i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

You know, a month ago, I'd have been thrilled that it was supposed to get up to 50 degrees in Chicago today. After 10 days of sunny and 65? Nnnnnngh. Chicago, you lose at spring.

In that vein, today's Top 5 list is Top 5 Albums For A Sunny Spring Day. I was looking at the lists we've made and I couldn't believe that we hadn't done this one, but apparently? No. (And we've made 85 lists, people! 85! That's a lot of lists. It also means that list 100 is coming up sometime this summer; I should do something special for that, eh?)

So right: albums for spring. Happy albums, sunny albums, albums for driving with the windows down and the stereo on. Go.

My list:

1. Graceland, Paul Simon. I think this is both the ultimate spring album and the ultimate sun album. It's all about rebirth - or at least it is in my head.

2. Hard Candy, Counting Crows. This used to be a summer album for me, but lately it's tipping into spring. It's light and happy, even the weirder darker songs, and the title track and "Up All Night" are the best sort of songs for driving with the windows down.

3. Greatest Hits, Bruce Springsteen. I'm loathe to use greatest hits albums in these lists, but Crazy Boss L. has had this on repeat in his office for, liek, three weeks, and the more I listen to it, the more I want to drive out to Red Wing, MN, with missingm, in the middle of an April night, listening to this album.

4. Castaways and Cutouts, the Decemberists. And not just because I'm going to see them tonight, but mostly for "July! July!" and "Cautionary Song".

5. Perservere, the Proclaimers. "Sweet Little Girls" and "There's A Touch" and "Don't Give It To Me" and "Everybody's A Victim", and if you don't get up and dance in the sun and the breeze and that rainy-muddy-green spring-smell when you hear this album, I don't believe you're alive.

What about you, minions? What albums are the best for springtime?