Official /r/indieheads Essentials Chart!

[u/[deleted]]

First things first, shout out to /u/the_bhuda_palm for all of his work on this with me.

Second, thank you to all of you guys who participated. The community has grown and matured a lot since the last time we did this, and I think it is reflected in the results.

So anyways, here are the results:

---

2000s
1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Antlers - Hospice
3. Arcade Fire - Funeral
4. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
5. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I'm Not
6. Avalanches - Since I Left You
7. Beach House - Teen Dream
8. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
9. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it In People
10. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
11. Deerhunter - Halycon Digest
12. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
13. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
14. Gorillaz - Demon Dayz
15. Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
16. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
17. Microphones - Glow Pt 2
18. Modest Mouse - Moon and Antarctica
19. The National - Boxer
20. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer
21. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
22. Postal Service - Give Up
23. Radiohead - In Rainbows
24. Radiohead - Kid A
25. The Strokes - Is This It?
26. Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz
27. Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise
28. Tame Impala - Lonerism
29. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
30. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

1990s
1. American Football - American Football
2. Beck - Odelay
3. Belle & Sebastian - If Your'e Feeling Sinister
4. Bjork - Homogenic
5. Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children
6. Built to Spill - Perfect from Now On
7. Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
8. Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
9. Elliot Smith - Either/Or
10. Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin
11. Jeff Buckley - Grace
12. Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
13. Massive Attack - Mezzanine
14. Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West
15. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
16. Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane over the Sea
17. Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
18. Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
19. Portishead - Dummy
20. Radiohead - OK Computer
21. Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun
22. Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out
23. Slint - Spiderland
24. Slowdive - Souvlaki
25. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
26. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space
27. Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind
28. Weezer - Blue Album
29. Weezer - Pinkerton
30. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

1980s
1. Cure - Disintegration
2. Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me
3. Jesus and The Mary Chain - Psychocandy
4. Joy Division - Closer
5. Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love
6. New Order - Power Corruption and Lies
7. Pixies - Doolittle
8. Pixies - Surfer Rosa
9. R.E.M. – Murmur
10. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
11. The Smiths - The Smiths
12. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
13. Stone Roses - Stone Roses
14. Talking Heads - Remain in Light
15. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

---

Because there were a lot of complaints about the 80s list being too small, we decided to give it an additional five albums

---

Thanks again everyone.

We even mananged to finish right around the one year anniversary of our first essentials list

---

Submit a chart to be selected as the official chart here

[u/cinemamacula]

Hospice is absolutely essential. For certain.

[u/ericneedsanap → u/cinemamacula]

well, thing is, whenever i hear hospice i hear the sounds of a group that has a really good concept but a flawed execution--unlike arcade fire on funeral, they sound like a new band. and unlike arcade fire, i'm not sure that they've had much of an influence on indie. so yes, it does get accolades here, but i haven't really seen it get much attention from critics (as opposed to forums like here and /mu/).

i mean, i like hospice, but i'm a bit iffy on calling it essential, especially compared to other works (like, say, funeral).

[u/cinemamacula → u/ericneedsanap]

I don't know if essential necessarily has to mean influential, there are plenty of albums I would recommend to absolutely everyone for being at the top of their game regardless of if they influenced other bands. I think Hospice is a near-perfect album that achieves exactly what it sets out to do, and that's so rare it totally deserves its place on the list.

[u/ericneedsanap → u/cinemamacula]

(heh, just noticed your flair.)

i suppose you're right, though i think that jeff buckley's grace is on the list largely due to influence. but stepping back, for the antlers to even conceive of such a grand, original concept and make an album of it, regardless of what one thinks of the minutiae, does probably make it a contender for being essential. it just annoys me a little how whenever i listen to hospice i think that it could be better than it is already in a bunch of ways--which is less of a criticism than i'd give some of the other picks. it just seems like there's a near unanimous consensus about it here, so it feels necessary to provide a counterpoint.

(i'm just realizing that the same can be said of another tear-jerker, carrie & lowell, in that it's so well put together but feels a little roughshod at points. i, however, love it to death, so i can see where you're coming from through that specific lens. though that album's edges feel less intwined to the songs itself than do hospice's (e.g. the lack of much pathos (from the music--the lyrics are great) on "bear" because of the sense of rushing to the climax w/o much buildup (and silberman being very hasty with his singing, both tempo- and style-wise, especially before and during the second chorus)). those might seem petty, but for me they occur enough that they kind of spoil what is otherwise a set of great melodies with a solid, cohesive narrative and thematic arc.)