Another List: Just Unacceptable, Just Absolute Dogshit

So Musicradar, the same individuals who told us the greatest bassist of all time was Dream Theater's John Myung, have released another list, this one the greatest lead singer...ever. There are a lot of worthy candidates for number 1, obviously, and I won't fault them for picking somebody I don't agree with because there are so many criteria for what makes a good singer and holy sweet fuck they picked Axl Rose. Real actual people voted Axl Rose as the greatest lead singer of all time ahead of Roger Daltry, Robert Plant and Freddy Mercury and somehow, somehow, the universe decided not to kill everyone in the world.

What's stunning is that Musicradar is a really big site. A few thousand people voted for this thing and that's no small potatoes. There was a group consensus that Axl Rose was the greatest singer ever and that James Labrie deserves to be on the list at all. James Labrie! He's such a bad singer he wouldn't even get on a list of the worst singers of all time! He would be too bad for it! He is just that bad at singing!

It doesn't even matter that the people who belong on the list are on the list for the most part. When you say Axl Rose is the best at anything besides Turding either you thought the guitar solo from "Paradise City" was somebody singing or the things you loved from your childhood have completely stopped you from processing art on an objective level. The rest of the list could be the word FART written over and over again and if Axl Rose was still #1 it would have the same level of validity.

So. Here are ten that should've been on the list, as per usual. I trimmed this list down from like a billion, and like the list it attempts to correct didn't qualify solo acts or groups that relied on harmonizing, so I'm sorry for all the country and Philadelphia Soul I couldn't consider. Other than that, yeah, here we go.

1. Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy has spent the last 30 years of his life being a professional wad, but before that he used to be known as the lead singer for Black Sabbath, when being a wad was only his hobby. Ozzy pretty much typifies the "singer who can't sing" department along with Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis, but on Sabbath's first few albums he sang with a morbid soul that hasn't been replicated since. Along with Iommi's immaculate riffage, Ozzy's specterly wails and groans covered metal in its first sheet of real mystique, and yeah, his vocals could even be downright eerie at times. He's a laughingstock now, but his contributions to metal shouldn't be forgotten, and neither should the fact that his talent was once more than incidental.

Essential Tracks: N.I.B, War Pigs, Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener

2. Damo Suzuki(Can)

Damo Suzuki is another singular entity in the canon of rock singers, mostly because nobody but nobody does crazy like he can. Suzuki was literally a random person that Can picked off the street to replace their first lead singer, which should mean that it would be no surprise to anyone to find that his voice is the sonic equivalent of a mushroom trip. Furious one instant, crazed beyond reason another and occasionally winding up at downright sedate, it's impossible to predict what the vocals are going to sound like when you first listen to a Can album, yet it's Suzuki's seeming tunelessness that proves to be the perfect counter to the rest of Can's immaculate musicianship, the incongruity drawing you ever deeper into their psychedelic freakshow vision trip. Damo Suzuki's voice is relentlessly schizophrenic and, as such, incredibly captivating.

Essential Tracks: Vitamin C, Peking-O, I'm So Green

3. Mike Patton(Faith No More, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, etc.)

To refer to Mike Patton's range as being "incredible" would be a gross understatement-from rap-metal to avant-garde scat experimentations, to Italian pop ballads through voice work as the monsters from I Am Legend and Left 4 Dead, there is seemingly nothing that Mike Patton cannot do with his voice. It isn't all technical virtuosity, either: Patton fills every vocal role required of him with emotion and unmatchable character and wit, rendering his most mainstream-oriented Faith No More tracks an artful lean and giving even his most threshold-testing vocal experiments a relatable hook. Bottom line: Nobody alive today can manipulate their vocal chords like Mike Patton, and nobody can push the boundaries of what a performer can-or should-do with their voice like him, either.

Essential Tracks: Jizzlobber, None of Them Knew They Were Robots, Scalinatella

4. Bryan Ferry(Roxy Music)

Simply put, and in the least homoerotic/most homoerotic way I can say it, Bryan Ferry sounds like an angel. In terms of having a bonafide, 100% indisputably beautiful voice, Ferry is a hard if not impossible to match entry in the rock canon. He works in the time proven Soul tradition of making every booty call sound like a marriage proposal and every marriage proposal sound like a booty call and does so at a pitch that's inhumanly high, unbelievably soft and unquestionably jaw-dropping. If you're a straight woman or a gay man, Bryan Ferry will make love to you through your headphones. If you're a gay woman or a straight man, you will change your orientation just to receive the pleasure of Bryan Ferry making love to your through your headphones. I am bicurious for Bryan Ferry's voice, and you should be too.

Essential Tracks: Avalon, Love is the Drug, Angel Eyes

5. Shane MacGowan(The Pogues)

Shane MacGowan is known less for being a singer and more for being a dirty stinkin' drunk, but it's that propensity of his for dirty stinkin' drunkenness that lends his voice the authority it needs when he sings about how much American police love to billyclub him. MacGowan might have the punkest voice in rock and roll history, even moreso than Strummer, Ramone and Rotten: His vocal parts are a mix of snarls, barks and shrieks that if paired with typical hardcore instruments would've been recognizable as some of the most fierce and outrageous of the era. Instead of sounding desperate or self involved, however, it simply sounds honest, the folk instruments lending MacGowan's rage, misery and drunken joy a legitimacy lacking from many traditional punk acts. If there's a man alive who can make up for a lack of technical talent with sheer energy it's Shane MacGowan, and it's that same energy which catapulted the Pogues to the top of the charts and launched a thousand Celtic punk bands that, for better or for worse, have never matched MacGowan's intense, straightforward delivery.

Essential Tracks: If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Waxie's Dargle, Thousands are Sailing

6. Chris Cornell(Soundgarden, Audioslave)

There's no such thing as a picture of Chris Cornell not looking like a douchebag, and indeed, much like the venerable Ozzman before him, Cornell succumbed to a full time career as Douche in Chief during the past five years or so. But make no mistake: During the grunge years nobody's voice could top that of Chris Cornell's. Many of his vocal parts could be described less as "singing" and more as "stuntwork", as you're left wondering how the man can even stand up after belting such an incredible melody. Cornell's strength as a vocalist is his dedication to his style: He never softened up or toned it down, roaring battle anthems and ballads alike as though his life depended on delivering the most Biblically intense performance possible. If anyone makes the argument that grunge doesn't take any talent to preform, Chris Cornell is the perfect voice to shut them up.

Essential Tracks: Incessant Mace, Slaves and Bulldozers, Mailman

7. Jeff Mangum(Neutral Milk Hotel)

Is this going to be the first time someone compares Jeff Mangum to Damo Suzuki? Probably. I don't think anyone likes Mangum's voice the first time they hear it. It's nasal, seemingly tuneless and largely divorced from the music accompanying it. All of these factors, however, are what lend Jeff Mangum's voice its starkness. He's a folk songwriter second and a psychedelic songwriter first, and to get to that trip-like state, you have to be completely alienated from the world around you. That's what Jeff Mangum's voice is good at. It pairs itself up with an acoustic guitar, or a pipe organ, or a trombone, and strikes your brain in places you didn't know were there and pulls you into a greenish-grey world of his own making, where the body functions differently and every symbol is made real, everything real made a symbol. Many people don't like Jeff Mangum's voice, and to that I say you're not supposed to like his voice. You're supposed to like the effect of his voice.

Essential Tracks: King of Carrot Flowers, Oh Comely, Holland 1945

8. Rob Halford(Judas Priest)

How a website made up largely of metalheads and prog fanatics failed to include Rob Halford on their list of all time greatest frontmen is both stupefying and shameful. Long story short, Rob Halford is the godking of classical metal vocals. Not even Bruce Dickinson can match his falsetto and the speed with which he can jump from high to gravely low is neck-snappingly fast. He is the master of the operatic metal singing style, infusing each song with a personality all its own and making even the most bombastic, cheesy ideas seem Goddamn Virgil-esque in scope. Bottom line: Bow down to Rob Halford, folks. Even Pavarotti loves the guy.

Essential Tracks: Dreamer Deceiver, Stained Class, Screaming For Vengeance

9. John Fogerty(Creedence Clearwater Revival)

I'm not gonna front: I decided to write this pretty much on an impulse and I'm getting kind of tired of doing so, plus I wanna have some energy to write about the last guy who I don't think most of you will have heard of. You all know who John Fogerty is, you all know why you like him or you don't. The dude has a ridiculously unique voice and sounds like a gifted hillbilly from the Georgia mountains instead of a nerd from El Cerrito. That weird yowly thing he does might not appeal to you but try doing it yourself, it's super hard and you wouldn't be able to do it with any sort of melodious outcome.

...John Fogerty's pretty great I guess is what I'm saying.

Essential Tracks: Wrote a Song For Everyone, Born On the Bayou, Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

10. Demis Roussos(Aphrodite's Child)

Demis Roussos is a big chubby dude who sings, and like many big singing chubby dudes he can pull off incredible feats with his voice. His music changed from straightforward '60s psychadelia to pop to prog to easy listening, and here's the weird part: He didn't change his voice at all for any of those genres, and yet he always ended up sounding like he was right where he belonged. His lush crooning proves as appropriate for hitting the bong as it is as a soundtrack for driving to church with grandma and even his corniest ballads will move you to tears if you're drunk enough. Rousso's voice hits you right in that sappy part of your soul that you don't want to admit exists, and you'll be hard pressed to not come away from his songs feeling weirdly contented every time.

Essential Tracks: Rain and Tears, Annabella, It's Five O'Clock

ALSO FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

• Peter Gabriel(Genesis)
• Zach de la Rocha(Rage Against the Machine)
• Phil Lynott(Thin Lizzy)
• Jon Anderson(Yes)
• Colin Blunstone(The Zombies)
• Lou Reed(The Velvet Underground)
• David Byrne(Talking Heads)
• Mikael Akerfeldt(Opeth)
• Lemmy(Motorhead)
• Ian Curtis(Joy Division)
• Cedric Bixler-Zavala(At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta)
• Dave Mustaine(Megadeth)
• Wayne Coyne(The Flaming Lips)
• Elvis Costello(Elvis Costello and the Attractions/Impostors/etc.)
• Henry Rollins(Black Flag)
• Sly Stone(Sly and the Family Stone)
• Ron Isley(The Isley Brothers)
• Ric Ocasek(The Cars)
• Annie Haslam(Renaissance)

-CJ

Styrofoam Boots' Decade List 2000-2009, Part 7

(100-91) (90-81) (80-71) (70-61) (60-51) (50-41) 40-31 (30-21) (20-11)

40. Toe - My Idle Plot On a Vague Anxiety

Although one may be tempted to compare Toe to their contemporaries such as American Football, Ghosts & Vodka, Pele, or Explosions in the Sky, Toe sounds undeniably distinct for the niche (somewhere along the lines of post-rock and math-rock) genre that they play. Their overall sound is incredibly open and raw, with clean and syncopated guitar and bass melodies in conjunction with torrential jazz and math rock influenced drumming. Although there is nothing abrasive or particularly overwhelming about The Book, never before have I heard the dynamics of a song utilized so effectively, even without the reliance of traditional verse-to-crescendo structure found so common in post rock these days. This sense of expansiveness in their playing is attributed heavily to their drummer, who actually writes distinct and memorable percussion that happens to be extraordinarily technical as well. Add some Rhodes, Vibes, and glitches, and you get the instrumental music you've always wanted to hear but could never find. If you're into post rock, but are tired of its dependence on crescendos, you should check this out. If you're into math rock, but are tired of its emphasis on technicality and dissonance, you should also check this out. If you're into expressive, interesting, truthful and raw-sounding music... I'll just go ahead and say that Toe is one of my top recommendations of all time. -Adrian

39. Animal Collective - Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished

I think I always had an idea in my head, a platonic segment of sound that sprang to mind anytime anyone mentioned "experimental rock", and something that I had been looking for as long as I had been looking for experimental rock. Which is to say, Spirit They're Gone is the experimental album I had always wanted to hear. It's almost painfully inaccessible in all the right and inconsistent and unpredictable ways. It dark and sad and steeped sometimes in feedback, sometimes in crashing drums, sometimes in quietness. It's passionate and violent and beautiful. It's absolutely like nothing they, or anyone else for that matter, have done since. -Stuart

38. The Angelic Process- Weighing Souls with Sand

In the flood of mid to late ’00 “post-metal” bands that tried with varying degrees of success to combine elements of shoegaze and post-rock with thunderous distortion, in 2007 a little-known two-man band came out of nowhere and dropped a record that quietly obliterated most of the competition. Then guitarist/vocalist and main songwriter Kris Angylus suffered debilitating injury in an accident and committed suicide, leaving a damn-near perfect and completely untainted legacy in Weighing Souls with Sand. From eerie ambience to sunken dirges to parts that sound like the war march of ancient gods all suspended within a thick layer of gauzy fuzz and every second of it epic, this album singlehandedly coins quite possibly the coolest subgenre name ever—DOOMGAZE. -Stephen

37. Explosions in the Sky - How Strange, Innocence

How Strange, Innocence is the soundtrack to an arctic winter, with all the imagery and emotions that usually encompass it: feelings of desolation, glimmers of hope, and blasts of light during the sunrise… a visual album if you may. Lush reverbs over melodious note runs and tremolo picked guitars, drums that alternate between the force of a marching band to the tact of a classical percussionist, and occasionally bass that provides a low end rumble to the treble-saturated sound create this post rock 4-piece that enabled such a sound permeate into the mainstream, at least somewhat. Within its grandiosity there is honesty. -Adrian

36. The Music Tapes – The Music Tapes for Clouds And Tornadoes

The Music Tapes weave a kind of experimentalism that is hard to define mostly because it generates a mood completely unlike most music in the genre. Its dense joyous structure doesn't quiet create the twee enthusiasm of their friends the Apples In Stereo nor does it drift close to the fuzzed directness of Julian Kostner's former employer Neutral Milk Hotel. I've tried without the faintest success to describe what this music does for a person before, so I won't try again, but the feeling this creates is magic. -Stuart

35. Queens of the Stone Age – Songs For the Deaf

Though often labeled as "hard rock"-and it's a label I won't disagree with-Queens of the Stone Age have always shot with the ferocity of a heavy metal band, and on Songs For the Deaf they focused that vicious energy into a masterpiece of radio-friendly heavy rock. From the piercing "A Song For the Dead"(which features some of Dave Grohl's best drumming) to the doomy "God is in the Radio" to instant classic "No One Knows", QOtSA pack the album full of anthems from Hell, each one more memorable than the last. Though the concept of sliding fake radio commercials into each song bespeaks a less clever version of "The Who Sell Out", you'll be air guitaring with such intensity that you'll hardly have time to notice. That's right-the guitar in this album is so awesome that it makes sound [even when you're strumming the air itself](brackets should be italicized). Songs For the Deaf is an album that belongs in any red-blooded rock and roll fan's collection. -CJ

34. Converge- Jane Doe

This is the singular album that catapulted Converge from being the definitive East Coast metalcore band to one of the best metal bands in the world. Although they’ve had a string of great releases since this one, none have matched Jane Doe’s incredible cathartic intensity. About 90% of this album is dedicated to tearing your fucking face off and the other 10% is searing, hateful, heart-wrenching buildup, all of it led by Jacob Bannon’s utterly inhuman shriek and the twisted metal distortion of guitarists Kurt Ballou and Aaron Dalbec. And all that is just windup before the eleven-minute title track comes along to finish you off. Jaw, meet floor. -Stephen

33. Isis- Oceanic

Yes, two ocean-themed metal albums on the same list, but Leviathan and Oceanic couldn’t be more different. Instead of drawing from any existing literary themes, Isis models their opus on the deadly mystique and consuming power of the ocean itself, with long stretches of moody keyboards and hypnotic guitar balanced by movements of momentous riffs that crash down on you like a tsunami, as perfectly established by eight-minute opener “The Beginning & The End.” Every drawn out wail and indiscernible savage bark from vocalist Aaron Turner adds to the overall effect, his pipes echoing across the vast soundscapes portrayed. This album redefines “heavy” in a way no one else has since Neurosis’ Through Silver In Blood, and even manages to outdo that monstrous post-metal work on its own terms. -Stephen

32. The White Stripes – Elephant

Every time we unwittingly stumble upon a Stripes' album we had not known previously, in our passionate new burst of enthusiasm at the contents we begin to recommend it with no reservations and these recommendations always end with one thing "I think it's even better than Elephant". But now with all six major albums stored away in our memories and our cd shelves something has become undeniably clear: we use this meter because Nothing is better than Elephant. Jack White discography be damned, the world be damned, Nothing - full stop - is better than Elephant. From the battle cry of the opening track to the harsh screech of Black Math to the light chant of The Air Near My Fingers, from the light teasing and innuendo of Well It's True That We Love One Another to the fuck everyone tell them to get out we'll have sex on the floor passion soaked blues churn of Ball and Biscuit that threatened to turn him into a guitar god, Nothing Is Better Than Elephant. -Stuart

31. Cynic – Traced in Air

Cosmic.
Violent.
Gorgeous.
Necessary.

-CJ

Styrofoam Boots' Decade List 2000-2009, Part 6

(100-91) (90-81) (80-71) (70-61) (60-51) 50-41 (40-31) (30-21) (20-11)

50. Baroness- Blue Album

While often overshadowed by that other art/prog/sludge metal band from Georgia, Baroness have carved their own distinct niche by taking one of Mastodon’s downplayed elements—guitarwork—and going full bore with it. There are enough brilliantly played twin six-string passages on here to make the combined members of Thin Lizzy, Allman Brothers and Iron Maiden sprout a collective boner, all without a single tacky neo-classical arpeggio. Songs like “The Sweetest Curse” and “A Horse Named Golgatha” effortlessly cram in tons of melodic hooks while not sacrificing an ounce of craft or complexity, making Blue Record a Garden of Eden for all lovers of the anthem and beard-stroking critic types alike. -Stephen

49. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

This is Animal Collective’s most straight forward album ever: Basic chord structures and verse chorus verse progressions, with catchy melodies and harmonies. The distinction that is made from AC and just any other pop band is how they utilize these structures to make something totally distinct. Heavy electronic bass heavy percussion, 3-dimensional reverb sounds, samples that sound like birds and blips, a whole bunch of other strange sounds, and odd tones and tonal repetition under a very distinct but reverb saturated mix constitute the most polished rendition of AC so far.

-Adrian

48. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

The Hold Steady has always had an air of wistful melancholy around even their most rollicking party songs, and on Stay Positive they more or less give up on trying to party. It’s a wise move: Stay Positive is their most consistent, and thoughtful, album, focusing mainly on the futility of trying to grow in an environment that keeps pushing you down. There’s nothing quite like looking in front of you and realizing you can’t move forward, and Craig Finn captures that sentiment with wit and wry bitterness on nearly every song. Displacement and disaffection are some of the hardest emotions to understand, and while Stay Positive doesn’t offer any solutions, you’ll know at least somebody gets it. -CJ

47. Portishead – Third

Somewhere just under a decade after the genre and era defining group broke up they reunited and reliesed thier best album. No joke. Rediculous? Perhaps. And about the only think you can usualy count against when reunions occur, but it happened none the less. Portishead started with cool and infinete indie-kid (the dress-only-in-black self-serious 90's kind) detachment on Dummy, moved through the harsher anger and egotism of the self titled effort and now, imporbably, took another right turn and landed on directness and honesty. Its hard to not get caught up in Beth Gibbsons as she desprately aserts "did you know when you lost?" or confidantly, harshly questeions herself over the glitchy, woozy electronics. Add in the hardcore churn of Machine Gun and the minimalistic Uke ballad of Deep Water and you've got an album that blends incense intelligence and intense enjoyment more than anything that has come before. -Stuart

46. El-P- I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

A big step up from the already solid Fantastic Damage, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead sees hip-hop producer par excellence (and greatly improved MC) El-P unleashing his expanded paranoid visions of a dark post-Patriot Act future on a staid, materialistic and brick-stupid mainstream rap scene. Having the good sense to spike the usual roster of Def Jux cameos with oddball picks like Cat Power and Trent Reznor without watering down his unique sonic signature (bangin’ ear candy beats that walk a line between Bomb Squad, old industrial and Aphex Twin) doesn’t hurt. And “Up All Night” and “Habeas Corpses” just to name two are thick with some of the most razor-edged sarcasm and political statements since Immortal Technique’s Volume 2. -Stephen

45. Boris – Akuma No Uta

Arriving a couple of years before Boris’ mainstream (or at least, american indie) breakthrough and fellow Best of the 2000s peer Pink, Akuma no Uta slams headfirst through the wall dividing drone doom and hard rock and creates a masterpiece amid the destruction. That isn’t to say Boris has lost their experimental edge-the first 10 minutes(about a quarter of the entire album) is taken up by a wave of fuzzy guitar feedback. But then it moves into “Ibitsu” and “Furi”, two songs that fuse Melvins-esque grunginess with the rhythm and speed of early hardcore punk. And while the album does slow down eventually, that volcanic energy doesn’t relent for a minute as Boris packs in sludgy hook after booming drumline and proves that the spirit of rock and roll is alive and well, even at its most avant-garde. -CJ

44. Coldplay – Parachutes

Parachutes has the distinctive Coldplay sound everybody is familiar with, with the exception of a few fundamental differences: the songs are structurally dynamic, the vocals are honest and expressive, and the production literally sounds golden. Although the album has an atmospheric quality about it, it stays very firmly rooted to the ground emotionally, which when juxtaposed, creates a very cathartic and powerful sound. I don’t experience synesthesia, but Parachutes has brought me as close as I’ve ever been. Parachutes is Coldplay’s Pinkerton. -Adrian

43. The Sword – Gods of the Earth

“Hipster metal” became the bullshit-du-jour of genre labels during the mid and late ‘00s, an odious phrase designed to abase metal bands who appealed to people not interested in surfing through endless black metal demo tapes in order to find a decent guitar riff. Well, if this stuff is for hipsters, than buy me a scarf and toss me a PBR, because Gods of the Earth was bar none one of the best metal albums of the ‘00s. Featuring head-pounding riffs and a propulsive energy that could drag even the sternest concertgoer into a mosh pit, The Sword created an album that was as an appropriate soundtrack for a swashbuckling adventure, as much as it was for a bong party. From slow, doomy battle anthems like “How Heavy This Axe” and “The Black River” to the stampeding “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians”, Gods of the Earth is packed with enough stoney, sword-swinging goodness to last you a full warrior’s quest through Hyboria…or at least to satisfy your primal man urges for the 48 minute runtime. -CJ

42. McLusky- Do Dallas

Picking up right where Jesus Lizard and The Pixies left off and injecting a welcome dose of Bon Scott-esque irreverence, this Welsh trio easily rocked harder than any stale Epitaph punk band, and with ten times the wit. It’s impossible not to love a band that titles its frenetic lead-off song “Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues,” or comes up with lyrics like “Our band is bigger than your band/ we take more drugs than a touring funk band.” Albini’s raw hawburger production does nothing to dilute the inherent hitmaking capacity of “To Hell with Good Intentions” and “Whoyouknow,” and “Fuck This Band” is a perfectly placed and hilarious breather in the midst of the redlining sonics and unrelenting attitude. In a world of bleary-eyed whingy indie, it’s a crying shame a band this badass split up. -Stephen


41. Agalloch- The Mantle

When descriptions for Agalloch are offered by people generally in the know, I’ve heard this Northwest Pacific band referred to several times as black metal with the edges sanded off. But that does absolutely no justice to what these guys actually do, which is to make music for vast wintry panoramas underneath foggy, steel-gray skies. Haughm’s rasping voice flows within a tapestry of chiming and silvery (that’s a word isn’t it?) guitars coated in delay and reverb, martial drumming, bowed upright bass and Native American percussion. Song lengths stretch for over nine minutes yet never overstay their welcome, and while the mood is downcast and weary it never gets oppressive. Think Opeth without the quiet/loud switch and a great deal more finesse and patience. Few metal albums deserve the sobriquet “beautiful.” This is one of them. -Stephen

Styrofoam Boots' Decade List 2000-2009, Part 5

(100-91) (90-81) (80-71) (70-61) 60-51 (50-41) (40-31) (30-21) (20-11)

60. Sunn 0))) - Monoliths and Dimensions


The notion of weight defines most drone metal, the music aims for the heft of the earth's sold core crushing down on you, feeling the pull of far heightened gravity strain on every gram of your skin. Sunn 0))) with these four long songs do much more than that. In fact they do something so incredibly different from anything I've previously experienced that metaphors fail me all together. I can't explain how this album makes a person feel. But its amazing. Or, well, it's also painful. And sometimes extremely frustrating. In fact, it's painful as fuck. And it's uplifting. And in the weight you feel rising. And it's expertly crafted, finely tuned, not a usual tenant of the genre. And it's painful. And its SO damn brilliant. -Stuart

59. Mastodon – Crack the Skye


The thing about this record is that it's a lot of fun. In fact, it's much more fun than a metal album in 2009 had any right to be, and it's fun for all the right reasons. This album can't be listened to sitting down, it's choruses beg to be shouted along to, it's guitar solos are impossible to hear without ripping out your own invisible axe in response. This is a metal album for everyone, without losing it's seriousness or becoming that obnoxiously popular eye-winking self conscious. This is no small feat. -Stuart

58. Clutch- Blast Tyrant


You’d think a band making Southern-fried boogie in this day and age would sound like a tired anachronism, but Clutch has been hard at work perfecting their singular brand of whip-smart, funky modern blues for close to two decades now, and with all fifteen tracks of Blast Tyrant they completely solidified their claim as Tightest Rock Band in The Known Universe. A tongue-in-cheek concept album about demons, the evils of war and Bush or some goddamn thing sounds hokey on paper but all doubts are removed when Neil Fallon (he of the Denomination of Most Righteous Beards) awakens his mighty Howlin’ Wolf pipes over some of the most sublime grooves, churchy organ and ass-busting guitar riffs ever put on record. All meat, no filler. -Stephen

57. White Rabbits – Fort Nightly


Occupying a space between post-punk revival, Latin swing/jazz and hints of classical, Fort Nightly would've wound up a cumbersome, muddled work under many other artists. Fortunately, White Rabbits instill a dark atmosphere that, combined with the brass and eerie guitar riffs, make the album the perfect soundtrack to a pulp murder mystery. Jangling with indie-rock accessibility on certain tracks and brooding with murderous paranoia on others, the album is at its best when these two moods crash into each other on tracks like "Kid on my Shoulders" and "While We Go Dancing". Nothing quite like Fort Nightly was released in the '00s-nothing quite so classy, nothing quite so catchy, nothing quite so dangerous, and certainly nothing that fit into all those categories quite so remarkably. -CJ

56. Madvillian- Madvillainy


MF Doom is the best stoned rapper since Redman, and Madlib is easily the mightiest crate digger since the late J Dilla. This collaboration had to happen, and the result is straight banger from beginning to end. Most of these tracks wisely consist of one or two smoked butter Doom flows coasting effortlessly over slack, crackly loops, eccentric comic-book sampling and rubber-band bass cutting from track to track before it has any chance of getting old. Doom brings lyrics too, punctuating his usual food and weed rhymes with an unexpected (and strangely not unwelcome) dose of politics (“Strange Ways”) and a schizophrenic dis track featuring his alter ego Viktor Vaughn (“Fancy Clown”). Add some cameos from Lib’s own alter ego Lord Quas and Yesterday’s New Quintet and you have some of the finest sounds hip-hop had to offer in the ‘00s. -Stephen

55. The Shins – Oh, Inverted World


What separates this album from the mass of mid-decade indie-pop? The songs. For me, the songs have a sense of immediacy that just strikes a really fat chord deep down. James Mercer is a songwriting extraordinaire with seemingly simple compositions, but uses such a distinct lyrical and melodic style backed by the signature Shins sound that it becomes impossible to through in with all the rest of the twee drudge. Reverberant and distant and sweet and sad on top, but truly heart-felt and intricate if you choose to plunge the depth, this album truly can, as they say, "Change your life". -Adrian

54. Boris- Pink


Listening to this album its hard to see the rifts between the genres of hard rock music, difficult to understand how the punks could hate the metal heads, how grunge is separate from shoegaze, how hair bands can't get along with the experimental noise set. Because on this coming-out record from the notoriously difficult Japanese trio, they stuck the whole lot in a blender. These songs are glowing and riffy and smooth and hard and catchy and harsh. They are easy and difficult. They are seventy's punk and eighty's indie, and ninety's dream pop, and millennial metal. They are cerebral and instinctual. They hit like a big rig on rocket fuel. -Stuart

53. The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?


The Unicorns is one of the quintessential indie bands that sprouted from that prominent Canadian indie scene in its heyday. This enormously important band helped spawn the legions of terrible synth-quirky melodic indie bands with awkward vocals. How could so many bands take something so accessible and make it so wretched? In order to successfully utilize synths, quirkiness, awkward vocals, and accessible melodies, you probably have to be The Unicorns. First of all, they don’t use conventional songwriting in general. They are weird. They are indie pop that isn’t experimental but still manages to be really weird. The vocals are weird, in the sense that they’re loosely delivered and almost sound half improvised, although they maintain the solidity of the melodies enough to remain memorable. This album is well constructed and did I mention the melodies? The melodies. THE MELODIES. It only helps that the lyrics manage to understandably morbid. -Adrian

52. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away


I find myself constantly out of breath reaching to explain to people why the Shin's last album is their best. It's not as distinct in sound and tone as Oh, Inverted World they say, not as catchy and upfront as Chutes Too Narrow. No! I say desperate. This is the album. This is the album the Shins were always trying to make. Inaccessible, no matter how catchy it may seem, these songs are coded, they will not let you in. But once you fight through you will find the perfect album for staying up all night. The perfect album for things you can't explain. These songs are uplifting without offering easy redemption. These songs are all questions. And to me that's the most beautiful. -Stuart

51. Justice – †


I had trouble writing this. When I listen to Justice, I think of all sorts of hipsters and fashion kids attending some sort of debauched social event and doing dumb ass shit (i.e taking pictures of themselves with 40's or making out with one another in front of everyone else). Why would I love Justice for evoking this seemingly terrible imagery in my head again? When it comes down to it, Justice really knows how to make people dance, and forget their moral qualms with staying decent or well-mannered. The distinction between Justice and every other dance band is the fact that they utilize the 80's slap bass, disco synths, chain-compressed kick sounds that really KICK, and signature sense of melody that can't be mistaken (and I shouldn't forget to mention that Gaspard and Xavier themselves are commendably badass douchebags). They've definitely achieved their reputation in the dance world. This shit is so compressed, so dense, and so distorted. And It feels like rock and roll. -Adrian

Six (Six Six) For All Hallow's Eve

Today I'm going to divert from my usual MO and post something more befitting the holiday season. Hope the people awaiting the next entry of A Token of My Extreme with bated breath don't mind (all three of you).

Yeah, I know--"holiday music" is a profoundly embarassing cliche, more fit for fat housewives who dutifully trot out dreadfully obnoxious Chipmunks albums every Christmas. And Halloween has honestly never been my favorite holiday. What should be awesome in concept--i.e. dressing up like your ghoul of choice and fleecing a metric shitton of holy candy off your neighbors--only stays that way for about ten to fifteen precious, naive years; after which it gets soiled by the knowledge of how fat that sugary shit makes you or the total fucking embarassment of being a grown human dressing up to compete with retarded teenagers and chaperoned little brats and their fortysomething parents whose "inner child" desperately needs to be beaten and locked in a closet for all eternity. And don't even get me started on candy corn.

So nowadays I spend that night blasting awesome, creepy and cool music at volumes fit for low-flying 747's, marathoning old horror flicks and reveling in the haunted, sepulchral trappings of late fall. While hoping my car doesn't get egged.

Just as horror fiction has splintered into a hydra of genres, each with its own unique stylistic trappings (slasher, cheesy B-movie, psychological, survival, zombie, Lovecraft, etc. etc.), there's a lot of horror-themed music out there covering a similarly broad spectrum, from cheesy sci-fi to gory to occult to the terror of the unknown. And that's where this entry comes in. Here be (no particular order) my six favorite records to spin every 10/31....


The Cramps- Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits (IRS Records, 1981)

The now and forever reigning kings of psychobilly, batshit insane vocalist Lux Interior (RIP), guitar-playing seductress Poison Ivy and their freakish cohorts in tow released many damn fine records--but none greater than this double feature. A covers-heavy brew of B-horror pulp and exploitation themes mashed in a bloody blender with shindiggy surf rock and gutter-bound early punk, Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits offers sublime cuts like "Goo Goo Muck," "Don't Eat Stuff off The Sidewalk," "The Crusher," "Voodoo Idol" and best of all "Human Fly." Only Lux could sell a line like "I've got 96 tears and 96 eyes" with such crazed conviction.


Misfits- Walk Among Us (Ruby/Slash, March 1982)

Long after Glenn Danzig became a total cliche and people have torn those Exploited and Minor Threat patches off their messenger bags, The Misfits are still being listened to. Why? Because they're fucking fun, that's why, as mini-masterpieces like "I Turned Into A Martian" and "Skulls" attest. Lyrics about grotesque transformations, occult imagery and zombie splatterfest anchored to an effortless punk/speed metal pogo, lots of "WHOA-OH-OH's," and Danzig's Elvis-on-crack vocals, this is a 24-minute shot of audio caffeine that only sounds better while tearing around the house in a plastic skull mask.


John Zorn- IAO (Tzadik, 2002)

With song titles like "Sacred Rites of The Left Hand Path" and "Lucifer Rising" and a commitment to the concepts of Aleister Crowley and Kabbalah you might be expecting self-serious cheese, but a look at the roster of super-talented avante-garde personnel (Bill Laswell, Jennifer Charles, Mike Patton) should raise an eyebrow. And so will this album--an elaborate suite of seductive and eerie chants, shamanic percussion, blasting metal, and stretches of creepy ambience, IAO expertly establishes its slow-burn occult aura with the kind of attention to craft that Zorn has made his trademark.


Death- Scream Bloody Gore (Combat/Relativity, 1987)

Not all big stupid gore metal albums are created equal--witness the two decade long surplus of dipshit material from the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Exhumed, just to name two. And Chuck Schuldiner (RIP) himself would go on to make far better music than Death's debut album. But this musical homage to zombie lord George Romero easily surpasses all its imitators--raw, brutal, offensive and impossibly fast without sounding too calculated or overly technical. Lowbrow? Sure, but Scream Bloody Gore's daring and gross-out charm is undeniable. Sorta like watching early Peter Jackson flicks.


Skinny Puppy- Too Dark Park (Nettwork, 1990)

At the height of their ability on this record, Skuppy understood that horror was not just from the realms of fiction, but right outside a slum tenement window or inside the walls of corporate laboratories. A mind-ravaging attack from beginning to end, Too Dark Park is fucking scary on several levels, with samples that hit like bad acid trips and beats that eviscerate spines all set to Nivek Ogre's utterly demented, distorted vox chronicling the worst of humanity's excesses. Opener "Convulsion" is so fragmented and insane that it will forever alter your perception of what music is, the sonic equivalent of Lynch's Eraserhead, and it doesn't get much tamer from there.


Screamin' Jay Hawkins- Voodoo Jive: The Best of.. (Rhino/WEA, 1990)

All modern "shock" rockers: Bow before your god. Though his career was launched by the hit single "I Put A Spell on You" back in the staid, crooner-loving '50s and coasted to commercial obscurity soon after, Screamin' Jay (RIP... we think) is still some next level shit in all his voodoo-hoodoo, coffin-bursting, cape-wearing, shrunken head-sporting glory. Rocking out even in his sixties, Jay brought us seriously bizarre and twisted blues/rockabilly tracks "Alligator Wine," "Frenzy," "Feast of The Mau-Mau" and "Little Demon," along with a bunch of slightly saner tunes all decked out in Jay's howling mad, titanic opera singer pipes and hilarious outbursts of gibberish. Unbound by trends and unaffected by modern attempts from today's pathetic roster of PMRC-baiting clowns, there will never be another performer like him.

-SJ

Styrofoam Boots' Decade List 2000-2009, Part 4

(100-91) (90-81) (80-71) 70-61 (60-51) (50-41) (40-31) (30-21) (20-11)


70. Khanate- Things Viral

It's a rare circumstance when wild hyperbole is even remotely sufficient to really capture an album's sound or its effect on a listener, and I don't want to cheapen the, uh, "experience" of Things Viral too much by indulging in a full paragraph of it. But I will say this: If Cthulu picked up a electric guitar and started playing, the Great Old One would sound EXACTLY like Khanate. 'Nuff fucking said. -Stephen


69. Beck - Modern Guilt

Paranoia is the theme of Beck's latest triumph. Crafted at a point in time when he found himself quietly slipping out of relevance, in fact most people mildly assumed he had already fallen, this album was largely ignored. And yet in its walking down the street smoothly in sunglasses while chain-smoking but scared out of your mind aesthetic, he captured something perfect. Something vital. Certainly calmer than he's ever been, he sounds phased and removed as he sings unbalanced catchy tunes about conspiracy theories and radiation poisoning. About empty souls and empty prayers. About what are you going to do when these walls come falling down backed by the smooth pearl colored synths and paper crinkling beats supplied by Danger Mouse. And almost no one cared. -Stuart

68. Bang on a Can and Steven Reich – New York Counterpoint, Eight Lines, Four Organs

I’m a humongous neophyte to the genre of contemporary classical, so it’s completely possible that a better album in the genre came out this decade and I simply didn’t hear it. That said: I heard this one, and this one is pure, minimalist beauty. Flutes, violins and pianos pulse in and out, upward and down like waves against a beach, leaving the sounds to construct themselves in your ears, not unlike Brian Eno’s ambient work from the ‘80s. The difference, however, is scale-this music grows from the tiniest seed into gargantuan oak trees, then recede back into the soil and grow again, creating the sensation that the music is very much alive. All the pieces form one greater whole in an effort that is not entirely unlike magic. -CJ

67. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

The Sunset Tree is a cheesy hollywood movie. The Sunset Tree is about a child being beaten. You know the scene, lying on his floor, ear pressed to the left speaker of a boombox. You hear the car pull up outside and he doesn't. Door slams open, loud thunk, slow motion, mother screams in kitchen, feet walking down the hallway, string quartet playing battle music, turns the corner and we finally see his face - and so does the kid, who is grabbed by the collar and pulled out of frame. Kid getting wasted on video games and equally fucked up girlfriend - and scotch - and driving home in the California morning, dazed, daydreaming of the year he graduates and gets to leave home as if it were his entrance into heaven, gleeful, drunk, and doomed. The yelling and the screaming and the bitterness, death, and sorrow, the cheesy ending that you still can't help but cry at. This album is the opposite of aloof. This album shy's away from nothing. This album will fuck you up. -Stuart


66. Rage Against the Machine – Renegades

Rage Against the Machine has always been a confederacy of influences, and on Renegades they pay proud tribute to those anthems of anger that would birth some of their greatest songs. From Ian Mackaye to Afrika Bambaataa to Bruce Springsteen, all with a message are welcome, and all listeners who would hear their gospel are treated such as kings. The rhythm section is the best it’s ever been, with Tim Commerford playing some of his most vicious, thundering basslines and Brad Wilk beating the drums like an adulterant lover. Rocha sounds as committed to the cause as ever, one-upping Mackaye himself on a throat ripping rendition of “In My Eyes” and delivering Cyprus Hill’s “How I Could Just Kill a Man” with a swaggering, almost cruelly indifferent bravado. Throw in radio anthem “Renegades of Funk” and reimaginings of folk classics “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “Maggie’s Farm” that have to be heard to be believed, and you have a record that proves that even if they weren’t performing their own material, Rage had no shortage of ideas. -CJ


65. Flogging Molly – Drunken Lullabies

Despite how much “real” Celtic music aficionados may rage against the idea, here’s the scoop: Flogging Molly is probably the most logical extension of the Pogues to have existed, and Drunken Lullabies is a crowning combination of all the things they do best. The title track is without question one of the best anthems of the last decade(if not one of the best anthems, period) and a blizzard of exciting punk songs like “What’s Left of the Flag”, “The Kilburn High Road”, “Rebels of the Sacred Heart” and “Swagger” keep the momentum going from the first song onward. Add in some willowy, nostalgic ballads like “Death Valley Queen”, “The Sun Never Shines(On Closed Doors)” and the absolutely heart wrenching “If I Ever Leave This World Alive”, and you have an album that represents folk-punk at its very finest(even if you do die a little inside every time you’re forced to put a prefix in front of the word “punk”). -CJ


64. John Wiese - Soft Punk

This is probably the point where noise music shows us what it's worth. Where it transcends the little box it's immense freedom has shoved it into. Glitchy, sharp, intelligent, this thing plays you, it pushes you around. This album has complete control. Still more violent than the harshest death metal, more painful than the full force of a sonic boom on your ear drums. Still far far too violent - and experimental and abstract - for me to play for anyone ever. It proves not all noise music sounds the same. It proves everything for noise. It is a wonder of emotion and composition and straight up badassery. -Stuart

63. Meshuggah- Catch 33

Writing in long form is not new to Meshuggah—they had dropped the EP-length track “I” before this, and guitarist Fredrik Thordendal’s solo album was also one 40-minute song. Outside of that however, Catch 33 is easily the most ambitious thing these nutty Swedes have ever done, a discordant and circular maze of utterly baffling odd meters and jagged, unforgivingly austere eight-string riffing. Despite Jens Kidman roaring existentialist concepts over the mechanistic din, they’ve taken cyborg metal to its ultimate conclusion here, even replacing octopus-like skinsman Tomas Haake with a drum machine (don’t worry, he’s duplicated this album live). And even with a slightly tamer follow-up in the form of the more song-oriented ObZen, the rest of the metal world still struggles to keep up. -Stephen


62. Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain

Any experimental music that's worth a damn has a reason to be experimental. A young musician looks at pop music and says shit I could make this twice as sad if I got rid of the convention. If I broke it down. Or, hell I could create something angrier than has ever been done if I made something that made less sense. Or, well, your music is fine and all and makes people get out of their heads a little bit but if I just repeat this piano line over ad infinium I can work them into a full on trance. That being said, I don't know of anyone previous to Lightning Bolt who said, wait a minute, if we break down convention we can make something way more fun than this. And so fuck songs, and fuck thought, and fuck anything, and shut up and let this blow you away. Let the power roll. Let the fun begin. -Stuart


61. M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts

The first time I listened to M83 I had stumbled upon a park I hadn't known was there previously. In a bit of awe at this flowering oasis in the middle of the city, I staggered to the ground, looked up at the trees and heared from my headphones the robotic chant of "Sun is shining. Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. Clouds are looming, and I am flying." repeated, cleanly and then harshly distorting, fading into an explosion of soaring synths. And the weird thing is, even though at the time the concept of a fully electronic album seemed cold and soulless and wrong to me, it didn't feel out of place. It felt as natural as the trees that I had unexpectedly fallen into. It felt calm and serene, or warm and chaotic, each part moving separately from each other in harmony, like I always wanted classical to sound like, but never quite did. Awash in natural air and digital beauty. -Stuart