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top ten albums
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12w
top ten albums
crooked rain, crooked rain (pavement)
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bands start up each and every day, i saw another one just the other day—a special new band
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13
12w
top ten albums
boxer (the national)
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there’s a lot to love about the national before and since, but this is the album where all the things i like best about them completely coalesce.
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13w
top ten albums
the velvet underground & nico
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i think brian eno said this album only sold like thirty thousand copies when it first came out, but everyone who bought it started a band. the music is great it its own right, but i do think there’s something especially special about how generative it still feels—whenever i listen, i want to write a new song, try out a new form of art, start a third or fourth or fifth band, etc etc. (i think nico adds more than people give her credit for.) shoutout to brooks forsyth who used to cover the velvets at my high school’s open mic nights when i was first starting to take music seriously and was getting into rock history and art rock and such. what a revelation it feels like to go from thinking led zeppelin was the pinnacle of rock to jamming on lou reed songs. things can be so much more than you think they can be! what an idea! imagine that! and hey, who says you need three chords and the truth? “heroin” only has two! in conclusion, technical virtuosity be damned—go make something!
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9
13w
top ten albums
the mollusk (ween)
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awesome sound going down, mang. fun fact: this concept album directly inspired the creation of spongebob squarepants, so you have likely experienced its influence even if you’ve never heard it. usda prime choice tunes here include: “the mollusk,” “the golden eel,” “buckingham green,” and “ocean man.” ween’s quebec and 12 golden country greats are also top-ten contenders for me, but if i’m stuck on a desert island and can only have one ween album (sad!), it’s this one.
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5
13w
top ten albums
magnolia electric co. (songs: ohia)
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take a handful of the best songs ever written and put them on an album and you’re gonna wind up with a pretty good fucking album, that’s what i always say anyway. (n.b. can’t wait til you fuckers figure it out, the recent documentary about jason molina, makes it to my town.)
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3
16w
top ten albums
if you're feeling sinister (belle and sebastian)
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11/10 no skips. ranges from the jubilant with songs like “me and the major” to the wry and ironic like “if you’re feeling sinister” to the gut-wrenching, soul-crushing search for absolution in “the boy done wrong again” to the comfy cozy contentment with being a bookish loner that closes the album, “judy and the dream of horses.” 🏃♀️📽️🦊⛪️🐴
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2
16w
top ten albums
return to cookie mountain (tv on the radio)
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i remember first hearing this album while i was working running books in my college bookstore. this older hipster guy who i found pretentious and annoying was like “check this out” and put it on, so i was extremely primed to hate it. but when it came on half of us just huddled around the stereo entranced. it was unlike anything i’d ever heard. i later saw them live at la sala rossa in montréal with the dirty projectors—maybe the best show i’ve been to. so so good.
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11
16w
top ten albums
f# a# ∞ (godspeed you! black emperor)
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debut album of (mostly) instrumental post-rock from everyone’s favorite montréal anarchists, godspeed you! black emperor. there’s two drummers. there’s two bassists (one mostly plays contrabass). there’s even two 16mm projectionists, whose work is integral to their live shows. the band etched a drone into the runoff groove of the vinyl version of the album; it’s runtime is technically infinite as a result. your reaction to this information is probably a pretty good indication of whether you’ll think this is pretentious garbage or about the most incredible one hour/infinity of music you’ve ever experienced. give it a chance just in case it’s the latter. also: i have a tattoo of the album cover (the cd cover, as seen above—the lp is different and in true diy spirit has three different versions itself; the packaging was handmade for the initial release of 500 copies). also also: you may have heard “east hastings” in 28 days later—danny boyle had the song in mind for the soundtrack when making the film and listened to it regularly throughout the process. a little resistance always maybe, stubborn tiny lights vs. clustering darkness forever ok?
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10
16w
top ten albums
american water (silver jews)
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maybe my favorite album? nobody wrote songs like david berman. there’s nothing to say about this album that wouldn’t sell it short.
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16
16w
top ten albums
boat songs (mj lenderman)
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a top ten all time album for me. zero skips. 🍽️🪜🪑
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