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Top 100 Albums

Last updated: March 26, 2020

This list is by no means "complete" or "finished". It is merely a snapshot of my most admired albums at the present moment. If you are a casual music listener, you will have only heard of a handful of these. If you are a more serious music listener, many of these will seem like "classic" or "essentials". These albums are in order by how personally significant they are to me. See also my Top Films List.

# Artist Album Year
1. Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane over the Sea 1998
2. Swans Soundtracks for the Blind 1996
3. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band Trout Mask Replica 1969
4. Cerberus Shoal The Land We All Believe In 2005
5. The Olivia Tremor Control Black Foliage: Animation Music, Volume 1 1999
6. Faust Faust 1971
7. The Residents Not Available 1978
8. Carla Bley & Paul Haines Escalator over the Hill 1971
9. Akron/Family Akron/Family 2005
10. Xiu Xiu A Promise 2003
11. The Microphones Mount Eerie 2003
12. The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground & Nico 1967
13. Charles Mingus The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady 1963
14. Boredoms Vision Creation Newsun 1999
15. Sun City Girls 330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond the Rig Veda 1996
16. Flotation Toy Warning Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck 2004
17. Royal Trux Twin Infinitives 1990
18. Red House Painters Down Colorful Hill 1992
19. Jackie-O Motherfucker Flags of the Sacred Harp 2005
20. Animal Collective Here Comes the Indian 2003
21. Joanna Newsom Ys 2006
22. Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven 2000
23. Cannibal Ox The Cold Vein 2001
24. The Mothers of Invention We're Only in It for the Money 1968
25. Slint Spiderland 1991
26. Talk Talk Laughing Stock 1991
27. Aphrodite's Child 666 1972
28. The Red Crayola The Parable of Arable Land 1967
29. The Jazz Composer's Orchestra The Jazz Composer's Orchestra 1968
30. Avey Tare & Panda Bear Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished 2001
31. The Microphones The Glow, Pt. 2 2001
32. The Angelic Process Weighing Souls with Sand 2007
33. Current 93 All the Pretty Little Horses 1996
34. Have a Nice Life Deathconsciousness 2008
35. Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space 1997
36. Flying Saucer Attack Flying Saucer Attack 1993
37. Mercury Rev Boces 1993
38. Newt Grundy Frankengrundy 2019
39. Tim Buckley Lorca 1970
40. Don Cherry Eternal Rhythm 1969
41. Astrobrite Pinkshinyultrablast 2005
42. Coil The Ape of Naples 2005
43. Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967
44. A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory 1991
45. Swans Swans Are Dead 1998
46. Albert Ayler Live in Greenwich Village 1967
47. Public Enemy Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black 1990
48. Agalloch The Mantle 2002
49. The Black Heart Procession 2 1999
50. Nurse with Wound The Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion 1985
51. My Bloody Valentine Loveless 1991
52. Fishmans 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare 1999
53. Dogbowl Cyclops Nuclear Submarine Captain 1991
54. Black Tape for a Blue Girl Remnants of a Deeper Purity 1996
55. Lisa Germano Geek the Girl 1993
56. Flotation Toy Warning The Machine that Made Us 2017
57. cLOUDDEAD cLOUDDEAD 2001
58. Arthur Russell World of Echo 1986
59. Burzum Filosofem 1996
60. Big Blood Big Blood & the Bleedin' Hearts 2009
61. Foetus Interruptus Thaw 1988
62. Sunn O))) & Boris Altar 2006
63. Tindersticks Tindersticks 1993
64. Codeine Frigid Stars 1990
65. Don Cherry Symphony for Improvisers 1967
66. Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel Nail 1985
67. Xiu Xiu Knife Play 2002
68. Soft Machine Third 1970
69. Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited 1965
70. The Angels of Light How I Loved You 2001
71. Scott Walker The Drift 2006
72. Sun Ra Lanquidity 1978
73. Pärson Sound Pärson Sound 2001
74. Agitation Free Malesch 1972
75. Robert Wyatt Rock Bottom 1992
76. Pharoah Sanders Karma 1969
77. Carissa's Wierd Songs About Leaving 2002
78. Tim Buckley Happy Sad 1969
79. Henry Knollenberg Neptune IV 2019
80. Mount Eerie Ocean Roar 2012
81. Major Organ and the Adding Machine Major Organ and the Adding Machine 2001
82. King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King 1969
83. Jordaan Mason & the Horse Museum Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head 2009
84. Deltron 3030 Deltron 3030 2000
85. Glenn Branca The Ascension 1981
86. Morphine Good 1992
87. Duster Stratosphere 1998
88. Earth Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version 1993
89. Les Rallizes Dénudés '77 Live 1991
90. Mercury Rev Yerself Is Steam 1991
91. Godspeed You! Black Emperor F# A# ∞ 1997
92. Built to Spill Perfect from Now On 1997
93. The Peter Brötzmann Octet Machine Gun 1968
94. Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral 1994
95. Cecil Taylor Unit Structures 1966
96. Bark Psychosis Hex 1994
97. John Coltrane Ascension 1965
98. Giles Corey Giles Corey 2011
99. Ornette Coleman The Shape of Jazz to Come 1959
100. The Knife Shaking the Habitual 2013