ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster's Top 20 albums of his insignificant life

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

You will disagree, you will argue with my choices but the joy of music is that one man's trash is another man's masterpiece.

On this list there are:

(Spoiler for clues)

Spoiler: Click here to view

+ Only two albums released before my birth in 1980.

+ Five albums with a female vocalist.

+ Three albums from America.

+ At least seventeen albums that wouldn't make your top twenty.

Anyway let's get started!

20: DUMMY by Portishead

Released in 1994.

Portishead were at the forefront of chilling triphop back in the lovely Britpop era. Lead vocalist Beth Gibbons is widely regarded as having one of the most haunting, beautiful voices in music and is a perfect foil for the sometimes minimalist and bare beats and underlying rhythms. The album does have its weaknesses but shove the CD in your player today and it'll haunt you all over again. It also gets bonus points for including a number of tracks that when you hear again after a while make you go "Oh, THAT song is on the album. Cool!"

HIGHLIGHTS: Mysterons, Sour Times, Numb

Edited January 6, 2009 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

19 AHA SHAKE HEARTBREAK by Kings Of Leon

Released in 2004.

I'm kinda scared putting this album at number 19 cos of the tide of hatred against them recently but I have to say that "Aha Shake Heartbreak", taken totally separately to the rest of the Kings Of Leon package, is one excellent album. The album is laced with pretty strong sexual undertones which we conveniently "ignored" while we played this daily at Gamestation - fortunately Caleb Hollowill's voice spends most of the time in "incomprehensible" mode, which adds more to the grainy sound of the album. Music-wise it's all bossa-nova, generally upbeat and loads of fun to listen and strut around to. It's hard not to join in with the singing as the catchier tracks come on.

HIGHLIGHTS: King Of The Rodeo, Taper Jean Girl, Pistol Of Fire, The Bucket, Four Kicks, Velvet Snow

GRRR: Razz, Rememo

[RPS]

Not such a big fan of Kings of Leon, but I don't think the amazingness of Dummy can be understated. It's one of those albums that just sounds epic and classic. From the first few seconds, you can tell that it's totally different than anything that was going on in 1993 and that it helped to show the potential of electronic.

[METALMAN]

I agree with both of these so far. Mainly Kings of Leon. Mainly King of the Rodeo.

[King Ellis]

I'm guessing there will be....3 Sigur Ros albums.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

But WHICH Sigur Ros albums and WHERE?

18: FEVER TO TELL by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Released in 2003.

Oooh controversial.....Maybe. A while ago in some thread where we chose the five albums that we'd save from a sinking ship if we were to spend the forseeable future on a desert island with only the CDs and a solar powered CD player for company, I had a weak moment and chose this as one of the five. I don't think it would be one of my five right now but at the time it covered female vocals, up-tempo and dancey dancey vibes.

Not hailing from the US, I managed to miss the apparant overkill of "Maps" that has left many people jaded to the album and Yeah Yeah Yeahs in general. I believe they got old very quickly. Also, all the musical arseholes at NME, Q and The Face loved it.

Anyway their general equation is simple - bashy-bashy drums, strummy growly guitar and the mighty Karen O wailing over the top. There's plenty of energy and the album is full of two and three minute nuggets of energetic joy. Maps IS a great track but Modern Romance is the best of the two slower tracks as the album chills out nicely towards the end.

In the right frame of mind Fever To Tell is utterly ideal.

HIGHLIGHTS: Pin, Modern Romance, Black Tongue, Maps, Rich, Date With The Night

GRRR: Cold Light, Yeah! New York

[METALMAN]

Pin is the best song on Fever To Tell. I find myself agreeing with you a lot.

[RPS]

Their follow-up absolutely blew chunks, but Fever To Tell is amazing. It's one of my top 10 of 2003. I, like you, wasn't exposed to the Maps overkill, being from Canada. Even in my opinion, Maps is one of my least favorite songs on the album so even if it was overkilled, that'd be fine. The first three songs on this album are perfect "get drunk/fucked up and dance to music".

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

17: THE GREAT ESCAPE by Blur

Released in 1995.

I managed to edit in all the stuff for the Fatboy Slim album by mistake. Grrr. Anyway The Great Escape is a brilliant album although rarely seen as their best. Shame on everyone. The album has great depth and very nicely straddles the swaggery Britpop vibes of their earlier albums into the rockier Song 2 era of "Blur" and into the cerebral later work.

HIGHLIGHTS: Stereotypes, Charmless Man, Country House, The Universal, Mr Robinson's Quango, Ernold Same

GRRR: He Thought Of Cars, Best Days

Edited January 7, 2009 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster

[Liam]

Interesting to see what you come up with here, Hammy. I was thinking about doing something like this myself, although like Metalman, was going to make it top 100, or something like that. And probably with only 1 album per act....fuck knows. I'll have a think >_>

[gunnar hendershow]

I'm interested to read the rest, Dummy would definitely crack my own personal top 20 as well. Can't say the same about the rest of the albums (Though I do enjoy Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Blur quite a bit, especially Blur).

[Jook]

Dummy would be in my top 20, probably my top 10.

Sterling work so far Hammy. Have tried to do this myself in the past but get way too frustrated and give up, it's too hard.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

16: YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY by Fatboy Slim

Released in 1998.

Ahhh, an album with one of the most overrated musical pieces in history. Ladies and gentlemen Praise You is probably the lowest point of this rather groovy album. While Fatboy Slim had been around for a while before this album, YCALWB marked his arrival on the big stage with a number of famous releases - Rockafeller Skank, Praise You, Right Here Right Now and Build It Up - Tear It Down. This has had a lot of play from me over the years purely cos of the Big Beat vibe being pretty much the perfect thing to bring a smile to my face and get me dancing around if I'm feeling a bit low.

Norman Cook has followed this up with other quality works and plenty of great live performances but this album remains his highest point, and the cover is pretty iconic (although the album was released with a different, non-fat cover in the US).

HIGHLIGHTS: Gangster Trippin', Rockafeller Skank, Right Here Right Now, Build It Up - Tear It Down, Kalifornia, Soul Surfing

GRRR: Praise You, You're Not From Brighton

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

15: VELOCIFERO by Ladytron

Released in 2008.

Maybe the weirdest choice considering the album only came out recently and the group are hardly the biggest name in music. Ladytron are certainly not to everyone's taste in their electronic vibes. Probably most famous for their earlier songs "Seventeen" and "Playgirl" they have nonetheless carved a cool little career through a string of quality albums, great live performances and DJ sets. They also seem to have realised the key to success - the two geezers stand at the back and allow the two extremely attractive lasses (one of whom is Bulgarian) to take centre stage on vocals.

Velocifero is their fourth studio album and their most accomplished. The surprisingly deep layers of electro loveliness heightened by the deadpan modelesque singing of Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo including two tracks sung entirely in Bulgarian.

Best of all, by going in different directions to the painfully trendy Electro scene and always staying one step ahead, Ladytron manage to remain cool without being "trendy".

HIGHLIGHTS: Ghosts, Runaway, Black Cat, Burning Up, I'm Not Scared, Predict The Day

GRRR: Versus (includes male vocals. Grrrawr).

[GoGo Yubari]

The Great Escape is my favorite Blur album, Hamster, so you're not alone.

Or, well, it's that or Modern Life is Rubbish. It's hard for me to choose between them.

[GA!]

Ladytron are a band I want to check out in the near future. They supported Interpol at the Sheffield Carling Academy back in July and I was very impressed - even though the speakers had a hard time handling their electroness.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

14: TALKIE WALKIE by Air

Released in 2004.

Everyone's fourth favourite French Lounge Music specialists make my list and NO "Sexy Boy" to be seen.

Talkie Walkie is a magnificent album that is probably best known for the quirkier Alpha Beta Gaga with its' whistley, cowboy vibes. However it really comes into its' own with the eerily beautiful Venus and Run - two stunning tracks which for me the whole album is centred around (Run especially is utterly majestic). Between them you have the chilled out, happier vibes of Cherry Blossom Girl and the album retains it's heavily gallic lounge electro throughout.

I heavily recommend the album to folk who fancy something a little different to the norm. Air always do their own thing, sometimes to critical acclaim, sometimes not. Beautiful.

HIGHLIGHTS: Run (runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun), Venus, Alpha Beta Gaga, Cherry Blossom Girl, Surfing On A Rocket

GRRR: Alone In Kyoto (from the Lost In Translation soundtrack and I HATED that movie).

[METALMAN]

Alone In Kyoto is good. :@

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

13: ABSOLUTION by Muse

Released in 2003.

It was only gonna be a matter of time before a Muse album came up. I never said I wasn't obvious.

A bit of a spoiler though - this is the only Muse album in my top 20. My second favourite Showbiz is great but not great enough, Origin Of Symmetry feels more like a Best Of than a cohesive album and Black Holes And Revelations has a few off notes.

So here we are with Absolution - a lovely epic piece starting with the mind shattering Apocalypse Please and journeying between deep, quality-filled crescendos and beautiful, thoughtful gems like Falling Away With You. A real strength to the album is Bellamy's use of both guitars and pianos allowing the group to have two very different sounds. Absolution was also where they branched out into "rockier" stuff like Stockholm Syndrome (which ironically has the most beautiful piano piece in it). The album also manages the near-operatic within the boundaries of their widening genre. Good work.

HIGHLIGHTS: Apocalypse Please, Falling Away With You, Hysteria, Stockholm Syndrome, The Small Print, Butterflies And Hurricanes

GRRR: Sing For Absolution, Endlessly

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

12: OK COMPUTER by Radiohead

Released in 1997.

Ahhh at number 13 the man who is somehow thought of as sounding as the guy at number 12. Seriously, Matt Bellamy sounds like Thom Yorke?! Riiiiiiiight....

Now Dr Dre and 2 Pac on the other hand...Vocally separated at birth those two....

Anyway, OK Computer needs no praise from me. This is just one of a million "greatest albums" lists in this world that OK Computer has appeared on, often near the top. Still, it's also wonderfully fashsionable to hate on the album seeing it as a bit soulless or arsey or overly arty or whatever. Lies LIES I tells ya. OK Computer has loads of soul, capturing a feeling of premillennial detatchment, totally at odds with the autumnal britpop era of the time.

The amazing thing about this album is that every time I listen to it I have a new favourite track off it, the creativity employed in the songwriting at the time still sounding somewhat otherworldly and disorienting. For that reason the album is timeless. It's full of either total genius or horribly arty pretentiousness. I firmly side with the folk who think it's the former. Many albums are great but only a few show such a judderingly different take on things. It also happens to have the frankly beautiful "Let Down".

HIGHLIGHTS: Let Down, No Surprises, Karma Police, Airbag, Paranoid Android, Exit Music

GRRR: The Tourist

Edited January 8, 2009 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster