12 Albums Every Dude Should Own

Unlike restaurants disallowing substitutions with orders, we’ll permit substitutions for this list. You can call an audible when compiling your own vinyl (and yes, you should own these on vinyl), so long as you score a mix of these artists. What you won’t find on this list is a buffet offering in the form of any “greatest hits” compilations. Like you, we wish this list could be 50-100 albums long, but getting you fired from your job for looking at your phone is not a Goliath priority. You can’t go wrong with these 12! Trust.

12. Otis Redding – The Dictionary of Soul

Did anyone do it quite like Otis? No. He was a bridge builder. Even ignoramuses who were steeped in racism during the mid-20th century found love for Otis. Otis died the year after releasing The Dictionary of Soul, in a tragic plane crash, when he was just reaching the height of his popularity. His most famous cut was the lazy ballad, “Sittin’ on The Dock of The Bay,” which was released on the album of the same name, but when he got to The Dictionary of Soul, he was hitting on all cylinders. One of his greatest achievements in music was the recording of “Try a Little Tenderness” which appears on Dictionary, and has been attempted to 100 percent failure at karaoke nights worldwide. There is simply no comparing oneself to Otis Redding. Had he lived beyond 26 years, he might have become the biggest thing in music.