figured out the other day that, on average, I listen to music 10 hours a day. Of this, a good 80% is new to me. While I do have favorites that I regularly revisit, I prefer the enjoyment of new stuff to sticking with the same. It’s a big musical world out there and I try to dance at as many parties as I can make it to.

Given this, year end lists usually hold little interest to me. I can see the merit in acknowledging those releases that stood out and to draw attention to albums a reader might have missed, but to me it’s a dull exercise I rarely participate in.

I was discussing this very state of affairs with Sean and Ceci the other day, and I remarked that, whatever the best album of the decade might be, the one I by far enjoyed the most was Rancid’s Indestructible. Their response was correct: Isn’t that what the criteria should be?

I’ve listened to Indestructible literally hundreds of times. Not only have I never gotten sick of it, I manage to love it a little more each time. There have been tracks I’ve liked from the first time through (“Fall Back Down”) and some that I’ve gotten into only recently (“Spirit of ’87″). It’s 19 tracks with zero filler. It’s punk and ska blended with Tim Armstrong’s hip-hop lyrical flow. It’s the best album to listen to in rush hour traffic that I’ve ever found. It’s by a band that lives the same punk ethos they sing about. It’s managed to follow me through 7 years of my life and still find a way to apply to what I’m going through, no matter how much I change. It’s authentic, true, beautiful, aggressive, and the first album I’d pack if I was sent to a desert island.

In short, it’s about as close to perfect an album for me as I’m likely to ever find. And it would have been a lesser decade without it.

[Buy It]