"What We're Loving Right Now," is an ongoing series in which Sara Schneider asks KMFA staff members about favorite recordings from their personal music libraries.

KMFA's Director of Operations Phil Pollack brings the thoughtful precision of an engineer to his musical choices.

"As 2016 progressed a steady stream of reissues and anniversary 'celebrations' caught my eyes and ears. It’s not so much that this reissue phenomenon was different than it had been in any other year, but rather that so many of these album tributes covered formative releases in my musical taste-making. The foremost of these is Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker, an album released in late 2000 which provides a perfect primer on the head-scratching genre known as alt-country. I have listened to this album hundreds of times since its original release, and I imagine I will add several hundred more listens in the next 16 years of its existence. It’s alternatingly sad, jubilant, nostalgic, reflective, and funny (though mostly sad), and to me covers the emotional spectrum so well that there’s rarely a bad time to listen to it."