I am the stone the builders refused

Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
One of the many thousands of classics I haven't listened to before, or at least in its entirety. I had it on low as I squinted through the fog of waking up alone in the house, so arguably I still haven't really listened to it.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Zuma
I think this may be my favorite Neil Young record, even beating out On The Beach. "Lookin' for a Lover" is such a slyly brilliant love song.

But I hope I treat her kind
And don't mess with her mind
When she starts to see
the darker side of me

The Orb - Bicycles and Tricycles
Around 1993, I thought The Orb was the be-all-end-all, the next phase, the mothership connection. I grew out of it, leaving my ambient techno friends for punk rock friends and haven't checked in since. This record released a decade later sounds petty generic. Not quite hip-hop on the rap numbers, not quite "Little Fluffy Clouds"

The Orb - "Little Fluffy Clouds" off Live 93
Now this still holds up. That thudding heartbeat pulse and Rickie Lee Jones daydreaming about clouds - "Little Fluffy Clouds" is in a category all its own.

Asheru's myspace songs
I've had his theme from "The Boondocks" stuck in my head for a couple days, but I'm kinda drawn to his hip-hop/smooth Jazz Liberatorz track "I Am Hip Hop." It's not breaking any new ground or anything, but I dig it anyway.

Asheru - "Better"
The jagged organ groove on this is killer. In fact the flow, the understated production, everything on this track are dead on except for the lyrics.

Gil Scott Heron - Pieces of a Man
Gil is such a key figure in the development of hip-hop, how come his name doesn't get dropped more often than it is? "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" sounds as fresh as it did in 1971 but the badass shit is the junkie soul number "Home is Where the Hatred Is"

you keep saying, kick it, quit it, kick it, quit it
God, but did you ever try
to turn your sick soul inside out
so that the world, so that the world
can watch you die

This album, even in the dated soul-jazz numbers, is unstoppable.

Gil Scott-Heron - Small Talk on 125th and Lenox
The album previous to Pieces of a Man is far more incendiary, with Scott-Heron delivering his poems over a post-beatnik bongo backdrop. "Whitey on the Moon" is a must hear, if you haven't heard it.