Listography: My top 5 albums by male solo artist

Obviously this is a departure from usual travel focus on Jenography, but this topic is just too good to resist. I’ll happily admit I have, er, eclectic taste in music, sometimes veering into terrible, but this list turned out to pretty good IMHO. Herewith, my entry for Kate Takes 5’s listography: my top 5 albums by a male solo artist.

1. Joe Jackson – Gold

I can’t listen to Joe Jackson without thinking of my university friend Jeff, who was one of the people who educated me in the way of actually good music (a separate category, it turns out, from “good for dancing to in a cheesy club” or “good for doing sit-ups to during your daily workout” or “good while drinking wine coolers while parked outside the city limits”). I didn’t actually own a Joe Jackson album until recently when I bought one for my iPod (sorry, Joe). Before then, I just had dub tapes, made by the wonderful Jeff.

2. Nat King Cole, The Very Thought of You

I fell in love with Nat King Cole in my last several years in New York, listened to him obsessively after a vicious breakup and rediscovered him when my husband ripped all of our CDs onto our music server. The liquid baritone voice, the pure notes – oh, Nat! If only I’d been born several decades earlier, we could have sat together at intimate cabaret tables, sipping cocktails and smoking Kools. There are masses of differently arranged collections. Because of the aforementioned digitasation of my CD, I don’t know what my favourite album was actually called but this one comes closest, including The Very Thought of You, Unforgettable, Mona Lisa, Sweet Lorraine, and Lush Life. *Sigh*

3. Dean Martin, The Very Best of Dean Martin

Oh yes, I went through my Sinatra phase. I was a heavy user, all times of day and night, I even went to the Woodlands in Houston once to score a live appearance. But then I noticed this other guy. Great voice. Twinkle in his eye. No mob connections and not always drunk like they said. And so kicked off another obsession. I urge you to pack away New York, New York in favour of Ain’t That a Kick in the Head and Powder Your Face with Sunshine.

4. Billy Joel, The Stranger

This album will forever be married in my mind with my sister and my brother when they wore bellbottoms and my cousins Robert and Lavita when they lived over in that little house off Broadway Avenue. Don’t let your perception of Joel be coloured by Uptown Girl. This – THIS – is the album, with Moving Out and Just the Way You Are and Only the Good Die Young. A special thanks goes to M&S who helped me rediscover She’s Always a Woman recently. Nevermind Fyfe Dangerfield. It’s always Billy Joel to me.

5. Lyle Lovett, Pontiac

The last one already? So many could be included – Peter Gabriel, Johnny Mathis, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond. But this slot has to go to Lyle Lovett’s Pontiac – every song a gem of storytelling and melody. I fell in love with it my first year in NYC – I wouldn’t have dreamed of listening to anything that vaguely smacked of country music when I actually lived in Texas. I tried to convert everybody I knew that year, until my friend Clark said wearily one day, “Please don’t play the pony song.”

How do you think the list stacks up?

Jennifer Howze

I’m a journalist and blogger. Previously I was The Times’s online lifestyle editor and Alpha Mummy blogger. Now I’m co-founder of BritMums and BritMums Live! – our annual blogging conference that draws hundreds. Follow me on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Google+.