The 100 Greatest EPs of All Time

The extended play album is an art form not many artists have ever truly mastered. Long considered a “non-committal” medium, EPs rarely run more than 30 minutes and are meant to offer listeners a taste of their favorite artists instead of some grand, full-bodied experience. But musicians could only abide by those restrictions for so long, and that’s why we’ve heard concept EPs, live recordings and all-consuming, bite-sized masterpieces over the last 50 years or so. Across the globe, K-pop artists have made the EP their secret weapon, preferring it over LPs and rebranding them as “mini albums.” As each year passes, the EP becomes just as crucial to the fabric of contemporary music as the LP long has been.

Earlier this year, Paste dropped its first-ever greatest albums of all time list. We thought it would be fun to, as a sequel, consider what the greatest EPs of all time are. After polling the music section’s staff and freelance team, we’ve engineered a ranking of 100 albums that is as diverse as it is dense. And we’re mighty proud of what we’ve come up with, highlighting the best thrash metal, rap, K-pop, post-punk, alt-rock and singer-songwriter gems we could find, some new to us and some old to you.

As always, thank you for reading this behemoth of a list. I apologize in advance if the sheer power of all these brilliant records placed in some arbitrary order crashes the webpage on your phone or laptop. Good rock ‘n’ roll tends to do that. Without further ado, here are Paste‘s picks for the 100 greatest EPs of all time. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor

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100. Maggie Rogers: Now That the Light is Fading (2017)

Before she was something of an NYC it-girl and indie-pop staple, Maggie Rogers was an NYU student who became an internet phenomenon thanks to the song she presented to Pharrell Williams in a masterclass that was recorded and posted to YouTube. That song was “Alaska,” and its success lit the path for Rogers to release her debut label project in 2017, the Now That the Light is Fading EP. She’s released three studio albums and an archive collection since then, but none quite hold a candle to that first EP. It’s uninhibited in a way that only debut releases can be. Rogers’s production techniques shine, and her savvy songwriting instincts speak for themselves (particularly on “Dog Years,” one of the most brilliant songs about friendship ever written). It contains every beautiful thing about Rogers’s music: pop-song formulas delivered with folk-song know-how, buoyant production, and sparkling spiels about life and nature, heartbreak and healing. And unlike a lot of one-off hits from 2017, “Alaska” still sounds timeless. —Ellen Johnson

99. Death Cab for Cutie: The Forbidden Love (2000)

Released in-between We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes and The Photo Album, The Forbidden Love EP is Death Cab for Cutie before they broke big. It’s a well-intentioned, well-executed 19 minutes of indie rock, as the band took an acoustic version of “405” and a remix of “Company Calls Epilogue” and paired them with three new tunes (“Photobooth,” “Technicolor Girls,” “Song for Kelly Huckaby”). It’s everything you could want from Benjamin Gibbard and his bandmates: hooks for days, an eye for detail and sugary, Casio beat-laden rock cuts that stretch the margins of pop music. Gibbard has always had a sweetness about him that charms his music into the pantheon of success, and The Forbidden Love underscores exactly why. —Matt Mitchell

98. Tori Amos: Crucify (1992)

The final track promoted from Tori Amos’s scorching 1992 solo debut, Little Earthquakes, “Crucify,” challenges the hypocrisy and martyrdom she found in Catholicism by way of a confessional, piano-driven alt-rock anthem. Also known for her striking B-sides, its accompanying EP included a haunting cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which has arguably become the most famous cover of Amos’s career. On the now-defunct Hole fan forums Moonwashed Rose, Courtney Love shared that she and Kurt Cobain once found Tori’s rendition of the song “hysterical,” but that she now found it “mournful.” As influential as it is controversial, Crucify is a necessary pillar of high-femme ‘90s alternative. —Josh Korngut

97. Motörhead: The Golden Years (1980)

I am usually hesitant to include live recordings in a list like this, but it’s just impossible to resist Motӧrhead’s 1980 EP of four tracks recorded during their European tour, a slate of gigs that would also result in their No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith LP a year later. This is just an explicitly dank 15 minutes, spearheaded by “Too Late, Too Late,” which originally appeared as a B-side for the band’s “Overkill” single in 1979. As ever, Lemmy Kilmister sounds like a man who is positively drenched in flames, stoking the fires of “Fast” Eddie Clarke’s guitar playing with his gravelly howl. “Philthy Animal” Taylor’s drumming, too, sounds like he’s pounding his way through a steel door, and tracks like “Stone Dead Forever” and “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” both of which originally appeared on the band’s Bomber LP, positively squeal. But their cover of “Leaving Here,” a Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown tune made famous by Eddie Holland, is a real ripper. —Matt Mitchell

96. Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders: Counterfeits (2009)

If you wondered what it would sound like if the Rat Pack downed some codeine, you might get something that is sort of close to the music of Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders. Born in Australia and serving as an elder peer to voices like Alex Cameron and Kirin J Callinan, Ladder first released recorded music with the Dreamlanders in 2011—but their 2009 EP, Counterfeits is the gem of Ladder’s catalog. The release is made up of live reworkings of songs from Ladder’s Love is Gone, and it certifies the dawn of the Dreamlanders’ brilliance. “Case Closed” is one of my very favorite tunes ever, while “I Love Your Mind” and “Counterfeit Bible” showcase Ladder’s unmistakable baritone. “You Won’t Be Forgotten” is the ramshackle, muscular, beating-heart climax of the record, as Ladder sounds like a lounge singer stuck in the belly of a deep sea monster. If this is the kind of music that flirts with the gallows, then death doesn’t look so bleak in the company of the Dreamlanders. —Matt Mitchell

95. Twice: Feel Special (2019)

The eighth EP from Seoul girl group Twice, Feel Special is considered a mini-album—and it features all nine members as songwriters. There’s a great ambition at play all across the album, as it features a mix of EDM, synth-pop and drill. With a huge focus placed on each member’s specific vocal abilities, there’s a catchiness throughout that cannot be ignored—nor should it ever be. Featuring production from folks like Hayley Aitken (Red Velvet and Girls Generation) and Ryan S. Jhun (Shinee and IVE), Feel Special is an entrancing release—one that also sold over 500,000 copies. —Cielo Perez

94. The Pogues: Poguetry in Motion (1986)

Out just two years before my favorite Pogues album, If I Should Fall from Grace with God, Shane MacGowan and his beacon of light backing band made something rapturous, elegant and charming on Poguetry in Motion, a four-song EP bolstered by the eternal gentleness of “A Rainy Night in Soho.” Elvis Costello produced the project during the same sessions “Fairytale of New York” came to life, and the music makes references to Noel Hill and “Body of an American” was featured often in The Wire. MacGowan, drunk as a skunk, performed the track with the band on the St. Patrick’s Day episode of SNL in 1990, too. Even “London Girl” is a bang-on delight; MacGowan singing “this could be our final dance” still rings beautifully all these years later. —Matt Mitchell

93. Silver Jews: Tennessee (2001)

The Tennessee title track is meta and familiar, as David Berman riffs on his and Cassie’s move to Nashville, talking about living in “Nashville and I’ll make a career out of writing sad songs and gettin’ paid by the tear.” A love song, “Tennessee” is not without Berman’s commonplace phrasings: “Punk rock died when the first kid said ‘Punk’s not dead,’” he tackles on verse three; “We’re off to the land of club soda unbridled, we’re off to the land of hot middle-aged women; off to the land whose blood runneth orange” goes the fourth verse. All Vols references and age preferences aside, Tennessee’s namesake is some of Berman’s prettiest work. The EP was meant to serve as a compliment to Silver Jews’ Bright Flight rather than exist as an afterthought or some B-sides. The other three songs don’t act so saloon-door and dreamy, but there’s something to be said about their chameleonic skins. “Long Long Gone,” which rips and roars as if Stephen Malkmus is manning the guitar-playing (he’s not), is as grungy as Berman has ever been. He sings about cars running on teardrops, changing the pattern of the stars, his mother slowly losing her looks and a father who’s come back from the dead. “Some of us are broke and having problems,” he admits after asking the Lord to return from the mountain, backed by Cassie’s wail. Berman sings about hitting a superfecta bet, which is one of the least successful wagers in horse betting, to get out of debt. He knows he’s a bit unlucky (“We are not one with everything”), but there’s still something in this life worth gambling for (“Even though we were poor, the sun still shined on our door”). —Matt Mitchell

92. underscores: boneyard aka fearmonger (2021)

As opposed to releasing a deluxe album for her breakout debut record, fishmonger, April Harper Grey (known professionally as underscores) went ahead and made a separate seven-track EP that rivals the quality and promise shown by its predecessor. boneyard is full of disillusioned proclamations from Grey: “Everybody’s dead and it’s all my fault,” “There’s nothing we can do,” “It’s the great American nightmare.” The EP perfectly balances moments of bombast with those of subtlety, displaying Grey’s exceptional sonic spatial awareness. boneyard constantly oozes with personality, as her lyrics about boy problems and the growing pains of young adulthood are delivered with effortless, conversational charm. It’s no question underscores is a hyperpop pioneer, and her legacy has only continued to grow. —Leah Weinstein

91. Jeff Buckley: Live at Sin-é (1993)

Finally stepping out of the background as a studio musician in 1993, Jeff Buckley’s first release was an intimate recording of him performing live with just his Fender Telecaster at the Sin-é coffeehouse in New York City. It’s precisely the kind of soulful performance you would expect to hear at a hole-in-the-wall spot in the heart of the East Village. Featuring performances of “Mojo Pin” and “Eternal Life,” which would appear on his 1994 masterpiece Grace, the EP showcases the raw emotion Buckley could tap into in a flash. It was a performance that drove Columbia Records to give him the freedom to create Grace out of his own image. The subtle power of his voice draws you into his jazzy rendition of Van Morrison’s “The Way Young Lovers Do” and the sweet croons of his cover of “Je n’en connais pas la fin.” Aside from Grace, Live at Sin-é is the most authentic and soulful record under Buckley’s name, and it remains a vulnerable look into the essence of one of the ‘90s most beloved artists. —Olivia Abercrombie

90. Knocked Loose: A Tear in the Fabric of Life (2021)

Shoutout to Phil Spector and death metal, as Kentucky metalcore heroes Knocked Loose set my world on fire in 2021 with their A Tear in the Fabric of Life EP—a collection of tracks that have no business being as heavy as they are. “God Knows” is demonic and purposefully dense, sounding like intensity regurgitated into an uncompromising, unflinching anger not even Knocked Loose have always conjured in their work. It sounds like Bryan Garris lacerates his vocal chords with every note, only to up the ante on “Forced to Stay” and “Contorted in the Faille.” If the band’s new album, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, is a seal of approval on their metalcore greatness, then A Tear in the Fabric of Life was the moment the ink got wet in the first place. —Matt Mitchell

89. Minutemen: Paranoid Time (1980)

It’s long been debunked that hardcore trailblazers the Minutemen adopted their moniker due to the brevity of their earliest songs, and yet that famed “jam econo” mentality is what we first notice on Paranoid Time. The band’s debut EP—and the second ever release on Black Flag’s SST Records—finds the burgeoning combo of D. Boon, Mike Watt, and George Hurley practicing a kitchen sink minimalism full of starts and stops and a barrage of styles that somehow never feels disjointed or like a mere race to the finish. It’s a refreshingly raw, if not fully articulated yet, document of the band discovering the elements that would yield their masterpiece, Double Nickels on the Dime, a few short years later. —Matt Melis

88. Hüsker Dü: Metal Circus (1983)

All of the EPs on this list are killer recordings in their own right, but some, like Hüsker Dü’s Metal Circus, will forever be known for the landmarks they led to. By 1983, Bob Mould, Grant Hart and Greg Norton had already mastered setting landspeed records as a hardcore punk trio, but Metal Circus found them mining for melodies, honing their songcraft and beginning to expand their sound beyond the boundaries of that genre’s limitations. It all melts together here into the melodic onslaught of an alloy that the band would forge into the groundbreaking Zen Arcade a mere year later. —Matt Melis

87. LSD and the Search For God: LSD and the Search For God (2007)

LSD and the Search For God have been a band for almost 20 years and are still technically together, despite only having two EPs to their name. Their self-titled release in 2007, sold out quickly and didn’t get a vinyl reissue until a year later. Andy Liszt, Sophia Campbell and Chris Fifield did something magical on these five songs, though, ushering shoegaze through so many psychedelic reckonings that the result is a woozy, unbelievable metric of alt-rock. Liszt and Fifield puncture the stratosphere on “Starting Over,” cushioning Campbell’s vocals with punching, distorted guitars. On “I Don’t Care,” the six-strings scream with primordial ooze, blistering through up-tempo hysteria while Campbell harmonizes with Liszt like Halstead and Goswell had 15 years earlier. LSD and the Search For God is a wondrous 22 minutes of escape. —Matt Mitchell

86. Yo La Tengo: Tom Courtenay (1995)

Admittedly, I had never looked up who Tom Courtenay was until writing this blurb, but it makes sense for the reference-loving Yo La Tengo to name-drop the English Doctor Zhivago actor—though the lyrics never actually mention him by name and instead mention his co-star, Julie Christie. Squeezed in between Painful and Electr-O-Pura in Yo La Tengo’s catalog, the Tom Courtenay EP helped solidify the big jump the band took in the early ’90s, as they moved from their folkier ’80s records into the spacious, anything-goes band they became. With the shrieking electrics of “My Heart’s Reflection (Take 3),” the spacious chants of “Treading Water” and the more traditional punk noise of Dead C cover “Bad Politics,” Yo La Tengo found their footing just in time. —Olivia Abercrombie

85. Courtney Barnett and the Courtney Barnetts: How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose (2013)

Though it was eventually released alongside I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris as a double EP compilation called A Sea of Split Peas, How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose was the first thing Courtney Barnett ever released as a solo artist—and it’s mighty terrific. If you mashed “Shady Lane” and “Desolation Row” together, you’d come out with something that sounds a lot like “Avant Gardener,” and “History Eraser” is the only example I ever use when trying to describe what “anti-folk” music is. Barnett rushed onto the scene with a drawling, jangly persona that merged slacker rock with psychedelic walls of kiss-off guitar tones. With a backing band of Dave Mudie, Bones Sloane, Dan Luscombe, Alex Hamilton, Pete Convery and Bob Harrow, How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose is exactly the kind of multi-dimensional debut release you’d expect from an artist who still has never made a bad record. —Matt Mitchell

84. Nick Lowe: Bowi (1977)

A critical introduction to one of the greatest pop musicians of the last 50 years, Bowi marked the first EP from Nick Lowe, arriving a year before his debut LP, Jesus of Cool. The songs were meant to be a funny response to David Bowie’s Low, and the phrase “Pure Pop For Now People” is written on the bottom of the album’s front cover—a truth expelled across tracks like “Born a Woman” and “Marie Provost,” the latter of which, an ode to the late silent screen star of the same name, wound up on Jesus of Cool anyway. —Matt Mitchell

83. Chelsea Wolfe: Hypnos / Flame (2016)

There is something about Chelsea Wolfe’s voice that lingers in your mind long after a first listen. Her latest album She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is an enveloping, dramatic soundscape that acts as a house of horrors as much as a siren song of beauty, but Hypnos / Flame depends more on her enchanting voice in haunting minimalism. The witchy Wolfe explores gothic folk through echoey vocals on “Hypnos,” delicate acoustics on “Flame” and a harsher, rock-influenced texture on bonus track demos “Grey Days,” “Simple Death” and “Survive,” all done up in the same eerie and ghostly wardrobe that Wolfe has flaunted exquisitely. —Olivia Abercrombie

82. The Magnetic Fields: The House of Tomorrow (1996)

At just 12 minutes in length, the Magnetic Fields’ The House of Tomorrow is a short and sweet exercise in repetition, as Stephin Merritt wanted to make five tracks that focused on musical loops. Put out after The Wayward Bus, The House of Tomorrow leans into the exact kind of poppy alt bliss that the Magnetic Fields would cement as their calling card before redirecting into a synth-forward mode on a later record like Holiday. The way the songs shuffle through themselves and then repeat like a wash cycle make for an especially pleasant and fulfilling listen, and “Young and Insane” and “Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring” are among some of Merritt’s slickest performances ever. —Matt Mitchell

81. Low: Murderer (2003)

As much as Low resents the title, they are a pinnacle of slowcore and Murderer, in all its beautiful molasses, keeps that designation honest. The EP was released on vinyl only in 2003—a strange move in the CD era, but one that ups the intrigue nonetheless. I guess it makes sense to experiment a bit when you are close to a decade into your music career. As murky as their music tends to be, there are glimmers of light in the ominously titled release on “Your Place On Sunset,” a song that captures the subtle ache of a new beginning with its stretched-out riffs and somnambulist vocal delivery. Though the darkness is present on the title track, it’s sung with a hopeful lilt that has you questioning whether the “murderer” in question is right or wrong and on “Silver Rider,” that hope is displayed as Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker harmonize: “Nobody dreamed you’d save the world.” —Olivia Abercrombie

80. Boyracer: We Are Made of the Same Wood (1995)

The Embarrassment called their brand of anxious, uptight rock music “blister pop,” but that term better fits Boyracer, whose songs often sound on the verge of a full-on panic attack. Formed in Leeds in 1990, Boyracer tended to land on the heavier and noisier end of the indie-pop spectrum; their typical number is a breakneck blurt of sick riffs played with the land speed strumming of Unrest or the Wedding Present, hyperactive drumming, and ear-scraping peals of distortion. Despite almost Jesus and Mary Chain amounts of noise, everything’s always tuneful, and, more importantly, always awesome. They also regularly pepper in acoustic asides, dubby experiments, and 8-bit sounding electro instrumentals (before “chiptunes” was a concept), which add variety, depth, and texture. I fully vouch for like 90% of the 30 or so records they put out in the ‘90s (and a lot of the stuff they’ve done from the ‘00s into the ‘20s), but my personal favorite, and their creative highwater mark, remains the 1995 EP We Are Made of the Same Wood. Although solidly EP-length at 22 minutes, it squeezes in 12 songs (they do ‘em quick), which is good enough for me to be an LP. The best records are the ones that can be either an extended or long player, or else are box sets in and of themselves, so I am fine with these muddied waters. What matters, though, are the songs, which include a handful of Boyracer’s very best—the 50-second noise pop ripper “You’re Breaking His Heart,” the just-as-catchy-and-noisy-but-30-seconds-longer sprint “Post Modernist Retro Bullshit” (a song title clearly lifted from a bad review the band got somewhere along the way), the morose shamble of “Bring Me the Hair of Phil Oakey… this one’s got some hits. The best are on Side B, starting with the unforgettable “Vitamin B,” whose structure seems somewhat indebted to Guided by Voices’ “A Salty Salute.” It starts with an anthemic bassline and Velvets drumbeat, with sing-along vocals and guitars that are clearly building up to something, before a churning sea of in-the-red single-chord guitar distortion drops like an anchor, almost crushing the song underneath. We’re talking like Mogwai’s early singles levels of a tinnitus-causing volume jump here. From there the band blasts through the triumphant fist-pumper “Michael” before hitting the record’s peak, the meteor-fast chasmic yawp of “Your Dark Secrets,” which somehow moves at lightspeed despite sounding as deep and infinite as space itself. Shit, what a great record. —Garrett Martin

79. Billie Eilish: dont smile at me (2017)

Not long before she was the most-streamed artist in the world, Billie Eilish was an angsty 15-year-old girl making music in her bedroom with her older brother, Finneas. Her debut effort dont smile at me was her first step toward the overwhelming fame and acclaim Eilish now holds in spades, filled to the brim with teenage diatribes. Billie’s range as an artist is showcased gracefully throughout the EP’s 25 minutes, from the sassy, trap-inspired tracks “COPYCAT” and “my boy” to the lush balladry of “idon’twannabeyouanymore”—as well as runaway hit “ocean eyes,” or pop bangers “watch” and “bellyache.” Those that had the opportunity to see Billie perform in clubs and bars that she herself would’ve been too young to get into in 2017 were able to witness the future of pop music —they just didn’t know it yet. —Leah Weinstein

78. Destroyer: Five Spanish Songs (2013)

After putting out one of his best records, Kaputt, in 2011, Dan Bejar gave his Destroyer project a new makeover on Five Spanish Songs, an EP recorded entirely in Spanish. Bejar welcomed new musicians into the fold to help out, including Nicolas Bragg, Stephen Hamm, Josh Wells and John Collins and David Carswell, who both produced the release. “The English language seemed spent, despicable, not easily singable,” Bejar said. “It felt over for English; good for business transactions, but that’s about it.” He mulled over strange words and paired them with painted melodies, stepping outside of himself and his comfort zone to deliver a heritage-driven measure of excellence, performed distinctively across 20 bold minutes. —Matt Mitchell

77. Angel Olsen: Strange Cacti (2010)

When trying to describe what’s going on with Angel Olsen’s first-ever release, many have landed on the word haunting. While I can’t say that I disagree with the sentiment, I’m left with one question: Who is it that is being haunted—us, or Olsen herself? Listening to Strange Cacti feels like taking a step into a big, empty room with her, as you can hear her voice only echo from the high walls and vaulted ceilings, never from its source—as if a sheet has dropped between the two of you, like you’ve entered a confessional booth, and suddenly you’re playing priest as Olsen gives penance on the other side. Not that Strange Cacti is a confessional record, per se, but it certainly knows how to admit the self to reflection—as she sings on “If It’s Alive, It Will,” “I’ll hold the mirror, all you have to do is turn around.” At once burdened by the ghosts of its past and leaving an apparition in its wake, Olsen’s voice quakes in and out of her throat. Take “Some Things Cosmic,” still one of Olsen’s most beloved and popular tracks. The song ends on the thrice-repeated “I’m floating away,” and that’s exactly what her voice does. Olsen has a way of lingering on a note, prevaricating around it, and leaving it before she satisfies it. Such is the work of a ghost, a lingering tremolo that disappears before it can convince you that it was ever really there. —Madelyn Dawson

76. The Birthday Party: Munity (1983)

Before Nick Cave was a Bad Seed, he was a frontman for the Birthday Party, and their 1983 EP Mutiny is unbelievably thorny. The songs themselves impregnate the atmosphere with devastation, and Cave is our mangled, fucked-up shepherd. “Mutiny in Heaven” is a nasty affair, malignant in its own rottenness. “Oh Lord, I get down on my knees,” he howls. “Wrapped in my mongrel wings, I nearly freeze.” He sounds like a preacher caught in the vacuum of a shrapnel-laden factory, as his voice shudders through a lament: “If this is Heaven, I’m bailin’ out!” Mutiny is industrial, gnarly and from some other place entirely—or maybe it’s from right here, from where we eat, breathe, walk and sleep. If the latter is true, then God help us all. —Matt Mitchell

75. Nirvana: Hormoaning (1992)

Released exclusively in Japan and Australia during Nirvana’s run of shows there, Hormoaning featured four covers: DEVO’s “Turnaround,” the Vaselines’ “Molly’s Lips” and “Son of a Gun,” and the Wipers’ “D-7.” The two remaining tracks, “Even In His Youth” and “Aneurysm,” had already appeared as B-sides, but bookended by other people’s creations, their terrifying efficacy shone through. The collection offered a welcome deviation from the Seattle giants’ original studio records—counterfeit copies have cropped up in the years since, but legitimate CD and vinyl variations can still be found online for a pretty penny. —Emma Schoors

74. ANOHNI: Paradise (2017)

A furious and impatient companion to her celebrated 2016 record Hopelessness, ANOHNI’s Paradise EP stood defiant of Trump’s presidential victory and the slimy, hateful residue it was already leaving behind. Once again collaborating with post-pop innovators Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never, this sequel project was even stormier, angrier, and more experimental than its comparably accessible counterpart. “Jesus will kill you / Your soft seat, your soft face / Your protected babies / But Jesus will kill you” she promises, humming with the cold intensity of an ancient, biblical angel on “Jesus Will Kill You.” —Josh Korngut

73. Black Flag: Nervous Breakdown (1979)

On Nervous Breakdown, hardcore legends Black Flag tell us everything we need to know about them in a little over five minutes, and the punk scene has never been quite the same. Sure, we can hear the Ramones and Stooges in Greg Ginn’s raw guitars and the overseas-indebted snarl in original vocalist Keith Morris’s ranting, but what sticks in the gut is the pent-up and palpable anger, alienation and sense that something has to give before all of this shit detonates. It’s an attitude and ethos that Blag Flag continue to carry beneath their iconic four-bar banner, and it was unmistakable from the unhinged opening declaration of this debut EP’s title track. —Matt Melis

72. Janelle Monáe: Metropolis: The Chase Suite (2007)

Before The Arch/Android came out, Metropolis: The Chase Suite was our first introduction to Janelle Monáe’s generational superstardom. The EP was so well-loved that it garnered them a Grammy nomination for its third single, “Many Moons,” and it’s such an unparalleled combination of yesteryear, soulful references and futuristic, interplanetary revelry. A conceptual story about an android named Cindi Mayweather who, after failing to fall in love with a human, is sent to be disassembled, The Chase Suite is Monáe’s stunning ode to not just Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but to the always-timeless understanding of affection and grief. —Matt Mitchell

71. Arca: Stretch 1 (2012)

Woozy and meditative, Alejandra Ghersi’s 2012 debut EP as Arca, Stretch 1, signaled her now iconically amorphous sound that’s been found everywhere, in the canons of Kanye West, Björk and beyond. Before there was the Kick cycle, there was Stretch, which laid the groundwork for her spectacularly transformative career through songs like “Truly Carrying,” “Walls” and the terrific “Doep.” —Peyton Toups

70. Joy Division: An Ideal For Living (1978)

Released the year before their breakthrough LP Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division’s debut EP, An Ideal For Living marked the band’s first official release after changing their name from Warsaw—which also happens to be the title of the EP’s opening song. No one is coming to this release in hopes that it’s going to be some fantastic document of post-punk’s pinnacle, largely because it’s more of a punk rock record than anything else, but what’s important about this EP is that it’s a great example of a really good band honing their image. Here, they sound like they want to be Bowie but can’t help sounding like themselves. Ian Curtis’s vocal is not yet the brooding baritone he made a calling card on songs like “Disorder” and “Atmosphere,” but Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris’s arrangements are lively and impressionable. If we are to continue revering Joy Division for what they accomplished in the canon of post-punk, then An Ideal For Living is a necessary companion to such celebrations. —Matt Mitchell

69. Yves Tumor: The Asymptotical World (2021)

Building off the shiny glam rock of 2020’s sumptuous Heaven to a Tortured Mind, the enigmatic Sean Bowie, known by their alias Yves Tumor, demonstrated their resourceful touch with an equally captivating follow-up EP. Although only six tracks long, The Asymptotical World feels massive, starting with the roaring opener “Jackie” before snaking its way through high-energy New Wave on “Secrecy Is Incredibly Important to the Both of Them,” creepy/dreamy shoegaze on “Tuck,” and throbbing post-punk on “…And Loyalty is a Nuisance Child.” Though it would be a couple of years before Bowie would deliver another full-length record, The Asymptotical World was both satisfying in maintaining the experimental multi-instrumentalist’s hot streak and encouraging about what would come next. —Sam Rosenberg

68. Lana Del Rey: Paradise (2012)

It’s hard to articulate the experience of being a teenage girl during Lana’s early heyday, though other generations have their equivalent, to each era a different bad girl pop star. And Lana was bad. On the Paradise EP—the follow-up to her breakout Born to Die—she sang about her pussy tasting like Pepsi cola and declared herself “an angel looking to get fucked hard.” She reveled in nostalgia and Americana anachronism; she was a Golden Age starlet and a Beat Poet and a Whitman-quoting capital-R Romantic. She was Mary—Magdalene and the Virgin Mother. She was Jackie and Marilyn. She proselytized in bold, sweeping statements that spoke to the kushandwizdom era; “Be young, be dope, be proud” emblazoned over a gif of Effy Stonem exhaling a cloud of smoke while fireworks shatter the sky behind her, something like that). There were all the thinkpieces about how she was selling a male fantasy, but it was just as much a female fantasy. Lana was this strange, surreal caricature of femininity. She was the living embodiment of the fantasy that one day the heavy static of adolescence would clear and I’d emerge a fully-formed femme fatale with cherry red lips wrapped around a cigarette, a dress that clung to my curves and stayed coke-white even after a ride down the California highway on the back of my boyfriend’s motorcycle, and a neverending backlog of stories to tell. I wasn’t giving lap dances while reciting “Howl” like Lana did in the Tropico short film, and I wasn’t calling anybody Daddy, not even my own father—but I was singing along when she said “I got a war in my mind” and meant every word. What teenage girl wouldn’t? —Grace Robins-Somerville

67. TAEMIN: Advice (2021)

TAEMIN’s last EP before enlisting in the military, Advice is a great assembly of dance-pop and R&B—and the Seoul singer/songwriter weaves a great tapestry of distinctive, catchy dance stylings. From piano instrumentals to trap segues, Advice is a brilliant showcase of Taemin’s range and ambition. It would go on to hit the charts in Japan, South Korea, the UK, the US and Finland, and the record fully solidified TAEMIN’s artistry beyond his work in SHINee and SuperM. Advice is one of the best K-pop EPs ever made—and an arresting spectrum of guitar riffs, string arrangements, synths and a push and pull between maximalism and minimalism. —Cielo Perez

66. Nine Inch Nails: Broken (1992)

Broken is what made Nine Inch Nails as vicious as they are. Nestled between the brutalist synth-pop of Pretty Hate Machine and the towering industrial buzzsaw of The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails’ first EP is the kind of inflection point that defines a band, a hard reset to introduce a newer, angrier version of the band—slamming the gas on the violent throes of “Wish” and never looking back. This extends beyond the core EP itself; the infamous urban-legend-pseudo-snuff video album, and bonus covers of Pigface and Adam and the Ants do just as much to carve the band’s penchant for assaults on all senses. Broken offers a glimpse in miniature of industrial music at its most immediate, its most primal—there in the chugging maw of “Last” and the existential freakout of “Gave Up”—each track unafraid to play with dynamics of quiet and loud, mid-tempo and thrash, to keep each punch jolting, to pull the spike from the wound before going in for yet another stab. —Natalie Marlin

65. Bon Iver: Blood Bank (2009)

Bon Iver’s Blood Bank contains my favorite song out of any EP on this list: “Beach Baby.” In fact, it’s not even that close of a competition, as “Beach Baby” very well may be one of Bon Iver’s all-time best works altogether. Blood Bank was a follow-up to For Emma, Forever Ago, which turned Justin Vernon into a household name a year earlier upon its re-release. How good were these four songs? Well, Kanye West did sample “Woods” on “Lost in the World,” so there’s that. The title track and “Babys” feel like a perfect midpoint between For Emma and Bon Iver—a warmth that pierces through the noisy cold. And yet, I can’t help but always return to that pedal steel unspooling at the end of “Beach Baby.” Few comedowns in all of modern music have ever ached so perfectly. —Matt Mitchell

64. Jockstrap: Wicked City (2020)

Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye were put on this earth to make music together, and their Wicked City EP is foolproof pop revelry. Ellery’s vocals, often faint as a harpsichord string, are so deeply emotional, while Skye’s production is crystalline and conservational. Jockstrap are an anomalous entity—a duo of musicians far too brilliant for the rest of us—and Wicked City oozes through lounge jazz and avant-garde piano melodies that are generous and delicate. On the Injury Reserve-assisted “Robert,” Jockstrap sound like the second-coming of SOPHIE, employing glitchy, skittering arrangements that cryptically fade in and out of focus. “The City” goes from ballad to bombast, while “City Hell” plucks through Auto-Tune, big-body synths and guitars that sound like PC Music plasti-pop. Part-James Blake and part-Julia Holter, Wicked City is the moment Jockstrap graduated from music school novices to Gen-Z triumphs. —Matt Mitchell

63. AC/DC: ‘74 Jailbreak (1984)

AC/DC have only ever made one EP, and it also didn’t come out in America until 10 years after it was recorded. “Jailbreak” was included on the Australian version of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, while “You Ain’t Got a Hold on Me,” “Show Business,” “Soul Stripper” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go” wound up on the Australian version of High Voltage. What I can safely say is this: “Soul Stripper” is, without a doubt, a Top 10 AC/DC track all-time. What a ferocious, relentless six minutes of rock ‘n’ roll it is, and ’74 Jailbreak serves as a proper exclamation point on the band’s first decade together—as they would quickly descent into a run of two not-so-great records before getting a commercial uptick from The Razors Edge in 1990. Revisiting ’74 Jailbreak is a great way to check in on the late Bon Scott, who splits the ozone layer on these songs. There’ll never be another lead singer quite like him. —Matt Mitchell

62. Solange: True (2012)

After releasing Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams in 2008, Solange left Interscope Geffen A&M and signed with Terrible Records. While making her next record the following year, she suffered a stress and burnout-induced breakdown and, after two years away, returned with True, an EP of soul-stirring, new wave and electronica-inspired PBR&B songs co-produced, co-written and co-composed with Dev Hynes. True is a dance record enveloped by a darkness that mirrors the panic attacks Solange was having after the all-day-and-all-night recording sessions began to wear on her. She made the EP in Santa Barbara, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City and Germany, siphoning influence from figures like Chaka Khan and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. “Don’t Let Me Down” is, without a doubt, one of the greatest songs of this century and, rightfully, a monument in Solange’s still-bulletproof career. —Matt Mitchell

61. Arctic Monkeys: Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? (2006)

The title of Arctic Monkeys’ second EP depicts Alex Turner’s endearing, albeit painfully English, sense of humor and the snarling wit of their early work. The five-track release rips wide open with “The View From the Afternoon” with ping-ponging snare hits from Matt Helders and some electrifying riffage from Jamie Cook, as Turner comes in with his thick Sheffield draw singing, “I want to see all of the things that we’ve already seen.” “Cigarette Smoker Fiona” brings the authentic Arctic Monkeys sleaze as Turner sings, “Cigarette smoke doesn’t hide as well as you think / And you’d think that it ought to / Act as the perfect disguise,” while “Despair in the Departure Lounge” slows down and minimizes production—with just a fuzzed out ‘60s inspired guitar and Turner’s crooning. “No Buses” continues the less extravagant production and introduces harmonies, honing a revivalist sound that the quartet still thrives on in 2024. —Olivia Abercrombie

60. Scratch Acid: Scratch Acid (1984)

Before David Yow and David W.M. Sims would go off and form the Jesus Lizard, they were members of Scratch Acid, an Austin-born noise rock band that positively cooked on their first-ever release, an eponymous EP. Kurt Cobain routinely called it one of his favorite albums ever, and it’s easy to see why—as tracks like “Cannibal,” “Greatest Gift” and “She Said” are bubonic emblems in the post-hardcore canon. Yow sounds like he’s summoning the devil on this EP, pulling beauty through the gutter and allowing its glow to become mangled with distortion, crunching, trembling percussion and lacerating, skin-splitting howls. —Matt Mitchell

59. The National: Cherry Tree (2004)

Released right before Alligator cemented the National as one of the greatest bands alive, Cherry Tree was an EP that gave life to Matt Berninger, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and Scott and Bryan Devendorf’s Cincinnati-based project. These are songs that came about before the band became too New York City for their own good, as the solemn, reflective “Wasp Nest” and the punky, live-recorded “Murder Me Rachael” are dashing bookends (Berninger’s howls on the latter are especially menacing and brilliant) before “A Reasonable Man (I Don’t Mind)” carries the whole document home. But the attention of Cherry Tree is placed squarely on “All the Wine” and “About Today,” the latter of which might very well still be the band’s greatest song ever. Before the National developed that consistency we revere them for now, they were once chaotically ambitious in their travels. “All the Wine” remains one of Berninger’s liveliest and most-charming performances. —Matt Mitchell

58. Sky Ferreira: Ghost (2012)

When a fledgling pop star delays her first record not once, but twice, she better offer some sort of consolation—and Sky Ferreira’s EP Ghost is just that. After pushing back the release of her debut record a second time, Ferreira satiated fans with this five-track preview of the gritty synth-pop to come on 2013’s Night Time, My Time. Ghost contains two of Ferreira’s greatest feats, the tumblr-ready earworms “Lost In My Bedroom” and “Everything Is Embarrassing,” along with the snarling rock zinger “Red Lips,” co-written by Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson. While the title track has taken on an almost cruelly ironic significance, given Ferreira’s on-again, off-again relationship with releasing music, the EP remains a formidable demonstration of Ferreira’s ability to manipulate tortured romances into pop that moves with rock ’n’ roll swagger; the fact that “Everything Is Embarrassing” is her most-streamed song on Spotify by a margin of over 35 million plays says it all. —Victoria Wasylak

57. The Jesus and Mary Chain: Some Candy Talking (1986)

Released in-between Psychocandy and Darklands, the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Some Candy Talking took the energy of the Velvet Underground and sweetened it into their own muse. The absolute metallic shine of the title track is bright enough to split your head in two, while an acoustic rendition of “Taste of Cindy” holds a haunting, next-room-over melody. “Hit” sounds like Phil Spector making a thrash-metal record, while “Psychocandy” sputters and conjures a dead-air waltz, as the Reid brothers use Bobby Gillespie’s drums sparingly—and it works like a menacing, intoxicating dream. —Matt Mitchell

56. Rina Sawayama: RINA (2017)

Before she officially broke out onto the pop scene with her decadent debut LP SAWAYAMA right at the beginning of the pandemic, Rina Sawayama offered a brief but inviting taste of her versatile, Y2K-inflected sound three years earlier with her self-funded EP RINA. Britney Spears is an obvious influence over the mini album, especially on the addictive, jittery “Take Me As I Am,” but the silky-voiced Japanese-British singer runs through a wide-ranging, unpredictable gamut of genres and musical inspirations, including New Jack swing (“Ordinary Superstar”), woozy R&B (the stunning, Shamir-featuring “Tunnel Vision”), fizzy J-pop (“Time Out Interlude”), and Mariah Carey and TLC-styled balladry (“Cyber Stockholm Syndrome”). RINA not only showed promise for Sawayama, but it also immediately established the kind of artist she was and wanted to be, someone interested in exploring all different facets and eras of pop music and confidently, impressively weaving her findings into a quilt of fun ideas and rich sensations. —Sam Rosenberg

55. The Replacements: Stink (2012)

There’s nothing more punk than kicking off your EP with an audio clip of the police breaking up a rent party, as a crowd member—who is rumored to have been Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum—curses them for ruining the show. Whether or not this eight-track record is a mini-LP or an EP doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that it absolutely rips. Stink is as grimy as it is ferocious, with punishing drumming from Chris Mars, pulverizing guitar from Bob Stinson and pummeling basslines from his half-brother Tommy Stinson, all while Paul Westerberg shouts, “Fuck my school!” The Minnesotans are on the nose with the song titles, telling us exactly what they are thinking and who they are, notably with “White and Lazy” and “Dope Smokin’ Moron.” —Olivia Abercrombie

54. Sonic Youth: Kill Yr Idols (1993)

I’m all about a Kim Gordon-heavy record. An exercise in ear drum bursting, Kill Yr Idols, the shrieking post-punk follow-up to Sonic Youth’s debut album, is a vision into the imaginative genius that the late ‘80s and early ‘90s iteration of the band delivered. In a way, Kill Yr Idols refined the sound Confusion Is Sex had only begun to explore. Between the commentary on abuse in “Protect Me You” and the grotesque, visceral imagery in “Shaking Hell,” as Gordon sings out, “Take off your dress / I’ll shake off your flesh,” Kill Yr Idols is an abstract masterpiece of confrontational rock. —Olivia Abercrombie

53. Polvo: Celebrate the New Dark Age (1994)

Polvo’s droney, proggy raga-rock pulled from several cultures and scenes, resulting in one of the most distinct and far-reaching bodies of work within the fairly tight-knit ‘90s indie rock world. Like their fellow North Carolinians in the Archers of Loaf, their best single work is an EP, a raging, detuned noise bomb called Celebrate the New Dark Age. The alternate tunings and complex structures on display here are like some punk rock take on progressive rock, with ample influence from Asian music. That combo toes into math rock turf, and sure enough this is a foundational text in that sub-sub-genre, as well. The epic “Every Holy Shroud” squeezes everything Polvo does into a single composition; it’s pretty, discordant, soft, heavy, loud, and even apocalyptic in equal measure, cycling through all these moods and tones across six sublime minutes. (It also warns listeners that the band has just bought a sitar, in one of my favorite lyrics ever.) Celebrate the New Dark Age is a beautiful record that sounds like nobody else. —Garrett Martin

52. NewJeans: Get Up (2023)

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, then, after TikTok virality and Korean dance crazes, that NewJeans’ second EP, Get Up, built upon a hot streak unlike any in pop music. Spanning six songs over just 12 minutes, the record offers a sleek, ethereal sound that melds R&B with club vibes in a formula previously underutilized in K-pop. The release has propelled NewJeans to another new height: A #1 ranking on the Billboard 200 albums list, selling 500 more units than the recently released Barbie soundtrack. It’s the quintet’s first appearance on the chart, and only the second instance from an all-female group in 15 years. (The other entry to top the chart: Born Pink from BLACKPINK, the biggest K-pop act in the world.) On top of that, NewJeans are the first Korean female act to have their first-ever entry debut at #1 on the chart. Rubbing shoulders with K-pop royalty just a year out from your debut should be cause for elation, and yet, somehow, it feels like a mere starting block for one of the youngest acts in pop—its members range from just 15 to 18 years old. Their youth belies the precision in NewJeans’ aesthetic and musical point of view, which rejects the EDM bombast and sugary maximalism of K-pop’s present and argues for a groovier, more demure future. —Eddie Kim

51. The Clash: The Cost of Living (1979)

Released in 1979 and debuting what would become one of the band’s definitive hits, The Cost of Living marked the Clash’s transition from a by-the-book punk act into the prolific, expansive band they are still regarded as today. Packaged in a bright, block-printed ‘50s-style album sleeve, the EP immediately explodes open with their legendary cover of Sonny Curtis’ “I Fought The Law”—a punchy anthem that they have morphed into their own. The tracks that follow are more down-tempo and jingly, like “Groovy Times,” which hints at the traces of folk that are soon to emerge through tracks on London Calling—put out only a few months later. “Gates of the West,” an assessment of the band’s time across the pond, showcases what rock ‘n’ roll sounds they’ve picked up in the Americas, and “Capital Radio” is simply quintessential Clash punky passion. An early mission statement for their career while they were still only budding, The Cost of Living is an all-inclusive treat that still covers all the bases. —Alli Dempsey

50. The Nerves: The Nerves (1976)

The Nerves didn’t even last five years, but their eponymous debut EP remains canon. They went on tour with the Ramones once upon a time and even made a song called “Hanging on the Telephone,” which Blondie made famous a few years later. But The Nerves is a delightful four-track installation, combining material written by all three members (Jack Lee, Peter Case, Paul Collins) that makes their legacy as Los Angeles punk vanguards all the more sensical. We have bands like the Knack and the Beat because of the Nerves, and this EP is a shot of timeless adrenaline. —Matt Mitchell

49. Crying: Get Olde Second Wind (2014)

Have 8-bit synths ever been as emotive as Crying made them sound? On their debut double EP, the short-lived Purchase trio wrings the absolute most out of their unique instrumental palette—pairing power pop guitars and Game Boys—to give vocalist Z Santos the backdrop to inflect their words with equal parts heart and playfulness. They wax poetic about Queens bus routes and the virtues of bodega snack runs, while also lamenting self-doubts and the trap of others’ misperceptions with complete sincerity. Though initially released separately and compiled, the two EPs form a complete arc in sequence—take Get Olde’s climactic “ES,” which renders intrusive gender questions as a flurrying breaking point, only for “Emblem” to find peace in “slowly falling in love with myself” as a form of acceptance and comfort. While Beyond the Fleeting Gales made the most of the band sounding larger than life, Get Olde Second Wind remains a stellar introduction to Crying’s ethos, turning the smallest moments and most ordinary sounds feel like an entire world unto itself. —Natalie Marlin

48. Pale Saints: Flesh Balloon (1991)

Holding back on the extensive distortion of their experimental debut album The Comforts of Madness, Pale Saints’ Flesh Balloon cuts through the noise to deliver an emotional, refined follow-up. The build of “Hunted,” with its foreboding guitar chord progression and pummeling percussion, sucks you into Pale Saints’ dream-pop universe, while “Porpoise” shuffles wordlessly along a cyclical drum machine rhythm entrancing you with its mesmerizing tones. The ringer, though, is “Kinky Love,” a funky, wah pedal-driven cover of Nancy Sinatra’s 1976 tune that glides along with new addition Meriel Barham’s vocals. A demo of “Hair Shoes” closes out the softer side of the English band’s shoegaze stylings with a siren-sounding and hypnotic vocal from Ian Masters. —Olivia Abercrombie

47. Earl Sweatshirt: Solace (2015)

The first sound on Earl Sweatshirt’s Solace is a cross between a croak and a groan. It’s mechanical, like the sound of a computer letting out an electronic bleating. This is the introductory segment of a ten-minute EP structured as a single track, broken down into five distinct parts. The first vignette repeats a single lyric: “I’ve been here before,” slowed, lowered, abstracted and buried beneath the gnarl. We all know that Earl Sweatshirt can sound effortless. By the time he released Solace, we had already seen two solo LPs from the artist that proved it, and we had already heard him go head-to-head with Vince Staples on a track like “Hive” talking all I’ll put my fist up, after I get my dick sucked—not an easy song by any means, but one where Earl Sweatshirt seemed poised enough to handle the complications, ready to orchestrate a heady slowness that he still remained one step ahead of. What makes listening to 2015’s Solace so endlessly devastating is listening to Earl stumble. Between the Ahmad Jamal sampled piano loop, intermittent beeping, buzzing, creaking, and clinking of bottles and glasses, Earl’s voice is the connective tissue of the release—and he’s on the verge of breaking. The last lyrical portion of Solace ends with a pleading: “But time waits for no man and death waits with cold hands,” he sings, after nearly eight minutes of lamenting his relationship with his mother, his mortality, his addiction, and his depression. “I’m the youngest old man that ya know / If ya soul intact, let me know.” In that last line, he turns from facing inward to facing out, returns from his own interior with a question, a reaching.. He gives you Solace’s last two minutes to answer his cry. —Madelyn Dawson

46. Godspeed You Black Emperor!: Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada (1999)

The only EP Godspeed You Black Emperor! ever made, Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada is two songs stretched across 28 minutes. Much of it is languid, though there are moments when the nine-piece Montreal band succumbs to the allure of its own bombast and erupts into elaborate and moody walls of sound. The material is intense and exhausting, but in a good way—not pleasant, though, as the menace of Godspeed You Black Emperor! never fully surrenders. Yet, there are some instances where, as they turn the volume knob to the right, it sounds like they’re about to break the whole machine. It’s all so drony and punishing, like jabs to the abdomen delivered nice and slow. It’s the kind of EP you can grow into, unfathomably full of new things to learn about each time you return to its offerings. —Matt Mitchell

45. Modest Mouse: The Fruit That Ate Itself (1997)

The stop-gap between Interstate 8 and The Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse’s third EP, The Fruit That Ate Itself, is a jarring, abrasive look at a band figuring itself out. The title track offers some colorful line-work from Isaac Brock (“Got bad breath talking about fresh rain”) and “The Waydown” is massively catchy as the guitars stroke downward. “Dirty Fingernails” sounds like a volcano of embalming fluid, while “Summer” mellows out into something legibly vibey. It’s still all very, very unhinged, though—but I wouldn’t want Modest Mouse any other way. —Matt Mitchell

44. Jim O’Rourke: Halfway to a Threeway (1999)

A year before joining Sonic Youth, Jim O’Rourke released his Halfway to a Threeway EP via Drag City. Pairing it with something like Wilco’s Summerteeth is a good way to show off what the Chicago indie rock scene looked like at the turn of the millennium, and I’d reckon that these four songs are still some of O’Rourke’s very best—arriving all over the map and better off because of it. “Not Sport, Martial Art” is seven minutes of mathy guitar ooze that I return to again and again, while “Fuzzy Sun” is a psych-inspired rock tune that gives way to the excellent “The Workplace,” a track that features backing vocals from The Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt. The titular “Halfway to a Threeway” revels in pensive folk balladry, offering an intimate look at O’Rourke’s gentler side. —Matt Mitchell

43. L7: Smell the Magic (1990)

While it’s true that L7’s sophomore album was called Smell the Magic, the title can also be applied to an EP that featured the record’s first six songs, including “Shove” and “Till the Wheels Fall Off.” At the time of the EP’s release, L7 was one of the only non-Seattle bands signed to Sub Pop, but they went ahead and became one of the label’s all-time greatest acts—as Smell the Magic is a bombastic shockwave of metal-injected garage rock. L7 very well might be the most influential Los Angeles band of their era, and the riot grrrl scene has them to thank. “Fast and Frightening,” “Deathwish” and “Broomstick” are positively bonkers. Suzi Gardner, Donita Sparks, Jennifer Finch and Demetra Plakas changed the grungy, mangled world. —Matt Mitchell

42. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2002)

As the legend goes, Karen O lined up four margaritas before her first gig with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, downed all of them to calm her nerves and then doused herself in olive oil before walking onstage. In doing so, a gutter goddess rockstar came bursting out of the shy girl from across the river in Englewood, New Jersey, ready to raise hell. In discussions of the defining bands of New York’s Y2K rock scene, words like “dirty” and “grimy” are often thrown around haphazardly. But while they accurately characterize a lot of the hedonistic themes of Strokes and Interpol songs, the sleekness of records like Is This It and Turn On the Bright Lights impede them from capturing the rawness and grittiness that only an early Yeah Yeah Yeahs cut could. The songs on their self-titled EP are scrappy and bombastic; There’s a texture and physicality to them that feels immediate, like skinning your knee on coarse pavement or trying to wipe salt-dried clumps of last night’s mascara from the crusted peaks of your eyelashes. They’re songs that you have no choice but to wear close to the bone. You can’t scrub off the gravelly shred of Nick Zinner’s guitar underlying Karen O’s goofy-sultry whisper of “bang, bang, bang…the bigger, the better” or the clanging of Brian Chase’s deep-digging drum hits on “Mystery Girl.” Declaring yourself the voices of a generation, as Karen O does with the royal “we” on “Our Time,” should not work as well as it does. I still find myself watching footage of the notorious parking lot concert, exactly one year after 9/11, as Karen holds the microphone out to a girl in the audience whose voice buzzes back through it: “break…on…through!” It’s my go-to New Year’s Eve song and my favorite Yeah Yeah Yeahs track for a reason, the shaky sincerity and the readiness to burn it all down to build something new. It’s enough to make me believe, if only for three and a half minutes, that it always is our time—whoever we are, whenever we are, forever. —Grace Robins-Somerville

41. Slowdive: Outside Your Room (1993)

In the musical climate we live in today, where the phrase “shoegaze” bangs around in our heads so often that it begins to lose meaning, sometimes it pays off to be immersed in the genre’s bare bones once again. Borrowing a phrase from its illustrious, melancholic first track “Alison,” Slowdive’s 1993 release Outside Your Room is a rich and resonant fragment of what was to come on Souvlaki just a year later. Soaked in longing and hanging off of echoey electric strums is the second track “So Tired,” the EP’s crowning hidden gem, and a song I still feel should have made the LP (but appreciate its secrecy, in a way). Windy and wrapped in mystique, Outside Your Room modestly holds space for classics such as “Alison” and “Souvlaki Space Station”—which are deconstructed and reinvented through the release’s ending track, “Moussaka Chaos.” Slowdive tell us who they are here, and present to us the seeds they sowed that are still developing today—through screechy echos, lo-fi vocal attunements and that sweet, sweet fuzzy reverb. Any self-proclaimed shoegaze enjoyer has Outside Your Room to thank for pushing the right buttons that truly put this genre into play, back then, and forevermore. —Alli Dempsey

40. The Cramps: Gravest Hits (1979)

Compiling the band’s first two singles and an extra track, all recorded by Alex Chilton at Ardent Studios in Memphis, Gravest Hits is the earliest taste those outside of downtown New York could get of The Cramps’ instantly distinct (thanks to Poison Ivy Rorschach’s and Bryan Gregory’s thrashing twin guitars, sans bass), endlessly quotable (thanks to Lux Interior’s delivery) brand of punk sold as “psychobilly.” Plenty of their peers pulled from rockabilly’s sound and style, but The Cramps drenched it in horror movie camp and injected danger back into the passé, casting themselves in their heroes’ lineage by covering the Sam Phillips-penned “Domino” and quoting garage rock classics on the EP’s one original song, the fittingly zany “Human Fly.” “Some people call me a teenage idol,” Interior intones on the spoken-word intro of Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town.” The joke is evident from the eerie band portrait on the cover alone, but the grotesquerie of Gravest Hits lets us into a world where “Lonesome Town”’s opening proclamation could be true. Well, stranger things have happened, haven’t they? —Elise Soutar

39. The Fall: Slates (1981)

Back when I made mix tapes for people their titles usually came from two sources: Mark E. Smith lyrics or Dusty Rhodes promos. Slates might only have six songs on it, but it is absolutely chock full of amazing MES lines, as well as some of the band’s most furious and clangorous music. Only 23 when it was recorded, Smith was already a grizzled old grump in spirit, and his dissatisfaction with almost everything around him drives Slates—and pretty much every other record he ever made. “Slags, Slates Etc.” is the conceptual centerpiece here; Smith rants about everybody who just passively consumes what they’re given, who have no originality or unique personality, across the six-minute, largely two-chord pummeler. It’s not the most original idea for a song, but Smith’s virtuosic use of language elevates it past most anti-normie punk songs. “Prole Art Threat,” the most perfectly self-descriptive song title in The Fall’s voluminous canon, contends with Smith’s sometimes overblown but not inaccurate reputation as a working class poet in typically oblique fashion, also condemning the condescending attitudes of bougie, upper middle class liberals; it’s basically the first tweet about shitlibs. It’s also an entire world in three minutes, an intensely dense song from a man who almost exclusively dealt in density. Elsewhere songs address the ups and downs of older lovers, launches more invective at the middle class, and exhorts listeners to split town in the uncharacteristically smooth-sounding anti-London pop screed “Leave the Capitol.” This isn’t the best entry point in The Fall’s dizzyingly complex discography, but it’s one of the shortest, and if you can hang with these six songs you can probably hang with anything Smith ever put out. —Garrett Martin

38. Heavenly: Atta Girl (1995)

Sugary sweet melodies masking dark lyrics are a tried-and-true trick in music, but few have used it as effectively as twee-pop giants Heavenly, who used it to create a jangly, C86-inspired concept EP about date rape. Though Atta Girl is still best known for the lovesick sunshine of single “P.U.N.K. Girl,” the narrative takes a sharp turn almost exactly at the release’s midpoint during “Hearts and Crosses,” as only a drum beat backs Amelia Fletcher describing a violent sexual assault. Though the hooks remain on closing tracks “Dig Your Own Grave” and “So?,” the band refuses to flinch as the music erodes to reflect its protagonist’s state of mind, with the latter track performed by Fletcher entirely a cappella. It’s still as shocking (and even heartening, in its strange, upsetting relatability) now as it must have been when it was released at Riot Grrrl’s peak—if only because so little has changed. There are plenty more women with guitars now, but few sounds cut to the heart of the structural problem as ruthlessly as this one sugary sweet voice alone, taking the blame when she shouldn’t have to. —Elise Soutar

37. Jane Remover: Teen Week (2021)

The debut effort of a then 17 year old Jane Remover was only a brief sampling of her production prowess, with her first LP Frailty releasing nine months later. With the breakneck pace only truly able to be captured by someone raised by the internet, Teen Week bounces between elements of breakcore, dubstep and the continuous novelties of hyperpop, where every sound vies for your attention regardless of how many layers of bitcrushing it’s been through. The ethos that would surround Jane’s art: “Fuck you, let me do me” she demands on the explosive “52 blue mondays.” Her artistry has only grown in scope and size in these past three years (culminating in the excellence of Census Designated), but it’s no surprise that’s the case when this is what she was able to make in her suburban New Jersey bedroom. —Leah Weinstein

36. Pavement: Watery, Domestic (1992)

Fresh off the hype of Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement tucked two of their all-time greats on this slim 12-minute EP. “Frontwards” and “Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)” are the true classics here, each a top 10 Pavement all-timer, and both popping up regularly on setlists during the band’s recent reunion tour. When people kept banging on about Pavement being “slacker rock” they meant songs like “Frontwards”—languorous rhythms, guitars that ease out dense clouds of fuzz and hum, Stephen Malkmus’s seemingly indifferent vocals, and a general stoned and tired vibe that surrounds the whole thing. Of course, that ignores that “Frontwards” is a lean, direct, sharply written pop song with a surprising emotional heft and some of Malkmus’s most evocative and poetic lyrics. If “Frontwards” was lazy or easy to write any of the thousands of bands Pavement inspired in the ‘90s would’ve written something as good; almost none of them ever did. (A ton of them did cover it, though.) And then two songs later you’ve got “Shoot the Singer,” another brilliantly restrained elegiac pop song that seems simple but gradually reveals a chasmic depth. It might have Malkmus’s best lyrics and his greatest vocal performance. We’re not trying to slight the other two songs here—”Texas Never Whispers” is especially strong, a chugger that builds up a head of steam with a fantastic riff and then coasts deliriously off that momentum for another minute or two. But “Frontwards” and “Shoot the Singer” are true stand-outs, not just on this one record but in Pavement’s entire discography. —Garrett Martin

35. Minor Threat: In My Eyes (1984)

Minor Threat’s In My Eyes is the soundtrack for a straight-edge lifestyle. These four bite-sized songs grow out of the raw energy of their self-titled debut EP, all while restricting the chaos just slightly enough to leave room for more reflective lyrics. The EP starts with “In My Eyes,” a track about navigating a friend’s drug use, as Ian MacKaye sings, “You just think it looks cool,” in a tone foreshadowing the softer stylings of his future work with Fugazi. “Out Of Step (With The World)” is a fury of frustration about trying to fit into a drug-centric punk scene as a sober person; “Guilty of Being White” is where MacKaye’s youth rears its ugly head in his not-so-nuanced take on being white in a post-civil rights movement America. The final track, “Steppin’ Stone,” stands out for its echoing vocals and cleaner yet still killer guitar work from Lyle Preslar. With three solid tracks and one that’s a bit out of touch, In My Eyes is a blazing success for the short-lived hardcore punk band. —Olivia Abercrombie

34. Digital Underground: This Is An EP Release (1991)

At a time when groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A were bringing the noise and telling the police where to stick it, Gregory “Shock G” Jacobs and Oakland’s Digital Underground offered a lighter, funkier take on the hip-hop posse. Fresh off the success of 1990’s platinum-pushing Sex Packets, which urged listeners to “doowutchyalike” and “do the Humpty Hump,” Jacobs and DU doubled down on their funky, electronic and comical stylings on the packet-sized This Is an EP Release. Despite the EP’s unfortunate connection to Dan Aykroyd’s Nothing But Trouble, one of the worst movies of the ‘90s, this sampling of new fare and remixes proved that Jacobs had the Midas touch and introduced a young Tupac Shakur to the world on the hit single “Same Song.” —Matt Melis

33. Archers of Loaf: Archers of Loaf vs. the Greatest of All Time (1994)

The Archers win this hands down. Their 1994 EP is, for my money, the pinnacle of ‘90s indie rock EPs, and the single best record the band ever made. The Archers always existed on a point roughly halfway between their Chapel Hill peers Superchunk and Polvo; they weren’t quite as tuneful or pop-minded as Superchunk, or as abstract and dissonant as Polvo, but combined elements of both, and that’s most obvious in Vs. the Greatest of All Time. The slowburn noise intro of “Audiowhore” bursts into the band’s heaviest song, but despite its sledgehammer structure and Eric Bachmann’s glass-gargling voice it’s still somehow catchy as hell. “The Lowest Part of Free!” is a straight-ahead rocker that still sounds marvelously fucked up, “Freezing Point” is a glorious feel-bad pop bummer, and “Revenge” is pure punk stomp once it gets past an extended intro that sounds like Lee Ranaldo deconstructing surf rock. And the closer, “All Hail the Black Market,” is one of the all-time great anti-careerism songs, from the golden era of songs about how much it sucks trying to make a living playing in a rock band. (And if that isn’t what it’s about, well, I don’t really care; Bachmann’s Archers lyrics usually confound easy interpretation and even basic legibility.) The Archers of Loaf were the rare band that both the indie rockers and punks agreed on back in the ‘90s, and you can most clearly hear why on this perfect EP. —Garrett Martin

32. boygenius: boygenius (2018)

In the last few years, the members of boygenius have all reached stratospheric levels of success, both as soloists and as a trio; whether collaborating with Taylor Swift as Bridgers has, performing with the backing of the National Symphony Orchestra as Baker recently did, or singing to crowds of tens-of-thousands as all three did on the the record tour last year. In 2018, none of the trio could have possibly imagined this, something that is reflected on the self-titled EP they released that same year. Free of pretenses or expectations as to how it would be received, the EP offered a raw, unfiltered release of longing, restlessness and angst. Driven by relatively straightforward, yet undeniably moving, guitar-driven arrangements, this is indie-rock at its most cathartic. This is evident in Baker’s distressed, defeatist cries of “So I stay down” or Bridgers’ lightly cooed admission, “I wish I was on a spaceship / Just me and my dog and an impossible view”. In both its loudest and its quietest moments, boygenius is unparalleled in its power. —Tom Williams

31. Mission of Burma: Signals, Calls, and Marches (1981)

The lore behind Boston post-punks Mission of Burma credits the severe volume of the group’s live sets with causing founding guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus—a worsening condition that led the first iteration of the band to abort their mission in 1983. Ironically, their debut EP, Signals, Calls, and Marches, nixes much of their trademark loudness and looping experimentation for a masterclass in dynamic songcraft that showed the band were far more than the sum of their bluster, brawn and bravado. In a tale of two Burmas, 1982’s now-classic VS. full-length would lean truer into the band’s live chaos, but that doesn’t change the fact that Mission of Burma’s far more accessible debut EP has been every bit as influential across the years. —Matt Melis

30. The Sound: Shock of Daylight (1984)

In the post-punk canon, South London’s The Sound have usually been pegged as the band that never quite made it big compared to their peers, left to be rediscovered and lauded by fans of the era long after the band’s demise in 1988. Though the band’s first few records (working in the same shadowy, austere lineage as Magazine and The Chameleons) have since been deemed lost classics, 1984’s Shock of Daylight saw frontman Adrian Borland break with the darkness (as the title would suggest), embracing more pop-friendly arrangements on the EP’s first half with often stunning results. Opener “Golden Soldiers” in particular holds up as one of the great unsung New Wave love songs, never once sounding neutered or less impassioned in its more maximalist ambitions. Borland begs, “Someone draw the curtains / Sometimes I’d like to smash those windows open” as a staticky guitar screams off to the side, and it’s like you can hear the room flood with light. —Elise Soutar

29. Animal Collective: Fall Be Kind (2009)

The EP format has always been Animal Collective’s playground to play fast and loose with style and genre outside the confines of their full-length records, from the acoustic folk of the Vashti Bunyan-fronted Prospect Hummer, to the electro-psychedelia rush of Water Curses. But, at over 30 minutes, Fall Be Kind is easily the group’s most substantial EP, one whose sprawl and arc handily puts it in league with any of the band’s LPs. At once travelog, introspective head-trip, and experimental pop showcase, the companion EP to breakthrough record Merriweather Post Pavilion swims headfirst through the murky waters of transit—both literal and metaphysical. Grateful Dead-sampling highlight “What Would I Want? Sky” skips like a stone across water, its graceful harmonies yielding one of Animal Collective’s best pure pop songs. “On A Highway” looks more inward, Avey Tare’s snapshot lyrics about touring life mutedly taking on the steady roll of a drive in the dead of night. With merely five expansive songs, Fall Be Kind is a journey in itself, emerging from the sanguine depths of self-excavation to find a whole new realm of possibilities. —Natalie Marlin

28. Tennis: We Can Die Happy (2017)

We should all consider ourselves lucky for what Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley have given us over the last decade. They’re a surfier, funkier Beach House, and their work packs just as dreamy a punch. In-between their Yours Conditionally and Swimmer albums, Tennis released We Can Die Happy, an EP that could go head-to-head with any of their full-length projects. It’s simply just a miracle that these 17 minutes of music exist, especially when a song like “I Miss That Feeling” comes soaring into view. Moore’s vocals croon like a soul singer, until she lifts her feet and ascends into a kind of harmonizing that is as ephemeral as Riley’s brief but sugary guitar solo. “Building God” is a trance, while “Diamond Rings” chugs along into a dream-pop masterpiece. But for me, it’s the one-two dance punch of “No Exit” and “Born to Be Needed” that makes We Can Die Happy a truth worth accepting. Synth-pop runs rampant on “No Exit,” as Riley’s bass thumps like a pulse beneath a bruise and Moore’s vocal turns into that of a disco queen. What a beautiful, tight and serendipitous EP to get lost in. —Matt Mitchell

27. New Order: 1981-1982 (1982)

1981-1982 is an even better documentation of New Order’s earliest post-Joy Division beginnings than Movement, as it contains what is, for my money, one of the prettiest songs ever put into the English lexicon (“Temptation”). It’s an EP that illustrates the exact moment that New Order resisted the lingering presence of Ian Curtis and embraced their own inclinations, leading to songs like “Everything’s Gone Green,” “Mesh” and the 16-minute back-to-back thrill of “Temptation” and “Hurt.” Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert sound right at home on these tunes, which makes the sheer brilliance of the forthcoming Power, Corruption & Lies all the more rewarding. —Matt Mitchell

26. Pixies: Come on Pilgrim (1987)

It’s almost startling how much of Pixies was there from the very start—the throat-shredding Frank Black screams, the violently psychosexual lyrics, the gratuitous Spanish. Come On Pilgrim is the mark of a band fully formed on arrival, its narrative firecrackers as vivid as anything the alt-rock quartet would conjure on their subsequent masterworks. Black Francis’s vocals and Joey Santiago’s guitar can turn from sweet to sour with rabid precision, the languid gallop and cooing on opener “Caribou” just as quickly turning into rasped hisses of “Repent!” In spite of all the nastiness, every melody gets in and gets out with ruthlessly infectious efficiency, even when the songwriting concerns incest (“Nimrod’s Son”) or questionable denigration of sex workers (“I’ve Been Tired”). While the EP still seems to be workshopping vital pieces to the Pixies canon—a relative lack of Kim Deal’s voice, for one—it makes up for it in its unflinching potency, an indelible sprint of a record whose lashes linger on the skin, long after the crack of the whip. —Natalie Marlin

25. Stereolab: Fluorescences (1996)

How could you use earth-bound words to even begin to accurately describe the transcendental sound of Stereolab? Released in 1996, Fluorescences sees the Anglo-French avant-pop outfit at the intersection of their earlier daydream sound and the beginning of pure, dynamic movement. The EP consists of four crackling, playful and expansive love tunes for a spaceship age—a little slice of what they do best. Slow moving and expansive, singer Lætitia Sadier layers her soothing melodies and adlibs—“la-las” and “dee-dums”—over jangly bells and horns. The entire B-side is overtaken with the 13-minute progressive triumph “Soop Groove #1,” as a plunging beat progresses and blossoms over lasers and mechanical noises—complimented with a saxophone track. Stereolab’s whole discography is an extraterrestrial mingling of the otherworldly—but Fluorescences is where one can truly see it unravel into all its glory. —Alli Dempsey

24. N.W.A.: 100 Miles and Runnin’ (1990)

Though 100 Miles and Runnin’ doesn’t include Ice Cube, because he’d left the group to do his own solo thing (more on that soon), N.W.A.’s 100 Miles and Runnin’ is still fucking awesome. With Dr. Dre, MC Ren, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, The D.O.C. and Cold 187um still in tow, N.W.A. followed up their 1988 classic Straight Outta Compton with five blistering songs, including the monolithic title track that MC Ren, Dre and Eazy-E absolutely stupefy on. While Cube had already released his masterpiece, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted by the time 100 Miles and Runnin’ came out, it didn’t stop N.W.A. from dissing their former bandmate on the title track and “Real N****z,” the latter of which finds Ren rapping that the “only reason n****s pick up your record is ‘cause they thought it was us” and Dre follows that up by calling Cube a traitor à la Benedict Arnold. The sampling on this EP is incredible, including a perfect use of Vincent Price’s bellowing laugh at the end of “Thriller.” N.W.A.’s next and final LP, N****z4Life, wouldn’t reach the same heights, but 100 Miles and Runnin’ still went Platinum by 1992. —Matt Mitchell

23. Weyes Blood: Cardamom Times (2015)

In the Weyes Blood musical universe, it can be easy to overlook Cardamom Times when surrounded by her heavy hitting full length projects like Titanic Rising and Front Row Seat to Earth. But listen closer and you’ll find a time capsule to the folk of the ’60s, where Natalie Mering creates magic out of simplicity (see the stunning 8-minute centerpiece “Take You There” featuring just her voice and sustained organ). Coming off the release of her debut record, Cardamom Times was just a taste of what was to come from Mering’s over the next decade. —Jaeden Pinder

22. This Heat: Health and Efficiency (1980)

This is not the first instance of a This Heat release making its way into the top-half of one a Paste all-time list, as Deceit was featured in our greatest albums ever write-up earlier this year. Health and Efficiency is my favorite release from the Camberwell trio, and its two songs are noisy, droning, sprawling, chaotic and so dashingly experimental it’ll make your head spin. The title track sounds like ribs breaking inside a malnourished body, while the 11-minute “Graphic/Varispeed” is a lesson in ambient noise, rarely rising above a flatline—only to spend the last three minutes of its runtime briefly pulsing like the score to a suspense movie climax. Health and Efficiency is a masterpiece I still don’t quite have the words for. —Matt Mitchell

21. Cocteau Twins: Love’s Easy Tears (1986)

I’m not sure there is a single discography, at least in the history of alternative music, that manages breadth and consistency as well as that which Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie offered the world as the Cocteau Twins. Over two decades, nine full-length albums and 11 EPs, the band seems to have done the impossible: cultivate a sound that is effortlessly recognizable while generating such a large quantity of differentiable and continuously novel songs. Everything the Cocteau Twins made sounds like the Cocteau Twins, but—and this is the important part—circumvents the likely possibility that everything sounds the same. Love’s Easy Tears is a record filled with light, and for that, characterized by a duality of lightness, in the sense that it is both illuminated and weightless. It comes between 1986’s Victorialand and 1988’s Blue Bell Knoll, right in the middle of the trio’s delicate and durative transition between their gothic beginnings on a record like Garlands, to the eventual pop-perfection they would reach on 1991’s Heaven or Las Vegas. A track like “Orange-Appled,” (originally not even included on the EP) is a prime example of just how ingenious the group could be, even in 1986. It’s dense, but it’s never heavy, exploring Fraser’s lower register—the power of her voice above and beneath itself in layers of varying levity. Even when you can’t tell what she’s saying, you can tell that she’s longing. “Orange-Appled,” now the final track on current editions of Love’s Easy Tears, serves a perfect endnote to an EP that has emerged as perhaps the most memorable of all 11—a song that, at its end, gives you no other choice than to start Love’s Easy Tears over from the beginning. —Madelyn Dawson

20. Slayer: Haunting the Chapel (1984)

As soon as “Chemical Warfare” begins revving up, you know that Haunting the Chapel is about to change the landscape of thrash metal forever. Slayer made the EP in North Hollywood but it sounds like it came from the gutter, Tom Araya sounds like some twisted, fucked up conductor on the worst train ride you’ve ever been on. “Captor of Sin” and the title track will banish your worries into a life-changing oblivion, and “Aggressive Perfector,” which didn’t come out until the EP’s reissue, is one of Slayer’s best songs ever. —Matt Mitchell

19. Mudhoney: Superfuzz Bigmuff (1988)

If you like grunge music, you can thank Mudhoney for helping create it with their debut EP, Superfuzz Bigmuff. Few alt records have ever been as influential as this one, a sterling offering from a still-green label called Sub Pop and a massively integral entry into the Pacific Northwest’s canon. Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Matt Lukin and Dan Peters likely didn’t know that their first swing would change American music for the ensuing decades, but that wouldn’t have mattered to them much anyhow. Superfuzz Bigmuff is the product of four men making fast, loud and humorous music on enough whims to get a career started. Good luck finding a more ferocious combination of guitar-playing and singing; Arm and Turner punish their listeners with every decibel. —Matt Mitchell

18. Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant (2008)

“What a life I lead in the summer / what a life I lead in the spring / what a life I lead in the winded breeze…what a life.” We know Fleet Foxes now as some of the greatest indie-folk artists to ever do it, and that a capella intro to Sun Giant captures so many qualities that make them special—their form, enchanting lyricism and brightness. Robin Pecknold and his accompanying cohort are adept at distilling massive emotions into featherlight folk songs and take inspiration from the seasons, mythology, the earth’s terrain and nature in general. There’s a familiarity to their sound now, but when Sun Giant dawned in 2008, their first release for Sub Pop, their style was earth-shifting. It sounds like something both old—ancient even—and new. “Mykonos” became a runaway hit, but the other four tracks on Sun Giant are equally thrilling. Sun Giant, while a bite-sized portion of what Fleet Foxes are capable of cooking up, is some of their finest work simply for its imaginative lyrics and measured restraint. Fleet Foxes have released magnum-opus-level works full of complex arrangements on a few occasions since 2008, but Sun Giant is bare-bones beauty. It’s proof that something as ordinary as rustling leaves or a cold wind can inspire greatness. What a life, indeed. —Ellen Johnson

17. R.E.M.: Chronic Town (1982)

R.E.M.’s debut EP, Chronic Town, hit the shelves with an indifferent gargoyle perched on its cover, piped-in carnival noises and nary a decipherable lyric. It offered nothing as radio-friendly as the previous year’s single, “Radio Free Europe,” and little immediate hint that listeners were being introduced to what would become one of the most important bands of the next 30 years. And yet, these finest fellas from Athens, GA, packed a punchy, melodic murkiness so unique that it felt unwise to dismiss even if it didn’t all make sense on first listen. A year later, R.E.M. would find their frequency and strike genius with Murmur, leaving Chronic Town, college radio and even that gargoyle to say, “Told ya so.” —Matt Melis

16. Soul Glo: Songs to Yeet at the Sun (2020)

Soul Glo’s first LP opens with a sample of children singing an uplifting chant about joining in the struggle against racism, but don’t be fooled. As soon as Pierce Jordan’s hardcore screams ring out, Soul Glo are clear that bootlickers and oppressors are enemies in this fight, and the band is endorsing a radical approach over the “Can’t we all just get along?” propaganda disseminated by the mainstream. A band bold enough to declare “I want to be a terrorist” on the opening line of their debut album and ignore civility discussions is one that’s uniquely qualified to capture the reality of Americans’ perpetual suffering. With Songs to Yeet at the Sun, the Philadelphia band rattles off fiery, relatable stories about what it means to be Black, anti-capitalist, financially insecure and on antidepressants in 2020. Jordan screaming about being distracted by various vices, products and ideas even as he’s “awash in the promise that I’ll be destroyed” is one of the most thoughtful and painfully true portraits of the present moment you’ll likely come across. —Lizzie Manno

15. Bikini Kill: Bikini Kill (1992)

Now that I’m the same age Kathleen Hanna was when Bikini Kill was released, all the pent-up angst and exhaustion over the patriarchy hits even harder. The riot grrrl movement started in the early 1990s in Olympia, Washington as a response to the rampant, ongoing sexism in the punk scene. One of the trailblazers of this new genre was Bikini Kill’s debut self-titled EP with its DIY approach and give-no-fucks attitude. Kathleen Hanna, Billy Karren, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox told us who they were when Hanna screamed the opening line of “Double Dare Ya”: “We’re Bikini Kill, and we want revolution / Girl-style now!” With six tracks of ferocious girl-centric rock, their chaos is reined in by producer Ian MacKaye, frontman of Minor Threat and post-hardcore band Fugazi, who skillfully honed their rambunctious energy into an explosion of femme anger and artistry. From the first relentless bassline through all the noisy guitar feedback, Bikini Kill is an unflinching piece of feminist punk detailing everything from amusement park debauchery in “Carnival” to a candid confrontation of sexual abuse in “Suck My Left One” to a spoken word reading of an insulting review of one of the their live performances in “Thurston Hearts the Who.” It’s raw, loud and angry, just the way Bikini Kill like it. —Olivia Abercrombie

14. The Antlers: Undersea (2012)

Sometimes, a band releases an EP that unravels the very same multitudes that an LP would. That was the case for the Antlers when they released Undersea 12 years ago. For my money, “Drift Dive” is simply one of the most breathtaking songs ever penned. We have Peter Silberman to thank for that, as his work turned away from the terminal illness-ridden Hospice and fashioned the thunderous, elastic measures of ambient guitar wash and spectral vocals into hermetic, vibey catharsis. “A million pieces in a billion places,” Silberman casts over and over, until “Drift Dive” falls into “Endless Ladder” with elegance. The guitars swirl and twinkle, the lyrics sound devoid of angst but swollen with confusion, as Silberman laments being “gone where they can’t follow.” Undersea is a measurement of great distance, spoken through the droning, hypnotic platitudes of “Crest” and “Zelda,” gestures unfounded in their doomy but beautiful affections. —Matt Mitchell

13. Aphex Twin: Come to Daddy (1997)

There are any number of Aphex Twins that can exist simultaneously: the meditative ambient musician, the inhuman polyrhythmic drum’n’bass programmer, the chaotic prankster. Come to Daddy is, therefore, perhaps one of Richard D. James’s most comprehensive works to date, in part because it argues that all of these are just as much the prolific electronic musician’s identity, and speak to his unknowable multitudes as a result. Here, the death metal acid trip of the EP opener rests just as naturally alongside the transcendently muted “Flim,” and the proto-Cartman sneers and text-to-speech threats of castration on “Funny Little Man” can remain without dampening the sublime beauty of closer “IZ-US.” Records on either side of James’ catalog—namely, The Richard D. James Album and drukQs—similarly land at this multivalence, but none have compact variety quite like Come to Daddy, and the EP remains one of the best primers for the full range of Aphex Twin. —Natalie Marlin

12. Broadcast: Extended Play Two (2000)

Every day I thank God that we got Trish Keenan for as long as we did, and Extended Play Two is simply one of the greatest documents of her singing that we have. Released after Broadcast’s The Noise Made By People album, Extended Play Two saunters through the annals of pop music beautifully—exemplified by a song like “Illumination,” which very well could be one of the greatest opening tracks on any EP or LP ever. The arrangement on “Unchanging Window / Chord Simple” sounds like it came from another planet entirely, while “Drums on Fire” sounds like someone locked a jazz musician inside a metal-framing factory. But the grooves of “Poem of Dead Song” coalesce with the pop ingenue of “A Man for Atlantis,” arriving like this great John Cale-era Velvet Underground progeny drunk on hip-hop sampling. Extended Play Two is all over the place, and that’s what makes it so dang perfect. —Matt Mitchell

11. Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies (1994)

After 1993’s Dirt tour cycle concluded, Layne Staley, Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez and Sean Kinney returned to Seattle to find they’d been evicted from their residence for failing to pay rent. They moved into London Bridge Studios, and within a week wrote and recorded what would become the first EP to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Upon its January 1994 release, tracks like “Rotten Apple” and “No Excuses” rose to exemplify not just the band’s discography, but the grunge movement they helped formulate—30 years on, “Nutshell” abides as a force of nature, finding cyclical meaning in ruin like the falling of the leaves. —Emma Schoors

10. Pulp: The Sisters EP (1994)

Jarvis Cocker had been performing with a rotating cast of band members under the name Pulp for over a decade when “Babies”—a tale of fumbling teenage sexuality woven into soaring, keyboard-driven pop transcendence that turns even the most unsavory lyric bittersweet—was released and jump-started the band’s long-awaited breakthrough. Two years later, Pulp fully emerged as a mainstream entity with fourth album His ‘N’ Hers, but it was The Sisters EP, which arrived a month afterward, that most successfully captured the band’s essence and delivered their best in one 20-minute primer. Though a remixed version of “Babies” still shines as the opener, it’s the three His ‘N’ Hers outtakes that steal the show, from the even friskier “Babies” sequel, “Your Sister’s Clothes,” to the groove-laden rejection of traditional relationships and gender roles on “Seconds” and “His N’ Hers.” Though the band would release more lauded music and soon be swept up in the narrative of Britpop’s rise and fall (despite far preceding it and warily eying the culture that came with it), you could argue this is Pulp’s most bulletproof release. Every break in Cocker’s voice and cathartic synth outro alike signal high-concept pop at its very best—holding a cracked mirror up to every twenty-something’s face and driving them to the dance floor all the while. —Elise Soutar

9. my bloody valentine: You Made Me Realise (1988)

You might call me crazy, but I’d venture to say that You Made Me Realise is the best thing that Dublin shoegazers my bloody valentine ever released. Its only competition, really, is 1991’s Loveless, which does have a leg up in terms of quantity (being a full-length album) but has nothing on the tightness of the five-track EP. A song like “Thorn” somehow manages to do an endlessly catchy ‘70s Robert Smith vocal line over a crackling but perfectly structured bassline—which leads into the acoustic guitar-driven Bilinda Butcher-sung “cigarette in your bed.” “cigarette” proves once and for all that mbv can do sweetness, at least in small doses. “Scratching your eyes out with a smile,” Butcher sings, and God, how diegetic was she? She’s already got her nails on our eyes. Perhaps You Made Me Realise is the most in motion we can see mbv—their first release with Creation Records (where they would release two more nearly as strong EPs, as well as Isn’t Anything and, of course, Loveless) and their first record with guitarist and vocalist Butcher. Pre-Realise, mbv was putting out derivative, if not fun, post-punk. Post-Realise, noise began to consume all of their attention—and yes, it was here where they stumbled upon something increasingly novel. But You Made Me Realise is still my bloody valentine at their most enjoyable, and infinitely listenable. With one foot in shoegaze’s slowly opening door, and one still in Three Imaginary Boys’s pink-walled kitchen, this EP is perhaps the my bloody valentine record most worth constantly returning to. —Madelyn Dawson

8. Charli xcx: Vroom Vroom (2016)

What is there to say about Charli xcx’s 2016 Vroom Vroom EP that hasn’t already been said before? Entirely produced by the late SOPHIE, it was the catalyst for Charli’s take over as the consummate avatar for hyperpop. Her only EP of non-live material, these four tracks are evocative of PC Music’s burgeoning rise through the ranks of avant- and hyperpop, with “Trophy” and “Secret (Shh)” explicitly detailing just how untouchable SOPHIE and Charli’s chemistry was. While unappreciated at the time of its release, Vroom Vroom has been critically reevaluated in short order to better reflect the pop zeitgeist. But that’s old news. “Vroom Vroom” still reliably makes a crowd of chronically online queers go feral. —Peyton Toups

7. Ice Cube: Kill at Will (1990)

My pick for the greatest rap EP ever, Kill at Will came out soon after Ice Cube released AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted and proved that the momentum of his debut LP wasn’t going to fade anytime soon. “Dead Homiez” is arguably one of Cube’s most emotional outings since he left N.W.A., as he raps about the murder of a friend over guitars, horns and piano; he throws up a remix of “Get Off My Dick and Tell Your Bitch To Come Here” that rivals his original cut; “The Product” is an all-encompassing story about a con man, told from the sperm cell to the grave, while the production from Sir Jinx is a palpable trademark from “Endangered Species (Tales from the Darkside)” through “I Gotta Say What Up!!!” Death Certificate was still a year away, but Kill at Will is 22 minutes of Ice Cube running raps around the rest of us, reckoning with crime, death and Blackness with a machine-gun flow that’s dense and menacing. Perspective is the name of his game, and Kill at Will has that in spades. —Matt Mitchell

6. Richard Swift: Ground Trouble Jaw (2008)

From the first moments of Richard Swift’s Ground Trouble Jaw EP, you are transported to a place not in the past, but a place that never fully existed to begin with. The hypnosis of “Would You?” siphons lush, sweetened melodies from a far-away promenade, while “Lady Luck” is theatrical and doused in so much reverb that Swift sounds like a ghost while he’s singing. While he was alive, Swift was the heir apparent to the likes of Harry Nilsson, a guy who could settle into a beautiful contrast when surrounded by his interests: funk, blues, doo-wop and soul. The result is a collection of sounds that conjure everything from Motown to novelty pop. A song like “The Bully” is cartoonish in nature but splendid in execution, sounding like a “Monster Mash” lookalike sung through so many octaves you’d be right to assume Swift isn’t the only voice present (but, rest assured, he is). “A Song for Milton Feher” is the kind of saloon waltz that Swift would return to on “Dirty Jim” 10 years later, and “The Original Thought” is striking in its straightforward delivery—that is, until its climax grows kooky and Swift becomes a Vaudevillian maestro. “I will listen to your every word,” he sings near the EP’s end, and I’ve hung onto that ever since. —Matt Mitchell

5. Burial: Kindred (2012)

The fifth EP from Burial is also the project’s best, unwinding as a 31-minute odyssey through dubstep, garage and 2-step electronica. Whatever precedent the producer set on a record like Untrue was broken into a million pieces on Kindred, an in-the-depths, colorful crunch of atom-splitting digitization. There’s tension in every pulse, distressing in every halt and forward-motion. Burial pushes boundaries simply by serrating the edges of his own technique. The title track and “Ashtray Wasp” each bookend the project through 12 minutes of darkened aural triumph, while “Loner” revels in the margins of haunted, memory-driven textures seeping out of Burial’s trackers and sequencers. It’s a one-of-a-kind, all-time great product from an artist no one will ever grow tired of. —Matt Mitchell

4. The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

This pick isn’t cheating, I promise! When the Beatles made Magical Mystery Tour, it included only six songs—their UK label EMI dubbed it too short to be an LP, but too long to be an EP. Execs considered pressing the album as an EP played at 33 ⅓ RPM, but it would have fractured the fidelity. So the Beatles released something Britain had never seen before: a double EP. While the Magical Mystery Tour we all think of first contains that impeccable LP side two featuring “Hello, Goodbye,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane,” “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” and “All You Need is Love,” the EP of it all is just as good. The title track is recognizable by anyone with a pulse, while “I Am the Walrus” is canonically one of the Beatles’ most popular songs. But that run from “The Fool on the Hill” through “Your Mother Should Know” is bang-on, as it features a great nod from George Harrison (“Blue Jay Way”), an instrumental you can get lost in (“Flying”) and, certainly, one of Paul McCartney’s sweetest tunes ever (“The Fool on the Hill”). Sandwiched in-between Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The White Album, Magical Mystery Tour stands tall—even if no one can settle on whether it’s an LP or double EP. But, strip away all of those #1 hits and you’re still left with six tracks that, even if they were made by any other band in existance, would be some of those bands’ greatest material ever. —Matt Mitchell

3. FKA twigs: M3L155X (2015)

No one knew back in 2015 that M3LL155X would be the last solo project from FKA twigs before a four-year hiatus, but oh did those 18 minutes leave us desperate to hear more. Produced by BOOTS, known best at the time for producing Beyoncé’s self-titled record, M3LL155X’s ballroom-inspired sound is as entrancing as it is equally disturbing. twigs acts as a temptress, appearing fragile in one song (“Glass & Patron”) then shapeshifting into a creature of dominance (“In Time”). —Jaeden Pinder

2. Buzzcocks: Spiral Scratch (1977)

The partnership of original Buzzcocks singer Howard Devoto and guitarist Pete Shelley may have been short-lived, but the two managed to shake up the punk world and beyond in that year and change. Not only did they bring the Sex Pistols to Manchester (the ripple effect of which can take at least partial credit for the Buzzcocks, Joy Division and The Fall among others), but 1977’s Spiral Scratch EP survives as one the earliest British punk records and the first to be released on a punk band’s own indie label. Not a shabby legacy for four little, jittery, anxious songs about being bored to death with zero prospects. —Matt Melis

1. Sufjan Stevens: All Delighted People (2010)

One would need pages and pages to fully dissect the layers of even the simplest song on All Delighted People, Sufjan Stevens’ hour-long “EP” released ahead of his even lengthier electronic album The Age of Adz, but that’s part of what makes Stevens one of the most beloved songwriters of the century so far. From the bruised whisper of “The Owl and the Tanager” to the divine bombast of his 17-minute tribute to his sister, “Djohariah,” Stevens documents emotional excess like no one else—tracing the contours of heartbreak and joy like they’re his scripture. When he sings “Oh, I love you a lot / Oh, I love you from the top of my heart” in his unmistakable falsetto on the (first of two versions of) the title track, that which would read as cliché coming from anyone else sounds novel, describing devotion with a purity he knows the world sorely lacks. May we have Sufjan here to remind us of that beauty for many years to come. —Elise Soutar

Contributors: Matt Mitchell, Olivia Abercrombie, Leah Weinstein, Alli Dempsey, Grace Robins-Somerville, Ellen Johnson, Garrett Martin, Josh Korngut, Cielo Perez, Lizzie Manno, Matt Melis, Madelyn Dawson, Emma Schoors, Peyton Toups, Sam Rosenberg, Natalie Marlin, Victoria Wasylak, Elise Soutar, Tom Williams, Jaeden Pinder

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Check out a playlist of our favorite songs from these EPs below.