Crowe

It's about time I made one of these bad boys. I've always wanted to, but never got around to it... here she goes:

However... before I start, I want to point out that several of these albums are important due to their involvement in my own life. While I will explain their importance in the blurb I write about each album - I want you to know that if you don't like when people put safe bets in their top 100, then stop here... some of those albums are important albums for a reason. Expect to see some classic rock in my top25. Don't expect me to include super vague bands for the purpose of showing off my "musical knowledge". Leave your airs at the door and welcome to an introspective 100.

As per usual. 100 different artists... the blurb, and some song recommendations. I will add to this randomely, 4 albums per post - so if you only see 1-3 albums in a post - chances are I'll come back and edit a post to include the rest of the albums. Always check!


100. Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies (2002)
"Now I'm... aimin' for heaven, but probably wind up down in hell!"
Is probably one of my favorite lyrics of all time. It is simple. It is brutally honest. I first heard Flogging Molly in some little music shop in Memphis and I was awe struck at how absolutely raw Dave King (the lead vocals)sounded. His emotion and his accent had me hooked - and the song Drunken Lullabies became my anthem for the summer of 2002 - I was in my rebellious teenage years. This album was the only thing that played in my room for a good 2 or 3 weeks before my mom made me shut it off, "Ryan! I'm tired of hearing that irish crap." My mom likes Paula Abdul. Nuff Said. For pure nostalgia's sake I want to put this album higher... unfortunately, this album does not stand the test of time. She winds up at 100.

Check out: Rebels of the Sacred Heart, What's Left of the Flag, Death Valley Queen


99. The Show Is The Rainbow- Radboyz Only!!! (2005)
TSITR is a one piece act from Omaha. Darren Keen is a wild man and put on probably one of the most fun live acts I've seen in a long while. My friend who works at a local record label dragged me along to this show in Columbia, MO - and this guy came on and turned this little dive bar into pure magic. His energy and his stage persona are all part of a show based on commentary on the "indie" scene. He even takes a few shots at Mr. Bright Eyes himself on the track "Up a Creek Without a Saddle". He is openly *** and lets you know it - improvising songs like, "If there's a d!ck I want to suck, I'll suck the d!ck I want!!" and making the audience sing it. This sweaty electronic rap/rocker, wannabe Beck comes in at number 99.

Check out: Medicillin, Up A Creek Without a Saddle, The Creepiest Creep in All the Land


98. Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance (1978)
Wow, what can you say about Pere Ubu's debut album? This album is really one of the first albums where I had to take a step out of the box and just listen to something that I didn't really consider... to be... good music the first time around. It was like if the bastard child of jazz and punk ran head first into a circus and then got blasted with radiation making it mutate into... "Life Stinks" and "Sentimental Journey". As I listened more - I became aware of the importance of the union of the garage rock influence, the spastic trumpet solos and the voice of David Thomas. This album, while not regarded as their "best", certainly was important in making them one of the fore-runners of avant garde rock.

Check out: Life Stinks, Street Waves, The Modern Dance, Sentimental Journey



97. Bi-Level - Songbird (2003)
Bi-Level was a local act that I would consider "my first band" with an emphasis on the "MY". They were group that I followed around St. Louis when I was 15-18...they were the group that I did whatever I could to get to their show. I'm talking one time I hitched a ride with some people I met online before I could drive. I went to churches, snuck into bars and stood outside in an alleyway to hear them play. I must've gone to more than 20 shows - spanning 3 states to hear the same songs over and over again. They are a local group that tours mostly in Illinois and Missouri and Kansas... and when all is said and done are pretty much a decent pop-rock group with catchy hooks and a unique sounding singer. One time, in the height of my fanaticism, their cd cracked because I stepped on it... I drove 3 hours the next time they had a show just to buy another one.

Check out: Favorite Color, Oh Oh Oh, Calling

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Crowe

96. Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003)
A beautifully crafted mixture of acoustic folk and fuzzy electric guitars comes from this group which is essentially the Red House Painters under a new name. he reissue of this album includes a cover of "Somewhere" by Leonard Bernstein (from the musical, West Side Story). This cover is what originally got me into Sun Kil Moon - and it is gorgeous. The rest of the album is warm, compassionate and believe it or not, educational for those boxing fans out there. Mark Kozelek write lyrics that deal with a variety of different subjects, but seems to focus on name dropping in a boxer theme(?!) Whether or not you care, this album still holds your attention with the beautiful and odd arrangements as Kozelek croons to you about Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali).

Check out: Somewhere(reissue only), Salvador Sanchez, Duk Koo Kim


95. Buddy Holly - From the Original Master Tapes (1949-1959 - Master Tapes released 1985)
Buddy Holly was inspired to become a rock musician after seeing Elvis perform (we'll see Elvis later in the 100, I assure you). Not much to say about Buddy Holly because, well, most people are pretty aware of who he is... my grandma used to give me music of the 50s cassette tapes and of course Buddy Holly was all over those which is why Buddy Holly and his music means a lot to me. The Original Master Tapes is classic Buddy Holly and will be one of the only "greatest hits" type compilation on the top 100.

Check out: Peggy Sue, Every Day, That'll Be the Day


94. Van Halen - 1984 (1984)
Oh goodness. When my mom bought me my first CD player - she got me a little stack of CDs to start my collection. The stack included... Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill" (that should date me), Bon Jovi's "Crossroads", Prince's "Purple Rain" and finally this baby here. This album made me feel like a bad@ss when I put it in. Listening to Panama, Drop Dead Legs and Hot For Teacher made me jump around my room in my baseball pants and no shirt with a head band playing air guitar. And for a pre-teen, that's as about as cool as you get. We all know about Van Halen - so there is really no need to explain to you what this album sounds like. One memory I have is bringing this cd to school and playing it for my friends.... who didn't get it. It was swapped out for Backstreet Boys during recess and I retreated to the slides.

Check out: Jump, Hot For Teacher, House of Pain


93. Motorpsycho - Timothy's Monster (1994)
I don't believe I've ever seen Motorpsycho mentioned on MB. They are... eh... hard to describe, they are rock - but they dabble in a multitude of different genres. I tried to look on last.fm band that they sound like, but it just returns a bunch of scand-bands (due to the fact that Motorpsycho is from Trondheim, Norway). Timothy's Monster is the first album I heard from mp... and therefore earns it's place on my list. I find this is also one of those bands I can call me own due to the fact that they are not very popular on this side of the pond. If you're looking to get into a great band with tons and tons of material, Motorpsycho is a good bet. The best thing about these guys is that they keep... getting... BETTER. They released an album in 2006 called Black Hole/Black Canvas that, in my opinion (which happens to be a common opinion) is their... BEST album. However, Tim's Monster got me into mp - so here she is - sitting high at 93. Highly prolific, the band recorded and produced a new album EVERY YEAR through the 90s. Expect to hear lush sounds coming from exotic instruments like the vibraphone, theremin, banjos and violins.

Check out: No Evil, On My Pillow, Stalemate, Feel

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Piss Me Off

And that's the way it should be! I love top 100 threads. I'm not familiar with anything you've put yet but i look forward to the rest of it.

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Son of JayJamJah

Best of Luck Crowe, I am still working on revamping my list, I got to around 50 and hated the order. Don't rank your albums for any other reason then how much you like them and how much they mean to you. Sounds like that's your plan anyways, look forward to watching this thread grow, Good call on Buddy Holly and the Bi-Level, cool sort of post modern rock with a bass playin' lead singer.

Crowe

Jay! Where'd you hear Bi-Level at?? They must be getting around - they were just a local act when I was into them! That's awesome. Lead singer is a great guy, got to talk to him after a church show one time (dunno why they play(ed) at churches).

Thanks for all of the encouragement fellas. I haven't been around MB a lot after mid 06, early 07 - so I don't know a few of you. Let's change that, eh?

This is going to be very different than Urban's. I think I am a bit younger than Urban and grew up with the music of the early and mid 90s really governing my musical tastes. If anything I hope to introduce some of you to some of those great bands that flew/are flying under the radar, and also inspiring you to re-discover some of the groups that had some kind of profound effect on your own lives. If you aren't familiar with something on my list, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with it! You'll start seeing some familiar artists soon enough! Hang in there if you've found my list isn't really accessible to you yet!

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Crowe

92. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced (1973)
A southern boy's introduction to Skynyrd is akin to like a rite of passage in the southern culture. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia and when I first heard Lynyrd Skynyrd I was just a young child sitting in a busted black chevy with no air conditioning in the blistering heat of the Georgian sun. "Gimme Three Steps" pops on and lo and behold, I have found glory at a young age. Now, it took me a few years to really get around to listening to the entire album. By this time, I had moved to St. Louis, Missouri. I went through my mom's cassettes and found Pronounced. Pronounced includes all of their quintessential hits: Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, Tuesday's Gone, and of course the southern rock epic Free Bird. Ronnie Van Zant sounded like a good ole boy - and the sound really brought me down to my roots. I got the chance to see Skynyrd live with the new Van Zant singing - sounded exactly like him... it was glorious. Simple Man, in my opinion, is really where the beauty lies in this Southern Rock classic.

Check out: Simple Man, Poison Whiskey, Free Bird yadda yadda...


91. Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)
Scritti Politti is an interesting and unique group that sound unlike anything else on my 100. This album, specifically, is a good example of music I don't listen to and hated my mom for making me listen to... unless it was made by Scritti Politti. This is... POP, not JUST pop, but 80's pop that is so polished it's revolting... revoltingly good. SP started out as a post-punk band late in the 70s and then moved onto mainstream pop sounds in the 80s. They incorporated the (then) new sound of hip hop into their music - Gartside, the creative force behind SP - loved the RB and hip-hop coming out of New York at the time, so he moved to America from his homeland of Wales. C&P85 included a infectuously funky beat and some excellent word play by the intellectually savvy Gartside. They caught the attention of several big names in music including one Miles Davis who did a cover of their song Perfect Way.

Checkout: Perfect Way, Absolute (Version) and Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)


90. Vampire Weekend - S/T (2008)
Absolutely wonderful new group that has received so much hype that the hipsters who loved them are now spurning their sound. I feel horrible when this happens to new groups whose hype starts to bite them. I love this album. The reason it is not any higher is because it really just came out in January and I didn't find them until March or April. But these past few months has been a Vampire Weekend heavy rotation for me. This light, exotic indie-pop band creates a warm and bouncy soundtrack for driving around with my windows down in the hot summer of Missouri. Sleek production and irrefutable catchy hooks and the African influenced music is enough to earn its spot on my list for now - rounding out the back 10 is the newest artist on my list.

Check out: Blake (Has Got a New Face), Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (my current ringtone incidentally), Walcott


89. Cake - Comfort Eagle (2001)
This was an extreeeemely difficult decision. This might be one of those things I regret later on down the list... but I think Cake belongs here on my list. In 2000/2001 Short Skirt, Long Jacket was receiving MAJOR radio airplay. My family friends, and my sometimes baby-sitters, were young and hip and from the ages 12-14 they were one of the major influences on my musicscape. This is just one of 5 or 6 bands on the top 100 that they introduced me to. While this is on my list due partially to the fact that it got me into Cake and because it features 3 of my favorite Cake songs... I almost put Fashion Nugget here instead... but I just can't deny the impact this had on impressionable 13 year old me. The sardonic nature of the songs and the wit of the lyrics coupled with the clean production makes this rock-pop album a gem.

Check out: Commissioning a Symphony in C, Comfort Eagle and Short Skirt, Long Jacket

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jackhammer

As always top 100 threads are actively encouraged and make great reading. Keep your list as personal as it should be. Mine with have some right old tripe in lol!

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Crowe

88. One Man Army - Last Word Spoken (2002)
One of the standout bands that pulled through my crappy pop-punk phase of my llate elementary school/early middle school years. (Bands I left behind for example: Blink, GC, New Found Glory etc etc). One Man Army had a great blend of pop and street punk - catchy melodies and a singer whose voice was reminiscent of Matt Freeman, the leader singer of Rancid. This band is important because just hearing one of the songs on this particular album instantly has me recalling the sights and sounds of driving through the Valley on a hot summer night with my top down and screaming the lyrics at the old people in the car next to me. This was also the soundtrack to a little love affair that existed only in the silence between this little girly I was into when I first started listening to this album.

Check out: No Controlling, Bootlegger's Son, Another Night and Last Word Spoken


87. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell (2003)
Goodness gracious this is a sexy album. What a great punk group coming out of the New York underground - raw RAW sound with great, catchy hooks - memorable lyrics and... what's this? A frontman that's a frontwoman? For me this is important because it is very hard for a woman artist who is not a solo artist to get me hooked. It's just not how I operate. Unlike most people I know I did NOT hear "Maps" first. My first introduction to the YYY's was "Date With the Night" - where the chorus of the song includes this guttural scream/grunt/yelp from front woman Karen O that goes something like "CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE". I went out and got the album immediately which was when I was introduced to their smash hit - "Maps". I feel sorry for those of you who had this song ruined for you by constant radio play. The song is gorgeous GORGEOUS and has a really awesome guitar solo breakdown near the end of the song that gets me going every time. Did I mention Karen O is sexy? She is. And so is her voice. And for 17 year old me, this was the kind of chick who I wanted plastered all over my walls.

Check Out: Maps (duh), Y Control, Date With the Night, Tick, Rich


86. Blind Melon - S/T (1992)
Ah yes, I am a 90's kid. During the time of the grunge giants dominating the rock airwaves on both tv and radio - you suddenly get this little... fat girl dancing around in a bee outfit as opposed to watching Kurt Cobain with little tears stuck in his five o'clock shadow. Everyone who was even ALIVE in the 90s should know the song "No Rain" - the amount of airplay this song got/STILL gets is obscene - bordering on downright auditory corpulence. But... it does. NOT. GET. OLD. Like most of the Vampire Weekend album's songs, "No Rain" in particular alwwwways cheers me up and puts me in a good mood. However, that is not the only song on the album. "Tones of Home" and "Change" and "I Wonder" (a song whose name I stole which you can find in the songwriting thread) are all greatttt, overlooked songs. Lead singer Shannon Hoon's untimely death did no generate the post-humous hype that happened to a lot of groups. (Skynyrd, Nirvana bla bla). Hoon's voice sounds a little country or southern rock as he talks about his life being plain... you simply can't forget or discount this band's place in the 90's Pantheon of great Alternative/Grunge bands.

Check Out: No Rain, I Wonder, Tones of Home


85. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (Carter USM) - Thirty Something (1991)
Hard to describe Carter USM unless you've heard them. I decided that this should be a band I wanted to get into pretty early on in middle school when I saw one of my friends (hot) older sister wearing a 30 Something t-shirt (which, in retrospect, probably belonged to a boyfriend because she was way into sh!t like 36 Mafia and Nelly). Carter USM is good dance/punk with tons and tons of energy. The lyrics are often very... eh, clever? Vibrant? Abrasive? Blunt? I can't find a good word for what goes on inside 30 Something, but the fact of the matter is - is that this band managed to breach UK charts in Grungetime and managed to survive and continue to thrive. Great album for a house party where you want people to get up and move (and you don't like cRap)

Check out: Surfin' USM, Bloodsport for All, A Prince in a Pauper's Grave

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jackhammer

Wahey a Carter fan! Good on you sir.I am off to see these in November. They are a nice pleasant surprise in your list.Kudos for Scritti Politti too, that's a great little album.

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Crowe

Yeah, it's weird talking about some of my top100 because for a site where music is... the topic constantly at hand, I rarely ever see CarterUSM/Scritti Politti and some of my others mentioned. I didn't know Carter was still touring. Where are you seeing them?

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