I am shocked not to see this in the list, but since someone already nominated my favourite album (Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?) I will nominate my second favourite album:
#170: The National - Boxer
Boxer is easily the National's finest album and one that has remained relevant to me for close to a decade. It's one of indie rock's staple albums, which is reason enough for its inclusion, but it deserves inclusion for the sense it evokes as well. It's dark, melancholy, and sounds like the fatigue that sets in from the endless repetition of meaninglessness that is adult life.
It isn't bleak or melodramatic, it's just
tired. It's the soundtrack of going to work at a job that pays your bills for which you have no passion and coming home to a relationship that is at best, unfulfilling. It's the sound of settling for mediocrity, but not of despairing in it or pining for more. It's how it feels to realize that, once you reach adulthood, there's nothing else to strive for, just whatever you make from whatever you've got. It's one of the few albums I would call borderline perfect.
LastFM says I've listened to it more than 275 times.
EDIT: Oh, we're not still doing this and the list is all ****y. Oh well, I dunno what I expected.