I've left them unnumbered, because many of them are so good and so close that I can't choose a favorite, but they are loosely arranged with the ones I like better nearer the top. Also, there aren't exactly 25. Instead of interfiling Hawkwind albums, I've clustered them below.
Also check out my Top 150 Songs and Condensed Beatles.
Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
Key Lime Pie is an album of the highest quality in every way. I was obsessed with it for two years after it came out. Traveling in Europe, I went a week without speaking any English except singing CVB to myself, and I started to develop David Lowery's California accent. Their third, self-titled album is arguably even better, more uneven than this one but more but alive.
Gordon Lightfoot, Sit Down Young Stranger a.k.a. If You Could Read My Mind
Gordon Lightfoot is not as good a lyricist as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, but he's a better songwriter and singer. This album has Lightfoot's weirdest great song (Cobwebs and Dust), his best exercise in rocking out (Baby It's Allright), the most poetic "baby come back" song possible (Your Love's Return), and the best fantasy song I've ever heard (The Pony Man). And none of those are even the best song on the album. There are two other great Lightfoot albums: Summertime Dream and Gord's Gold. With those three, you have only a handful of duds and only two songs of overlap. The CD version of Gord's Gold is missing "Affair on 8th Avenue", but I have a download link for a vinyl rip on my songs page.
Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks
As a fringe writer, I admit having a bias toward obscure music. If I wrote for Rolling Stone and had to be biased toward famous music, I would call this the greatest album of all time. Most songwriters peak before age 30, so this is an almost impossible conjunction of musical brilliance with lyrical maturity inspired by great personal emotion, in this case Dylan's long breakup with his wife Sara. My next favorite Dylan albums are Blonde on Blonde, Desire, and Highway 61 Revisited.
Beat Happening, Black Candy
Beat Happening's previous album, Jamboree, is the most alive, and their final album, You Turn Me On, is the most beautiful. But Black Candy is both inspired and consistently great. If the test of a song is how good it sounds played by terrible musicians, then Calvin Johnson is the best songwriter of my generation.
Violent Femmes, Hallowed Ground
Massively underrated, their second album matches their famous debut in the catchiness of the rhythms and melodies, and greatly exceeds it in creativity and darkness. My top songs page includes all five songs from side one!
Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising
Somehow the two best raw emotional screamers of the 1980's were in the same band. Grant Hart was a consistent great songwriter, and Bob Mould was a great stylist who peaked on this album. Their previous album, Zen Arcade, was more influential and has more good songs on it, but New Day Rising just
sounds better. Someone could make a whole career out of the sound that Mould came up with on "Perfect Example" and "Powerline".
R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction
Reckoning and Automatic For The People are R.E.M.'s best albums by any reasonable standard, but this one is my favorite. I like its old-fashioned aura and its slow pretty songs. (But I hate "Can't Get There From Here")
Big Star, #1 Record / Radio City
You probably won't find these albums any other way than sold together on one CD. "In The Street" became Big Star's most famous song when it was picked as the opening for
That 70's Show -- even though it was probably played on the radio about three times in the 1970's. That was a Chris Bell song, which are impressive, but the Alex Chilton songs are even better. #1 Record has more great songs, but Radio City has deeper, stronger music.
Genesis, Selling England By The Pound
Easily the peak of Peter Gabriel era Genesis. Gabriel himself peaked on their previous album Foxtrot, in the epic song "Supper's Ready". But he's still creative here, and the music is incredible. This album blows away all other instrumental prog rock, with Steve Hackett on guitar and Tony Banks on keyboard weaving together melodies. And it's hard to remember, after his long career as a pop star, but Phil Collins was a great drummer. Unfortunately, the middle of the album has 15 minutes of crap.
Pink Floyd, Meddle
Unlike the more famous Pink Floyd albums that followed it, this has no unifying theme, but it's the best set of songs they ever put together.
Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea
Sounds like a lost tribe of genius hillbillies playing a punked-up version of a 70's art rock album with instruments they found in a shed. Their other album, On Avery Island, is almost as good.
Tom Waits, Rain Dogs
I tend to take Tom Waits for granted. He's got everything: lyrics, melodies, musical style, and endurance. Rain Dogs is clearly his best album, although Bone Machine is not far behind, and most of his early albums have two or three great songs.
The Ramones, Leave Home
This is their second album, not as lyrically inspired as their debut, but musically better in every way. Appropriately, it was later repackaged to include "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker", the only other Ramones song that could hold its own against this bunch.
The Muffs, Blonder and Blonder
The best songs are on their self-titled first album, but this one, their second, is more uniformly great and musically skilled. I think Kim Shattuck is a superhero. As I overheard a fan say, in awe, after one of their shows: "She's angry
and happy!"
Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
A great band's best album, with nice sounds and great songwriting all the way through. I also love Painful, which is pure shoegaze.
Galaxie 500, Today
Their three studio albums are about equally great. This one is less dreamy-sounding (but still very, very dreamy-sounding) and less varied than the others, but it has the best songwriting.
Red House Painters, (rollercoaster)
Red House Painters have two self-titled albums. The one you need is the one with the roller-coaster on the cover. It's so depressing that I can't listen to it straight through, but so beautiful that I want to.
The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Easily the best Pogues album, but most Americans, even if they know the Pogues, have never heard it, and it's strangely hard to find here.
Bone Cellar, Now That It's All Over
Of all the Seattle bands of the early 90's, Bone Cellar was the most honest. They also had awesome guitar solos, and played the best live show I ever saw. Their second album, Lost in the Light of Day, is almost as good.
Peter Gabriel, (car)
Peter Gabriel has three self-titled albums. This is his first solo album, the one with a blue-filtered rainy car windshield on the cover. Featuring "Solsbury Hill" and "Here Comes The Flood".
Rush, A Farewell To Kings
The guitar sound is better on Caress of Steel, and Moving Pictures is more respectable, but Rush's most brilliant work is here, especially on the two epics, Xanadu and Cygnus X-1.
The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta
Considered the worst Police album by almost everyone, including the band, and I agree that it has lower peaks than any of their other albums, but for me it has more depth. I love the dark, echoey sound that fills the corners.
Dire Straits, Making Movies
Dire Straits is famous for radio hits on their first and last studio albums, but their middle albums are best: Communique, Making Movies, and Love Over Gold. Side two of this album is lame, but the three songs on side one are the peak of their career.
Queen II
No hits, and generally considered too self-indulgent, but I love it!
(various "post-rock" albums)
I need to do more listening, but at the moment my favorite bands are Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mono, and If These Trees Could Talk.
Sonic Youth, Sister
All Sonic Youth albums have great music. This one has the best songs, and sounds the most like ...
Hawkwind
Hawkwind is sort of my favorite band. They formed in 1969 in west London, invented space rock, and over the years have had a ridiculous number of style changes, lineup changes, and album releases -- many of them unauthorized or barely authorized compilations. Dave Brock has always been the leader and the sole continuous member, but he doesn't like to take center stage, so this role has been filled by people as diverse as exotic dancers, Lemmy, sci-fi author Michael Moorcock, and Arthur Brown Jr. ("I am the god of hellfire!")
Everyone agrees that they peaked in the 1970's, but there is some disagreement about which of their albums were better. This is a list of important ones and personal favorites.
Hawkwind, 1970
Two great folk songs, "Hurry On Sundown" and "Mirror of Illusion", and some interesting drug-music instrumentals. This and the next are total hippie albums.
In Search Of Space, 1971
Some good songs here -- I like "We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago". The lyrics are still more metaphysical than sci-fi, and the music more psychedelic than space rock.
Doremi Fasol Latido, 1972
The beginning of Hawkwind's peak years, not coincidentally the same years that the band included Ian Kilmister, better known as Lemmy. Here they find their sound: Long droning jams, flange guitars, soaring spacy keyboards, and sci-fi lyrics. I think "Space is Deep" is their masterpiece.
Space Ritual, 1973
Double live album, featuring all four giants of Hawkwind: Brock, Lemmy, sax and woodwind player Nik Turner, and lyricist Robert Calvert, plus drummer Simon King, who would play on all their great 70's albums. But I've never liked it. There's too much poetry recital and chanting and not enough singing, and the rhythms are too punchy. It does have the essential version of one of their greatest songs, "Lord of Light".
The 1999 Party
Recorded in 1974, released in 1997, and titled "1999", this is the great lost Hawkwind live album. It's more melodic than Space Ritual, but also harder-rocking and tighter.
Hall of the Mountain Grill, 1974
Generally considered their best album. It has no duds, and a more textured sound than Doremi. Also, it has their best cover art. Here's the
Hall of the Mountain Grill back cover by famous space artist David A. Hardy.
Warrior On The Edge Of Time, 1975
Lemmy was "well out of favour", in his own words, and would soon be fired after being caught with amphetamines at the USA/Canada border. This album is a hodge-podge of embarrassing Michael Moorcock spoken word bits, mediocre songs, and three or four great songs that make it essential for serious fans.
Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music, 1976
Hawkwind switched labels from United Artists to Charisma, and totally changed their sound by installing longtime collaborator Robert Calvert as front man. Calvert was a mad genius, the best science fiction lyricist in the English language, with a singing style that anticipated (or influenced) British new wave. But he wasn't a good singer yet, and the band as a whole was stumbling aimlessly. I only like one instrumental, "Chronoglide Skyway".
Quark, Strangeness, and Charm, 1977
Here the Brock/Calvert team hit its stride. Nik Turner was sacked for poor musical discipline, and the bass player and one drummer were sacked for sounding too funky. The new tight lineup made one of their best albums, featuring "Damnation Alley" and "Hassan I Sabha".
PXR5, 1979
I think this rivals Hall of the Mountain Grill as Hawkwind's greatest album. It contains their best punk song, "Death Trap", their best social protest song, "High Rise", their catchiest song, "Jack of Shadows", and the closest they've ever come to a love song, "Infinity". It was recorded in early 1978 but the release was delayed because of internal turmoil.
Hawklords / 25 Years On, 1978
Recorded after PXR5 but released before it. Briefly, Hawkwind had to change their name to Hawklords for legal reasons, maybe because Dave Brock was the only original member. I only like one song, "The Only Ones".
Live Seventy Nine, 1980
Calvert left and original guitar player Huw Lloyd Langton returned, the last shot of life that Hawkwind would get. This is the only album with both Lloyd Langton and drummer Simon King, and it totally rocks. The highlight is an aggressive performance of the Calvert song "Spirit of the Age".
Levitation, 1980
Legendary drummer Ginger Baker replaced King, and the band went into the studio to make a decent album, but I'd say it's unnecessary because the best bits are done better on Zones and Independent Days.
Sonic Attack, Church of Hawkwind, Choose Your Masques, 1981-1982
Three albums on RCA, mediocre.
Zones, 1983
A collection of scraps from the early 1980's. This was the first Hawkwind album I heard and it's still one of my favorites. The first seven tracks are as good as Hawkwind has ever been. The highlight is a beautiful live performance of "Motorway City".
Independent Days volumes 1-2, 1995
Another solid compilation of stuff from the early 80's, including briefly reuniting with Lemmy to cover the Motorhead song "Motorhead". Also two songs from 1969 and an inspired remix of "Kings of Speed" from 1975.
Chronicle of the Black Sword, 1985
A concept album based on Moorcock's Elric novels, promising but not that good. I think "Zarozinia" was Hawkwind's last good song, and the latest CD version includes the entire Earth Ritual Preview EP, which was previously available only on vinyl, and contains the essential song "Green Finned Demon".
other albums
Hawkwind, defined as Dave Brock and whoever he is playing with, remains active to this day, but I haven't heard anything recorded after 1985 that seems worth buying. For a more complete list, go to:
http://home.clara.net/adawson/ or
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hawkwind/hawkwind_discs.html