Another 100 Best Albums of All Time List

Part 5: 60-51

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In September of 2019, I ran my first half-marathon in Chicago. Since I first started cross country in high school, shin splints have been an ongoing struggle whenever I’d run, and a few days before the race, I found an article about how long-distance runners would take CBD and low-dosage edibles to deal with similar chronic ailments. My cousin had recently acquired lollipops with 10 mg of THC and gave me one to ingest before my big race. The day of my first half-marathon was grey, dreary, and full of cold rain. Much of the course takes place on Lake Shore Drive, which in theory seems like it would be a lovely backdrop to such a grueling endeavor, but the endless dull clouds made the whole exercise feel like I was running on a never-ending pavement treadmill. Meanwhile, my headphones malfunctioned and my clothes were waterlogged, adding about 10 lbs. of unnecessary dampness. After what felt like a substantial amount of running, the edible hit me, but in a deeply unpleasant lobotomizing way, and I looked over to a sign that said “5 miles in,” which meant I wasn’t even halfway finished. I thought to myself, Oh my god—I’m so fucking high right now.

So I couldn’t listen to any music, I was getting dumped on, I could sense that I pulled my calf muscle about nine miles in but I was far too stoned to feel any pain, I was limping to the finish line, and I was mentally drowning in existential dread. When I returned to my apartment about an hour after the half-marathon and my brain began to creep back up to normal functioning, my cousin and I realized we misread the packaging label. Each lollipop contained 100 mg of THC.

Kevin Alexander

’s and my quest to chart our Top 100 Albums has been immensely more pleasurable than that experience, but it has been a marathon that is equally exploratory, revelatory, and a bit fatiguing. Our lists have been pretty different so far, so I’m curious if they will converge to a greater degree as we get closer to the finish line.

Below, you’ll find my Top 100 Albums (from 60-51) and the reason why I chose them, as well as Kevin’s picks and my response to them. For Kevin’s explanations of his albums and his reaction to my picks, check out his list below (and subscribe to On Repeat!).

Wax Ecstatic: The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time Part #5

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My #60: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem (2007)

Of the first three classic LCD Soundsystem albums, Sound of Silver fills the space between the hilarious dance-punk of their debut with the thoughtful ‘80s synth of This Is Happening. This is the perfect keynote of James Murphy’s sound (as much as I love their debut, I can’t get past its NYC archness).

There have been angst-filled nights where I’d be driving and “All My Friends” comes on and I freak out and start drumming on my steering wheel in syncopation with the piano and I always rip my finger open, Whiplash style. A spot on my finger is still pink from when I did it a month ago. That song will hit you in waves for the rest of your life, each one breaking over you suddenly and without warning, hearing a new piece of melancholy each time. “You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again” succinctly describes life’s transitions. You process the nostalgia of your younger years, and a few songs later, “Sound of Silver” comes on just to say Aww, fuck that!

The sincerity of these lyrics, combined with some of Murphy’s best arrangements, makes this one of my favorite records. I savored this record while I lived in LA while finishing graduate school and Murphy’s observations of aging out of being cool struck a powerful, personal chord with me. He took indie rock and electronica, threw in some Talking Heads and a lot of soul, and created the pinnacle of dance-punk and some of the best music of its time.

Highlights: Get Innocuous!; North American Scum; Someone Great; All My Friends; Us vs. Them; Sound of Silver; New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down

Kevin’s #60: Pretenders - Pretenders (1980)

My Take:

I’ve seen Pretenders on a few Best Albums of the ‘80s list, but for whatever reason, I had never made time to check them out (although upon listening, I realized I’ve heard “Brass in Pocket” on the radio a bunch). Kevin’s inclusion prompted me to give this a try, and this album is phenomenal. There’s a mix of the Police, Blondie, and the Velvet Underground here. The lyrics and singing have attitude and the beats are irresistable.

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My #59: Marquee Moon - Television (1977)

I accidentally found this on CD at a pawn shop when I was 18 thinking Television was a “new” band. When I think of a model for a perfect album, Marquee Moon is one of the first that comes to mind. There are songs with regular structure and ones with sprawling side ends, and a legendary interplay of Tom Verlaine’s improvised guitar playing with Richard Lloyd’s precisely notated solos.

The build-up of the intro to “Elevation” hits the spot while the title track has guitar work that you can hear traces of in the opening riff of Interpol’s “Obstacle 1” and The Strokes’s “Take It or Leave It.” It’s impossible to imagine post-punk soundscapes without Marquee Moon, as the songs’ lack of compression, groove, and extra effects provided a blueprint for a form of chromatic music that would come to be known as “angular.”

So many post-punk bands appropriated Marquee Moon’s uncluttered production, introspective tone, and meticulously performed instrumentation. This album is radical and groundbreaking, as Verlaine’s and Lloyd’s dual playing and tremulous guitar twang has influenced bands like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Joy Division, and U2.

Highlights: Venus, Friction, Marquee Moon, Elevation, Torn Curtain

Kevin’s #59: Parallel Lines - Blondie (1978)

My Take:

I haven’t given Parallel Lines a spin since high school, and it really is a perfect pop-rock album. It shaped the sound and look of 1980s new wave. Debbie Harry’s singing is ferocious and every song is memorable, distinct, and well-shaped. On this one, Blondie nailed their signature paradoxes with such unrelenting and unfailing flair: lowbrow class, tender sarcasm, and pop rock.

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My #58: channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean (2012)

Too much sentimentality tied to this album to know where to begin. Getting fucked up in the summer of 2012, playing this as I’d try to seduce romantic interests (I still remember the “Channel Orange Pimp Guide”), exploring the weird sounds of newer hip-hop/R&B because of this album. The production is lush and grand, and it makes you feel like a playa and a gentleman. I know blonde is the trendy pick for a list like this because its highs are sublime, but its meandering haziness isn’t as consistently riveting as the summery, passionate, and maximal vibe of channel ORANGE.

Frank Ocean introduced this album with a letter from his Tumblr describing his unrequited love for another man. In 2012, coming out as a Black R&B/Hip-Hop artist was considered revolutionary, but a decade out, queer artists are more common in the space: Lil Nas X, Kevin Abstract, Syd, Young M.A., etc. He cherrypicks life’s cacophony and combines them with arrangements that stretch from EDM to prog rock to progressive soul.

There are so many jaw-dropping moments on this: Those harmonizations after the “New day will bring another crying babe into the world” on “Sierra Leone,” the outro on “Crack Rock,” the beat shift from hard synth to ethereal and John Mayer on the outro on “Pyramids,” André 3000 on “Pink Matter,” PS1 and the fighting game startup sound, and Frank belting “If it brings me to my knees” and “A tornado flew around my room before you came, excuse the mess it made.”

This is a generation-defining album that, despite its sonically rich texture and melancholic slow-burn, engages from start to finish and continues to reveal new pleasures upon repeated listens.

Highlights: Thinking Bout You, Sierra Leone, Pilot Jones, Crack Rock, Pyramids, Lost, Bad Religion, Pink Matter, Forrest Gump

Kevin’s #58: Alien Lanes - Guided By Voices (1995)

My Take:

Guided by Voices is another one of those bands whose name would come up frequently around me, but I never got around to exploring their work. I could imagine this album inspiring a lot of musicians to post their bedroom pop albums on Bandcamp. It’s low-fi and raw without being too muddy. It’s aggressive but still poppy. Overall, a great introduction to Guided by Voices.

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My #57: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2002)

The album of my life. I picked it up in the fall of my freshman year in high school and it’s carried me everywhere since then. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is for all hours and all seasons: It sounds incredible at dawn and dusk; during day drinking and after-midnight drives; in the oppressive heat of summer, the bitter depths of winter, and those glorious transitional phases in between when the air is crisp with possibility. When I’m happy, it elevates my joy. When I’m sad, it accentuates my melancholy. It is the movie I can put on in the background because I’ve seen it a million times but can just as easily end up immersed in it all over again. I didn’t have to revisit it to write this retrospective because I’ve never really stopped listening to it.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is equally battered, bonkers, and bewitching. Even though it has the infamous Pitchfork 10 and all the other acclaim, it’s not some genre-changing, dense, or wildly experimental album. It’s just the result of a band perfecting their sound and taking some conventional songforms, scrambling them, and rearranging them into fractured, dissonant epics. “War on War,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” and “Heavy Metal Drummer” would have been just as catchy and accessible in 1971 as they were in 2001, and they would make sense if they dropped in 2021. Above all else, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is timeless.

Highlights: I am Trying to Break Your Heart; Kamera; War on War; Jesus, etc.; Ashes of American Flags; Heavy Metal Drummer; I’m the Man Who Loves You; Pot Kettle Black

Kevin’s #57: Cheatahs - Cheatahs (2014)

My Pick:

Another shoegaze/dream pop album on here. This is some good ‘90s revival, but,

Kevin Alexander

, do you listen to Alvvays? They would be right up your alley. Also, there better be some Cocteau Twins coming up on your rankings…

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My #56: good kid, m.A.A.d city - Kendrick Lamar (2012)

Legend says Kendrick’s dad still hasn’t gotten his Domino’s. “Swimming Pools” was one of the first singles from any album I remember seeing on the front page of Reddit and dominating everywhere online. Then “Money Trees,” “Art of Peer Pressure,” “Backstreet Freestyle,” “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” all defined the era of smoke sessions and hotboxes during my undergrad.

good kid, m.A.A.d city was a cultural phenomenon and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Kendrick Lamar if you were in that circle of people. It was a cultural reset: Just imagine your boy rolls up to campus and you all hop into his whip and immediately blast “m.A.A.d city” as we skirted around town. I don’t bump this album as much nowadays having heard it in its entirety over 100 times (which doesn’t seem like hyperbole). When I do give it a spin, the gangsta noir still gives me chills—the creative ingenuity, the vignettes, the voices from the community, the storytelling, the cinematic instrumentals. This is arguably one of the greatest albums of all time, and it isn’t even Kendrick’s best album.

Highlights: Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe; Backseat Freestyle; Money Trees; Poetic Justice; good kid; m.A.A.d city; Swimming Pools (Drink); Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst; Compton

Kevin’s #56: Squeezing Out Sparks - Graham Parker & The Rumour (1979)

My Take:

Another one that I have never heard of so I was curious. Graham Parker almost seems like the unabashedly British new wave counter to Bruce Springsteen. Squeezing Out Sparks is untamable rock ‘n’ roll with an existential rage, a mix of pub rock fury, new wave pop, and pure vitriol.

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My #55: Mezzanine - Massive Attack (1998)

It’s wild that Moon Safari, Music Has the Right to Children, and Mezzanine were released in the same year. This still has some of the heaviest bass ever. The lyrics do a wonderful amount of storytelling, but listening to Mezzanine is also a reminder of how images and narratives can be weaved without words. The production often creates a sinister vibe, and dark alleys and carnal desires are conjured by the chopped beats and the rising and falling basslines. As we progress through the tracklist, the seediness becomes far more pronounced. Mezzanine is a sexual record, but with a darker and somewhat bitter edge to it, the cheap beer and club maze acting as a human coating on an animalistic ritual. If you want a soundtrack for late-night drives, nocturnal escapades, and midnight city street debauchery, Mezzanine will be lurking in the dark spaces, ready to attack your senses.

Highlights: Risingson, Inertia Creeps, Exchange, Dissolved Girl, Man Next Door, Mezzanine, Group Four

Kevin’s #55: Twin Cinema - The New Pornographers (2005)

My Take:

I regret to admit that I confused the New Pornographers with the New Radicals. I’m convinced the latter’s entire discography consists of “You Get What You Give” playing on loop, so upon seeing an album with a tracklist that has 14 songs and NONE of them are, in fact, “You Get What You Give,” I looked them up to find the source of this glitch in the Matrix. In my research, I learned that Dan Bejar of Destroyer fame (his album Kaputt nearly missed my list) was in this band and contributed to this album, so it seems like fate has taken me here. This is a perfect power pop album, and it’s incredible that this “music collective” can combine so many different sounds with multiple singers and create a cohesive and catchy batch of tracks. This will be on my rotation for a while.

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My #54: Late Registration - Kanye West (2005)

“Puff-puff, then pass, don’t fuck up rotation,” we’d shout as we’d blast “We Major” whenever we’d blunt cruise through the Connecticut suburbs on the way to grab a steak bomb from Quizno’s. Sprawling and with more in-depth and richly arranged production, Kanye went out of his way to expand his sound and not just make a “College Dropout 2” as he continued his Higher Education Trilogy. In fact, Kanye has said in interviews that because College Dropout was his debut album, he didn’t have enough money to get the real string sections and bring the songs to life as he could on Late Registration.

This tracklist offers a full orchestral experience: Brass and string arrangements, lavish symphonies, a collaboration with Jon Brion, and clear inspirations from Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… and Portishead’s Dummy. The classic chipmunk soul pops in, but most songs are more rhythmically and sonically complex than just sped-up samples. Even a song like “Drive Slow” is the climax of that Houston chopped and screwed crossing over into the mainstream. Kanye raps as well as he ever has on Late Registration: The final verse on “Gone,” his bars on “Drive Slow,” his social commentary on “Crack Music.”

If you’ve written off Kanye in light of his recent bullshit, at least listen to or revisit Late Registration because it is a definitive artistic statement and one of the best hip-hop albums ever made.

Highlights: Everything

Kevin’s #54: Dusty in Memphis - Dusty Springfield (1969)

My Take:

Everyone knows “Son of a Preacher Man,” but this whole album is so smooth. It’s an elegant fusion of pop and R&B that had a profound impact on soul music, particularly in Philadelphia. I hadn’t given this one a spin in a while, but I’m glad Kevin’s pick motivated me to do so, because this is a serious gem.

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My #53: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (1975)

Pink Floyd achieved peak Like, wow, man heaviosity with Dark Side of the Moon, and even though it was a meditation on death and madness, it was the sonic equivalent of one of those 3D placemats where you can see Jesus’s eyes move (I mean this as a compliment). Wish You Were Here became one of the most anticipated rock albums ever, and Pink Floyd delivered an even more of an out-of-body listening experience.

An explicit tribute to their lost friend and former frontman, Syd Barret, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is a sad space-rock elegy, built in several long segments based around a four-note slide guitar phrase from David Gilmour but unfolding in a jazzy ambiance at a leisurely pace. The futuristic instrumental textures have real bite but also layers of subtlety, especially “Welcome to the Machine” and “Wish You Were Here.” It’s not as iconic as Dark Side or as conceptually ambitious as The Wall, but Wish You Were Here tops them both for me because the special effects have so much resonance, mourning lost innocence and camaraderie. While it’s short on actual songs, the long, winding soundscapes are constantly enthralling.

Highlights: Everything

Kevin’s #53: Tres Hombres - ZZ Top (1973)

My Take:

I only really knew ZZ Top from “Sharp Dressed Man” and “La Grange,” so going into this album, Tres Hombres could’ve either veered toward the gimmicky nature of the former or the work of a legitimately cool classic rock band that I dismissed. After listening, this album falls under the second camp. I don’t know if I love it at first listen, but this idiosyncratic fusion of Southern rock and blues boogie was far more enjoyable than I anticipated.

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My #52: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)

A Love Supreme is a phenomenal John Coltrane joint, but it’s turned into a safe pick that critics default to, and this tendency overshadows his other incredible projects. The only (very slight) knocks against John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman are that none of the music was original and that it wasn’t particularly innovative. However, it contains the best version of a standards album that you’ll ever listen to, as well as a stellar of a lineup that you’ll find on a jazz recording.

Johnny Hartman might be the most criminally underrated jazz artist: His musicianship, his unique bass voice, and he was in prime form on these six ballads. I would put him up against the greatest crooners who have ever lived. His tenderness, that silky tone with a deep smoky grit in the background—there is nobody like him. Coltrane’s sweet sax throughout the session is beautiful, sympathetic, and exploratory. This album also reflected Coltrane’s gifted “producer” mind, because he had a vision and assembled this album to perfection. This is one of the most romantic compositions out there and I’ve yet to find anything on a similar wavelength.

Highlights: They Say It’s Wonderful, My One and Only Love, Lush Life

Kevin’s #52: Funeral Dress - Wussy (2005)

My Take:

This is another one that I have never heard of, but it’s like Kevin knows I’m a sucker for some indie country. This gives me heavy Mazzy Star vibes. “Yellow Cotton Dress” is a highlight.

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My #51: OK Computer - Radiohead (1997)

Jesus, OK Computer is old enough to dissociate from the $55k/year digital marketing job in Bushwick that it bemoans. The first time I ever did ‘shrooms, my friends and I played the music video for “Paranoid Android” and it creeped me out in the most profound way possible. This album is not raw or visceral or grungy like a lot of ‘90s rock albums; instead, it’s pristine, spotless, almost sterile, like it’s a futuristic take on rock.

The blissful jangle of “Let Down” sounds like Radiohead inadvertently wrote the instrumental blueprint for almost half the post-rock songs that were released in the 2000s. OK Computer builds tension during the lulls of subtle dreary moments, but when Radiohead hits you with a payoff, it fucking pays off. OK Computer was released during the cusp of a revolution in the ways computers and the internet would envelop our lives, and it captured a feeling that wasn’t present in the techno-futuristic optimism of Silicon Valley or the bleak dystopian visions of robots killing us all.

This album forecasted a more subtle dystopia where our humanity slips under the waves of paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that has come to characterize doomscrolling through everyday life in the 21st century. So fun that we can now say, “OK Google, play OK Computer.”

Highlights: Airbag, Paranoid Android, Exit Music (For a Film), Let Down, Karma Police, Fitter Happier, No Surprises, The Tourist

Kevin’s #51: Singles - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - Various Artists (1992)

My Take:

Considering this soundtrack was assembled for a movie set in Seattle during the early ‘90s, this mostly tracks (although, I’m not sure how Paul Westerberg and Smashing Pumpkins fit with the setting). But Singles is a great movie, and the tunes here are perfect for the vignettes of people looking for love, but are content with settling for sex or companionship.

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Kevin and I also created a Spotify playlist of one song from each of our album picks. Check it out!

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Our 70-61:

Another 100 Best Albums of All Time List

Our 50-41:

Another 100 Best Albums of All Time List

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