So what are you guys favorite albums? Changes all the time for me, but here's what I think my top fifteen probably looks like right now...


The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Talking Heads, 1982


Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Pavement, 1994


Alien Lanes
Guided By Voices, 1995


69 Love Songs
Magnetic Fields, 1999


3 Feet High & Rising
De La Soul, 1989


Doolittle
Pixies, 1989


Revolver
The Beatles, 1966


Bee Thousand
Guided By Voices, 1994


High Land, Hard Rain
Aztec Camera, 1983


The Blue Mask
Lou Reed, 1984


Let It Be
The Replacements, 1984


Neon Bible
Arcade Fire, 2007


Aftermath
The Rolling Stones, 1966 (UK version)


Hunky Dory
David Bowie, 1971


Dear Science,
TV On The Radio, 2008

1. Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
2. Nightwish - Century Child
3. Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings
4. Green Day - American Idiot
5. Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
6. Otep - The Ascension
7. Kamelot - Epica
8. Savatage - Streets: A Rock Opera
9. AC/DC - Live
10. Serenity - Fallen Sanctuary
11. Buckcherry - Time Bomb
12. The Crow - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
13. Epica - Consign to Oblivion
14. Protest the Hero - Fortress
15. Machine Head - The Blackening

Nor entirely filled out yet, but meh. Pretty extensive.


1. Pearl Jam - Ten - Of all of the records I've heard in my 22 years, this one remains the most vital and influential - this simply made me come to enjoy music not as a way to hear a catchy hook but as a means of emotional catharsis and relation. This is some of the most urgent, intensely atmospheric, and ambitious music ever put to wax, and the softer touches that the band became known for are here in thier most direct and undiluted form; their masterpiece, 'Black', starts as a beautiful lullaby and ends as a crippling scream of helplessness. 'Jeremy' turns from an amazing narrative about a troubled youth into an odyssey of sounds at it's ending, overwhelming in it's emotional pull. And 'Alive', 'Evenflow', and 'Once' are three of the best rockers (the first having one of the greatest endings of all time) of general Rock N' Roll. Now matter how the individual listener reacts to Pearl Jam's later material, or Eddier Vedder's tremlbing baritone, it is all too obvious how much effort was put into this transcendent and timeless classic.
2. Husker Du - New Day Rising - I love Alternative music. It takes me to another place in time. I also love the raw emotions of punk music. It's simply undeniable that each of these genres exact a powerful toll on your emotional response when done right. With 'New Day Rising', Husker Du get it totally right, and they almost make it last for over an hour (things do get sloppy at the end, although you'll be too blown away to notice the first few times. The first half of the record contains the two most essential (if not popular) songs by the band - 'The Girl Who Lives On Heaven's Hill', an intense and fiery rush that features some of the best bass-guitar interplay of the 80's, and 'Celebrated Summer', which might be the definitve anthem of the 80's. The range of emotions that band can display is just as distinct as their fierce, unrelenting sound, going from carefree ('Books About UFOs') to heartfelt ('I Apologize') to nihilistic ('Folk Lore') all within the span of a few tracks. This is one of the great records that not only inspires an immediate and unmistakable emotional response, but also inspires you to take a little extra effot and time when you're making music yourself.
3. The Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible - Records do not come any more harsh or realized than this, the best pure British album of the 90's (sorry, Radiohead). 'The Holy Bible' is a thought-provoking, shattering album that eviscerates society, religion, war, eating disorders, the holocaust, the death penalty, and stresses the inability to be true to yourself in a sinking world of misery and horror. The songs 'Yes' and '4st. 7lbs.' are two of the most harrowingly honest tracks ever recorded; the former tracks the inescapable dehumanizing cycle of abuse in all societies, and the latter represents the one of the most stark approaches ever made to not only anorexia, but mental illness and despair. This makes even harder bands like Korn seem soft. This music feels lived in, and the agony that the album protudes from every angle is too open and vivid not to be painful. The lyrics and music are so true to life, in fact, that the group's lyricist and lead guitarist, Richey James Edwards, wrote '4st. 7lbs.' as a confessional (he was going through anorexia himself, among other things) before he disappeared in 1994 - never to be heard from again. He was declared dead in 2001, just a few years before the album got it's proper U.S. release - a release you should pick up the next time you want to hear truly back-breakingly heavy music.
4. Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - An unforgiving, yet understated set of tracks from Bruce's most desolate period of music-making, 'Nebraska' has a ghostly drive of sinking depression and poignancy that reveals itself only after many listens. This means that the album is not made for everyday listening, but also that it is the definitive low-key masterpiece of the 80's - a record that is fearlessly different and impenetrably bleak and haunting. The best song, 'Atlantic City', may be the best song Sprinsgteen ever wrote, an effortlessly devastating piece of music that captures the harrowing cycle of poverty and financial crises that is just as earnest and relevant now, if not moreso, in these times of escalating monetary hardships. If the atmosphere is gloomy, then the stories are simply spirit-breaking; 'Highway Patrolman' is about a man of the law who literally cannot perform his duties honestly without hurting someone he loves; 'Johnny 99', about laid-off worker from Mahwah who kills a nightclerk and ends up asking for a death sentence over life in prison; and 'Reason To Believe' is simply about the futility of having faith in world without any sense of order or decency. This is one of the most consistently affecting and beautiful records ever made - although it is certainly better on a late night drive than a stroll through the park in broad daylight.
5. Pavement - Slanted And Enchanted -
6. Radiohead - Ok Computer -
7. The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream -
8. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead -
9. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground w/ Nico -
10. The Buzzcocks - Single Going Steady -
11. Metallica - Master Of Puppets -
12. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left -
13. System Of A Down - Toxicity -
14. The Clash - London Calling -
15. Joy Division - Closer -
16. Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me -
17. The Stooges - Raw Power
18. AC/DC - Highway To Hell -
19. U2 - Achtung Baby -
20. Weezer - Pinkerton -
21. Operation Ivy - Energy -
22. The Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables -
23. Bad Religion - Against The Grain -
24. Janes' Addiction - Nothing's Shocking -
25. Nirvana - In Utero -


25 Extra That I Absolutely Love, Too (no rank)
System Of A Down - Hypnotize
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearyts Club Band
The Zombies - Odessey & The Oracle
Weezer - Blue
Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols!
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
X-Ray Spex - Germfreeadolescents
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Korn - Korn
The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
The Pixies - Doolittle
Nirvana - Nevermind
Dr. Dre - The Chronic
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Fugazi - Repeater
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon
Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
R.E.M. - Murmur
The Pogues - Rum Sodomy And The Lash
Richard And Linda Thompson - Shoot Out The Lights
Faith No More - The Real Thing
The Stooges - Raw Power
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP

#1. Rage Against the Machine - Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium
#2. System of a Down - Toxicity
#3. Led Zeppelin - IV (Zoso)
#4. Disturbed - Indestructible
#5. Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
#6. Metallica - Metallica
#7. Godsmack - Faceless
#8. Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E
#9. System of a Down - Mezmerize
#10. Rage Against the Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles
#11. Audioslave - Audioslave
#12. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
#13. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
#14. Slipknot - Vol. 3 - The Subliminal Verses
#15. Metallica - Death Magnetic
#16. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
#17. Linkin Park - Meteora
#18. Soundgarden - Superunknown
#19. Wolfmother - Wolfmother
#20. Eminem - Curtain Call - The Hits
#21. Serj Tankian - Elect the Dead
#22. Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
#23. Audioslave - Out of Exile
#24. Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists
#25. Creed (yeah, I like them, suck it) - Weathered

mkratzer21, your list is identical to what I imagine my best friend's looks like except for American Idiot. That thing sticks out like woe, man. What's the deal? How can you possibly defend that? And at #4, no less!

Evenflow, I like/love almost all 50 of those albums you listed. I even kinda almost hate Pearl Jam (songs are too samey and Eddie Vedder takes himself too seriously) and yet I still really dig your list. The Smiths, Husker Du, The Pogues, VU, The Stooges, The Buzzcocks, U2 and Janes Addiction all could've made my top 25 or 30. Can you maybe give me a quick explanation why you prefer Pavement's Slanted & Enchnted over Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, though? And Radiohead's OK Computer over The Bends? I've spun all four of those records many, many times and I never could understand why the two you listed always seem to get a slight critical edge over the other two I mentioned

DunkinDan89, I'm not gonna jive ya, I'm not a huge fan of maybe 20 out of those 25 albums you've got there. My question to you is this: You wanted to put that Creed album higher, didn't you? You don't have to lie, I wont think any less of you. I promise

Haha actually no, it's fine right where it is. Yeah and I know most people love 70's and 80's rock, for me I grew up listening to mainstream rock on the radio and for some reason it hasn't left me. I don't know why....

No, hey, I get that. Whenever I hear that sorta alternative rock from the late 90's or especially the early 00's I always get a little nostalgic. But I dunno, I guess I just kind of moved on from that stuff. In all honesty though, I do still have so many lyrics committed to memory from like Staind or Puddle of Mudd or Audioslave or whatnot

92.7 WRRV in upstate New York, baby

I don't listen to a great deal of new music but these are the albums I keep revisiting; it's a very loose order.

15. Neil Young - Harvest
14. Pearl Jam - Ten
13. The Band - The Band
12. Elton John - Honky Chateau
11. The Black Crowes - Three Snakes and One Charm
10. The White Stripes - Elephant
9. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
8. The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
7. The Black Crowes - Amorica
6. My Morning Jacket - Z
5. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
4. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
3. The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
2. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.
1. Grateful Dead - American Beauty

I love each of the four records, but in my opinion:


- The Bends, while a fabulous record, doesn't have the same adhesion that OK Computer displays, and I think it can ever be argued that as good as the songs on The Bends are, OK Computer simply progressed their craft more fully and led them to create what I believe is their masterpiece, 'Paranoid Android', and one of my favorite songs of all time, 'Let Down' (which has an ending which almost literally makes me more emotional than every U2 record, song, and performance, ever). As I think it is better in terms of songcraft AND album structure, I don't see how I could give The Bends the edge. I feel the same way about The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby; The Joshua Tree is amazing, but I think it lacks the cohesion that Achtung Baby displays, it is not as consistent, nor does it have a song as good as 'One' (few albums do), so I go against the grain and pick the 90's U2 masterpiece over the 80's one.

- When I put Slanted and Enchanted on a list, you should know I mean the extended version, which is quite possibly the greatest musical value for $20 you may ever find. I wouldn't trade that for any other Pavement record, and I think it's telling that Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (which I do think is amazing, if much less enigmatic and therefore a length less compelling) received the same treatment with less success; Pavement was a powerhouse in 1992 and could literally do no wrong (out of the entirety of the set, there are NO duds whatsoever), and Slanted And Enchanted, filled to the brim and literally surrounded by golden material, is the bright shining monument of that era.

It was actually my favorite album for a while. I just think it's one of the best albums of the past ten years. Their latest one, however, is not so good.

Sounds like your friend has good taste in music!

Amen. I heard Born In The USA before this album and was expecting something along those same lines (not having an idea when this was released). Initially I was mad because all I heard was his plunky plunk acoustic guitar,but in retrospect, this is his best album. I will disagree on his best song as I think Johnny 99 is better than AC.

As far as a list:

Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
Rattle And Hum - U2
Fat Of The Land - Prodigy
Mule Variations - Tom Waits
Screamadelica - Primal Scream
The Stone Roses - Stone Roses
The Education Of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill
Fear Of A Black Planet - Public Enemy
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
Rage Against The Machine - RATM
Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads

Great lists, people.

for me (in no particular order):

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Son Volt - Trace
Guns 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Grateful Dead - Without a Net
Widespread Panic - Ain't Life Grand
Cowboy Junkies - Trinity Session
AC/DC - Back in Black
Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street
Black Crowes - Shake Your Moneymaker
U2 - Joshua Tree
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Lone Justice

For me, these are just consistently great. They stand up to repeat listening, start to finish, year after year.

Runner Ups:
Main Source - Breakin' Atoms
Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand
Metallica - Ride the Lightening
Damien Rice - O
Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030

15. Cynic - Traced in Air
14. Organized Konfusion - Organized Konfusion
13. The Postal Service - Give Up
12. Dr. Octagon - Dr. Octagonecolygist
11. System of a Down - System of a Down
10. Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
9. Nas - Illmatic
8. Deerhunter - Microcastle
7. Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
6. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
5. Metallica - Master of Puppets
4. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Sh*t Gold
3. Wu Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
2. Alice in Chains - Dirt
1. El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

Alice in Chains' Dirt is some ass-kickin' good sh*t. Them Bones has got to be the most brutal song ever.

In no particular order...

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Metallica - Metallica
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Metallica - Master of Puppets
AC/DC - Back in Black
Kula Shaker - K (I have a soft spot for this once since it was the first CD I ever bought)
The Offspring - Smash
The Pulp Fiction Soundtrack
Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction
Iron Maiden - No Prayer for the Dying (I actually like all their albums, but I spent 18 hours on a bus listening to NPFTD nonstop; it was the first time I managed to tell their songs apart, liked them ever since)
Green Day - Insomniac

Here we have a man with fine taste. I have a slight preference for Focus, but this album is certainly up there. I thought your list would look more like: I, II, III, IV, Houses of the Holy etc. but I suppose names can be deceiving.

Ha! Who would put put I over IV or II? Certainly not I, sir! You know nothing of Led Zeppelin!

Actually, that name came about less because of a strong love of Led Zeppelin and more because I thought it sounded like a good name. Exciting, isn't it? I do enjoy me some Zeppelin though, but not enough that I'd name myself after them out of love.

I've actually never heard Focus. It's on my long of albums to hear, but every time I go to the CD store or (gasp!) download music I always end up picking something else, which is odd, considering how much I enjoy Traced in Air.

If you ever get around to it, I'd suggest you buy/download the version with the extra tracks. The album itself is harsher than Traced in Air (both the instruments and the vocals), but the extra tracks are really quite mellow and feature a young lady with an appealing voice.

I think it was the Mythbusters who proved that a Lead Zeppelin could fly.

At this point in time my favorite record is What's For Dinner? by The King Khan and BBQ Show. Love it. If you like good ol' fashioned rock 'n roll then I suggest you check 'em out.

I love the albums in bold. We might not agree on... alot of things, but System Of A Down is one area where we're square. I think 'Toxicity' and 'Hypnotize' are the two best records of this decade, and that they measure up favorably (or even overwhlemingly) to some of the best albums of the 80's or 90's. In fact, 'Toxicity' is better than any single album Metallica, Slayer, or Guns N' Roses ever made.

One bone of contention - I don't hate old Incubus, but I see them as peaking from the years 1999 to 2005, with 'Morning View' as their mos solid work and 'A Crow...' as a wildly inventive and majestically insane work of audacity that, while imperfect, is miles more realized than their contemporaries could even suggest. It became impossible then to compare them to Hoobastank or any modern rock band after that record; they were defiantly their own specimen. Also, they are quite possibly the best singles band of the last 10 years (even their latest, the drop-off 'Light Grenades', had one great song in 'Diamonds And Coal', and with 'Dig' they also made another notable single).


P.S. - No love for 'Believe'? I still think 'Remember' is the pinnacle of all things Disturbed. They tear through each devastating lyric with aplomb and create an epic tragedy.