Another 100 Best Albums of All Time List
Part 6: 50-41
We have just passed the halfway point of this journey. For those who have tolerated this indulgent project of ours, I salute your patience and admire your interest in music, or at least the music we like. For those of you who have joined late, welcome to the party.
and I have thrown a lot of music and words at you in this series, so let’s do a quick recap and get down to brass tax.100: A Seat at the Table - Solange (2016)
99: Piñata - Freddie Gibbs & Madlib (2012)
98: Contra - Vampire Weekend (2010)
97: Titanic Rising - Weyes Blood (2019)
96: Let Love In - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (1994)
95: Lonerism - Tame Impala (2012)
94: The Money Store - Death Grips (2012)
93: E. 1999 Eternal - Bone Thugs-n-Harmony (1995)
92: IGOR - Tyler, the Creator (2019)
91: Dots and Loops - Stereolab (1997)
90: Laughing Stock - Talk Talk (1991)
89: Raw Power - Iggy and the Stooges (1973)
88: The Soft Bulletin - The Flaming Lips (1999)
87: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not - Arctic Monkeys (2006)
86: Norman Fucking Rockwell! - Lana Del Rey (2019)
85: Yellow House - Grizzly Bear (2006)
84: The Lonesome Crowded West - Modest Mouse (1997)
83: Liquid Swords - GZA (1995)
82: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel (1998)
81: Supa Dupa Fly - Missy Elliot (1997)
80: Weezer (Blue Album) - Weezer (1994)
79: At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash (1968)
78: Tim (Let It Bleed Edition) - The Replacements (1985)
77: 3 Feet High and Rising - De La Soul (1989)
76: Ágætis byrjun - Sigur Rós (1999)
75: Horses - Patti Smith (1975)
74: Where Did Our Love Go - The Supremes (1964)
73: After the Gold Rush - Neil Young (1970)
72: Ella & Louis - Ella Fitzgerald (1956)
71: Richard D. James Album - Aphex Twin (1996)
70: Rain Dogs - Tom Waits (1985)
69: Trans-Europe Express - Kraftwerk (1977)
68: Rumours - Fleetwood Mac (1977)
67: Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine (1992)
66: Zombie - Fela Kuti (1977)
65: Ys - Joana Newsom (2006)
64: Head Hunters - Herbie Hancock (1973)
63: Plastic Beach - Gorillaz (2010)
62: Doolittle - Pixies (1989)
61: Elephant - The White Stripes (2003)
60: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem (2007)
59: Marquee Moon - Television (1977)
58: channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean (2012)
57: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2002)
56: good kid, m.A.A.d city - Kendrick Lamar (2012)
55: Mezzanine - Massive Attack (1998)
54: Late Registration - Kanye West (2005)
53: Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (1975)
52: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)
51: OK Computer - Radiohead (1997)
Below, you’ll find my Top 100 Albums (from 50-41) 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!).
My #50: Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins (1993)
Siamese Dream is peak 90s alt-rock. It plays out like one big symphony: The heavy parts are crushing and sound like truck engines, the soft parts are dreamy and ethereal, the melodies are beautiful, and Billy Corgan’s angst-wracked vocals tie it all together.
It crashes out of the gate with the pure sonic melodrama of “Cherub Rock,” a perfect blend of Jimmy Chamberlain’s circus-act drum intro, a tight clip of guitars quickly matched by nimble bass, a volcanic blast of fuzzed-up riffs, then a shift to a woozy sprawl—and all of this happens before the first verse. Every following track that follows compounds into a brilliant sequence that makes for a mesmerizing and elegant listen. Everything here is immaculate, from the clear guitar at the beginning of “Mayonaise” to the hi-hat in “Geek U.S.A.” and the mellotron in “Spaceboy.”
Even though Siamese Dream is a grand-scale, expansively-passionate blast of music, the overall balance of the harsh and the sweet makes for a multidimensional and distinctive package. This guitar tone has never been topped. Gish was a glorious fusion of grunge and psychedelic, and Mellon Collie was the fruition of Corgan taking his lyrics and concepts to the limit of the band’s endurance. But Siamese Dream was a perfect mid-point that remains the Smashing Pumpkin’s most definitive work.
Highlights: Everything
Kevin’s #50: Weathervanes - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (2023)
My Take:
Damn, another one from Kevin’s Top 10 Albums of 2023. Weathervanes is loaded with burst-out-of-the-gate energy and the songs tremble with anger, desperation, and fear. It’s a good album, but Kevin is testing my limits with his Apple Music-like recency bias.
My #49: The Beatles (White Album) - The Beatles (1968)
Depending on how you look at it, The White Album is either a frustratingly scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience. I am in the latter camp. This may not be a cohesive listen, but it is endlessly stimulating in how varied and fantastic the tracks are.
There are so many genres in this eclectic and unconventional collection: Surf music with “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” country/western with “Rocky Raccoon” and “Don’t Pass Me By,” blues rock with “Yer Blues,” heavy metal with “Helter Skelter,” the legendary avant-garde sound collage of “Revolution 9,” lullabies with “Good Night.” There is beauty, horror, surprise, chaos, order. Everything sounds like it should be on different albums, but somehow, The White Album creates its own sound and style through its mess and benefits from each member’s wildly different ideas. My favorite part is the transition between “Bungalow Bill” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” a mix of frivolous and serious that gives this album such a crazy and unexpected feel.
The Beatles expanded the popular music vocabulary with some of the traditions and styles they incorporated into their songs, especially on tracks like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” They expanded the idiom, then penetrated it and took it further.
Highlights: Back In the U.S.S.R.; Dear Prudence; Glass Onion; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill; While My Guitar Gently Weeps; Happiness Is a Warm Gun; Blackbird; Rocky Raccoon; Don’t Pass Me By; Birthday; Yer Blues; Helter Skelter; Revolution 1; Revolution 9; Good Night
Kevin’s #49: The Myth of Rock - Consolidated (1990)
My Take:
I consider myself maybe not a hip-hop connoisseur, but at least a student of its history and culture, and I have never heard of this album. It’s pretty wild that this was released in 1990 because it is a fascinating palette of noises, beats, and musical concrete. The lyrics are political and they bludgeon. I should check out if Death Grips considers Consolidated an influence.
My #48: Stankonia - OutKast (2000)
Stankonia is decades ahead of its time and it’s crazy how this brought OutKast into the mainstream despite the experimentation on this project.
You have songs as challenging as “Bombs Over Baghdad” and “Snappin’ and Trappin” together with “So Fresh, So Clean” and “Ms. Jackson.” There is funk and Dirty South mixed with explosive rock and rave music, with bits of electronic and gospel. The lyrical themes here were pretty risky for their time: “Bombs Over Baghdad” is a political banger, “Ms. Jackson” is about Andrè’s relationship, “Toilet Tisha” discusses pregnancy and suicide around young women, “Slum Beautiful” is about treating women right instead of just being with them for their body, and “I’ll Call Before I Cum” is about pleasing a woman during sex before your own.
Stankonia is so wild and off-kilter that it feels shorter than its hour run-time (even the “BREAK!” at the end of every skit gives it a brisk pace). André and Big Boi match the craziness of the production with a manic energy, and they sound even more out of this world than they did on ATLiens. If Southernplayalistic is a late-night cruise, Stankonia is an unguided missile.
Highlights: Gasoline Dreams; So Fresh, So Clean; Ms. Jackson; Snappin’ & Trappin’; Spaghetti Junction; B.O.B.—Bombs Over Baghdad; We Luv Deez Hoez; Humble Mumble; ?; Slum Beautiful
Kevin’s #48: Hunkpapa - Throwing Muses (1989)
My Take:
This is a catchy jangle pop record with some obscure lyrics. I could see this being in constant rotation in the college rock stations.
My #47: Love Deluxe - Sade (1992)
I only got into Sade about a year ago, but Love Deluxe has since been in constant rotation. It’s hard to stop listening once you get into Sade’s passionate and infectious energy. She perfectly displays what love is supposed to be, with timeless expressions of desire and heartache. The title comes from her concept of love: “The idea is that it’s one of the few luxury things that you can’t buy,” she said in an interview at the time. “You can buy any kind of love but you can’t get love deluxe.”
The production is somber, like a detached smooth jazz that also blends bossa nova, soul, trip-hop, and some of the swollen negative space of dub into sleek compositions. The band also plays with an almost fluid dynamism. Every track carries this total slipstream of feeling and experience and longing in which one can lose oneself and their context. Everyone gets to those in your feels points, and Love Deluxe comforts because it’s so beautiful and pure.
Highlights: No Ordinary Love, Feel No Pain, Like a Tattoo, Cherish the Day, Pearls, Bullet Proof Soul
Kevin’s #47: Copper Blue - Sugar (1992)
My Take:
I loved Hüsker Dü in high school, and I had no idea this was Bob Mould’s first album after his former band broke up. I checked this out, and this batch of tracks continues his knack for bringing untrammeled intensity to melodic impact. This project is loaded with love songs and heartbreak. You can tell he adapted the approach to “Makes No Sense at All,” “I Don’t Know For Sure,” and “Could You Be the One?” and channeled into ferocious power pop. Now I have to revisit Hüsker Dü.
My #46: Rid of Me - P.J. Harvey (1993)
My first introduction to P.J. Harvey, and I love Rid of Me because it feels like you’re being spat at and told to fuck off by someone who is blisteringly cool.
This is the stuff of poetically demented blues: “Lick my legs, I’m on fire / Lick my legs of desire.” The music is intensely emotional, violent, or sexually explicit. Many of these narratives are grounded in history, religion, or the arts; they are not always written in the voices and characters who are not P.J. Harvey and the men who crossed her path. They are literal performances of gender: Shedding light, poking fun at, and railing against the misery of feeling trapped by the expectations of feminity or masculinity for an entire lifetime.
The brilliance of Rid of Me is in the vividness and detail in which it captures that panorama using only blues and rhythm, loud-quiet-loud dynamics, Harvey’s voice, and an arsenal of extreme characters and loaded allusions. Steve Albini's deliberately crude production leaves everything minimal and rough, balancing heavy feedback and distortion with unexpected quiet breaks, which may be the aural embodiment of the tortured lyrics. The result is supremely effective performance art. It’s as if the whole album were recorded in somebody’s basement, with the drums set up in a bathroom to clatter as chaotically as possible.
Rid of Me has influenced albums and acts like Jagged Little Pill, Live Through This, American Football, Karen O, Ethel Cain, and Phoebe Bridgers.
Highlights: Rid of Me, Missed, Rub ‘til It Bleeds, 50 ft Queenie, Yuri-G, Man-Size, Dry, Snake
Kevin’s #46: Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement (1992)
My Take:
This is a great pick. No one needs me to tell them that Pavement is one of the defining ‘90s alt/indie rock bands. Slanted and Enchanted, along with Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowie Zowie are essential listens to anyone who loves the genre or wants to explore it further. Or if you like Pavement, you should absolutely check out associated projects like American Water from Silver Jews.
My #45: The Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest (1991)
The Low End Theory is one of the biggest reasons I fell in love with hip-hop. The only rappers I mainly knew of before discovering this record were Eminem, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Lil’ Wayne. I heard “Scenario” on vinyl at my friend’s house, and I was amazed at how fun and effortless it sounded. Then I heard “Check the Rhime” and I was hooked.
A Tribe Called Quest had a very smooth and thoughtful approach to hip-hop that set them apart from the hardcore and gangsta rap in the mainstream in 1991—and their sound is still unique today. There are loads of jazz, funk, and soul samples all over this record, hypnotically head-bobbing percussion, and deep heavy double bass grooves. It’s organic and silky but still carries that very concrete gritty down-to-earth and urban vibe. Q-Tip and Phife Dawg deliver a series of verses that are poetic, clever, relatable, and socially aware. The narratives in the lyrics toss out one philosophical nugget after another. The Low End Theory displays so much creativity, personality, and talent that its enjoyability transcends the hip-hop genre.
Highlights: Excursions, Buggin’ Out, Butter, Verses from the Abstract, Show Business, Infamous Date Rape, Check the Rhime, Everything is Fair, Jazz (We’ve Got), Skypager, What?, Scenario
Kevin’s #45: Rid of Me - P.J. Harvey (1993)
My Take:
Well, you literally just read my take on P.J. Harvey. This album is pretty dope.
My #44: Mama’s Gun - Erykah Badu (2000)
Mama’s Gun offers a pointed, sustained, and grounded statement about what it means to get tired of waiting out and wading through the wretchedness of urban blight, the perpetual threat of police brutality, the baggage from toxic relationships, and the sometimes oppressive voices inside one’s head. Erykah Badu laid down tracks that extended the trademark vibe she established on Baduizm: Deep grooves, wrestling with time, delivering pithy observations about the will to move through temporal lag. Badu interpreted a harsh world through a poet’s eye and bent R&B, hip-hop, and jazz to her vision.
The production is fresh: The Jimi Hendrix-inspired opener, the J Dilla produced “Didn’t Cha Know,” and the deployment of legendary artists like jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and Roots drummer Questlove. The final track, “Green Eyes,” is sublime, a transcendent jazz suite dealing with the three acts of a love affair: Denial, acceptance, and relapse. Every human should experience listening to “Orange Moon” at the beach under the moon. Erykah Badu laid down the blueprint for a Black feminist album that understands how essential love is to any movement that fights the status quo while staying aware of the larger traumas, heartbreaks, and challenges that complicate human intimacy.
Highlights: Penitentiary Philosophy, Didn’t Cha Know, …& On, A.D. 2000, Orange Moon, Bag Lady, Times a Wastin, Green Eyes
Kevin’s #44: Violator - Depeche Mode (1990)
My Take:
Violator is so fucking good, and I was kicking myself for leaving it off my list once I narrowed my picks down to about 120 albums. It’s a perfectly formed void, and there is nothing out of place. Every song is full of heavy hooks, cinematic arrangements, and sleek sonic placements that find a compromise between pop music and something a little more sinister. I was just in Vancouver with my girlfriend at a Fatburger, and “Personal Jesus” came on, and it’s one of those songs that I can’t help myself, so I start belting out the lyrics in the middle of the line completely shameless—although she was internally melting down from second-hand embarrassment.
My #43: The Queen is Dead - The Smiths (1986)
The Smiths’s whole output is just fantastic, and The Queen is Dead may not be their best album, but it’s the quintessential Smiths album. I was obsessed with it in high school. I must have listened to “I Know It’s Over” hundreds of times. Morrissey has such a way of making lyrics stick in your head, like the walkman line in “Bigmouth Strikes Again.” He matches his verbal excess with witty, supple music and it’s the dry humor that makes The Smiths The Smiths and not just a depressing rock band with a brilliant guitar player. “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” is a classic, “Frankly, Mr Shankly” and “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side” is so bright and beautiful. Obviously, Johnny Marr’s incisive, visceral guitar playing is exquisite but the rhythm section is so solid. This is one of the greatest albums in pop music history, or at least certainly in indie history. Only the likes of Chilton, Patti/Elliott Smith, Westerberg, Wilson, Malkmus, and Davies have ever come close. And a decade later, it became a key influence for all things Britpop.
Highlights: The Queen is Dead; Frankly, Mr. Shankly; I Know it’s Over; Cemetary Gates; Bigmouth Strikes Again; The Boy With The Thorn In His Side; There is a Light that Never Goes Out
Kevin’s #43: Exodus - Bob Marley (1977)
Highlight:
Exodus is the perfect laid-back album. The rhythm section of Aston Barrett, (bass), Carlton Barrett (drums) and the spidery lead guitar of Julian “Junior” Marvin needs a shout-out because they are fantastic. The balance Bob Marley strikes between politics, religion, and romance gave the band a lot to work with. Marley’s music was a staple of my childhood summer vacations, and I’m low-key punching the air right now for leaving this off my list.
My #42: Since I Left You - The Avalanches (2000)
Given that Since I Left You contains over 900 individual samples, it’s remarkable this thing got released in the first place. And they sample everything from long-forgotten R&B to disco string sections to golf instructions and Madonna’s “Holiday.” The song “Frontier Psychiatrist” busts out samples from 307 spoken word recordings. When they change the context of the woman asking the girl, “Can you think of anything else [that talks, other than a person]?” and the girl says “Um….a record?” and the beautiful acoustic guitar gallops away, that simple sample flip emphasizes how much music can “speak” to us.
What makes this album so brilliant is not the volume and quantity of the samples, but how they’re deployed. The Avalanches managed to build a totally unique context for all these sounds until it formed into a kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed psychedelic disco fry-up. Though it contains many distinct songs and moods, Since I Left You is remarkably coherent on all fronts. This is no doubt a meticulously constructed project, but it brims with spontaneity, joy, sadness, humor, reflection, and general humanness. As a result, Since I Left You is bottled magic, a form of musical therapy. It takes you on a tour of your emotions and headspace, effortlessly drifting from pure euphoria to melancholic nostalgia to blissful relaxation. It’s the perfect record for the party, and for the period of regret and recovery after the party.
Highlights: Since I Left You, Stay Another Season, Radio, Two Hearts In 3/4 Time, Avalanche Rock, Flight Tonight, Close to You, A Different Feeling, Electricity, Tonight May Have to Last Me All My Life, Frontier Psychiatrist, ETOH, Summer Crane, Little Journey, Live at Dominoes, Extra Kings
Kevin’s #42: This Year’s Model - Elvis Costello (1978)
My Take:
Elvis Costello is one of those artists who I know I should like, but for whatever reason, it just doesn’t click with me. I’ve heard My Aim is True a few times, so I gave This Year’s Model a chance, and the same result. I know this is a great new wave and power pop record, and I can feel myself nodding along to it, but I can’t quite cross the Rubicon.
My #41: Illinois - Sufjan Stevens (2005)
Illinois is a beautiful, sprawling, staggering collection of impeccably arranged American tribute songs that feels like an adventure. The whimsical sound and wide variety of instruments imitating an orchestra give such a sense of grandness to these songs that stand out from the usual singer/songwriter affair.
Illinois is brimming with heart-wrenching melodies and over-the-top arrangements, and it employs a small army of backers like a string quartet, the Illinoisemaker Choir, drummer James McAllister, trumpeter Craig Montoro, and a pile of extra vocalists. There is banjo, there is a haze of drums, there are strings, there are shimmering keyboards. But Sufjan Steven’s breathy, gentle voice is at the forefront; as his pipes quiver generously, he is always beautifully echoed by his backers. He has a remarkable talent for being rousing and distressing, prodding disparate emotional centers until you have no idea whether to grab your dancing shoes or a box of tissues. And a random fact: I had two separate conversations with Chicagoans about Illinois when Sufjan came up during an Oscar watch party while I lived in the city, and apparently everybody in the Windy City has a copy of this album.
Highlights: Concerning the UFO sighting; The Black Hawk War; Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I; John Wayne Gacy, Jr; Jacksonville; Decatur; Chicago; Casimir Pulaski Day; The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts; Prarie Fire that Wanders About; The Predatory Wasp; They are Night Zombies!!
Kevin’s #41: Excitable Boy - Warren Zevon (1978)
My take:
Apparently, I have lived through two decades of music fandom having listened to “Werewolves of London” hundreds of times without ever knowing the title of the song and who wrote it. So I gave this a spin and there are some serious bangers on here, like “Johnny Strikes Up the Band,” “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” “Excitable Boy,” and “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”
Kevin and I also created a Spotify playlist of one song from each of our album picks. Check it out!
Our 60-51:
Our 40-31:
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The writing for the PJ Harvey “ Rid of Me” review is superb, hats off Sam! I had a similar experience to you the first time I heard ‘Low End Theory”. Some great music again from you two! I must check out Consolidated and Love Deluxe.
Warren Zevon + Sade = THANK YOU