Okay, I'm just gonna get this one out of the way.

I foresee the wrath of the many coming my way (and you know how THAT can hurt!) But as I said back in December 2008, "It's MY list, MY rules!" Of course I'm talking about one of the "Best of..." type albums on my list of 100 Top Albums. And not just any band's "Best of...", but THE BAND's "Best of..." But I'm not afraid!

I learned later in life that Songs From the Big Pink and the eponymous The Band album were critical to anyone's record collection. These were the homegrown gems that influenced just about anyone who made great music in the 70s and beyond. For me, I was 9 or 10 when these records came out, a Beatle fan still, and just starting to understand that there was something beyond the Top 40 on CHUM and CFTR.

So I didn't have these albums.

Oh sure, I'd heard just about every song these two albums offered. All through the early 70s "The Weight," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Chest Fever," and "Up on Cripple Creek" were songs I would sing along with on the radio, or hear on a friend's big brother's record player... it seemed like I knew these songs all my life. I just didn't associate them with any album because, well, I was a kid with older sisters who were into the Beatles.

I really mean it when I say it seems like I've known these songs all my life, sorta the way you just know "Happy Birthday," "Moon River," and "In the Mood." They were just there, part of the fabric of life. And others followed: "Life Is a Carnival," "Ophelia," "Acadian Driftwood." But I still didn't own any of these great albums that now included Cahoots and Northern Lights - Southern Cross.

Then when I was about 23, I had an epiphany: I saw the movie, The Last Waltz. It blew my forehead off. I knew every song. I knew all the songs that The Band's guests sang. I had no idea they were those guys on so many of my favourite albums (Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison etc...). And watching them play...? They made it look simple - but those songs are ANYTHING but simple. At a time in popular music when the mandolin, the fiddle and the accordion were instruments that real rock and rollers scoffed at, The Band made them essential to their sound. They sounded fresh and eternal.

That's the thing: The Band sounds eternal. Their songs feel like they could have been written in a plantation shack in 1865, or in a tent at Glastonbury in 2009.

And so when I finally bought a Band album, it was fitting that it was called To Kingdom Come.

I'm sorry to all of you who will think this shouldn't count as a Top 100 Album, the best of all their incredible library of work in a terrific 2-CD package. But I listen to it ALL THE TIME! Like I have all my life. And so it counts based on MY REQUIREMENTS!

Just so you know, I DO own a Big Pink CD and a The Band CD. Purists will still scoff, but you can rag, mama, rag on me all you want; To Kingdom Come is one of the best albums I've ever listened to.

Thanks and good luck.