| 4.5 superb |
| ABBA Arrival |
| Arrival is not only the definitive ABBA record (apart from Gold of course) I'd contend that it's one of the defining pop records of the 70s. The group was slowly developing their sound on prior records until everything they had been working towards was fully realized on this classic. It just delivers hit after hit after hit. |
| ABBA Super Trouper |
| ABBA More Gold: More Hits |
| Air Moon Safari |
| Alvvays Antisocialites |
| American Music Club California |
| Amyl and the Sniffers Comfort To Me |
| Anathema We're Here Because We're Here |
| Anathema Judgement |
| Anathema A Natural Disaster |
| Anberlin Cities |
| Anberlin New Surrender |
| Antarctigo Vespucci Love in the Time of E-Mail |
| This album defines the magic of pop/punk and what it has ever meant to me as a genre. This gloriously hook filled record reaches the heart in all the right ways. |
| Arab Strap As Days Get Dark |
| Arcade Fire Neon Bible |
| Arcade Fire Reflektor |
| Asobi Seksu Citrus |
| When shoegaze and pop marry to create a sound that is so lovely, so irresistible, that it almost makes you wonder how you ever enjoyed shoegaze before it. |
| Avantasia Moonglow |
| February has been insane with these releases. Power metal doesn't get much better than this. |
| Avril Lavigne The Best Damn Thing |
| Bark Psychosis Hex |
| Beach House Bloom |
| Beach House Teen Dream |
| Beach House Depression Cherry |
| Beach House Once Twice Melody |
| Beautiful Eulogy Instruments of Mercy |
| Ben Howard Noonday Dream |
| You can almost feel the intense heat radiating off the ground as you trudge through this album's desolate landscape and sense the eyes of the vultures as they wait for you to breathe your last. And yet, as you walk on, you feel a sense of peace and comfort in the isolation. This is how it feels to listen to Noonday Dream. |
| Ben Howard I Forget Where We Were |
| Ben Howard Is It? |
| Big Star Radio City |
| Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat Everything's Getting Older |
| Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat The Most Important Place in the World |
| Billie Eilish Happier Than Ever |
| This is one of the most stunning yet equally unnerving pop albums I've heard in a long time. It's such an interesting and refreshing character study of who one can become when met with failures from oneself, the music industry and celebrity fame, and other lovers. If I could liken it to a film it'd be Mulholland Drive. |
| Bjork Debut |
| Bjork Biophilia |
| Black Country, New Road Ants from Up There |
| Black Midi Hellfire |
| Black Sabbath Black Sabbath |
| Black Sabbath Paranoid |
| Black Sabbath Master Of Reality |
| They really don't write metal like this anymore. A riff-tastic masterpiece. |
| Blonde Redhead 23 |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Goodbye Cool World! |
| Bomb the Music Industry! To Leave or Die in Long Island |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Get Warmer |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Adults!!!: Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited By Nothing!!!!!!! |
| Bomb the Music Industry! Scrambles |
| Botch We Are the Romans |
| Like the legendary Jane Doe that came barely two years after, We Are The Romans is another absolute classic record that established just what metalcore as a genre could do. |
| Botch An Anthology of Dead Ends |
| Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me |
| I remember when the album artwork for The Devil and God first caught my eye. I was browsing a music forum when I saw this creepy cover of a little girl hiding from two masked men on a front porch. That, along with the title of the record, sent my mind alive with stories and questions. Who were these characters and what did they mean in relation to the album's name? Who was the little girl? Was she God? Did the men represent the devil? I had to give it a listen straight away. What I experienced next was one of the most impactful first listens of any album I had ever heard. It's a record I will always cherish along with the rest of Brand New's prolific discography. |
| Brand New Daisy |
| Breaking Benjamin Ember |
| This or the latest Underoath record? You know what, I think I'd take this. |
| Breathless Green to Blue |
| Brian Fallon Sleepwalkers |
| This is one of those albums that I find myself being inexplicably in love with. Yes, it's simple and the instrumentation isn't particularly innovative, but it's so earnest and confident with what it does. Fallon is a master of melody and romanticism and now that I associate it with a couple of painful and amazing memories it's become a very personal classic. |
| Brian Fallon Painkillers |
| The way music can just unexpectedly capture the heart is a mystery I'm not sure I ever want to know the answer to. This man just has it. |
| Broken Social Scene You Forgot It in People |
| Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town |
| Bryan Ferry Boys and Girls |
| Burial Untrue |
| This is the ultimate lonely, rainy day album. |
| Capital Lights This Is An Outrage! |
| What a deliciously catchy, summery gem of a record. Why did it take me so long to listen to it when I've heard the name plenty of times before? |
| Captain, We're Sinking The Future Is Cancelled |
| Carissa's Wierd You Should Be At Home Here |
| Carissa's Wierd Songs About Leaving |
| Carly Rae Jepsen Emotion |
| Carly Rae Jepsen The Loneliest Time |
| These lonely midnights are just so much better for the soul |
| Caroline Polachek Pang |
| Caspian Dust and Disquiet |
| Cat Power Moon Pix |
| Chelsea Wolfe Hiss Spun |
| Chelsea Wolfe Abyss |
| Cigarettes After Sex Cry |
| Clever Girl No Drum And Bass in the Jazz Room |
| Cocteau Twins Treasure |
| Coldplay Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends |
| Coldplay X&Y |
| Converge Axe to Fall |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind |
| Converge You Fail Me Redux |
| You Fail Me is a pummeling masterpiece and quite easily one of the most astounding metalcore records of the 2000s. |
| Converge The Dusk in Us |
| Copeland You Are My Sunshine |
| Copeland Eat, Sleep, Repeat |
| Copeland In Motion |
| Copeland Blushing |
| 2014 was a big year for me. It was the year I graduated from school for one thing. It was also the ryear I started dipping my toes into genres I, up until then, had never explored. And it was the ryear I first fell in love with Copeland with their gorgeous reunion record, Ixora. That album rplayed a massive role in shaping my musical taste today and I still return to it regularly. Just rover four years later we finally get to hear its follow-up. In short, Blushing is everything I was rhoping for with just enough room to grow and mean as much to me today as Ixora did to me five years rago. |
| Courtney Swain Between Blood and Ocean |
| I cannot see anything topping "Sweet Snow" for the song of the year title. I haven't been taken on a rjourney like that in a very long time. |
| Cradle of Filth The Principle of Evil Made Flesh |
| Cradle of Filth Damnation and a Day |
| Cradle of Filth Nymphetamine |
| Cradle of Filth Thornography |
| Crippled Black Phoenix Ellengaest |
| Cult of Luna A Dawn to Fear |
| Current Joys East My Love |
| Daisy Chainsaw Eleventeen |
| Daisy Chainsaw For They Know Not What They Do |
| Danny Brown Atrocity Exhibition |
| David Bowie Aladdin Sane |
| David Bowie Hunky Dory |
| David Bowie Low |
| Death Symbolic |
| Death Cab for Cutie We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes |
| This is an indie rock album for those cold Autumn mornings, holding the hand of your love and sharing a scarf together. I think it's the near epitome of beauty. |
| Deftones Deftones |
| Deftones Saturday Night Wrist |
| I've racked my brain trying to put words to the way this album makes me feel. It's intensely claustrophobic and musty, yet dreamy and ethereal. It's like being lost in a fever dream. It's a harrowing look into the psyche of a band on the edge of destruction that yet possesses the maturity, originality, and beauty of a band in their prime. |
| Deftones Around the Fur |
| Deftones Adrenaline |
| The complaints of this album's quality as a debut are valid but....this is a freaking good debut. As soon as you embrace the raw, aggressive, in your face youth of it it's easy to love this as much as many of their classics. And let's not confuse simplisty with underdeveloped songwriting because that is just not what this is. This is Adrenaline and there's nothing else like it. |
| Deftones Ohms |
| Ohms is really just the ideal Deftones record: from the production that exudes melancholic angst, to the music that is 'Tones at their absolute best. |
| Depeche Mode Songs of Faith and Devotion |
| Depeche Mode Ultra |
| Depeche Mode Playing The Angel |
| Depeche Mode Memento Mori |
| Destroyer Destroyer's Rubies |
| So I'm walking side by side with the love of my life along the River Thames in the early hours of the night. To my disappointment, it isn't everything I dreamed it'd be. The stars are hidden behind a blanket of clouds, the air is kinda stuffy, and the river itself smells a little off. But I say something about it all that makes my girl laugh and I realize that there is nowhere else in the world I'd rather be than beside her. Then I decide that if the scenery isn't going to amaze her then I'm going to do it myself and make her the happiest woman in the world. That's what Destroyer's Rubies is to me. It may not be a traditionally pleasant-sounding record but there's real heart behind it. |
| Destroyer Ken |
| Destroyer Poison Season |
| Come, take my hand as we stroll through the glorious Times Square. |
| Destroyer Labyrinthitis |
| Domestic Terminal All The Stories Left To Tell |
| Downhere Wide-eyed and mystified |
| Eels Electro-Shock Blues |
| Electric Light Orchestra Eldorado |
| Electric Light Orchestra Face the Music |
| Electric Light Orchestra A New World Record |
| Elliott Smith XO |
| Eminem The Slim Shady LP |
| Evan Call Violet Evergarden: Automemories |
| Every Time I Die Radical |
| Everything But the Girl Fuse |
| Everything But the Girl Walking Wounded |
| Everything But the Girl Amplified Heart |
| Exit North Book of Romance and Dust |
| Faith No More Angel Dust |
| Fall Out Boy Infinity on High |
| Fiona Apple Tidal |
| Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel... |
| Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine |
| Fiona Apple Fetch the Bolt Cutters |
| Fleet Foxes Crack-Up |
| Helplessness Blues is the album you play to all of your friends and family. Crack-Up is the album you keep to yourself for those cherished nights when you're alone and pondering the meaning of it all. |
| Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac |
| Flotation Toy Warning The Machine That Made Us |
| Fontaines D.C. Skinty Fia |
| Fraction Moon Blood |
| This is the holy grail of Christian rock. Primal passion married with a sense of coolness that can't be matched. |
| Frightened Rabbit The Midnight Organ Fight |
| One of the most devastatingly human records I've ever heard. Scott, wherever you are my friend, I hope you're well. Your music has touched and changed thousands of lives including mine. We can't thank you enough. |
| Fugazi Repeater |
| Glenn Branca The Ascension |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ |
| Gorillaz Plastic Beach |
| Grant Lee Buffalo Fuzzy |
| Great Grandpa Four of Arrows |
| We've been saturated by so many artists striving for the same road Pheobe Bridgers took a couple of years back. Somewhere along the line it all became a blur. And then a humble little group named Great Grandpa comes along to eclipse practically everyone who has ever lent their voices to the style since. If these folks don't blow up in the indie scene after this something is terribly, terribly wrong with the music community. |
| Green Day American Idiot |
| And here is the cultural phenomenon that swept away thousands of frustrated and misunderstood teens into a pop/punk bliss that was never again felt quite the same way. |
| Green Day Dookie |
| The album that turned punk from the gritty and anthemic music that fuelled many political riots to the fun, catchy, and angsty music that sung to the immature and lonely teenage mind. We didn't have a care in the world, we were just getting through life in our own stupid way. |
| Hands Give Me Rest |
| Harmonium L'heptade |
| The angelic and heartbreaking vocals and the elegant and wistful instrumentation are all wielded by a band whose creativity is as far-reaching as their ambition. What this album delivers can only be described as magical. |
| Haru Nemuri Haru to Shura |
| Have a Nice Life Deathconsciousness |
| A sprawling, ingenious, sometimes depressing, but always magnificent creation. |
| Honey Harper Starmaker |
| Hopesfall Arbiter |
| Hum Inlet |
| Ichiko Aoba 0 |
| Illuminati Hotties FREE I.H: This Is Not the One... |
| Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights |
| Iona The Book of Kells |
| Iona Beyond These Shores |
| Iron Maiden The Number Of The Beast |
| ISIS Oceanic |
| James McMurtry Complicated Game |
| Jars Of Clay Jars Of Clay |
| The pinnacle of CCM. To this day it remains one of the greatest artistic achievements in Christian music. |
| Jars Of Clay The Long Fall Back to Earth |
| Long Fall is not only a superb creative leap in Jars' discography, but it's also arguably their best record since Much Afraid. Every song has its own identity and personality. It's lush, infectious yet melancholy, relatable, and most importantly, human. A pop album worthy of the loudest applause. |
| Jars Of Clay 20 |
| Jeff Buckley Grace |
| Jeff Rosenstock We Cool? |
| Jeff Rosenstock Thanks, Sorry! |
| Why is Jeff so flippin awesome? |
| Jeff Rosenstock NO DREAM |
| Jeff, if you don't stop being so awesome, dropping absolutely brilliant pieces of punk music out of nowhere, no one else is ever gonna have a chance. |
| Jessie Ware What's Your Pleasure? |
| Jimmy Eat World Damage |
| Jimmy Eat World Integrity Blues |
| Funnily enough, this one took the longest to grow on me out of JEW's entire discography. As more time passes the higher I see it climb. Although it's an incredibly cliche thing to say nowadays, I don't think JEW can do wrong at this point |
| Jimmy Eat World Clarity Live |
| Jimmy Eat World Jimmy Eat World [EP] |
| Jimmy Eat World Stay on My Side Tonight |
| The most emo thing Jimmy has ever released which, in and of itself, makes this essential. That it has one of their top 10 songs in "Closer" makes it stand out that much more. |
| Jimmy Eat World Surviving |
| This is the catchiest, most energetic Jimmy Eat World has been since Chase This Light. I'm absolutely living for it. After some of my favourites disappointed me this year, my boys always come around to remind me of just why I fell in love with music in the first place. |
| John K. Samson Provincial |
| John K. Samson Winter Wheat |
| I have no problem with calling John Samson one of the best artists of our generation. His music exudes love, warmth, humility, understanding and compassion, and so on so forth. On Winter Wheat his music dives ever deeper into the vulnerable lives of his characters. It is a behemoth of an album for the folk genre and one to treasure for years, even decades, to come. |
| John Moreland In The Throes |
| John Van Deusen (I Am) Origami, Pt. 3: A Catacomb Hymn |
| When people ask where I want to see Christian music go in the next ten years I'll point to this. I don't think the importance of this album for Christian music has been fully understood just yet. |
| Johnny Foreigner Waited Up 'til It Was Light |
| Jon Hopkins Singularity |
| Jon Hopkins Immunity |
| Joni Mitchell Blue |
| Julien Baker Sprained Ankle |
| There are a severely limited number of albums I would recommend to anyone, regardless of genre preference, to listen to at least once. Julien Baker's Sprained Ankle is one of those albums. It exposes the fears of self-worth we all hide and it invites us to share them openly. There is a subtle comfort in the unrelenting sadness, a relief in bringing to light a desperate need to share our pain with another. It's a beautiful thing to behold. |
| Kate Bush The Dreaming |
| Kate Bush The Kick Inside |
| Kate Bush Hounds of Love |
| Kilbey Kennedy The Strange Life of Persephone Nimbus |
| King Creosote From Scotland With Love |
| King Crimson Larks' Tongues in Aspic |
| Kinoko Teikoku Uzu Ni Naru |
| A shoegaze album that properly rocks the socks off? Why haven't I heard something as awesome as this before? |
| Lambchop I Hope You're Sitting Down |
| Lambchop What Another Man Spills |
| Lambchop Showtunes |
| Latterman No Matter Where We Go...! |
| Laura Stevenson Cocksure |
| Laura Stevenson The Mystic & the Master |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV |
| Led Zeppelin Houses Of The Holy |
| Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti |
| Lil Yachty Let's Start Here. |
| Lisa Germano Geek The Girl |
| Lorde Melodrama |
| Melodrama is one of those few pop records that play out as a complete and cohesive experience, from naive love, heartbreak and resentment, to forgiveness and a mature and newfound look at happiness and fulfilment. It's a gorgeous stroke of genius and one of the best pop records in years. |
| Low Double Negative |
| The four songs released thus far are sublime. If this ends up being another AOTY rcontender....rEDIT: Yep, this is wonderful. |
| Low I Could Live in Hope |
| Low The Curtain Hits the Cast |
| Low Secret Name |
| Mae The Everglow |
| Manchester Orchestra Simple Math |
| Once the sheer immensity of this album hits you'll know it. Simple Math is one of the most monumental rock albums of the past decade. |
| Mazzy Star So Tonight That I Might See |
| Mercury Rev Deserter's Songs |
| Mew +- |
| Mew Frengers |
| mewithoutYou Catch For Us the Foxes |
| mewithoutYou Brother, Sister |
| Records like this are ones that turn a good band into a remarkable one. Years down the road, I'm sure this will still be speaking to believers about the nature of humanity and his relationship with God. An absolutely essential record of the 2000s. |
| mewithoutYou Pale Horses |
| mewithoutYou [Untitled] |
| Brother, Sister meet your explosive maker. [Untitled] is a once in a lifetime magnum opus that sounds and feels like a nuclear bomb. Combined with the gorgeously subtle companion ep that foreshadowed something truly game-changing this may become one of the most memorable records of the past decade. |
| Midori Aratame Hajime Mashite Midori Desu |
| Midwife (USA) Like Author, Like Daughter |
| Mike Mains and The Branches Home |
| Mineral EndSerenading |
| Endserenading is 90s emo at its absolute best. That it was only Mineral's second (and sadly final) record only provides an extra touch of sadness. Yet their final words tell us that we will all eventually find peace even when our souls are afraid to rejoice. |
| Mineral February/ M.D. |
| Mineral The Power of Failing |
| Modest Mouse This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About |
| Modest Mouse The Lonesome Crowded West |
| Motion City Soundtrack My Dinosaur Life |
| Muse Origin of Symmetry |
| Muse The 2nd Law |
| MxPx Life in General |
| Best Christian punk album of all-time. It has none of the cheesiness, cringy Christian-isms, or manipulative inspiration that floods CCM on the daily today. |
| My Chemical Romance The Black Parade |
| Yeah, for many, this is pretty much a cringy emo infused pop/punk album from days past. However, for others, including myself, it's a testament to what the genre can achieve and it holds up extraordinarily well. It proves that sometimes albums you loved in your teens can still be good. |
| My Epic Behold |
| Nanci Griffith The Last of the True Believers |
| There are records that capture a time and place in history and then there are records that transcend history to become, in no lesser terms, timeless. The songwriting and lyricism are just as poignant today as they were thirty years ago. |
| Natalie Bergman Mercy |
| Neck Deep Life's Not Out To Get You |
| Needtobreathe The Reckoning |
| Neil Young Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere |
| Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds No More Shall We Part |
| Night Verses From the Gallery of Sleep |
| Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral |
| Nirvana Bleach |
| Norma Jean Wrongdoers |
| Wrongdoers is a masterfully crafted record from beginning to end. A ferocious display of Norma Jean's true potential. |
| Nothing The Great Dismal |
| O'Brother Garden Window |
| How do I even begin to describe a record such as O'Brother's Garden Window? For one thing, it's musically untamed and explosive in both its sound and scope, trying out new and innovative styles with every song and managing to pull them all off. This is no doubt a post-hardcore staple of the 2010s. |
| Oceansize Music for Nurses |
| Oceansize Everyone Into Position |
| Oceansize New Pin |
| Opeth Morningrise |
| Opeth Blackwater Park |
| Opeth Ghost Reveries |
| Opeth Sorceress |
| Opeth In Cauda Venenum |
| Opeth continues to be their daring, adventurous selves, but this time they pull it off with flying colours. This is some of the best material Opeth has written in years. |
| Origami Angel Somewhere City |
| Somewhere City is an emo record full of charm, superbly well-written melodies and out-of-left-field twists, and a genuinely emotional backbone. In the scope of its genre, it's a modern classic. |
| Origami Angel Feeling Not Found |
| Paddy Hanna Imagine I'm Hoping |
| Pale Waves Unwanted |
| You go, Pale Waves. Wonderful little album. |
| Paramore Brand New Eyes |
| Brand New Eyes isn't overly experimental or progressive but an album doesn't need to be to be considered a masterpiece. It managed to perfect everything Paramore had established beforehand and I'm honestly glad they parted ways with this sound on future releases. This closes their pop/punk days in the most satisfying way possible and I will forever look back on it as a highlight of my teenage years. |
| Parannoul After the Magic |
| Pasteboard Glitter |
| Paul Buchanan Mid Air |
| Heard the title track during the credits of the beautiful film About Time, I looked it up, I listened, I realized this was the singer of the Blue Nile, and I fell in love. |
| Pavement Slanted and Enchanted |
| Pearl Jam Ten |
| Phoebe Bridgers Stranger in the Alps |
| Stranger In The Alps has been a slow burn for me. That isn't to say there was a time I didn't like it, quite the contrary. But it was the kind of record I took for granted, all too content to call it a memorable note in an oversaturated genre. And because of that I missed it. I missed the warmth and the familial intimacy among its snowcapped landscape and towering mountain peaks. Now, I have nothing but a profound appreciation and love for it. |
| PJ Harvey Uh Huh Her |
| PJ Harvey Is This Desire? |
| PJ Harvey Rid of Me |
| PJ Harvey Dry |
| PJ Harvey White Chalk |
| Placebo Without You I'm Nothing |
| Porter Robinson Nurture |
| Portishead Dummy |
| Portishead Portishead |
| Prefab Sprout Swoon |
| Prefab Sprout From Langley Park To Memphis |
| Prefab Sprout Steve McQueen |
| Prefab Sprout The Gunman and Other Stories |
| Prince Daddy and The Hyena Cosmic Thrill Seekers |
| I haven't been this floored by a punk album since Rosenstock's Worry from nearly three ryears ago. This record could not bring the decade to a better close. |
| Pulp His 'n' Hers |
| Pulp This is Hardcore |
| PUP The Dream Is Over |
| PUP Morbid Stuff |
| Pure Reason Revolution Eupnea |
| QueenAdreena Taxidermy |
| QueenAdreena Drink Me |
| Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf |
| Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork |
| R.E.M. Automatic for the People |
| R.E.M. Murmur |
| Radiohead Amnesiac |
| Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool |
| Rammstein Reise, Reise |
| Ramones Rocket To Russia |
| Red House Painters Down Colorful Hill |
| Red House Painters Red House Painters |
| Regina Spektor Begin To Hope |
| Regina Spektor Home, Before and After |
| Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch |
| Rolo Tomassi Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It |
| On Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It, Rolo Tomassi have fine-tuned their sound to perfection. And perfect it is as the result of their hard work over the course of five records is one of the most exhilarating, unpredictable, and utterly beautiful metal albums I have heard in years, quite possibly this decade. |
| Ruby Throat Out of A Black Cloud Came A Bird |
| Seiko Oomori Tokyo Black Hole |
| Seiko Oomori Kusokawa Party |
| Seiko Oomori Kintsugi |
| Seiko Oomori releases the most Seiko Oomori album of her career and it is glorious. All the character of Sennou, with the emotional beats of Tokyo Black Hole, and a dash of the melodic aggression of Kusokawa Party. |
| Semisonic Feeling Strangely Fine |
| Shehehe Pet Songs |
| Shiina Ringo Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana |
| Shiner The Egg |
| Sigur Ros ( ) |
| From the soaring yet delicate first half to the despairingly dark and epic second, ( ) is a post-rock masterpiece. Sit back and let your own life fill in the gaps. |
| Sigur Ros Agætis byrjun |
| For many passionate fans, Agaetis Byrjun is hailed as the band's masterpiece and one of the best records of all-time. I honestly cannot find a solid point to argue against them. Agaetis Byrjun is a gorgeous centrepiece in post-rock and one of the best treasures of the 90s. |
| Sigur Ros Takk... |
| What if someone managed to capture the warm, orange glow of a sunrise and inject it into a note, a lyric, or a melody? What if someone made a whole album out of it? I believe someone did and we have the incredible opportunity to hear and experience it for ourselves. Takk.... is that album. It's a sublime wonder that you only get to hear once in a lifetime. |
| Skullcrusher Quiet the Room |
| Slint Spiderland |
| Slowdive Slowdive |
| Sonic Youth Daydream Nation |
| SOUL GLO Diaspora Problems |
| Sparklehorse Good Morning Spider |
| Spellling The Turning Wheel |
| Once the strings in Little Deer hit, I knew this was something special. And I was right. This is pure, dazzling brilliance. |
| Split End Deep Love |
| Spoon Kill the Moonlight |
| Stars of the Lid And Their Refinement Of The Decline |
| Wanted to find a random ambient/drone record to fall asleep to. I found this. It was the best sleep I had ever had. |
| Starset Transmissions |
| Steely Dan Aja |
| Streetlight Manifesto Everything Goes Numb |
| Suede Autofiction |
| SUNDAYS Inner Coasts |
| Swans White Light From the Mouth of Infinity |
| Swans Leaving Meaning |
| Swans My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky |
| Swans Public Castration Is a Good Idea |
| Sweet Trip Velocity : Design : Comfort |
| Sweet Trip You Will Never Know Why |
| Talkie Hablas |
| Talking Heads Fear of Music |
| Tamino Sahar |
| Taylor Swift 1989 |
| 1989 is pop brilliance. It has some of the best hooks of Swift's career, the 80s throwback is delicious, and the entire record is just one infectious, sugary jam. Quite possibly my all-time favourite modern pop record. |
| Taylor Swift Red |
| Taylor Swift Fearless |
| I'll shout it out fearlessly that I love this record. So sweet, so sincere, and just so lovely. |
| Taylor Swift Speak Now |
| I struggle to picture a more brilliantly consistent, rocking, and gorgeous pop/rock album than Speak Now. |
| Taylor Swift Fearless (Taylor’s Version) |
| One of the greatest country albums ever. |
| Taylor Swift Red (Taylor’s Version) |
| The Afghan Whigs How Do You Burn? |
| The Afghan Whigs Gentlemen |
| The Antlers Hospice |
| Quite possibly the most soul-crushing record of the 2000s. You can almost feel the chill of the hospital hallways and the accompanying sadness that looms over each room. |
| The Armed Only Love |
| The Beach Boys Pet Sounds |
| The Beatles A Hard Day's Night |
| The sheer songwriting quality of this album is leaps and bounds above their previous two. Wonderful album. |
| The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| The Blue Nile A Walk Across the Rooftops |
| The Blue Nile High |
| The Chariot One Wing |
| The Choir Shadow Weaver |
| The Church Of Skins and Heart |
| The Church Seance |
| The Church Gold Afternoon Fix |
| The Church Uninvited Like the Clouds |
| The Church Man Woman Life Death Infinity |
| The Church Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars |
| The Clientele Strange Geometry |
| The Clientele God Save the Clientele |
| The Cure Pornography |
| The Cure The Head on the Door |
| The Cure Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me |
| The Cure Wish |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works |
| The Ember Days More Than You Think |
| The Felice Brothers From Dreams to Dust |
| The Gaslight Anthem Sink or Swim |
| The Gaslight Anthem History Books |
| The Gathering Mandylion |
| The Gathering Beautiful Distortion |
| The Horrible Crowes Elsie |
| The Hotelier Home, Like NoPlace Is There |
| This has become one of the hardest fives I've ever given. It got me through a really rough time and it has resonated with me like few others have. |
| The Killers Hot Fuss |
| The Killers Pressure Machine |
| Once I heard "Quite Town" I knew this was going to be something special. I have never been more floored by a Killers song than that one yet the way this record unfolds eclipses even that. This is their opus. |
| The Lawrence Arms The Greatest Story Ever Told |
| The Maine Lovely Little Lonely |
| Gotta hand it to the Maine, this is another really solid release and easily one of the best pop/rock albums of the year. American Candy was great yet this takes their sound that much further. |
| The Maine American Candy |
| If the world was a good and just place The Maine would be one of the biggest bands in modern music. American Candy is an album that doesn't know when to stop giving. 10 years down the road and these hooks will still be delivering punches. |
| The Menzingers On the Impossible Past |
| The Menzingers Rented World |
| The Moody Blues Days of Future Passed |
| The Mountain Goats Goths |
| The National Trouble Will Find Me |
| The National Alligator |
| The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Belong |
| The Pillows Little Busters |
| The soundtrack to one of the best animes of all-time also turns out to be an utterly blissful and flawless slice of 90s alternative rock and punk. Where is the surprise? |
| The Pillows Runners High |
| The Radio Dept. Lesser Matters |
| The Raging Nathans Waste My Heart |
| The Smile A Light for Attracting Attention |
| Hello, Hail to the Thief Part 2. |
| The Smiths Strangeways, Here We Come |
| The Smiths The Smiths |
| The Swell Season The Swell Season |
| The Tallest Man on Earth There's No Leaving Now |
| The Tallest Man on Earth I Love You. It's a Fever Dream. |
| The Tallest Man on Earth Shallow Grave |
| The The Soul Mining |
| The Veils Nux Vomica |
| The Walkabouts Nighttown |
| The War On Drugs Lost in the Dream |
| The Weakerthans Reunion Tour |
| The Weakerthans Fallow |
| Sometimes the moments in our lives that mean the most are those that are mundane to everyone else. |
| The Weakerthans Live at Burton Cummings Theatre |
| The Who Who's Next |
| The Who Quadrophenia |
| The Wrens Secaucus |
| Before the heartfelt masterpiece that is The Meadowlands, The Wrens were crafting some of the catchiest alt-rock of the 90s. Two amazing sides of the same coin. |
| Theocracy Mirror of Souls |
| Mirror of Souls is simply one of best heavy records I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. The pummeling aggression of "Laying the Demon To Rest" and the twenty-two-minute epic that is the title track are just two examples of the eight flawless gems on display here. One of the best records of the 2000s, hands down. |
| Third Eye Blind Third Eye Blind |
| Best summer jam of the 90s? You better believe it! |
| Thrice Vheissu |
| Thrice The Illusion of Safety |
| Tindersticks Curtains |
| Tindersticks The Something Rain |
| Tom Waits Closing Time |
| Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones |
| Tomberlin i don’t know who needs to hear this... |
| Total Downer Caretaker |
| TR/ST TRST |
| Tropical Fuck Storm A Laughing Death in Meatspace |
| Turnstile Glow On |
| Twila Paris He Is Exalted Live |
| As someone who's rarely a fan of live worship records, this one is a special, not only because rit is the single most nostalgic piece of music I own, but it's also excellent as a standalone live rrecord as well. I have so many vivid memories attached to this thing that a single second of these rsongs is enough to transport me to a certain time and place where I was beginning to find out who rI was as a person. I can't quite put into words how much these songs mean to me. |
| U2 The Unforgettable Fire |
| U2 The Joshua Tree |
| Ulcerate The Destroyers of All |
| Underworld dubnobasswithmyheadman |
| Vansire Angel Youth |
| Vansire craft a gorgeously warm and subtle lo-fi dream-pop album that erupts with young adult sentimentalism, melancholy, and childhood nostalgia. All of this they wrap up in a wonderfully cosy aesthetic that sounds and feels like a lazy early morning. I cannot get enough of it. |
| Warning Watching from a Distance |
| Wednesday Rat Saw God |
| Weezer The White Album |
| White is the reason I became a Weezer fan and it's the reason I still have faith in them. In 2016, when I discovered this album, I didn't realize I had stumbled across something that would become one of my all-time favourite summer records. I love this record inside and out. It genuinely shocks me that Weezer was able to create something this profoundly excellent this late in their career and how it seems this brilliance won't be touched on again, possibly ever. |
| Weezer Pinkerton |
| Weezer Weezer |
| Wilco Summerteeth |
| Yellowcard Ocean Avenue |
| Yellowcard Paper Walls |
| Yellowcard Southern Air |
| "This southern air is all I need, breathe it in and I can see canvasses behind my eyes, all the colors of my life." This pretty much sums up how I feel about this wonderful record. |
| Yeule Glitch Princess |
| Yo La Tengo Painful |
| "I Heard You Looking" is one of the best album closers these ears have ever heard. This is a great album in its own right but that song alone turns this into a classic. |
| Yo La Tengo I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One |
| Zao The Well-Intentioned Virus |
| Zao The Crimson Corridor |
