| 100 Best Albums of the 20th Century |
| 1. Rain Dogs, Tom Waits |
| 2. Cure For Pain, Morphine |
| 3. London Calling, The Clash |
| 4. Blood On The Tracks, Bob Dylan |
| 5. Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing |
| 6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye |
| 7. The Bends, Radiohead |
| 8. Bone Machine, Tom Waits |
| 9. Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys |
| 10. Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen |
| ...or at least in my opinion.... |
| A few ground rules before we begin.... 1. NO BEATLES. The Beatles killed R&B, plain and simple, and although some of my picks are by artists that would not have made music if not for the Beatles and their albums, I, myself, have never been moved by any of their songs, except for "Any Time At All". Then again, I was seven at the time. I am not 7 any longer. 2. These are albums that I believe will be listened to in 100 years and still have the same impact they had when they came out. I tried to shy away from works that came to encapsulate an era or act as the figurehead for a 'movement', like grunge (Nirvana), gangsta (NWA), space rock (Pink Floyd), etc. 3. I need to have heard the album in its entirety and remember it fondly. EXAMPLE: I've been trapped on a highway with Pat Benetar's Best Shots on random repeat. They're good songs, but it was not my idea of fun. And now, my top 10.... |
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| Absolutely amazing album, from start to finish. Skip over a track and you miss a lot. I was tempted to package this one with the other two records in his Rainbirds triilogy, but the net effect would be LESS powerful than this record standing on its own. Every song is a near-perfect pop gem channeled through a rusty blender. A must have. |
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| Again, a flawless collection of pop masterpieces, but not what you're used to hearing on the radio. With only sax, bass, and drums (and the occasional guitar or synth for color), Morphine wrote incredible songs - some sexy and sad, some furious fearless. This record is the soundtrack to that day when everywhere you turned, it seemed like you were getting punched in the stomach, screwed over by your lover, or losing your lunch money down the storm drain...and then came home and had amazing sex and a steak dinner. |
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| What can I say... it's punk, it's reggae, it's rockabilly, it's New Wave, it's...great. "London Calling" is two chords and a hook. Romance and anarchy collide on "Spanish Bombs". "The Right Profile" is the best song ever about Montgomery Clift (sorry, REM). "Lost In The Supermarket" is impossibly neurotic. And, when you're done with those songs (and 6 more), a whole 'nother side awaits...also one of the best album covers ever (even though it's an Elvis ripoff). |
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| There's absolutely nothing I can say about this album that hasn't been said already - masterpiece, outpouring of one's soul, every word being necessary - so I'll just repeat what I was told before I listened to it for the first time - "Idiot Wind is the smartest song ever written.". |
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| Oh how quickly this band fell into disrepair...they only put out three albums, two of which were merely marginal. This one, though, is undoubtedly one of the best of the 90's, and arguably one of the best debut albums ever. It's the perfect blend of funk, rock, blues, rap, acid, and cartoons, with jazzbo urbanite lyrics to match.. "True Dreams Of Wichita" still stands as the Best Single That Never Was. Even the worst song - "Uh Zoom Zip" - has more mmph! in its little finger than the all of Alicia Keys, Macy Gray and R. Kelly combined. |
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| Ahhh....the man, the myth, the Marvin...I don't need to tell you about his career as the sex-funk bomb of all bomb-ass soul singers (Otis Redding excepted) and how he put all that aside to make a political album covering race, welfare, crumbling cities, Vietnam, drug abuse, ecoterrorism, God, love...and sex, too. Y'see, Marvin was never without the L-U-V. Thanks to this album, sensuality and passion are forever married to the mind as well as to the body...and that's something we can all be thankful for. |
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| A lot of ejaculatory press is given to OK Computer and Kid A (and rightfully so) for the band's forays into experimentation. However, the band still hasn't made a better album than this one. Imagine, if you will, the holy trinity of post-punk of REM, the Pixies, and the Smiths coming together onto a single flat disc, agonizing at length about the emptiness of life and the drop-dead-gorgeous promise of dreams and fantasies. Winston Churchill was wrong - if the British Empire should last for a thousand years, men will still say THIS was their finest hour. |
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| All the grit, the grime, the rust, and the dust of an abandoned steel mill comes to life just before the advent of the Apocalypse. Widows and orphans chase each other around the smelter with hatchets and Bibles, while Capitol Hill crashes to the ground under the weight of the bodies sagging on spikes above the rotunda. All across the nation, unshaven hobos in ice cream vans are driving from town to town, blasting this album on their loudspeakers. It's the prettiest noise you've ever heard. |
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| I'm beginning to come around to the notion that it is impossible to fully grasp this album unless you are a man. There is so much in this album to do with the brands of sensitivity, helplessness, dependence, devotion, and paranoia that only a man in love could exhibit. For all of us men in love, whether we have a target or not, this is our soundtrack, whether we've heard it or not. Except we all have. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows" are two of the finest pop songs ever; "Sloop John B." features, a bass playing the guitar part. |
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| After years of arena rock stardom and anthemic brilliance, Springsteen puts out a little acoustic collection that has everything and nothing to do with the Reagan-era farm subsidy program. By that token, he creates a batch of songs that, are so anticlimactic and subdued musically that the words take center stage. The Boss has always been a pretty good lyricist, but this good? |