| 5.0 classic |
| Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home |
| Casual paranoia ("phone's tapped anyway..."), drugs, wage slavery, xenophobia, mass voicelessness, instability of self, the destabilization of American heteronormativity, corruption within the family unit, Christ kitsch, the blues, the scariest false start in popular music, and the profundity of silence, for a start. Highway 61 Revisited has several of these things, but not with the same cohesiveness or sustained intensity. And I wonder what it means that "Live Minus Zero" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" start off with the same chords. |
| Brian Eno Here Come the Warm Jets |
| Eno's first album picks up from the rough, droning sounds of the VU and Roxy Music but adds something those bands lacked: sheer joy at creation. It's not easy to carry through this kind of carelessness with conviction, which is a shame, since that's such an important part of what pop music is about. |
| David Bowie Low |
| David Bowie "Heroes" |
| DJ Shadow Endtroducing..... |
| Elvis Costello This Year's Model |
| You're welcome to your copy of My Aim Is True. The Attractions make Clover sound like a Saturday night bar band (which is probably what they were going for, but that doesn't mean I have to prefer it), and I like the lyrics and songwriting better too. |
| Fugazi The Argument |
| Fugazi's latest LP (but not last, Canty Lally Mackaye Picciotto willing) is their richest and most internally conflicting release, I suspect because the members let haunting, catchy, nocturnal melodies gradually enter into and warp the grooves they've relied on since their beginning. The effect is that The Argument sounds like being lulled to sleep for all the wrong reasons. Companion EP Furniture +2 is a must, and I'm not convinced the band made the right decision when they released it separately from this. |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ |
| Guided by Voices Bee Thousand |
| John Coltrane A Love Supreme |
| Mastodon Leviathan |
| Miles Davis Kind of Blue |
| Modest Mouse Building Nothing Out of Something |
| Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps |
| Neil Young Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere |
| Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea |
| Patti Smith Horses |
| R.E.M. Murmur |
| Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians |
| Talking Heads The Name of this Band Is Talking Heads |
| Television Marquee Moon |
| The Beach Boys The Smile Sessions |
| The Beatles Revolver |
| The Beatles Rubber Soul |
| The Clash London Calling |
| The Wrens The Meadowlands |
| Wire Chairs Missing |
| 4.5 superb |
| Alice in Chains Jar of Flies |
| Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 85-92 |
| Arcade Fire Funeral |
| At the Drive-In Vaya |
| Big Star Radio City |
| Black Sabbath Paranoid |
| Bo Diddley His Greatest Sides, Vol. 1 |
| Boards of Canada Music Has the Right to Children |
| Boards of Canada Geogaddi |
| Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited |
| Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks |
| Bob Dylan John Wesley Harding |
| Dylan's not kidding when he says Harding "was never known to make a foolish move"--the wisest thing the bandit did was to get out of his own song by the third stanza, before his story got too morally ambiguous. Much of the album is built on unresolved fragments and haunting half-scenes, which at their best have all the surreality of earlier albums without some of the excess. |
| Brant Bjork Jalamanta |
| Brian Eno Another Green World |
| Brian Eno and David Byrne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts |
| Bruce Springsteen Born to Run |
| Burial Untrue |
| Can Tago Mago |
| Can Ege Bamyasi |
| Cannonball Adderley Somethin' Else |
| David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars |
| David Bowie Aladdin Sane |
| David Bowie Station to Station |
| Derek and the Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs |
| Elvis Costello Armed Forces |
| Fats Domino Walking to New York: Greatest Hits |
| Fleet Foxes Sun Giant |
| Fugazi Furniture |
| Fugazi In on the Kill Taker |
| Fugazi Red Medicine |
| Guided by Voices Alien Lanes |
| Guided by Voices Under the Bushes Under the Stars |
| Iggy Pop Lust For Life |
| Iron And Wine The Shepherd's Dog |
| ISIS Oceanic |
| Jawbox For Your Own Special Sweetheart |
| John Cale Paris 1919 |
| John Coltrane Giant Steps |
| John Lennon John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band |
| Kate Bush Hounds of Love |
| King Crimson Red |
| Liz Phair Exile In Guyville |
| Mark Hollis Mark Hollis |
| Miles Davis Miles Smiles |
| Miles Davis Bitches Brew |
| Miles Davis In a Silent Way |
| Mission of Burma Signals, Calls, and Marches |
| Modest Mouse The Moon & Antarctica |
| Modest Mouse The Lonesome Crowded West |
| My Bloody Valentine Loveless |
| Neil Young Tonight's the Night |
| Neil Young On the Beach |
| Neil Young Time Fades Away |
| Nick Drake Pink Moon |
| Off Minor The Heat Death of the Universe |
| Oliver Nelson The Blues and the Abstract Truth |
| Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| Pixies Doolittle |
| Public Enemy It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back |
| Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork |
| I knew they had it in them to make a really great, coherent record, but *damn*! This is one of the high points of hard rock from any era, a record to improve QotSA's back-catalog (especially Them Crooked Vultures, which anticipates this album on many levels) because from now on, we'll know this is where Homme's uneven moments were headed. |
| R.E.M. Reckoning |
| R.E.M. Fables of the Reconstruction |
| R.E.M. New Adventures in Hi-Fi |
| This is the crystallization of everything R.E.M. had been doing since Out of Time. The studio songs have the atmospherics of Automatic for the People without that album's occasional ponderousness. And the live rockers make up entirely for Monster. |
| Radiohead Kid A |
| Radiohead In Rainbows |
| Ringo Starr Ringo |
| Roy Harper Stormcock |
| Sonic Youth Daydream Nation |
| Spoon Gimme Fiction |
| Stars of the Lid The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid |
| Steely Dan Aja |
| Steve Reich Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint |
| Stevie Wonder Innervisions |
| Talk Talk Laughing Stock |
| Talking Heads Remain in Light |
| The B-52s The B-52's |
| The Band Music from Big Pink |
| The Band The Band |
| The Beach Boys Pet Sounds |
| The Beatles A Hard Day's Night |
| The Beatles Abbey Road |
| The Beatles The Beatles |
| The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour |
| The Beatles Past Masters, Vol. 2 |
| The Blood Brothers ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn |
| The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out |
| The Dismemberment Plan Emergency & I |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as Love |
| The National High Violet |
| The Police Synchronicity |
| The Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. |
| The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers |
| The Rolling Stones Hot Rocks |
| The Walkmen Bows + Arrows |
| This album's wavering organ throughout makes this a parallel world to "Everyone Who Pretended..." with its music box piano, but Bows + Arrows keeps up the drive, roughness, and power its predecessor was too often wanting. And I'm not even that big a fan of "The Rat"--I prefer all but maybe 3 songs on the album to it. |
| The Who Quadrophenia |
| The Who Who's Next |
| The Wrens Secaucus |
| Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our |
| Thelonious Monk Monk's Dream |
| Tom Waits Rain Dogs |
| Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones |
| Tortoise Millions Now Living Will Never Die |
| TV on the Radio Return to Cookie Mountain |
| U2 Achtung Baby |
| U2 Boy |
| Unwound Leaves Turn Inside You |
| Warren Zevon The Best of Warren Zevon: A Quiet Normal Life |
| Wes Montgomery The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery |
| Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot |
| Wings Band on the Run |
| Wire Pink Flag |
| XTC Black Sea |
| Yes Close to the Edge |
| 4.0 excellent |
| ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Source Tags and Codes |
| Al Stewart Year of the Cat |
| Alice in Chains Alice in Chains |
| Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II |
| Aphrodite's Child 666 |
| Archers of Loaf White Trash Heroes |
| Haven't heard anything else by them, but this album is absolutely brimming with ideas and daring. Bachman's voice runs quite a range, from his delicate, fragile falsetto in Dead Red Eyes to his Joey Ramone affectations in the mesmerizing title track. |
| Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not |
| Art Blakey A Night in Tunisia |
| At the Drive-In Relationship of Command |
| Barenaked Ladies Everything to Everyone |
| Baroness Red Album |
| Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique |
| Bjork Post |
| Black Sabbath Master of Reality |
| Black Sabbath Vol. 4 |
| Bloc Party Silent Alarm |
| Boards of Canada The Campfire Headphase |
| Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan |
| Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde |
| Bob Dylan Another Side of Bob Dylan |
| Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin' |
| Bob Dylan Time Out of Mind |
| Boris Pink |
| Boris Heavy Rocks |
| Brainiac Bonsai Superstar |
| Brainiac Hissing Prigs in Static Couture |
| Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music For Airports |
| Brian Eno Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) |
| Brian Eno Ambient 4: On Land |
| Brian Eno Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks |
| Brian Wilson Smile |
| Broken Social Scene You Forgot It in People |
| Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town |
| Built to Spill There's Nothing Wrong with Love |
| Can Future Days |
| Cap'n Jazz Shmap'n Shmazz |
| Charles Mingus Mingus Ah Um |
| Chicago Chicago II |
| David Bowie Hunky Dory |
| David Bowie Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) |
| Deerhunter Weird Era Cont. |
| Egg Hunt Egg Hunt |
| Eleventh He Reaches London Hollow Be My Name |
| Elton John Greatest Hits 1970-2002 |
| Elvis Costello My Aim Is True |
| Elvis Costello Trust |
| Elvis Presley The Sun Sessions |
| Explosions in the Sky Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die... |
| Faust Faust |
| Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel... |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes |
| Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues |
| Fleetwood Mac Rumours |
| Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand |
| Fripp and Eno Evening Star |
| Frodus And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea |
| Fugazi End Hits |
| Fugazi 13 Songs |
| Fugazi Repeater |
| Fugazi Steady Diet of Nothing |
| Fugazi 3 Songs |
| Gang of Four Entertainment! |
| George Harrison The Concert for Bangladesh |
| Giant Squid The Ichthyologist |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada |
| Grateful Dead American Beauty |
| Harold Budd and Brian Eno Ambient 2 - The Plateaux of Mirror |
| Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage |
| His Name Is Alive Mouth By Mouth |
| Howlin Wolf Moanin' in the Moonlight |
| I Hate Myself 4 Songs |
| I Hate Myself 10 Songs |
| Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights |
| ISIS Panopticon |
| Jay-Z The Blueprint |
| Jean-Michel Jarre Oxygene |
| John Coltrane Blue Train |
| John Coltrane My Favorite Things |
| John Lennon Imagine |
| Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison |
| Joy Division Closer |
| Joy Division Unknown Pleasures |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy |
| King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King |
| King Crimson Larks' Tongues in Aspic |
| Kyuss Blues for the Red Sun |
| Latyrx The Album |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin III |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II |
| Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti |
| Manic Street Preachers The Holy Bible |
| Massive Attack Mezzanine |
| Massive Attack Protection |
| Mastodon Remission |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain |
| Metallica Master of Puppets |
| Mew And the Glass Handed Kites |
| Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries |
| Michael Hedges Breakfast In The Field |
| Midnight Oil Diesel and Dust |
| Miles Davis Jack Johnson |
| Miles Davis Miles Ahead |
| Minor Threat Complete Discography |
| Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime |
| Misfits Static Age |
| Misfits Legacy Of Brutality |
| Mission of Burma Vs. |
| Modest Mouse Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks |
| Modest Mouse This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About |
| Modest Mouse No One's First, and You're Next |
| My Bloody Valentine m b v |
| Neil Young After the Gold Rush |
| Neil Young American Stars 'n Bars |
| Neil Young Freedom |
| Neil Young Zuma |
| Neil Young Comes a Time |
| Neil Young Ragged Glory |
| Neutral Milk Hotel On Avery Island |
| Nick Drake Bryter Layter |
| Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral |
| Nirvana In Utero |
| Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York |
| Nirvana Live at Reading |
| Off Minor Innominate |
| Off Minor Some Blood |
| Otis Redding The Immortal Otis Redding |
| Paul Simon Graceland |
| Pavement Wowee Zowee |
| Pavement Slanted and Enchanted |
| Pere Ubu Dub Housing |
| Phil Spector Back to Mono (1958-1969) |
| Philip Glass Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (soundtrack) |
| Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon |
| Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn |
| Pink Floyd Animals |
| Pink Floyd Meddle |
| Pink Floyd The Wall |
| Pixies Surfer Rosa |
| Despite the gorgeous ugliness of the first half, more casual and spontaneous than Doolittle, Cactus is my favorite track--it's a perfect translation of old-school blues longing to a pop rock idiom, which Cobain tried at but never achieved quite as well. I can do without the last few songs, mostly. |
| Pixies Bossanova |
| Pixies Come On Pilgrim |
| Portishead Dummy |
| Portishead Portishead |
| Portugal. The Man It's Complicated Being a Wizard |
| Portugal. The Man Censored Colors |
| Prince Purple Rain |
| Prince Sign o' the Times |
| Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf |
| Queens of the Stone Age Rated R |
| R.E.M. Automatic for the People |
| R.E.M. Document |
| R.E.M. Lifes Rich Pageant |
| Radiohead The Bends |
| Radiohead OK Computer |
| Randy Newman 12 Songs |
| Red House Painters Red House Painters |
| Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come |
| Robert Wyatt Rock Bottom |
| Roger Waters The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking |
| Roxy Music For Your Pleasure |
| Ry Cooder Paris, Texas OST |
| Saetia A Retrospective |
| Sigur Ros Agætis byrjun |
| Simon and Garfunkel Bookends |
| Slint Spiderland |
| Sonic Youth Sister |
| Sonic Youth A Thousand Leaves |
| Spoon Kill the Moonlight |
| Spoon Girls Can Tell |
| Spoon Series of Sneaks |
| Squarepusher Hard Normal Daddy |
| St. Vincent Actor |
| St. Vincent Strange Mercy |
| Steely Dan Pretzel Logic |
| Steely Dan Countdown to Ecstasy |
| Steve Reich Proverb/Nagoya Marimbas/City Life |
| Steve Reich Octet/Music For a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase |
| Steve Reich The Desert Music |
| Stevie Wonder Talking Book |
| Stevie Wonder Looking Back |
| Sufjan Stevens Illinois |
| Swans Soundtracks for the Blind |
| Swans The Seer |
| T. Rex Electric Warrior |
| If only more of it were like the first song and the eighth one... |
| T. Rex The Slider |
| Talk Talk Spirit of Eden |
| Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food |
| Talking Heads Speaking in Tongues |
| Talking Heads Fear of Music |
| Talking Heads Stop Making Sense |
| The Avalanches Since I Left You |
| The Beach Boys Wild Honey |
| The Beach Boys Today! |
| The Beach Boys Endless Summer |
| The Beatles Let It Be |
| The Beatles Help! |
| The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| The Beatles Past Masters, Vol. 1 |
| The Beta Band The Three EPs |
| The Books Thought For Food |
| The Clash The Clash (US version) |
| The Coral Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker |
| The Dismemberment Plan Change |
| The Field From Here We Go Sublime |
| The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin |
| The Jesus Lizard Goat |
| The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium |
| The Mars Volta Frances the Mute |
| The Microphones The Glow Pt. 2 |
| The Mothers of Invention Freak Out! |
| The National Alligator |
| The National Boxer |
| The Police Zenyatta Mondatta |
| The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed |
| The Rolling Stones Aftermath |
| The Rolling Stones Between the Buttons |
| The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream |
| The Stone Roses The Stone Roses |
| The Stooges Raw Power |
| The Strokes Is This It |
| The Supremes The Ultimate Collection |
| The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground & Nico |
| The White Stripes White Blood Cells |
| The Who My Generation |
| Thelonious Monk Brilliant Corners |
| Throbbing Gristle 20 Jazz Funk Greats |
| Tool Ænima |
| Tortoise TNT |
| Tortoise Tortoise |
| U2 The Joshua Tree |
| U2 The Unforgettable Fire |
| Ugly Casanova Sharpen Your Teeth |
| Unwound Challenge For a Civilized Society |
| Van der Graaf Generator Godbluff |
| Van Morrison Astral Weeks |
| Van Morrison Moondance |
| Weezer Pinkerton |
| Wilco A Ghost Is Born |
| Wire 154 |
| Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) |
| XTC English Settlement |
