Top 10 Albums

What are your top 10 music albums, and why?

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER...

1. Operation Ivy - Energy
I first heard OpIvy late into my junior year of high shool, a few months after becoming a Rancid fanatic. I listened to 'Unity' on last.fm and it really clicked for me, so I searched all over my local mall for it and had no such luck. It wasn't until I went to an FYE in Philadelphia (which happens to be right across the street from the college dorm where I now live. Small world!) and gave it a listen on the way home. I immediately fell in love with it and has since become my favorite album. I could spin it for hours on end and never get tired.

2. Husker Du - New Day Rising
Granted, Zen Arcade is a mind-blowing concept-double-LP with near-perfect songs, but this followup album IS perfect. The first track is a sonic anthem of the repeated title chant, followed by one of the best songs ever--The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill. After that, it's one spectacular track after another that never gets old. A criminally underrated band for sure.

3. Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
This was just a given. I'd heard Minutemen for the first time on the Fugazi station on Pandora Radio, and really started to dig it, so I picked up this album from the local FYE and spun it in my friends truck. The jazz-vibed punk just really clicked for me and I listened to it for multiple days on end. The songwriting combo of D. Boon and Mike Watt is flawless musical craftsmanship. It's really hard to describe this record in words other than "perfect," to be brutally honest.

4. Fugazi - Repeater
The first Fugazi album I ever heard. I actually started listening to Minor Threat first during the summer heading into senior year (just after starting my Bad Brains obsession) and really dug 'em, reading eventually that Ian MacKaye started another band a few years later called Fugazi. I saw that a guy in my math class was a Fugazi fan, so I gave 'me a listen and fell in love. I immediately ordered Repeater and Steady Diet of Nothing from Amazon and became obsessed in an instant. While I love Steady Diet to no extent, Repeater beats it by a hair. Just plain awesome music.

5. Fugazi - In On The Kill Taker
After the somber-yet-sonic vibe of Steady Diet of Nothing, I was curious what Fugazi released after that, as their first three releases had yet to let me down. Despite that I despise downloading music (I'm a CD collector), I lacked total patience and felt like I HAD to download it, mostly considering that the nearest CD shops only had 13 Songs. Right off the bat with Facet Squared, I was hooked, and then floored by the best track on the album, Public Witness Program. Somewhere in the middle, it gets a little indiscernible around Cassavetes and Great Cop, but it closes with spectacular toxic track Last Chance For A Slow Dance and just carries this one right into the top rankings.

6. Rancid - Let's Go!
When I first got into punk by late-junior year of high school, the first two albums I bought were Let's Go! and the BR compilation All Ages (didn't know it was a comp until I read on wikipedia that night). While I loved All Ages, Let's Go! was just a through-and-through street punk album that never lets up. Since then it's been hands-down my favorite Rancid album (yes, even more than Out Come The Wolves)--the perfect blend of melody and dirty punk sound.

7. Bad Religion - Recipe for Hate/Generator (tie)
During BR's slow period, they released two flat-out awesome albums--both of which are downright spectacular. Recipe is a slow-burning tower of an LP with classic singles like American Jesus and Struck A Nerve and underrated beauties like Portait of Authority and All Good Soldiers. Rarely lets up, much like mid-tempo powerhouse album Generator. While the predictable track Heaven Is Falling weighs it down a little, greats like Two Babies In The Dark, Atomic Garden, Fertile Crescent, and dynamite closer Only Entertainment carry this one to magnificent heights that carry it among the best of '90s punk.

8. Bad Religion - No Control
Perhaps the best BR album, No Control charges through each track with melodic intensity that never slows down and brings a different theme, with flawless tracks like You, Billy, Sanity, and I Want To Conquer The World, it's almost impossible to top grade-A punk like this beauty.

9. Descendents - Milo Goes To College
Where to begin with this basically flawless adolescent punk album? It opens with brilliant track Myage and continues through with great songs of girls and rejection, then a four-track closer about an old flame of frontman Milo Aukerman that cry confusion of human condition and love, almost to bring a tear to my eye. It's just a shame their following albums couldn't compare to this beauty (although All gets halfway there).

10. The Clash - The Clash
As much as I didn't want to put this on the list because of the Clash cliche in top 10 lists, I couldn't help it--this album is just plain sensational. It's a near-perfect record that only gets rivaled by London Calling. Each track is spectacular work, ranging from melodic punk tunes like Deny to smooth, reggae-tinged pieces like Police & Thieves. Just plain perfect.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Specials - The Specials. Best ska album ever, period.

Your top 10 albums are practically all from the same 2 year period.  How self-limiting is that :P.

I don't think I could pick 10 albums from my entire collection.  Maybe 10 from a given genre.  Maybe.  There's way too much amazing music out there.


Edited by Gravel - 09/23/2011 at 01:24

My top 10 (changes nearly every day):
1. Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick (only one song = ‘the mother of all concept albums’ TIC, the witty story + background, music and lyrics, cool cover art), 2. Talking Heads - More songs about Buildings and Food (I simply love the music, and the lyrics, partly), 3. Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (love the music), 4. Bad Religion - The gray Race (music and lyrics, esp. the lyrics), 5. Bad Religion - New Maps of Hell (music, and lyrics, partly), 6. Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy (music and lyrics), 7. System of a Down - Mezmerize and Hypnotize (music, and lyrics, partly), 8. Cockney Rebel - The human Menagerie (music), 9. Paul Simon (with Brian Eno) - Surprise (music, and lyrics, partly, a good sleeping pill), 10. Randy Newman - Half a Man (music and lyrics)

I hate choosing, but I will for the sake of convo.

Edited by SayYourPrayers - 09/26/2011 at 07:52

I don't know how you guys can do this.

SayYourPrayers wrote: n1ckb0n3z wrote: I don't know how you guys can do this.   I just thought about which records I always go to when I want to listen something. You can't overthink it, really. You just have to go with what your gut says. There are a billion and one records I love listening to, and couldn't imagine getting rid of, but they're records I can go for long periods of time without ever thinking about. So to me, those aren't part of the Top 10.

Yeah, and for a while now I've been sorting in my head what the exemplary 5-star albums are in my life anyway, so this was a chance to have a good honest stab at it.

Someone needs to include Vulgar Display of Power on their list.

Alright, this is going to be tough, and I'm sure that if ever look at this list after I post it I'll disagree with it, but here it goes:
1. Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion - A great album with quite a few great songs, including Tiny Voices which is definitely one of my favourites

Brett Religion wrote: Where's BR on your list, Warstub? Shame on you! Or are you trying to impress Gravel? :p

Lol. No way, man. I feel that all of the albums I've listed exceed anything BR have put out. I mean, check it, BR are my 2nd fav band after Tool, but I didn't even list them; didn't list Kyuss, the Clash, Shellac, Qotsa, Tori Amos, who have all made definitive albums, but I was trying not to be biased by picking the bands I love, and instead, taking a shot at the albums I love but are also critically acclaimed as well as standing the test of time. In fact, Led Zeppelin are the only band that I adore that made the cut - Neither Mozart, nor Delius, two composers I love with definitive recordings to their names, made the list either (I mean shit, I barely even like Elgar, but that recording of his Cello Concerto is stunning).

We are throwing musicality out the window and really going with favorites, right???