Wax Ecstatic: The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time Part #9

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Oct 09, 2024

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Good morning!

Here’s an affectionate attempt at ranking their records with the understanding that placing things you love in a rigid hierarchy is objectively insane
~Elizabeth Nelson

Welcome to Part 9!

Here we are, the second-to-last installment of this project. It’s been a long but rewarding march, and I hope you’ve had even half the fun Sam and I have had putting this together for you.

As always, hot takes are welcome, as are both praise and damning with faint praise. Mostly, we want to hear the role these records played in your lives and what they’ve meant to you.

Need to catch up? Check out Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. All of Sam’s are here. While you're there, subscribe to This Is A Newsletter!

Be sure to check out the playlist as well! We’re adding selected tracks from the records covered here each week. It’s best enjoyed on shuffle.

Enjoy!

KA—

📻📻📻

20: New Order- Technique (1989)

Oh, a New order record made the list. Quelle surprise! Below is my look back at Technique, which celebrated its 35th anniversary earlier this year.

Subjectively, this is my favorite for a whole host of reasons, some of which are noted here. It’s also worth noting that for a band notorious for releasing singles, Technique finally feels like something for the album crowd. For the band, 1989 wasn’t the first time they’d seen rough waters, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but they reportedly had one helluva a time while in Ibiza making the record (or a little of it, anyway), and it shows here.

There’s not much point in burying the lede here; this lookback won’t come close to being objective. If you’ve been with us for more than a few weeks, you know my love for this band and are keenly aware that On Repeat could devolve into a New Order fan page at any moment.

That said, this record is a massive achievement for the band at a time when not much else was going right for them-certainly not internally, anyway. To put something out amidst so much strife and financial pressure alone would be worth noting. That it is some of the best work they’ve ever produced makes it all the more remarkable.

Most people will remember March 24th, 1989, as the date the Exxon Valdez ran aground. I remember walking to the closest shopping mall to get tickets to see New Order.

That was the closest Ticketmaster outlet, and I was probably halfway down the street before my mom had even finished giving me permission. With the benefit of hindsight — and now being a parent myself — I now know what a huge leap of faith this must’ve been for her. We lived in the suburbs, and she was giving the green light to an (almost) 14 yr. old to ride the bus across the metro area to see a band she heard nonstop but didn’t know.

I suppose on some level you just know when to let your kids leap

The band was on the road supporting their 5th studio album, Technique, and it came out when I was in junior high. The record was one of the bright spots in an otherwise blah era for me.

If Low Life is a show at an intimate venue, Technique is a sweaty rave filled with strobe lights and ecstasy. Indeed, the record was partly recorded in Ibiza with the band off their rockers. Technique is firmly rooted in the sounds surrounding them in their new environs. They choose the sunny locale at Hook’s insistence after a run of recordings made in “dark and horrible” London studios. The band decamped for Ibiza, hoping the change in scenery (and menu of drugs) would have the same positive effect that New York had had for them years earlier.

It worked…sort of…

After four months, the band only had ‘Fine Time’ and a couple of other tracks recorded to show for their time on the island. Declaring their holiday over, their label called them back to the UK, where they finished the record at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios.

We had expected to hear a lot of acid house music when we got to Ibiza because that had taken off in Manchester two to three months before we left, but we didn’t – we were hearing something called Balearic Beat,” Bernard said. We were actually disappointed at first because we were really into acid house, and what we heard, this Balearic Beat, was this crazy mash-up of styles and really commercial-sounding but there was also some really good stuff. By the end of our time there we were really influenced by it.

Their time in the sun may seem unproductive on the surface, but it had left an indelible mark on the group’s sound.

Fine Time is an ~~acid-house~~ Balearic Beat classic. Round and Roundis pop perfection and saw decent airtime on MTV.

Run is credited to not only New Order, but also (*checks notes) John Denver?!

Yes, really. Denver sued the band, alleging that the guitar riffs were lifted from his Leaving On a Jet Plane. The case was settled out of court, with his name subsequently added to the credits.

A mediocre picture of the fantastic ‘Fine Time’ 12”

We could do a track-by-track breakdown, but the short version is this: Technique feels like the band's most honest record. Whether that’s down to the drugs or the Balearic sun, I don’t know. In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Perhaps more importantly, it is economical. Listening to it, every note has its place, and there is nothing extraneous. It's both a dance record and a pop record—in other words, a New Order record—but listening to it, there is a discipline that sets it apart from the band’s previous work.

The songs themselves are compact; the sequencers nailed down— there is no 9-minute version of anything on this LP. By this point, the band had also mastered the art of shifting between pop and dance tracks.

On Brotherhood, a distinct boundary exists between the two (literally- the styles each have their own side on the album). There are no guardrails here; the band makes segueing between styles look easy.

All of that is well and good, but why is it my number 1?

Technique was really the first record by the band that I found on my own. Yes, I knew them. Yes, I’d heard almost everything they had recorded up to that point. But this was different; I’d learned of its release on my own and gone and bought it with my own money.

No hand-me-downs from friends' older siblings or songs clipped from mix tapes. You always remember your first…

Good records always take you somewhere special. Thirty-five years later, Technique still does that for me.

Sam’s pick & my take: Nina Simone - Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967)

I might be in the minority here, but I think Simone sounds just as good—if not better—singing the blues as she does singing sound/jazz numbers. Her voice feels purpose-built for this style of music and compliments the music perfectly. She's elegance personified, and a record of (relatively) grittier style doesn't take the shine off of that one bit.

Nina Simone sings the Blues—the sexy, sultry, and sad. It's loud, quiet, and all the things. And it's a classic in every sense of the word.

The first words we hear from Simone on this record are:

Do I move you, are you willin'
Do I groove you, is it thrillin'
Do I soothe you, tell the truth now
Do I move you, are you loose now
The answer better be (Yes, yes)
That pleases me

The answer isn’t just yes; it’s hell yes.

19: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers- Damn the Torpedoes (1979)

Note: Another one I’ve covered before, focusing on “Century City.” Damn The Torpedoes is a Desert Island Disc for me.

In 2017, 90000+ Florida Gators fans sang Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down." It was a moving tribute to their hometown hero who had passed away days earlier and never left in many ways.

In 1979, Tom Petty found himself a million miles away from Gainesville, Florida, in Los Angeles Superior Court right in the heart of a legal battle with his record label. In the middle of recording his 3rd album for Shelter Records, the label's parent company was sold to MCA. When Petty tried to opt out of his contract, he found himself in court. Petty threatened to scrub his forthcoming record, and MCA petitioned to seize the tapes from the band's sessions.

After each session, Petty had an engineer hide the recordings as a preemptive strike. Refusing to back down (heh), he even filed for bankruptcy, forcing MCA to open his contracts to renegotiation.

In the end, he stayed on the label but under far more beneficial terms than he'd had previously. Under the same deal, they also established a label for him: Backstreet Records.

Four months after appearing in court, Damn The Torpedoes appeared on record store shelves.

Petty's always been great at dropping singles- most fans can name quite a few tracks, but not always which record they appear on. Damn The Torpedoes is full of them, of course. This is the record that gave us "Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," "Even The Losers," & "Don't Do Me Like That."

Four out of nine songs making the charts is remarkable. But the record is all killer from start to finish. Four of the nine songs charted. "Century City" isn't one of them, but it could've (should've?) been.

The track is a blistering bit of kicks rock; it's Tom raising his middle finger to a city he loathes but clearly can't quit.

Sometimes I want to leave you
Sometimes I want to go
Right back where I came from
Back where I belong
But it never lasts for too long
Always goes away
Well, I still don't look for reasons
That's much too hard these days

Jimmy Iovine was on the boards and channeled that energy into a stadium-ready sound well. If Iovine teed the band up for stardom, the writing & music on the album knocked it out of the park. For a guy who often sang about losers, this was—and remains—a huge W.

1981's follow-up, Hard Promises, would find Petty much more relaxed with a sound that reflected it. But in 1979, Petty was still a kid from Florida with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.

Almost 45 years later, Damn The Torpedoes proved he was here to stay.

Sam’s pick & my take: Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers (1993)

Recipe for an all-time classic:
1 part love of martial arts movies
10 parts world-beating MCs
1 part motherf**kin’ ruckus

Stir until you get one of the grittiest, mind-blowing hip-hop records of our time. Protect ya neck; Wu-Tang is comin’, and they’re taking no prisoners.
I’ve had two chances to see these guys and missed both. I’m still kicking myself for that.

18: My Bloody Valentine- Loveless (1991)

Going through this project's archive, I was surprised I'd never written about lovelessness. For a newsletter that sells itself as hot takes on cool records, it seems like a disservice, so let me take this opportunity to rectify that right now.

At the risk of being hyperbolic, Loveless is to Shoegaze (and the band) what Pet Sounds is for the Beach Boys. It is the barometer by which almost everything in the genre is measured. It is a towering achievement. And like the Beach Boys, it nearly broke the band.

You've created something that redefined music and birthed a genre. Now what?

Like Pet Sounds, even getting this record to daylight proved to be a massive undertaking, a leviathan that threatened to swallow anyone in its orbit. And that assumed the record wouldn't collapse under its own weight first.

Frontman Kevin Shields's obsessive standards and compulsive tinkering made for a recording timeline that took over two years. It was, to put it politely, an involved process. While MBV is on paper a 4-piece, this is by most standards a Kevin Shields solo record. Drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig platys sparingly here and live only on one track. The rest of the time, it's simply loops or samplings of his work. Likewise, Bilinda Butcher and Debbie Googe's participation was largely ceremonial.

The first time I heard this record, it rearranged my mind. That's not hyperbole, either. The abrasive sounds, the sheets of distortion, and the waves of reverb coupled with Shield's cryptic lyrics were unlike anything that had ever come through my headphones—and this is a record best enjoyed with headphones. And if you have some nice ones, it's all the better.

Loveless is a record with several nuggets waiting for you to unlock them. Tracks like "I Only Said" are woozy and soothing. There is sneering; there is softness. "When You Sleep" is majestic and menacing. "Come in Alone" is alluring in the way only a shoegaze record can be, downbeat and uptempo. Closing track "Soon" is, dare I say, jaunty?

What I'm really trying to say is that whether you're about to hear this for the first time or the 1000th, there's never a bad time to play it, and you will always find something new.

I've read that both Shields and Butcher developed tinnitus between their notoriously loud live shows and the making of this record. I haven't dug far enough to confirm that, but it's a safe bet that my own case came in part from the 100s of listens to the record.

I can say with 100% certainty that Loveless irreparably altered the music landscape. I may not have covered this album before, but going through the archive, I found several that were either inspired by or are direct descendants of it.

Sam’s pick & my take: Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985)

What can I say about this record? I love that so many people have found it thanks to Stranger Things (at least, I hope they've gone past "Running Up That Hill"). It is an exquisite take on love, life, heartache, and death; it’s a synth record. It's theater in the round. It's an album with millions and millions of listens, and it feels like it was made for you and you alone.

It's got a song for the dance floor ("Running Up That Hill"), one for a quiet morning ("The Morning Fog") and everything in between. "Hounds of Love" is anthemic. "The Big Sky" is over the top and as ostentatious as anything else you'll see in this series. And I'm here for all of it.

17: Thelonious Monk- Monk’s Music (1958)

I need to phone a friend for this one.

I like jazz, and I love Thelonious Monk (a note from him is the first thing every new subscriber gets from me), but the truth is, it has always been a bit of a blind spot for me. Not in whether or not I enjoy a particular artist (or record), but how to articulate that. I don’t know enough about brass to describe the bleats and squonks correctly. I can't read music, so I can’t really talk about piano notes with any degree of authority. Sure, you can gush about a record without knowing anything about the technical side, but for a record as incredible as Monk’s Music, I feel like just saying “it‘s great” won’t do it justice.

Enter friend of On Repeat Records, Greg Layton. Greg is the architect behind The Jazztome, a fantastic database of records covers, reviews, and liner notes. I’m not just blowing smoke when I say it’s a must-visit. Seriously. He’s made painstaking efforts to make it as appealing for cover art fans as it is for music wonks like us who count poring over liner notes as a fun way to pass the time. It’s a place where, if you're not careful, you'll look up at the clock and realize you've been tumbling down the rabbit hole for a few hours. Ask me how I know this.

Back to Monk:

One of my favorite things about jazz— and Monk particularly—is its cavalier disregard for rules and structure. In this world, rules are made to be broken, and standards are there primarily to be ignored. In many ways, Monk’s style is this mindset personified, with a little mad genius sprinkled over the top. You never know what you’re gonna get- a song might not even be played the same way twice. On Monk’s Music, he’s surrounded by some of the best to ever do it, including Art Blakey on drums and John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins on sax. Knowing what you bring to that table is one thing. Being wise enough to know to surround yourself with this level of talent? Genius.

Like many geniuses, Monk's talent wasn’t consistently recognized for what it was until much later. Reviewing the record for the Army Times, Tom Scanlon noted,

By my standards, Monk is an extremely limited musician who can’t play the piano as well as many amateurs, one who has captured the fancy of a small group of hippies (mostly non-musician type) because of musical gimmicks and an intense, apparently never-ending dig-Monk campaign by an influential group of jazz writers and record company men. In Monk’s Music there is repeated dissonance for no apparent reason save shock value. “It’s so bad, man, it’s good, it takes courage to play so many bad notes deliberately,” his club members seem to be saying.

Ouch. But again, standards are there to be ignored. In time, this record would be regarded as one of the greats. I can’t speak highly enough of it. With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder what Scanlon would have to say?

Sam’s pick & my take: Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)

The origin story of Daft Punk is now firmly cemented in pop music lore. Three guys, Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo, and Laurent Brancowitz, get together to make some records under the name Darlin’. A reviewer dismisses the work "daft, punky trash." The trio takes it in stride and amicably split a year later. Bangalter and de Homen-Christo reform as a duo and take their name from the same review; Daft Punk is born. Brancowitz goes on to form Phoenix with his brother, and the world is a better place to have both bands in it.

Before 9/11, the Great Financial Collapse, and a whole series of mergers (and ensuing culture wars), aviation was, well, kinda fun. There were things like interline soccer tournaments where employees at any given carrier would form a team and travel to places to meet up and play teams from other airlines, which is how I found myself playing soccer under the searing Costa Rican sun on a field cut out of the jungle. These tournaments were really just cloud cover for all of us to get together and have a good time, and on this trip, it seemed like Discovery— and more specifically, "One More Time" was coming out of every speaker in the country.

Hearing Euro disco in the heart of Latin America told me the world was a small place and that we’re all in this together. Twenty-plus years on, this record is forever tied to things like hot sun, fun nights, and joy. It’s sonic bliss and a surefire cure for whatever ails you. Daft, punk trash? Not this record.

16: Beastie Boys- Paul’s Boutique (1989)

Around the time this came out, a guy was something of an extra in the movie of my life. He was a DJ, and I’d see him everywhere. Tower Records, house parties, on the street; you name it. I lived in a suburb, but it wasn’t that small. He would refer to himself as “{your] hip hop connection” and hand us a business card, which I guess was the late 80s way of building a brand. I dunno. But he was really good at turning people on to new records. One of them was Paul’s Boutique.

Running into him on the street, he was evangelical about the record, almost begging us to buy it and see for ourselves. I did…and was promptly disappointed. In hindsight, I should‘ve known a DJ would talk up a record built on samples- so many, in fact, that a lot of them are almost unrecognizable. But I was expecting/half hoping for a License to Ill PT II. That, of course, wasn’t going to happen. Time and the band had moved on.

What we got instead was nothing the world had ever seen. MCA hadn’t yet gone full monk, but he was already cooler than a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce. Tracks like “Shake Your Rump” show Ad-Rock and Mike D largely dropping the frat boy bit but none of their swagger. For anyone looking for “Brass Monkey” or a similar ditty about chasing girls, “Hey Ladies” will have to do. “Sounds of Science” is still a banger. “Looking Down The Barrel of a Gun” feels like an homage to the Cookie Puss days. This is a hip-hop record, but they were a band first.

It took me a while, but I came around to his record. Several months later, I was at a party where my DJ friend was spinning wax. He played “Sounds of Science,” and the place came alive. Later that night, we were outside smoking, and I told them I loved the record. “Man, I told you!” he said, “If you ever need a DJ, let me know,” pressing yet another business card into my hand.

Thirty-something years later, my son tagged along with me to our local record store. He liked rap and was looking for what would be his first vinyl buy. I sold him on Paul’s Boutique the same way I had been all those years—and miles—ago. He walked out the door with a copy.

Sam’s pick & my take: Björk - Vespertine (2001)

Vespertine is Bjork at her most subtle & wistful. It’s a record of dewy mornings, little hobbit houses (I imagine), and whatever else populates the landscape in her Candyland universe. The songs are stripped down and built on sometimes rickety pops and squeaks. Other times a single note at a time. Somehow it all holds up just fine. I’m more in the Post or Debut camp, but I totally get the allure of this record, and why it’s on this list. It’s an album that is best enjoyed without overthinking it or looking too hard to find a hidden message.

As she notes on “Undo":

You're trying too hard
It's not meant to be a strife
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill

Just unfold, surrender, and enjoy what she’s made for us.

15: The Police- Ghost in the Machine (1981)

Montserrat is a beautiful island that most people have never seen. So it seems fitting that one of the band’s biggest hits almost never saw the light of day.

In 1981, the band was on the island to record “Ghost In The Machine” at George Martin’s famed AIR studio. Sting had brought along a demo version of the track he first created five years earlier but was met by resistance from bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland.

Neither of them thought the softer tone and piano accompaniment met the definition of The Police “sound.”

The band played around with a couple of different versions in an attempt to revamp the track into something more in line with their normal songs, but no-go.

This version with session musician Jean Roussel would stick.

In the end, I’m sure the Summers and Copeland are glad it did. The song was a hit, peaking at Number 3 in the US and topping the charts in the UK.

It’s also one of their most enduring songs, still seeing airplay almost 40 years later.

That song is “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.”

That alone would carry a lot of records, but Ghost in the Machine is so much more than that. It ambitiously combines pop, reggae, and other disparate elements into a cohesive whole.

It’s worth double-clicking here that the band put out all 5 of their records in less than 6 years. It was a quick ascent for the band, taking only a couple of years to go from the very straightforward sounds of Outlandos D’Amour to the much more ambitious work of Ghost in the Machine. With its haunting “Invisible Sun,” joyous "Every Little Thing…" and the saxophone overdose of “Hungry For You,” the record touches all the bases. “Omega Man” was never as single, but by all rights, it should’ve been. It moves at light speed and, in my opinion, is one of the best tracks the band ever made.

I first heard this while visiting my uncle as a kid. I was rooting through his records — he always had cooler stuff than we had at home — and the cover art caught my eye.

I thought it was about computers and asked him to play it. It turns out I was as wrong as Summers and Copeland were.

Sam’s pick & my take: Nas - Illmatic (1994)

Every once in a while, someone on Twitter will set the site on fire by listing off the best rappers of all time and (internally?) leaving Nas off the list. It’s a cheap form of engagement bait and one guaranteed to draw responses from all over the globe. But that backlash is also a testament to just how good Nassir Jones is and how incredible his work is. Few MCs can bend words to their will and command the mike like he does. Illmatic is 30? Could’ve fooled me. It sounds as fresh as it did on Day 1.

14: The Replacements- Tim (1985)

Another one I’ve covered before. If this were “Kevin’s Top 100,” Don’t Tell A Soul would be here. That said, it’s fair to say that Tim has made an incredible, lasting mark on the world of music.

There used to be a wall in downtown Portland, Oregon, where someone had painted “Paul Westerberg is God.” Anytime my friends and I were down there, we’d see it, laugh, and make the sort of inside jokes that were funny only to us.

It would be ~25 years between seeing that sign and finally seeing the Replacements. My wife & I drove 75 miles to hear 26 songs, and it was worth every last minute. My ears bled like I thought they might. It was everything we expected. And more.

###

It would take 38 years for The Replacements’ Tim album to get the remix it deserves. The result is far more than merely “punching up the drums” or tweaking a note here or there. Ed Stasium has overhauled the record, resulting in a much more dynamic, heavier sound.

The original was produced by Tommy Erdelyi (better known as Tommy Ramone) and sounds tinny, nasally even. Despite being packed with songs we hold so close, there is a distance to it. It’s flat, but to my ear, that’s how most ‘Mats records before Don’t Tell A Soul sounded.

It was all part of the bargain and matched their (then) chaotic style, which never much lent itself to fidelity. The record production on Tim left a lot on the table, but The Replacements were always a band that rolled their eyes at terms like potential, so maybe that was part of the bargain, too.

Tim represents an inflection point for the band where Westerberg’s lyrics start pivoting toward a more poignant place. Think less “Gary’s Got A Boner” and more “Little Mascara.”

With Stasium’s help, the sound is finally leveled up to match the words.

The usual box set ingredients (B-sides, live tracks, etc.) are here, but the original album tracks themselves are the real treasure. Listening to a fresh take on something so familiar can be fraught, but Stasium has gone to great lengths to amplify & enhance only the best parts and finally bring the music closer.

To my ear, the biggest changes are to the rhythm section. Tommy Stinson’s bass had always been relegated to the back, almost an afterthought as Westerberg and Bob Stinson battled it out on guitar. Here, his playing is much closer to the front, and the lines are much cleaner and clearer.

Chris Mars also benefits from revisiting the record. With Stasium’s touch, the drumming is revealed as much more intricate. Even listening with less-than-stellar headphones, you hear new fills here or a cymbal crash there. A record like Tim is one you grow to love by heart, down to every last note. Hearing a series of new parts in the equation is unexpected but in the best way.

Bob Stinson sees some posthumous redemption here, too. At this point in the original recording, he was already headed toward drug-fueled oblivion and had a much-reduced role on the record- almost as a vestigial nod to their louder, more raucous days than anything else. Part of that is down to his wrestling with his demons, but part of that might've been down to being on the outside looking in.

With Westerberg taking an increasing turn toward being a singer-songwriter, where’d he fit in?

Indeed, one of the two “Bob” tracks is “Dose Of Thunder,” a lovely homage to scoring speed. I used to regard it and “Lay It Down Clown” as two of the weaker tracks on the record. Neither will make any “favorite ‘Mats song of mine” lists, but both are improved significantly here, sounding more electrifying. More importantly, both highlight Stinson’s guitar work as someone who, despite going completely off the rails, could still nail it when the mood struck.

No track perhaps encapsulates all of this better than the “new” version of “Little Mascara.” Westerberg has a knack for squeezing an entire story into one verse; this is no exception. The original is good, but this is sublime. Parts have been moved around and overhauled. The intro is now the chorus, each verse a step up to the next, and the whole track is now somehow even more anthemic–and that’s before we get to the outro, which is much longer and features a ripping solo by Stinson.

It just might be my new favorite.

If you dig far enough on YouTube, there is cellphone footage from the show my wife and I were at. Like the early ‘Mats records, it’s raw and shaky. It’s short on production but long on enthusiasm.

As Westerberg tears into the opening riff of “Bastards of Young,” someone just out of frame says, “f**k yeah!” it’s more rapturous than anything– as if the person has been waiting their whole life to hear those chords in person. It’s a dream fulfilled.

In many ways, the newly mixed “Tim” is the same way.

Sam’s pick and my take: Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)

Listening to a concept record loosely based on Animal Farm a few days after the band that made it sold its catalog for $400m is an odd juxtaposition, but here we are. As noted previously, I’ve never been to Pink Floyd, and most of my listening has come due to proximity—someone was playing them where I happened to be, one of the two stations we get at work plays them often, etc.

I'm playing the record as I type this, and I can't say I've ever heard anything on it before. To my ear, it sounds like the Pink Floyd most people know and love—the one before Roger Waters and David Gilmour fought about literally anything and everything (except whether or not Sony added enough zeroes to their paycheck). With the context that I know very little of Pink Floyd as a backdrop, I would say this is a solid pick, with “Dogs” being a favorite.

13: R.E.M.- Document (1987)

I am writing this on the 32nd anniversary of the band’s classic Automatic for the People. The people who will say this is the band's best are legion, and the record makes it easy for them to make their case. But for my money, Document is the band at its best.

R.E.M. has been around long enough to have three distinct eras: The IRS years, the middle, and the post-Bill Berry era. It's fair to say that whenever you came into the band will greatly influence your taste. In my case, it was right around Document and Green.

It's not a stretch to say that this record changed the trajectory of the band and the "College Rock" landscape. And, of course, Document catapulted them from "indie darlings" to full-fledged pop stars.

In 1987, R.E.M. was still very much an indie rock darling. That would change with the release of the band’s 5th record. “The One I Love” would make it to #9 that year (back when the charts meant something), and we all learned to say “LEONARD BERSTEIN!” at just the right time on “It’s The End of the World.”

They would go on, of course, to score several more hits over the years.

One could write a lot of words about the record (and at some point, I will!), but to me, Document represents an inflection point for the group; they were readying themselves for stardom even if they didn’t yet know it. The sound is ever more confident, yet they’re still in a space where they can cover a song by Wire (“Strange”).

Say what you will about Nirvana and the like; college radio starts here.

Sam’s pick and my take: Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)

Another almost bingo! Please see below.

12: Cocteau Twins- Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)

You know all the coke-fueled drama between Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham? Now imagine they had a kid together. Now imagine them making the most gorgeous record of the last forty years.

That title doesn't go to Rumours (or even my fave Mirage), but rather Cocteau Twin's 1990 masterpiece Heaven or Las Vegas.

The band has always band produced full records. I mean actual records with throughlines, narratives, and the like. On their 7th record, they 've mastered the art, with each track not just blending onto the next but complimenting it. Singer Liz Fraser could sing the line items on a receipt and make them sound otherworldly. Most of the time, she barely bothers with English (or any actual words)—if you can make out more than 5-6 phrases on this record, please let me know—it doesn’t matter. Her vocal stylings are well-curated sounds of joy.

Their catalog has always felt magical, but this album is some next-level wizardry. You don’t listen to this record so much as you are baptized by it. In the decades since this came out, countless bands have tried to make a dream pop record. A few have come close, but no one has made an album sound as lush and surreal as Heaven or Las Vegas.

Sam’s pick & my take: Joni Mitchell - Blue (1971)

Ah Blue, the record that healed a million hearts and helped countless people find themselves.

Part of the enduring appeal is, as the LA Times noted, Joni Mitchell does not live in the dark. She created illuminated pop literature, saying that to be lost — to ask difficult questions instead of dismissing them — is to be alive. She mixed shades of sadness and wisdom into a palette of nerves and melody that does not feel unreasonable to call sacred.

Joni Mitchell’s voice is gorgeous, and her lyrics are as incisive as they are insightful. Her music is not my cup of tea, but her talent is undeniable, and who am I to ever deny anyone the comfort of her music?

11: Nirvana- Nevermind (1991)

It’s weird to be old enough to start a story with “I remember when” without irony.

Nirvana is no exception. I recall with sharp clarity how hearing “Negative Creep” live off “their upcoming record” Bleach felt like a kick to the head. Everyone in the crowd that night knew we were at the starting line of something special.

In 1990, Nirvana was still something of a local phenomenon. They had a rabid following (myself included), and their shows would be packed. They had grown past opening for others and started headling their own gigs, but these were places with 1500 capacity, not arenas.

Prior to Nevermind, Nirvana felt like our band, and by “ours,” I mean people in the Pacific Northwest. The misfits, the outcasts, the colorful casts of characters you’d see at every show but couldn't name if your life depended on it. Krist Novoselic felt like everyone’s cool older brother. Kurt Cobain felt like what all of us wanted to be. Dave Grohl wasn’t there yet.

That would all change soon enough.

At the same time, Bikini Kill was in a similar situation. One of the leaders of the Riot Grrrl movement, lead singer Kathleen Hanna & co. were busy making ears bleed and tearing down the sclerotic walls of the music industry (and society in general).

What connects the dots between these two bands? Besides both being from Washington state, Toby Vail was also in Bikini Kill. And she just happened to be dating a guy named Kurt Cobain, who just happened to be the lead singer of Nirvana.

One day, Vail and Hanna were grocery shopping in Olympia when they found a product name that they found hilarious.

Later that night, a drunken Hanna took out a Sharpie and wrote on Cobain's wall. He found it amusing and left the graffiti alone.

Soon after, he and Vail split up. Cobain channeled his energy into songwriting, and Vail was very much still on his mind as he penned lyrics like "Here we are now, entertain us."

He wanted to title this new song "Anthem," but another band had beat him to it… none other than Bikini Kill.

Instead, after calling Hanna and asking for her blessing, he named it after the words she left on his apartment wall.

The phrase she wrote?

"Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The record recently turned 33, and to mark the occasion, I asked readers what their favorite tracks were. Answers varied, but all had a similar theme; for whatever reason, their pick had resonated deeply with them. If that’s not the hallmark of an excellent record, I don’t know what is. If you have, if you need, indeed.

I said it before, but as much as I hate getting older, I’m happy I was there to experience things like this in real-time.

And for younger readers who wonder what Teen Spirit might've been?

It was a brand of deodorant.

Sam’s pick & my take: Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run (1975)

Ok, ok, for all of you who gave me good-natured shit for taking Tunnel of Love over this, let me just say that it wasn't because Born To Run isn't phenomenal—it is. Tunnel of Love felt like the Boss was talking about himself. Born To Run is about others and is the boss at his storytelling best.

At this point, the title track has reached mythical status—how many people do you know who, at one point or another, adopted it as their personal anthem as they hit the (literal or metaphorical) road to find themselves?

With its infectious groove, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” practically demands you get out of your seat. “Jungleland” is as anthemic as it gets, and hearing it today reminds me what a gift we were given in the form of Clarence Clemons. R.I.P. Big man.

So yeah, it's an excellent record. If this list was of our top 150 (or even top 105), Born to Run would have been on it. This was a tough one to cut.

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That’s it for Round 9! Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments, check out Sam’s thoughts on his picks, and stay tuned for the the grand finale as we keep rolling toward the top spot!

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