2011 was an OK year for music unless you happened to be a sax player. Those guys had a great year, even the “Big Man” Clarence Clemons, who got to play on a hit single from Lady Gaga which was pretty cool for him but then died, which was less cool. The sax was wielded on albums from such indie stalwarts as Iron & Wine, Destroyer, P.J. Harvey and countless others. It may even be safe now to play the solo from Foreigner’s “Urgent” in public again.

Here are my100  favorite songs of 2011 on a Spotify playlist – dig it!

100 Best Tracks of 2011

And below are my 50  favorite albums of the year:

50. Clams Casino – Instrumentals

49. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life

48. Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2

47. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi

46. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost

45. Dirty Beaches – Badlands

44. The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient

43. Sandro Perri – Impossible Spaces

42. The Stepkids – The Stepkids

41. Emika – Emika

40. SBTRKT – SBTRKT

39. Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls

38.Real Estate – Days

37. Dominant Legs – Dominant Legs

36. Kendrick Lamar – Section.80

35. Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What

34. Kurt Vile – So Outta Reach

33. Wooden Shijps – West

32. Surf City – Kudos

31. Action Bronson – Dr. Lecter

30. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

29. Shannon and the Clams – Sleep Talk

28. TV On The Radio – Nine Types of Light

27. Panda Bear – Tomboy

26. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints

25. Radiohead – The King of Limbs

24. White Label - Stolen Voices

23. Tennis - Cape Dory

22.  The Horrors - Skying

21. Tune-Yards – Whokill

20. Wilco – The Whole Love

19. J Rocc – Some Cold Rock Stuf

18. The Kills – Blood Pressures

17. Atlas Sound – Parallax

16. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mirror Traffic

15. Wild Flag – Wild Flag

14. R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now

13. Kanye West and Jay-Z – The Throne

12. Cults – Cults

11. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra

10. Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde

Smith Westerns breezed in with a tinge of glam with their second record, which also contained some elements of 70s California rock for good measure.

9. Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler

John Dwyer has been mining this brand of psych-rock for more than a decade but it’s here that he finally hits his stride, pulling two drummers along with him for the ride. It’s a wild woolly rocking set of supercharged songs.

8. The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts

Another band left for dead – their debut was so original a mix of samples, femme rap and cheerleader squad moves that it seemed a template destined to straightjacket the group which is just what it did on the similar follow-up. This, their third album, still contains the basic ingredients of their sound but the songs are all kicked into overdrive with a much broader palette of effects and tones. It feels much more like the best stuff that RJD2 or even Groove Armada were attempting in the early 00s and 90s respectively. Then there are songs like “Ready to Go Steady” which could be a killer track from Camera Obscura and “Buy Nothing Day” which playfully tweaks consumerism and would fit in quite nicely on a more recent Stereolab record.

7. Destroyer – Kaputt

Dan Bejar has made plenty of albums as Destroyer and as a member of New Pornographers, and not a few of them were excellent. None sound quite like this though, a dreamy wooze punctuated by some suspiciously 80s styled bass noodling and saxophone squonking. While the 80s yacht-rock banner was lifted by several other artists this year, most notably Iron & Wine, Bejar bends those sounds to his affecting and engrossing songs, finding the noir undertone to late-period Steely Dan and Christopher Cross textures.

6. Das Racist – Relax

The fickle world of hip-hop has already moved past these guys before they even had a chance to taste any mainstream acclaim but they continue to lay down raps that are as hilarious as they are thoughtful. Their first official release after a series of 2010 mixtapes – they show that they’ve only sharpened their wordplay and penchant for far-out references.

5. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

Each St. Vincent album seems to be a step forward, a deeper delve by Annie Clark into the soaring edgy art rock of vintage Peter Gabriel or post-Berlin period Bowie. It helps that she wields a mean guitar but part of what makes this her best yet is that she’s progressively sloughed off some of the archness of her earlier work to embrace the material and revel in her own bold sounds.

4. Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer

Fiery Furnaces seemed to be on the brink of something over several albums until the whole thing began to feel like wankery, too many riffs and edits and piled up images in the songwriting. Thankfully Eleanor got away from her brother for this solo disc which finally gives her the settings to appreciate her crystalline voice and cool-ass phrasing anew. The songs are hooky, compelling and wonderfully casual.

3. Tom Waits – Bad As Me

Waits is yet another veteran who sounded as vital as ever in 2011. It was easy to get lost in the avant-garde sounds and Howlin’ Wolf at the carnival feel of his last few records and forget that the man is an extraordinary songwriter but this brings it all together. Don’t miss him wink at Mick and Keith on “Satisfied”  while Keith is right there playing guitar.

2. The Black Keys – El Camino

After scoring an unexpected critical and commercial triumph with last years Brothers the duo roar back with a crunchy party record that owes as much to Marc Bolan as to the band’s previous classic blues and soul influences. While it may lack some of it’s predecessors depth (almost all the songs are of the mean mistreatin’ wimmin variety) it makes up for it with sheer riff power, killer hooks and tight arrangements.

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Anyone who read my Top 500 Albums of the Last 40 Years entry will be unfazed by this as number one of the year – it was the only 2011 release on it. What makes it so blindingly great? It’s a real album, with a connected theme but not an overlarded concept. It captured the mood of collapse around the world this year perfectly with lyrics about World War I – the great betrayal of a younger generation by it’s elders. Then there were the brilliant interpolations of other songs folded into these tracks – Niney’s “Blood and Fire,” Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” in clever and revelatory ways. Finally there was the sheer unexpectedness of one of the most vital artists of the 90s coming back after several decent to disappointing records with one of her very best.

This is the end my friends, the final installment in my big birthday capping list. To see the previous entries click here for 101-200, here for 201-300, here for 301-400, and here for 401-500.

100. Minutemen – Double Nickels on The Dime (1984)

San Pedro’s finest was a;also one of the greatest bands to come out of the American hardcore punk scene, a three piece influenced as much by Captain Beefheart and Bob Dylan as by The Ramones. This is their magnum opus, 43 songs that show off their passion, heart, brains and humor. For them this is stretching out with several songs over their vaunted 1 minute mark and a few over two.

99. Camper Van Beethoven – Key Lime Pie (1989)

This was an atypical record for CVD, violinist Jonathan Segal had left and his pan-global approach to the instrument went with him as Morgan Fichter took over. David Lowery was more in contol than ever and the lyrics were the densest and most compelling he’d ever written. The band complied with a bigger widescreen sound that hewed more towards rock without becoming generic. It’s a song cycle about the hottest, sweatiest part of summer and the feeling of oppressive humidity is palpable. Bonus points for being available on a lime green cassette back when I first bought it.

98. Radiohead – The Bends (1995)

Radiohead seemed destined to be a one-hit wonder after their success with the song “Creep” a blatant if effective Pixies rip-off that was not matched by anything else on their uneven debut. Thus expectations were low for this slow burning follow up that began  to build a reputation through word of mouth and a string of clever videos. The songs were much more mature, musically varied but accessible. The tone is one they would perfect, ennui with depression lingering around the edges but the music and Thom Yorke’s incisive lyrics keep it from feeling like a pity party. Instead it’s moving, rousing stuff.

97. Silver Jews – American Water (1998)

This is the best of all worlds for The Silver Jews – Berman and Steve Malkmus at the help but Berman’s best lyrics and canniest melodies as a framework to screw around in. What words! From the skewed observations of “People” to the wry “Random Rules” this is a compendium of enjoyable couplets – from the latter:

“In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection.
Slowly screwing my way across Europe, they had to make a correction.
Broken and smokin’ where the infrared deer plunge in the digital snake.
I tell you, they make it so you can’t shake hands when they make your hands shake… ”

96. Wild Tchoupitoulas – Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976)


Essentially the Neville Brothers in full Mardi Gras Indian regalia backing up George “Big Chief” Jolly, this kicks up traditional New Orleans ceremonial songs with a giant dose of funk. This is the New Orleans party album to have in your home. Get it now.

95. Camper Van Beethoven – Telephone Free Landslide Victory (1985)

CVB’s first record was unlike anything else in the American college rock world, or in rock in general. Half snotty California surf-punks, half amped-up ethnomusicologists, this was both unique, funny and listenable. One great indicator is their cover of Black Flag’s “Wasted”, slowed down and savored as a reborn cowpunk anthem. Another is one of their best known songs, the surreal “Take The Skinheads Bowling” which should come off as a novelty a la Dead Milkmen but instead feels sublimely dreamy, born aloft on it’s killer melody and chiming central riff. The borrowings from world music come from unexpected quarters indeed – eastern European folk primarily with a splash of Asian and Middle Eastern tonalities.

94. Weezer – Pinkerton (1996)

After the huge success of their debut, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo attempted to stay normal but he’s not a very “normal” guy. Suddenly he was surrounded by tempting half-Japanese fangirls, was operated on for a too-short leg in ways that distorted his appearance before and after, and fell into a pit of self-doubt. What came out is this rewrite of Madame Butterfly as filtered through punk pop. The harder edge and more adult songwriting (“Tired of Sex” lets you feel Cuomo’s blisters, and they ain’t on his fingers) led this to sell a mere fraction of it’s predecessor and reviews at the time were mostly dismissive. While the band went on an extended hiatus the reputation of the album grew until it’s now seen as a classic.

93. Steely Dan – Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
Like number 94 on this list, Weezer’s Pinkerton, this was a band following up their debut with a  record that deepened and expanded on what they had done only to find commercial rejection. In both cases the bands found vindication though unlike Weezer the Dan bounced back quickly and with even more of the type of jazz inflected rock that they laid out here. The songs here are sharp and insightful, sometimes wistful, and always musical stirring.

92. Run-D.M.C.  – Tougher Than Leather (1988)

Run-D.M.C. were feeling their influence wane by 1988 and this was their attempt to catch up with some of the changes happening all around them. The production is fuller and more sample based but rap itself had turned inward and away from the kind of crossover success and musical cross-pollination that Run-D.M.C. did so well. Despite that this is one of their best, with strong rhymes up against a much more expansive musical backdrop.

91. Gang of Four – Entertainment! (1979)

Ah, to be a young Marxist in Leeds in 1979 and be in a band.  Gang of Four makes righteous anger sound positively fun, and reward you for getting the multiple layers of jokes in “I Found That Essence Rare” which conflates a-bomb tests on Bikini atoll with bikini clad babes. It’s agit-pop at it’s best, aided and abetted by the chicken scratch guitar of Andy Gill.

90. Ramones – Rocket to Russia (1977)

While album number two confirmed that yes indeed, the Ramones had a formula and would be sticking to it, this third album say, “Oh by the way, the formula kicks ass and here it is at it’s best.” Along with their debut this is da bruddas strongest set of songs with their sharpest production: “Cretin Hop”, “We’re a Happy Family” and “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” are sheer bliss and “Rockaway Beach” and “Teenage Lobotomy” transcend even that to reach full on godhead status.

89. Rolling Stones – Some Girls (1978)

This is the Stones’ New York album and like my hometown in the 70s it’s gritty, sexy, sleazy and sometimes ridiculous. This is also their last outright classic album, and like many New Yorkers in 1977-78 it runs on pure fear driven adrenalin. It was entirely possible that Keith Richards, who was busted for heroin in Toronto during the making of the album, would go to prison for who knew how long. Maybe forever if he stopped getting his blood changed in a Swiss clinic every three months. Then there was punk rock breathing down their necks from one side and disco from the other. The Glimmer Twins roared back with new guitarist Ron Wood in tow, amping up their edge and writing from the gut. “Shattered” has seen more through more tough times than I care to recount with it’s rockabilly swagger and hint of reggae and “Miss You” sets the bar high for disco-rock crossovers to this day.

88. Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

Kurt enlists Steve Albini to produce an album that will finally scare away all the teenyboppers who jumped onboard with Nevermind but goddamit if he can’t help but write anthemic choruses and great melodies.

87. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand (2004)

The Strokes opened the door to all kinds of great bands who took inspiration from the great late 70s boom in punk and post-punk while adding their own spin. These guys were one of the best and their debut is a monster riff machine with each song packed within an inch of it’s life with hooks and details that reel you in. Alex Kapranos sings about love as if it’s espionage and the rhythm section, one of the best in rock, simply locks in tight.

86. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

This was Kevin Shields’ masterpiece, several years in the making and destined to remain un-followed up  to this day, despite many aborted attempts. It’s a huge massive slab of guitar sound with compressed drumming in the center of the maelstrom and Bilinda Butcher and Shields’ voices melding into the undulating sound wall. Absolutely massive.

85. The Clash – Sandinista! (1980)

Rumor has it that the surviving members of The Clash still owe CBS for the cost of subsidizing this overflowing triple album. Was it worth it? A gloriously sprawling mess of an album, it captures The Clash flush on the success of London Calling attempting to embrace as much of the music they love as they can. This means reggae, dub, kiddie songs, Motown, surf rock, punk rock, rockabilly, funk, and rap all get a spin around the block. This should be awful and in patches it is, but no two people would edit the album the same way.

84. R.E.M. – Reckoning (1984)

R.E.M.’s second album sharpens the focus of the first, rocking harder and gaining clarity. The songs shift ever so slightly from post-punk to take in elements of classic American rock with Peter Buck’s guitar doing an effective Byrdsian chime on “PrettyPersuasion.” Further consolidation of the band’s growing cult ensues.

83. Jay-Z – The Black Album (2003)

Jay-Z is in an autumnal mood here, looking back on the arc of his life and success. He’s backed by some of his best music, and matches it with some of his best rhymes, making the record a triumph after some sideways drifting post The Blueprint.

82. Sonic Youth – Sister (1987)

On their fourth record SY finally transcend noise for noise’s sake and deliver a tight, rousing album full of fleshed out songs. Of course their alternate tunings and love of chaos remains intact but is here harnessed to hooks and decipherable lyrics. “Schizophrenia” is the most immediate standout, interspersing beautifully chimed guitars with an ominous vocal sing-song before exploding into thrashy moments that resolve back into chimes.

81. The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy (1985)

This is a highly original debut, as the Reid brothers take the sound of classic Phil Spector-era rock and layering on great slabs of distortion and feedback.  It works because beneath the tinnitus inducing squealing and buzzing there are sturdy little songs poking their heads out. Sure it’s a gimmick but the JAMC were smart enough to trot out it out just for this record.

80. Pretenders – Pretenders (1980)
The debut album from The Pretenders shows the original line-up in all their glory – Chrissie Hynde’s concisely clever songwriting and snarky/smooth vocals, James Honeyman-Scott’s snarling and textured guitar leads and the killer rhythm section of Martin Chambers and bassist Pete Farndon. What made this a huge hit was the bands ability to synthesize punk, new wave, and classic rock into a riff happy hook-filled high energy romp. Hynde was a revelation as a frontwoman, a female bandleader who was clearly in change, and a songwriter who could go from the winning pop of “Brass in Pocket” to the hard rock of “Precious.”

79. Cheap Trick – Cheap Trick (1977)

What do you do with a band like Cheap Trick? Essentially they took the old knock on Billy Joel (that he thinks he’s Lennon but he’s really McCartney) and flipped it on it’s head – Robin Zander is a dead ringer for Paul McCartney at his most rocking but the band’s songs are like Lennon at his snarkiest. If this were merely a Beatles pastiche the album wouldn’t be ranked so high. Cheap Trickbring a level of tongue in cheek perversity that is beyond what bands outside of punk even dreamed of, from the underage fantasies of “Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School” to the serial killer ode “Ballad of TV Violence” to the devastating ladies man put-down of “He’s a Whore.” On the flip side there is “Oh Candy” which laments a suicide (a recurring theme for them) and the shimmering “Mandocello.”

78. The Smiths – The Smiths (1984)

The Smiths debut album sounded like nothing else to hit music – Morrissey’s doleful voice set against Marr’s guitar riffs and little hints around the edges of Patti Smith and David Bowie. This is leaner stuff though, and at a time when it seemed like synthesizers would take over the world the back to basics line-up  and straightforward songs pointed to new directions to take.

77. Sly & The Family Stone – Fresh (1973)

Sly lightens the gloom a bit but sticks with the loose-limbed funk of There’s a Riot and why not? The songs are sharp and forceful – it’s perhaps his last lucid album.

76. John Lennon – Imagine (1971)

After the raw primal scream therapy influenced performances and songs on Lennon’s first solo album, his second found him returning to lusher sounds even as he remained committed to fairly naked songwriting on the “fuck you” to Paul McCartney that is “How Do You Sleep” or the self-flagellation of “Jealous Guy.” Then there’s the title track, an anti-religious screed that goes down easy thanks to it’s nursery-rhyme simple melody.

75. Spoon – Kill The Moonlight (2002)

Spoon discover that less is much more on their fourth record, which pares everything back to the basic elements and gains maximum impact. The simplicity of the arrangements are actually deceptive, there are horns on the driving “Jonathan Fisk” and “You Gotta Feel It” and the incredible “Stay Don’t Go” has a rhythm track built on Britt Daniel’s voice as a sort of indie rock human beatbox. 

74. The Mekons – The Mekons Rock ‘n’ Roll (1989)

The Mekons knocked around in obscurity on both sides of the pond for nearly ten years with a few well-regarded post-punk singles to their name. In the mid 80s they began to explore more Americanized territory especially the country sounds of Hank Williams, and some critics took notice. It was here where they suddenly emerged as a band to watch with a brilliant concept record that explores the meaning of rock n roll, whether bought over in the hold of slave ships in “Amnesia” or sprouting out of people’s bodies along with their first pubic hairs on “Memphis, Egypt.” Along the way there’s “Only Darkness has The Power”, a song whose lyrics are a verbatim transcript of a Paul Auster chapter, and the witty “Empire of the Senseless” which boasts:

“This song promotes homosexuality/It’s in a pretend family relationship/With the others on this record/and in the charts and in the jukebox/and on the radio/and on the radio”

If only it had been played on the radio…

73. New York Dolls – New York Dolls (1973)

New York’s wannabe saviors of rock and roll were the epitome of trashy cool, pushing the glam rock transvestism as far as it would go. Musically they took the Stones at their hardest and infused it with the sass and sound of 60s girl groups with “Looking For a Kiss” quoting from the Shangri-Las. A huge influence on punks and oddly enough, hair metal.

72. Paul Simon – Graceland (1986)

By the mid-80s Paul Simon seemed pretty tapped out, a 70s superstar who had peaked. What no-one expected was for him to decamp to South Africa nd come back with arguably the best album of his career. As surprising as his collaboration with the likes of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and other acts may have been, it was actually consistent with his fascination with the intricate rhythms of other cultures whether it was South America or the southern states of America. The album transcends what could have been mere cultural exploitation on the strength of the amazing songs with acutely observed lyrics that can zoom from the universal on songs like “The Boy in The Bubble” to the highly personal on the title track.

71. Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill (1986)

The Beastie Boys debut became the biggest selling rap album ever, following Run-DMC into the mainstream and drawing charges of exploitation. In their hearts though they were three goofy guys pulling the ultimate prank, even more so when legions of meatheads took “Fight For Your Right” seriously and were dismayed to discover that all the guitars were sampled.

70.Pixies – Bossanova (1990)

Pixies and producer Gil Norton went for a big vibrant rock sound on their third album, bringing their surf-riffs to the fore and adding new shadings on songs like the ethereal “Havalina.” While Kim Deal was beginning to be pushed more into the background the combo of Black Francis’ voice shredding and Joey Santiago’s guitar powering on tracks like “Rock Music” the band was as powerful as ever.

69. Radiohead – Kid A (2000)

What genres were left for rock to assimilate after the all-encompassing 90s? Radiohead answered by making their most challenging album to date, a great leap forward follow-up to OK Computer, itself a huge jump from it’s predecessor. This is what early 70s Pink Floyd would have sounded like had they been exposed to a steady diet of experimental electronica like Aphex Twin and Autechre.

68. Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy (1973)

This was Zep’s loosest and most wide-ranging collection to date, including both mock James Brown on “The Crunge” and pseudo-reggae on “D’yer Mak’er” and lots of great chewy Jimmy Page riffs and Bonzo drum stomping in between. Then there’s the drop-dead beauty of “The Rain Song” and the ass-shaking boogie of “Dancing Days.” Monumental.

67. Guided By Voices – Under The Bushes Under The Stars (1996)

GBV continue to brush away the low-fi cobwebs but still won’t be forced to edit – there are 24 tracks sprawling across here. Even if the sound is less than polished the strong melodies of both Bob Pollard and Tobin Sprout are undeniable on tracks like “Drag Days” and “It’s Like Soul Man.” This might be the most balanced album between the stellar talents of both songwriters as Pollard usually dominated, and would again as Sprout was pushed out not to long after this album was released.

66. T.Rex – The Slider (1972)

T. Rex follows up their breakthrough with an album that is more of the same, only better.

65. Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)While Steely Dan worked jazz in from the point of view of snarky eastern elite rockers Joni Mitchell sprinkled it in as a California sound singer-songwriter. This catches here at a great midpoint, with “The Jungle Line” a mind-blowing excursion into territory that still sounds incredibly fresh today.

64. Stevie Wonder – Innervisions (1973)

Wonder catapulted himself into the first rank of artists with his most socially conscious release to date, matching his thoughtful and impassioned lyrics with a  broad funk and soul musical palette. “Livin’ For The City” is a cinematic masterpiece, “Higher Ground” is funk so crunchy you can taste it, and “He’s Misstra Know It All” is one of the best Nixon “fuck you’s’ ever.

63. The Strokes – Is This It? (2001)

The Strokes debut came on like a delicious blast from the past – a New York band clearly indebted to the city’s treasured band’s of yore – Television, Patti Smith Group, New York Dolls, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, with a little touch of British influence by way of Wire. Julian Casablancas’ stuffy-nosed vocals were unique though, as was Fab Moretti’s metronomic drumming. The songs were also something special, a tight collection of lean little fighters that made up for a nearly flawless album.

62. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

The Lips hit a new level of critical acclaim with The Soft Bulletin and followed it up with a concept album about a robot-fighting Japanese chick. What makes this great is the deep immersion in more electronic sounds throughout, taking the band into new areas of lysergic danceabiliy.

61. The Who – Who’s Next (1971)

The Who take a break from concept albums, or rather the break was imposed by the collapse of their Lifehouse project. Don’t be sad though, these leftover songs are even better for being able to live and breath on their own. This is some of the band’s most muscular music, but it’s also tempered with Townshend’s explorations with early synthesizers which powers the intro to “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” This is a powerful, driving rock album without peer.

60. Talking Heads – Remain in Light (1980)

While Talking Heads hinted at an interest in African music on the previous record’s “I Zimbra” it flowers fully across the immense grooves and polyrhythms contained herein. It’s an ecstatic feast of percussion, guitar, keyboards all led by David Byrne and co-producer Brian Eno’s vision of global music.

59. Elvis Costello and The Attractions – This Year’s Model (1978)

Costello’s first album with The Atractions finds the band blazing out of the gate, a tumbling onslaught of organ, bass and drums, and terse guitar all punking up his delivery over the debut. The songs are sex as consumerism and love as ad slogan, with Costello snarling and rolling his eyes as he sings “Those disco synthesizers..” on the title track.

58. X – Wild Gift (1981)

The second album from this LA punk band was of a piece with their debut, only with slightly better songs. Former Door’s gut Ray Manzarek is behind the boards again as he was for all their early albums. The band sounds even tighter as are the melding of John Doe’s and Exene’s voices on songs like “The Once Over Twice.” Early single “Adult Books” gets a winning makeover and re-recording, adding to the albums feel of skimming through Los Angeles’ underbelly.

57. David Bowie – Low (1977)

Bowie’s Low was a shock when it was released – a huge sea-change for an artist already experimenting with soul after kick-starting glam rock. The signs were there on Station to Station tracks like “TVC-15″ though that Bowie was as intrigued by German artists like Can and Kraftwerk. Brian Eno, who is all over this list, shows up here to escort Bowie into this Berlin phase which finds it’s full expression on the series of instrumentals on the albums second half. Hugely influential.

56. The Modern Lovers – The Modern Lovers (1976)

Though this wasn’t released until 1976, it was actually recorded in 1972-73 and shows leader Jonathan Richman living in an alternate universe where crowds clamored for a band to pick up the mantle dropped by the Velvet Underground. Of course no-one, least of all a record company, was necessarily clamoring for this, even if it was tweaked with Richman’s nasal square guy worldview. The few who were turned The Modern Lovers and this great lost album into a religion – finally seeing it released in 1976 when it was still ahead of it’s time as a key proto-punk document. The classic “Roadrunner” for instance was one of Johnny Rotten’s audition songs for The Sex Pistols and would later be re-interpreted by M.I.A., while John Cale covered teh classic “Pablo Picasso” for the Repo Man soundtrack.

55. The Breeders – Pod (1990)

Just as Kim Deal was being edged to the sidelines in Pixies, she activated this side project along with long-time Boston scene mate and label mate Tanya Donnely of Throwing Muses. Along for the ride is Surfer Rosa engineer Steve Albini who brings a Pixies-like set of light and dark dynamics to Deal’s high sprung songs. Her breathy voice is set off by the churning guitars, occasional viola, and chugging basslines. The songs are also distinctly written from a  woman’s perspective, shot through with both fascination and dread of the human body. It’s incredibly sensual in every sense of the word.

54. Lou Reed – Transformer (1972)

Bowie takes Lou under his wing and guides him to his biggest solo album under the guise of glam. It helped that Reed clothed his seedy tales in a suit of pop- friendly clothes, not least on the sublime “Satellite of Love” and hit “Walk on The Wild Side.”

53. Fleetwood Mac – Tusk (1979)

The huge success of Rumours gave the Mac carte blanche to make any record they wanted, so they made every record they wanted – or more specifically Lindsey Buckingham wanted. It’s a double album masterclass in post-Beatles pop-rock that doesn’t stop at the kitchen sink when it can have a marching band (on teh title track).

52. Wire – Pink Flag (1977)

Wire’s brilliant debut used punk as a jumping off point to pare music down to it’s , shortest sharpest expression. As much about texture as riffs, they coupled catchy music with inspired studio experimentation to come out totally unique. Both “Strange” and “Reuters” seem to exist outside convention song structure yet are compelling and even hummable (R.E.M. would transform “Strange” into a bopping delight on Document 10 years later.)

51. A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and The Paths of Rhythm (1990)

Tribe’s debut found them squarely in the De La Soul camp but with a style distinctly their own and a pair of incredible rappers in Q-Tip and Phife Dawg. Where De La went searching in crates for far-flung samples to put together, Tribe tended to focus their sampling on jazz (with the exception of the clever lift from Lou Reed in “Can I Kick It?”.) It works to create a seamless album full of humor, enlightenment and killer beats and rhymes.

50. Public Image Limited – Metal Box/Second Edition (1979)

Initially released as three discs in a metal canister before being re-issued conventionally, this took ex-Pistol John Lydon’s interest in German music and Jamaican dub to an admirable extreme, fusing the languid deep groove of both to create something wholly different and arresting. Jah Wobble’s bass plumbs organ rattling depths while Keith Levene’s guitar creates great swaths of shimmering chords – essential stuff.

49. The New Pornographers – Electric Version (2003)

For their second album the Pornos toughened up their sound, making a more unified feel to go along with a set of themes that covertly tweaked early Bush II years America – “It’s Only Divine Right” following the first daughters around while “The Laws Have Changed” is more explicit in calling out the environment of fear. The band is also gelling, feeling less like a collection of solo artists and more like the best of Carl Newman, Dan Bejar and Neko Case bought to the fore.

48. Pavement – Wowie Zowie (1995)

Pavement go all White Album on this sprawling smorgasbord which left some critics cold at the same time as it became a fan favorite. Like that Beatles classic the boys take most of their contemporary sounds and Pavementize them to come out at a slightly skewed angle – “Half a Canyon” alone seems to smash the Blues Explosion together with Stereolab.

47. Bob Marley and the Wailers – Burnin’ (1973)

’73 was the year Reggae broke big, on the heels of The Harder They Come and a series of strong albums by Bob Marley and The Wailers. This, their fourth record, established Marley as a songwriting powerhouse with songs like “I Shot The Sheriff” and “Get Up, Stand Up”, and the Wailers were at the peak of their powers on the eve of their dissolution.

46. Big Star – Number 1 Record/ Radio City (1973/74)

Alex Chilton had fronted the band The Box Tops at the tender age of sixteen, scoring several hit singles. Having started at the top he was determined to follow his muse wherever it went including a hopped-up southernized take on British invasion rock at a time when the industry had shifted to prog rock. Thus the first two Big Star albums were commercial nonentities, beloved by the handful of brave buyers like The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg who discovered the great songs within.

45. Richard & Linda Thompson  – I Want to See the Bright Lights (1974)

The first and last albums by this couple were their alpha and omega, the last detailing their painful split, this first reveling in the possibilities of his fiery guitar and her ethereal voice. These songs aren’t sweetness and life however – many of them are stark and ruminative shot through with the hard-earned weariness of the best country and folk.

44. Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II (1984)

Most of the great music was underground in the 80s and if you wanted to make your mark as I did in my music geek circle as a teenager you had to go and find that indie band to champion that no-one else in your circle had glommed on to yet. The Replacements, Husker Du, The Smiths were all taken but I was hipped to The Meat Puppets by an article in The East Coast Rocker (yes kids, these publications actually existed) and took a shot on them with Up On The Sun, which was great. I then backtracked to this little gem and was absolutely floored – I’d never heard a band do something so original – a weird hybrid of country, punk, art-rock, and psych-rock that simply sounded like nothing else. The Kirkwood brothers didn’t have great voices but the skills of guitarist Curt and Bassist Chris along with powerhouse drummer Derrick Bostrum were magnificent. They claimed to have practiced randomly stopping and starting playing together mid-song to hone their ESP-like abilities as musicians. All this ducks-ass tightness was in service to a stunning set of songs that so inspired Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain that on his Unplugged album he invited the brothers to help him cover three of them.Magic.

43. The Stooges – Raw Power (1973)

The Stooges fiery last stand with Bowie as patron and James Asheton subbing in to play molten guitar leads all over the place. The title kind of says it all.

42. Beck – Odelay (1996)

Beck takes his music to a whole ‘nother level with what still is his masterpiece. The stroke of genius is bringing the producers responsible for the Beastie Boys sample salad Paul’s Boutique, the Dust Brothers, who provide a wide-ranging sonic palette for Beck’s unique combo of folk, blues and rap. Along the way South American folk, classical music, telephone keypads, old school hip-hop are all mined to create a weird and wacky party record. Simply astounding.

41. Jay-Z - The Blueprint (2001)

Jay establishes himself, along with Eminem, as his generations best rapper. He’s aided here by Kanye West as the hotshot new producer on the block and together they craft a glorious statement of purpose that blows the cobwebs out of some of the uneven albums Jay was surrounding his great singles with. Every track here counts.

40. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

For most of the seventies Neil Young followed a schizoid path alternating acoustic powered country-ish records like his big hit Harvest with the rough-edged electric rock of his work with Crazy Horse. On this record he splits the difference literally, with one side of each of new songs recorded live. In isolation he pushed both to their extremes, the quiet stuff is achingly pretty and wonderfully odd on songs like “Pocahontas” which imagines smoking the peach pipe with the famous Native American and her latter-day champion Marlon Brando. In turn the rough stuff is heavy distorted wonderful sludge shot through with the spirit of punk. Together this is the best work of his career.

39. Leonard Cohen - The Future (1992)


After I’m Your Man brought Cohen back from the wilderness, this cemented his status as a revitalized force with profane, witty songs that reveled in decay, sex, death and life. At times his raspy delivery hides a gimlet eye equl only to Randy Newman’s as he takes a tour of Dante’s inferno here on Earth. The perfect soundtrack to a lost weekend.

38. Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (1972)

Ex-Impressions leader Mayfield emerged as a leading exponent of funk and soul in the 70s, and this was his high water mark. Though a soundtrack to a fairly cheesy film the music was quite the opposite – thoughtful, deep and real. Mayfield doesn’t shy away from the reality of the drug trade and what it was doing to the neighborhoods he knew so well. While the movie extols the gangster life, Mayfield’s songs are full of regret and reflection – a story from what would have been a much more interesting film.

37. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (1988)

Though not explicitly political, the title of this double alludes to the happy face Reagan era just closing. Inspired in part by the “cyber punk” visonary sci-fi of William Gibson SY manage to straddle the years ending while looking forward to a 90s that they would help will into being by midwifing grunge. The songs are monumental, with the hooks finally honed to a shining polish on tracks like “Total Trash” only to be spiked by brain frying meltdowns and digressions. “Teenage Riot” is positively anthemic, a callback to the best of 70s New York punk a la Television and the New York Dolls and a call to arms to the likes of Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr.

36. Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Armed Forces (1979)

Elvis explores what he calls “emotional fascism,” perhaps unwisely writing a set of songs that equate a failing relationship with the losing side in World War II. Against all odds he makes it work, due in large part to his tightrope act wordplay (“I’m in a chemistry class/I want a piece of your mind/You don’t know what you started when you mixed it up with mine/Are you ready for the final solution?”) and gift for hooks. The Attractions also play the hell out of the material.

35. Television – Marquee Moon (1977)

The Grateful Dead of the New York punk scene if only for the liquid epic guitar jams of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd which stretch out way past the ten minute mark on the astounding title track. Verlaine as his name implies fancied himself a poet and he pulls it off with a sort of urban noir patter yelped over the intricate guitar parts that drive this perfect record.

34. Husker Du – Flip Your Wig (1985)
The Huskers up the pop factor on this one just enough to get them signed to a major label from SST, but also enough to set their fast tempos and blazing guitar drive in relief. Mould and Hart top each other song for song with every Mould “Makes No Sense at All” countered with a Hart gem like “Green Eyes.” One of America’s best bands at the peak of their powers.
33. Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique (1989)

You’re not supposed to move from New York to L.A. to become artists, it’s the other way around. Characteristically it’s what the Beasties did after their mega-selling debut, switching labels to Capital for big bucks on the way. After a few years the emerged with an art-rap breakthrough, this sample-happy album which thanks to their new label and the skills of unknown producers The Dust Brothers sampled acts like The Beatles who would prove un-samplable for legal reasons ever after. What makes it noteworthy are the way their woven into the kaleidoscopic songs so that, say, Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” pops up for a second to finish a Mike D. rhyme. Naturally it was a flop but hugely inspirational to anyone who actually listened including Beck, Dangemouse and a whole generation of electronic artists like DJ Shadow, Fatboy Slim and The Chemical Brothers. Essential.

32. Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Dylan appeared to be all washed up by 1974, with a few good tracks here and there but nothing like the import and cultural relevance he had commanded over the pop culture world in the 1960s. Dylan here decamps to Nashville to strip things down to their core, returning with an acoustic based record that doesn’t do anything new so much as recapitulates what the man does at his best. It’s also one of his most deeply felt albums, which isn’t always the case even on his classics. Here the mask feels like it slips to reveal the melancholy, woundedness and restlessness that would led him down new spiritual paths a few years later.

31. Radiohead – OK Computer (1997)

Radiohead grew in leaps and bounds over the course of their first two records and again on this, their third. With producer Nigel Godrich channeling Alan Parson’s one minute and Brian Eno the next they embraked on a radical expansion of their sound, having done the same with their songcraft on the album before.  Suddenly prog-rock and hints of electronica (dig the amazing drums on “Airbag”) start to move in and the whole record feels like it’s in cinemascope.

30. PJ Harvey – Rid of Me (1993)

Harvey hooks up with the ubiquitous Steve Albini for her trio’s rawest record ever, a plunge into light/dark dynamics even more extreme than Albini’s former clients Pixies.  Harvey is a swaggering presence here, bragging about being a “50ft. Queenie”  and putting down a man flatly for leaving her “Dry.” The band pumps hard behind her matching her swagger with switchblade rhythms and giving her edgy guitar a great setting to cut loose. Meanwhile strings come in not to sweeten but to threaten like somthing out of a Bernard Hermann score. Thrillingly edgy.

29. Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain (1984)

As Michael Jackson was being propelled to a level of stardom formerly inhabited by the likes of The Beatles and Elvis, his companion star was also rising. Unlike MJ Prince had raw sexuality, ambiguous in orientation but never in carnality, a keen sense of his own independence, and a desire to control his own destiny. This album and it’s companion film were meant to forward the man’s mythology and it worked like a charm – both became huge hits,  The music here is wildly accessible while retaining a relentless experimental streak. I remember hearing the searing  guitar intro for “When Does Cry” on the radio for the first time as a 13 year old when it came out and being flabbergasted by how utterly different and transfixing it was.

28. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)

Part of Canada’s thriving indie rock scene, Arcade Fire’s debut engendered the kind of adulation that only an out-of-left-field debut can garner. By embracing grandeur and emotion they neatly put to bed the 90s era of snark and irony. That expansiveness of heart and sound also meant tremendous live shows that felt communal and transcendent. The brilliant songs borrow a little from Pixies here, a little from Phil Spector and Springsteen and Neutral Milk Hotel but the outcome is wholly thrillingly original.

27. Weezer - Weezer (1994)

Hearing Weezer’s first single, “Undone (The Sweater Song)” it was easy to believe that a major label had cast about for a sanitized version of Pavement’s record-geek indie-rock and found it with this band. As college rock radio began playing more cuts and MTV started airing their clever Spike Jonze directed videos a clearer picture emerged of a super smart power pop juggernaut inspired by bits of Cheap Trick, The Cars (who’s Rick Ocasek produced), Kiss and barbershop quartets (check out the intricately arranged vocals on “Holiday”). Part of their genius was also in locating a dark emotional core in even their sunniest songs (an ability Rivers Cuomo would lose over subsequent albums): “Your tongue is twisted/your eyes are slits/ you need a guardian” is hidden inside the song “Buddy Holly” and what an image, or the bridge in “Say It Ain’t So” that feels like a too intimate window into the singer’s soul: “Dear daddy, I write you in spite of years of silence/ You cleaned up, found Jesus, Things are good or so I hear/This bottle of Stevens awakens ancient feelings/Like father, Step-Father/The sun is drowning in the flood…” The way he bites down on the “Step-father” part, you just know that there’s some fucked up shit there.

26. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell (2003)

YYY’s had a series of much-loved ep’s before finally dropping this killer statement of purpose. The first half confirms Karen O. as a swooping, growling, snarling frontwoman with no peers, and the band as an exciting punk-edged rock band. The surprise was side two which culminated in a trio of songs – “Y Control”, “Maps” (the song of the decade), and “Modern Romance” – that most bands would have put front and center. Each showcases the gifts for melody, O’s ability to downshift into subtlety, and Zinner’s molten lava guitar runs and riffs in a way that suggested future superstardom (even if the future has yet to payoff).

25. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life (1976)

You may have figured out by now that I am a fan of big sprawling albums and this is Stevie’s version of that, a double recorded at his peak. As is par for these not everything is genius but teh highpoints are among his very best, including “I Wish”, “Sir Duke”, “Pasttime Paradise” and “All Day Sucker” among others.

24. The Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols (1977)

Punk was invented in America, hones in New York and Cleveland and then adopted by the British with the Pistols as the standard bearers. The key difference was the conceptual bent pushed by manager and svengali Malcolm McLaren who had previously and disastrously attempted to manage The New York Dolls in their waning days. At the heart of this debut are two singles that simply define a Situationist take on pop – snarling attacks on the dominant culture that led to bannings and even more notoriety. “Anarchy In The UK” is as much about personal freedom as a call for no government but such niceties were lost in the moment and in Steve Jones neck throttling guitar and Johnny Rotten’s insinuating singing. The biggest fuck you was “God Save The Queen”, a sweeping rejection of the British monarchy as fascism that was timed to coincide with the nationwide celebration of her Golden Jubilee. The established predictably was up and arms and did the band’s promotional work for them. The rest of the album from “Bodies” to “Submission” was equally incendiary if not always as smart.

23. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (1991)

Tribe bucked the sophomore slump with a second album that handily outpaced their first – it’s deep funky jazz samples and grooves sounded unlike anything else in hip-hop. On top of this were Q-Tip and Phife’s dextrous and clever rapping playing in and out of the killer beats. It all culminates with the group rap fest of  “Scenario” which introduced the world to Busta Rhymes in spectacular style.

22. Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes (1982)

The coolest, hottest, girl’s bunk in summer camp made it a point to singalong to this albums lyrics at the top of their lungs when we went on field trips to see crappy movies or to the beach at Wildwood. To this day I get an erotic charge out of hearing “Blister in The Sun.”

21. The Clash – The Clash (1977)

Where the Pistols seemed to embrace nihilism The Clash represented the passion of the angry idealists. Former pub-rocker Joe Strummer had joined Mick Jones nascent band and added a fiery social conscience to match Jones’ spicy guitar riffs. Paul Simonen was the ace bassist who looked like Steve McQueen and Tory Crimes (nee Terry Chimes) was the original drummer who got unseated quickly by the amazing Topper Headon. The songs on the US and UK editions (the US subs some singles for album tracks) are uniformly excellent punk that also pointed to the stylistic diversity that the band would soon explore, primarily on the massive “(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais” about the racial role-reversal of being one of the only caucasians at a massive reggae gig and a genre defyingcover of Junior Murvin’s Jamaican single “Police and Thieves.”

20. Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street (1972)

The making of this album is a legendary as the music within: The Stones decamp to France as tax exiles and hole up at Keith’s house on and off to make an album. Sometimes Keith would go upstairs to tuck his son Marlon into bed and be gone for days.  Sometimes Bill was to busy chasing French schoolgirls to show up, or Charlie was waylaid by a vinyard excursion. Mick might be off romancing a Nicaraguan heiress. It’s amazing a record came out of the chaos at all, let alone the most dense and immersive record of the Stones’ catalog. The songs sound like a perpetual 3 in the morning on a night out – tired but still tingling with possibilities.

19. The Smiths – The Queen is Dead (1986)
This is The Smiths at their absolute peak – Johnny Marr’s guitar matching Morrissey’s wit jab for jab and taking every song up another level from where they would have been otherwise. This is the band as their fans will always remember them – clever, energetic, moving.

18. R.E.M. – Murmur (1983)

This is the template by which every indie rock debut has been measured since. Representing a fully fleshed out sound and worldview, hearing it for the first time is like being let in on an alternate universe where this great band had arrived at their unique POV after several albums and many years. It was still all new though – full of sonic flourishes and intriguing byways made all the more mysterious by Michael Stipe’s indistinct diction. The rhythm section was like something out of a UK agit-pop band, more Gang of Four than anything else. Peter Buck’s guitar on the other hand seemed descended from folk-rockers like Roger McGuinn. Utterly uncanny.

17. Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)

Pixies first full-length was so amazing that even though it was out in the UK for several months before crossing the pond imports quickly found their way into the hands of people like me, a 17 year old who promptly hung out in his parents swimming pool with his best friend, stoned out of their gourds and tried to make sense of what they were hearing. Is the woman singing taking the low part in this song? Is that guitar riff elastic? Is the drummer playing the meatiest kit ever? Is that some kind of demented reggae kit? Engineer Steve Albini made his recording studio career on this record, capturing what feels like an incredible authentic organic sound, it’s huge while not sounding at all artificial. The songs are massive, with singer Black Francis screaming, sighing, cajoling and bassist/singer Kim Deal anchoring it with big rubbery basslines. It still sounds like nothing else on earth.

16. Big Star – Third/ Sister Lovers (1975)

Alex Chilton went into the studio with Jim Dickinson to record what would be his final album as Big Star and found himself and his band descending into chaos. Somehow Dickinson was able to record the results, a hugely compelling set of songs that make the feel of one’s thread running out completely palpable. To make matters worse their record company was also falling apart and the album would go unreleased but bootlegged for several years, and then come out in varying versions.

15. Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti (1975)

Another big sprawler, and Zep had a lot of ground to cover after two years off. The first disc is the heavy one and the second goes off on a series of tangents that sate their more experimental side. It’s all fused on “Kashmir”, for my money their best single song, a massive middle eastern riff anchored by John Bonham’s monumental drums.

14. Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990)

PE hits their stride here, a furious ball of noise that responds in part to the controversy that began to attach to the band and their extended group, specifically Professor Griff who was asked to leave after a series of anti-Semitic remark. Though the band’s support of Lewis Farrakhan remained troubling, Chuck D. and Flav’s rhymes were at a whole new level, especially on the red hot “Welcome to The Terrordome.” Throughout they are matched by the Bomb Squad in full flight, setting dense layers of samples and beats up as a support for the politically charged rapping.

13. Talking Heads – Fear of Music (1979)

Talking Heads deepen their Eno collaboration on their third album. The tracks are more intricate and each one seems to be a world unto itself. From “I Zimbra” which prefigures their later African excursions to the busy perambulations of “Cities” to the brilliant “Life During Wartime” the album is populated by folks trying to survive and driven to strange obsessions in doing so, unless of course they get to “Heaven” a place Byrne tells us “Where nothing ever happens.”

12. Patti Smith -Horses (1975)

It’s hard from this vantage point to realize how many minds were blown by this album when it came out – from the uncompromising Mapplethorpe portrait of Smith on the cover refusing to hew to any mainstream conventions of beauty and marketing for female recording artists to the music inside which combined 60s garage rock with The Doors extended poetic reconstructions into something new. Massively influential in kicking off the New York punk scene which in turn sparked UK punk, and continuing to inspire artists from Michael Stipe to Karen O.

11. Run-D.M.C. - Raising Hell (1986)

Run-D.M.C. took rap from an urban novelty to a mainstream force with this album, laying the groundwork for it’s place now as the dominant American music form. Up until now rap was a singles medium and they delivered as well as anyone. Here they cannily drafted off Aerosmith (who themselves were badly in need of a comeback) with a remake of their hit “Walk This Way,” as clear a signal as any to the rock audience that it was OK to dig rap. This was the first multi-platinum rap album and it’s filled with great tracks, hard-hitting rhymes, and Jam Master Jays cutting edge production.

10. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)
Bowie was a washed up wanna-be in 1971 – a guy with one hit in 1969 to his name who still couldn’t connect to the superstardom he wanted. After absorbing the antics of Iggy Pop and his band The Stooges, Bowie and his new band wrote and recorded a series of dynamic stripped down rock songs and re-invented themselves as space aliens. What should have been contrived was made transcended, not least of all by Bowie’s startling transformation into an androgyne sex god and the quality of the songs which were full of hooks and drama. They of course also told the story of an alien rock star who ends up torn apart by the very adoring audience he seeks in a clearer and more compelling arc then most concept albums. Life imitated art inasmuch as Bowie became a superstar and this record in style and substance was a touchstone for what would become punk and new wave, not to mention the radical conceptual transformations of stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga.

9. The Replacements – Let it Be (1984)

The Replacements were the drunk kids smoking dope and cigarettes under the bleachers but a talent like Paul Westerberg could only stay hidden for song long before being pulled into the spotlight. It was this album that was packed with a series of perfect songs, impassioned performances and fuck-em humor that made reams of critics year end lists and catapulted the Minneapolis band into an ultimately losing cat-and-mouse game with stardom. It’s all still fresh here, from the aching “Unsatisfied” to the jaunty “I Will Dare” (with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck guesting) to the Reed-esque piano ballad “Androgynous” to the hilarious Bob Stinson workouts “TommyGets His Tonsils Out” and “Gary’s Got a Boner.” For a brief moment it appeared like a new onslaught of American bands would storm the bastions but the radio stations never got the memo, at least beyond the campuses. It would take ‘Mats inspired bands both bad (Goo Goo Dolls), decent (Soul Asylum) and transcendent (Nirvana) to eventually make it happy and by then the band was already in it’s last stages.

8. Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

Like Murmur or Funeral, one of those indie-rock debut LPs that seem to find a band fully-formed, and create a new way of looking at the entire genre. Pavement came in on the heels of Nirvana but had no interest in the major label money that would eventually be waved around to lure them off Matador Records. Their aesthetic was based on a whole set of influences – The Fall, R.E.M., Velvet Underground, Can, Wire, – but unlike, say, Yo La Tengo they had the ability on songs like “Summer Babe” to achieve the universal in a unique way. Malkmus’ lyrics crucially, hadn’t hardened yet into wordplay for the sake of it’s own sound as it would later, and the directness of these songs belie the later charge that they were ironists through and through. The songs that he and Spiral Stairs put together alternate between angular guitar fired rave-ups like “Trigger Cut” and confessional seeming late night shimmers like “Zurich is Stained” or “Here”. In between were clamorous experiments like “Chesley’s Little Wrists.” In their aggressive DIY  approach and rejection of mainstream music industry trappings, they became hugely influential on bands that would take advantage of the industry’s slo-mo collpase to score hits (Arcade Fire come to mind) with little of teh big money support system that propelled the grunge scene’s temporary takeover- ascene Pavement stood in stark contrast to.

7. Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

For music fans my age, the thought that a band could be the next Beatles or even Led Zeppelin seemed absurd – great (rock) music couldn’t get played on the radio, promoted by the record labels or given the time of day by mainstream buyers. Everybody would rather hear Nelson. When Nirvana’s second album came out on a major label even the record company figured a gold record would have been a victory. It went on to sell in excess of 10 million copies and knock Michael Jackson from the top of the charts. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a song the band though of as a knock-off of Pixies (a band that wouldn’t go gold until after they had thrown in the towel), went top ten as was impossible to avoid in late 1991, early 1992. I remember watching them on SNL at my friend Jenny’s apartment in Chicago that winter and being actually excited to see the band play. They simply blew open the door, leading to signings of bands that would never, ever see a recoup on investment. Of course the door blew shut just as quickly. While hair metal was now truly dead, there were many bands that quickly cut their hair and tried again as grunge, or might as well have. Hello Candlebox, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush etc. etc. Nirvana’s closest competitor was Pearl Jam, a much more conventional band that had many of teh same ingredients but with a much lower punk and indie rock mix, versus a classic rock fixation that made them go down nice and easy. Cobain may have opened the door, but not necessarily beyond a fleeting big contract for the music he loved the most – The Raincoats, Meat Puppets, Vaselines, Melvins. The record is, of course, unassailable.

6. De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising (1989)

De La Soul’s debut changed the way people thought about everything from song structures to copyrights, a crazy quilt of samples, fleet-footed rapping, and a whole conceptual framework of language that would permeate much progressive hip-hop. This was rap as art and ex-Stetsasonic guy Prince Paul engineered a seamless sound to frame the trio’s ideas. Rap was already sampling, primarily James Brown and George Clinton as well as occasionally breaking out something from classic rock but it was usually one big element to underpin a song. Here bits and pieces were woven into a new whole, and from far flung places – Johnny Cash, Steely Dan, Otis Redding, Hall & Oates, and most notoriously The Turtles who sued over a slowed-down and backwards sample. To get a sense of how brilliant and integrated the samples were check out the chart at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry on the album. The raps were in themselves mind-expanding, eschewing the rising gangsta sound and posturing of most rappers to riff on Aesop’s fables, pitch woo, ruminate on sexuality, and lament the inner city blues.

5. Ramones – Ramones (1976)

The Ramones invent what we commonly know as punk by taking classic early to mid 60s garage rock lighting a firecracker up it’s ass, playing it twice as fast and three times as loud with buzzsaw guitars (and the occasional buzzsaw) and lyrics about male hustling, sniffing glue, beating brats and all kinds of other thing Paul Revere and The Raiders never covered and prog-rock would over-intellectualize. Beyond exciting, it’s riveting – Joey’s weirdly clipped squawks “You’re a loudmouth baby/better shut it up” are funny but bracing and Johnny’s guitar suggests that maybe the jokes are more serious than you think. Even better are those little touches – the way Joey says “Ba-na-NAH” on “Havana Affair” or the cymbal splashes on “Blitzkrieg Bop.” This is it – the essence of rock ‘n’ roll stripped to it’s very core.

4. Sly & The Family Stone  – There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971)

Sly was moving from strength to strength in the late 60s with a series of innovative singles that, in tandem with the work of James Brown, were re-inventing soul in much the same way The Beatles and Stones were re-making rock. Sly was also becoming increasingly involved in drugs, and at the peak of his invention on this album you can hear the narcotized cool penetrating the grooves. The sound is woozy, the bass sometimes peaking in the redline into a flat muffled thump, Sly’s voice burred with drunk and blow, and the songs are amazing – intimate, resigned, angry, observational. This had a profound affect on the funk that would follow in the 70s, as well as on artists like Prince and Beck and even jazzbos like Miles Davis who were transfixed by it’s creativity and vitality twinned with a clapped-out atmosphere.
3. Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (1971)
The Stones regrouped from their successful disaster conquering of America on their 1969 tour that culminated in the tragedy at Altamont by releasing an album that re-capped the sound they had forged over the end of the decade – a tough sleek overhaul of their blues roots to create something modern, electrified and dangerous. The songs are uniformly excellent and are the best showcase yet for second guitarist Mick Taylor’s liquid leads against Keith Richards slashing rhythm. “Brown Sugar” kicks things off as one of the most subversive hit singles ever, a bawdy celebration of the birth of rock or more accurately, it’s conception as white British plantation owners succumb to the sexual temptation of their slaves.

2. Pixies – Doolittle (1989)

Pixies hook up with Producer Gil Norton for their second album, which finds their songs set off with production that maximizes the sheer excitement the band is having in playing. It’s hard not to get carried along on the careening riffs. Black Francis and Kim Deal practically duet on most of the songs with “I Bleed” as the most stunning example of how they intertwine. The entire band sounds jacked up and the songs are simply fucking brilliant. Full of biblical asides, sex, lust, death – all the good stuff. Black shrieks and hyper ventilates mightily on “Tame” only to turn around with “Here Comes Your Man”, a sweet and sunny pop confection that should have been a hit single. In the summer and fall of ’89 Pixies became my band in the wake of this – I’d go to any show they played in town and buttonhole any fellow music fan to give it a listen. Pure utter magnificence.

1. The Clash – London Calling (1979)

Predictable? Maybe so. Doctrinaire? Perhaps. As someone who has already admitted to loving a big sprawling album this takes the cake as the best. Every single track is great. How many double (let alone single) albums can this be said of? In a genre that was supposed to be limited The Clash throw of the chains and expectations of punk to do whatever they damn well please – reggae, rockabilly, r & b, sweet pop and blazing rock. Just as they transformed the music around them into a synthesized whole, they were also well-versed enough to see the connections between the many eras and the time they lived in. I wrote my college history thesis on the way this album described the connection between black Americans at the turn on the 20th century, Jamaican rude boys in the 60s and British working class and immigrant populations in the late 70s. Believe me, it’s all there, in the grooves, woven as Greil Marcus brilliantly observed through the “Staggerlee” myth that underpinned Lee Price’s hit 50s slice of New Orleans R & B and which pops up in several forms here both literally and figuratively. And you can dance to it too.

Here it is, the latest installment in my countdown of the best albums made over the last 40 years. As we close in on my actual 40th birthday, so too do we close in on the end of the list. You can see 201 -300 here. Here is 301-400. And here is 401-500.

200. Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)

Due to a lawsuit and perhaps overall freaked-outedness over the overwhelming reception to Born To Run, Broooooooce took a few years to put out this follow-up. Perhaps tinged by this experience it’s like the dark underbelly of that previous record with many of the same themes but explored from a more resigned and embittered angle. While this makes it less of a fun listen, it adds to the rewards the record unlocks over time.

199. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Primal Scream may or may not have signaled a big watershed in British rock with this amalgam of house, Stonesy rock, and other dance music that was in the air at the time. Shuffle beats were already all the rage among Britain’s baggy-pants set (I’m looking at you, Chameleons UK and Happy Mondays) and Stone Roses made it safe to shake ones ass back in 1989 with “Fools Gold.” Still this was a triumph from start to finish and doubly so for being completely unexpected given the ordinariness of their previous two records.

198. Faces – Ohh La La (1973)

As Rod the Bod increasingly looked to his solo stardom to provide him with opportunities to deflower virgins, his tenure with The Faces began to draw to a close. On their last album he gets in some great moments but it’s Ronnie Laine who shines all over the second half on songs like the title track. Ron Wood of course would go on to join the Stones.  A raucous, appropriately boozy valedictory for a great band.

197. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
No longer the world’s most humble supergroup, Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar were becoming better known in their own right by the time the New Porno’s third record came out, plus their second album had gained them a wider following as well. So, time to switch it up with bigger more detailed production and arrangements that are decidedly edgier from main songwriter Carl Newman. Tracks like “Falling Through Your Clothes” and “Three or Four” are much more intricate than before, but there are still power pop home runs like “Sing Me Spanish Techno.”

196. Prince and The Revolution - 1999 (1982)
Here’s where precociousness crossed over into genius with Prince showing himself to be one of the most talented and important artists of his generation. The first three tracks are a knockout punch – “1999″, into “Little Red Corvette” into “Delirious.”  Then there’s the ribald “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” which features the immortal line “…Girl, I wanna fuck the taste outta your mouth..” – a line that would make George Clinton blush. And Chortle.

195. Gram Parsons – G.P./ Grievous Angel (1973/74)
Yeah I’m cheating by listing two albums on one CD as one album but it’s been available this way since 1990 so deal with it. They are of a pice too, with most of the same musicians and Emmylou Harris’ wonderful duetting featuring on both. More to the point, they both have great original country rock gems like “The New Soft Shoe” mixed in with inspired covers. Sadly Gram OD’d between the release of the first and second record, making this the capstone of an illustrious and unlikely career – from trust fund kid to Keith Richards best friend and left coast country troubadour.

194. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Kanye knows you think he’s an asshole – matter of fact he thinks he’s one too. He also thinks he’s a genius and by the evidence here he’s at least incredibly talented, His most diverse and diverting record to date casts him as a curator – a guy who can’t shut his mouth or find the off switch for his brain. Sampling King Crimson and Smokey Robinson, West transcends hip-hop and makes a melange of elctronica, funk and head music that’s complex and fascinating.

193. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing… (1996)
Shadow’s innovation here was to take the cut and paste techniques of hip-hop and apply them to the big beat instrumentalism of elctronica, making an album that was innovative yet rooted in the crate digging culture that underpins both genres.

192. Pixies – Trompe Le Monde (1991)

Seen objectively it’s not surprising that this album heralded the end of the band – a grab bag of new songs, old re-worked leftovers (some of which dated back to their earliest songs) a Jesus and Mary Chain cover and at least one outright throwaway (“Space (I Believe In)” which seems to be about hiring a session musician to play the tabla and interpolates the theme from Perry Mason).  What makes Pixies great was that despite all this it’s still a terrific album, recapturing some of the aggression of their first records but also pointing the way to Black Francis’ lusher solo work.

191. TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (2004)

On their first album TVOTR codified their unusual synthesis of Peter Gabriel -like art rock, Pixies-ish indie and doo-wop influenced vocals. The vocal interplay especially sets them apart on songs like “Ambulance” which grows layers of voice to support it’s screwed up tale of twisted love.

190. Steely Dan  - Katy Lied (1975)
Becker and Fagan had hit their stride and the songs and arrangements are as smooth as the Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s playing. What makes this really kick ass though are the darkly funny lyrics about suicidal stockbrokers (“Black Friday”) and uncles you should stay away from (“Everyones Gone to the Movies”). Also, the tempos get kicked up nice and good.

189. Eurythmics - 1984 (For The Love of Big Brother) (1984)

What is this doing here? All but excised from the history of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox’s band as if by some totalitarian government, this soundtrack was a commercial blip between big 80s albums for them. Artistically it’s their best, most underrated and least known record though. Perhaps it helps that my exposure to it initially was during a high school acid trip? Either way the compositions reach a grandeur that they never equaled and its among the very best new wave synth albums ever.

188. Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue (1980)
This is the essence of a fan’s album, one of those deep catalog items that while not first rank,  is  beloved by some Stones fans just as it’s equally reviled by many others. I obviously belong to the former set, appreciating the way it extends and comments on many of the advances of Some Girls while bearing it’s own ramshackle charm. The title track is even more disco than “Miss You” – it should come with a coke spoon. “She’s So Cold” is a musical cousin of “Shattered” with it’s stuttered rockabilly thwang but “Down in The Hole” and “Send it to Me” break some new ground. Great fun for the initiated.

187. Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)

Blondie hit the big time with album three powered by the classic “Heart of Glass” but backed up with a clutch of other great tunes. The penchant for girl group sass and art-rock chill is intact but the experiments (not least of which was disco) mostly pay off here. Equally important was the way Debbie Harry was adding more depth and nuance to her vocals while Clem Burke was doing the same behind the drumkit.

186. Blur – The Great Escape (1995)

An expansion of the sound and ideas of their previous record, this has had a rough go from the fickle British music establishment who had anointed Blur as saviors of the industry and set up the Blur vs. Oasis rivalry. It’s been an unfair slagging – it’s not the huge leap forward for the band or for British music that Parklife was but how could it have been? Concentrate on Damon Albarn’s incisive character studies, Alex James lithe and supple bass lines, Graham Coxon’s inventive guitar parts, and the crackerjack melodies and it’s clear this is pretty great in it’s own right. At this point Blur were giving Ray Davies and the Kinks a serious run as chroniclers of British life.

185. Iggy Pop – Lust For Life (1977)

Iggy continues his David Bowie-led rehabilitation as a solo star. Perhaps the funniest part of this album is the sweet yearbook photo-esque cover shot of Iggy, what a nice boy! Inside though are more songs that, while lacking the gutwrenching crunch of The Stooges, use their more varied dynamics to explore a variety of dark territories. His second solo disc in less than a year he sounds energized by the rise of US and UK punk, music explicitly inspired by his own early work. In turn his early solo stuff would help to inform post-punk and new wave and at least one cruise line ad.

184. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Tonight’s The Night (1975)

Neil Young hit a commercial trough in the mid 70s which coincided with him finding what I would consider his true voice – ragged, cracking, and fronting Crazy Horse. He produced a series of tough, sad, and raw records that weren’t released in sequence (this one was recorded in 1973) but add up to a picture of an artist struggling to tell his story and those of his friends. Specifically in this case, Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten who had OD’d and inspired the songs here just as Kurt Cobain’s overdose would inspire a similar album nearly 20 years later. The music is all over the place, seemingly recorded in one take and suffused with feeling. One of his most affecting records.

183. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange (1994)

I spent a good chunk of senior year in college cruising around Ithaca in my friend’s Nissan Sentra blasting this record – it was rolling perfection. Spencer had led Pussy Galore, and like that noise-rock band, JSBX could come off as a novelty concept band. Here however they dig in deep to upend the blues with disco strings, turntable effects, and hard-hitting groove songs that get down and dirty about how Spencer likes to bed a mature “full grown” woman like his wife. The whole trio is on fire here with Judah Bauer and Russel Simins (not that Russel Simmons) pushing Spencer deeper into the pocket while he pushes right back. Bracing stuff.

181. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (melt) (1980)

Gabriel continued down the art rock path post-Genesis, carving out two albums that were solid but didn’t suggest much in the way of a future direction. Here though he was suddenly mistaken for a new-waver by folks who didn’t know his history – his songs got both poppier and harder and his subject matter became less theatrical and more grounded in the real world. This is particularly true of “Biko”,  an incredibly moving account of South African political prisoner Stephen Biko which was one of the first pop songs to bring the injustice of Apartheid to a wide audience. It also incorporated many of the world rhythms that would inform Gabriel’s subsequent work. There was also the hit “Games Without Frontiers”, a clever slice of discofied cold war protest that you could dance to.

180.Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen(1978)

Could there have been a Weezer, a Green Day, a Pixies, a Descendants without this? It’s damn unlikely- this is punk revved up with pop smarts and sprung to a high tension. There is also a seam of Krautrock running through that emerges most obviously on “Moving Away From the Pulsebeat” but still informs the drive and arrangements of songs like “Fiction Romance.” Also not obvious at the time was Steve Shelley’s sexual orientation – still very much taboo except as something to flirt with a la David Bowie. This adds a particular edge to some of the more furtive lyrics and unrequited laments.

179. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire (2004)

Stars bring new wave back with this record, a stellar leap in songwriting and playing from their first few. Simultaneously looking backwards at a string of romantic failures and forwards into the dark abyss of what even then seemed a future of endless war, this is bleak stuff delivered with a tongue-in-cheek and a stack of great melodies.

178. Pretenders - Learning to Crawl (1984)

Chrissie Hynde dares to go where most rockers fear to tread, a loose concept album about motherhood. She had lost almost her entire band to drugs between their second album and this one, while also becoming a mother and the loss and discovery of both permeates these songs. Hynde at her best is a brilliant songwriter and her eye for detail and wry turn of phrase is all over this record.

177. Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material (1979)

These Irish punks may have been late to the party but they make up for it with sheer aggression and catchiness. There was also a political edge that was sharpened by their proximity to the violence that was ongoing in Northern Ireland at the time. This is what war-zone rock sounds like.

176. Stevie Wonder - Fullfillingests First Finale (1974)

Wonder’s talent was uncontainable in the 70s, easily transcending Motown’s factory line straightjacket he operated in as a teenager and developing a unique and compelling point of view. This was smack in the middle of Stevie’s hot streak, and is heavy on slower burning grooves that stick like crazy.

175. Led Zeppelin - Zoso (1971)

This is the Zeppelin record that is their most ubiquitous, if not their best. The track list is a veritable afternoon playlist on any classic rock FM station with “Stairway to Heaven” right smack in the middle.

174. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (1992)

After the commercial failure of Paul’s Boutique no-one expected the Beasties to make another record, let alone one that brought them to a new and eager audience in the 90s. They gave these fans a new side of the band to respond to, recording live funk and hardcore jams and splicing them up into new songs as well as building whole songs from their noodling. The clever rope-a-dope rhymes remained as did a penchant for clever samples.

173. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

This is infamous for the documentary film on its genesis that inadvertently captured a band at loggerheads with a dysfunctional music industry. Buying the masters from one Warners Bros. label which deemed it uncommercial, this became one of the first file-trade shared sensations before a new deal with yet another Warners imprint allowed an official release that also became the bands biggest hit. It’s a stunning record, challenging and accessible in turn. To look at the final release date only would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the battered landscape of tottering towers, ghosts of American flags, and wars on war were a response to the attacks of September 11th and their aftermath but in fact the whole thing was written and record before then.  In it’s prescience it perhaps needed to be delayed to be heard in its true light.

172. N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton (1988)

A huge hit with zero radio play, this brought controversy to popular music that had seen it all. What was shocking in 1988? Full on violence and debasing mechanical sex. Fun yes? But the talent of Ice Cube in particular, Dr Dre, Eazy-E and Ren to put the tales of debauchery and mayhem over with a mordant humor and highly individual wordplay made it listenable. Of course for all the life of the street rhetoric that this stuff supposedly captured a huge chunk of the audience were kids white and black, far removed from the ghetto life described but looking for a thrill. It was still fresh, funny, and transgressive here but by the mid 90s this would dominate hi-hop for better or worse.

171. Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress(2003)

My favorite Belle and Sebastain album may be their least typical work but there you go. Made up of odds and ends that hadn’t found their way to other B&S records, the production is given muscle and detail by the 80s hitmeister Trevor Horn of Buggles and Yes fame. This balances the band’s more twee tendencies with touches of Thin Lizzy and classic Squeeze and helps to emphasize how much of a unit the namd ws musically with surprisingly rocking instrumentation. Stuart Murdoch is more firmly in control of the group again though and serves up some of his finest lyrics throughout, whether musing on the sexuality of Mike Piazza, winking at the sexual politics of an office romance, or working his subtle religious obsessions into every nook and cranny.

170. Husker Du - Zen Arcade (1984)

1984 was a watershed year for American indie rock with The Replacements, R.E.M., Meat Puppets  and Minutemen all turning in seminal records. The Huskers joined in with this massive double album, showing the enormous range of Bob Mould and Grant Hart’s songwriting and the sheer power of the Minneapolis power trios attack. It’s dense and the plot is impenetrable in the best concept album fashion but the record is magnificent.

169. Frank Black - Teenager of the Year (1994)

For Black’s second solo album, he dug deep to unleash a mighty 22 track opus that showed his full depth and range, from grinding Iggy and Ramones derived rockers to the overdubbed one-man pop of “Headache” to the classic Who riffing of “Freedom Rock” with stops off at reggae and the history of California as played by 80s-era The Fall.

168. Talking Heads  - Little Creatures (1985)

The irony is that Talking Heads’ most accessible pop-friendly lighthearted record was fraught with tension to make as David Byrne moved the band away from jointly developing songs by jamming into playing pre-written songs he’d brought in. It’s a damn good set of songs too, thankfully, following their fan base into the mature topics of child-rearing and interest in matters political. The hooks are plentiful and the band is powerful even if innovation has taken a backseat to pleasure.

167. Brian Eno - Here Comes the Warm Jets (1973)

Brian Eno broke away from Roxy Music (or was broken off) – his weirdness just couldn’t continue to mix with Bryan Ferry’s louchness. For his first solo disc the weird is in full flower with art rock smashing up against 50s and early 60s style arrangements and gloriously odd lyrics. This is glam rock at its most unhinged and barely gave a hint at the ambient realms Eno would explore later in the decade.

166. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)

The alternate universe Brady Bunch facepile on the cover of Tribe’s third album give some insight into how revered they had become. Ranging from The Beastie Boys to Chuck D. to Afrika Bambataa, Dr. Dre to Whodini, it’s hard to imagine that kind of universal consensus happening now. The album itself is their biggest hit and is chock full of creative rhymes and killer beats. It may not push as hard as the first two records in new directions but as a statement of what they could do this is a killer record.

165. Silver Jews - The Natural Bridge (1996)

The Jews started out as a vehicle for Dave Berman and Pavement’s Steve Malkmus but by this point had become Berman’s thing, excising much of the skronkier noise aspects  for a deep fried country feel. Berman was also coming into his own as a songwriter with quirky slow-burners like “Pet Politics.”

164. David Bowie - ”Heroes” (1977)

The second part of Bowie’s Berlin adventure with Eno, this continues the experimental half vocals/half instrumentals formula of Low as well as much of the musical approach. The songs are a touch more anthemic though and Robert Fripp’s guitar takes on an even more prominent role, one that would continue in Bowie’s work over the next two albums.

163. Prince - Sign ‘O” The Times (1987)

Prince gives us his White Album, a magnum opus that disgorges every style the man is capable of and then some, an incredible potpourri of funk, rock, soul, folk, art-rock and new wave that puts a neat capstone on his utter domination of 80s pop (unless you count that other semi-androgynous high voiced black artist). This is also one of his bleakest albums, tempering his usual sex and saviour schtick with some harsh realities like AIDs and crack.

162. Ramones - Leave Home (1977)

Album two from The Ramones was never going to have the sonic boom impact of the first, but it is a statement that these guys have invented their formula and are going to stick with it. It helps that the formula is amazing, classic pop songcraft supercharged within an inch of it’s life. There are plenty of classics here including the likes of “Sheena is a Punk Rocker,” “Commando”, and the gorgeous “I Remember You.”

161. Leonard Cohen - I’m Your Man (1988)

Cohen was well and truly in the wilderness in 1988, with a label that wouldn’t even release his recordings in the United States. With this record he overhauled his singer-songwriter sound with sequencers and synthesizers and matched them with a dark set of brooding wonders perfectly suited to his rumbling baritone. The result created a sensation among musicians if no-one else and began his artistic rehabilitation in the US.

160. Elvis Costello and The Attractions - Blood & Chocolate(1986)

Costello’s last album with the Attractions was also one of his best – a great breakup album that coincided with his stealing Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan to be his new bride. The music is a return to his lean early stuff with melodies that are top notch, and the crack band burns up the grooves.

159. Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches (1981)

I’ve avoided EPs here because no-one seems to know what they are – long singles? Short albums? Increasingly in the CD age they were a single album track with a bunch of other stuff appended. This however cannot be ignored, the first extended Mission of Burma record is a bruising mind expanding treat, like Brian Eno gone hardcore punk. So ferocious were they live that co-leader Roger Miller had to split the band due to tinnitus brought on by their sonic assault. This implies brutality without subtlety however and this simply is not the case. These are songs, with intricate structure and incredible dynamics. The re-issue helpfully appends two of their best songs, the A and B side of their debut single “Academy Fight Song”.

158. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (2009)

Neko Case was already well on her way past the Americana of her early recordings into a unique amalgam of  noir California pop and indie rock all anchored by that honey and fire voice. This album is suffused with a nature gone terribly wrong, animals and plantlife and weather all jockeying with people for supremacy. It’s all taken to another level with the thoughtful arrangements worthy of Lindsey Buckingham.

157. Richard & Linda Thompson  - Shoot Out The Lights(1982)

A tough record that memorializes the disintegration of the Thompson’s marriage. The songs are lean and extra-mean, Richard’s guitar is scathing and Linda’s voice is suffused with regret and anger. There is a voyeuristic thrill in just how great this record is – it’s a compelling and compulsive listen.

156. OST - The Harder They Come (1973)

This movie and its soundtrack were they pathway for many non-Jamaicans to discover reggae music. Star Jimmy Cliff has three classics here including the title track but the disc is filled out with a treasure trove of great singles from the previous few years like Desmond Dekker’s “Shanty Town” and Scotty’s “Draw Your Breaks” – an essential collection of early reggae (and a bit of ska).

155. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

Pink Floyd had finally become superstars six years after their leader Syd Barrett had broken down and retreated from the band, a victim of mental instability. Soldiering on with David Gilmour on guitar and vocal duties and the rest of the band (but increasingly Roger Waters) filling in the songwriting gap, they had gone from experimental art/prog rockers to having a huge hit album and now were haunted by their own origin story. Here they attempt to exorcise that demon on an album that explores their own alienation and fears of madness bought on by a profile even greater than that of Barret’s in their first blush of fame. The man himself is said to have wandered into their studio at Abbey Road to see what was happening with them, a bloated, unrecognizable ghost who had moved back in with his parents. A deeply felt and wounded record that is the band’s most human.

154. R.E.M. - Automatic For The People (1992)

Before I address what’s good about this album I do have to point out the lone stinker in the bunch, “Everybody Hurts”, a Hallmark card of a song that to some is one of their most affecting songs. Not I. Give me “Star Me Kitten”, a gauzy, lust-infused song with a hard center of sadness that seems to be written as it goes along. Or the string infused “Drive” which carves a deep melancholy even as it echoes Gary Glitter. Or the stunning “Man On The Moon”, a heartfelt tribute to the late Andy Kaufman. It’s a record that is veined with sorrow, painful nostalgia, regret, all the emotions that in many ways the band avoided in their earlier work.

153. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig (2008)

Cave is re-energized here, having rocked out hard with his Grinderman side-project. This is a concept album of sorts with Lazarus rising in modern day America, and rising again with a bevy of women from track to track. The old testament here is The Stooges and Cave is preaching fire and brimstone like nobody’s business.

152. U2 - War (1984)

U2 make the transition from post-punk to stadium rockers here, or at least go in that direction. They still have a strong Clash influence but bits of Bowie are leaking in on songs like “New Year’s Day.” What also set them apart were their passionate politics, still a rarity in the early 80s. They’d have bigger albums in this vein but not better.

151. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)

Teacher and former high school jock Bob Pollard had been turning out little lo-fi gems for several years on the side, finally getting enough attention to move to a small nationally distributed indie label for this, their breakthrough. The crappy recording quality is a purposeful veil, forcing the brain to listen harder to the extraordinary songs within. The first nine tracks were like a sledgehammer to the head, sounding like an undiscovered trove of field recordings from the 30s of the great lost progenitors of indie rockdom. These Ohioans have a lot to answer for in other bands affecting a similar low-fio aesthetic to obscure rather ordinary or even lousy material but the plus side is a trove of great songs, even if Pollard would prove to be an uneven judge of his own best material.

150. Beck - Mutations (1998)

Officially this was merely a breather and not a follow-up to Odelay, and  sonically this is a very different record. Nor was it a return to Beck’s folk roots as the arrangements are baroque, bringing to mind Nick Drake or Scott Walker. Nigel Godrich is along to produce and he brings a depth and detail that’s similar to his work with Radiohead, though the album never sounds like them at all. Instead it’s Dylanesque in it’s wordplay and images of decay, and also in it’s survey of musical styles from blues to bossa-nova that sounds both timeless and utterly modern.

149. Danger Mouse/ Jay-Z – The Grey Album (2004)

Not at all legal, grey was what you got when you mixed white and black – in this case Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles White Album. While the result could have been just a  gimmicky stunt, Danger Mouse is extremely thoughtful about the ways in which he cuts up and juxtaposes the Beatles music to set off some of  Jay-Z’s most personal rhymes. The result catapulted Danger Mouse into the first rank of in demand producers even as it burned up file-sharing sites and created some new legal fees for The Beatles already well-compensated legal team.

148. The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
For all intents and purposes this is Americana before the term existed, dredging up he sound of American popular music in much the way The Band, Dylan and Little Feat were all doing. The Kinks match this with a lyrical conceit that is amusing and telling, with Ray Davies using their British place-names and ennui in place of typical American blues locales and laments. They do visit the new world on the second half, if only in their own imaginations with “Oklahoma U.S.A.” being one of their loveliest compositions.

147. Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me (1987)

What the hell was going on here? College rock, as it was called, was pretty firmly in the punk, roots, new wave, or synth camps when J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph tossed this guitar driven grenade in the mix. Pulling as much from sources like Neil Young and Black Sabbath as Black Flag and The Ramones, this was heavy and yet not metal, a true “Sludgefest” as the title of one song put it. They had invented grunge without meaning to, and it would take a few years and other bands like Mudhoney adding to the movement for Nirvana and Pearl Jam to take the fusion of punk and classic rock over the top. Call to action: the incendiary but loving cover of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.”

146. The Roots – Things Fall Apart (1999)
The Roots succeed in their mission to transcend the flavor of the month syndrome that had taken over in hip-hop leading to a lot of flash but not a lot of substance.  The Roots definitely look back to the Native Tongue movement but they  aren’t defined by the past. For one thing their live instrumentation sets them apart from the sample-heavy sounds of the late 80s and early 90s, for another Malik B. and Black Thought have their own identities and rhyme skills without being derivative of anyone else.

145. Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974)

Album two was a commercial (if not artistic) setback for the Dan, but tehy came back on all fronts on this third record which found them sharpening their unique jazz-influenced sound and snarky intellegentsia lyrics.  They scored their second big hit with the insinuating bossa nova of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” but it’s tracks like “Monkey in Your Soul” where the crack session crew really cut loose.

144. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (2001)

It’s hard to remember now but this record operated with the Strokes debut as a one-two punch, giving listeners hope that great rock could exist beyond the morass of nu-metal that dominated the airwaves at the time. As both bands crested 1 million copies sold of their respective records it actually seemed like the next big movement had arrived, right on schedule ten years after grunge. Well they did spawn a whole host of bands especially in England but the pressure from an imploding industry to funnel it’s money into sure bets limited their impact. Even so, it’s easy to see why the impact of Jack and Meg White’s two person racket was so outsized – killer songs that looked back to the classic verities of Zeppelin and the unvarnished attack of punk rock, allied with a strong visual bent and a charismatic frontman.

143.Superchunk - Foolish (1994)
This is yet another great breakup album, informed by the broken marriage of Superchunk leader Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance. The music is tempered from the band’s early feverish pace, with several songs breaking the 4-minute mark and more varied and somber arrangements working their way into the likes of “Driveway To Driveway” and “Like a Fool.”

142. B-52′s – B-52′s (1979)

Any album that could get John Lennon and Yoko Ono out of retirement can’t be a bad thing. More specifically the couple heard the song “Rock Lobster” while on vacation and recognized in Cindy Wilson’s ululations that the world was finally ready for Yoko. The B-52s were the sonic equivalent of John Waters here – Polyester if not full on Pink Flamingoes in their embrace of camp. They prefigured the 90s obsession with irony and the ongoing retro explosion but did it with their own unique flair.

141. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On (1971)
Marvin Gaye’s declaration of independence from Motown’s assembly line was a mind-expanding slice of layered soul that is considered by many to be the best soul album ever made. It’s certainly one of the most breathtaking, with Gaye’s songwriting and arranging on songs like the title track and “Flyin’ High (in The Friendly Sky)” hitting a Brian Wilson like level of detail attention and orchestral grandeur.

140. Bruce Springsteen – The River (1980)
The Boss shows us both the serious and the playful side on this double album, chock full of songs that split the difference between the bombastic anthems of Born To Run and the introspective ballads on Darkness on The Edge of Town. This is chock full of strong songs from the raucous “Out In The Street” to the rockin’ “Cadillac Ranch” which prefigured his Born in the U.S.A. sound  to the pensive “Wreck on the Highway.”

139. T. Rex – Electric Warrior (1971)

Glam rock kicked off in the UK as a craze with this monolithic groove monster of an album – all Chuck Berry riffs and clomping beats tied together with Marc Bolan’s strange lyrics and Flo and Eddie’s endearingly whiny backing vocals. This paved the way for punk by returning to the simpler pleasures of great songs and tight arrangements deliberately harking back to early 60s styles without aping them. The songs are great and widely varied, part of Bolan’s brief purple patch of albums and singles that ran out after 1973.

138. Eminem – The Slim Shady LP (1999)
This debut record sent shockwaves through both rock and rap, becoming a huge hit and propelling Marshall Mathers to major stardom. His sheer audacious talent prevented charges of racial claim-jumping, along with his alliance with Dr. Dre behind the production boards. It’s both funny and deadly serious and the controversy arose because Mathers wasn’t about to call out which was which. Unlike the senseless and ultimately boring beefing and cap-popping of gangsta rock these rhymes are deeply personal which made the violence disturbing in a whole different way. Audacious.

137. The Clash – Combat Rock (1982)

Derided by some as their worst record, most bands would kill for something as tuneful, smart and varied as this. Sadly just as this took them to a much bigger commercial level tension in the band between Mick Jones and Joe Strummer came to a head, with Strummer firing Jones(who went on to form B.A.D.) and returning in 1985 with a much inferior version of the band. As the last real Clash album, this carries a poignant hint of what might have been as U2, The Police, Peter Gabriel and others made much hay by going down roads the Clash had opened up. The sound by Who producer Glyn Johns is made for arenas and sure enough the band garnered hits with “Rock The Casbah” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” The depth is added on songs like the bongo fury of “Car Jam,” the achingly gorgeous “Straight To Hell” and cold war lament “Innoculated City.” You wish your band was this good.

136. Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (1998)
Big beat electronica reached it’s commercial zenith with this stomping party record, the brainchild of Norman Cook who had been bassist for UK poppers The Housemartins in the 80s before starting Beats Intl in the early 90s as a song-oriented cut and paste electronic project. As Fatboy Slim he dived full-in into Chemical Brothers territory but here on album two he perfects the formula. It doesn’t hurt that he had Spike Jonez along to direct a set of clever videos but it’s the infectious  and hooky songs that make this one thrive.

135. The Cars - The Cars (1978)

The Cars were the first post-punk/new wave band to get radio play on America’s FM stations, bringing classic songwriting rigor to the new amped up sound and paving the way for new wave to hit hard a few years later. What this really was, was power pop chilled out with a Bowie affect, what Cheap Trick would have sounded like if they had dug Roxy Music instead of The Move.

134.M.I.A. - Kala (2008)

This ups the ante considerably over M.I.A’s amazing debut, fixing her in firmament that calls out everyone from Jonathan Richman in “Bamboo Banga” to Pixies in “20 Dollar” to her clever sampling of The Clash on the hit “Paper Planes.” It’s not how she references her influences however, it’s the way she transcends them to make a distinctly transcontinental dance music that takes no prisoners politically or musically.

133.Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide (1991)

Cope was an eccentric in the great British tradition, jabbering about ley lines and dressing up like a turtle for the cover of his album Fried. He does have an ear for a great song though, and had a few hits on college radio before suddenly pulling this amazing double album out of his fanny er, pack. Incorporating himself into the baggy pants ecstasy subculture he hijacked the beats of bands like Happy Mondays and twinned them with canny songwriting skill and some bite from his post-punk milieu.

132. Sonic Youth – Dirty (1992)
Sonic Youth were midwives to the grunge and indie rock explosion of the early nineties, having championed bands like Mudhoney and Seattle’s Sub Pop records and serving as ambassadors from for Nirvana to join the ranks of Geffen records. In turn, they responded to the revolution of 1991 with their most focused hard rocking set yet, produced by Nirvana’s producer Butch Vig. The results show that SY cleans up real nice, but there’s no mistaking something like “Swimsuit Issue” for a song that was going to get radio play on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” levels. “Sugar Kane” however takes a familiar set of tricks that the band had deployed before and pretties them up enough to make you believe that they really could have been part of the classic rock canon.

131. The Jam – Setting Sons (1979)
Very nearly a concept album about World War I (taking notes, PJ Harvey?) there are plenty of songs here that reflect the themes of warfare and youth squandered in the trenches. This is their most ambitious album to date not just thematically but musically as well, with full orchestration on “Smithers-Jones” and tricky time changes on “Little Boy Soldiers.” The songs that are off-topic are strong enough (like the killer “Girl on The Phone”) to not mar the sense of accomplishment with the exception of a Who-aping version of “Heat Wave.”

130. Elastica – Elastica (1995)

A surprise hit in the US and UK, Elastica filled their debut with spiky riff-bombs that were descended (to the point of a lawsuit) from punk and post-punk staples like Wire, The Damned, The Jam and others. The way it’s all served up is wholly original though, the tautness reflecting the voice of Justine Frischmann and the aloof stance of her bandmates. It’s also fiendishly consistent with not an ounce of fat across the sharp songs or lean arrangements. Ahead of their time really if you look at The Strokes and other New York sound revival bands of the 00s.

129. Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (1997)
Though they had clear antecedents in the likes of Aphex Twin and Future Sound of London just to name two, Chemical Brothers reached out to a broader audience by nodding to traditional song structure and reaching out to hip-hop and psychedelia as explicit influences. It’s here on thier secodn album that it all comes together helping to take electronica for a brief stroll in the mainstream.

128. Nick Lowe – Jesus of Cool (1978)
Lowe was a major player in Britain’s pub-rock scene, a back-to-basics precursor to punk that counted Joe Strummer’s 101ers among their practitioners. He branched out after the breakup of his band Brinsley Schawrz in two directions, as a producer (most famously of Elvis Costello) and a solo artist. His songwriting would always be a strong suit but it’s on this solo debut that he’s at his most winningly varied, with tracks that are harder and less country tinged than subsequent outings. His quirky sense of humor abounds (this was a guy who responded to the release of David Bowie’s Low with an EP entitled Bowi) as does his love for sheer genre craft, from the gentle art-rock of “I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass” to the pure pop of “Tonight” to the chilly post-punk of “36 Inches High.”

127. R.E.M. – Document (1987)

R.E.M. decide to play at being an arena rock band and funnily enough become one, while retaining much of their quirky charm and general artsy bent. The guitars ring, the drums pound and Stipe enunciates(mostly) but as in their previous four records it’s Mike Mills’ bass leading the way and even when they toss the word “love” into “The One I Love,” it’s a cruel trick.

126. Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
This is where PE come into their own propelled by the fury and denseness of the Bomb Squads production and the relentless flow of Chuck D. and Flavor Flav.  It’s an immersive riot of sound and ideas on songs like “Bring The Noise” and PE dares the listener to simply keep up. What amazes is that so many of the building blocks were the same as for groups like Run-D.M.C. and Eric B. and Rakim, scratching, samples from soul records like James Browns, call and response rapping, but it’s supercharged into something altogether new here. Revelatory.

125. The National – High Violet (2010)
This was far from the big leap its predecessor had been, rather it’s like an expansion of that record’s highly polished multilayered sound and gauzy ennui filled vibe. It’s one of the most amazing, deeply depressing records you are likely to hear. It’s the sound of arrested adolescence hardening into disappointing adulthood, sometimes wryly as on “Afraid of Everyone” – probably the best summation of how fear rules our divided country. “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out..”

124. The Mekons – The Curse of The Mekons (1991)

Still obscure in the UK, The Mekons had scored their first ever radio play and stellar reviews after ten years of recording when they delivered this record to their American label, A & M. The record was rejected, leading to the band to leave the label and go through the crappy process of buying back their own work. It is of course one of their best, a big sweeping epic that surveys life as lefty radicals in the wake of the end of the Cold War.

123. The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me (1987)
 The catch 22 for American Indie rock bands in the 80s was that you were never going to get played on the radio or become known in the mainstream because the industry was stacked against you, so if you did find success it obviously meant you had sold out. Or so the myth went. So powerful was this point of view that it led to deep feelings of guilt in bands like The Replacements who began to see glowing reviews translated into a major label deal all the way to Kurt Cobain who felt bewildered and apologetic when Nirvana actually achieved the huge stardom he had hoped for.  This was The Replacement’s and more specifically Paul Westerberg’s initial bid to be a big band but as the cover art suggests they were acutely aware of their underdog status and the tradeoffs implied in going mainstream. They’d also shed guitarist Bob Stinson, a force of nature who was not so easily channeled beyond beer fueled punk rave-ups. While the results could have felt neutered (and did on subsequent follow-ups) here the songs are among their best and the sympathetic ear of eccentric Memphis legend Jim Dickinson as producer insures that for all the horns and strings, the real nature of the band shines through.

122. Archers of Loaf – All The Nation’s Airports (1996)

Archers takes a big leap into strange conceptual spaces, an album that sounds like what happens when your flight is elayed and you just observe the goings on in the terminal, wondering “Is that guy an assassin? I wonder how many miles that salesman has logged? Is that pilot drunk?” The songs are wiry and tightly melodic with most of side one running together as a suite.  There are moments like on “Scenic Pastures” that approach a pure pop bliss state while hewing to the skewed indie rock they do so well.

121. Portishead – Dummy (1994)
Massive Attack may have been there first but Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbon’s took trip-hop to a much wider audience, deservedly so given the inventive fusion of chanteuse torch songs with deep-crate samples and hip-hop beats and scratches. What’s still striking is how natural the fusion feels. Paved the way for  a whole host of imitators and inspired folks from Amy Winehouse to Radiohead.

120. The Smiths – Meat is Murder (1985)

While R.E.M. did their bit for American guitar based indie with a smarty-pants bent, The Smiths did their part across the part. Instead of Stipe’s mumbling however The Smith’s had Morissey’s hyper articulate snark set against the many guitar textures Johnny Marr was able to crank out like clockwork. This, their second album, is widely considered their most uneven and it is, but a great band’s so-so album is still better than a  so-so band’s great moment.

119. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – On The Beach (1974)
Apocalypse Neil Young style, featuring roaming killer hippies in the California canyons, vampires, and entertainment industry execs. In fitting with this stretch of his career the music is woozy, boozy and bluesy, full of frayed edges and lonesome laments.

118. Spoon – Gimme Fiction (2005)
This takes the new spare soundscape that Britt Daniel had steered to on the previous Spoon album and blows it up to cinematic proportions. Every guitar squiggle and bass change up feels freighted with significance, weighted with value. The arrangements highlight the effortless glide of Daniel’s melodies on songs like “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine” and the show stopping groove of “I Turn My Camera On.” Grows better and better with each passing year.

117. PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love (1995)
Until this record PJ Harvey was the name of Polly Jean Harvey’s band but here on her third outing it became just she. Of course she has a set of musicians she’s working with but the palette is broadened here, resembling most closely the work of her soon-to-be lover Nick Cave. Along with a wider set of sounds and moods come clarity and detail that her three piece just wasn’t built for, and a bit more theatricality. If some sheer rawness is sacrificed, in it’s place is Harvey’s still strong love of a chugging guitar riff and an eerie chord, and her forceful sensuality.

116. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (1989)

An album that increasingly seems remarkable for its encyclopedic foreshadowing of the next decade of British rock music, the Roses debut comes out of the gate remarkably assured.  “I Wanna Be Adored” rolls in like a summer storm, a drop-dead killer melody that points towards the classic rock aping of Oasis but is wholly uncanny. “She Bangs The Drums” is britpop like Blur would vault to the fore five years later and “Fool’s Gold” a genre defying trip to the Hacienda club that kicked off the whole ecstasy, beats and guitars craze over the ensuing few months.

115. Urge Overkill – The Supersonic Storybook (1991)

This is the ambitious Chicagoans statement of purpose, a record chock full of pounding beats, crunchy Cheap Trick riffs and trick arrangements that always seem to have a surprise up their sleeve. “Bionic Revolution” injects a bit of surprising soul, as does an ace cover of Hot Chocolate’s “Emmaline” and the whole thing seems primed for maximum windows down car cruising.\

114.Lou Reed -Coney Island Baby (1976)

After a lot of flailing around, sometimes interestingly and sometimes excruciatingly, Reed found his legs with this refreshingly straightforward set of songs. The melodies are reminiscent of the third Velvets album and the mood is sweeter than most of his 70s work, a welcome reboot.

113. Blur – Parklife (1994)
Blur’s brilliant third album kicked off the Britpop boom of the 90s, a welcome return to the standards set by the Kinks, The Smiths, The Jam, and other gloried exponents of the empire’s take on rock and pop. Damon Albarn’s incisive writing is born aloft by Graham Coxon’s edgy guitar coloration and Alex James bass playing which seems to channel prime McCartney. The songs are veddy British but universal in their catchiness, from the neo new wave ass shaker “Girls and Boys” to the massive weather as depression metaphor “This is A Low.” Peerless.

112. Sinead O’ Connor – The Lion and The Cobra (1987)

This debut was clearly indebted to art rock like Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, but O’ Connor has a hugely distinctive voice and taste that also wandered over to R & B and hip-hop, leading to an album that is utterly distinctive. Though she would become a big star only with her next release (and flame-out by the one after that) this is still the best display of her idiosyncratic talent.

111.Unrest – Imperial F.F.R.R. (1992)

This is one of those amazing records that seems fully formed in every way, from cover art to song titles to musical and lyrical content creating a distinct mood and worldview. Unrest signaled their mutation from an arty hardcore band with a few singles before unleashing their sex drenched jangle pop on the world. Songs like the luxuriant “I Do Believe Your Blushing” rub shoulders with the bracing Krautrock experiment of “Champion Nines.” Somehow it all sounds completely unique ad utterly enveloping.

110. Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on The Run (1973)
McCartney and band decamped to Nigeria to record this album, and not a lick of it is influenced by any music other than what Paul already knew. It was however influenced by their feeling of being outsiders under siege and away from home, and this manifests itself in his toughest sounding and most focused non-Beatles work. It’s also one of  his best. Deploying all of his arranging tricks, he elevates the songs to little gems.

109. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (1977)
A commercial monster of an album, this spawned several top ten singles at a time when one or two per album was the norm, setting the stage for later blockbusters like Thriller. With it’s complex backgroup of marriages broken and spouses shared it’s a quintessential 70s album in all the best ways, and the full integration of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks here makes the long-lived band even more than the sum of its parts.

108. X – More Fun in The New World (1983)

For their fourth album X continued to work with producer Ray Manzarek and also kept to a path of steadily broadening their punk-inflected sound with more rockabilly and a few ballads here and there. The biggest change are more topical lyrics tweaking the state of Reagan’s America. This is another strong set from John Doe and Exene.

107. Roxy Music – Roxy Music (1972)

A colossal mindfuck, Roxy’s first album exploded the boundaries of art-rock, glam and straight-up pop. Eno and Ferry push and pull at either side of these songs, one side trying to drag it all into a smoothed out continental chill the other blurting gobs of noise and jarring juxtapositions. “Re-Make/Re-Model” is like King Curtis’ “Texas Soul Stew”  forced through graduate school at knifepoint. So many bands and artists were obviously spurred into action by this that it seems silly to list them. Huge.

106. Hole – Live Through This (1994)
It almost seems like Courtney was mourning her husband months before he died, as this was released coincidentally on the Tuesday after his body was discovered. Or, perhaps the truth lies in the rumor that these songs were mostly written by Cobain? Either way this is Courtney Love’s one sheer masterpiece, a howl of an album that channels her rage and drama into coherent powerful rock anthems.  It’s an amazing album performed with passion and guts.

105. Talking Heads  – More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

On their second album the Heads claim to serve up more of the same but this is a more guitar based affair drawing on their live sound. The also began to be seen as a real commercial prospect, having a hit with their version of Al Green’s “Take Me To The River” which presaged their deeper dive into funk and other non-rock idioms. The whole record shows off a tight focused band that plays the hell out of a great set of quirky songs.

104. Wire - Chairs Missing (1978)
Wire’s second album expands and deepens on the formula set out on the first record – the songs are longer and more textured and if anything the riffs are catchier. “I Am The Fly” and “Outdoor Miner” are worth the price of admission alone as they are two of the greatest post punk songs ever and are different enough from each other to deserve note. “Fly” is buzzsaw guitars married to an insinuating much copied bassline with some of the best icky lyrics in the world while “Miner” is a sweetly beautiful pop confection which seems to sneak in a keyboard riff from Del Shannon. Simply amazing.

103. Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)

The Smiths ended gloriously with this record, their most detailed set of songs yet. The Morrissey/Marr partnership may have been fraying but the interplay is awesome even on the cheeky ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” which, like many a great Motown classic, seems to comment on itself. The record is chock full of great tunes.

102. Iggy Pop – The Idiot (1977)

Iggy seemed washed up in the wake of The Stooges dissolution and the new punks who were inspired by them in 1976-77. After lying low for several years he re-emerged with longtime patron David Bowie who produced and co-wrote a set of songs for this debut solo record. The Bowie influence is obvious but Iggy does have his own thing to say and way of saying it, even if the raw power of The Stooges is here channeled into a more mature slow burning set. Bowie would later borrow “China Girl” back for his Let’s Dance album, and the difference between the claustrophobic dread here and Bowie’s glossy theatrical take speak volumes.

101. The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)

Jack and Meg were genuine stars when this came out, and driven by the indelible riff of “Seven Nation Army” this fourth album was even bigger than their previous breakout third. They are clearly stretching out, covering a Bacharach/David chestnut and having fun with the likes of “It’s True That We Love One Another”, one of Jack’s patented nursery ditties.

Welcome to the first installment of the 500 Best Albums of the Last 40 Years. An insane list but on the cusp of my 40th birthday, one I've given a lot of thought to. The rankings are somewhat arbitrary but it would be fair to infer that I'm not sure that number 500 (Spoon - Girls Can Tell) is a worse record than 475 (The Beach Boys - Surf's Up), but that I do think number 235  (Helium - The Magic City) is a better record. Really this is a statement of the music that has mattered to me and that I look at as yardsticks when I listen to other albums. But there are rules.

Only albums released between January 1, 1971 and publication are eligible. No greatest hits collections or retrospective compilations. The only exception I've made is for collections of artists releases that were singles only and were being released as an album for the first time. Without further ado, here is the first set records, 500-401. Stay tuned for 400-301 etc.!

500. Spoon - Girls Can Tell (2001)

After Spoon's disastrous experience with Elektra records it seemed like they would be one of many indie rockers who put out a few good Pixies-ish records in the mid-90s before skulking away to day jobs. Instead Britt Daniels went to Merge Records and embraced a sort of pop classicism, an embrace of great songwriting and arrangements that hint at but don't yet embody his later stripped-down ethos. While the vinyl on the album cover echoes the backwards looking nostalgia inherent in songs that "...long for the days when people used to say Sir and Yes Ma'am..." this record represented a new future for Spoon.

499. The Kinks - Sleepwalker (1977)

The 70s is considered an age of decline for the Kinks and certainly the band had moved on from the brit-pop classics of the 1960s that define their canon. Still there were many pleasures to be found even in their arena rock incarnation. Ray and Dave Davies may have coarsened and broadened their attack for endless stadium tours of America but the brothers were still capable of subtlety and wit on this paen to sleepless nights and werewolf-like transformations, not unlike the one their band had undergone.

498. Poundcake - Aloha Via Satellite (1996)

Talk about obscure. Part of the same Boston 90s scene that included Jen Trynin, these guys spit out just the one album before disbanding but it's a marvel of crunchy power pop with clever lyrics about the suckiness of western Mass, the way the record industry packages female rebellion (this was at the time that Riot Grrls were giving way to Alanis Morisette) and science.

497. Supergrass - I Should Coco (1995)

This exuberant debut came on like the second coming of the Faces, both Small and otherwise. This was the kid brother band of Britpop, getting caught by the fuzz but still feeling alright. Nagging back-up vocals, spring-loaded hooks and melodies galore.

496. Archers of Loaf - VeeVee (1995)

After their pounding debut, VeeVee feels like a band slammed sideways until everything is slightly off-kilter. There are times when it feels like they may have lost the ability to play but they're fucking with you, teasing out the dynamics on songs like "The Greatest of All Time" in which the frontman of the world's best/worst rock and roll band meets untimely death in a variety of ways. There's also "Harnessed in Slums" which might just be AOL's mightiest song and "Floating Friends" which is like a sadder, chaste version of Jontahan Richman's "Astral Plane."

495. MF Doom - Mmm Food (2004)

Doom proliferates in side projects, alter-egos, mixtapes and the like to the point sometimes of diminishing returns but here he's laid back and downright frisky. On a surface level he celebrates eating everything from MC's to hoe-cakes but consumption is consumption, and there's a sly wink to consumerism embedded in many of these tracks. The rhymes are top-notch as are the samples, many of which reference his Marvel-sourced character from old comic book LPs.

494. Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got (1990)

Most Americans got their first glimpse of the Irish lass' face in the video for "Nothing Comapres 2 U", an obscure Prince song that she sang into the camera with tears rolling down her cheeks. Even without the video accompaniment this is a powerful album, as contradictory as its star as it dabbles in breakbeats, stately ballads,and new wave crunchers.

493. The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978)

Almost all the UK punks had a hell of a time following up their debuts. How dare you try to build a career! All the young punks with their new boots and contracts were expected to flop on record number 2 and go back to the dole line. Even worse was what the Clash did, bringing in American (!) record producer Sandy Pearlman to polish up their sound to a fine roaring sheen. Still this suffers in comparison only to the rest of their body of work.

492. The Auteurs - New Wave (1993)

Coming in on a sneer and a guitar flourish, The Auteurs found their own way into the mid 90s Britpop explosion. As literate as their name implied, Luke Haines and co. spun out stores of showgirl brides, show biz disappointments, and lessons learned the hard way all backed with tasty riffs and a knowing world-weariness that belied the debut status of the album.

491. The Cardigans - Gran Turismo (1998)

The Cardigans gimmick was happy sounding pop songs that were actually about pretty dark stuff, so when they went against the grain on this record and wrote music that was nearly as dark as an even deeper more troubling set of lyrics fans and critics revolted. There has been no reappraisal of this record but for me this is their most interesting work, influenced just a touch by trip hop. Of course it's really hearing icily pretty Scandinavian blonde Nina Persson sing about how desperately fucked up she is that makes this so compelling. "Do you believe that love will save the world?", she asks. "I really don't think so," she intones back to herself as much as to the listener.

490. Blur - Blur (1997)

Considered their "American" album, Blur spiked their obvious British influences like Bowie and The Kinks with a heavy dose of indie rock style dissonance and attitude. For their trouble they got a genuine stadium anthem with "Song 2" (the one that goes "Wooo-hooo") and a wonderfully varied set of textures and moods without really cracking the US music market (frontman Damon Albarn would have far more success later with the hip-hop influenced Gorillaz). "Beetlebum" is one of the best songs ever about being a lazy sod.

489. The dB's - Repercussion (1982)

This could be the ne plus ultra of jangle pop, all adenoidal energy and nervous arrangements marking the bridge from Jonathan Richman's nerd blues to R.E.M.'s arty abstract Americana.

488. Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear (1978)

Album premises don't get much more screwed up than this: Marvin Gaye was stuck in a divorce battle with his soon-to-be ex (who also happened to be Motown founder Berry Gordy's sister). As part of the settlement he pledged the entirety of the royalties of his next album to her. Instead of giving into the temptation to hurt his own brand by recording, say, an all-flugelhorn cover version of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music Gaye poured all of his pain into a concept album about the divorce itself. An eminently listenable and fascinating middle finger.

487. Broadcast - HaHa Sound (2003)

Broadcast took a lot of familiar ingredients like Krautrock, trip-hop, and 50s hi-fi sounds and mashed them into something wholly their own. While the result could have been arch and distanced it is instead warm, personal, enveloping, particularly on this album.

486. Slick Rick - The Great Adventures of Slick Rick(1988)

Not shy and certainly not unassuming, Slick Rick is one of rap's great storytellers.Detailed, funny, raunchy and all delivered in a jaunty half-British inflection, the man's flow is supreme on this debut. His attitude towards women is antediluvian, which can be a hurdle for the listener but these are the kinds of stories guys tell each other on the corner or in the locker room - tall tales to crack each other up.

485. Roxy Music - Country Life (1974)

The cover is notorious of course but the contents deliver up the goods as far as prime Bryan Ferry led Rpxy is concerned. Suave, smooth and thrilling.

484. The Who - Quadrophenia (1973)

The last great gasp of prime Who on record - they'd do some more fine songs but were never able to string another disc (let alone two) together as consistent as this. Another concept album, Townshend this time looks back to the 60s London mod scene which birthed the band ans also prefigured the soon to boom punk movement. While it doesn't all come off and the story is a convoluted mess the music is mostly magnificent.

483. Hot Chocolate - Cicero Park (1974)

A British band with a a knack for soul and funk and a weakness for fuzz guitars, Hot Chocolate would have bigger hits but this, their debut, is one of the lost gems of the era. From "Emma", a slow burner that Urge Overkill would cover in the 90s to the original, superior "Brother Louie" which Stories would take to the top of the charts. this is full of great songs that are subtle in their genre straddling.

482. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2006)

Ah, La Winehouse - alive when I started this list, dead by the time it ended. It's too much to credit her as a pioneer or innovator. It's equally unfair to judge her as an imitator. With the hep of Mick Ronson as a producer she transmute old soul tropes into something modern and distinctly her own and her voice was a clarion call. Sadly she leaves too short a legacy to deduce the impact on the future.

481. Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills 'n' Bellyaches (1990)

I saw these guys open for Pixies shortly before this came out and they seemed like a bunch of wankers onstage at Irving Plaza. A set of guys from Manchester with shades standing still, one guy shaking maracas like a moron, and 25 other boyos all smoking cigarettes as if to create a homemade dry ice effect. Their dance oriented sound was so out-of-step with the American college rock sound as to seem hostile. They were unknown in the States until this, their second LP, was released. The sinuous grooves and dancefloor cool moved the advances of The Stone Roses on into a full blown "baggy pants" sound that would find echoes in U2's new continental sounds the following year. Sadly the band themselves spiraled into  a drug fuelled abyss that blunted follow ups and follow through.

480. Deerhoof - Milk Man (2004)

Deerhoof worked their creepy charm to full effect on this record, which took their noise rock into more melodic territory. Though they would become even more accessible there is something about the teetering on the knife edge of chaos that makes this the most interesting record in their oeuvre. While the vocals can be off-putting in their girlishness, the childlike nature of Satomi Matsuzaki's   delivery is uniquely suited to the unsettling songs inside.

479. Ween - La Cucaracha (2007)

Ween are known for their juvenile sense of humor and their lack of fidelity to any particular style or song structure (or indeed to style or structure.) While that can make them seem indifferent and uninviting but the sheer exuberance of the arrangements and the depth of the depravity on this record make it utterly engrossing, even hilarious.

478. Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030 (2000)

A dry run for Damon Albarn's Gorillaz project, this was a supergroup consisting of he, Del Tha Funky Homosapien,  Dan the Automater, Kid Koala and luminaries such as Prince Paul and Sean Lennon  lending a hand. Del's career was revived by the cool future-set rhymescapes, which were abetted by a lush cinematic sound design that makes this a uniquely fascinating hip-hop album.

477. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (2010)

In typical new millennium fashion Deerhunter skirt and flirt with multiple genres within indie rockdom, with a little lo-fi here matched with a pinch of punk there and a seasoning of noise rock. What makes this their best to date is the full-fledged embrace of great songs, arranged for maximum impact.

476. Spacemen 3 - Recurring (1991)

Another band that mined the past to pioneer the future, these guys started out as one of Britain’s vanguard psychedelic revivalists in the mid-80s but ended up prefiguring both the baggy pants scene and the electronica tinged 90s. Before going off to form the better-known Spiritualized, Jason Pierce begrudgingly fused his songs to partner Sonic Boom’s set to create essentially two solo EPs and the band’s last outing. While this obviously sounds like a disjointed way to go out its actually my favorite of their records, mind blowing and valedictory all at once.

475. Beach Boys - Surf's Up (1971)

The Beach Boys get knocked for being square and boring but that simply overlooks how deeply weird the band could truly be. They do have a Charles Manson co-writing credit in their catalog, remember. Released well after Brain Wilson’s mental meltdown this is a hodgepodge including at least one revelatory outtake from the legendary 1966 Smile sessions with the title track. This is very strange soft rock, fascinating stuff.

474. Public Enemy - Yo! Bum Rush The Show (1987)

This is the mighty PE still becoming a force to be reckoned with, but it’s mightily impressive nonetheless. Chuck D. and Flavor Flav already have their tag-team style locked down and the rhymes are fast and furious. The main difference between this debut and their later classics is how much sway Def Jam house producer Rick Rubin had over the overall sound, which makes this that much more interesting in contrast to the full-bore aural assault to come.

473. Cibo Matto - Viva! La Woman (1996)

Two Japanese women transplanted into New York’s downtown scene came up with the art-rock grooves that make this record so great. The underlying theme is very much about eating, food prep, shopping for ingredients and any underlying meaning you want to derive from this song and rapped over shimmering immersive electronica. Shut up and eat!

472. Primal Scream - XTRMNTR (2000)

An absolute monster of an album from a band that shed sounds and POV like a chameleon in love with David Bowie. This is far removed from their ecstasy infused early 90s sound but it also is indebted to electronica. This time though it's roughed up with clattering beats, overdriven guitars and keyboards and menacing lyrics, with the exception of the gorgeous "Keep Your Dreams." It's appropriate that My Bloody Valentine's reclusive noise genius Kevin Shields is on board for this even though none of this really sounds like that band (despite the title "MBV Arkestra" referencing both them and Sun Ra).

471. U2 - Zooropa (1993)

What? Zooropa? I might as well go ahead and reveal (spoiler alert!) that the album that this is spun-off of, Achtung Baby, is nowhere to be found on this list. Blasphemy! And that's exactly the point. While I've always had a grudging regard for U2 their own sense of self-importance and tendency towards bombast makes them a band low on my repeat plays list. What makes this refreshing is it's tossed off nature, merely meant as a little something to tie in to their massive Zoo TV tour that trod the globe in the wake of Achtung's massive success. As such the band drop their guard, allowing more humor and light to infiltrate. The lead single is sung by the guitarist for chrissake!

470. Funkadelic - The Electric Spanking of War Babies (1981)

This was Funkadelic's last gasp- George Clinton would also put Parliament out to pasture in the 80s preferring instead to travel under his own name. It's a great way to retire the Mothership though, with hints of reggae spiked throughout the funk jams and the hilarious "Icka Prick" satirizing the workout craze in the most scatalogical ways possible, complete with a female chorus singing rounds of "That's disgusting..."

469. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (2006)

This is where Colin Meloy and his band get the major-label budget to explore and indulge, for better or worse but mostly better. While "Yankee Bayonet" is the kind of classic literate folk infused indie rock that is their stock in trade, along comes a song like "The Perfect Crime" to slither and pose like an amped-up cousin to the Eagles' "One of These Nights." Which sounds like it would be awful but it isn't.

468. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Xtra-Acme USA (1999)

Intended as a leftovers and remixes collection tied to their fine 1998 album Acme, in many ways this is the more compelling listen stocked as it is with superior versions of songs on the original (such as the Dan the Automater remix of  "Lovin' Machine") that in some cases paradoxically strip back some of the hip-hop influence. Wonderfully eclectic.

467. The Coolies - Doug (1988)

Fatally ahead of their time in their knowingly postmodern take on music, The Coolies reached their apex with this concept album (or is it a spoof of concept albums?) about a skinhead who steals a transvestite chef's recipes, becomes famous for them, and loses it all. Is this any less ridiculous than the premise of Tommy? The band's songs expertly suggest without outright imitating such standard bearers as The Who and John Lennon while also working in a variety of genres from rock ballads to rap. It works because they never condescend to the material, the story, or the listener and teh hooks are there every time.

466. Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)

Elliott Smith made some surprising stylistic shifts during his too short career, from indie punk member of the band Heatmiser to folkie punk solo artist to the lush classic rock arrangements found here. What underpins them all are his songwriting chops, his sincerity and an all too melancholic worldview. Engrossing.

465. Giant Sand - Center of the Universe (1992)
Somewhere between Neil Young and Dinosaur Jr. lies Howe Gelb and his Giant Sand nom de band, and if that suggests that he sings in a warbly croak so be it. But here he's augmented by Victoria Williams, Susan Cowsill and Vicki Petersen to sweeten the vocals. The songs come on like molten lava country rock with off-beat tangents into earthquake country, small town sartorial values, and the creation of the Universe which Gelb imagines as more of a big sneeze than a bang. Giant Sand has released many albums since 1985 but this is their most winningly consistent.

464. Islands - Return to the Sea (2006)
After the idiosyncratic Unicorns broke up after a sole album co-leader Nick Diamonds took the drummer with him and founded Islands. This debut proved them to be just as unique, but with an even broader palette (steel drums! rapping!) and a slyer sense of humor. Sadly subsequent albums have paled against the exuberant performances and arrangements on display here, not to mention the consistently clever lyrics.

463. Gorillaz - Gorillaz (2001)

Damon Albarn engineered a pretty nifty post-Blur career with what started out as a side project spun out of the Deltron 3030 core band. Dan the Automator and Del are carried over but a whole visual component was added with Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlitt designing alter egos for the principals which also included Miho Hatori from Cibo Matto. This precise lineup only existed for this first album but it's also their best, a surprise hit based on the genius cross-splicing of brit pop tunefulness and hip-hop beats.

462. Alex Chilton - Like Flies on Sherbert (1979)
An album to make perfectionists twitch, this is Alex Chilton at his most shambolic and unhinged which to some of us is beautiful. Chilton made this in part to disavow the songcraft of his recently passed Big Star years, and would similarly disavow the off-the-cuff nature of this in his next incarnation. Still we have this document full of false starts, off-kilter tunes, incredible droning slabs of awesome like "My Rival" and "Rock Hard." Not for everybody but if it's for you, it'll keep for life.

461. Sly & The Family Stone - Small Talk (1974)

Underrated late(er) Sly still better than the competition. Though it's not as revered as some of his other releases the likes of "Loose Booty", "Time For Livin'" and "Say You Will" became sample touchstones for 80s and 90s hip-hop. Not just for the crate diggers.

460. Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing (2008)
D.C. based rapper Wale turned out one of the freshest and cleverest mixtapes in a decade defined by the label-less release. Here he spills clever couplets riffing off of and interspersed with episodes of Seinfeld. The conceit works not just because Wale is an obvious fan but because he has something to say beyond simply refrencing the show. The peak is on "The Kramer" which samples and deconstructs the meanings layered in actor Michael Richards' infamous racist tirade at a comedy club.

459. The Raincoats - The Raincoats (1979)

Beloved of Kurt Cobain who convinced his label to re-release the band's entire catalog despite negligible commercial prospects. Though they rose out of punk their sound was fairly unique, incorporating elements of middle eastern drone and even folk. Led by Gina Birch and Ane DeSilva they were not shy about weaving feminist themes into this debut but they were rarely dogmatic. A great exampe is their brillaint cover of The Kink's "Lola" which gains a whole extra layer of gender-fuckery simply by keeping the original pronouns.

458. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997)

A ridiculously accomplished gem from the premier 90s critic's band. The range here is so broad, from krautrock to Velvet's  strum to shoegazy gauze, that it functions as a delightful grab bag survey of all the stuff that made indie rock geek's hearts go pitter-patter as the last century began to draw to a close.

457. Throwing Muses - The Real Ramona (1991)

Throwing Muses came out of the same Boston scene as Pixies and in many places they paved the way for the other band, most significantly by signing to Britain's 4AD label and using Gil Norton as a producer. While Pixies are now a much bigger band than they ever were during their first go-round the Muses are still relatively overlooked. This record was their best balance of pop hooks and jagged edges and should have made them stars. Stepsisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnely knew their way around a gripping song as well as a good riff.

456. Spoon - Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga (2007)

At this point Britt Daniel and co. had defined the sound of their band which means it felt like less of a great leap than previous albums and more of a refinement. The ethos of Spoon is very much based on editing and paring down songs to their core, giving an off the cuff yet meticulously arranged feel to the entire album. The songs themselves are great with the acoustic guitar and horn driven strum of "The Underdog" giving the band their first significant radio play.

455. Galaxie 500 - This is Our Music (1990)

The swansong for a band that looms large in retrospect but had only a dedicated cult during their lifetime. This isn't terribly different than their other releases, perhaps more refined in their American take on the kind of dream-pop more associated with Britain's shoegazer bands. The approach may share their slabs of guitar and detached vocal style but Galaxie came armed with a better batch of songs and cleverer covers than most bands.

454. Cat Power - You Are Free (2003)

Cat Power, AKA Chan Marshall, morphed from an avant indie rocker to a darling of AAA Radio but this record captured her in mid-shift, and it's her best for splitting the difference. Her voice shines in all it's vulnerable cool-chick timbre but the songs have real bite and unusual, even dissonant arrangements. These are mixed in with outright country and even blues shadings without ever really landing in a particular genre. The lyrics are by turns gripping, sad, even spiritual, and the sense of the enterprise being hard fought and wrung out is only heightened by the five year span between this and the preceding LP and her well-known stage fright.

453. Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

When Paul Simon broke from his partnership with Garfunkel it seems to have freed him up to explore the power of rhythm, as he does to great effect on this, his second solo record. The Dixie Hummingbirds are along to augment the R & B feel Simon aims for and succeeds at reaching, though there are also wonderful ballads and the brilliant single "Kodachrome."

452. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994)

The insular world of industrial music was always a bit harsh on Trent Reznor - his songs and his face were just too pretty to be genuine and compared to Skinny Puppy or Ministry he was a Johnny Come Lately. Still this album took a subgenre into the realm of the multi-platinum and it did so because it's that damn good. You have to be to get a chorus like "I want to fuck you like an animal" major radio play, even if the offending word is dropped out. The songs are expertly arranged and produced with a great deal of variety in tempo texture and feel, making it eminently listenable and yes, making the abrasive bits easier to swallow.

451. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (2008)

Their interest in psych-rock and use of Producer Dave Fridmann led some to tag these guys as knockoffs of The Flaming Lips but their sensibility is quite different as is their palette. "Electric Eel" could be right out of 1984 with a vibe that suggests Quincy Jones' work with Michael Jackson while "Time to Pretend" is an expert evocation of kids in a band fantasizing about fame Duran Duran style.

450. Eminem - The Eminem Show (2002)

The last in a stunning trilogy that began with his debut, this is the record where Eminem is all about the perils of his own fame, which ought to be a bore and would be if he wasn't such a  great rapper and Dre a top-notch producer. Eminem also deserves credit for excoriating the Bush admionistration much earlier than most other artists, certainly none as major as he was in 2002, on the brilliant "Square Dance" among other songs.

449. Butterglory - Are You Building a Temple in Heaven (1996)

Seemingly brimming over with hooks and tunes, Matt Suggs and band knock it out of the park on their second album. Their closest sound-alike might be Yo La Tengo but these guys are simpler and less obtuse, let alone unlikely to break into a ten minute guitar workout. Just a top-notch batch of instantly hummable indie rock that will lodge in your head for years.

448. Big Black - Songs About Fucking (1987)

Big Black was the bastard baby of Steve Albini, a guy who would be more revered in rock circles for his brilliantly sharp production (though he prefers to term it recordings) of others work such as Pixies, The Auteurs, PJ Harvey, The Breeders, and Nirvana. His two albums with his own band are where he developed his audio ethos - clear unfettered sound with the drums at the fore, yet without the signature 80s "boom".  Albini is aggressively politically incorrect (just look at the title and cover art) which can be alienating and which is likely the point, but get past this and into the angular driving pummel of the band and it all makes sense.

447. World Party - Goodbye Jumbo (1990)

Ex-Waterboy Karl Wallinger became known for holing himself up in the studio and trying to recreate classic albums to see how they were done. Thankfully he was canny enough to recombine his influences on his own albums as World Party, so that the Stones and Prince and George Harrison borrowings fuse into something new and distinct. The "woo-woos" in "Way Down Now" for instance are clearly cousins to "Sympathy For The Devil" but the songs is entirely different, and great.

446. Unrest - Perfect Teeth (1993)

While their previous album was a revelation, this is a consolidation of the distinct and unusual sound this former hardcore band from D.C. had forged. Both tighter and bigger sounding, these songs run the gamut of what the band could do with their new found pop skills and fast-strummed style and they get deeper into their tongue in cheek obsessions with sex, the cultishly famous, and all things sensual.

445. Ice Cube - Death Certificate (1991)

Ice Cube's second solo disc proved that he was even more incendiary apart from N.W.A. It's a bruising album that leaves no stone unturned and no prejudice unindulged most notoriously on "Black Korea". The template of songs about slinging drugs and getting laid would get tiresome real fast - within a few months it became the default in hip-hop pushing aside the Native Tongue sounds emanating from the east coast. Ice earns his stripes though with his superior delivery and story-telling skills. The irony is that most of his fans were white kids, propelling the record to multi-million sales.

444. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (1971)

It's hard now to fathom how alienating Ozzy Osbourne and his crew were when Black Sabbath first started to gain notice. Like Ice Cube he has become such a safe emasculated figure that the sheer shock of hearing music like this is difficult to recapture. In addition the deep sludgy narcotized grooves have been subsumed by metal, grunge and even indie rock to such an extent that the outrage over the anti-musicianship their sound seemed to represent is quaint. Like punk, Sabbath was in part a reaction to the professionalism overtaking rock at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s, and represented by progressive acts like Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer. A song like the marvelous  "Sweat Leaf" simply anti-intellectualizes any higher thinking right out of you.

443. Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep (1994)

Horrorcore was the short-lived hip-hop genre that Gravediggaz pretty much created and it was seen by some as a further degradation of the music from the pimps and hos and drug dealing into outright mayhem. Really these guys were smart enough to know they were actually sending up gangsta rap by pushing the boundaries to incredibly absurd heights while also pointing out subtly the difference between the way society branded white murderers as aberrant serial killers while blacks were gang bangers. In fact the core of Gravediggaz is Wu-Tang mastermind RZA along with De La Soul producer Prince Paul so tongues are lodged firmly in cheeks. As would be expected from those two part of the fun is the varied and creative production and samples.

442. RJD2 - Dead Ringer (2002)

Engrossingly brilliant electronica with a heavy bent towards hip-hop. RJD2 in fact was signed to underground rap label Definitive Jux, an unusual status for a white producer/DJ. This record brims with inventive noir-ish textures and clever transitions making it one of the few records of this type to move out of the heavy shadow cast by the aptly named DJ Shadow.

441. Dinosaur Jr. - Green Mind (1991)

A band record in name only, J. Mascis here sets out to fully get past the loss of Lou Barlow and barely uses regular drummer Murph at all and yet it's still a terrific record. Anchored by Mascis' strong songs, molten guitar slinging and uber slacker vocals Green Mind was a small step towards  more mainstream acceptance and repped the first Dinosaur album on a major label.

440. Sleigh Bells - Treats (2010)

Duo Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller crafted a debut that practically bursts at the sonic seams, all over-amped and distorted yet with a chewy pop center. It's incredibly arresting stuff - witness "Crown on the Ground," a song that feels like an escalating series of climaxes built on a killer beat, Miller's cock-rock guitar and Krauss' ultra-girly singing.

439. Black Flag - Damaged (1981)

Probably the ultimate hardcore punk album, fast furious and from California. The reaction of parents and other authority figures to the music in general and Black Flag in particular only made the funny songs funnier and the angry songs angrier - Henry Rollins spits venom and guitarist Greg Ginn wrote the best set of songs this band ever had.

438. The Wrens - Secaucus (1996)

The Wrens were about as star-crossed as a band could get. This, their second album, was a huge improvement on their debut presenting a wonderfully off-center take on the niceties of mid 90s indie rock. Sadly problems with their label and the pull of day jobs kept them from capitalizing on the good vibes and the follow-up would take seven years to come out.

437. Juliana Hatfield - Bed (1998)

Juliana Hatfield took her spunky sass and gruff guitar work solo after the Blake Babies split in the early 90s, becoming a college rock favorite and linked to Lemonhead's leader Evan Dando despite her claims to still be a virgin. By 1998 it had all imploded, a major label deal had been left behind and college rock had moved on to nu-metal. Bed finds her alternately depressed and debauched, as befits the title and the many reasons to stay there.  While that may sound glum it's  instead gripping and alluring, a document of someones wrong choices marathon set to glazed riff rock.

436. Television Personalities - And Don't The Kids Just Love It (1980)

Ridiculously ahead of its time, the first full-length from Dan Treacy's band is a delightful gathering of conversational songs about everyday life for a shy depressed British guy. In sound he neatly prefigures a whole slew of folks from The Smiths to Guided by Voices and the recording and playing is casual if not completely amateurish. What puts it over are terrific songs and a distinct point of view.

435. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have it So Much Better (2005)

Following up a widely praised and distinctive debut is really hard and this second offering from Glasgow's finest deviates only somewhat from the template they started from. But it's a great template: cracking rhythm section, arch vocals, springy Wire-like guitars.

434. Jonathan Richman - Jonathan Sings! (1983)

For Richman, this is a relatively adult album with kiddie songs for actual kiddies and love songs for grown up women - wives even! That doesn't stop the title track from flirting with a little extra-marital flirtation, nicely mirrored by a revamped band that features female backing vocals to bolster and sometimes undercut Richman's nasal verses.

433. Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)

This is Nirvana's last will and testament, a re-affirmation that the late Kurt Cobain was a brilliant songwriter and gripping performer. Cobain was also a big-time promoter for other bands and lends a hand to Leadbelly, The Vaselines and Meat Puppets with terrific covers. Though the original songs in most cases are superior the renditions of "All Apologies and "Something in the Way" are incredible. Supposedly Cobain had talked about Nirvana heading towards a more acoustic pastoral path with R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, which this album would have previewed. Instead he struggled with his heroin addiction, almost dying in Rome of an overdose before taking his own life shortly after this performance was recorded.

432. Royal Trux - Thank You (1995)

The breakup of skuzz-noise rockers Pussy Galore led to two arguably more interesting bands - this and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Where Spencer stripped things down to their elements Trux kept the dirt and grime under the stewardship of Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema. As time went on the couple began to incorporate elements of 70s boogie (think Canned Heat or even Grand Funk Railroad) into the guitar fueled murk. While this added professionalism rubbed some fans the wrong way it allowed Royal Trux to develop some actual songwriting chops, in full evidence here. Propulsive and down and dirty.

431. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist (2009)

Who knew that the Beach Boys would become a primary influence over so much indie rock in the new millennium? At one extreme was Animal Collective which  made a sound that approximated the Manson family taking charge of the California popsters. Grizzly Bear still love the popness inherent in the best of Brain Wilson and the gang but they bring their own jazzy shadings to their material. The arrangements are superb, beyond even the vocals. The music itself is actually quite distinct, suggesting the softer sounds of 60s and 70s forebears but executing it in a very postmodern baroque manner. An album to curl up and get lost in.

430. Bob Dylan - Street Legal (1978)

This is one of those albums in a long-lived artists' catalog that separates the casual listener from the fan. Some Dylanites hate this but those who love it, love it. Few fans are indifferent. This is his last  album before becoming a born-again Christian and you can feel the turmoil all over the hard rock and r&b grooves. In fact it was his affair with one of the backup singers on this that led him down the path to religion, as he was still adrift in the wake of the breakup of his marriage to Sara Lowndes.

429. Naked Raygun - All Rise (1986)

Part of the bruising Chicago hardcore scene, these guys hid their pop hooks behind sheer walls of guitar and pummeling breakneck drums. By the time album three rolled around they were ready to drop their guard a bit with aching yelps like "I Remember" upping the emotional ante while the band still stopped and started on a dime. A lesser-known influence on a host of 90s rockers ranging from practically everyone on Touch and Go records to math rockers like Polvo and Helmet.

428. Morrissey - Bona Drag (1990)

Morrissey's old band The Smiths saved many of their best songs for singles only releases and so he followed suit in teh early years of solo-dom. While I've stayed away from compilations from the most pat, this is an excellent collection of non-album tracks that happens to be the guy's best album outside of the aforementioned band.  Though some scoffed at the thought of Morrissey without songwriting partner Johnny Marr he more than holds his own on this collection.

427. Jason Forrest - Shamelessly Exciting (2005)

It should come as no surprise that the digital age would proliferate the postmodern music concrete sound that had already been established by sampling kings like Steinski, Prince Paul, Negativland and their ilk. Among the best practitioners is Jason Forrest, who gleefully creates new songs by slicing and dicing old content whether it's lite FM staples of the 70s or his 36 favorite punk tunes.

426. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2008)
After pushing the envelope for several releases Radiohead instead pushed their business envelope with a  pay-what-you-want download model for their first album away from EMI. Musically this is a consolidation of everything Radiohead can do, akin to The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers. Like that classic, top-notch songwriting and production makes this eminently accessible without being shallow.

425. Quasi - Hot Shit (2003)

A pretty balls out protest record, Quasi don't bother with the niceties of Green Days rock opera American Idiot. Instead they literally say "Fuck You" to the likes of Don Rumsfeld in song in "White Devil's Dream". This is not to say they are devoid of subtlety - check out the searing ballad "No One" that comes on like an update of "Every Breath You Take", an abusive person or leader who cannot help but control.

424. Helium - The Dirt of Luck (1995)

Mary Timony led Helium into a tightly sprung sound for this, their first full length. Her singing makes the most of her affectless delivery, making even her nastiest diversions sound offhand which adds to their power. The arrangements in retrospect lay the groundwork for the punk/prog new wave hybrid sound to come - here it's more striped-down and feral. Powerful stuff.

423. Public Image Limited - Album/CD/Cassette (1986)

The man who was asked to audition for the Sex Pistols because he wore a Pink Floyd t-shirt with the words "I Hate" crudely scrawled across it here teams up Cream's Ginger Baker, metal guitarist Steve Vai, Ryuchi Sakamoto, and Material mastermind Bill Laswell who also produced. It's a big sounding record full of detail and not a bit of gloss with a distinct prog feel that betrays John Lydon's interest in Krautrock. Fans were outraged but these songs are fascinating and "Rise" is one of his very best songs.

422. Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971)

Baby Huey was dead before his one and only album even came out on Curtis Mayfield's label. Curtis also produced, lending a  sympathetic  ear to Huey's terrific voice and his shit-hot backing band The Babysitters. Had the 400-pound perfomer lived he would have been a force to be reckoned with in 70s soul, a mix of Mayfield's songwriting gifts and social conscience, a pinch of Sly's funk, and big chunk of Otis' soulfullness.

421. Negativland - Escape From Noise (1987)

This was one of my first experiences with cut-up samples and musique concrete, having bought this when it came out. It rocked my teenage world with it's combination of highly skewed songs (the folk balled "Nesbitt's Lime Soda", the proto-industrial sample driven "Christianity is Stupid" and conceptual tracks like "Time Zones" which splices up a right-wing radio talk show host and his caller into the trippiest, most ominous circular conversation ever.

420. Kool Keith - Black Elvis/ Lost in Space (1999)

To describe Kool Keith as a character doesn't even begin to do him justice. An eighties fixture from his stint in Ultramagnetic MCs, Keith's distinctive flow and lyrics allowed him to reinvent himself as a more edgy indie rapper as Dr. Octagon and then build upon that with this album under his own name. While mainstream rappers were aggrandizing over their Bentleys, Keith decided to play the part of Black Elvis, ultra successful businessman. What's funny is how he externalizes what a Jay-Z mostly keeps internal but for Keith rapping about Dow Jones and secretaries is strictly fantasy.

419. Bjork - Post (1995)

Bjork's second post-Sugarcubes album strikes what's still her best balance between experimental quirkiness and accessibility. The palette of electronic sounds and sometimes abstract beats is downright gorgeous on tracks like "Isobel", augmented by strings and even a sock-it-to-them orchestration on showstopper "It's Oh So Quiet." A textbook case of how to fit experimentation into a pop template.

418. The Mekons - So Good it Hurts (1988)
The Mekons were a distinct oddity by the time this album came out. Starting out as a post-punk sister band to Gang of Four they slipped quickly into obscurity only to emerge in the mid 80s with a ragged Hank Williams influenced sound. The band by this point still included mainstays Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh but had expanded to include the golden voice of Sally Timms. This can be seen as a dry run for their purple patch of records that span into the early 90s but I'd argue this ought to be included as it shows the bands songwriting beginning to hit it's stride on new wavers like "Ghosts of American Astronauts", country tinged punk like the title track, the dub tinged "Johnny Miner"  and a scathing femme cover of the Rolling Stones' "Heart of Stone."

417. Devo -Q. Are We Not Men?A. We Are Devo (1978)

"God made man, but he used a monkey to do it.." sang this band that managed to out art-damage all other new wave bands with this skewed conceptual release. Devo posits that man is "de-evolving" and they for one welcome the change. They are mostly joking but the 10% that isn't likely comes from the experience of witnessing the National Guard fatally fire on students at Ohio's Kent State. So conformity is twisted inside out on "Jocko Homo" and non-conformity is goosed on their complete redefinition of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction", one of the greatest covers of all time.

416. Elliott Smith - Elliot Smith (1995)

Elliott Smith first came to attention for most folks for this, his second solo set. Acoustic, wavery, seemingly slight these songs have a strong impact over time. Anything but easy listening.

415. Supertramp - Breakfast in America (1979)

My wife absolutely hates this record and I understand. A bunch of fairy-voiced Brits singing about the hardships of being rock stars. You know, on the road, a different groupie every night, dealing with hippie haters (in 1979!) Maybe it's because I remember this in heavy rotation on my sibling's hi-fi's as an 8-year but I love every soft-rock lick and electric piano burble on this album.

414. No Age - Everything In Between (2010)

No Age was lumped into a lo-fi punk bucket but they increasingly showed a fondness for more nuanced strains of indie rock and pop culminating in this glorious record. The catch is that it all happens with  just two people, vocals drums and guitar. Yet the variety of textures, moods and sounds thay are able to get out of that limited palette are heartening.

413. Galaxie 500 - On Fire (1989)

In some ways these guys were the American answer to Britain's Spacemen 3, a group that built something new out of the framework of 60s psych-rock. In this case there are elements of the Velvet's drone and aspects of folk thrown in. This is a great collection of songs that showcased a band on the very outskirts of indie rock orthodoxy (ie not remotely punk or new wave) creating another touchstone that others would build on in the following decades.

412. Sparks - Kimono My House (1974)

The Mael brothers are expert opinion-dividers. There are as hated (especially influential by Trouser Press editor Ira Robbins) as they are revered. They were certainly doing things ahead of their time, employing some of the same moves as similar trailblazers Roxy Music though replacing Bryan Ferry's louche loverman routine with a kinetically arch humor. It's no surprise that these Los Angeles natives would find more success on the other side of the world given the success UK acts in a similar vein (10cc comes to mind in addition to Roxy). This is one of their most song-centric albums, as well as being theatrical in a very glam rock way.

411. The Jesus Lizard - Liar (1992)

Pummeling. Tuneful, yet pummeling.

410. Depeche Mode - Music For The Masses (1987)

Man I hated these guys in high school. All the girls liked them but I liked bands with guitars and weird songs like Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, Pixies. This stuff? Of course as I grew older I reminded myself to be open and to listen to songs, as George Michael might say, without prejudice. And this band has some incredible songs spread throughout their catalog. This is where the highest percentage of them reside (other than on singles collections). The album sounds big and bold - perfect to vault them into arenas, but the textures were their most varied yet. A breakthrough for them and for synth pop.

409. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals (2008)

Did I mention I liked cut and paste compositions? That's all that Greg Gillis does here, splicing together his favorites bits of hundreds of songs across genre (but lots of rap, classic rock, and indie) adding beats and creating an endless playlist of highlights.

408. Superchunk - Indoor Living (1997)

Superchunk do the mature thing on this record, broadly expanding the palette of their sound (keep in mind that their publishing company was called All The Songs Sound The Same) and their subject matter. Martinis, dead jazz musicians, and sweet, sweet infatuation on the soaring "Marquee" all figure in this time.

407. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009)

Typically these guys have fascinated me more than compelled me. I love what they do but I'm rarely in the frame of mind to want to listen to it. That is until this record which unearthed just enough structure and melodic sense to make the experimentation and sound explorations feel like a discernible path instead of a diversion. Oddly enough this may be there least formally structure set of songs but the repeated sections and hooks work to suck you in and the vocals add the final bit of payoff.

406. Pretenders - Pretenders II (1981)

Pretenders had the unenviable task of following up their instant classic debut and predictably critics were less kind the second time around. The formula is reprised including covering one of her then-husband's obscure Kink's nuggets. Nevertheless the album is a great one and Hyde's songwriting is top notch, as is the playing of the band's classic ill-fated lineup.

405. Dr. Dre - The Chronic (1992)

This is THE gangsta rap album, for better or worse. Mostly for worse as few imitators lacked the style, production chops, a guest like Snoop Dogg or the talent and brains to make entertainment out of the acceptance of life's horrors. It's a major shift from Public Enemy's in-your-face bravado to Dre and Snoop's blunted "that's life."

404. Air - Moon Safari (1998)

Incredibly influential, these Frenchmen smashed a bunch of traditions together, from chanson to folk, to pop to electronic experimentation and dance music and out came this classic. At times it threatens to devolve into wallpaper but the arrangements and varied tempos keeps it fizzy.

403. Game Theory - Lolita Nation (1987)

Just as Sonic Youth would do a year later, the lesser-known band Game Theory puts their fingers on the national pulse. This is a big sprawling statement of an album, dense with hooks and melody but also, as befits a double-album, byways and the occasional  dead end. Undeservedly obscure.

402. The Strokes - Room on Fire (2003)

As you may have seen elsewhere on this list, I'm a fan of the underrated follow-up record which this is a prime example of. The Strokes debut unleashed a swarm of guitar bands eager to rawk owt in the same New York style. Here they trim some of the bright edges off their sound and float in guitar tracks on top of stop-start beats like a dub track, or imitate keyboards. The first album was lo-fi but it was like a coat of dust on chrome polished songs, on this record it's more like a coat of rust.

401. King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader (2003)

One of Doom's many side projects but easily my favorite. The rhyming is top notch and the choice of samples is particularly clever - ranging from the Japanese monster films that gave this project its moniker to the incidental music from cult 70s Japanime Battle of The Planets.

Best Songs

1. Aretha Franklin – “Rock Steady”
‘Ree lays down one of her toughest grooves on this burner. You can hear her riding that hard R&B wave straight into funk and almost out the other side as disco.

2. Rolling Stones – “Brown Sugar”
Is this the sickest number one song ever? The boys from London deconstruct their own bad selves and decide that that they are the foppish plantation owners and their slave goes by the name of rock n roll. Truly twisted in the still warm aftermath of civil rights and race riots it’s at once political commentary, winkingly self-aware, and wickedly poor taste. And you can dance to it. Along with “Satisfaction”, their most perfect single.

3. Al Green – “Tired of Being Alone”
Shit, Al, you won’t be tired long with that voice, that band, Willie Mitchell’s snap-tight production and that killer, killer song.

4. Van Morrison – “Wild Night”
Van the man in full-on R&B mode – stand back! He still knew how to do uptempo at this point with the right amount of subtlety and an arrangement that’s all about tension and release.

5. The Faces – “You’re So Rude”
These guys were giving the Stones (who’d moved on to a whole ‘nother plane of existence musically speaking) a run for their down and dirty millions back in 1971. If only they could keep that lead singer’s attention.

6. Badfinger – “Day After Day”
The non-Beatles Beatles on the Fab Four’s own label, Badfinger was there to fill that poppy, melodic radio hole, especially as George Harrison (who this song most closely resembles) began to blow the great promise of his 1970 solo debut with a long gestating follow-up. In all fairness this is a terrific song and Badfinger had plenty to offer despite the shadow of their patrons.

7. The Kinks – “Oklahoma U.S.A.”
One of Ray Davies many brilliant songs, here imagine an America they had barely scratched the surface of in person. Instead they have films and movie magazines to guide them through a still-unfamiliar landscape.

8. Chairman of the Board – “Chairman of the Board”
One of the great songs named after the band songs, this just rips with an almost retro gutbucket feel. Nice and hard fellas.

9. Johnnie Taylor – “Hijackin’ Love”
Taylor was a flexible guy ranging from blues to R&B and eventually to disco. This was semi-topical in the hijacking reference but ass-shaking in it’s musical inference.

10. Led Zeppelin – “Going to California”
The Zep boys at their pastoral best. Lots of patchouli scented makeout sessions were started to this song.

11. Honey Cone – “Want Ads”
Ah, the days before Internet dating. The gals place an ad in the paper for the kind of man they want.

12. Rod Stewart – “Every Picture Tells a Story”
Rod gets his bandmates in the Faces to back him on a set of songs that simply destroys most of his bands output, including the huge hit “Maggie May.” This is the burner though – a great British folk-rocker that really pounds. makes his decline that much sadder.

13. The Temptations – “Just My Imagination”
One of the last great Motown songs in the classic mode, impossibly lush and yearning. Perfect in every way.

14. Curtis Mayfield – “Keep on Keeping On”
Curtis was a year away from “Superfly” and already staking out his new post-Impressions territory squarely in the funk sound pioneered by Sly Stone.

15. Carole King – “I Feel The Earth Move”
Former Brill Building songstress with ex- Gerry Goffin, King went out on her own with a blockbuster solo album that ushered in the singer-songwriter movement for better or for worse. Still she could write a dman good tune, as here.

16. Jean Knight – “Mr. Big Stuff”
Knight brings the sass with this throwdown classic, later sampled by the Beastie Boys on “Johnny Ryall”.

17. Black Sabbath – “Paranoid”
Ozzy invents metal and accidentally grunge and maybe even punk with this sludgerock touchstone.

18. T. Rex – “Monolith”
The guitar mimics a record-scratch in the intro and Flo and Eddie warble sweetly on this killer Marc Bolan song- one of several outstanding songs he released in 1971.

19. Brenda & The Tabulations – “Right on the Tip of My Tongue”
One of the best band names ever with a sweet sweet soul groove. Don’t forget to say “I love you!”

20. Dave & Ansel Collins – “Double Barrel”
“I am the magnificent!” Yes, yes you are. Like Booker T. in a funhouse.

21. Sly and The Family Stone – “Family Affair”
Whoa your speaker’s blown dude! Nope it’s just the sound of a bass groove redlining. Sly’s sunniness clouds over into some of the deepest darkest music ever while still hitting that pleasure center. Genius.

22. The Chi-Lites – “Have You Seen Her”
Oh man that glorious fuzz guitar just undercuts the sweetness of the vocals perfectly. The aptly named Eugene Record was one of the 70s most under-appreciated songwriters.

23. Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose – “Treat Her Like a Lady”
This is always sound advice.

24. Baby Huey – “Running”
Baby Huey somehow never became a superstar despite having an amazing voice and knack for great songs and arrangements.

25. Jerry Butler – “Ain’t Understanding Mellow?”
Only the 70s could handle a song as passively chest hair medallioned as this one. Just bliss out on the vibes, baby.

26. Harry Nilsson – “Jump Into The Fire”
Harry Nilsson was some kind of self-destructive genius, John Lennon’s lost weekend buddy and the guy who wrote “Without You” as an over-the-top lark only to have it covered by the likes of Mariah Carey sans irony. Then there’s this barnburner, a stomping workout that doesn’t let-up with a bass part that is gluteous cuppingly awesome.

27. Delroy Wilson – “Better Must Come”
Delroy’s signature tune has the resonance of the best soul songs – that touch of gospel deliverance and yearning coupled to an unstoppable rhythm.

28. Arthur Lee – “Everybody’s Gotta Live”
Love frontman Arthur Lee went solo with this typically incisive and catchy song – another in a canon that is just beginning to be accorded the respect he deserves.

29. Colin Blunstone – “I Hope I Didn’t Say Too Much Too Soon Last Night”
Zombies vocalist Blunstone deploys his distinctive voice on this wonderful B-Side which accompanied his very Nick Drake like foray into solo-dom.

30. John Kongos – “Step On”
Covered quite well by Happy Mondays in 1990, this is the real deal – a little touch of the contemporaneous glam sound T. Rex was inventing but with a stomping rhythm track that will have you stepping in time and maybe even doing The Roach.

31. Aretha Franklin – “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Aretha puts the church into Simon and Garfunkel’s mega-hit from the year before and naturally, makes this her own. When Aretha wants your song she bloody well takes it man.

32. Deep Purple – “Anyone’s Daughter”
Probably not what people think of when they think Deep Purple – a jaunty countrified lament.

33. L.V. Johnson – “Doncha Mess With my Money, My Honey, or My Woman”
Some pretty clear instructions but the guy sure like’s his honey doesn’t he? I would have thought “honey” was synonymous with the first or last thing on his list but apparently not.

34. Todd Rundgren – “Who’s That Man”
Todd fills his first album with a range of stylistic references including this, a quick nick from The Velvet Underground’s sound which in turn would be pilfered by David Bowie in coming years.

35. Tony Orlando and Dawn – “Knock Three Times”
What the? Hear me out – this is a cheeseball classic for a reason. A pastiche of the kind of songs Lieber and Stoller were cranking out in the early 60s hides behind Tony’s mustache.

36. Can – “Mushroom”
A huge influence on everything from Talking Heads to Pavement to Radiohead to PIL.

37. Joe Simon – “Drowning in the Sea of Love”
“I’ve been down one time..” Joe Simon really sounds like he’s drowning in this dramatic, obsessive lament.

38. Tami Lynn – “Mojo Hannah”
Straight from New Orleans, Tai Lynn’s tale of a voodoo priestess brought gutbucket funk to the fore.

39. Johnny Cash – “Man in Black”
Johnny helpfully answers the question “Hey Johnny, what’s with the black outfits?”

40. James Brown – “Soul Power”
Brown and band still at their peak with a syncopated call and response. Who needs a chorus or a bridge when you’ve got a groove?

41. Joni Mitchell – “River”
A heartrending memory song that stays on the right side of cloying despite incorporating elements from “Jingle Bells.”

42. The Stylistics – “Betcha By Golly, Wow”
The title sounds like a Sarah Palin stump speech but this is a deadly serious love song. Never have those words been intoned with such gravity.

43. Marcell Strong – “Mumble in My Ear”
This is some sexy stuff, hence the ridiculous image that believe it or not accompanies the only YouTube posting of this song. Honestly, the song already sounds like erect ladynipples, not sure we need to see them too. Not that I mind.

44. John Lennon – “Jealous Guy”
“Imagine” gets all the attention and yes, it’s a great song about atheism but this one hits the emotions in a whole different way. Therapy obviously unleashed a lot of stuff for Lennon and when he sings about losing control you believe it.

45. Yes – “I’ve Seen All Good People”
This is easy to laugh at but the intricate arrangements that punkers sneered at were also catchy as hell. At least on thsi song.

46. Alice Cooper – “Eighteen”
“Half a boy and half a man” sings Vince Furnier who himself was becoming his own band’s name, Alice Cooper. This was 60s garage rock blown up with a touch of grandiosity and a dollop of tongue and cheek – signposts both for grunge, hair metal and indeed Marilyn Manson.

47. The Who – “Behind Blue Eyes”
In a weird way this song all made sense for me at the concert for 9/11 first responders in New York, where the Who played a version for a rapturous audience of worn out Ground Zero workers. It’s something unusual in rock, a requiem for the authority figure who wields power and is aware of the moral conundrum inherent in being, say, a country that values freedom but stands for oppression to some people. And it rocks.

48. Black Sabbath – “Sweet Leaf”
Ozzy’s ode to the ganja – heavy riffs redolent of bong smoke propel this woozy, wobbling wonder.

49. The Grass Roots – “Temptation Eyes”
Creed fro the Office and his bandmates rock out on this tribute to the eye-screw. Any of these lines probably went over well in the eras singles bars. The horn chart is pretty stellar too. Covered memorably with a gender switch by The Blake Babies.

50. Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”
Marvin Gaye breaks out of the Motown assembly line to write and produce this classic. While the social commentary is tame compared what Sly and The Family Stone and others were doing, it edged Motown towards a cultural relevance they were in danger of losing touch with.

51. Melanie – “Brand New Key”
Ah the old rollerskates as vagina metaphor.

52. Niney The Observer – “Blood and Fire”
Sampled brilliantly this year by PJ Harvey, this never gets old. “Let it burn” teases Niney and you can hear The Bronx burning a few years later to a disco beat, roofs on fire to hip-hop, and L.A. in flames over Rodney King.

53. Hollies – “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)”
The Neil Young business was booming in the early 70s, so much so that the likes of The Hollies and America with the execrable “Horse With No Name” felt compelled to fill the market with knock-offs. The Hollies were no shlock merchants and thus this track is high quality indeed.

54. Ringo Starr – “It Don’t Come Easy”
Ringo’s greatest hit via George.

55. The Who – “Baba O’Reilly”
The Who had an album chock full of CSI themes in waiting but this might be the best of them, starting with that hypnotic synthesizer pattern in honor of Townshend’s titular guru.

56. Lee Sain – “Them Hot Pants”
Hot pants – pro or con? Apparently this was a big topic in the early part of the decade, at least udging by the multitude of soul songs on the subject. Sain comes down firmly on the “pro” side opining: “They all look good in hot pants…”

57.Joe Tex – “Give The Baby Anything That The Baby Wants”
The existential question is whether Joe is talking about his chick or his own insatiable inner self, the baby inside us all that wants wants wants.

58. The Beach Boys – “Til I Die”
Whoa heavy man … some of their most psychedelic thoughts beautifully sculpted into a soundscape for depressive rumination by Brian Wilson.