Painted Pictures On Silence

A Positive Music Blog

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

100 Favorite Albums of All-Time (Numbers 90-100)

To get this blog jumpstarted again, I decided to list my Top-100 Favorite Albums with a quick blurb about each one. To hopefully keep people interested, they are going to be posted every couple of days in installments of ten instead of all at once.




(There may be  a few unrelated posts in between)

Also, keep in mind these are my favorites albums. Some are so close. Even #85 has only a very slight edge over #98, #45 over #30, #10 over #1.

There are a few rules I set: 

1- There can only be one album per band. I would love to have multiple Beatles, Lemonheads, Descendents, and more albums but that would not leave enough more favorites to be included. 

2- No compilations or live albums. Only studio albums. No Minor Threat's "Complete Discography" or Buzzcocks "Singles Going Steady" sometimes pop up on these lists, although those band's studio albums may make another appearance on the list. Unfortunately (spoiler alert) The Rolling Stones are not on the list. There isn't a whole album I like by them. Most of the time I will reach for one of the "Hot Rocks" compilations. 

3- Only full albums. No "Extended Plays" (EPs). One of my favorite releases is Straight Ahead's Spirit of Youth 12" but it is only a few songs so can't be included (Although you can read my thoughts on it here)


Thank you for taking the time to read through these. I encourage anyone else to do a 100 Favorite Albums list of their own. Feel free to follow my rules or instill your own. We may never have this much time available again.


100 - The Strokes - Comedown Machine (2011, RCA)I always describe this album as someone told the band to write a soundtrack for a modern movie that takes place in New York City in the 1970s. Each song has a sense of swagger I could picture a character strutting through Times Square when it was still gritty, ready to pull off some shady deals and street fights. There is even a song titled "Partners in Crime". I'm not sure why so many fans and critics repeatedly pan this album. I even heard it described as a contract filler. Singer Julian Casablancas shows more range on these songs than on any other of their albums. "One Way Trigger" was probably my most played song of the 2010s.



99 - Rip-Offs - Got a Record (1994, Rip-Off)When Jon Von left the Mr. T Experience I was pretty upset. At the time the band was one of my favorite acts. Only now their sound became a lot thinner and the few songs Jon sang added a little variety to the band's repertoire. I was very happy to see him re-emerge in the RIP.-Offs with Greg Lowry from Supercharger, another band I had recently discovered. The Rip-Offs weren’t pop/punk like MTX though. They were a severely stripped-down garage band with just the right amount of lo-fi production. They also had this whole "criminal" motif going on. When they played live they would wear stockings over their heads like a bank robber, This was long before Masked Intruder was a twinkle in any punk rocker's eye.



98-China Drum - Goosefair (1996, Mantra Records) - I always give a little extra respect when their drummer is the lead singer. Even more when the band is as fast as the UK’s China Drum. Not many bands can keep the almost buzzsaw tempo and hooks going over 14 songs. Think a whole album of melodic Husker Du-style songs but each one catchier than the one before it. If you can try to get a physical copy because the Streaming versions don’t have their cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”

97- Iceage - New Brigade (2011, What's Your Rupture) - For a long time I severely disliked the Danish band Iceage's first album. Something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. I think it may have derived from a very sloppy live set I saw of theirs online. Over a period of time, the album grew on me. There is definitely a Christian Death influence going on but I also hear an early Cure one too. Iceage put out one more noisy album in You're Nothing. (Read my review here). Then they tried (unsuccessfully) to turn into Nick Cave. Proceed with caution on the last two albums

96- Nada Surf - Proximity Effect (2001, Barsuk). I know I've said it in this blog as well as other places many times before but I believe Nada Surf may be one of the most underrated groups out there. So many people automatically think their almost gimmicky hit "Popular" when they are mentioned when in fact Nada Surf has been putting out great melodic indie-pop albums since this 2001 release. Proximity Effect contains some of the best time changes I've heard on an album before. Something that would become a signature on the band's albums all the way up to today. (Read my review of one of them here). 



95- feedtime – Suction (1989, Aberrant/Rough Trade) I'm not sure if it still does but Rolling Stone Magazine's last page used to have all the latest music charts. Among those charts, each month the magazine would pick a different college record store and show their top 10 sellers. Reading these charts is where I first heard of at least two artists on the lists, Australia's feedtime being one of them. One of the things that first caught my attention when I did manage to locate a copy was that it was produced by Butch Vig who I knew from his production of bands like KilldozerLaughing HyenasDie Kreuzen, and a few others (He had yet to produce that huge album that we all know) but that was all the info supplied on the tape. Playing it I was floored. More growly voice, a grungy drone than almost any other band I had heard up to that point but also mixed with some blues. I have to admit the previous album Shovel may be a little better but I did not have that total element of awe of hearing something new when I found a copy of it a few years later. Luckily for everybody SuctionShovel, the self-titled debut, as well as the covers album Cooper-s are now available together as “The Aberrant Years” on Sub Pop Records.  



94- Dillinger Four – Midwestern Songs For the Americas (1998, Hopeless)Before Midwestern Songs Dillinger Four put out a few 7's that were unbelievable. Songs were a combined urgent, poppy, heavy, and hooky in a way no band had really done before. Three singers singing and shouting their hearts out. They also had some of the best lyrics you could sing along with and song titles that kept the music interesting. When I read they had signed to Hopeless, at the time more of a straight pop/punk label, I was worried they would lose some of the edge that made them so great. Boy was I wrong. The thirteen songs on this album are all perfect. The hooks are still there, even more bountiful than the singles. Plus the classic pop culture samples between each track really frame each song perfectly. 

93- Supernova – Ages 3 and Up (1992, Amphetamine Reptile) – The label AmRep has a logo that says “Amphetamine Reptile: Noise” but on Supernova's album it is changed to “Nice”. This is because Ages 3 and Up is 19 very poppy, hook-filled songs, very far removed from the mostly more abrasive bands on the label's roster. Supernova also possesses a very strong Sci-fi theme. No time to get too into it but check out their Wikipedia page. I saw them twice in one day, both show they wore different forms of space attire. You may also remember Supernova's song “Chewbacca” from the movie Clerks.

92- Ceremony – Violence Violence (2006, Malfunction) Ceremony is now more of a post/punk sounding band. Their last album while being very good is in more of a Wire/Devo/Gang of Four sound. But they did not always sound like that, Over the past 12 years or so their sound developed but back in 2006 they were one of the heaviest hardcore bands out there. Their songs were short, loud, and angry. Just short of power violence. The whole album is just a little over 13 minutes long (20 if you get the CD . which includes the Ruined EP) is the perfect length for the onslaught. Violence Violence also has a cover of one of my favorite hardcore songs “Pressures On” by the D.C. Band Red C.
(I reviewed a couple other Ceremony albums here and here.)


91- Guns 'N Roses – Appetite for Destruction (1987, Geffen) An album that really needs no introduction. Every song is a classic, while so many of their contemporaries have only a handful of good songs on each album. I think there is only one other album of this genre on this list, but it's a lot further down the line. 


90- The Kills - Keep On Your Mean Side (2003, Domino) -I think the British/American duo The Kills had been around for at least a year before I learned the American half of the group, singer "VV" was Alison Mosshart. Her previous band Discount was a favorite of mine. When I bought Keep On Your Mean Side instead of the pop/punk of Discount I found a stripped-down minimalist blues-influenced sound with Alison's voice a hell of a lot more mature than they had been in the past. I was pretty floored. The album has gone on to be one of my favorite releases from 2000-2010.

Stay Tuned for 89-80






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