Some of your opinions are pretty crazy.

But, hey, that makes this way more interesting.

Too Indie For Indie

Actually I just have specific taste in music. Mostly I love pop and dislike classic rock.

Yeah, I noticed. Not trying to bash or anything.

It really does make this more interesting to read. For now, anyway.

Really I've got very little to say about these '60s and '70s albums. It's the stuff from the '90s and the past six years that I'm more inclined towards.

020. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed (1969)




When I hear 'Gimmie Shelter' on the radio, it's my favorite Stones song. It pumps me up so much.

When I hear it on this record, it's just another song. Mainly because I dislike this album so much. Even 'Shelter' and 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' are pulled down by the brutality of the rest of the tracks.

I don't get "Live With Me". What's with the vocals?

The lyrics of "Country Honk" are so bad. "She blew my nose, and then she blew my mind"? Ugh.

The rest of the album, that whole middle section... I don't have any opinions. I forgot it was on and stopped paying attention. It couldn't hold my interest even when I wanted it to.

Frankly I'm not even sure why I own this.

021. Cat Stevens - Teaser And The Firecat (1971)




This album has some really great songs that I adore. It still manages to drag a bit, though. "Bitterblue" comes to mind. And I don't know. There's something about Cat Stevens that he feels really different depending on whether you listen to a song or a full album. I usually prefer the former.

022. Nick Drake - Pink Moon (1972)




Despite the fact that I was listening to him before the movie came out, I can't listen to Nick Drake without thinking of Garden State. That's not a bad thing; I loved the movie. It just makes it difficult to put it into any other context.

The other comparison I'm constantly drawn to with Drake is Buckley. So many comparisons can be made of Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley. So again, it's hard to focus on Nick himself and the album itself.

This album's incredible, though. It's so... I don't know... haunting? When I think of folk music, I think of upbeat, summery happy stuff. Simon & Garfunkel. But this isn't that at all. Even when the lyrics aren't particularly depressing or sad, the music still drips with mood. It takes you into a specific place. It's quite powerful.

023. Ramones - Ramones (1976)




With the abundance of emo, screamo, and shitty pop punk bands around these days, it's easy to want to write-off "punk" as a genre. Then you just have to listen to something like this and go "oh yeah, it was awesome once."

This is awesome.

024. Ramones - Leave Home (1977)




More of the same but still pretty stellar. Some of my favorite songs by them are off this album.

025. Ramones - Rocket To Russia (1977)




I'm sure I've read it, but I can't remember what they did differently on this album. It's got to have been a new producer or something, because this is so slick and polished. In a good way. If they had made another album just like the first two, it would've been too much. While the songs are pretty much still exactly the same kind, the production values give it a feel and really make it a step up.

this thread is turning out to be quite entertaining.
and these are some of the best written lyrics of all times. you just don't get it.
but, good job and carry on.

I fully admit I dislike most music written and recorded prior to my birth. I seriously probably like more albums from 2004 than from 1950-1980 added together.

026. Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)




Even after twenty-eight years and however many times I've listened to this, I still can't get past how odd it is. Which leads to the disbelief that this was actually released by Warner Bros. It doesn't add up. This is the kind of record that should've been released to little fanfare and slowly, slowly built up a cult following upon individual people discovering it and championing it.

But it wasn't. People were crawling all over themselves to produce it, sign them, and release it. If Devo were trying to release this album as their debut album in 2006, they'd be lucky if they landed on somewhere like Matador or Rough Trade.

But besides all that, this album is great. Unique, and great.

027. The B-52's - The B-52's (1979)




This is my kind of dance record.

The B-52's were just another in a long line of bands I wrote off based on the only song(s) they continually played on tv and radio. In their case, it was 'Rock Lobster' and 'Love Shack'. They seemed liked such gimmicky, novelty songs. I'd watch the videos and laugh but that was it. No desire to go any futher. (Devo's 'Whip It' suffered them the same fate for a long while.)

It may have been all the times they were mentioned in the same discussions as R.E.M.. It may have been a couple of other '80s bands like Depeche Mode and The Smiths that inspired the thought in me that, hey, maybe the '80s weren't a useless, nothing good, horrible wasteland of music.

Whatever the case, I finally looked into some tracks off this album and was astonished. It was so good and so catchy and so fun. Like R.E.M. or Devo if they wanted people to dance. 'Dance This Mes Around' would probably make my top twenty-five of favorite songs. I'm so glad I heard this album.

We had a contemporary bootleg gatefold of that Elvis EP at the store for a while--it was marked "FOR PROMOTIONAL USE", and we had its bootleg status confirmed by an Elvis expert to ensure it wasn't worth gazillions. Still sold that booger as a bootleg for 75 clams.

You need to be nice to Radcliffe, then beg him to make you a sixties and seventies mix.

028. Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (1979)




These songs are so amazing that I really don't know why I don't have anything else by the band besides this album.

'Orgasm Addict' is funny but my favorites are still 'Ever Fallen In Love?' and 'What Do I Get?'. The whole first side is brilliant, beginning to end.

The bonus tracks reissue kind of sucks as they add on bonus tracks after each side, instead of after the whole album. And the bonus tracks aren't as strong as the songs that were originally on it. So that disrupts the flow halfway through.

But even then. I can't believe this album, London Calling, and Road To Ruin all came out within a year and a half of each other and people still like to claim that punk died in '78 when the Sex Pistols broke up. Get over yourselves.

029. The Clash - London Calling (1979)




Despite my last post, I don't really think of this as a punk album. It certainly doesn't sound like one.

I only knew two tracks going into this one -- the first and the last. Turned out the in-between was pretty good too.

This actually took a while to grow on me. First few listens I wasn't that impressed but slowly each song drew me in in its own way.

"Lost In The Supermarket" is still probably my favorite track. There are one or two that don't really do it for me. But on the whole this is a really great album and I've got no problem with this being the reigning number one on the obner countdown of favorite albums of all time.

030. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (1980)




This album isn't as good as I remember it being and that's very saddening news. There's still a lot of really great tracks. The first half a dozen, 'Credit In The Straight World', 'Final Day'... but a lot of it does start to sound too much alike. Yeah, this sucks. I want to love this album but I can't really muster up anything other than admiration and strong liking.

031. R.E.M. - Murmur (1983)




It took me a while to get into old REM. I grew up listening to their post-Warner stuff on the radio and tv. Stuff like 'Losing My Religion', 'Everybody Hurts', and so on was everywhere. I fell for all that and decided I was going to get their entire discography. The fact that I worked at a used cd store that had at least one copy of every album of theirs for around $7 helped that argument.

So I bought all their old albums, listened, wasn't too into them, and tossed them onto the shelf. It wasn't until I finished a book on the band earlier this year that I decided to sit down and really give them all a chance. And it helped.

'Radio Free Europe' needs no help. That songs jumps out of the stereo and moves you. The rest, while I can see their merit now and do enjoy to some extent, still feels like maybe it was a "you had to be there" moment. If I was born twenty years earlier and had discovered this album when it came out, I probably would have been blown away and listened to this over and over. In 2006 though, I don't know.

I will admit that I only heard this album for the first time maybe about 6-7 years ago. It wasn't out of lack of interest, I could just never find the fucking thing on cd at a price less than $25. I do see where you're coming from, as after a couple of listens, I was kind of surprised this album was so lauded. It seemed good, but not great. However, at some point Murmur clicked for me and I understood the raves. Now it's pretty much the only REM album I still play regularly.

032. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes (1983)




This is (apparently) my sixth favorite album of all time, also making it the oldest album in my top 23. But this was not always the case.

Okay, I knew 'Blister In The Sun' obviously. Who doesn't? I also knew 'American Music' slightly and I think I heard their Culture Club cover a couple of times. That was about it.

MTV2 had a short-lived show where current bands played classic alternative rock albums in their entirety. The first show was Dashboard Confessional covering REM's Automatic For The People, The second was Guster doing Violent Femmes.

I was/am obsessed with Guster so of course my ears pricked up at this, despite the fact that we don't get MTV2 in Canada so I couldn't actually watch it. The band did release a download-only EP afterwards with a handful of tracks from the show and I found that for download. The songs were great so I naturally checked out the originals.

And I was understandably blown away. I was happy, because this album was so good and so powerful and exciting and catchy and rocking and great. I was angry that I hadn't heard of it earlier and wondered how many other earth-shattering albums could be out there that I just don't know about for some reason or another. And I was surprised.

Just looking at my collection in this countdown format. This album lands smack in the middle of Devo/Buzzcocks/Ramones and Depeche Mode/Smiths/REM. That makes no sense. This isn't (really) punky or new wavey. It's pretty alternative rockish but not in the same sense as the Smiths or REM. This is an anomaly.

So I bought the album within a week, two-disc special edition, played the hell out of it and didn't get sick of it. I proceeded to rave about it to everyone I knew (to no results, since they're all morons) and can continue to put it on any day at any time and not get sick of it in the least. This is a fabulous, incredible album and one I would easily recommend to anyone I meet.

033. The Smiths - The Smiths (1984)




The importance of this album to me is hard to measure. Although this wasn't the first album I heard by them, this is still their first and it's stronger than half their catalogue.

Morrissey is in top shape with his lyrics. I love, love this record based on them alone. The tenderness of 'Reel Around The Fountain', the aloofness of 'You've Got Everything Now', the wit of 'Miserable Lie'.

'This Charming Man' is amazing. Anyone can agree with that statement.

But it's lyrics like "your prejudice won't keep you warm tonight" that cement the deal. I'd love this album just as much as a book of poetry as an album.



Interesting note: this album was released one year, to the day, prior to my birth.

034. R.E.M. - Reckoning (1984)




Another in the slew of early REM releases that I don't hate, don't mind, but don't find anything particularly distinctive or separating about. Compared to their own discography that is.

I'm sure they were miles ahead of most of the other bands of the time. But comparing all their early albums, none of them seem to sound much different than any other. The only times my ears really prick up is when a really standout track (a.k.a. a single) comes on. In this case, 'So. Central Rain' for example.