well, a list is a list and designed to attract different opinions and enraged music fans. it's about as good as any other list. hip hop fans will be surprised to see some of those rap albums listed before some others. alternative fans ditto, etc.

De La Soul is extremely overrated and shouldn't be on that list.

Sign o the times?
No way, take that off and replace it w/ Tim by the Replacements....

see? :)

the de la soul album represents a pivotal moment in hiphop with a lot of firsts that are now standard that started on that album. it's key.

put your name down if you bash something without an actual argument. it's good comments etiquette. :p

I see where they're going with this, but it looks like they stayed away from putting 2 from the same band. This had to be very intentional. So yes, I'm enraged.

And of course, there's so Neutral Milk Hotel. So I'm enraged. But it's just SPIN.

Speaking of Pavement and Radiohead, I prefer Crooked over Slanted, but that's just me, and is two Radiohead albums a bit much (Kid A)?

I don't think I really love any of those albums. There are certainly albums I enjoy, but I wouldn't put any of those on my top 10 list.

Also, top 10 simply means the best. "Greatest" could imply most influential or most pivotal, but "top 10" really should just mean the best. I can see Nevermind on a "Greatest Albums" list, because it was certainly influential, but it's certainly not one of the best of the past two decades, even though it's currently cool to think so.

Pretty decent list, especially when compared to the absurd Rolling Stone "500 best." PJ Harvey is (was?) fantastic, but she's probably a token entry on this one.

I don't think I'll ever understand the Radiohead phenomenon, though. Why do people go apeshit over this band? They're obviously talented and dedicated musicians, but aside from some loose conceptual pretensions, big production, and a lot of melodrama, I can't find much that's new or exciting about their music. "Kid A," while a bold move for a world-famous rock band, basically sounds like an indie-tronica sampler circa 1998.

My friends kept insisting though, so I even tried watching the "Meeting People" DVD to get some shining insight, but I think it was the end for me - what a bunch of sad, serious, self-indulgent kids.

Sorry to vent, but this one has always perplexed me.

Obviously, you must have never seen them live.

I'm on the same Radiohead train you are, Arv, and it's not from lack of trying, believe me. They leave me cold, and I don't want my music to leave me cold.

As for the list in general, FEH... it's SPIN. RS's was WAY too repetitive with certain bands, and Pitchfork's was trying too hard to be trendy. No one will ever agree on lists like this, so chalk it up to a good conversation starter.

And Kowgurl, Let It Be kicks Tim's ass everyday and twice on Sunday. There's some great stuff on Tim, but if left to take only one to the grave with me, sorry, Let It Be gets the nod.

1. I don't think you should have to see a band live to enjoy their recordings.

2. That's the same thing people used to tell me about the Grateful Dead, but at least there I could blame it on the high-quality acid.

Courtney: of course Let It Be is better, but it came out in 84 and therefore wouldn't qualify....

I agree with Courtney and Arv. At bottom all these albums are still POP MUSIC ( drink and fuck music) that follow the time honored formula. Indulgence in youth angst = big bucks. All bad poetry is sincere.

Arv: so are you basing "what a bunch of sad, serious, self-indulgent kids." on their recordings, or their live show...if it's the latter, then you need to get a clue...

All this is fine, but not to give Lonesome, Crowded West by Modest Mouse a simple nod is kinda crappy. If you are writing lyrics like, '...I'm trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away...' you at least deserve some mention.

Plus, Argentina's, Demonios de Tasmania - Modelo '96 is a classic - you can listen without skipping tracks, a rare feat these days.

Pelotudo, the Modest Mouse album clocks in at number 59.

beck's mutations and air's moon safari should be there

Kowgurl, cutting the list off at '84 also eliminated one album that, without its release, many of these other albums, may not have made the cut at all. I give you Zen Arcade, by Husker Du, and leave you to marvel at what a difference a year makes to a list like this.

Paul's Boutique? Psychocandy? Nothing's Shocking?

SPIN also chose the wrong PE record. Yo Bum Rush The Show was more out-of-the-box caustic and groundbreaking than Nation of Millions.

And, I agree with you, Courtney re: 1984 and Zen Arcade. 1984 was an amazing year. Zen Arcade, Double Nickels, Let It Be....

See? It's all relative.

Gretchen Goes to Nebraska by King's X is a masterpiece.

Damn. Not shabby at all. I would replace De La's "3 Feet and Rising" with A Tribe Called Quest's "The Low End Theory," though.

It's been a bad 20 years. A Rip van Winkle who fell asleep in 85 and woke up now would probably feel that he had not missed much, as far as music is concerned.

re: not understanding radiohead.

here's one method i'd consider:

1) learn how to tell if a melody is good or not
2) listen to the words
3) think, feel, etc.

yankee hotel foxtrot?

muse...absolution

muse...absolution

Zen Arcade.

Remember, children. Rock the Zen.

Somebody make a t-shirt outta that phrase, and send me some royalties.

These kind of lists are always arbitrary, but's it's especially weird to go from 1985 to 2005. I can see the '80s and '90s, but this is just odd. Isn't this just a cheap way of avoiding the fact that this has been the worst decade in the history of American popular music? I can't think of a single individual or group that should stand the test of time, and find a place among all the older greats. A lot of good music, of course - but nothing that's great. Nothing that's earth-shattering and revolutionary. The soul is missing from the music.

So, that said, allow me to jump back to my newly-purchased VINYL copy of Husker Du's masterpiece, Zen Arcade. There hasn't been a single album that's more sprawling, ambitious, reckless, and lively as this one. It's an atomic collision of a half dozen different styles (thrash, pop, rock, jazz, psychedelics, folk), the new fusion of...what, exactly? Alternative rock? Grunge? Avant garde noise? Who knows. I don't think the boundaries of Zen Arcade have ever been fully explored. Each of these newer genres represent only segments of the whole, but no one has figured out how to mesh it all together. Hell, the Huskers never even tried to top this one; after one final heavy guitar album (New Day Rising), they moved towards the alternative pop-rock sound.

Their final album (Warehouse: Songs and Stories) perfects this formula, and it's no coincidence that it's a double LP. It's also Husker's second bona-fide masterpiece. Which means, for the sake of this conversation, that it should have been included in Spin's silly little Greatest Albums.

what!! where's BIG BLACK'S "ATOMIZER"