Republican Music Police

91. The Smiths - The Smiths (1984)

This could have probably been higher. The fact is, in this description I find myself more concerned with justifying why The Smiths’ debut album ranks so low rather than extolling its virtues which, I think, speaks highly to the quality of the album. While the record someties drags (songs like “You’ve Got Everything Now,” “What Difference Does it Make,” and “Still Ill” don’t do much for me) and it never approaches the heights that songs like “There is a Light That Never Goes Out,” or “Every Day is Like Sunday,” would, songs like “This Charming Man,” “Hand in Glove,” and “Pretty Girls Make Graves,” are classic Smiths, and bitingly funny lyrics like “you can pin and mount me like a butterfly anytime” make this a great listen

92: Michael Jackson - Thriller (1982)

Another album that seems like it should be higher. And another record that deserves that sentiment. The thing about “Thriller” is that it sold a billion copies on the strength of three or four singles, not on the strength of the album. The other thing about “Thriller” is that those singles are some of the best singles of the 80’s, even of all time perhaps. “Billie Jean” remains one of my favorite songs of all time. The duet with Paul should have gone though.

93: Sublime - Sublime (1996)

It’s hard to argue this as a serious work of art. Although people did try to do that immediately following Brad Nowell’s death, it pretty much stopped shortly thereafter. This is not a work of genius or anything like that. But that’s never what good music’s been about. This is one of the best albums ever to play loud as fuck with your windows down, driving 37 miles per hour down a crowded four-lane road. Was reggae ever meant to be a serious political statement? Maybe...but I like it a lot better when it’s about smoking weed and drinking forties. Despite a saggy middle (“Pawn Shop”? “Paddle Out”? “Under My Voodoo”?) this remains one of the best alt-rock albums from the mid-90’s

94: Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030 (2000)

Dan the Automator is one of the best backpacker producers in hip-hop. Del “Tha Funkee Homosapien” is one of the best backpacker rappers around. When these two collaborate, add Kid Koala on turn tables, you expect one of the best backpacker hip-hop albums of all time. That’s what you got. It’s still backpacker hip-hop, and therefore a little esoteric, but like all Automator collabos (see Gorillaz – “Clint Eastwood” or Handsome Boy Modeling School) it’s a great album to listen to. If I smoked weed this might be the best album ever. I don’t, so it’s not. I would also have liked to have less skits. They’re not all that funny.

95: The Get Up Kids - Red Letter Day/ Woodson (2001)

By putting this album on the list, I’m already breaking two steadfast rules that I’ll break time and time again on this list.

1.) top however-many lists should not include compilations

2.) top however-many lists should not include emo

The fact is, though, this compilation of two early Get Up Kids EPs, like other albums that appear on this list, is just so good, it’s impossible to dismiss it categorically. As derivative and cloying a band as TGUK are (see: “sooner or latermore/these words to paper pour” in “Anne Arbour” [and see: song title “Anne Arbour”]) this album never misses. From front to back every single song is about as catchy as crack and damned if they don’t hit a few heartstrings pretty well. Newfound Mass and Second Place are two of the better songs to come out of the Weezer pop-punk emo movement and they’re both on this disc.

96: The Arcade Fire - Funeral (2005)

You can’t spell f-u-n-e-r-a-l without “f-u-n.” That’s a bad joke, tasteless and moronic. It also doesn’t apply to Funeral. The album’s not all that fun. Just good. Unlike most of the new wave ripoff acts from this century, the 27-piece Arcade Fire from Canada manage to avoid sounding tired or formulaic. Sure it’s kind of a theme album and theme albums suck, but it’s such a dark, atmospheric work it manages to overstep all the missteps that seem so insurmountable (CANADA??????)

97: Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain (1984)

Speaking of atmosphere, where would we be without that damn drum machine? Echo, as they called him made kind of a funny, hollow sound that seemed to define the 80’s. Nevertheless, Echo was gone by the time Ocean Rain came around, replaced by an actual human being (!!!). Still, the sound was there. I guess they can make man sound like machine but it’s not so easy to vice versa.

I digress. Singer Ian McCullough (yeah I haven’t really heard of him either) once claimed that this was the best album of all time. That’s a ballsy thing to say and isn’t really true. But anyone who’s seen “Donnie Darko,” remembers how haunting “The Killing Moon,” is. But there’s eight more songs like that. I really like the strings on “Nocturnal Me,” and “Silver,” and even a song called “The YoYo Man” manages to be a little bone chilling. This is a very strong album.

98: Pavement - Terror Twilight (1999)

The thing about Stephen Malkmus is I’d really like to hate him. I just wish he weren’t such a damned good guitar player and songwriter. Pavement has this country rock streak which seems like, paired with their nonsensical lyrics, wouldn’t work. It does though, and tracks like “Major Leagues,” end up being indie pop classics. You can’t listen to soe of the songs on this album without humming them afterwards. The songwriting is that solid, from time to time.

This isn’t a great album-album. That is...there’s a lot of dull spots. But that overwahed-bounceguitar on “...and Carrot Rope” makes you feel like you’d kind of want to dance, if it weren’t so goddamned cool to lean on the wall and nod your head along.

99: ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags and Codes (2002)

Pitchfork gave this a 10, which I thought was hyperbole then and I think is hyperbole now. But this is a vicious record. What is it about southeastern Texas that inspires such awful noise? You get it from At the Drive In too. I don’t get it. No matter. Someone once compared this album to My Bloody Valentine meets Built to Spill. I really really don’t understand that. I’d say Jesus and Mary Chain meet Fugazi. And I think that’s a really cool thing to be.

100: Outkast - ATLiens (1996)

Let me be frank. Outkast isn’t my cup of tea. I wish they, Mos Def, and Common would just stop stretching their vocal chords and rock the motherfucking mic like they clearly know how. But they do know how. Even more than Aquemini and Stankonia, this is their rap album. It has that dirty sound that either invented the south or typified it. I’m not quite sure. But you can really feel the humidity on certain songs. This was back when Dre and Big Boi were really getting going and the hunger’s still there.

I really really dig the title track with it’s “throw your hands in the ay-errrr” hook and that world famous second verse (“my oral illustration/be like clitoral stimulation to the female gender). Why why why did Andre ever stop rapping?

Goldie Gold from the Federation suffers the entrevista treatment over at WWS.

. . .But Pete Doherty saved it.

I know I'm years behind the hype machine, but if you don't listen to The Libertines, you ought to reconsider whether you actually like music.

Here's the thing: this is the tragic thing about music. It can't continue. God there was just this prolonged orgasm of Rolling Stones rebirthed. It was there on the first album, which is more like rock and roll than anything I've heard since The Replacements. Then the second album was just a flare of brilliance couched by buffers of filler. Was it the heroin or the coke or the fighting or was it just the fact that putting songs of the caliber of Can't Stand Me Now, The Man Who Would Be King, Music When the Lights Go Out and What Katie Did in rapid succession would just destroy the impetus for music. Because, hyperbole aside, how could you match an album that hit those high notes consistently? It'd be hard. For what it's worth, I don't think the Stones ever did it. And of course the Libertines didn't. But that's why they're the new Stones.

But no, fuck that. They're also the rebirth of the Kinks (or were, rather. But just like a good relationship that ends badly it's just too damn hard to think in the past tense about it), as Music When the Lights Go Out seems to indicate. Or The Clash, as everybody was eager to point out, drawing on the obvious Mick Jones connection.

And then, what? Pete's out there dating supermodels, getting busted for crack, breaking out of a Tibetan Monastery, stealing a switchblade, getting arrested for weapons violations, robbing his bandmates for drug money. Hell, Keith never got that much shit on him, and he was being a degenerate for over 30 years. If Pete lives to see 5 more, what the fuck are we going to see?

Honestly, I almost threw in the towel for rock and roll...but here's this fucking band ripping everything to pieces in a way I haven't seen since, Christ, I don't even know. X, maybe? G'n'R's an obvious comparison...but they're more British. Shit. Now I'm just not being rational. I'm sure I'll be sick of them in two months anyway.

But for now: Rock Lives.


there's no worse you could do,

cw