Lists like this require more work than you’d think, which is why I don’t make them too often. But as new releases just start to trickle in, I thought I’d offer my hypothetical hall-of-fame ballot; my response to the age-old desert island question.

I am presuming a fairly spacious island, and lots of time on my hands. So why 60? Because 100 seems unwieldy somehow, yet keeping it to 50 required cuts I couldn’t bring myself to make. As is always the case with lists, I intend this as a snapshot in time: 60 albums that have been formative, that have brought pleasure, that have abided mystery and midwifed revelation. Ask me again in a month and I’m sure I’d come to some slightly different conclusions.

1. Tiny Voices | Joe Henry
2. “Love & Theft” | Bob Dylan
3. The Birth of Soul | Ray Charles
4. Birds of My Neighborhood | The Innocence Mission
5. The Bright Mississippi | Allen Toussaint
6. Mama’s Gun | Erykah Badu
7. The Long Surrender | Over the Rhine
8. The Weight of These Wings | Miranda Lambert
9. Kind of Blue | Miles Davis
10. Black Messiah | D’Angelo
11. Civilians | Joe Henry
12. Real Midnight | Birds of Chicago
13. Good Dog Bad Dog | Over the Rhine
14. A Love Supreme | John Coltrane
15. Every Picture Tells a Story | Rod Stewart
16. The Basement Tapes | Bob Dylan & The Band
17. Sign o’ the Times | Prince
18. So | Peter Gabriel
19. The Low End Theory | A Tribe Called Quest
20. Paul’s Boutique | Beastie Boys
21. Court and Spark | Joni Mitchell
22. Money Jungle | Duke Ellington
23. In a Silent Way | Miles Davis
24. Rain Dogs | Tom Waits
25. Abattoir Blues & The Lyre of Orpheus | Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
26. Red | Taylor Swift
27. The Gospel According to Water | Joe Henry
28. The Scene of the Crime | Bettye LaVette
29. Painted from Memory | Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
30. Parade | Prince & The Revolution
31. Undun | The Roots
32. Highway 61 Revisited | Bob Dylan
33. Golden Hour | Kacey Musgraves
34. Legacy! Legacy! | Jamila Woods
35. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus | Charles Mingus
36. Basie & Zoot | Count Basie and Zoot Sims
37. Thelonious Monk Trio | Thelonious Monk
38. Achtung Baby | U2
39. All This Useless Beauty | Elvis Costello & The Attractions
40. Time Out of Mind | Bob Dylan
41. Purple Rain | Prince & The Revolution
42. Hell on Heels | Pistol Annies
43. Sings the Blues | Nina Simone
44. Otis Blue | Otis Redding
45. How I Got Over | The Roots
46. A Boot and a Shoe | Sam Phillips
47. Time (The Revelator) | Gillian Welch
48. John Wesley Harding | Bob Dylan
49. Trust | Elvis Costello & The Attractions
50. Voodoo | D’Angelo
51. Back to Back | Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges
52. Folklore | Taylor Swift
53. RTJ4 | Run the Jewels
54. Fetch the Bolt Cutters | Fiona Apple
55. Hounds of Love | Kate Bush
56. King’s Record Shop | Rosanne Cash
57. Lifes Rich Pageant | R.E.M.
58. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark | Drive-by Truckers
59. there is no Other | Rhiannon Giddens with Franceso Turrisi
60. Diatom Ribbons | Kris Davis