Time to log my single biggest complaint:
69. Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
After which, I"m thinking, "Eh, at least they remembered it exists. I'll take it."
...
66. Hole, Live Through This
NO. Just NO.
I can live with a lot of the other stuff--OK Computer, but no Kid A; 4 Beatles albums in the top 46 (plus Lennon\Oko in there); the horrendously high rating of Adele; that and Kanye being the only 2 two albums from the last twenty years in the top twenty (Nevermind just falling outside of that range).
BUT SRSLY GUYS: there is no possible universe in which Daydream Nation is an inferior album to Live Through This. I refuse to live in a world where people honestly believe this. Don't get me wrong: Live Through This is not an awful album. It's pretty good. I have my doubts that even Courtney Love would rank LTT ahead of Daydream Nation.
The Else is a highly underrated record. It's not my favorite (I doubt they'll ever be able to top Lincoln), but it's neck and neck with Nanobots for their best post-Elektra record.
A stunning lack of Dr. Worm and Narrow Your Eyes makes this list flawed.
I could also make a case for Nanobots, Experimental Film, Bangs, the briefly mentioned The Mesopotamians, Till My Head Falls Off, Certain People I Could Name, etc. etc.
XTC vs. Adam Ant? Meh. You manage to pick one of the worst songs on their worst record. Son, I am very disappoint.
I've never been a huge fan of Lonesome Crowded West; it's pretty uneven. Moon & Antarctica slogs a bit in the middle, but is pretty damn near perfect. We Were Dead would have been much better minus two or three songs, but seriously has grown on me since release.
The fact is though it's hard to quibble--so much quality, and doesn't even include Building Nothing or three EPs that all have some great, great songs.
Speaking as someone who didn't "get" Radiohead the first time around ("Creep") or the second time around ("Paranoid Android"\"Karma Police"), I finally gave into my urge to check them out based on a $5 MP3 album sale at Amazon. It was Kid A, and once I heard the beginning beat of "Idioteque", my brain instantly snapped back to watching that SNL performance.
I remember thinking at the time "That's that same band that did "Creep"? What the hell?" but sort of shuffling it to the background. But hearing Kid A in its full glory in 2010, I finally "got" it. I got the sheer power and emotion in Yorke's singing and the will and drive of pushing the envelope. I now count myself a Radiohead fan, and I am glad for it.
If "Creep" had been put out by just about any other band, you could be considered sane and still consider "Creep" their best song. But you're talking about a band that has put out "Paranoid Android", "Fake Plastic Trees", "There, There", "Knives Out", "Bloom", "The National Anthem", etc., etc. The line in front of "Creep" is absurdly long.
The new Joy Formidable is pretty great, but I think the album of the week is probably This Town Needs Guns' "13.0.0.0.0". I think they solidified their sound and put an excellent second record.
I feel like having KOL last is A+ trolling by Doug here. Folding in some of the additional output in the KOL era (These Are My Twisted Words, the amazing The Daily Mail\Staircase single) fills out the KOL picture a lot more.
But really, choosing between OK Computer, Kid A, and Hail To The Thief is pretty cruel for a listmaker.
Not afraid to admit that Soul Asylum was long one of my favorite bands. The two albums after GDU were pretty middling to awful with a few decent tracks, but the two A&M albums before GDU (Hang Time and ...And The Horse They Rode In On) were killer. I have mixed feelings about GDU nowadays. I pretty much have to skip "Runaway Train", not because I hate it, but it just got so damned overplayed.
People have often asked me why my entire music "collection" is stuff from mostly the 90s and later (with some 80s thrown in). Simply put, there's only so much time. I tend to stick to the "after I was born" as a cutoff. Yes, that means I miss out on "classic" stuff and spend time listening to "inferior copies" of those bands. I'm trying to explore the music and art of my times, and that's how I see it.
She does the same thing with food? That seems weird. Admitting that people lay out "hundreds of dollars" to feed you? I don't know, it just comes off really weird.
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