What are some good albums to check out? Favorites?
I like Yoshida Brothers’ “Hishou” and Kuni-Ken’s “Brother” albums at the moment.
Cheers!
Gage
If you have Spotify you should check out the playlist I’ve made:
If you don’t I could give you a list of some of the albums that are in it.
Cheers
Hi Gage! Welcome to the forum! 
I really like Hishou, it has a lot of minyo played cleanly on shamisen. I am also a fan of western classical instrumentation, so Agatsuma’s “Eternal Songs” is also a favorite album.
Though I don’t believe it’s on iTunes, one recent album that I really love is Karma by Nitta X Oyama. Nitta san and Oyama san are two shamisen virtuoso’s who can bring out so much music and sound with just two shamisen. You can hear samples here - http://bachido.com/products/media
Ki&Ki are Great! Their album Two Girl Shamisen!
Any solo album by Takahashi Chikuzan .
Masahiro Nitta -Sou, Yuki, and/or Shamisen Kid.
Sho Asano-Parade
And of course it goes without saying…
Monsters of Shamisen-Stellar!
(yeah I said it!)