Here we are at the G-Stop, and I’m absolutely gob-smacked to announce that, miracle of miracles, I actually managed to compile a complete Top 20 this time. I know, I know… alert the media, alert the authorities, alert anyone still pretending to keep up with modern music.

Now, I still couldn’t crown an absolute winner, because apparently the letter “G” is full of talented overachievers who refuse to separate themselves into tidy little hierarchies. But honestly, everything here ranges from good to almost great, which is practically a rave review by my standards.

However, once again, nothing made the cut from after 2020. This is becoming a disturbing pattern. I swear I’m open to all music released up to the present day (as of this writing: November ‘25), but modern artists seem hell-bent on proving me wrong. I’m beginning to feel like a paleontologist brushing dirt off a T-Rex femur while muttering, “They just don’t make ‘em like they used to…”

Speaking of fossils, working on this “G” entry sent me spiraling into a nostalgia craving so intense that I launched a new “Built to Last” series. (Shameless plug: go read it.) I’m currently working on Part 2 “B” and discovered that many of the Boz Scaggs albums I’m reviewing were remastered in 2023. How perfect do they need these albums to sound? Were engineers sitting there saying, “You know, what Silk Degrees really needs is just a little more triangle in the left channel”?

Let’s be honest: it’s all been a clever scheme to lighten the wallets of those poor souls afflicted with audiophilia, a devastating condition affecting millions who genuinely believe they can hear the ghost of a bassoonist breathing in the background of a Steely Dan track. Honestly, someone should start Audiophiles Anonymous. “Hi, my name is Jeff, and I just bought my 5th copy of Dream of the Blue Turtles because the cymbals sounded 2% more ethereal.”

If I were a completist, I could’ve easily bought the same album dozens of times by now. And yes, I am old enough to remember 8-track tapes. My first and only 8-track was Aqualung by Jethro Tull, which I’m pretty sure came pre-installed in my first used car. What a load of crap! When the industry “upgraded” to cassette tapes, I didn’t fall for that scam. I was perfectly content with my vinyl collection and whatever the car radio felt like offering.

Eventually, I saw the CD writing on the wall and sold my hundreds of vinyl records back to the same store I bought them from for pennies on the dollar. However, if I’d known early-90s CDs sounded like they were mastered through a wet sock, I might’ve reconsidered. But no…suddenly everything needed to be “re-mastered” AGAIN, and “bonus tracks” kept magically appearing like they’d been buried in a time capsule only dogs unearth. Fast-forward to today, where we don’t even own our music anymore. We rent it from the cloud like it’s an Airbnb. And somehow… we like it.

But I’ll admit it: my current “record collection” (quotation marks absolutely intentional) is something my teenage self could’ve never dreamed of, even if it could vanish faster than a pop star’s second album.

BOTTOM LINE: Audiophiles and completists are delightful suckers, and what I’m doing here is a public service…a noble crusade to prove that less is actually more, and that you don’t need eight formats, three reissues, and a limited-edition Japanese pressing to enjoy great music.

Now… on to the “G”s.

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#20) GWEN STEFANI – Love, Angel, Music, Baby (2004)

I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a pop starlet who grates on my nerves more than Gwen Stefani. Whether she’s bouncing around with No Doubt or launching into her solo era of Harajuku fever dreams, her voice hits my ears like a cheese grater on a chalkboard. And yet, here she is on the list. Why, you ask?

Well, because from roughly the mid-’90s through 2006, Gwen was one of the music industry’s most aggressively pampered golden children. They handed her every musical kitchen utensil imaginable and to her credit, she managed to whip up confections that were at least edible at the time.

Now it feels like we opened the drawer and discovered a chaotic avalanche of mismatched spatulas, melted Tupperware lids, and three different ice cream scoops rolling around aimlessly with no purpose. That’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. I would even argue that this album is a “junk drawer” destined for the eventual trash bin, where future listeners will peer into the digital landfill and ask, “Why did we keep this? Was it sentimental? Were we hypnotized?”

SAMPLE TRACK: “Rich Girl”

#19) GROUPLOVE – Never Trust a Happy Song (2011)

On first listen, this album earned itself a golden ticket to the “Further Review” round, no small feat these days. The second playthrough? Honestly exhilarating. For a moment, I felt like I’d stumbled onto a more focused, beefier version of Foster the People or Fountains of Wayne. But as the honeymoon phase ended, the truth revealed itself: Grouplove is deeply, almost impressively derivative. Their later albums confirm this by falling off faster than a toddler on roller skates. It’s clear that whatever magic they bottled here evaporated the moment they opened the jar.

And yet, none of that diminishes the pure sugar-rush joy blasting out of this record. It’s loud, it’s bright and borderline chaotic. I may not trust these happy songs… but damned if they don’t still make me happy.

SAMPLE TRACK: “Lovely Cup”

#18) GREAT PEACOCK – Forever, Worse, Better (2020)

Okay, time to get serious for a second. This band doesn’t even qualify for a Wikipedia page… and honestly, that’s a great sign. If anything, it reassures me they’re not secretly owned by PepsiCo. Musically, what we’ve got here is introspective relationship angst sprinkled with a light dusting of Americana, a recipe that critics declared dead on arrival sometime around 2020. But here’s the thing: this kind of material is timeless… it’s just my time that’s passed.

I once joked that the good news/bad news dichotomy of turning 50 is this:
Good news: Nobody cares what you do.
Bad news: Nobody cares what you do.

Which means I’m the exact target audience for this album…emotionally reflective, slightly dusty, and unbothered by the fact that the rest of the world has moved on to music that sounds like malfunctioning microwaves.

SAMPLE TRACK: “All I Ever Do”

#17) GABRIELLE – Rise (1999)

Here we have a lovely little British pop gem that somehow never managed to swim across the Atlantic. If you can imagine a slightly more caffeinated Norah Jones, you’re in the right neighborhood. Artists in this mellow, soft-focus lane are often pretentious in that “I recorded this at sunrise in Iceland using only vintage microphones and my emotions” kind of way, but Gabrielle never even hints at that nonsense. She’s warm, grounded, and blissfully uninterested in acting like she invented feelings.

The only reason this album lands lower on the list is because it’s so laid back it occasionally needs a gentle poke with a stick to make sure it’s still awake. But once you lock into its cozy, velvety groove, Rise is an end-to-end pleasure…like slipping into a warm bath where no one is judging your life choices.

SAMPLE TRACK: “Sunshine”

#16) THE GLORIOUS SONS – The Union (2014)

I’m only up to the letter “G”, so I can’t officially declare this the hardest-rocking album of its release year… but it’s absolutely in the cage match. Sure, their sophomore effort seems to get more critical love…because critics are allergic to raw, sweaty enthusiasm and prefer things like “evolution” and “maturity” (boring). Meanwhile, I kept crawling back to The Union because it has that glorious, unfiltered blast-furnace energy that reminds you rock music didn’t actually die in 1998…apparently, it was just napping.

In a century where rock albums are about as common as working payphones, any band bold enough to plant a flag in the new millennium and yell “WE STILL EXIST!” deserves a medal… or at least a slightly higher placement on this list.

SAMPLE TRACK: “Heavy”