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.

59. The Poppy Family – “Evil Grows”
Control freak alert! Note that this is the same dude who sang “Seasons in the Sun” which is even scarier.

60. The Staple Singers – “Heavy Makes You Happy”
Still not sure if this is about preferring fat broads, but I like to think it is.

61. The Rolling Stones – “Moonlight Mile”
Epically gorgeous, every Guns N Roses ballad aspired to this (and fell short). The strings were highly controversial at the time, no-one had added orchestration to rock as down and dirty as the Stones before. And it kills.

62. Tom Jones – “She’s a Lady”
Of course this is ridiculous but it’s also great.

63. The Dramatics – “Watcha See is Watcha Get”
It’s that Latin rhythm that puts this over, plus the great vocals and timeless message “Some people are made of plastic, some people are made of wood, some people are up to no good…” These guys know that with all the coke snorting and the heavy hand of “the man”, the gals are likely to be paranoid and need to be talked down.

64. Eugene McDaniels – “Jagger The Dagger”
This comes on like a really mellow acid trip that keeps threatening to get heavy but never quite does. Sampled heavily by the likes of Tribe Called Quest and why not? Brilliant.

65. King Floyd – “Groove Me”
More of a command than a request, befitting the appellation “King”.

66. The Staple Singers – “Respect Yourself”
While Madonna was about Expressing ones self, the Staples started with the basics, good old R-E-S=P-E-C-T. It helps when you have a killer bassline too.

67. Bobby Womack – “Communication”
Womack may have been reared on Sam Cooke but he’s all about JB on this and more’s the better.

68. Rasputin’s Stash – “Mr. Cool”
Beck lifted a big chunk of this but it’s all even better in context from the handsmack sound effect to the giant hit of reefer that opens the track.

69. David Bowie – “Life on Mars?”
While much of Bowie’s output was a bit too fey for me at this point, this remains a beautiful and moving song – so much so that it lent it’s emotional heft to the acclaimed BBC show of the same name and it’s American remake.

70. Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band – “Scorpio”
Hot Detroit instrumental funk. Also clearly the best Zodiac sign.

71. T. Rex – “(Bang a Gong) Get It On”
The song most people know by T.Rex and it’s a great calling card, reaching back to Chuck Berry and forward to Prince and kicking off the whole glam movement.

72. Freda Payne – “You Bought The Joy”
Named like a shrink in a Dick tracy comic, Payne had a set of killer 70s soul hits. This one starts to edge ever closer to what would become disco but still keeps bouncing back to classic soul.

73. Focus – “Hocus Pocus”
Gauranteed to put a smile on your face. Yodelling and guitar wanking? Nothing I can say more can top this YouTube comment: “This song makes me want to sniff cocaine out of a wooden clog…”

74. Lee Michaels – “Do You Know What I Mean”
Kind of a weird faux reggae by way of New Orleans, this is his one big hit and it’s pretty great.

75. Paul McCartney – “Too Many People”
McCartney took his early solo years as a chance to explore some of his favorite Beatles byways, one of which was the multi-section song aong the lines of side two of Abbey Road. When you write melodies as insidiously pretty as these the gambit can work. In theory it’s a companion piece to Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?”, attacking his former bandmate. But where Lennon is caustic and petty, McCartney is judgementally wistful.

76. Eric Donaldson – “Cherry Oh Baby”
Classic reggae later covered by the Stones.

77. The Emotions -”Blind Alley”
The Emotions cut their man to the core: “You’re not penetrating..” Ouch.

78. Paul McCartney – “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”
McCartney’s other big multi-section song of the year was this charming hit that is guaranteed to chase all other earworms away.

79. Bill Withers – “Ain’t No Sunshine”
This is all about the timing and phrasing.

80. Tommy James – “Draggin’ The Line”
Tommy James says goodbye to the Shondells and bubblegum and hello to hippy-dippie rhymes with some boss horn charts.

81. Baby Huey – “Hard Times”
Great socially conscious funk – Curtis Mayfield slowed this down on his version and melted into the despair of the lyrics but Huey’s tougher attack is downright angry.

82. The Move – “Message From The Country”
The Move was about to morph into Electric Light Orchestra but before that happened they still had some graceful pop songs in the hopper. Jeff Lynne would take these Beatles-esque melodies and run with them in ELO during the same year.

83. Lee Dorsey – “Yes We Can Can”
The great Lee Dorsey with one of his signature tunes, oft-covered but rarely bettered.

84. The Buoys – “Timothy”
This may be one of the only hits ever recorded about 3 miners trapped in a mine and turning to cannibalism. If you don’t count “Blame it On The Rain” by Milli Vanilli.

85. The Doors – “L.A. Woman”
The Doors tribute to their hometown – after years of seeming irrelevance Jim Morrison and company made a strong comeback which would be painfully cut off by his death in Paris. A masterful song that shows off the band at it’s best.

86. Jerry Reed – “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”
Long before he was Burt Reynolds’ sidekick in the Smokey and The Bandit films Reed was a country music star. The guitar playing good timer ably straddled genres with this ode to the hot streak.

87. Ike and Tina Turner – “Proud Mary”
They didn’t do anything nice, and easy. The Creedence cover that brought them mainstream success but proved hard to follow up commercially.

88. Yoko Ono – “Midsummer New York”
Yoko Ono was accorded little respect in music circles in 1971 and it’s only in the last few decades that her avant-rock has been seen as the influence it is on music as varied as The Slits, Sonic Youth, L7 and countless others. This molten blues is the equal of anything on her husband’s contemporary album.

89. B.T. Expess – “Express”

90. The Moody Blues – “The Story in our Eyes”

91. The 8th Day – “She’s Not Just Another Woman”

92. Carpenters – “Superstar”

93. Electric Light Orchestra – “10538 Overture”

94. Pink Floyd – “One of These Days”

95. The Flamin’ Groovies – “Teenage Head”

96.Eddie Floyd – “Oh, How It Rained”

97. Led Zeppelin – “When The Levee Breaks”

98. Grateful Dead – “Truckin’”

99. Isaac Hayes – “Theme From Shaft”

100. Osmonds – “One Bad Apple”

…and the 24 best albums of 1971.

24. Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On?

23. Beach Boys – Surf’s Up

22. Badfinger – Straight Up

21. The Doors – L.A. Woman

20. Curtis Mayfield – Roots

19. Todd Rundgren – Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren

18. Paul McCartney – Ram

17. Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey

16. Faces – A Nod is as Good as a Wink…to a Blind Horse

15. Al Green – Al Green Gets Next to You

14. Black Sabbath – Master of Reality

13. Harry Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson

12. Joni Mitchell – Blue

11. Baby Huey – The Baby Huey Story: Living Legend

10. John Lennon – Imagine

9. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain

8. Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells a Story

7. Can – Tago Mago

6. The Who – Who’s Next

5. Lee Moses – Time and Place

4. The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies

3. T. Rex – Electric Warrior

2. Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

1.  Sly and The Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On

The first year of the new decade is coming to a close, and it was an intriguing if not exceptional year for music. there were signs that hip hop was emerging from the doldrums of sound-alike rhymers with little to say, new stars shone in the indie rock firmament and the parade of reunion shows continued with Pavement representing the high and Soundgarden the low of this trend.

The record industry continued to cling to ever more elaborate re-issues (the Syl Johnson CD vinyl combo box, the Springsteen and Stones reissues, yet another Hendrix box) as a way to tap into the old people market – they are one of the only groups left willing to spend on a physical product. The danger for the industry is that sales of downloads seem to also be leveling off.

However you choose to purchase music, these are the 30 albums that in my opinion made the year an enjoyable one. To the list!

30. Les Savvy Fav – Root For Ruin

Their smoothest and most hooky album yet, particularly on “Let’s Get Out Of Here”, a shoulda been hit about hooking up (below in a charming acoustic version.) Not all of it works but the stuff that does kills, and there are in jokes galore including a shout-out to the Silver Jews in post rehab mode.

29. The Walkmen – Lisbon

These guys have settled into perfecting their woozy morning-after sound and this is the finest distillation yet, without the detours of previous record like the glorious Faces sound-alike “The Rat.” The very consistency can seem boring but repeat listenings reward.

28. Superchunk – Majesty Shredding

After years away the ‘Chunk return and it’s as if no time has passed. Hooks jump out, tempos drive, Mac implores – it’s all good if you’re a fan. And I am. Mac and Laura are the Jay-Z of indie rock with their Merge label but also like Jay, they still love the music as much as the business.

27. Wolf Parade – Expo 86

These guys have gone from being the hippest of the hip to indie rock pariahs in the course of three records, and have now called it quits. The band members each have interesting and now more feted side projects but this was unfairly maligned – a funny, swinging, rocking record that restates strengths and suggests new paths with some new wave coloration here and there.

26. Holly Miranda – The Magician’s Private Library

This has a sly mysterious vibe, aided by producer and TV on The Radio mastermind Dave Sitek who creates dense noir atmospheres for her songs.

25. The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever

Losing a keyboardist has helped these guys evolve away from the Springsteen-isms of their past. For many their highlight will always be Boys and Girls in America but there’s nothing wrong with evolution, even if this record is more transitional than triumphant. There are hints of Stonesy folk here and Craig Finn’s yelping has actually become something closer to singing. When it worls it’s damn near glorious.

24. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

Cracked psychedelia in the tradition of Syd Barret and Roky Erikson, with weird detours that suggest the classic home recordings of  R. Stevie Moore. Pink has been knocking around for about a decade but it all comes together here, from songs about filthy hot tubs to filthy songs about hot teens, this suggests a fascinating career to come.

23. How to Dress Well – Love Remains

Just as Ariel Pink references “uncool” music of the past like Chicago, Hall & Oates and Ratt, Tom Krell uses this project to turn 80s and 90s R & B inside out with a sound that is like a Soul II Soul cassette tape left out to bleach on a car dashboard too long. Imagine My Bloody Valentine’s wooziest love songs performed by Keith Sweat, or peehaps it’s the other way around. Addictive.

22. These New Puritans – Hidden

These Brits decided their second album would be their OK Computer move, a 180 that redefines their formerly straight-ahead sound. This is fairly common for British bands from Coldplay all the way down the line to The Auteurs but few pull it off as well as Thom Yorke and the boys. These guys had a debut that blended well into the current Strokes-ian phase of British indie but this follow up delivers the goods, merging medieval harmonies and instrumentation with modern glossy hip-hop production for surprising and complex songs that stay on just the right side of prog rock.

21. Caribou – Swim

After the British invasion tinge of Caribou’s last album it’s a shock to hear the beats and experimentation come to the fore, but with the hooks intact. Head and shoulders above the rest is the amazing single “Odessa” but it’s an astounding record full of surprising touches.

20. Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo

This audacious debut brims with youthful verve, where every emotion is widescreen and a pair of semen stained jeans can mean so much. Lusty, lonely and lethal.

19. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

This moves further away from their low-fi noise roots and closer to a more classic sense of rock – if by classic you mean The Smiths, The Band, The each Boys and Depeche Mode. As unholy as it sounds it mostly works, even if the consistency rate is lower than the last album. The best songs here point the way forward.

18. Girls – Broken Dreams

Girls took the blogerati by storm last year and this EP is designed to bridge that breakthrough to their upcoming 2011 record. It’s a nice expansion of the their debut, winnowing their songwriting chops with bigger production and a formalists appreciation for great structure.

17. Surfer Blood – Astrocoast

A few years ago it was all Wolf this and Bear that in indie world, but now it’s all about surfing and waves (or Wavves to be precise). These Floridians got some Pixies comparisons but that misleads – there are few of that bands light/dark dynamics. Instead it’s like Vampire Weekend if you swapped out Paul Simon for Dick Dale as an influence.

16. Best Coast – Crazy For You

Beth Cosentino became the toast of the town with this sweet and sassy throwback to girl group goodness. The simple stuff works best sometimes and this is a case in point – hook-filled odes to boys and pot liable to give anyone a nostalgic high school flashback.

15. Das Racist – Sit Down, Man

“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”, last year’s absurdist consumer anthem, felt like a one off, but these guys came back with a stunning album (technically a mixtape) that draws meatily from hip-hops golden age with great wordplay and thoughtful samples while never succumbing to easy imitation.

14. Grinderman – Grinderman 2

Nick Cave’s more band oriented side project continues his streak of winners which started with their self-titled album and stretched through his most recent disc with The Bad Seeds ( who are all in Grinderman anyhow.) The tone is dark, natch, but the tongue is also in cheek in every sense of the term across these tracks.

13. Books – The Way Out

Books keep honing their particularly organic sounding take on electronica, with some great samples and sound collages to go along with the beats. The formula may be essentially unchanged but they reach beyond this with even better song flow and a deeper sense of irony.

12. Cee-Lo Green – The Lady Killer

Cee-Lo has been turning out intriguing solo albums since his rap group The Goodie Mob split but it took his collaboration with Danger Mouse, Gnarls Barkley, to bring his unique sensibility to a wider audience. Now he has a genuine hit of his own in the charming scatology of “Fuck You” (forget about “Forget You”, the Glee-endorsed clean version) and the rest of this album pulls together his vision of retro soul and future hip hop filled with hooks and that amazing voice.

11. Robert Plant – Band of Joy

Jimmy Page may have been Zep’s musical director but it’s frontman Plant who has found more fruitful outlets for his instrument, spending the last few records exploring a rootsy version of Americana that here embraces covers of artists as disparate as Low (twice!) and Los Lobos. You can hear the connection to the acoustic stuff on Led Zeppelin III but it never sounds force – rather it’s thrillingly authentic and comfortable.

10. Girl Talk -All Day

Available as a free download, Girl Talk continues to represent the boundary-less nature of music in our digital age. Even better, the mash ups and juxtapositions of gangsta rap, classic rock, indie pop, and whatever else Greg Gillis is distracted by, gets smoother and more seamless each time. This isn’t revelatory – if you’ve heard the last two you know what to expect but if you love it, you’ll love this.

9. Spoon – Transference

Britt Daniel has pretty much cemented the Spoon sound by now, even if it’s a bit scuzzed up in this incarnation. Therfore it’s easy to forgot this January release all the way in December – it’s just another Spoon record right? Yeah, which means it’s pretty damn great – rubbery bass lines, mistakes as hooks, punchy choruses, and ghostly afteraffects.

8. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The man America loves to hate shows why he belongs at teh center of pop. There are only a handful of music “superstars” these days who are known by a broad swath of the population, and even the people who know who tjhey are probably have trouble humming one of their songs. What sets Kanye apart from Lady Gaga for instance is where the artistic emphasis is. With Gaga it’s entirely presentational and fashion based, the songs could be anyone’s. Not so with Kanye. This is highly audacious pop that entwines hip-hop with soul, indie rock, and even prog rock courtesy of a much talked-about King Crimson sample. Easily his best album.

7. Sleigh Bells – Treats

While M.I.A. took a (an overdone) critical drubbing this year her proteges were making hay. Squalling guitars and slamming beats enmesh a gooey pop core.

6. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Arcade Fire make like they are R.E.M. in the 80s with yet another strong record, and a Grammy nom to boot. On their third these Canucks open up some of the oppressive production from the last record, letting the songs breathe more and finding new ways to get their apocalypse minded lyrics across whether it be  “Heart of Glass” style new wave disco on “The Sprawl II” or chugging post punk on “Month of May.” The title track is an instant classic.

5. Happy Birthday – Happy Birthday

Unfairly maligned by the likes of Pitchfork.com, this was a kaleidoscopic album that chews up a lot of different indie rock sounds and spits them back out with verve and a uniquely twisted viewpoint. The love of playing and creating comes through storngly here and every song is given just the right  treatment to go over. A band to watch.

4. The National – High Violet

So depressing but so damn good. The followup to their breakthrough record found these Brooklynites expanding on the deep chamber rock with pounding drums sound they first unveiled on Boxer but the songs are deeper, bolder, even more widescreen. “Afraid of Everyone” is incredibly funny and yet not funny at all in it’s evocation of paranoid parents fighting off unseen threats with their Totes umbrellas.

3. Black Keys – Brothers

Black Keys has been bumping up against the easy White Stripes comparisons for years now but following up from their Blackroc side project that added rappers to the mix, they took a quantum leap forward, abandoning the blues for a sound that is rooted in but not beholden to classic soul and R & B. Far and away the best thing they’ve done.

2. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

James Murphy retires his band moniker with a stellar record that welds his trademark humor and knack for a killer song with a dash of late 70s Bowie. What a way to go.

1. No Age – Everything In Between

Lots of No Age’s contemporaries (Deerhunter, Wavves) made the leap with them this year from lo-fi noise punk to tuneful, produced records but few did it with the sheer will to power of these guys. They still do the interstitial sound collages but now they link full blooded songs that aren’t quite punk, or indie rock, or anything except for consistently fascinating. Guitars growl and chime, T. Rex beats march in, and it all sounds like a band finding it’s calling. Awesome.

Welcome to 1975. The idea of punk rock as a movement was still a year or two in the future, the charts were a grab bag of rock, easy listening, soul, funk, and an emerging dance genre known as disco. Naturally looking at just the albums masks this vibrancy a bit (perhaps a follow-up of 1975′s best songs should be in the offing) but nonetheless you can see that variety and breadth of interesting music that was afoot. Keep in mind this is a highly subjective list but I’m always eager to hear your picks in the Comments. To the list!

40. Black Sabbath – Sabotage
Not bad for a band running out of steam. After pioneering metal at the beginning of the decade Sabbath was starting to decline under the weight of touring and substance abuse but there was no stopping Tony Iommi’s riff-power. In some ways this was their most diverse record and underrated to boot.

39. The Who – The Who by Numbers
Neither the best nor the worst album by The Who, this does rank near the bottom for their classic lineup – which means it’s still pretty damn good. Slight fare like “Squeeze Box” jostles up against self pitying tunes like “However Much I Booze” but gems like “Blue Red and Gray” and “Slip Kid” bring that old Who magic back. Just don’t listen to it back to back with Who’s Next.

38. Thin Lizzy- Fighting
Thin Lizzy only had one real hit in America but these Brits did hard rock exceptionally well in the mid-70s combining a twin guitar attack with frontman Phil Lynott’s anthems. This is tough and sinewy, with more in common with American bands like Aerosmith and later on, Cheap Trick. One of their best.

37. David Bowie – Young Americans
You can make the argument that a whole generation of British post-punk – Duran Duran, ABC, Level 42 – soul and disco leaning but chilled with a particular distance and knowing. Uneven this may be but the high points are mighty high – the title track, the Lennon collaboration on “Fame”, “Fascination”‘s faux Philly aided and abetted by Luther Vandross.

36. Parliament -  Chocolate City
George Clinton and crew had a grand old time in the 70s once Funkadelic hit it big, re-starting original group The Parliaments as just Parliament and spinning off various side groups such as The Brides of Funkenstein and bass playing wonder Bootsy Collins all with the avowed purpose of signing to as many record labels as they could at one time. This slice of funky goodness is an ode to Washington DC as “CC” , the Chocolate City of the title and the capital of black America. Compared to Washington’s thriving black population, the thin veneer of white politicos changing with the tides of voters whims seems hardly part of the city’s culture at all. What’s not thin are the throbbing beats and rubbery rhythms that made Clinton the heir apparent to the funk mantle recently vacated by Sly Stone.

35. Rod Stewart – Atlantic Crossing
What? Rod Stewart? Modern ears are accustomed to dismissing the old randy goat as an embarrassing discofied de-virginizer (ie “Tonights’s The Night”), serial model marry-er, and latter-day “interpreter” of songs that never did him any harm. Yet up until the late 70s he was one of the most vital musicians around, recording great albums solo and with the Faces that defined the intersection between greasy barroom rock and gritty neo folk. This is not one of those albums. However even as a transition to his later, cheesy era this has much to recommend it with strong often funny songs and winning performances. As the title intimates Rod was going from British cheeky upstart to American entertainer but catching him midway had its virtues.

34. 10cc – The Original Soundtrack
Not an actual soundtrack to anything but the movies in the minds of the likes of Godley & Creme and Graham Gouldman, songwriters who drove this quirky band through this, their final album with the original line-up. Like Sparks, they plied tongue in cheek material that isn’t to everyone’s taste but unlike that American band they actually scored a big whopping hit off this album, the sublime “I’m Not In Love.”

33. Sly Stone – High on You
There’ s no doubt that Sly’s classic period was over by 1973 or so, and yet this album has aged quite well, particularly in comparison to other funk and soul records of the era. It’s still uniquely Sly, from his blurry stoned mumble to the sideways rhythms and warm backing vocals. Disco may have been overtaking his brand of funk but there were still some great sounds left in the guy.

32. ZZ Top -  Fandango!
ZZ Top was breaking out of the regional Texas bar circuit in a big way by 1975 and they celebrated with this half-life, half-studio guitar boogie Frankenstein. Some of their best songs are here from the hilarious “Tush” (the “Baby’s Got Back” of its era) to the radio station tribute “Heard it on The X.” Their live shows were legendary at this point as well and these recordings don’t disappoint. Classic ZZ before they morphed into their 80s techno-blues incarnation.

31. John Fogerty – John Fogerty
Fogerty’s first solo album post-Creedence was the all-covers Blue Ridge Rangers project so this was really his first set of new songs in several years. Though it’s not all up to snuff there are at least two stunners here “Almost Saturday Night” and “Rockin’ All Over the World.”

30. Richard & Linda Thompson – Pour Down Like Silver
The Thompsons are best known for the albums that bookend their career and marriage together but the stuff in the middle, like this one, were also of very high quality. Richard Thompson is a blazingly great guitar player and songwriter and Linda can sing like nobody’s business. This is a spare subdued affair with a bit less of the humor they often pepper through their other work. A clue to the spareness is the Sufi garb that they sport on the front and back as Richard converted to this ascetic form of Islam shortly after the album was completed, with Linda following reluctantly.

29. Ian Hunter – Ian Hunter
As influential classic band Mott The Hoople imploded, frontman Hunter took ex-Bowie guitar whiz Mick Ronson with him to embark on a solo career that highlighted just how great a songwriter Hunter was (and is). This is packed with gems all set in killer hard-rock arrangements just this side of Stones-like. The best known track here is “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” covered with much commercial success in a hair-metal version by Great White – a band that knew the only way they’d make it big was to score someone else’s great stuff.

28. Kraftwerk -  Radio-Activity
The Germans. A warm fun-loving cuddly group. Seriously though, Kraftwerk took years of electronic avant-garde music and added pop structures, thus paving the way for an entire genre and several subgeneres. This isn’t as “of-a-piece” as Autobahn but it’s still an immersive trip into the past’s conception of the future.

27. John Cale – Helen of Troy
John Cale was on a roll in 1974-1975, releasing three excellent albums. Though Lou Reed had the higher pop profile post Velvet Underground, Cale was already becoming known as a go-to producer for quirky artists like The Stooges. To that end he covers The Modern Lovers “Pablo Picasso”, a song that he produced for the seminal Johnathan Richman led group a year earlier but which remained unreleased through the whole of 1975 and most of ’76. His originals were just as strong, atmospheric dark and driving. As a songwriter Cale was definitely giving his former bandmate a run for his money. This is also a great set of musicians playing their asses off behind Cale including Eno, Chris Spedding and Phil Collins pounding the skins (where he belongs).

26. Tony Allen – Jealousy
Tony Allen is one of the greatest beatmasters in the world, best known for underpiining Fela Kuti during his classic phase.  His effortless polyrhythms and driving tempos not surprisingly underpin the long songs on this solo record. The main difference between this and Fela’s prodigious output is the more open-sounding arrangements but quality-wise, this is right up there with stellar work Fela’s band was doing in this period.

25. Queen – A Night at the Opera
In retrospect it’s impressive how eclectic Queen was. At this stage they were considered prog-rock but their sense of melody and playfulness already set them well apart from the likes of Emerson, Lake and Palmer or Yes. Obviously there’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, their signature song, an epic rock meets opera souffle with slashing electric guitars that must have been on Jim Steinman’s mind when he set out to make a star out of Meat Loaf. There’s the sweet “You’re My Best Friend” and the goofball autoerotica of “I’m In Love With My Car.” A widescreen delight.

24. Bob Dylan & The Band – The Basement Tapes
By the early 70s a bootleg scene was up and running, a precursor to today’s file sharing free for all. One of the most fervently bootlegged sessions were the tapes made by Bob Dylan and The Band during his post-motorcycle crash exile in Woodstock, a mysterious and intriguing period that Dylanologists still pore over. Leave it to Dylan to be the first artist to “officially” release bootlegs, though the committed will argue that what made the cut on this double-album was only the tip of the iceberg. But what a tip! Dylan and friends whip up a slew of originals that sound ancient and loose, like greasebucket covers of other people’s standards.

23. Roxy Music – Siren
Along with Bowie, Roxy were a huge influence on 80s new wave, new romantic, and pretty much any other scene with ‘new” as a modifier. Arch as Bryan Ferry could be, he knew how to write and interpret songs in a way that called to mind the distance of glam rock and the power of great soul music. Then there was the band which included guitar great Phil Manzanera and the wonderful Paul Thompson on drums. At this point the band was streamlining their sound to a fine pop sheen, yielding their biggest worldwide hit to date, “Love is the Drug.”

22. Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac were a folky British blues band well past it’s prime until they absorbed the California singing/songwriting duo Buckingham-Nicks. Now their killer rhythm section and secret weapon singer Christine McVie were augmented by the melodic expertise of Lindsey Buckingham and the mystical throatiness of Stevie Nicks, resulting in this breakthrough and their biggest seller yet. It also resulted in a series of romantic entanglements that would inform their follow-up album, the masterpiece Rumours.

21. Smokey Robinson – A Quiet Storm
The Jay-Z of his time: high-powered record exec by day, creamy voiced inventor of an entire musical genre by night.

20. NEU! – Neu! ’75
Can may have ruled the Krautrock universe in the late 60s and early 70s but by the mid 70s Kraftwerk had brought a chilly synthesized sheen that began to influence disco. Former Kraftwerk bandmates Neu! had already altered the chugging rhythms of Can to pioneer the Motorik sound at the beginning of the decade. Here they reunited after several years to fuse their pioneering artpunk with some of the plasticized sounds that were emerging from their peers. The result was great glassy planes of pure sound, with involving chord changes and rhythmic textures. This is the basis for future stuff by bands as diverse as Public Image Ltd. and Stereolab.

19. Paul Simon -  Still Crazy After All These Years
Paul Simon emerged from duoness with Art Garfunkel in the 70s as a stronger, more interesting performer – a singer songwriter like James Taylor and Carly Simon perhaps but with something interesting to say and far better songs to say it in. It’s telling that the weakest song here is his reunion with Garfunkel. In many ways this is a midlife crisis album ranging from the meditative funkiness of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (a song that made my 4 year old self bop around the room) to the Warren Beatty in Shampoo inspired “Have a Good Time.”

18. Brian Eno – Another Green World
Eno was right on the cusp of becoming, well, ENO here. Song structures are beginning to slough away in favor of texture and repetition yet vestiges of his earlier pop-oriented songwriting are still on display. The instrumental stuff here is clearly where Bowie would take inspiration for his similar stuff a few years later and Eno would begin to flatten this out and extend the soundscapes further to invent ambient music. A fascinating transitional record.

17. The Kinks – Schoolboys in Disgrace
The Kinks were themselves in disgrace by the mid 70s. Their classic 60s work had given way to their cult 60s work when they were banned from touring the US by the musicians union, only to be followed by their biggest hit in 1971 with “Lola.” RCA saw them as a glam band thanks to the content of that track but leader Ray Davies had other things in mind and led them through a series of ambitious (and at times underrated) concept albums with dwindling sales and diminishing artistic results culminating in the dreary Soap Opera. Being another concept album, this was greeted with similar disdain but by focusing on the simpler rock of their youth within the classic British schoolboy setting they found the way out of their rut. The songs are top notch – funny, clever and most importantly rocking. On subsequent albums this was the sound that would lead them to their biggest American area rock success. Yes, it may lack the subtlety of Village Green or Muswell Hillbillies but this has it’s own charms and pleasures. Another great transitional record from 1975.

16. Betty Davis – Nasty Gal
Its says it right on the cover and nasty she is. This is some of the decade’s best funk, courtesy of the former Mrs. Miles Davis. Ex hubbie shows up on the amazing “You and I” with an assist from Gil Evans – it’s a bit of a ringer considering the raunchy stuff surrounding it but as a whole this album is stellar.

15. Fela Kuti – Expensive Shit
James Brown reached back to Africa to invent his brand of polyrhythmic funk and Africa reached back with Fela, who took Brown’s innovations and expanded on them. In this case quite literally, with each side of this LP taken up by a single long song each. This is burning hot stuff all the more impressive for being one of three fine discs he released in 1975.

14. John Cale -  Slow Dazzle
Cale’s other 1975 release was equally stunning. The centerpiece is a squalling cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” but his originals are every bit up to the task including the winning “Ski Patrol” and descriptive “Dirty-Ass Rock and Roll.”

13. Curtis Mayfield – There’s No Place Like America Today
Mayfield isn’t praising 1975 America with this album title, he’s underlying the irony he sees all around him. That’s not to say the album is a total bummer – Mayfield in peak form is too good to let that happen. “Hard Times” and “Billy Jack” hit the topical themes but “So in Love” takes a softer sweeter tack. A killer soul album from an artist at his peak.

12. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Tonight’s the Night
The overdose death of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten hit Neil Young hard, and was compounded by the death of roadie Bruce Berry leading to the recording of this album in 1973. Young sat on the material until releasing it with little fanfare in 1975 when despite limited commercial success it began to be viewed as one of his best and rawest statements and that verdict continues to hold true.

11. Steely Dan – Katy Lied
I get the school of thought that Steely Dan is overblown jazz fusion for turtleneck wearing aesthetes. What that doesn’t take into account are the sly subversive lyrics and sturdy melodies in the best of Fagen and Becker’s songs. Working with the cream of L.A.’s session musicians to perfect a slick highly arranged set of tunes that often come with a barb in their tails. Subsequent albums would start to buckle a bit under the conceptual weight of this sound but this is Dan at their very best.

10. Aerosmith – Toys in the Attic
Slagged off as second string Stones, the so-called Toxic Twins were capable of moving past the superficial comparisons to chart some territory of their own even while taking off from similar blues roots. Along with follow-up Rocks, this is the band at their absolute peak of songwriting power, delivering lean rockers like the title track alongside the soaring hard boogie rock of “Sweet Emotion” and the swing and swagger of “Walk This Way.” A great album that served as a blueprint for the hair metal bands to come in the following decade.

9. Joni Mitchell – The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Like Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell was integrating jazz musicians and music into her songwriting by the mid-70s though her starting place was singer-songwriterly folk rather than rock. This led to a set of groundbreaking albums of which this is my personal favorite. A particular highlight is the stunning “Jungle Line” shifting pulsing insinuations which sound utterly contemporary today. The combination of urban and ancient captured in the neat cover illustration infuses the whole record as does the languid Chandler-esque feel of the title.

8. Allen Toussaint – Southern Nights
The title track would be become one of country superstar Glen Campbell’s biggest hits, but songwriter Toussaint’s take is still the definitive one and the surrounding album only magnify and heighten its charms. Toussaint is still better known as one of New Orleans premier songwriters, producers and session men than as a recording artist in his own right but his keyboard work and singer are terrific across each track here. Superior atmospheric rhythm and blues with that distinctive New Orleans twist.

7. Richard & Linda Thompson – Hokey Pokey
Critics often give the nod to the Thompson’s other 1975 album, also on this list but Hokey Pokey gets the edge from me for it’s rockier arrangements and higher humor quotient. From the bawdy title track to the send-up of religion “Mole in a Hole” this is top notch. “Mole” is especially ironic as both Thompson’s would convert to Sufism by the year’s end.

6. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Latter-day Floyd were often at their best when grappling with the living ghost that was their former leader, Syd Barrett. It’s not surprising that his specter would loom large in the wake of their massive commercial breakthrough with 1973′s Darkside of The Moon. This followup is centered around the long suites of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, explicitly about Barrett’s madness but the title track similarly seems a lament for his distance. Not surprisingly these are juxtaposed with dark satirical looks at the industry machinery that chews up delicate artistry in “Welcome to The Machine” and “Have a Cigar” in which a record exec asks “Which ones Pink?

5. The Dictators – Go Girl Crazy!
The missing link between the Stooges and The Ramones (see their cover of “California Sun”), the Dictators were outer-boroughs pop-culture junkies who played up their boorishness but were actually smart as hell. Dressed and billed like wrestlers the songs have a history major’ sense of knuckleheaded humor that went with the band name – “Master Race Rock” and “Back to Africa” indeed. This is sludgy metal-infused punk before such a thing existed and with a sense of humor to boot. Great fun.

4. Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
Broooooce! Does this album need much explanation? When I’m not in the mood the quasi-Spector arrangements and foursquare rhythms feel bombastic and overbearing. In the spirit however this stuff can be transcendent, revving up old tricks from the 50s and 60s with Bruce’s poetics of the workingman lyrics. In some way it also helped refocus a music a scene enamored of masturbatory prog rock statements back on the basics of solid songwriting and passionate performances. With Bruce, it was cool to care again.

3. Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
Dylan’s run of pure genius seemed to have finally faltered by the early 70s, with inconsistent albums and performances that suggested that one of the greatest forces in music may well have been spent. This coincided with the dissolution of his marriage leading him to go back to his acoustic folk roots and to essay a singer songwriter album head and shoulders above what folkies come lately like James Taylor were squirting out. Not anything new from Dylan but a quietly firm restatement of his songwriting prowess.

2. Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti

Click the link on the album name to see some awesome footage of “Kashmir”, for my money the best song Zeppelin ever did and which is contained on this monumental double album. Here Jimmy Page and the boys stretch out on their most diverse set ever touching on the middle eastern flavors of the aforementioned track, country, hard rock, acoustic blues and then some. The Beatles’ White Album and The Clash’s Sandanista! are fair comparisons, records that welcome endless exploration even as they can seem frustrating in their sprawl.

1. Patti Smith -  Horses
Patti Smith came out of the first generation that had experienced rock criticism as a valid response to music, and was herself a published critic as well as poet. Poetry can be deadly when combined with rock (see Jim Morrison’s worst lyrics and most of his poetry for proof) but Smith, along with garage rock expert Lenny Kaye, makes this stuff work. Smith’s raw imagery and music and impassioned performances were hugely influential on punk and alternative music, and the personal liberation in the music is matched by her penetrating stare in the Mapplethorpe portrait on the cover. It’s the best of 1975 not just for the great music inside but for the future it pointed to.

More best lists…

The year 1980 marked the waning of the malaise era in America and the second year of Thatcher in the UK.  The anything goes 70s was being supplanted by the glossy, go-go 80s where the shiny surface masked such travails as AIDS and a resurgent Cold War.

The first year of the decade catches music frozen in midstream – hip-hop is beginning to surface across singles and a few albums such as Kurtis Blow’s debut, disco still lived, post-punk was giving way to new wave, and classic rock wasn’t yet classic. Here then are the 40 best albums of 1980:

40. The Sound – Jeopardy
Mostly overlooked in the UK during their career and wholly overlooked in the US where their albums weren’t even released, The Sound seems an unlikely candidate for a best of the year list. They now have a small but deserved cult following who quite rightly slot them in alongside contemporaries like XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs with leading a tough tuneful postpunk sound that still impacts bands like The Strokes and Spoon today.

39. Robert Palmer – Clues
On his way to louche Power Station lead singer and solo artist backed by manikin models, Robert Palmer was actually interesting. His 70s albums usually had fine songs and a crack band putting the man through some hot R & B paces (Sneaking Sally Through the Alley is the best of these). Clues was a left-turn towards new wave and rock signaled by the Gary Numan cover but achieved more ably on songs like “Johnny and Mary” and the delightful title track. Palmer’s previous rhythm excursions serve to underpin everything here with a strong groove, grounding the record and connecting it to his past work just as the harder edge looked forward to the ersatz rock of his future commercial breakthrough.

38. The Fall - Grotesque (After the Gramme)
The Fall’s first essential album, this chugs along consistently with some of Mark E. Smith’s best songs and freshest rants. The hooks are there and the playing stays on the right side of tight. It’s not hard to imagine “New Face in Hell” lodging in young Stephen Morrissey’s brain as a touchpoint just as “How I Wrote Plastic Man” would be later transmuted by Elastica.

37. Pylon – Gyrate
Pylon came out of the same fertile Athens, Ga. Scene as The B-52s and R.E.M. but never had a scintilla of the commercial success that those other two bands did. What they did have was a spring wound sound that owed more than a little to the Gang of Four. In this they actually were similar to R.E.M. at this point in their careers. Singer Vanessa Briscoe helps to distinguish the band from their British forebears and their co-scenesters as does the cooly detached guitar playing of Randy Bewley which recalls Tom Verlaine. Gyrate is terrific album which marries the herky jerky rhythms to the atmospheric and even majestic arrangements.

36. Alex Chilton – Like Flies on Sherbert
Released in many forms and different times across different labels and countries, this captures Chilton at his career bottoming out on the cusp of re-discovery and a major shift in focus away from rock to gutbucket R & B and standards. Though it’s been described as a sorry mess, the high art sloppiness of artists like Spoon and lo-fi fetishism of Bob Pollard give this  record a kinder frame of reference. Covers like “Boogie Shoes” are stripped to deranged minimums while the prickly guitar squalling of “My Rival” neatly prefigures Sonic Youth and Pixies. For those who were interested in seeing how far Chilton could go after Big Star’s Sister Lovers it’s a bracing trip.

35. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
The knock on The Police is that they were a bunch of cynical journeyman who lucked into punk and new wave and rode it to success. While that’s true to a point, it misses the song skills of one Gordon Sumner, along with the elegant instrumental chops of all three members, without which they would have been little more than three bottles of blond hair-dye. On this, album number three, the band began to tap into their ambition with bigger, more anthemic songs and an eye for world events. While Sting’s pomposity is always lurking the sheer joy evident in the grooves is enough to keep it at bay, delivering what might be the band’s most consistent record.

34. The Suburbs - In Combo
For a brief moment in 1980 the Minneapolis rock scene was dominated by this band, whose guitars and synths sound would be soon eclipsed in local adulation by the harder edged punk of Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum even as they persevered. The songs here borrow from British punk, American punk, funk, and post-punk and it works, prefiguring bands like Interpol and the Killers while still hewing to their own distinct sound.

33. Prince – Dirty Mind
Like the Suburbs, Prince was sent forth from Minneapolis to commingle elements of several different genres in new and better ways. While his 1978 debut suggested a Funkadelic follower this third album added to the palette with pop and rock arrangements and some stunning songs like “When You Were Mine” and the salacious “Head.”  Aptly titled, this signaled the start of his hot and heavy phase which also coincided with his songwriting and commercial peak over the next decade.

32. The Cars - Panorama
The Cars were looking to vary things a bit on their third outing. Already one of the most successful new wave bands (the new wave moniker was ironic since they were Bostonians), Ocasek, Ben Orr and company wanted to get cred as artists as well. Ocasek even produced pioneering synth duo Suicide’s second album, surely a sign of where his head was at. Indeed Panorama is darker and less immediate than the hook extravaganzas that were the Cars’ first two albums. The single, “Touch and Go”, is one of the band’s best and most challenging songs combining icy Tangerine Dream-ish verses with bouncy country and western derived choruses. Not surprisingly the single and album stiffed.

31. The Brains- The Brains
The Brains blew some minds in 1980 with their off-kilter new wave, yet never achieved the success they deserved (like so many of these albums). Their debut included their best known song, “Money Changes Everything”, made famous three years later by Cyndi Lauper’s hit cover. There is more here than just that song though – The Brains suggested an alternate take on classic rock sensibilities fused with post-punk approaches to songwriting and instrumentation that sets them apart from bands with similar components like The Cars. The Brain’s touchstones were as likely to be Mott The Hoople as opposed to Roxy Music. A terrific lost classic.

30. Iggy Pop - Soldier
By 1980 Iggy’s career had been well and truly revived in the wake of punk and three excellent solo albums. So it’s understandable that Soldier isn’t quite on par with his best – it’s still pretty damn good. This is despite a tortured creation process that according to rumor included fights with Bowie, James Williamson, and the session band. Said band includes ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock who by then was in The Rich Kids. Still you can’t beat down and dirty Iggy like “Dog Food” or the sublime “Low Life.”

29. Suicide – The Second Album
This Ric Ocasek-produced gem was originally and oddly credited to Suicide’s two members, Martin Rev and Alan Vega, but subsequent re-issues have rectified this and returned it to the seminal band’s catalog. Suicide’s first album was ahead-of-its-time ghostly synthpop in 1977 and so it is with this follow-up. However the palette has broadened considerably from their groundbreaking debut. The music is still electronic but the sound is bigger, the songs more epic. Within a few short years bands like Depeche Mode and New Order would be running with the sound that Suicide helped create.

28. The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
Before Robyn Hitchcock made a name for himself as a solo purveyor of macabre quirkery he led The Soft Boys alongside guitarist Kimberley Rew whose heavy melodic guitar style is an often unacknowledged influence on the likes of Johnny Marr and Peter Buck amongst others.  The lyrics equate falling in love to insects laying eggs under your skin and at their rousing peak The Soft Boys declare “I Wanna Destroy You.” And they do.

27. The Jim Carroll Band – Catholic Boy
Poet and Basketball Diaries memoirist Jim Carroll took a cue from his fellow downtown NY scenester Patti Smith and started a band to explore his musical musings. Luckily, like Smith, Carroll proved to be a natural gracing us with this last blast of classic CBGB’s style New York punk. Though “People Who Died”, a litany of friends who met untimely ends, is the best known track there is plenty here to delight aficionados.

26. Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette
Like Jim Carroll, Grace Jones was a New York fixture but in the disco party scene. While she had transitioned from modeling to performing in clubs in the late 70s it took the reggae production team of Sly and Robbie to push her (and them) into a new musical dimension. Whether covering Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” or Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” Jones and team make these songs their own with slinky grooves and her trademark hard-edged voice. This is more than just disco, it’s domme disco.

25. Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
This album is one of those unique records that could have been released yesterday, a week from now, or indeed 1980. It simply sounds like nothing else.  Alison Statton’s detached vocals glide above the terse guitar and pulse like keyboards as songs like “Credit in The Straight World” build and circle around their themes and motifs.

24. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy
It was bands like Young Marble Giants and The B-52s that caused John Lennon to declare to Yoko that the music scene had finally caught up to her musical experiments. He was about ten years too early but to help the pill go down he returned to recording as well after his self-imposed five year exile and traded off songs with her on a concept album meant to evoke their marriage. In a sense this is really two EPs that don’t fully assimilate with each other – Yoko’s avant-pop and Lennon’s slick songcraft celebrating the joys of house-husbandry. Nevertheless it’s some of the best work from each of them and ultimately a sad epitaph to Lennon who would be assassinated shortly after the album’s release.

23. The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
The Psychedelic Furs emerged from London with this debut album and one of the most interesting takes on post-punk, aided by Richard Butler’s rasping croon which can snarl like Johnny Rotten or insinuate like David Bowie. The band locks into a tight groove on tracks like the dubby “Wedding Song” and the slow burner “Imitation of Christ” churning it’s way through rich chord changes.

22. XTC – Black Sea
XTC pulled back from their earlier arch art moves on their previous LP Drums and Wires but they embraced pop hooks fully on this, their third (and best) album. Partridge and Moulding still write songs about architecture, history, and other such things but here they come across all punchy and direct on tunes like the magnificent “Towers of London” and the transcendent “Generals and Majors.”

21. Bruce Springsteen - The River
Brooooce splits the difference between Born to Run’s anthems and Darkness on the Edge of Town’s noir menace with this generous double that can feel overstuffed but rewards with a clutch of great songs. “Out in The Street” is still a live staple, as it should be given the effortless updating of classic early 60s swagger that recalls the Shangri-La’s and Dion but then there’s the balance of a pensive song like “Stolen Car.” This is the Boss arguably at the height of his powers.

20.  Swell Maps - Jane From Occupied Europe
It would be hard to imagine a whole swath of indie rock, from Pavement to No Age to dozens of groups in between without the experimental songcraft of Swell Maps. From the Cold War-baiting album title to the even more breathtaking tunes their second album is a lofty triumph of soundscapes and sideways hooks that unexpectedly sink in.

19. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Hoboken’s Feelies flew the nerd rock flag high at a time when few bands dared to be uncool. Now though you just check the way the cover of Weezer’s debut album references the blue background portrait of this, The Feelies first. The title is apt as they sound ready to leap off of their feet with their Velvets meets the Beatles jangle pop. Later incarnations of the band would sound more conventional but here they serve up a fairly original take on some venerable forebears.

18. Squeeze – Argybargy
Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook, the two main songwriters in Squeeze, helped keep Britpop alive through the new wave era, serving as the link between bands like The Kinks and future bands like Blur. Argybargy is chock full of sharp-edged tunefulness and armed with an armada of great singles from “Pulling Mussels (From a Shell)” to “If I Didn’t Love You”, not to mention should-have-been singles like “Separate Beds.”

17. X - Los Angeles
John Doe and Exene Cervenka took on a distinctly Los Angeles approach to punk with an assist from Doors keyboard man Ray Manzarek in the production chair and their ace in the hole – guitarist Billy Zoom. Though Exene’s sometimes off-key harmonizing can grate on some ears the boy/girl vocal arrangements were highly influential on bands like Pixies and the seamy downtown lifestyle songwriting is full of gems on this, their debut.

16. The Specials - More Specials
The Specials first album flew in the face of Britain’s rising racial tensions with an interracial band and music that fused the balls-out attack of punk with the skipping beat (and many of the songs) of 60s Jamaican ska. The Specials were nothing if not ambitious though and this followup  sees them broadening an deepening in every way. If not as immediate as its predecessor, More Specials also jettisons the casual misogyny of songs like “Little Bitch” for the satire of “International Jet Set” and the timeless melody of “Do Nothing.” The epic “Stereotypes” introduces Ennio Morricone as an influence stretching the original shorter single past the seven-minute mark. Sadly tensions would split the band apart into Fun Boy Three and Special AKA after their best single, 1981’s “Ghost Town” though they recently reunited for a short tour.

15. Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
While American’s knowledge of this band begins and ends with the 1982 song “Come On, Eileen”, a massive one-hit-wonder, this debut was celebrated in the UK as a groundbreaking fusion of punk spirit and soul songwriting chops. Singer Kevin Rowland is no Al Green, his slightly strangulated vocals recalling the yelping of folks like Tom Verlaine, but against the R & B chops of the band it makes for a bracing combo – and they know it.

14. The Jam - Sound Affects
Paul Weller and company just kept getting better and better after their debut. This, their fifth album, is also arguably their peak with a terrific batch of songs the grabs you right from the start with “Pretty Green.” Speaking of start, “Start!” is one of their best songs, extracting a bassline derived from the Beatles “Taxman” and constructing a sturdy groove around it that hints at the soul stylings to come on future Weller and Jam albums.

13. Devo – Freedom of Choice
Devo posited their theory of de-evolution on their early art-damaged albums, that the human race was essentially devolving into a stupid drooling mass of automatons. This is of course satire and what better way to slide into it than to be it so the band “dumbed” their sound down, losing the most dissonant elements, and gaining big shiny synth driven hooks. The result is their most enjoyable album, beyond even their signature song “Whip It.” “Gates of Steel” grabs you by the throat, “Girl U Want” is a classic and the title track was an apt send-up of the American electoral process.

12. Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!!
Like Dexy’s, Elvis the C here takes classic soul moves and roughs them up with punk attitude though he is both less and more faithful to the source. Less in that he can’t help but write his own  wonderfully convoluted wordplay and punnery as well as slipping in left fielders like the stately “Riot Act.” More in that he lifts elements faithfully from Stax and Motown and even covers Sam & Dave.

11. The Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue
Partisans argue over which Stones albums are the most underrated and Emotional Rescue can stake a claim to the number one slot on the list, overlooked as it usually is in favor of it’s predecessor Some Girls and follow-up Tattoo You. It’s a gritty grimy affair that effortlessly swims in the sleaze that the band strained to evoke on later albums like Undercover. The title track is the best known song here, a delightful slice of falsetto disco cheese with an insinuating melody and Jagger’s hilarious spoken come-ons: “Yes, you will be mine…” he intones. But “She’s So Cold” is a nervy jittery marvel in their rockabilly vein, “Down in The Hole” a slice of molten blues decadence, “Send it To Me” a clipped cod reggae attempt. The fact that most of this is less played out makes it a great secret treasure in the Stones’ twilight period of relevance.

10. Joy Division – Closer
The death of Ian Curtis by suicide after the release of this, the band’s last album before regrouping as New Order, can’t help but cast a pall over a record that should have signaled a bright future. The band was playing with song structure, rhythm, melody, all in an attempt to stretch past the focused terseness of their groundbreaking debut. For the most part it works, and there are intriguing signs of the electronic and dance flourishes that New Order would pioneer.

9. Roxy Music – Flesh + Blood
Flesh + Blood has a bit of a mixed reputation in Roxy Music land but its outlandish covers of “Eight Miles High” and “In the Midnight Hour” are endearing in their slick disco pop-ishness. More important is the fact that the sound they perfect here is what fuelled dozens of bands in next 2-3 years from Duran Duran to ABC to Haircut 100. While that’s not inherently a good thing, Roxy Music (and increasingly singer and leader Bryan Ferry) own the sound and deploy it better than any of their followers on songs like “Over You.”

8. The Clash - Sandinista!
Oh, what a glorious mess. London Calling, their 1979 double album, was simply too tight and consistent to rank as the band’s equivalent to The Beatles White Album. This triple (!) record threat (on vinyl) however, fits the bill – dividing fans and acolytes with a huge smorgasbord of songs that ru the gamut from punkified Reggae covers (“Police on My Back”) to hip-hop (“Magnificent 7”) to out and out dub, art-rock surf, Motown, and kids covering Clash classics. No weed-fuelled idea was too puerile to commit to tape and surprising amounts are worthwhile. More importantly, no two people make the same mix tape of favorites out of this.

7. AC/DC - Back in Black
Like Joy Division, Australia’s hard rock heroes AC/DC ought to have been laid waste by the loss of an iconic lead singer. Yet after the death of Bon Scott (from general carousing), new singer Brian Johnson and company took up right where the band had left off, creating their masterpiece and one of the finest rock albums ever. Their hard-partying, tune-loaded approach also paved the way for the rise of 80s hair bands (along with Def Leppard), essentially acting as a bridge between the blues riffing of Led Zeppelin and the leaner, less prog-rock sounds to come.

6. Pretenders – Pretenders
The first Pretenders album was a showcase for one of the most unheralded rock lineups, one that would be sadly devastated over the next four years by drug abuse. From brilliant guitarist James Honeyman-Scott to propulsive drummer Martin Chambers to bassist Pete Farndon the band rocked out on both blazing rave-ups and moody ballads. Chrissie Hynde’s expressive vocals and crackerjack songwriting provided the canvas for what would be one of the most acclaimed debuts of the 80s. Sadly Honeyman-Scott and later Farndon would both die of overdoses after the release of the band’s second album, and Hynde would later rely on a succession of sidemen under the Pretenders name to flesh out her still considerable songwriting and fronting skills.

5. Killing Joke - Killing Joke
Killing Joke were amazingly visionary as well as difficult to pigeonhole. Described variously as post-punk, goth, metal, industrial, and electronic, they fittingly landed this debut on EG, the same label as Brian Eno. Why not for a band whose influence ranges from Nirvana (who famously nicked the riff for “Come as You Are” from them) to Metallica to Pigface and even an early version of The Sugarcubes. The music is martial, chugging, spacious, often cinematic and apocalyptic in the way that only early 80s Cold War influenced bands can be.

4. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (“Melt”)
Did someone mention Cold War angst? Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” is loaded with it, as well as an irresistible melody that tricked American’s into thinking this was some new wave debut rather than the third solo record by a former prog-rock frontman. And why not, since this very well might be the best record of his career. The surfaces Producer Steve Lillywhite conjures are immersive and widescreen, the dread suffusive, and yet the album isn’t a downer – particularly on the incredibly moving finale of “Biko.” In its sound and subject matter the record prefigures so much of what would be done in the rest of the decade, usually with far less finesse.

3. The Wipers – Is This Real?
Portland’s Greg Sage led The Wipers, one of the most criminally underappreciated bands to emerge from the American punk scene. From Sage’s blazing guitar chops to his yearning, questioningly tuneful songs like “D-7” and “Don’t Know What I Am” this record is the equal of anything The Replacements, Husker Du, or anyone else would bring out over the next few years.

2. Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Talking Heads released a remarkably consistent yet adventurous string of albums beginning with their 1977 debut and extended their streak with this remarkable melding of African rhythms and arrangements alongside David Byrne’s jittery vocals and the band’s skewed hooks. Producer Brian Eno plays a larger role, essentially as a de facto band member. The tension this created may have led to the band’s long three-year layoff in the studio after this was released but the record it created is a landmark.

1. David Bowie - Scary Monsters
It can be said now that this is the last of a string of classic Bowie records that began with Hunky Dory in 1971. What a way to go out – “Ashes to Ashes” extends his Berlin sound to revisit Major Tom from “Space Oddity”, another Tom (Verlaine) gets a stellar cover treatment with “Kingdom Come” and overall the record shows man at his peak. The 80s would be indelibly influenced by his example musically and professionally (think Madonna’s many ch-ch-ch Changes) but sadly Bowie himself would lose the plot after the of-the-moment Let’s Dance in 1983.

It’s fair to say that although he enjoyed a number 1 single at the height of the 1960s Alex Chilton’s influence has far, far exceeded his record sales. While he may not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame his genius, his songs, and his career have inspired multiple generations of bands and several important genres ranging from the blue-eyed soul of Hall & Oates, the power pop of Cheap Trick, 80s alternative and indie rock like The Replacements and R.E.M., and lo-fi experimentalists like Pavement, Guided by Voices, and No Age.

I remember listening to a cassette of his band Big Star’s second album, Radio City in high school and wondering what kind of world could let music so perfect go undiscovered by so many. But I’m skipping ahead.

Like some alternate universe Bowie, Alex Chilton had distinctly different phases of music. Unlike Bowie there was never any hint of premeditation – Chilton seemingly couldn’t help himself and would go so far as to renounce his previous work. It started in Memphis with the Brill Building blue-eyed soul of the Box Tops. Chilton was just 16 when “The Letter” ascended the charts but his voice was at it’s huskiest. He chafed at the restriction of having songs written by others for the band to play and he to sing but he stuck with them through lesser hits like the wonderful “Cry Like a Baby” and some better than average singles and albums.

By 1970 the band had broken up and Chilton bummed around the Memphis scene before hooking up with fellow songwriter Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel who were all members of a band called Icewater. They called the new band Big Star, in homage to a chain of southern supermarkets. Big Star’s first record, #1 Record was released on soul label Stax’s Ardent imprint and was a sales disaster. Yet the glorious songs inside were anything but. Inspired now by the shimmering songcraft of mid 60s Beatles and Kinks but with an undertow of wonder, nostalgia and heartbreak that was all their own, like all Bog Star albums it’s an essential for any serious rock fan. It was also completely out of touch with where the music world was in 1972.

Bell split from Big Star and would die in a car crash in 1978 (the posthumously released I Am The Kosmos Cosmos (thanks for catching the title mis-spelling Aaron) includes his only released solo single alongside never before released tracks.) Big Star went their separate ways initially but regrouped for 1974′s Radio City which found the band with a lean, tough sound and tighter more dynamic playing and Chilton’s best set of songs yet – some consider this his masterpiece. It’s a mind blowingly good record. Like it’s predecessor it was a complete flop commercially, in part due to Stax’s money woes.

Chilton was becoming increasingly frustrated – if his brilliantly arranged and executed songs couldn’t find an audience, why bother with the niceties at all? Recording for a third album commenced in 1975 but the sessions were chaotic to say the least. Where Radio City found tension in pushing and pulling the songs and adding different coloration here and there these new sessions featured songs that seemed scotch-taped together, on the brink of despair or even madness. Weary, resigned, resentful, defiant and yet with an undeniable tunefulness at it’s core – the sessions sat unreleased for years. In 1978 they appeared in Europe under the title Third and also Sister Lovers with slightly different track listings. Once heard (they’ve since been issued in their entirety) they are unforgettable and every bit as satisfying as the first two records if not more so. A whole chunk of indie rock starts right here.

In the meantime Chilton had hit the bottle hard and finally began to launch a solo career that was even more shambolic than Sister Lovers had been with surly, sometimes atonally barbed guitar playing and casually tossed off production and arrangements. While this could be hit or miss at times it also resulted in the amazing “Bangkok”, some great covers, and the fantastic 1980 album Like Flies on Sherbert.

He also began producing for groups like The Cramps and The Replacements (their new major label rejected the results) who returned the favor with their tribute song “Alex Chilton” in 1987, one of their most beloved tunes. In a nice twist it was produced by Memphis legend Jim Dickinson (who also recently died) – the producer of Big Star’s Sister Lovers sessions.

By the 80s Chilton was playing blistering guitar in Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, a Memphis band that added punk grit to rockabilly and blues and had also returned to making solo records. Now however he was reincarnated as a gritty soul man, pumping out greasy R & B with sweaty abandon. While the covers-heavy content may have disappointed some fans, albums like High Priest were extremely enjoyable.

The 90s brought long overdue accolades and elder statesman status along with a series of Big Star reunions that seemed a bit grudging on Chilton’s part, as he was clearly lukewarm on the idea of living in his own past. Yet his heart attack came on the eve of a Big Star performance scheduled this weekend at SXSW. Viewers likely didn’t know it but the theme song to That 70′s Show was a rerecorded version of Big Star’s “Out in The Street” by Cheap Trick – making it a bigger hit in the 90s than it had ever been initially.

Alex Chilton was a true American great. There was a time when meeting a fellow Big Star or Alex Chilton fan was to meet a kindred spirit. R.I.P.

Here are just a few of his career’s many high points:

The Box Tops – “The Letter”

The Box Tops – “Cry Like a Baby”

The Box Tops on Mike Douglas do “Turn on a Dream” and “Soul Deep”

Big Star – “Thirteen”

Big Star – “Ballad of El Goodo”

Big Star – “September Gurls”

Big Star – “O My Soul”

Big Star – “Kanga Roo”

Big Star – “Kizza Me”

Alex Chilton covering the Seeds on “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”

Alex Chilton – “Bangkok”

Chilton on 120 Minutes circa 1985

Alex Chilton – “No Sex”

The Replacements – “Alex Chilton”

If the 80s and 90s saw music fragmenting into hundreds of tiny subcultures the 00s offered a way out – in part by destroying the very music industry machinery that encouraged such fragmentation. File sharing may have killed music but it also saved it by letting people hear thousands of songs they never would have been exposed to.It also freed musicians like M.I.A., Radiohead, and Girl Talk to make music that was as boundary-less as their audience.

Here they are, my pick for the 100 best albums of the last decade:

Best of the 00s 100-76

Best of the 00s 75-51

Best of the 00s 50-26

Best of the 00s 25-1

Sky Saxon of the Seeds, who died in 2009

So the 00′s come to an end with a whimper, not a bang. These 25 albums were all great but I’d be lying if I told you that there was another 25 I was anguished about leaving off the list. Even so Dylan, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Raekwon, Monsters of Folk, Talbot Tagora and M. Ward all just missed the cut – to name a few. It was a dismal year for hip-hop but the likes of Wale and Kid Cudi give hope to the future. Merge records celebrated their twentieth anniversary while venerable Touch and Go announced their imminent closing.

Here without further ado, were my favorite 25 albums of the year:

1. Girls – Album
Get over the disappointment that Girls doesn’t even have any girls in the band and you’ll find that the duo of JR White and Christopher Owens have crafted an exquisitely detailed album that slides comfortably into the slot marked “Indie Rock” without becoming a slave to the genre’s tropes. It’s like Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted run through a gloriously filter of Smiths sensibility.

2. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
It may seem like Neko Case has been wrapping her considerable lungpower around the same seam of country tinged alt-Americana for several albums now. She’s so consistent and subtle in the ways she moves her craft forward from record-to-record that it can be heard to realize how much she’s progressed until you compare this to her earliest works. Her country twang has been leavened into a sweeping epic atmospheric sensibility underpinned by a sly sense of humor. Little flourishes color each song and her cover of Spark’s “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth” shows how unique her sound has become.

3. Thermals - Now We Can See
A concept album about death? Major bummer dude, and pretentious as hell. Yet The Thermals pull it off with the best album of their career, a considerable feat considering the breakthrough that was 2006′s The Body, The Blood, The Machine. This is the kind of melodic, intelligent, heartfelt punk that Green Day wishes they could write.

4. Future of The Left – Travels With Myself and Another
When the perpetually cross Welshmen in McLusky decided to call it a day, few thought that they would return in all but name and bassist but plus two members from the equally defunct Jarcrew. Yet return they have, with a brace of abrasively melodic post punk on this, their second album. All the snarkiness remains, abetted by pogo-worthy choruses and clever wordplay.

5. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
After spending most of the decade perfecting their neo-psych chops and expanding their audience Flaming Lips take a hard left into Krautrock territory with Can in particular serving as a touchstone for a sprawling bass heavy album. There are moments that recall PiL’s classic Metal Box/Second Edition as well, minus Johnny Rotten.

6. Japandroids – Post-Nothing

Japandroids are the best kind of bubblegum lo-fi – chiming squalling guitars plus killer songs recorded with punch and definition enough to not obscure the fun. Anthems abound from “Wet Hair” to the magnificent “The Boys are Leaving Town.”

7. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Grizzly Bear’s debut was praised (perhaps overly) for it’s Brooklynite take on the pastoral sound sweeping indie circles so it’s a treat to find the follow-up bettering it’s predecessor in every way. The influences du jour are still there – as with Animal Collective a Beach Boys streak tempered by a touch of freak folk and out-and-out experimentation. The arrangements are less dry than before, with a marvelous command of build and release all of which sets off a remarkable set of songs. A triumph.

8. Surf City – Surf City (EP)
As their name implies Surf City has a touch of classic surf rock to them, but it’s by way of The Pixies, spiked with the Cure’s romantic melodicism and a dash of good old fashioned fuzz. The sheer enthusiasm of the songs and the performances is infectious – just try not to bop along.

9. Abe Vigoda – Reviver
Not the aged actor from Barney Miller, these art punks have flown under the radar successfully enough to avoid a lawsuit – so far. That may not last because as cool as last year’s Skeleton full-length was, this EP is better – song after great song. Like No Age this isn’t quite lo-fi enough to count as the mannered sludge passed off by Times New Viking but it has a raw immediate quality with songs that can come off like Grizzly Bear’s hard-rocking little brothers.

10. Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Sonic Youth’s return to indiedom may be a tad less satisfying than their last Geffen album, Rather Ripped, but it’s their rockingest album since 1992′s Dirty. It’s chock full of Johnny Thunders asides and nods to The Stooges as well as the bands trademarked sideways riffs and alternate tunings. Of course it’s the tight, focused songs that elevate this to the top tier of their ever-growing canon, plus the novelty of hearing them attempt something like vocal harmony and interplay on many songs, another new wrinkle for these vets.

11. Dan Deacon – Bromst
As interesting as Dan Deacon has been in the past, he’s always undercut his songs with skronky dissonance and over-syncopation that make listening a challenge for many (me included). On Bromst he lightens the stew just enough to still be distinctive but also highlight his rhythmic inventiveness and control of texture and pacing resulting in his best record yet.

12. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
Animal Collective keeps edging closer and closer to melody while always underpinning what they do with a sense of playfulness and anything-goes studio arrangements. Their off-kilter sensibility gets it’s fullest expression to date here on a record that finds room for paeans to fatherhood and family life amongst the close-knit harmonies, circular rhythmic pulsing, and unexpected side turns. The Beach Boys are a touchstone but only if Brain Wilson had been able to channel his madness completely and musically, had embraced the chaos equally with the melody. A true stunner.

13. AC Newman - Get Guilty
While New Porngraphers have begun to sound a bit overstuffed on recent releases bandleader Carl Newman brings things back down to the basics on Get Guilty, his best work since the Porno’s Twin Cinema. It’s not that he does anything new here, it’s that he does his schtick with expertise. If powerpop full of big meaty choruses and thundering drums is your deal then sign right up.

14. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
The louche former Pulp frontman gets in touch with his guitar-heavy side and brings noisemeister Steve Albini to man the control board. The result is lean and mean and full of horny tongue-in-cheek single-entendres like “Caucasian Blues” (in which he laments being hung like a white man) and the utterly brilliant “I Never said I Was Deep.”

15. Atlas Sound - Logos

Nealy shelved after an early version leaked last year, the latest album from Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox has thankfully seen the light of day and it’s as good as anything by his increasingly notable day band. Noah Lennox from Animal Collective guests on the awesome “Walkabout” and there is a certain shared sensibility but Atlas Sound is skewed less towards rhythm circularity and more towards chewy hooks and strumming guitars.

16. St. Vincent – Actor
Like Neko Case and Spoon’s Britt Daniel, Annie Clark (who is St. Vincent for all intents and purposes) is a thinking person’s pin-up, as glorious for their art as for their looks. Her background in Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra, The Polyphonic Spree, and Sufjan Steven’s band give a pretty good idea of her take on music – a sort of Kate Bush as guitar slinger. On Actor she has the songs to pull it off, sounding like early solo Peter Gabriel if he had roped Thurston Moore into playing guitar for him.

17. Mos Def – The Ecstatic
In a lousy year for hip-hop it was good to welcome Mos Def back with a first-rate album after years of tossed off efforts. Sounding more vital than he has in years over a set of clever engrossing beats and soundscapes it’s a reminder of how great rap can be when it’s not subject to rote rhyming and mega-sales expectations. The cherry on top is a great guest verse by Slick Rick.

18. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
The Jesus and Mary Chain have much to answer for in the last few years but inspiring a band as fun and freewheeling as this one is nothing to feel bad about. To be fair The Smiths and a fair sampling of other late 80s British indie rock can also be detected here but the attack is as fresh as a naughty schoolkid. It all sounds new to them and they write and play their damn bleeding hearts out, which almost is enough to forgive their unfortunate band moniker.

19. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Callahan may no longer operate under the name Smog but he still has the same laconic delivery, insinuatingly dry songwriting, and command of melody. This time he’s backed with the richest instrumentation of his career with pianos and french horns and the likes standing ready to aid and abet but never overwhelm. In fact his use of space is more strategic than ever letting every violin or bell register like a thunderclap.

20. Polvo - In Prism
An unexpected comeback, Polvo was saddled during their early 90s heyday with the mathrock label and while their riffing is angular and their song structures can be architectural they have always had a warmth and humor that transcended the genre. They’ve also had Ash Bowie (who went on to play guitar in Helium) as a secret weapon, a guitarist with a knack for wringing melody out of sometimes dissonant patterns. Welcome back.

21. Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
For all the initial talk about this being a departure for the band it came as a bit of a letdown to hear that they actually sounded like… Franz Ferdinand. Repeated listens proved that the band had moved the game forward subtly, primarily by centering every song around the rhythm section. This is no bad thing as Franz bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson are one of the best in rock. On “Lucid Dreams” they do extend past the 8-minute mark (though the earlier, tighter version may be superior) and hints of T. Rex and Bowie still surface through the dancefloor. Undeniably catchy ass-shaking.

22. Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy
The name is a tip-off that that Vile is a throwback to the theatrical self-mythologizing of 70s punk as it edged into glam. Ballads jostle with fuzzed out Iggy-esque rockers but there is always a twist instrumentally or lyrically to make it sound fresh rather than a guy living in the sounds of the past. Each successive song cements that Vile is a talent to watch.

23. Mika Miko – We Be Xuxa
The world surely needs more femme punk and Mika Miko are as good as it gets. Synthesizing sources as varied as The Raincoats, The Descendents, and Agent Orange makes for an album that pogos as much as it thrashes and that’s a damn good thing. It’s a short sharp shock of an album with room for detours like the mid-period Replacements-like jape “Turkey Sandwich.”

24. The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa
While the band name The Very Best makes this sound like a compilation of some sort, what’s being sampled here by the production team Radioclit and singer Esau Mwamwaya is the very essence of music from around the world. Appropriately they are joined by a member of Vampire Weekend and M.I.A., a handy guide to the globe spanning beats and melodies found within. An audacious follow-up to last year’s jawdropping mixtape.

25. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
Wilco studiously avoid making the same album twice, so it’s not surprising that the new one was met with a mixed reception. They also vary their approach from song to song to the extent that “Bull Black Nova”, a droning drama that I love, has been denounced by several friends as the worst track on the album. Whereas the last record served up gloriously tangled guitar lines in the guise of classic LA rock, this one puts the screws to triple AAA radio but still finds time for a straight ahead ballad like “You and I”.

After a little heard set of sunny debut EP’s MBV mastermind Kevin Shields discovered the joy of effects pedals and massive feedback and used them to push his surprisingly catchy melodies off-center, scuffing up his band’s songs and laying on thick sheets of guitar on albums like 1988’s wonderful Isn’t Anything and their towering 1991 classic Loveless.

Loveless found them with growing acclaim but a crippling inability to deliver on a follow-up, going Axl Rose one better by helping to bankrupt their record label in the elaborate process of endless studio recording and tinkering. The last time the band had played live together before this year was in 1992 and they had long dispersed to other projects by 1997 without any of the abandoned studio work seeing the light of day.

So out of the mists of time comes My Bloody Valentine and nothing much has changed except the ability to now headline a barn like New York’s Roseland two nights in a row as well as the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival upstate, and some extra dosh to spend on a big light show and projected images.

What needs to be said here is this band is freaking loud.

Earplugs were handed out at all the ticket collection points and woe to the badasses who tried to go it nude of ear. The H.R. Giger-like stacks of amps cantilevered over the front of the stage ominously forewarned what was to come. As the guitars cranked up and numerous tiny hipster chicks were lofted upon their boyfriend’s shoulders to see I thought, “Well, this isn’t all THAT loud…” and slid one earplug out only to quickly force it back in against the assault of sound.

The light show, which even Shields (who kicked out a light petulantly mid-show) thought was a bit overbearing for the space, and the sculpted slabs of guitar noise made each song into its own fascinating slow motion plane crash- flashes of light, groaning metal, whooshing air. Juxtaposed on this are the melody and choruses that seem as inevitable as gravity. Even their poppiest song, “Soon”, takes a jaunty Manchester beat and turns it into the sound of Happy Mondays being tortured by Al Pacino in Scarface (bathroom, chainsaw, ‘nuff said?)

Then of course came the climax, “You Made Me Realize” which devolves from mere song into what was 20 minu