Numbers 59 - 50 of My Top-100 Favorite Albums of All-Time

Numbers 59 - 50 of My Top-100 Favorite Albums of All-Time

* means I bought the album right when it was released or at the latest a few months

# means I discovered it later 

59) Young Fresh Fellows - Electric Bird Digest

(1991, Frontier) - Young Fresh Fellows were a very good fun band before the Fastbacks' Kurt Bloch joined them on the 1989 album This One's for the Ladies. Kurt’s thick buzzing guitar hooks really brought the band to a new level. On Electric Bird Digest they really hit their mark. Pre-Nirvana thick Butch Vig production really makes the music shine too. (*)

58) Teenage Fanclub - A Catholic Education (1990, Matador)- When A Catholic Education was released Scotland's Teenage Fanclub was compared to Dionsaur Jr. Although I can hear some similarities in Gerard Love's bass player to Lou Barlow's on early Dinosaur jr albums, I think they end there. On this album the band has a lot more sloppy noise and distortion going on with slightly buried vocals then their next album 1991's Bandwagonesue (I like to ignore the 1991 contract filler The King)but you can still hear the melodies emerging through. (*) 

57) The Connells - Fun and Games (1989, TVT)

- North Carolina's Connells were another band I discovered through the College Record Store chart on the last page of Rolling Stone Magazine when Fun and Games was released. On this album the band dropped the post/punk sound and faux British accents of the first album that often had them compared to The Smiths, and the Irish folk influence of the second album for more of a full rock sound. This often got them compared to their fellow southerners R.E.M. I never really heard the resemblance. (*)

56) Jets To Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary (1998, Jade Tree) - I feel bad liking an album that was written out of a struggles drug addiction, and pretty much every on Orange Rhyming Dictionary is. But songs by Ex- Jawbreaker Blake Schwarzenbach's new bands debut are just so good. The vocals are definitely cleaner than with Jawbreaker and the music more rockin' which brought different opinions from fans of Blake's former fans. I loved the album, as well as Jets to Brazil's next two albums, immediately. (*)

55) Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder (1991, Columbia) - A band and album that at the time really sounded like no one else. They may have been the first band I ever heard with two bass players. One playing normal bass parts while the other plays it like a second guitar. Jessica Corcoran's production really adds a nice 3-D sound to the twelve songs. Unlike many people I like their next two albums. Still neither one comes close to the perfection of God Fodder. (*)

54) Helmet - Strap it On (1990, Amphetamine Reptile) - On Helmet's next album 1992's Meantime the band began to become too technical for me. By the time they put out Betty in 1994 I could not really get into them anymore. On  1990's Strap It On the band was at their most primal. So much urgent chaos, noise, and shouted vocals. Even the slower song "Sinatra" is very intense. Producer Wharton Tiers somehow manages to contain just enough of the madness for the band to record a very good debut album. (*)

53) Leatherface - Mush (1991, Roughneck)

- Leatherface singer Frankie Stubb's scratchy voice may be a turn off to some. When I first heard the band when WNYU played “Dead Industrial Atmosphere” I was instantly hooked. A few days later I picked up Mush, then on Seed Records in the States, and found twelve more fast melodic songs with great riffs and hooks. There is even an awesome cover of The Police's "Message in a Bottle" at the end. (*)

52) Big Drill Car - Album/Tape/CD Type Things (1989, Cruz) - All along this list I have used the word "hooks" repeatedly. if for some reason you are not sure exactly that this is make sure to check out this Big Drill Car. Album/Tape/CD Type Thing contains for than any album of my collection. Along with Frank Daly's clean vocals make this one of the most fun punk albums out there.  Like Public Image Ltd.'s 1983 album the actual title depends on which format you own it on. (#)

51) Propagandhi - How To Clean Everything (1993, Fat Wreck) - How to Clean Everything may be the only album I can sing all the way through without it playing. Including the Cheap Trick cover at the end. Twelve fast tracks with sarcastic sociopolitical lyrics, a few self-admittedly stolen riffs and an "anti-ska" ska song in the middle. (*)

50) The Smiths - The Queen is Dead (1986, Rough Trade) -If this list was for the band's whole career The

Smiths would be much higher. Possibly even Top - 20. For complete albums, though the Queen is Dead falls right in the middle. So many great classics on this album. It along with the almost equally great and classic albums have all stayed in my rotation for the past 30 plus years. (*)

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