Don McLeanAmerican Pie

The title track is an eight-minute fever dream of American myth, rolling from sock-hop innocence to apocalyptic loss in a singalong everyone somehow knows by heart. But 'Vincent' is the quiet miracle here, a hushed watercolor of Van Gogh that can stop a room cold. McLean's voice is plainspoken and aching throughout. A bona fide landmark, an album that wrote itself into the country's collective memory.