Lindley and his band El Rayo-X recorded a series of casually infectious albums in the ’80s. A mainstay of West Coast session work, Lindley never got the following he deserved for his solo output. Thankfully, the recordings live on, and Very Greasy remains enduringly cheerful. The disc closes with “Tiki Torches At Twilight,” a song that manages to be both humorous and subtly melancholy. Lindley delights—and excels—at playing anything with strings, and here he’s on Hawaiian and slack-key guitars. The lyrics offer less a narrative than a slivered bit of reporting, describing the travails of an after-work party. It references the peculiar feeling of seeing coworkers in unfamiliar settings, behaving differently than when on the job, and covers the whole gamut, from attractions to repulsions (in this case, men from the office getting sick in their cars).

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Robyn Hitchcock closed out the 20th century with the often-overlooked Jewels For Sophia album. He’s always been sparing with overtly linear lyrics, so when a song like “I Feel Beautiful” comes along, its relatively straightforward presentation is a real head turner. The song is so lovely that it takes a few listens to realize that Hitchcock’s surrealistic wordplay is as present as ever. Here are a few lines: “I water the tomatoes, and I think of you.” “I feel like a creature that is sleekly groomed.” “I’ve been hanging round Covent Garden for you for centuries.” All seek to explain the beautiful feeling of being loved. The instrumental track is sympathetically matched. An acoustic guitar sets up the main architecture, but the subtle embellishments (Jon Brion on Marxophone, which sounds rather like a hammered dulcimer) underscore the timeless nature of the sentiments in the words.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Lowell George’s only solo album was released weeks before he died. Understated and with just a handful of originals, it confused Little Feat fans at the time but has proved to be an enduring work. “20 Million Things” is one of George’s finest songs, at once casual and regal. From the internal rhymes that open the first lines to the accidental noises that bring it to a close less than three minutes later, this song grows more resonant with the passing years. While some of his slide guitar work eases in during the second verse, the album focuses on Lowell George the singer. The immediacy of his voice gives emotional lift to the simple litany of tasks left undone while lost in thought. With this song, George gave shape and focus to a common human condition of longing, with grace, dignity, and a dash of humor to make it more real.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Marshall Crenshaw’s second album was produced with an enormousness that tended to eclipse the songs. Happily, his third was more properly scaled. Downtown is an understated work ranking among his best. It closes with “Lesson Number One,” a song that sounds perfectly tailored for The Everly Brothers. There’s subtle emotional tension to it, creating an air of melancholy. The lyrics explain that telling the truth is lesson number one, and you can tell that the narrator learned this the hard way. The song’s power comes from its perfect blend of words and music. Everyone has had experience with the effects of lying, and this song was written and produced in a way that allows a listener to step into it themselves.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Aptly titled, Braver Newer World found Jimmie Dale Gilmore and producer T-Bone Burnett heading into edgier and more atmospheric sonic territories. It was an experiment that yielded stunning results, with Gilmore’s familiar Texas warble sounding perfectly comfortable amidst the studio and arrangement sensibilities of late-twentieth-century rule breakers. The set’s most chilling number is “Where Is Love Now” by Sam Phillips. At once windswept and enveloping, the combined force of the song and performance give potent character to heart-rending mysteries of life. It’s not possible to hear the bending note when he sings the word “dark” in the phrase “out here in the dark” without being swept far away from all of life’s mundane matters. The very quality of Gilmore’s voice calls into question how bad the dark might be.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

After their self-titled debut in 1966, The Incredible String Band was reduced to a duo with the departure of Clive Palmer. Robin Williamson and Mike Heron moved further afield from the music of the British Isles, creating a blend that embraced everything from Eastern mysticism to American jazz, Mediterranean island opium-infused reveries and folk styles from around the globe. “First Girl I Loved” is the beautiful confluence of autobiography and universality. Williamson’s song references his own life (“Me rushing around Britain with a guitar, making love to people that I didn’t even like to see”), but perfectly captures the innocence of anyone’s first love. His own experiences turn a listener inward to the phantom quality of memories that float through the intervening years in all of our lives.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Jazz performers have a robust history of adapting popular music to their sensibilities, often resulting in revelatory new windows on the underlying compositions (such as Sonny Rollins’ “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” John Cotrane’s “My Favorite Things,” and Jimmy Giuffre’s “Music Man” suite). Roland Kirk’s explorations took him through wildly varied offerings of 20th-century popular songcraft. His arrangement of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “I Say a Little Prayer” is more than an instrumental workout for exuberant soloing. Kirk (released before he added “Rahsaan” to the front of his name) and his band focus on the last word in the title, making it a celebratory incantation that every player is a part of. Listen to the brief but giddy drum rolls punctuate the chorus—possessed, caught up in the moment, whatever you call it, every aspect of the performance makes for a warm and dazzling eight minutes of connectedness.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

This song, from NRBQ’s ninth album, is in a tradition that ties it to “She Loves You” by The Beatles. While the object of desire is given a thumbs up in one song and a thumbs down in the other, both describe a relationship between friends. Lennon and McCartney’s narrator is prodding a pal to realize a woman is in love with him, but this song describes a relationship that is given an ominous forecast. None of this would matter if the track in total wasn’t the perfect churning engine that it is. “A Girl Like That” is also a prime example of the band’s distinctive sound, mixing clavinet and electric guitar into one thick, interwoven tapestry, which rolls across the incessant but undulating rhythm section.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

A great album has a flow and character to it from beginning to end. It also needs to be built entirely out of great songs. Television’s Marquee Moon remains one of the most audacious debuts of the 20th century. “See No Evil” functions as a sort of overture, and it gives hints of everything that is to follow. Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd’s intertwined guitars, contrasting yet sympathetic to one another, are there from the start. Then, like a car that can go from zero to 60 in a few seconds, Television are off and roaring across the landscape. It’s hard to hear this song and not want to either play guitar or drive very fast.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

While Rod Stewart and Ron Wood were the strutting focal points of Faces, the heart of the band was always Ronnie Lane. “Debris, ” from 1972’s A Nod Is As Good As A Wink . . .To A Blind Horse, is a very personal song—Lane is singing about his parents—but that doesn’t keep others from finding their way in. The less specific the story, the more room it allows for anyone else to see themselves in it. Lane was able to regularly draw listeners into similarly resonant feelings, and the entirety of his output (Faces, Small Faces, Slim Chance, and other solo ventures) is a treasure awaiting those unfamiliar, and an old friend to those who already know.

Recommended by: David Greenberger

Though more like a Paul Westerberg solo album than a bona fide Replacements outing, All Shook Down was as fine a farewell as a band could have. By the ’90s, Westerberg had gotten a bit older, and many of his songs from then would not have been possible for a younger man to write. Chief among these is “Nobody.” This is a perfectly crafted three minutes, a narrative sliver honed to its essentials. He sets the scene with the opening lines: “Heartaches on your wedding day. Double takes when they look my way.” Over the course of three short verses, two recognizable characters emerge. They are described in emotional rather than physical terms, leaving a hole in the floor where a listener goes into freefall, seeing themselves or someone they know in the charged scenario.

Recommended by: David Greenberger