THE OBJECTIVE UNWAVERING TESTAMENT OF THE BEST ALBUMS EVER CREATED!!!!!!!!!!
(2024 edition)
hi! ok i know alright? i know i know i know. i address this to the bentl in my head who obsessively shouts in my ear about how "ranking and rating art is a detriment to one's engagement with pieces of art! it creates heirarchy where there isn't any and puts art pieces in a context they were never meant to be experienced in!" like! sheesh! i was raised on rateyourmusic.com and i dont care. this rating and ranking shit is in my blood. its hardwired into my core. it tickles my autism in a permanent and important way. it's never going away and we gotta just live with that. sorry!
and i know you know this already but i'm just gna say this regardless: THIS LIST IS COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE AND WON'T CHANGE PERIOD! THIS IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE AND I WILL NOT ENTERTAIN ANY CRITICISM OR PUSHBACK. ALL NUMBERS ARE VERY CAREFULLY AND SCIENTIFICALLY MEASURED SO ANYTHING YOU MAY DISAGREE WITH QUITE SIMPLY HAS TO COME FROM A PLACE OF DEEP INSECURITY INSIDE YOU BECAUSE IT IS UNDENIABLY WRONG. thank you for understanding =) i love you!
almost all the music i enjoy is written and recorded by evil people.
30: The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
i remember seeing a cd of this record in my dads big ass cd collection all throughout my childhood. he told me it was shoegaze to which i hastily responded by adjusting my glasses and showing him the band's RateYourMusic page, thusly puting that gerriatric in his place (not real, i was like 11). the album art for this one always stood out to me even back then. it's a really beautiful photo! the steelblue marble and the lemon slices are such a wonderful pairing of visual texture. it's a good primer to the crystalline fruitiness of the band's sound whatever the fuck that even means. i would love a long poster of the cassette cover for this album!
i've listened to this record here and there throughout my life. i actually knew many of the songs kinda by heart before my recent stone roses kick, but never had i heard them with a more developed musical ear 'til recently.
i gotta come clean and say that i really do like the smiths as well, the queen is dead and hatful of hollow were big albums for me in my teen years, and i'm one of those fucks that kinda rationalizes my love for the band by giving all credit to johnny marr who for all i know could be just as bad as you-know-who. anyways! the smiths influence feels very clear to me on this record (the jang' is all there, baby), but it feels like a very necessary advancement and expansion on the sound i think!
there's so much shit on here that feels well ahead of it's time for '89 like the groovy, noisy drums of "elephant stone" or the drowned out dreamy soundscapes of "i wanna be adored". my knowledge of 80's jangle and dream stuff is pretty rusty so perhaps it was status quo? either way, the musical composition is chock full of a lot of subtle complexities tucked underneath a pop hook surface. like "bye bye badman" for instance is a constantly evolving tune even as it adheres to the verse-chorus structure which is super exciting. i think that's what i appreciate most about 20th century british pop rock generally as overblown as that sentiment can be. except the rolling stones tho, those racists can kiss my ass.
also "waterfall" has always been a sucky song to me for no rational reason really. i think it just got stuck in my head my whole fucking life and i'm sick of hearing it all the time. delete it from the track list and i think it also makes "don't stop" WAY cooler too in my opinion.
4 stars
29: Choirs of the Eye by Kayo Dot
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
i remember the days of internet lurking on sputnikmusic.com. i have an account on fucking thousands of music blogging websites at this point, but i always had a soft spot for sputnik! it felt like kind of the weirdest or perhaps the most "better than thou" of all of them, having not engaged with the community and making judgements based off the top charts alone. now i kinda understand them as just valuing metal, prog, and classical a lot more than rateyourmusic and others, but when i was a teenager that attitude i picked up on rly appealed to me as i'm sure it does any teenager who's really into captain beefheart haha.
oh yea, i'm writing about kayo dot. yea i found kayo dot through sputnikmusic as they're kind of a darling to much of the website's userbase. i found kayo dot because a specific user Electric City who i found through their wonderful Macintosh Plus review had this album scored at a 5 out of 5. that user (along with rateyourmusic's zzane and favslist's ElectricLizard) was actually a pretty vital music taste influence for me, and their influence has rippled all the way to this post right here! i found this heat, women, and talk talk through them as well and i gained a deeper appreciation for animal collective's feels thanks to their write up. you know, i as well as the rest of the music enthusiasts on the internet tend to lambast music nerd websites, but there is value to it and it's awesome how having a random corner of the internet to talk about the shit you like can actually go on to have a big effect on the lives of strangers you never talked to =).
OH YEA, I'M WRITING ABOUT KAYO DOT. i'm such a sucker for the loud-quiet dynamic and the cathartic effects of justoposing the two in really extreme ways. recently, the lamb as effigy by sprain i felt like really blew me away with it's masterful and refreshing understanding of that sound, but as i write this i realize how big of an influence i'm sure kayo dot had on those guys. giant fucking carcrash sounding guitars speed in aboard 800 metalzones and smash into the tranquil sparse sounds of trumpets and FLUTES. yea, flutes! there's flute everywhere on this thing and it's great, not enough flute in anything these days. but the guitar is can sound just as beautiful as it can head-exploding, like a metalhead's talk talk. "marathon" and "the manifold curiosity" are the big stand-outs here, completely brainmelting stuff.
toby driver is also kinda great on this thing? i've heard through the grape vine that he's kind of a controversial figure, although i'm not sure why and i haven't cared enough to find out. but his singing is great!!! his scream is so raw and powerful, and i love his lame corny soft spoken word poetry too. something about an orange and a spoon i don't know, but it's asmr to me and that's what counts. asmr and metal? together? if that's what it takes to be the only metal record on this list then so be it!
4 stars
28: Smile by The Beach Boys
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars
27: In God We Trust, inc. by Dead Kennedys
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars
26: Live at Japan 2002.9.16 by Jim O'Rourke
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4 stars
25: Home, Like No Place is There by The Hotelier
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4 stars
24: Emergency & I by The Dismemberment Plan
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars
23: Spiderland by Slint
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars
22: Mouth Silence by Neil Cicierega
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars
21: No Kill No Beep Beep by Q and Not U
GENRE: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
4.5 stars