A List of 100 Albums in Descending Order

So here it is. Nine months later, I’ve finally reached number one. Given how long this project has taken, and how much increasing effort I’ve put into each write-up as I’ve progressed, I can’t help but feel like anything I write here is going to be somehow anticlimactic. So before I get into talking about this album and why it’s my favourite, I feel like I need to discuss the way in which this whole 100 album process has transpired. As I stated in my very first entry (back in August last year), the way I first went about starting this whole thing was by throwing a representative song from any album I thought might make the list into a playlist, and then roughly ordering them using mostly gut instinct until I had about 30 albums at the bottom that I could cut, leaving me with a list of 100. This gave me a starting point and led to my first write-up, and from then on I’ve gone through the list and ordered and re-ordered, making sure that each time I wrote an entry, I was happy that it was correctly placed in the list. This continued all the way up to last week’s write-up of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which only narrowly beat out In Rainbows after several days of playing both albums in the car just gave the former the edge at the last minute. Strangely though, …And Their Refinement of the Decline has been at the top spot since the very start. Somewhere in that initial process of non-specific shortlisting, this album ended up temporarily sitting at the number one spot. Whilst every other album got rearranged and moved – even those that I knew would be in the top 10 were moved around and pored over – at no point did I ever want to take this from the number one spot. The longer it stayed there the more right it seemed. I’ve mulled over this for the whole time I’ve been writing the blog – in reality if I were to stand this album up next to classics such as Bridge Over Troubled Water or Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space could I really justify its position? The reality is that whilst I know this is not a cult classic or an era defining masterpiece like some of these albums; it is an album that I personally love more than any other. One that I’d almost go so far as to say is actually a fairly defining part of my personality. It’s a strange thing to say about any piece of music, particularly a two hour long piece of minimalist, ambient droning; but over years of repeated listens I’ve absorbed every second of this album completely; I know every chord change, every subtle sound, every gentle melody and every soft textural shift. I’ve seen it played live, I’ve listened to it at home, I’ve heard it at work, in the car, alone, and with friends. Ambient music as a rule is designed to colour the background, to be pleasant but not demanding; but Stars of the Lid made something so much more than mere ambience when they crafted this record. It’s an album that sits on the intersection between drone music and minimal classical, its pillowy atmospherics are regularly dressed in melodic horns, drifting strings, and gentle piano refrains, giving an aching, human heart to what could otherwise be cold, distant abstraction. The way the shimmering textures of ‘Articulate Silences Pt.2’ swirl around its weeping cello refrain, or the moment that the tentative introductory notes of ‘Don’t Bother They’re Here’ relax into a languid waltz that sounds like the aural equivalent of a sigh of contentment; each track here defines itself against the overarching atmospheric continuum with its own quiet flourish. This kind of depth is the work of two people in complete control of their craft. With The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid the duo had moved from spacey drones into a warmer, denser kind of ambient music all of their own; but with this record they perfected it – balancing lush instrumentation with treated guitar loops to create a consistently beautiful and hypnotic suite of interlinked pieces. Tracks like ‘The Daughters of Quiet Minds’ carve aural sculptures out of thin air using dense textural changes and an enormous sense of space, whereas ‘Hiberner Toujours’ puts forward a moment of aching beauty with only a few well-placed cello notes and a vast cloud of reverb. To talk through every track here would not only take a long time, but would also miss the point – in spite of these individual moments of transcendence, this is one long suite of sound that is designed to calm, soothe, delight and envelop. I’ve been listening to it for well over ten years now, and the sound-world it offers and the emotions it stirs become more vital to me every time. It’s like a favourite t-shirt or a well-worn pair of shoes. It might not fit everyone, it may not even seem that appealing to many people, but whenever I put it on I’m immediately transported to somewhere happier. There are many purposes to music, to make you dance, to provoke thought or excite – but on a personal level, what can be better than music that brings you peace? The more time passes, the more I realise how important this is, and the more this album fills a space in my life that no other has yet managed to. And for that reason alone, this is my number one album.

Also listen to: The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, Avec Laudenum

I once found myself at a gathering of people playing ‘desert island disks’, where everyone present had previously decided on a song to play and then afterwards had a chance to explain why they would take it with them to the island. I had found myself at this gathering unexpectedly and so I’d prepared nothing. As everyone else went through their choices one by one, I quickly ran through some possible options in my head and eventually settled on the title track of this album – the joyous, bittersweet sway of ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’. Once everyone else had finished, I told them that I hadn’t had a chance to prepare and so this was just the first thing that sprang to mind, and then hit play. After about 30 seconds of tinny, blown-out acoustic guitar strumming and the introduction of Jeff Mangum’s wailing, tuneless vocal stylings, I immediately regretted it. Looking at their puzzled, confused faces as the track played out through parping horns and chaotic noise interludes, it reminded me of just how bizarre I found this album the first time I listened to it, and just how much it had filled my subconscious in the intervening years to the point where I no longer find it strange at all. This is the fantastic duality of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – the collision of surrealism and honesty, abstraction and tradition, personal and universal, ugly and beautiful. It has divided listeners ever since its release – some hail it as a masterpiece whilst others just hear a badly produced, tuneless mess. In reality it’s both; it’s the very definition of music being “more than the sum of its parts”. The sloppy brass sections, tinny guitars and Mangum’s intensely wailing voice all come together to express something primal and vital in a way that either touches you deeply or leaves you completely repelled. The opening trio of songs acts as an entryway into this world; with each section of ‘The King of Carrot Flowers’ showing off a different aspect of the albums trademark style. Part One is the lightest and most accessible track on the album, displaying Mangum’s undeniable way with melody and his surreal but touchingly personal lyricism, before Part Two descends into a soupy dirge that sounds like a religious epiphany set to a drunken mariachi band, whilst Part Three surges forward into a lo-fi acoustic punk thrash, complete with hissy, pummelling drums. It’s messy and schizophrenic, but captivating and melodic, and if you make it through without hitting the stop button then the album only blossoms from there. The title track is a blast of joyous optimism that celebrates the life we get to live before our inevitable death – in lesser hands it would most likely be trite and MOR; but instead the taut production, whirring Theremin, skronking horns and random noise blasts make the song sound manic and unstable, like someone facing their own mortality with a desperate, oversized grin. ‘Two-Headed Boy’ is an absolute rush of sound – just a frantically strummed guitar and Mangum’s breathless voice narrating some kind of intense sexual awakening is enough to keep you gripped for its entire duration. The themes of religious and sexual epiphanies coalesce on ‘Holland, 1945’, ‘Communist Daughter’ and ‘Oh Comely’ as Mangum begins his lyrical fixation with The Diary of Anne Frank and the profound effect it had on him. His stream-of-consciousness style allows the fluid abstraction of his lyrics to combine imagery from her writing with his own memories of childhood, creating a tender and human portrait of fear and confusion that becomes universal in scope. ‘Oh Comely’ in particular is devastating in its depiction of degradation, sexual confusion and fierce determination, the desperation in his voice rising as he openly wishes he could’ve done something to help her or alleviate her suffering. At first it seems jarring to hear a grown man emoting so intensely over a historical document we all know so well, but as the song progresses it gains an incredible power, his nightmarish lyrics and pained howl bring the harsh reality of the story and the universal elements to be found in it back into focus in a way that’s undeniable and intensely moving. The following ‘Ghost’ acts as a coda and a come-down, before the closing ‘Two-Headed Boy Pt.2’ wraps all the themes of the album up together in a melancholy collision of longing, eroticism, fear and hope. It’s heady, heavy stuff, and delivered in a decidedly bizarre fashion; but unlike the vast ocean of indie bands that have copied these ideas in the years since, Mangum uses his strange palette of sounds and words to craft something new and personal in a way that eschews all cynicism and irony. The result is an album that is unique, universal, direct and obtuse all at once; it created a cult figure out of the reclusive mastermind behind it, as well as a legacy that still lasts to this day. Yet in spite of the leagues of imitators, there’s no other album that sounds like this. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea forsakes all traditionally expected notions of pop music, production, singing and song-writing in order to craft a new and powerful form of emotional expression. For those that find a way in to the strange world of Neutral Milk Hotel, it continues to reveal more of itself with every listen.  

The last time I compiled a list of my favourite albums, this was at number one. It was about ten years ago, the list was far shorter, and I’d spent far less time labouring over the details – but back then I didn’t need to. Of course it was Radiohead at number one. And of course it was the album that had come out barely two years earlier. The version of me that existed in my early twenties wasn’t interested in shades of grey, just hard black and white: Radiohead was the best and most important band in the world, and their most recent release was obviously the best album ever made. The passage of time has softened my take on my idols to a large extent; I still think Radiohead are genuinely excellent and important, but I can also see them as a product of their era and the cultural environment they evolved in, with the flaws in their musical output and their questionably single-minded insularity being just as apparent as their staggering creative peaks and mould-breaking interactions with their fan base. One thing time hasn’t diminished though, is the incredible quality of this album. Whilst OK Computer and Kid A are rightly remembered for being ground-breaking and massively successful records, In Rainbows tends to be more remembered only for its pay-what-you-will marketing campaign; a bold gambit that waymarked a long overdue sea change in the way that artists interacted with the public, simultaneously redefining and cementing the integral financial value of art and music. There are a fairly significant number of Radiohead fans that actually think this is their best album though, myself included. Particularly after playing The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A over and over until they were so deeply embedded in my neural pathways that I no longer needed to actually listen to them, and then gamely keeping up with the impressive but alienating glitch rock hybrids of Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows felt like a rich reward from a band known for shirking every expectation ever placed on them. Splitting the difference between the throwback fans who desperately wanted more guitar driven anthems, and those who had grown and developed as the band had led them into new worlds of electronic and abstract musical expression, Radiohead managed to find the perfect balance of every element that defined them. In Rainbows has it all – stomping rockers, obtuse, glitchy rhythms, cinematic string flourishes, political overtones and emotional undertones, and more guitars than you could shake a stick at – but all combined flawlessly into something completely new. Where previous record Hail to the Thief had felt schizophrenic in its ambition to work every idea in, here it all came together to create a thing of utter beauty, each element of their sound being perfectly executed and draped in a soft but vibrant production style courtesy of their very own ‘fifth Beatle’, producer Nigel Godrich. Songs as diverse as the twisting ’15 Step’, the cacophonous ‘Bodysnatchers’ and the lush, swooning ‘Reckoner’ all feel entirely cut from the same cloth; with each sound suspended in the same vast but intimate space, be it an 808 drum hit or a softly plucked guitar note. The resulting album is a work of complete ear candy; from the billowing harmonies of ‘House of Cards’ to the entwining guitar figures of ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’, or the dense waltz of ‘Nude’. Even the more guitar driven tracks like ‘Jigsaw Falling into Place’ and ‘Bodysnatchers’ are shot through with string motifs and busy percussion that elevate them from the 90s throwbacks they could’ve been into something utterly unique; a kaleidescopic soundscape of lurching electronics and impeccable acoustic instrumentation. Thom Yorke responds in kind by peeling back some of the layers of abstraction that cloaked his lyrics for the bands past few releases, instead revelling in direct themes with a generosity that seemed startling – “I don’t want to be your friend / I just want to be your lover” sounded completely bizarre coming out of the mouth of the man who had spent most of Hail to the Thief making obtuse, veiled threats at then-president George W. Bush. Both ‘Weird Fishes’ and ‘All I Need’ worked with themes of desire and longing, whilst the crushing closer ‘Videotape’ finds Yorke singing to his children from the afterlife via his old VCR. His voice also sounds cleaner here than it had in years – gone is the hoarse and unintelligible croak he would sometimes slip into as if intentionally trying to distance himself from the sea of whining imitators (here’s looking at you Chris Martin), and instead he brings a new level of soul to songs like ‘Nude’ and ’15 Step’, and an unexpected sensuality to ‘Reckoner’ and ‘House of Cards’, his soft falsetto hanging in their air in total synchronicity with the lushness of the surrounding musical environments. Radiohead would go on to deconstruct the elements of this album once again with the skeletal minimalism of The King of Limbs and the heady drama of A Moon Shaped Pool, but on In Rainbows they managed to coalesce every idea, every whim, and every element of their formidable sound into something dense, complex and utterly enjoyable. It’s a joy to listen to, and it’s the Radiohead album I find myself coming back to time and time again. In the end – forgetting all notions of ‘importance’, or ‘art’, or ‘influence’ – that’s the thing that really matters. This may not be their most important record, or even their best record (I’m sure those are questions that could be debated by some fans forever), but it is absolutely their most enjoyable.

Before I get into the top three, I figured I’d do a quick list of albums that didn’t quite make the cut. Some of these were really hard to leave out but just didn’t fit in, others are albums I love but don’t often listen to anymore, or perhaps have one too many weak tracks to be considered for the top 100. All of them are worth a mention though…

These New Puritans - Hidden (2010) A meticulously crafted album of percussive melodrama and unrelenting intensity. This would’ve come in at number 101 if this was actually a list of 101 albums in descending order. But it isn’t, so it didn’t.

Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)

Pixies - Doolittle (1989)

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Radiohead - The Bends (1995) This was hard to leave off, as it was the album that first introduced me to Radiohead back when I was a teenager. I do still think it’s mostly excellent, but with hindsight it just hasn’t stood the test of time as well as OK Computer and Kid A.

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go (1996) An album of undeniably fantastic songs, but also elevated by some very strong Brit-pop nostalgia.

Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine (1992)

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000) I really, really love about 50% of this album, and I’m slightly ambivalent to the other half. There are moments of genuinely stunning atmospheric beauty scattered in between some vaguely forgettable filler, but those best moments are undeniable.

The Notwist – Neon Golden (2002)

Green Day - Dookie (1994)

Bat for Lashes – Two Suns (2009)

Bows – Blush (1999) Mostly for the incredible ‘Girls Lips Glitter’ and the lush production on ‘King Deluxe’ and ‘Speed Marina’. If the whole album was this good it would be in the top 20 for sure.

Four Tet - There is Love in You (2010)

Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning (2005)

James Blackshaw – The Cloud of Unknowing (2007) Incredible solo twelve string guitar music. He makes the instrument sound like an entire orchestra, and this album in particular is hypnotic, droning and captivating.

Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)

Little Comets - Life is Elsewhere (2012) I think Little Comets are sorely underrated. I’m fairly sure if anyone could actually make out what Robert Coles was singing about through his nasal yelp then they’d be one of the most important bands in the country. Insightful, clever lyricism over spacious, catchy, melodic pop music. It’s been my summer driving soundtrack since the moment it was released.

Echo and the Bunnymen – Ocean Rain (1984)

The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

The top four albums in this list are in tight competition for position. I think in reality, any one of them could shift into any of the top four positions depending on my given mood or the current time of day. This list has been a work of fairly great commitment so far though, I’ve been writing these entries for well over six months and I’ve been trying to take the time needed to get these last few right. Whilst picking which album rests at number four has not been easy, writing about it is going to be a far more enjoyable task. I can’t think of many records that deserve such superfluous adjective abuse as Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. A ninety minute long orchestral post-rock odyssey split over four tracks and performed by an anarchist collective of nine musicians and punctuated by a number of ominous field recordings that span from happy children playing, to fire and brimstone preacher sermons. I think it’s fair to say albums like this don’t come along all that often, even in spite of the fleet of a thousand mediocre, derivative post-rock bands that were born in its wake; each one scrambling to lock down their nearest bearded cellist or ethereal violinist to complete their apocalypse-by-numbers line-up. After GYBE’s abstract, atmospheric debut album F#A#∞ created ripples in the underground, they reappeared in 1999 with the Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada EP, a recording that threw all the moodiness and subtlety out the window in favour of a series of earth-shattering crescendos surrounded by a whirlpool of achingly sad orchestral motifs and the unhinged ramblings of a paranoid street preacher. It was a stunning change of pace and moved the band from being seen as arthouse weirdos to having cult status in a heartbeat. Lift Your Skinny Fists…. doubles down on this progression, keeping the focus and intensity that made Slow Riot so gripping, but applying it to the oblique, long-form structures and atmospheric drift of their debut. The result is something incredibly special - an album that’s as cinematic as it is direct, and as abstract and complex as it is powerful and immediate. It’s also a work that’s vast in its emotional scope, moving from paranoid dread to joyous euphoria to crushing sadness with each slowly developing theme. The triumphant fanfare of opening track ‘Storm’ marks this variety immediately with a herald of trumpets that build into a sweeping march of pianos, strings and rolling snares. It’s a moment of genuine uplift from a band mostly known for apocalyptic doomsaying, and it immediately throws all bets out the window. At the same time, it clearly couldn’t be the work of any other band – the guitars scream, the drums thump and the bass throbs in a way that’s utterly unmistakeable, and before long the track devolves into a wiry dirge, stretching each groaning note out into infinity as the rhythm section pummel it all into submission with galloping drums and an elastic bassline. Second track ‘Static’ takes the slash and burn approach to it’s extreme; moving through quietly groaning ambience into a devastating interlude of aching strings and the insane ranting of a zealous preacher, before beginning the slow ascent of ‘World Police and Friendly Fire’; a ten minute build up that finds the band grinding a four note riff into a fine mulch whilst ratcheting up the tension to almost unbearable heights; before eventually bursting forward in an insane torrent of pulverizing drums, hacking strings and a screaming guitar that sounds like the death throes of some wounded animal. By the time it screeches to a vertigo-inducing halt, the only things that remain are sound of a distant wind at the world’s end and the hairs standing up on every part of your body. I can’t imagine there are many things in the history of music can claim to be this crushingly heavy. The second disk spins out in a variety of different directions from here, having seemingly taken the art of the crescendo to its logical extreme. ‘Sleep’ has two major sections; the first of which begins gently but soon expands into thick layers of guitars and a buzzing, wailing guitar melody that’s almost operatic, repeating over and over until you feel your grip on sanity beginning to slip. When the relentless tension finally collapses under its own weight, the band recoils and eventually lurches forward into a looser sequence, full of thick, shoegaze guitars, joyous horns and funky drumming that almost skirts abstract hip-hop territory. Hearing the band loosen the reins and experiment with other modes of musical expression is strange but thrilling, and it’s taken to greater and even more rewarding extreme in the final track ‘Antennas to Heaven’. Beginning with a collage of various field recordings that include an odd country ditty, a glockenspiel duet and a children’s playground, eventually the band reappear to consume it all in a slowly evolving drone that casts it all in a slightly menacing light. Yet instead of beginning to build in intensity as expected, instead the band explodes into a brief moment of jangly, melodic guitar rock in a moment of surprising playfulness. Breaking this down into its constituent parts, they then rebuild it more slowly, revealing the bittersweet core inside and showing layers of evolving emotional complexity as the track slowly burns itself out. The final minutes are utterly transcendent – moving back to a ghostly, drifting drone before ultimately ascending skywards, the guitars shimmer, weep, sigh and eventually collapse in a moment of staggering, aching beauty. Ninety minutes have passed and you’ve been utterly drained, every emotion has flashed before you in an intense carousel of sound and there’s little that can come close to following it up. The general consensus on GYBE is that they’re the prophets of the end times; that theirs is the soundtrack for the inevitable inferno and the desolation that follows, and that they have little else to offer. In my write-up of F#A#∞ I toed this line, and I agree that generally all the music they’ve made since has done little to alter this – if anything they’ve actively played up to it. But Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is something else entirely. It’s not merely an apocalyptic vision, but more like looking at a tapestry of all the possible futures of mankind that could come to pass – as well as the requisite fiery oblivion there’s also hope and joy and sadness and loss and the possibility of redemption at the end as the lights begin to fade. It’s an album of absolute emotional extremes, musical passion and a complete devotion to instrumental expression, and among all the many, many post-rock bands that deal in this kind of orchestral bombast, there isn’t anything else that comes close.

There is no other album quite like Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space. Although it contains many familiar elements – the euphoric surge of gospel, the churning swirl of psychedelic rock, the snotty snarl of brit-pop, and the world-weary ache of the blues – it combines them in a way that’s entirely unique, even within Spiritualized’s own three decade long discography. The ideas that inform this album can all be found in the story that precedes its creation: in a cocktail of heartbreak and heroin abuse that steeps every note of every track. Prior to recording this album, Spiritualized keyboard player (and Pierce’s long-time girlfriend) Kate Radley ditched him and married Verve front-man Richard Ashcroft soon after. Pierce dealt with this blow by upping his heroin consumption to Herculean proportions and creating his finest record to date – an album that echoes all of the glazed detachment of a desperate drug dependent, yet periodically weeps, bleeds and howls as it struggles to contain the great sorrow it holds back like a dam in a flood. This dichotomy defines the entire album, from its spiral-like sequencing with its violent mood swings, to its overwhelming sense of barely contained anguish that eventually erupts in the form of devastating closer ‘Cop Shoot Cop’. The opening duo of the title track and first single ‘Come Together’ set the scene; the former piling on loops of layered vocals and shimmering instrumentation into a majestic swell of starry-eyed melancholy, before crashing headfirst into the latter – a thuggish, muscular declaration of pure nihilism that surges forward in blasts of brass and squealing feedback. Everything you need to know about this album can be found in these opening ten minutes – the dense production, the swirling textures that alternately soothe and leap forward in a vicious assault, and the whirlpool of emotion that Pierce is constantly spinning in. His voice moves from lip-curling detachment to quivering sadness in a heartbeat, and the music follows suit: the whiplash-inducing ‘All of my Thoughts’ switches between gentle, forlorn verses and frantic, explosive, free-form breakdowns like a tornado crashing through a funeral home.  As the album progresses, these contrasts grow longer and deeper – the dense, tender, narcotic waltz of ‘Stay With Me’ is smashed to pieces by the furious charge of ‘Electricty’ – a song that evokes it’s namesake with a breakneck flurry of live-wire guitar noise, crashing drums and spluttering harmonica soloing. The record reaches the depths of abstraction in the form of ‘Home of the Brave’ and ‘The Individual’, two tracks that finally swallow Pierce’s longing whole by slowly consuming it in total chaos. Just as it seems like everything as been washed away in a sea of droning noise, ‘Broken Heart’ swims into view; a gorgeous, aching, string-laden expression of utter loss rendered even more powerful by it’s positioning between the astringent grind of ‘The Individual’ and the freeform mania of ‘No God Only Religion’. By the time ‘Cool Waves’ rolls round and the gospel choirs are finally soothing the pain away, it begins to feel like Pierce has exorcised his demons and found peace at last, but the epic finale of ‘Cop Shoot Cop’ has one last trick up it’s sleeve. Stalking forward with grim resolve, the verses create a hypnotic eddy of piano licks, finger snaps and queasy guitar textures, before each chorus whips it all up into a spinning frenzy of crashing percussion, swirling organ and psychedelic noise. Each time it just brushes the edge of the abyss, but pulls back at the last minute. By the third repetition it can’t hold itself together anymore and everything begins to rip itself apart, revealing the vast, aching pit of pain and confusion inside. For what feels like an eternity the horns blast, the guitars melt, the drums cascade, and the bass tumbles into what can only be described as an aural black hole. Eventually in the distance a solitary trumpet appears, signalling the way back to dry land, followed by sighing, wordless voices and eventually a discernable rhythm. Once calm is restored, Pierce reappears for one last time – his voice still numb, still broken – but seemingly at peace, as the song quietly drifts to a gentle close. There is no other piece of pop music in the world that comes close to what Spiritualized manage to achieve with ‘Cop Shoot Cop’, nor is there any album that manages to express the emotional turmoil of heartbreak and loss better than this. It’s not subtle, lyrically or musically; it won’t ease your pain like some folksy troubadour’s musings or some whimsically ironic synth-pop. Instead it reaches deep into the very heart of what it’s like to be crushed, lost, and fucked up inside, and it splatters the blood-soaked mess over a 70 minute long canvas using every mode of musical expression that ever found a way to mourn the loss of love and hope. It’s a beautiful, devastating, fascinating, overwhelming experience, and it’s a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.

I’ve been quite confused and disappointed by the recent renaissance of Mark Kozelek and his band Sun Kil Moon (as well as the inevitable backlash that’s followed). He’s an artist I’ve loved intensely from the moment I first heard his music as a teenager, I’ve followed everything he’s put out on record, including all of his many, many solo releases, side projects, live albums and wide-ranging covers. Normally it’s gratifying to see an artist you love find a wider audience or have an artistic renaissance, but in this instance I’ve just been left very bewildered. Among the Leaves and Benji – the two albums which sparked this newfound widespread interest in his music – both left me cold for different reasons; the former being a rushed, rambling collection of meandering ditties and brief comic asides, whilst the latter is sparse, tuneless, self-indulgent and ultimately quite boring. What followed those two records has been even worse: Universal Themes and Common as Light and Love are Red Valleys of Blood doubled down on the tuneless rambling, whilst last years This is my Dinner was just ear-scrapingly awful – a collection of 11 minute dirges that dissect every single thought that crosses Kozelek’s mind into an insufferable stream-of-consciousness slog. The increased spotlight on him in these years seems to have inflated all his worst tendencies as well – he’s always walked a line between intense empathy and generalised misanthropy, but recently the scales have been tipping very much away from the former and headlong toward the latter. This is all particularly disheartening to me, as only a few years before all this began, Kozelek released his absolute masterpiece; an album that contains all of the delicate musicianship and dark meditations on mortality that prompted such critical adoration for Benji, but also with a sense of poetry, lushness, warmth and rich melodicism that his recent output sorely lacks. Those familiar with Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon will be aware of the ongoing tragedy that weaves through Kozelek’s music – his beloved ex-girlfriend who eventually succumbed to cancer drifts through his whole discography like a ghostly muse; much of his best music alludes to her in some way. April is an album that is dedicated to this sad story almost in its entirety. Written in the wake of her death, it charts his memories of their relationship, its aftermath and his attempts to deal with his unresolved emotions surrounding it. This inevitably makes it heavy going, but Kozelek is a master at sharing his darkest feelings with his audience, and he uses this theme as an opportunity to explore every facet of this experience; pouring out an incredible collection of deeply moving songs. The haunted nostalgia of ‘Lucky Man’, the gorgeous travel diary of ‘Moorestown’, or the hypnotic dark-night-of-the-soul that informs ‘Heron Blue’ all explore the intricacies of loss through a sonic landscape of intricate finger-picked guitar, droning bass and rich string arrangements. Opener ‘Lost Verses’ might be the most accessible song Kozelek has ever recorded, in spite of its almost ten minute run-time. It moves from gentle acoustic strums to a swooning, orchestral climax with a deceptively breezy and light touch. ‘The Light’ is the first of several long electric guitar driven pieces, with Kozelek going into full Neil Young mode, but paying it off with a beautifully tender melody. ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘Unlit Hallway’ are both ghostly and spare, with the distant voice of Will Oldham drifting through the background of the latter to quietly unsettling effect. ‘Heron Blue’ is intensely bleak in its hypnotic droning; Kozelek staring deep into your soul as the cyclical guitar, strained harmony and thudding kick drum push relentlessly toward oblivion. ‘Moorestown’ and ‘Harper Road’ offer welcome reprieve from this darkness with two lushly textured and melodic songs, allowing some richer instrumentation and a more direct beauty to come to the fore. Both ‘Tonight the Sky’ and ‘Tonight in Bilbao’ are long, thoughtful meditations on loss and acceptance, before the album comes to a gentle close with the devastating and delicate ‘Blue Orchids’. It’s clear the whole record is a labour of love, every element has been perfectly placed, every song polished to perfect completion. It holds all the trademarks of Kozelek’s output – his self-indulgence, his intense nostalgia, his penchant for ponderous tempos – but here they all feel entirely earned. Once the record has started it’s hard to turn away; his rich, emotive vocals and incredible knack for conjuring complex feelings has never been as rewarding as it is here. Kozelek followed this album up with the brief, quiet coda of Admiral Fell Promises¸ before the third phase of his career began in earnest with Among the Leaves. It must be hard as a musician to work so hard and to pour so much of yourself into a record only to find far greater success with it’s rushed, rambling follow up, and this outcome seems to have had a pronounced affect on his output and the way in which he interacts with the world at large. But I’m fairly sure once the current hype train surrounding his latest records has died down and he returns to the semi-obscurity he moved in for most of his career, it’ll be April that will stand out as his high water mark – the moment his song-writing, musicianship and peerless ability to express beautiful sadness came together into one devastatingly perfect whole.

Sometimes when writing this list I have to remind myself that this is all entirely subjective. I’ll catch myself thinking “but is Bridge Over Troubled Water really better than Abbey Road?” And then I have to remind myself – no, it’s almost definitely not; but that isn’t really the point here. Perhaps Simon and Garfunkel never released an album as important as Bringing it all Back Home or as experimental as Sgt Peppers, yet for myself and many others Bridge Over Troubled Water is appealing in a way which those seminal works are not – it’s beautiful, nostalgic, and accessible; it’s ambitious without being alienating and era-defining without having to bend to fashions or trends. In fact, these are all the attributes which made Simon and Garfunkel one of the most popular acts of the 60s in the first place. They found fame after being unwittingly thrust into the limelight in the wake of Dylan ‘going electric’ at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival – as record labels frantically searched for other folk songs they could spice up and release to meet the demand for this newly popular sound, it was ‘Sound of Silence’ that got the swift rock band treatment before being released as a massive single a few weeks later – all entirely without the duo’s knowledge. Following this massive breakout moment they went on to capitalise on the changing tides of pop music as the decade progressed, weaving increasingly experimental and ambitious arrangements into their gentle folk-pop before disbanding after the release of this album, just as the hard rock that defined much of the 70s began to take over. This may come across as faint praise, but consider the rarefied climate they flourished in – not being considered as revolutionary as Dylan or The Beatles isn’t exactly damning; and when this album was released it rapidly became the best selling album of all time (not to be overtaken until Thriller took the mantle in 1982), and it remains the biggest selling album of the 1970s. Bridge Over Troubled Water was the culmination of everything that had worked for the duo so far – Paul Simon’s songwriting had grown stronger and stronger with each release, from the Dylan inspired political manifestos of Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme, to his flirtations with the concept album that informed Bookends; each of his songs were beautifully melodic, perfectly arranged and smartly intellectual without ever being too arch. Musically they’d never been more adventurous, with touches such as the Peruvian melody of ‘El Condor Pasa’, or the airy, echoing harmonies of ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ making each song it’s own unique, perfect package. Every song here is different in it’s own way, yet the record is bound into a complete whole by the defining aspects of their sound – the pristine harmonies, the ever-present acoustic guitar and Simon’s undeniable ear for melody. The opening title track has become legendary in the years since, even fifty years on you won’t find many people that don’t know it. Letting Garfunkel take the lead with his angelic voice was definitely the right move, but it’s the gradual build-up that really makes the song shine – the moment the strings and drums enter in the final verse is still spine-tingling to this day. The grand majesty of that track is swiftly followed by the delicate ‘El Condor Pasa’, Simon’s first real foray into “world music” long before Graceland made it his calling card. ‘Cecilia’ experiments with stiff funk rhythms and a chant-along chorus, whilst ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’ moves into swinging R&B territory before climaxing with a blast of frenzied horns. Not many bands can change genres this rapidly without losing their identity; and songs like ‘Baby Driver’ and ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ show just how far they were willing to push the core of their sound to keep it interesting and fresh. Yet the real reason Simon and Garfunkel were so popular and remain so cherished to this day is the beautiful tenderness that few could match in their best songs – the title track and ‘The Boxer’ are both ubiquitous for their anthemic expressions of hope and unity, but there are plenty of other moments of beauty to be found here – the gentle, string-laced ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’, the tender swansong of ‘Song for the Asking’ and the aching, swooning ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ all stand out in their own ways. I’ve been listening to this album since I was very young, I feel like I have a personal relationship with every song here, but I have yet to ever tire of it. It’s the best and most consistent album from the man I personally consider to be popular music’s greatest living songwriter. I fully acknowledge there are plenty of albums that are more culturally important and more artistically impressive, but there are few that are simply this enjoyable to listen to; and in the end I have to remind myself – that’s exactly what this list is really all about.

I stated in my previous write-up of Graceland that I consider Paul Simon to be the greatest living songwriter. Eventually there will come a time where that will no longer be the case; and on that sad day, it will almost definitely be John Darnielle that takes on that particular accolade in my mind. His quality, consistency, prolificacy and poetry all mark him out as a master songwriter, but it’s his capacity for empathy that really sets him apart. His career has been spent leaving no stone unturned in his quest to shine a light on every tiny facet of the human condition; writing anthems for meth addicts, teenage metal-heads and desperate, struggling parents – or entire albums dedicated to small time wrestlers, co-dependant alcoholics, or aging goth rockers. Whoever he may be writing about, he does it with an unmistakable warmth and generosity, finding the humanity in every character sketch and the humour in every dark situation. After years of pouring his witty, literate songs out into a scratchy old boom-box, in 2002 Darnielle took The Mountain Goats into the studio for the first time to record Tallahassee; an album-long saga about the infamous ‘alpha couple’ – characters he’d immortalised in song many times before, but never in such fine detail – and in the process he created his best album to date. The freedom and detail he found in the studio seemed to lead him on to rapidly follow this up with a series of loose concept albums that turned the beam of his poetic empathy and unflinching humanity onto his own life for the first time. We Shall All Be Healed dealt with his lost years as a meth addict and many of the characters he encountered, whilst Get Lonely took a microscopic look at his first serious break-up, digging into every tiny detail of heartbreak and loneliness. In between these two came The Sunset Tree, the most starkly personal and detailed album in The Mountain Goats’ vast discography. The Sunset Tree details Darnielle’s difficult childhood, specifically the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather. To be clear, this is something I have no personal experience of whatsoever - but as always the warmth and universal sentiment he brings to the characters and situations in his songs raises this beyond introspective naval-gazing; songs like ‘This Year’ and ‘Up The Wolves’ are almost euphoric in their rush of teenage abandon and longing for the freedom of adulthood, whilst ‘Dinu Lipatti’s Bones’ and ‘Love Love Love’ skirt around ideas of fatalistic romance and wistful nostalgia. In spite of this though, the album remains a deeply personal and moving listen; the core of the story being made explicitly clear in a number of intense and dramatic vignettes. The Sunset Tree takes the form of a loose song cycle, ending with the moment Darnielle receives the news of his stepfather’s death; and as a result beginning with him sequestering himself in a dingy motel room to purge himself of the memories that are bubbling to the surface. As ‘You or Your Memory’ sets this scene, ‘Broom People’ take us right into the heart of his childhood home; with an angry, teenage Darnielle struggling to find solace and understanding in his unforgiving environment. ‘This Year’, ‘Dilaudid’ and ‘Dance Music’ find him suffering at the hands of his stepfather, but experiencing release through the thrill of recklessly driving his first car and the melodramatic, adolescent relationship he forms with his first girlfriend. Things come to a head at the album’s peak with ‘Up the Wolves’ and ‘Lion’s Teeth’, the former casting Darnielle and his young sister as Romulus and Remus plotting for the future in spite of their wolf parent in a fiddle driven blast of joyous folk music, before the stomping, gnashing ‘Lion’s Teeth’ shatters the metaphor with ‘the king of the jungle’ delivering a savage beating that results in the police being called out. ‘Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod’ finds Darnielle beginning to accept the regular violence with a stoic resilience, whilst ‘Magpie’ finds him riding out the inevitable before finally fleeing the nest at last. The tail end of the album trades in philosophical musing on the nature of human degradation and the nature of love, before finally bringing things to a close with the news of his stepfather’s death in the gentle and moving ‘Pale Green Things’, a song that finds Darnielle recalling the one fond memory he has of the man that tormented him for years. As always with his songs, it’s this lightness of touch that elevates this dark story to something universal and beautiful – the anthemic delivery of “I am going to make it through this year / If it kills me” or the gritted teeth of “Held under these smothering waves / From your strong and thick veined hand / But one of these days / I’m going to wriggle up on dry land” or the tenderness of “She told me how you’d died at last / At last? / But that morning at the racetrack / Was the one thing I remembered”. I’m sure entire essays could be written about the contrast between the dark, dramatic relationship melodrama of ‘Dilaudid’ followed abruptly by the bright, breezy depiction of domestic violence in ‘Dance Music’. The depth and complexity in the intense emotion behind such an unburdening can only be delivered by a songwriter with an incredible control of his craft and he uses it to open up cracks in the story that allow listeners into his world, to find common ground in his experience of such difficult teenage years that can be utterly universal even as the specifics remain entirely personal. In the sleeve of the album there is the following dedication – “Dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news: You are going to make it out of there alive. You will live to tell your story. Never lose hope”. It may not be a situation I’ve ever experienced myself, but I can’t help but find parts of myself in his songs, and get swept up in the expression and empathy Darnielle displays in his writing – just as much as any work of literature I’ve ever read, if not more. I’m not sure there can be any greater accolade for a songwriter; and The Sunset Tree stands as the dark, brilliant centrepiece to a career defined by brilliant, moving and beautiful storytelling.

A lone shaker rhythm, followed quickly by a growling, ascending synthesizer tone and a thumping, tribal drum beat. A tense, sideways guitar motif begins to loop over the top; ragged breaths heave in the background as the music stalks ever forward. Eventually there’s a pause; a sudden lurch and a shard of feedback… and then mayhem erupts: the guitars, bass and drums pounce forward with razor sharp precision, before shattering into brittle shards as the frantic, manic bellowing of frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala goes straight for the jugular. It’s one of the most dramatic, breathtaking and explosive introductions to an album ever committed to tape, and what follows during ‘Arcarsenal’ and the entirety of Relationship of Command is no less spectacular. I’ve written before about the partnership of Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and their epic journey from enigmatic post-hardcore up-and-comers to psychedelic, operatic prog-rock gods; but right at the apex of this arc came their lightning in a bottle moment – an album that captured the frenzied cacophony of their live shows, the wiry tension and release of their earlier music, and the textural ambitions and sonic experimentation of their future opuses as The Mars Volta. Where previous albums had shown great promise but had been stifled by muddy production and suffered from somewhat tuneless vocals and a lack of variation in song-writing; Relationship of Command ripped open their sound to reveal a raw, unstoppable burst of adrenaline that valued melody, texture and sonic variety as much as it did live-wire energy. Some of the credit for this has to go to producer Ross Robinson – his work on this record set the bar for all post-hardcore production to follow and even goes a long way toward exonerating him for his part in the terrible nu-metal surge of the early 2000s. His mix here is bright and dense, allowing just enough room for atmosphere but never distracting from the hard, punchy centre. The band rise to the occasion with a step-up in their song-writing and performances on every level though, the rhythm section stay taught and tense, the guitars trade razor-blades riffs and fretboard shredding theatrics in just the right balance, and Bixler-Zavala explodes with such passion and ferocity that it’s often hard to catch your breath. His riotous chanting on ‘One Armed Scissor’ and ‘Pattern Against User’, his sinister and aching melodies on ‘Enfilade’ and ‘Quarantined’, or just his completely unhinged rage on ‘Arcarsenal’, ‘Sleepwalk Capsules’ and ‘Cosmonaut’ – it no longer matters whether he’s in tune or whether what he’s singing makes sense – the utter conviction in every syllable is astounding. It’s hard to pick standouts on an album this consistent, and the bands willingness to experiment lends each song its own moment of glory; but the thick atmospherics and bone-crunching bass of ‘Quarantined’ are stomach-churningly epic, the hissing pulse of ‘Enfilade’ flirts with action film chase music, ‘Invalid Litter Dept.’ makes great use of a rolling piano, swooping guitars and propulsive spoken word abstraction, whilst the utter mania of ‘Rolodex Propoganda’ is taken to another level by a spectacularly unhinged guest spot from a very welcome Iggy Pop. The final two tracks on the album show the two sides of the band at their very best though. The dark and brooding murk of ‘Non-Zero Possibility’ allows Rodriguez-Lopez to explore his textural fascination; using squelching synths, acoustic guitars, shards of feedback and squealing soloing to build to a devastating climax. Closer ‘Catacombs’ strips all that away for one final blast of larynx shredding destruction though; its schizophrenic riffing, pounding drums and stuttering forward-motion eventually culminate with a spasming, lurching finale that brings the song to a whiplash inducing end. Listening to these two tracks together, it becomes clear that the possibilities available to At the Drive-in from this point on were limited – they’d done just about everything they could with the breathless, energetic post-hardcore they’d perfected here, and it’s clear there was a whole world to explore in these dense, textural experiments that would eventually go on to inform their work with The Mars Volta. It’s exhilarating to hear while it lasts though – a band so tightly wound and so at the top of their game that they perfected an entire genre in just 50 minutes. Relationship of Command remains a masterpiece of sound, fury and passion.

So at last I’m entering the top 10. This is a tricky one to begin with, as I’ve genuinely been dreading having to do this write up since I started the list. Whilst I generally want to focus on the music itself, as well as its context in my own life and broader popular culture; I do feel I need to address the tragic death of Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison last year. I’m not sure any celebrity death has ever hit me harder – when David Bowie and John Peel died I was definitely struck by the loss of such influential musical legends; but I always remained one step removed. Yet there was something about the music Scott Hutchison made, something about the way in which he expressed himself on issues that most people would shy away from talking about so publicly that made his suicide feel devastating in a way that was very, very personal. Frightened Rabbit were a band that were built around personal connection; Hutchison’s songs were bold, tender and funny glances at depression, addiction, sex and death, but always found a universal resistance to such personal and complex troubles. I formed strong friendships through a shared love of their music, and upon hearing the terrible news last year I reached out to several of these friends and shared genuinely touching moments of solidarity over the loss of the man that had once brought us together. I’d like to think that such moments are what Scott Hutchison would want, as his life and music were dedicated to expressing the pain and confusion of the modern world in a way that always brought people together. I first heard The Midnight Organ Fight when I was 23 – much of my teenage existential angst had gone by then, but instead I was wracked with a new kind of depression and confusion: that of the destructive break-up. Hutchinson’s songs managed to express the inexpressible, found humour in something I had no way of laughing about, and showed a way forward from even the bleakest of outlooks. His frayed voice was like exposing a raw nerve; the way he would yelp “I am still in love with you / Can’t admit it yet” at the end of the defensive onslaught of ‘Good Arms vs Bad Arms” was crushingly honest, and his rallying cry of “It takes more than fucking someone you don’t know to keep warm” at the climax of ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ felt like he was reaching out to everyone who no longer believed in love and imploring them to stay strong. This kind of sentiment may seem melodramatic on paper, but at its heart is a universal expression – who hasn’t struggled to keep their composure together as their heart breaks? Who hasn’t been repeatedly wounded and left wondering if it’s just better to stay detached? In lesser hands these would be generic platitudes set to mawkish balladry (step up Coldplay), but with Frightened Rabbit it’s like looking into the very soul of someone who mirrors your own personal pain. ‘The Modern Leper’ opens the album with a barnstorming statement of purpose. Its bitingly self deprecating lyrics about co-dependence and emotional breakdown are set to scrappy guitar strums and thunderous drum hits; before building to a bellowingly cathartic climax. It’s a breathless rush of raw feeling and it set the pace for the whole album, as well as for every song the band would release in its wake. ‘Good Arms vs Bad Arms’ might just be the best and most honest break-up song ever written, its folky guitar picking and swinging drum beat belie the crushing weight of the drip-fed admission of desperation that slowly reveals itself as the song progresses. It’s not all heavy going though – ‘The Twist’ is a piano driven lurch through anonymous drunken sex that bursts into a disco break halfway through, whilst ‘Head Rolls Off’ is a savagely funny take on religion and a genuinely uplifting twist on what it means to shake off the belief in a higher power. The real peaks are the obvious moments of catharsis though  – the scorching release of ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ is an anthem for everyone lost in the mire of modern romance, whilst ‘Poke’ is a shattering depiction of relationship dissolution, with Hutchison clutching and clawing at any way he can salvage what remains, before spending the second verse detailing the helpless feeling of separation and anonymity that comes with seeing your ex again and having to hold up the grim façade of friendship through gritted teeth. It’s stomach churningly powerful; Hutchison’s voice seeming to break apart before pushing forward with grim resolve, the truth in his words making the song devastatingly relatable. This is the first time I’ve listened through to this album since Hutchinson died last year, as I’ve genuinely found Frightened Rabbit’s music too hard to hear since. As the end of the record rolls round, the penultimate track ‘Floating in the Forth’ is still too much to bear, it’s depiction of someone assessing their life and making the huge decision not to end it all is just crushing. Yet even without this tragic context, these songs have had a profound effect on listeners the world over. That a band can create an album that brings people together, heals wounds and finds humour in the darkest moments is a genuinely special thing, and I for one know that long after the loss has passed, I’ll be listening to this album and finding comfort, humour and pathos in it’s songs for a long time to come. In my mind, any music that helps people come together, express their tightly guarded feelings, and fight off the darkness for a little longer is worth holding up as something truly important – but I can think of few better examples than The Midnight Organ Fight.

After nearly 6 months of write-ups, I’ve finally reached the top 10. Number 100 seems a pretty distant memory by now, and it certainly needs a lot of autoscrolling mayhem to find it, so here’s the previous 90 albums in a handy list.

Also available as a Spotify playlist! https://open.spotify.com/user/eatenbyahorse/playlist/7neSvhU67MNMTW2FF129dT?si=CEu5xBqsR1-uavuP-gT4WQ

For the longest time, this was my favourite album. I doubt I’m alone in saying that – OK Computer was such a monolith in the lives of music fans and artists alike that it cast a long shadow over the entire following decade of music. Huge bands such as Muse, Coldplay and Arcade Fire shamelessly plundered from Radiohead’s emotionally volatile and artfully experimental prog constructions to create their own world-straddling brands of sensitive pop rock, and international audiences swallowed it up, allowing legions of insipid also-rans like Travis, Keane, Embrace or Starsailor to achieve genuine chart success with mawkish acoustic ballads for years after. But whilst Muse may seethe and scream and squawk, Coldplay may sigh and strum and yearn, and Arcade Fire may revel in grandiose pomp and circumstance; with OK Computer, Radiohead did all of this and more, managing to encapsulate the melting pot of modern life at the tail end of the 20th Century – not just with their trademark technological paranoia and cultural ambivalence, but also in their musical digestion of everything that had come in the previous decade. Taking in the stark, dramatic anger of Nirvana and Pixies, the powerful, aching expressiveness of Jeff Buckley, the swollen psychedelic anthems of The Verve and Spiritualized, and the finely wrought experimentation of bands like Pink Floyd or Sonic Youth; spitting out their own entirely distinct but completely accessible brand of pop rock that was as direct and melodic as it was dense and uncompromising. As a 15 year old listening to the album for the first time, all of this context was entirely lost on me. I was an angsty teenager with overly simplistic views on the basic unfairness of life, and hearing Thom Yorke snarling “When I am king / You will be first against the wall”, or hearing the colossal drums of ‘Karma Police’ or ‘Airbag’ rip a hole in my headphones, or allowing the soaring harmonies at the end of ‘Let Down’ to fill my chest with the simultaneous urge to laugh and cry; I knew I’d found my own personal soundtrack to the overwhelming confusion I experienced in life – a personal soundtrack inevitably shared by the millions of people in the exact same situation. Whilst all of this teenage melodrama has since subsided in the intervening years, that takes nothing away from what a monumental achievement this album remains. Opening with the overture of ‘Airbag’, a song which begins with a twisting guitar riff that manages to sound like an orchestral motif, before billowing open into a swirling, melodic slice of anxious space-rock, and then eventually descending into an outro that finds all the preceding component parts being chewed up and spat out by some kind of malfunctioning technology. It’s a startling introduction, one that retains all the melodic accessibility and keening expressiveness that the band were known for, but introducing an instrumental complexity, unique production style and emotional range that elevated their sound to the next level. ‘Paranoid Android’ would take this one step further with it’s symphonic structure and wildly expressive performances; beginning with the seething, sinister opening verses that eventually burst into a rabid, breakneck guitar solo, screeching to an abrupt halt to allow for an bleak, aching breakdown, before eventually rearing up once again to hurtle towards it’s chaotic finale. ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’ takes a softer approach, using swirling, shimmering guitars to amplify the sense of queasy longing expressed in Thom Yorke’s desperate vocals, whilst ‘Exit Music (For a Film)’ is a shiver inducing build from hushed strumming to exultant finale – the way the guitars and synths rise up and the grinding bass tumbles downward at the end create a soul-sucking gulf into which Yorke howls with helpless yearning. Singles ‘Karma Police’ and ‘No Surprises’ are pretty much ubiquitous to fans of modern rock; the former trading off creeping menace and euphoric release over thunderous drums and piano chords, and the latter wistfully sinking into the emotional numbness of modern living with a twinkle of chimes and a surge of keening harmonies. ‘Electioneering’ and ‘Lucky’ both hark back to the musical directness of The Bends, but take that album’s more traditional rock template as jumping off point to explore manic, explosive energy and soaring, triumphant release respectively. In contrast, ‘Climbing Up The Walls’ would point the way for the band’s future electronic experimentation, and with it’s bruised, crawling drums, cold, brittle soundscape and strangled, chilling vocals, it may just be the darkest thing the band have ever recorded. This kind of textural, melodic and emotional variety would go on to become the band’s trademark, but at the time of its release it was revelatory – after years of bleak grunge coming from the States and bratty britpop anthems coming from the UK, an album as subtle and complex as this was a welcome breath of fresh air, in spite of the band’s growing (and unfair) reputation for miserablism and misanthropy. Its influence over the landscape of pop and rock music may not be as pronounced as its mould breaking follow up Kid A, but it’s impact on those who had their minds blown back in 1997 by hearing a band treat the general listening public with the assumption that they were intelligent, complicated and thoughtful beings still resonates now. Not much music manages to straddle the divide between head and heart, traditional and modern, light and dark, accessible and experimental; but with OK Computer, Radiohead didn’t just perfect the art, but they made it look easy – it’s no wonder so many others tried and failed to imitate it. I highly advise you to accept no substitutes though – OK Computer remains definitive.

This is the third Mogwai album in this list and the one that ranks the highest by a fair margin. I can’t imagine there are many people that share this opinion, but I think Mogwai improved with every one of their first three releases. Young Team was genre-altering and influential; it laid out the core elements of their sound in a stark and dramatic fashion. Come on Die Young focused in on one of those core elements alone – the crescendo – to create a bleak and single-minded behemoth of an album that has stood the test of time well, but received very mixed reviews upon release. In response to that, it seems Mogwai used their third album to go in the opposite direction and hone every other facet of the complex sound revealed on Young Team, ditching gradual builds and explosive crescendos for subtle atmospheres, wide-screen sonic palettes, sinister and twisting guitar motifs, and a far larger tonal and emotional range. There are no massive outbursts of distortion pedal abuse on Rock Action, no brittle build-ups and ear shattering white noise freak-outs (although this album was accompanied by the twenty minute long My Father My King EP that may go down as the most epic, vicious and blood-curdling thing the band ever recorded), but instead the entirety of this 40 minute record is given over to a startling variety of tender ballads, driving upbeat anthems, industrial machine noise textures, and a seething restraint that the band would never come close to again. The other thing that makes this album their best is the dense but raw production – working with Dave Fridmann again, the band create a rich, warm atmosphere that sounds simultaneously massive but intimate, allowing the bruising drums and huge swells of sound to co-exist with the hushed vocals and delicate guitar plucks in a way that hugely benefited every element of their sound. The resulting album is pure ear candy from start to finish. Opening track ‘Sine Wave’ is a statement of intent – beginning with a looping synth chord motif and slowly progressing into an industrial rhythm of scratchy noise bursts, lumbering percussion and thumping bass. Instead of building to a destructive climax, the track instead swells and expands; delicate glockenspiel, harmonised vocoder melodies and sweeping cello enter alongside the increasingly cacophonous machine rhythms to instill the widescreen chaos with an aching melancholy. ‘Take Me Somewhere Nice’ is startling in it’s directness, bringing Stuart Braithwaite’s hushed voice right to the front and centre and draping it in swooning strings, tender drums and a twinkling night-sky atmosphere that carries it’s simple structure into something incredibly moving and transcendent. ‘O I Sleep’ acts as a brief coda, before ‘Dial: Revenge’ doubles down on the dense, folky arpeggios; creating a mesh of dark guitar plucks and a driving brushed drum rhythm, over which Super Furry Animals singer Gruff Rhys brings bruised harmonies in his native Welsh tongue, straddling the line between expressive and mysterious in the same way that Mogwai’s best work has always strived for. ‘You Don’t Know Jesus’ offers a concession to the crescendo lovers, but in keeping with the albums theme it’s a very different take on it. The sinister, looping guitar melodies circle each other, the bass throbs and the drums pound, but instead of rearing itself up for a killing blow it just continues to surge until it rips open, spilling forth a dense cacophony of melodic chimes, crashing cymbals, whirling noise, and guitar textures that are so dense it creates a breathtaking rush of sound. Eventually the track recedes, exposing its component parts as they trail off one by one, leaving the lone melody to regurgitate itself one last time before the eventual collapse. Just as impressive is ‘Two Rights Make One Wrong’, which throws all the dramatic darkness out the window entirely in favour of breezy plucking, huge drums, melodic bass, and a dense swell of banjos, harmonies, strings and horns that build to huge sugar rush. It’s bright and upbeat, but tinged with bittersweet melancholy that gradually overtakes the track as it slowly burns out towards the delicate finish. The progression from the mischievous noise blasts of Young Team to music as epic, moving and mature as this shows a remarkable leap forward. The closing ‘Secret Pint’ brings the album to a gentle close, its thundering drums giving way to a beautifully hushed acoustic guitar, and piano and vocal outro that sounds like its being performed directly into your ears. Mogwai would again received mixed reviews for Rock Action from critics and fans still waiting for a direct sequel to Young Team, and after this they began the slow descent into the limbo that bands incapable of moving past their defining early work often find themselves in – the following Happy Songs for Happy People spit-shined everything to a glossy polish and reduced every element of their sound down to it’s most basic version; offering individual crescendo tracks, vocal tracks, machine noise tracks, and rock riff tracks in short sharp bursts that didn’t offend but never fully satisfied. Every album they’ve released since has followed this template to varied but always middling results; but back when Mogwai were truly fearless and creative they churned out masterpieces like this for breakfast.

There are a handful of bands and artists that have made more impact with the release of one album than many manage over a whole career. The La’s, The Sex Pistols, Jeff Buckley and Minor Threat all spring to mind – each of their standalone albums made significant ripples in the fabric of popular culture without needing a follow up; perhaps even actively benefiting from the lack of an otherwise inconsistent or disappointing discography to dilute their impact. The Stone Roses self titled debut is not one of these albums, but only due to the existence of their underwhelming 1994 follow-up Second Coming (an album which, much like their disciples Oasis, sank their career by totally misunderstanding what it was that made their music so good in the first place). At the tail end of the 80s pop music was starting to turn away from gated drum hits and day-glo synthesizers and back towards guitars again – in the US bands were following the trail laid down by Pixies to bring dramatic, quiet/loud dynamics to a dark but direct form of rock music that would ultimately go on to be called Grunge, whilst in the UK The Stone Roses essentially birthed a whole new genre with their combination of hard, danceable beats, psychedelic guitar textures and rock music’s classic song structures and melodic sensibilities. This sound spawned hundreds of imitators and eventually paved the way for the Brit-pop explosion that defined the 90s. It’s important to talk about the context of the era when discussing this album, as it represents one of those rare and pivotal moments that counter-culture burst into the mainstream and redirected the course of popular music indefinitely. The real beauty of The Stone Roses though, is that when all of that is stripped away, when all of the cultural relevance and historical baggage is removed and the timestamp of the era’s production sensibility is ignored; what remains is a set of absolutely fantastic pop songs – I genuinely can’t think of many albums that would stand up so well in a cultural vacuum as this. A large part of the credit must go to legendary producer John Leckie, who had his work cut out in the studio turning this group of scruffy pranksters into a tight musical outfit. Ian Brown was a charismatic frontman but a decidedly average singer, John Squire was a hugely talented guitarist with a tendency for self-indulgence, and the rhythm section of Mani and Reni had a deft understanding of dance rhythms but hadn’t yet achieved the tightness required to make them stick. Listening to the bands early recordings it’s clear how much Leckie whipped them into shape for their debut album; polishing the rhythms to a tight, brittle shine, pushing Squire’s frantic guitar squiggles to the front but keeping them doused in reverb to cast them as textural, and then burying Brown’s half whispered melodies in the dense mix so that they float through the songs like ecstatic spirits. Whilst Leckie performed an impressive feat scrubbing the band up, they were clearly more than ready for it as the songwriting on display here is consistently impressive from start to finish – the textural experiment of ‘Don’t Stop’ and the royalty baiting ‘Scarborough Fair’ referencing miniature ‘Elizabeth My Dear’ aside, every song here is a melodic pop masterpiece. ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ is a slightly misleading opener, revelling in its dramatic, teasing introduction, progressing into a thunderous chug and casting Brown as a sinister and vaguely demonic presence – it’s bright, chiming middle eight section is the only glimpse of the pop classicism that the rest of the album trades in. ‘She Bangs the Drums’ follows with it’s insistent rhythmic bounce and shimmering, flowing guitars; it’s exuberant and electrifying in a way that best exemplifies everything the band were doing at this stage in their career. ‘Waterfall’ is loping and swirling, with Brown’s sticky melody taking centre stage, whilst ‘Bye Bye Badman’ shifts gears between a low-key verse and bright, sunny chorus that references Rockabilly with it’s bright guitar strums. The second half of the album moves into more direct territory, with the aching, soaring ‘(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister’, the massive anthem ‘Made of Stone’, and the moody slink of ‘Shoot You Down’ preceding the triumphant closing duo of ‘This is the One’ and ‘I Am the Resurrection’. These two final tracks each take a half of the bands trademark sound and takes it to it’s logical conclusion – ‘This is the One’ is a dramatic burst of shimmering guitar textures, anthemic choruses and a dense, swirling finale that sends the song off into space; whereas ‘I Am the Resurrection’ rides a tight, skipping backbeat and irresistible bassline for eight solid minutes of exuberant pop melodies and psychedelic guitar theatrics, with Squire finally getting to fully let rip over the tracks closing half. As a set of songs it’s tight, consistent and classic from start to finish and it shows perfectly what a set of talented individuals can make when they have a steady hand to guide them toward perfection. Yet as an album, it’s a landmark in popular music and a cultural touchstone that still has a resonating influence to this day – there isn’t a single upcoming rock band in the UK that doesn’t draw influence from The Stone Roses, be it directly or otherwise. Of course, the less said about Second Coming and their cringe-worthy 2016 comeback the better. So instead, here’s to classic albums and knowing how to quit while you’re ahead…

This album messes with my head. I know that it’s just beats and samples layered over each other like all electronic music has always been, but it somehow sounds so dense and complex and hyperkinetic that at times it’s hard to fully get a grasp on. I think in part this is related to the accompanying artwork, which blurs the line between psychedelic and psychotic – pages and pages of decaying cityscapes, eyeless faces and splintering, twisting fractal tentacles that set the scene for the bruising cyber-noir soundscapes within. It’s no secret that The Future Sound of London were heavily influenced by Blade Runner on Dead Cities – there are multiple samples from Vangelis’ legendary soundtrack littered throughout – but the futureshocked darkness that pervades every note of music here seems like it could be the soundtrack to being violently mugged and left to bleed out in the streets of the film’s dystopian San Angeles metropolis. Shards of synth fly overhead, samples scuttle and emerge out of the murk, double bass prowls the dirty streets, thunderous beats tumble and crash down as reverb drenches everything in a dark, rain-soaked atmosphere. ‘Herd Killing’ is the explosive introduction, punctuated by electric stabs of ricocheting guitar and muffled screams, ‘Dead Cities’ rolls with this into a neon lit panorama of shuddering rhythms and sinister squelching, whilst ‘We Have Explosive’ sets off a depth charge of frantic drums and grinding, hacking bass in a cavern of twisting, pulsing, screaming synths. In between these outbursts of sonic violence come the tense, wiry interludes ‘Her Face Forms in Summertime’ and ‘Everyone in the World is Doing Something Without Me’, which both drip with dark atmospherics and dense, twisting, complex production. ‘My Kingdom’ is the centre point of the record, with it’s propulsive, elastic beat being gradually swallowed by the mournful atmosphere that seems to descend beneath it for fathoms – when the soaring vocal sample finally arrives toward the end it’s like emerging into a ray of sunlight from the never-ending inky blackness. After the gentle palette cleanser of ‘Max’ (named for the modern classical composer Max Richter who provided orchestration throughout the album), the second half is leaner and denser still; the blasts of beat processing that dominate the first half are traded in for spidery techno breaks and liquid bass-lines that spiral up out of the murk, bringing shards of noise in their wake. ‘Antique Toy’ is simultaneously frantic and glacial; its shuddering beat dropping out of the sky into a deep well of slowly shifting melancholy chords. ‘Glass’ sets an amorphous synth lead over a surprisingly sprightly beat, before getting submerged in distant jazz trumpet blasts and soaring textures. ‘Yage’ is a cascading waterfall of thick drones, menacing, mechanical plucking and a throbbing, cymbal heavy rhythm that struggles to surface over the barrage. ‘First Death in the Family’ is an absolutely huge closer, the bright, gnashing synths and gargantuan reverb that have been getting more and more prominent throughout the record finally take over completely and ride a shattered rhythm into the depths below. It’s a long, exhausting album, but as an experience there’s little that compares, even 30 years later it’s barely aged a day. I once saw an article where John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats declared this one of his favourite albums and stated “Seven years I've had this thing and I still haven't gotten to the bottom of it”. I know exactly how he feels, on both counts.