Favorite Recordings

A collection of 45 posts

2025

Overstreet’s Favorite Recordings of 2025: introduction and honorable mentions

If only with candles and stars Broken light from dreams like ours We will still find our way through to love . . . — Sam Phillips, “Candles and Stars” By the age of 13, I was a devoted listener to Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40. Every week, I’d turn the delicate dial

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Six — The Top Ten

I'm grateful for those who support this journal, and I'm grateful for the artists who made these ten records in 2024. Here, I sing the praises of the music that gave me strength and got me through.

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Five — #20–#11

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Four — #30–#21 (and bonus recommendations!)

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Three — #36–#31

Favorite Recordings

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part Two — Honorable Mentions (veterans and legends; big-deal divas who don't really need more attention, and divas who deserve to be very big deals)

Anna Byrde

Favorite Recordings of 2024: Part One — Honorable Mentions (Instrumental, New Discoveries)

Favorite Recordings of 2023: Part Three — The Top 20

I will keep updating this list of my 20 favorite albums of 2023, one album at a time, until it is complete. Keep checking back as the list is slowly revealed!

Newsletter

Favorite Recordings of 2023: Part Two — #36–#21

Newsletter

Favorite Recordings of 2023: Part One — Some Honorable Mentions

Newsletter

2023 Musical Highlights, Pt. 3: "Faithful friends who are dear to us..."

2023 Musical Highlights, Pt. 1: Sigur Rós, André 3000, Tinariwen

On Songs & Albums

Overstreet's Favorite Recordings of 2022: The Top Ten

This year, my countdown of the previous year's best music has been a marathon of four posts: Honorable Mentions, #36 through #21, #20 through #11... and now this one. Here are my ten favorite albums of 2022. Sample tracks from each one and see if any of them speak to you. Then, post notes about your

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2022: #20 – #11

Are you up for a treasure hunt? Here we go with one of the last two parts of my 2022 musical review.

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2022: #36 – #21

You're likely to find some new favorites here in this wildly diverse list of albums and selected tracks from my favorite 2022 recordings.

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2021: Part Three (#15–#1)

You are arriving at the summit of my 2021 Music Mountain. These are my fifteen favorite albums of 2021

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2021: Part Two (#25–#16)

For those who love year-end lists like this, and those who also love the Insta... I bring you good tidings of great joy! Okay — maybe that's a bit hyperbolic. I bring you some unremarkable tidings that might interest you? Looking Closer now has an Instagram account: @OverstreetReviews. Follow

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2021: Part One (Honorable Mentions and #36–#26)

It has finally begun! On January 20, Looking Closer's look back at favorite recordings of 2021 has begun! Keep watch for Part Two and Part Three, coming soon.

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2020: Part 3 (#20–#1)

[This post is dedicated to the Looking Closer Specialists — especially Laure Hittle, Timothy Grant, and Winston Chow — whose contributions make this website possible.] The word for this year was survive. The Holy Scriptures caution us that with increasing wisdom comes increasing pain, and that to love is to suffer. The

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2020: Part 2 (#35–#21)

The countdown continues! Having listed my Honorable Mentions, I move on to my list of 35 favorite recordings from 2020. This post counts down #35–#21.

On Songs & Albums

Overstreet's Favorite Recordings: 2019

Here it is — a music festival, a playlist, a countdown of my favorite albums of 2019.

On Songs & Albums

Favorite Recordings of 2019: Honorable Mentions

A prelude to my countdown of 25 favorite records fro 2019, here's a long list of albums that probably deserve to be in that top 25 but... well... math is unforgiving. Explore. Listen. Discover some new favorites.

On Songs & Albums

Overstreet's Favorite Recordings of 2016 (Post 1 of 3)

I've been publishing lists of my favorite albums annually since I was eleven years old. In the early days, I published them in little magazines that I wrote for an audience of one. Today, I offer them to you as treasure maps. You're invited to explore.

On Songs & Albums

Overstreet's Favorite Recordings: 2015 — Part Two

Sufjan Stevens, Kendrick Lamar, Torres, Courtney Barnett... and many, many more make up my Favorite Recordings of 2015 countdown. Listen to your favorites and make some new discoveries.

On Songs & Albums

Overstreet's Favorite Recordings: 2015 — Part One

How to compare them? They're apples and oranges — and pears, peaches, lemons, and pineapples, along with some nutritious helpings of vegetables. To try and rate them in a single list is pretty much pointless... ...unless you perceive this as a way of recommending them to you with different