Like an all-time rock band playing their own funeral. Some of these are definitive versions of the songs for me. You're not crazy if this is your favorite Nirvana album.
Great for montages of young people in the 60s doing drugs and fornicating.
Skate punk in the 70s, produced by Joan Jett! Super rad. Not what I’d reach for if I’m jonesin’ for some hardcore though.
This might be more impressive, but Breakfast in America has all the bops. I should get into prog maybe.
First female-delivered “Fuck off!” in popular music history? Chrissie Hynde, absolute hardass. You can hear the influence on 90s alternative and modern indie rock, super solid.
Tight tight TIGHT. This absolutely rules. Talk about a record you could put on anytime.
Heavy lyrics, big melodies and memorable hooks. Under serious suspicion of being my jam. Listened twice and loved it.
Big fan of her first two records and their raw sound (Steve Albini did one). I think her voice and songwriting translates well with this slicker production, but I prefer the older stuff. An artist I could see doing a deep dive on at some point.
Emily Thompson, hope you’re well 🫡
Could have been any Max Martin album of the era, but this one has Baby One More Time.
Suprising release year with those crisp drum samples! Probably my favorite element. Seems like solid soft rock/funk but not the kinda thing that sticks for me.
Your flag decal won't get you into heaven no more.
My first foray with Iggy! Turn Blue is a great track. Thought the rest was solid, less punk than I expected.
“Alright” is pure 2010s music supervisor-core. A great tune, but it’s hard not to think of a Kia commercial when I hear it.
Good
Hot take but MJ's talent is otherworldly and insane.
Gentle songs brought on by hard drugs. TVU&N might have launched a thousand bands, but decades later, more bands sound like this record.
I could see this growing into a five-star. For now, I just feel a gap between my preference for this and their first two albums (especially White Light/White Heat).
Bowie and Eno. Say it back.
Low is like a perfect encapsulation of what both artists can do at the peak of their powers. Eno's production is so inventive, and Bowie has the gravitas to not get lost in it. The result isn't just mind-bending, it's genuinely fun. And unlike your average Animal Collective album (which owes a lot to this one), each ambient space-out on the back end is a no-skip.
It's like novocaine. Just give it time, always works.
This record embodies the 90s too-cool-to-try ethos as well as any. But for my money, this school teacher pounding out half-baked ideas in his garage, stumbling into the odd power pop masterpiece like “Game of Pricks,” is way more rock 'n' roll than anything that came out of the sunset strip in the 80s. Call it hipster propaganda but I really believe it.
It's British Invasion, pop and punk—a mixed but joyous grab-bag of great hooks, tape hiss, and nonsense. Took me a few listens but I adore it.
Cover sure captures the music.
I’m sure this is above average for what it is, I just have no interest in hearing it again. The covers are probably the best songs.
High-concept and dynamic, but it boogies so hard. It would make sense to pattern a race of androids after Janelle Monáe. I have a hard time giving something a 5 on first listen but I thought about it; definitely coming back to this one.
Recognized "Take Five" right away, jazz standard and I can totally see why.
Great folk ages like fine wine (Bluebird Wine?), maybe more so than any other genre.
Not the most immediate as a full-listen, but Harris's voice is amazing—not just conventionally beautiful, but deeply expressive. "Boulder to Birmingham" is a heartbreaker.
Anarrr-CHYSTUH!!
Johnny Rotten’s swagger is crazy. Not bad for a future right-wing idiot.
The guitars sound huge even now—it’s searing rock ‘n’ roll with punk aesthetics. There are some skips but I can tell why these guys helped launch a bajillion (often better) bands.
Kinda a less memorable Doors for me—the band has chops, some of the songs really move, but it doesn't light my fire, as it were.
Miss Judy's Farm and Stay With Me actually go a place.
I knew this album by reputation. I've been really into music that's adjacent to or influenced by it, that type of literary americana like Ryan Davis and David Berman. (And Waxahatchee, if that counts.)
So the gravity I felt for it, not surprising. I love the subtle instrumentation. I love the quiver in his voice and how well it pairs with the lyrical themes about mortality and internalized lack. Like Emmylou Harris a few days ago, and maybe all the best folk, it's both intellectually and emotionally convincing.
I know it'll require more focused listening to really appreciate, and I'm looking forward to it.
Captures the bad at their transitional moment between the Dylan-informed krautrock of their early work and the arena-sized Springsteen worship they leaned into later. The result: Lost in the Fucking Dream, an ambient rock masterpiece.
Sonically tender, emotionally massive. It has the intimacy of bedroom pop, but it's big enough to fit the lowest moments of your life inside. I'll never forget when I saw them play "Under the Pressure," and a generally docile crowd came alive during the bridge. If "Burning" ever doesn't make me feel like I can be a hero, just for one day, where am I and how did I get there?
The cresting of a wandering guitar line, the tidal shift of a single chord change. An ocean between the waves indeed.
I can’t get behind the emerging hot take that this is better than Nevermind. I listened to both with an open mind. I tried.
But it’s a fantastic rock record and Courtney Love is a force of nature.
Disintegration is a cavernous soundscape of gothic grandeur yet, in some ways, disarmingly simple. It's The Cure stretching their indelible sound skyward. Probably a touch too long but I don't care—it’s one of the greatest alternative records of all time.
I know from rock docs that Sly was an incredible musician and performer. These recordings didn’t do a ton for me.
Jeff Tweedy says in his autobiography that the music journalism about this album is better than the record itself. I can see where he's coming from. Most of it doesn't capture the weightiness of the opener or the ferocity of the cover.
But the first few songs are bangers. Then you look up 50 minutes later and it's still bangers. Spanish Bombs. I'm Not Down. Train in Vain. The propulsion of this thing, jesus christ. (Exception for "Revolution Rock," which is a drag.)
The Clash weren't "the only band that mattered," but they were a truly great punk band, and with London Calling, they made a truly great rock 'n' roll record.
I have the eponymous track on some playlists already. As for the rest… idk, ever like the idea of something but don’t actually enjoy listening to it? Cool guitars, though—apparently influenced Sonic Youth and that’s doing the lord’s work.
Zepp are one of my biggest blindspots. Listened to S/T and IV years ago and wrote them off as the blueprint for Spinal Tap and not for me.
Maybe it's the acoustic guitar and expertly ambling buildups that are piercing my indie rock heart but this was the sliding door from "I respect the craft" to "shit this is REALLY good!"
People are talking about much Geese sounds like Radiohead or the Strokes, but I hear a lot more "Celebration Day" and "Gallows Pole" in their new record than anything else.
Bruce is the rock ‘n’ roll boss of big feelings. So I can see why songs like "Mary's Place" and the title track could put a lump in your throat whether 9/11 just happened or not. But remove the context and swap out the singer and I could've mistaken this one for a way more forgettable artist. (Uncle Kracker crossed my mind, but only for a second.)
If I appear unresponsive, don’t check my pulse. Just hit play on “Debaser” and if I’m not smiling within seconds, I’m probably gone.
I aks her out she said no WAY
It’s good in part because it’s funny, and it’s made funnier by being so good. That “Girls” to “Paul Revere” run? Unimpeachable. I think it loses a little potency with a couple songs to go, but what a swell time.
The Blue Album and Smash—two huge albums that helped set a course for post-Cobain alt-rock in ‘94—appealed to different types of outcast: the serious (former) and the unserious (latter). There’s a lot of crossover there, but that subtle difference probably explains why the Disneyfication of both bands hit the Weezer fans harder. The Offspring might be singing about gang violence and road rage, but Dexter never had the insight or perspective as a songwriter to make people take it seriously. Rivers had the chops to make us care about sweaters and surfin’. Go figure.
So, this record is not Blue. But it’s a solid effort with a few tracks that absolutely rip. “Gotta Get Away” would be a great rock song in any era. “What Happened to You” is primo ska punk. And “Self Esteem,” the cuckold anthem of all-time, is an unironic 10/10 for me. I have to remember not to accelerate when it comes on in the car. (A bad habit, so to speak.)
The Offspring never reached the heights of a truly great band, but they demonstrate here that with a few different creative choices, it wasn’t crazy to think they could.
While the title and cover hint at a certain... utility in the music, for me it was just an enchanting trip hop record. I listened to twice and loved—stone cold sober (maybe a little tired). A gem of a find for me.
Neil Young is a great songwriter who has yet to pierce my heart in any meaningful way (or justify SEVEN solo albums on this list.) I love the album cover though, which encapsulates a type of sunny, breezy alienation—like the songs themselves.
Liv quote of the day: “If anything else was happening over this music I’d be having a great time.” (As Morrissey groans over the extended outro of “Barbarism Begins at Home.”)
She’s also convinced the false ending happened when because they told him the song was over and waited til he left to bring it back.
The Smiths are fun!
Not the title track. That’s not fun. Not Morrissey with his dour personality and awful takes.
The rest of the album though? Alternative’s perennial sour puss tra-la-la-ing over sick bass lines and Marr’s interpretation of American honky tonk that never fucking quits. “What She Said” kinda sounds like RHCP’s “Higher Ground” cover with a different mix and I will not apologize for that take.
It’s The Smiths at their most accessible and it slaps.
"So you can make me cum... that doesn't make you Jesus."
Damn. Some real bars on this. Love the title track too.
Really, really liked this. It's like a lot of adult alternative I love—tasteful, deliberate, but it feels like it can go anywhere. Smart choices and cool production.
Its enduring popularity has to be a marketing problem—where do you put this? It's not Britpop, but it's not Radiohead. They could tour with U2 or Spiritualized and both would make sense.
Pitchfork is basically dead, and the sheen on this once-great band has been dulled by poor taste and bad behavior. Funeral is like a glowing ember, reminding us what started it all: a magnificent rock record.
Not a perfect one. There’s some easy sloganeering and one or two skips. But way better than it had any right to be—a small tribe of earnest young hipsters recording blog rock’s “Teen Spirit” in a loft somewhere for pennies. “Rebellion” and “In the Backseat” are also stunning; AF made great music after this, but nothing they did beats those tracks for me.
Some great lines, and I like that the music got darker after Different Class. They remain band I find easy to like, hard to love.
I know Jarvis Cocker is a horny poet or whatever but the album cover’s pretty stupid.
I could not have found this any less interesting. Which isn’t a capital crime but the “Heaven” cover was such a nothingburger that it hurt my feelings. One star.
Minimalist indie pop; rewards both active and passive listening. The imitators who followed misunderstood the assignment.
The book I'm reading referred to Mumford & Sons as "Butt Rock Bon Iver."* Fleet Foxes would have been more fitting, though not as fun to say.
It's hard to be mad about all the stomp-and-clap this helped launch when you listen to the record. The layered harmonies, the arrangements; I think you'd have to be pretty broken inside to not feel some joy listening to it. (I myself am not broken at all.)
Still, while it's clear Pecknold (at like 21 years old, by the way) had talent coming out of his ears, and the taste to make this type of music not feel TOO much like a costume, he later built on his talent and taste with a singular songwriting perspective. That's where the music became not just joyful, but deeply cathartic.
I don't begrudge this album being here, especially for its influence. But it's hard to forget how much better Helplessness Blues is, and it isn't here.
*Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion by Chris Deville. Great little pop culture read.
Suffers from over-the-top lyricism (from… Bono??) but I actually really enjoyed this. Removed from the whole concept of U2 as a "capital I" Important band, it's well-produced and fully realized alternative record. Probably the only example of lush production working in the band's favor. "One" is moving and "Mysterious Ways" is a total bop that, uh... also moves. In ways.
Edit: I read the reviews and holy shit, people hate this. Shout out to the madlad comparing U2 to the IRA.
The Brits’ were makin’ some rad-ass electronic music in the ‘90s. I saw Trainspotting.
Remember the scene in Across the Universe where Bono skulks around with a microphone muttering about how he's the walrus? Kind of reminded me of that.
I know having a built-out stage persona was a big thing in early psychedelia. I just don’t think this has the instrumental muscle to sell it. Probably had to be there.
I sure do like this band. This doesn’t have the “holy shit” effect of This Nation’s Saving Grace, which is more accessible. But it’s a wildly confident debut record.
Don’t mind me, just on my way to my marketing job listening to “Shit From an Old Notebook.”
The range on this record insane. DIY punks the chops to pull off jazz, funk, and country and make it all sound cohesive; not bad for a three-piece. I suspect D. Noon in particular was an alien. Overall, it’s endlessly listenable, which, I would argue, is a good trait for a double album.
Not often, but every once in a while, I lament that I spent high school listening to misogynistic mall rock would I could have been listening to better placed angst like this.
Debauched and fun. Probably more remarkable for its release date than anything inherent in the music.
I bet this absolutely raged at CBGBs back in the day.
More twee than I would've thought coming from the Pink Floyd extended universe. But I enjoyed! Great melodies, simple but effective arrangements. More late Beatles and TVU than anything I was expecting. Listened twice.
It's weird that this evaded me for so long, but then again it's not. There isn't an obvious box to put this into. (Maybe we don't put art in boxes or whatever?) Splits the difference between Television and Miles Davis. Can't wait to come back to this one.
Flows like butter. It's a super accessible entry point to the scene, maybe even the whole genre.
The Brits had great alternative on an assembly line at this point. If you have Souvlaki or The Stone Roses on your shelf, this needs to be there, too.
