The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far: 150-101

141. Car Seat Headrest: Teens of Denial (2016)

Will Toledo is the creative force behind this Bandcamp success story. This album arrived after his Matador debut, Teens of Style, which culled from his self-released records for songs he wanted to give a more official treatment too. Here, he’s coming through clearer than ever. His voice isn’t shrouded by reverb and distortion, and his songwriting is crisp as can be. This style of indie rock can benefit from the lo-fi treatment, and it did for most of his career, but the clarity here puts on display that his talent really carries through as well if not better with a cleaner production style. With Teens of Denial, Toledo has practically guaranteed himself a viable career for years to come. The fact he did it while still in his early 20s after laying a foundation of solid self-released records proves even further that his most creative days are probably still ahead of him. This is an album that makes you really fucking glad to be alive. For that matter, the very fact albums like this are coming out is enough reason alone to hope you get to stick around on this planet for a long, long time. —Mack Hayden

140. The Wrens: The Meadowlands (2003)

In 2003, a group of mid-thirties men from New Jersey released an album seven years in the waiting: The Meadowlands, an exhaustion-ridden, last-ditch attempt at holding onto a rock career they were all but certain had ended before it began. You can hear the weary hopelessness in every beat of the album, the muted horror of growing up and realizing your life is not, and will never become, what it was supposed to be. From Kevin Whelan’s hushed lament—“I’m nowhere near / Where I dreamed I’d be / I can’t believe / What life’s done to me”—on the opener, to Charles Bissell’s deadpan attempts to remind himself why he bothers making music at all on “This Boy Is Exhausted,” all the way to the most devastating closer ever put to tape, the improvised “This Is Not What You Had Planned,” the record captures not just the depiction of exhaustion but the experience of it. The way it hooks its teeth into your cartilage and only bites deeper with every pained attempt to shake it. This is in part because of the Sisyphian endeavor that was the album’s creation: Bissell arguably spent more time and effort on post-production than virtually any other album in existence. But the album somehow only feels rawer for it, with Charles Bissell’s years on the ADATs building not so much polish as patina. Every guitar line sounds labored over, reworked until its original emotional intent nearly bends under the weight of second-guessing—but never does. That’s what makes The Meadowlands feel so vital now, in a world where work outpaces meaning, where failure is increasingly structural but still feels personal, and where hope has to be practiced more like ritual than conviction. It’s not inspiration or encouragement that the album offers, not a hand outstretched to help you get to your feet. It’s something rarer: it promises to sit beside you in the mud until you feel ready to rise. And even after two decades and counting, its conviction still has yet to waver. —Casey Epstein-Gross

139. Big Thief: U.F.O.F. (2019)

Every one of Big Thief’s albums is a sprawling collection of indie-folk excellence, and each one is as beautiful as the last. Still, with its effortlessly dreamy Americana sound, U.F.O.F. remains their best project to date. The album is an ode to the things we don’t understand. From the impermanence of life to the great unknown of death, it’s a project that approaches unfamiliar realms with a sense of peace rather than peril. Adrianne Lenker has shared this viewpoint across her discography, but U.F.O.F. feels like the first time she fully embraced her instinctively introspective lyricism. Atop sparse acoustic landscapes, her powers are on full display, and the album feels like a swirling collection of lullabies that peek right into the heart. There’s the soft opener “Contact” with its a warm interplay of drums and acoustic strings, and the title track that praises tenderness atop clean, fingerpicked guitars. Later on there’s the twangy Americana track “Cattails.” Driven by Lenker’s delicate vocal line, the song was written in honor of Lenker’s great-grandmother. The song speaks to the album’s themes as a whole, and is a comforting look at acceptance of an imperfect life and death. —Camryn Teder

138. Beyoncé: 4 (2011)

How good is 4, really? Well, one of the best songs Beyoncé ever made (“Dance For You”) was saved for the expanded edition of it. Before this, I had known about Beyoncé through her big singles (“Single Ladies” and “Irreplaceable,” specifically). After 2011, she was an albums artist for me. I remember where I was when I saw the “Love On Top” video for the first time; “Run the World (Girls)” is still in contention for being one of the best lead singles of the last twenty-five years. I know Beyoncé would go on to make bigger records, but 4 was her last gesture before her selfi-titled and Lemonade made her the greatest entertainer of this millennium. It’s cool to look back on the seven singles that all felt big when they came on the radio. “Best Thing I Never Had”?? “Countdown”!! Influenced by, at first, Fela Kuti and, later, rock bands on festival bills and Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, 4 positions rap music as this broader, supportive template for Beyoncé’s brassiness. Here, her live style bleeds into the mix. 4 was a summer album fourteen years ago and still is. To have loved it in two separate decades has been a gift. —Matt Mitchell

137. Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism (2003)

This is what love and longing sounded like in 2003. On a concept album about long-distance relationships, Ben Gibbard’s lyrics capture a broader need for connection, framed gorgeously by Chris Walla’s expansive guitar and production. Gibbard had just unexpectedly introduced indie rock to electronic dance music with his one-off project The Postal Service and Walla had gone on to produce The Decemberists and The Thermals and they came back together with bassist Nick Harmer and new drummer Jason McGerr to create the band’s opus. Songs like the title track, “The New Year” and “The Sound of Settling” blend sweetness and bittersweetness, providing the perfect late-night soundtrack no matter how your date went. —Josh Jackson

136. Missy Elliott: Miss E…So Addictive (2001)

Missy Elliott spoiled us when her debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, hit the scene in ‘97 and changed everything. She’s one of the few artists to ever drop a milestone out the gate and capitalize on it with three even better records. What you think about her last two albums, This Is Not a Test! and The Cookbook, doesn’t diminish the 4-album run she began with. Right in the middle of that is Miss E…So Addictive, an absolutely hypnotic, perfect effort featuring one of the greatest songs ever: “Get Ur Freak On.” But not enough people talk about the four singles that followed it, “Lick Shots,” “One Minute Man,” “Take Away,” and “4 My People.” Now that’s an encore. This album would be on the list because of “Get Ur Freak On” alone. The fact that the other fifty-some minutes are just as fire? Well, I presume Missy Elliott is the only one who could have pulled that off, with some color from Method Man, Redman, Ludacris, Ginuwine, Busta Rhymes, and Timbaland. Elliott is the best emcee of her era, and that’s on full display on Miss E…So Addictive. —Matt Mitchell

135. Cindy Lee: Diamond Jubilee (2024)

Throughout its two hours of music, there are moments on Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee where instrumentation will be either recorded or manipulated to sound like it’s coming from the other room, if not another gauzy galaxy, only for the sound quality to change suddenly, jutting out at you. “If You Hear Me Crying” on the second “disc” does this beautifully, shifting from sunshine pop bounce to what sound like muted, sarangi-accompanied passages, all bulldozed by a day-glo guitar break in a matter of a minute. This melding of influences and styles produces some of the record’s most daring turns—notably where “Flesh and Blood”’s percussive intro throbs until a dam breaks into sustained synth textures, a bass-driven groove and wordless backing vocals. Only adding to the shambolic charm, the song notably speeds up or slows down at certain points, as if it’s careening on railroad tracks, propelling itself into an outro of more pronounced cymbal crashes and even more crunchy, psychedelic shredding. Diamond Jubilee will overwhelm you, there’s no getting around that. The sheer volume of what Patrick Flegel has created willfully takes up space, and it’s expected that the listener will have to wrestle with something of this scope, even as they’re wowed by what they’re hearing. But again, there’s something thrilling now about that type of challenge, when so much is so easily digestible. Even if the Cindy Lee project doesn’t exist in its current form by the time this upcoming tour is over, it won’t really matter—their masterwork, beamed down from another world, will always feel out of time and, therefore, feel at home in any given moment. The album’s sprawl has no beginning and no end. It’s just a question of when or where you’re ready to join it. —Elise Soutar

134. The Mountain Goats: Tallahassee (2002)

One of the greatest collections of character-driven songs, Tallahassee became the record that hoisted the Mountain Goats into the band we know them as now. John Darnielle tucked away the boombox and went into a studio to make a stellar alternative record about the Alpha Couple, codependency, and the balance of hatred, love, and commitment in a marriage. Above it all, Tallahassee is uncomfortable, nonlinear, and heart-rending. Of course there is “No Children,” a terrifying lambasting of spousal vitriol ending in togetherness. “Old College Try” is a harrowing but beautiful declaration of a love life surviving beyond the ache of two friends destroying each other. “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” is the record’s best moment, where we find the Alpha husband carrying his drunk Alpha wife up the stairs—followed by the ethos of the entire project, in which Darnielle sings, “Maybe everything that falls down eventually rises.” —Matt Mitchell

133. Moodymann: Black Mahogani (2004)

Conventional logic in electronic music holds that “organic” features like samples and live instrumentation create an emotional charge, while the machines take on the hard work of moving the music forward. Moodymann, a Detroiter, knows in his bones that these qualities are inseparable, and the most emotionally satisfying moment on his 2004 album Black Mahogani comes after distant horns and soul samples have been floating freely in space for nearly ten minutes and they’re suddenly undergirded with the most impossibly symmetrical kick drum ever recorded—as if the ghosts of Detroit’s machines have joined the conversation with the purgatorial smattering of revelers and glass-clinks that perfume the margins of nearly all Moodymann’s records. “Runaway” continues for 11 minutes, and it’s one of a handful of certified classics compiled here, others including all-time tension-release floor-filler “Shades of Jae” and “I’m Doing Fine” featuring Dilla mentor and P-Funk associate Amp Dog Knight. Meanwhile, the album tracks create a world of analog ‘70s mood lighting, curtains and checkered floors: a party that’s always occurring like the ghost ball in the Shining, where Moody is doomed to DJ forever. —Daniel Bromfield

132. The 1975: A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018)

It’s been a despairing seven years since the release of the 1975’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, when Matty Healy declared modern society was a fat sham. Healy takes a hacksaw to our collective consciousness’s shortcomings throughout the Manchester band’s third album and draws a direct line between themselves and the canonical British rock acts of the nineties. There’s an Oasis arena rock anthem for the sorta-suicidal, an ambient interlude reminiscent of OK Computer about a internet shut-in, and the Blue Nile twinkles throughout the endless scroll of madness that is “Love It If We Made It.” That latter track acts as A Brief Inquiry’s nucleus: How can we possibly make any tangible headway—politically and culturally—when there’s too many fires to put out and not enough water? A Brief Inquiry is all at once apathetic yet frantic, tackling our reliance on technology, inability to maintain our rage and energy for political progress, and always layering our interactions with a veil of quirkiness so we never come off like a killjoy. It increasingly feels that with each passing day, we might not make it to the end of this century. Some days it feels like we should just throw in the towel. But even in A Brief Inquiry’s most nihilistic lows, the 1975 leave you with one plea: just try. —Jaeden Pinder

131. Madonna: Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)

On the topic of Madonna’s definitive aughts record, it seems that most folks prefer Music—and I certainly do not blame them, even if they’re wrong. Confessions on a Dance Floor is the real prize. It’s an hour of big dance songs, as Madonna pulled from disco, electropop, and club music to make the bubbliest, cheapest (non-derogatory) album ever. It’s sequenced like a DJ set, playing without pauses in-between songs, and samples ABBA, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, and Donna Summer. Madonna was already the greatest pop star of her time by 2006, but Confessions on a Dance Floor feels like a truly historical release—in application and legacy. The sounds that get revealed pay tribute to decades of pop and electronic music, and no other forty-something megastar has ever released such an obvious, unstoppable reinvention. I get giddy listening to “Sorry” and “Jump.” It’s the Madonna I grew up with reimagined into the Madonna I need right now. —Matt Mitchell

130. Jazmine Sullivan: Heaux Tales (2022)

There is something magnificent in the way that Jazmine Sullivan dissects the intricacies of relationships, from the struggles of heartache to the rush of really great sex, on her latest album Heaux Tales, all with the skill of a slick-talking preacher, or perhaps a goddess herself. Sullivan’s words are interspersed with spoken interludes of women reflecting on their own ideas of sex, which contradict just as much as they agree with each other, emphasizing the difficult position of sexual indulgence as a woman, and the societal pressures to keep quiet and submissive. Sullivan’s vocal control shines, ping-ponging between a soft croon and a rap as she lets desire take control and lets her voice echo the choir of other women who are finally embracing their human right: pleasure. Don’t get it twisted—”Heaux” (pronounced “ho”) is a term of empowerment, and Sullivan will make sure you know it. —Jade Gomez

129. Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up (2017)

“I’ll get back to you someday soon,” promised Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold on the title track to the gorgeous 2011 album Helplessness Blues, as he wandered through the world to find his meaning in it. Having halted Fleet Foxes soon after due to burnout, at their zenith, favoring education and the pursuit of a richer understanding of life away from the mounting spotlight, Pecknold responded six years later with Crack-Up. Compelled to resume music-making after a considerable period of personal growth—and in part a longing to collaborate with bandmate and boyhood friend Skyler Skjelset once again, the impetus behind progressive triumph “Third Of May / Õdaigahara”—the autumnal idealism which hued the folk outfit’s previous two records had faded to reveal Pecknold’s wizened philosophical stance. With the Dylan and Cohen lyrical touchstones coupled with the moody orchestral arrangements that spectacularly undulate like the waves on the album’s artwork, Crack-Up is a body of work veiled in mist rather than dappled in sunlight. But, a renewed Pecknold was operating musically at a level few folk artists would dare to. Evocative as it is inventive, Crack-Up is Fleet Foxes’ most challenging album—and their most rewarding, if you can crack it. —Tom Curtis-Horsfall

128. Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh (2010)

Erykah Badu’s fourth and most recent album (she calls Worldwide Underground an EP, and I believe her) goes down impossibly easy. The more languid pace of her New Amerykah albums fits her earth-mother doula-Dude vibe more readier than the rimshots and snappier tempos of her earlier work, and here she leans into unchanging chord progressions, dreamy evocations of puppy love, and a wit that’s all the sharper for how spaced-out she seems. Perfectly tilted between perfumed funk grooves and goofy interludes, Return of the Ankh is hard to complain about, and yet it’s the sting that really elevates it. You’re not wrong to put it on as something to sink into and vibe with for a while, and yet it’s always just the tiniest mote sadder than you remember it being. It’s in the way she doubles her voice on the second line of “Gone Baby Don’t Be Long,” the wordless runs that arc like contrails through the cloudless skies of “Window Seat,” the way the whole record is just so lush and beautiful you wonder how such a paradise can last. —Daniel Bromfield

127. Tim Hecker: Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006)

Harmony in Ultraviolet is one of the best ambient records ever, rivaled only by Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid and Pop this century. Some of Tim Hecker’s ideas are haunting, some serene. The album works best in those contrasts, in sounds that collapse on top of one another, in sweeps of crackly transmissions and drifting, heavy drones. The feedback turns the pleasant into static; the static turns the pleasant into feedback. Whispers of pipe organs and loops talking in reverse build towards crescendos but never quite make it there. And you don’t want them to make it there. Harmony in Ultraviolet demands, from the title alone, that you find melody in the music of a world that surrounds you. It meets you with fifty minutes of ghosts and light drowned out by a fog. The songs don’t wash over you, they break right through you. —Matt Mitchell

126. Pusha T: DAYTONA (2018)

The first album to come out of Kanye West’s Wyoming sessions was also the best: Pusha T’s third solo studio album Daytona, originally known as King Push. The lean and mean seven-track LP was the first of five West-produced albums released in the summer of 2018, but it’s an unquestionable career highlight for the Clipse rapper. A laser-focused Pusha makes every lyric count, deftly depicting the luxurious life of a drug kingpin-turned-rapper who hardly recognizes the genre he’s spent two decades in (“I’m too rare amongst all of this pink hair, ooh / Still do the Fred Astaire on a brick”). Meanwhile, West’s sample-heavy beats provide Pusha the ideal soundscape—sometimes opulent, others menacing—to swagger over. If you know, you know. —Scott Russell

125. Cloud Nothings: Here and Nowhere Else (2014)

Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings always had enough space for its brand of batshit pop-punk to flash its fangs without much regard for hype or expectation. But with Attack On Memory making the band a breakthrough act, the band then faced its truest test yet: the much-anticipated follow-up. Recorded in just a week’s time and produced by John Congleton, Here And Nowhere Else marked the first time the band recorded together as a three-piece. But hearing Here And Nowhere Else, you’d never know anything had been altered since their last outing. The entirety of the album is spent in the fast lane—perhaps a reflection of Dylan Baldi writing the songs while touring relentlessly for a year and a half, penning each song in a different city. The result is a fast-paced, convulsive collection that has all the intensity of its predecessor but with an elevated dose of urgency. In the uphill battle of balancing success, artistic vision and mounting pressures, the trio could’ve fallen flat with a follow-up to a critically acclaimed masterwork—but they didn’t. Instead, with Here And Nowhere Else, they threw the first punch, and it hit you square in the jaw.—Michael Danaher

124. Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (2010)

At long, long last, Janelle Monáe dropped their full-length debut onto the world in 2010. It only seems fitting to look back on the moment two years prior when we first encountered her: ”’This is a historic night,’ the emcee shouted to the crowd. Waving blue and white inspirational signs, the assembly chants louder. The excitement is palpable. The diversity of the crowd—young and old, black and white, male and female—is itself a sign of the hope offered. When the shouts reach a fevered pitch, the guest of honor emerges. Welcome Janelle Monáe. Sure, it’s only a club show, but—Barack Obama allusions aside—it does feel historic. You can’t help but feel you’re watching the birth of a superstar. “I’ve just watched Prince, Michael Jackson, Anita Baker, Judy Garland and AC/DC all at once,” a friend exclaimed as we left the show. When I first saw the 23-year-old singer, I told my wife that I’d just had a Jon Landau moment—I’d seen the future of rock and roll. Monáe—barely five-feet tall and backed only by a guitar player and drummer—delivered a performance unlike any I’d ever seen.—Tim Regan-Porter

123. Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things (2002)

On their 2001 debut studio album, Take Offs and Landings, Rilo Kiley were trying to prove themselves as true artists rather than child actors taking a stab at music. There was so much promise there, but Rilo Kiley hadn’t quite gotten its moment to shine. Thankfully, that came a year later with their sophomore release, a record that turned the LA band into one of the most iconic indie rock acts and inspired a new generation of women in the genre. Their sound was bigger, the songs were catchier, and Jenny Lewis learned to shut down the noise from critics, finding her groove as a songwriter. The Execution of All Things‘s appeal lies in the indelible melodies paired with relatable lyrics, from depression anthem “A Better Son/Daughter,” with militaristic drums that make you feel like a soldier ready to battle your way to happiness, to the twinkling, acoustic-driven sing-along in “With Arms Outstretched,” asking for a love interest to commit already instead of leaving you in romantic limbo. —Tatiana Tenreyro

122. Angels of Light: How I Loved You (2001)

Swans’ mastermind Michael Gira described How I Loved You, his second record made with friends under the name Angels of Light, as a collection of “all love songs, in one form or another.” It’s true that the record is a love letter (harrowing at certain turns, unbearably tender at others) to his loves of various points in his life: his mother (whose photo is featured on the cover), the deathless parade of girls dressed in black at New York shows, Nico’s discography, and Swans bandmate Jarboe—with whom his romantic relationship was coming to an end. To love is to suffer, as the old adage goes, and How I Loved You insists the listener share its suffering in haunted stabs of sound and ritualistic drone. Yet, these pains, too, give way to the lovely country lilt of “Untitled Love Song” and the grandiose sweep of “Two Women,” as if the bitterness only stings because of how intensely those loves’ light beamed. In a storied career built on musical dark nights of the soul, How I Loved You might stand as Gira’s brightest unsung star, if only because you can hear glimpses of radiance he worked so desperately to hide finally shining through. —Elise Soutar

121. Mastodon: Blood Mountain (2006)

Graaaaaaaaaaaaah! This is what metal should be. The coolest thing about Mastodon’s breakthrough effort, 2004’s Leviathan, was its cerebral focus on story and concept in a genre bedeviled (often intentionally) by cliché. Like its predecessor, Blood Mountain is a study in elemental force that rides the line between thrash and plod with enlightened originality and compositional skill to spare. While, lyrically, Blood Mountain cloaks itself in some of the cartoonish tropes of metal’s rune-littered psycho-tundra, musically it’s absolutely breathtaking. Dripping with textures and bubbling with riffs that actually lead somewhere, it offers sonic art in high form while, not incidentally, melting your face with its power. —Jeff Leven

120. Gil Scott-Heron: I’m New Here (2010)

The final record Gil Scott-Heron made before passing away in 2011, I’m New Here, came after an intense, 16-year hiatus plagued by legal troubles and drug addiction. Richard Russell, the owner of the XL label, produced it, pulling from ideas he’d heard on The xx’s debut record a year prior. The music has been categorized as “post-industrial blues,” but it features electronica, spoken-word, folk, and trip-hop, too. Scott-Heron penned some of the great back-half tunes here, like “Where Did the Night Go” and “New York Is Killing Me,” but his interpreations of Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil” and Smog’s “I’m New Here” are singular. Hell, even Scott-Heron’s co-writes with Russell are dynamite, like “Running” and “The Crutch” back-to-back. His power emits across a catalogue, culminating in I’m New Here’s humble yet ferocious lens. The political poems of his past arrive here in an optimistic contrast, and effectively so. —Matt Mitchell

119. Lorde: Melodrama (2017)

Following the acclaim of 2013’s Pure Heroine, a 19-year-old Lorde had something to prove. She holed up for 18 months with Jack Antonoff in his Brooklyn apartment, creating what is still lauded as a magnum opus for the both of them. Melodrama is a triumph in pop that simply cannot be replicated, finding its strength in its vast world of emotional resonance. The lyrical gravitas of instrumentally minimal tracks like “Liability” and “Writer In The Dark” only emphasize the bombast brought on by their respective predecessors in “Hard Feelings / Loveless” and “Supercut.” Lorde’s already prodigious storytelling chops are enhanced from the heightened emotional intensity of young adulthood. Whether through larger-than-life synths or vocals that feel like Lorde is pouring her heart out right in front of you, Melodrama refuses to release its grip until you vividly remember what it’s like to be 19 and on fire. —Leah Weinstein

118. PJ Harvey: Let England Shake (2011)

PJ Harvey’s second Mercury Prize winner Let England Shake marked another major pivot in a new creative direction, one that required not only historical research, but also the search for an appropriate vocal delivery, quite literally: She spent time crafting a warble higher than any she had attempted before to serve the new material, which saw her acting as omniscient narrator of England’s history of conquest and war. Specifically pulling from the history of the U.K.’s involvement in World War I, as well as the more recent casualties that came as a result of the then-ongoing British army presence in Afghanistan, the record reads as a love letter that can’t help but scorn its deeply problematic subject, even as it holds the nation close. There’s a grandiose elegance to every track, feeling as large and seminal a project as the ever-sprawling story it tells. Though not the most sonically adventurous version of PJ Harvey that we’ve seen thus far, it doesn’t really need to be. It’s difficult to argue that any extra flourishes would have improved the results, which teem with poetic lyrics and effective arrangements. Taking the idea that the artist stays vital by reinventing themselves to a whole new level, Let England Shake marked the first time Harvey, known for writing about the darker fringes of human nature, held her lens up to history at large, inventing her own type of epic wartime ballad in the process. —Elise Soutar

117. Kali Uchis: Isolation (2018)

“There’s no tracking where I’m going / There’s no me for them to find.” The riddle-like words drift in covered in mist. The sounds of Tropicalia and bossa nova surround your ears with humidity. Are you dreaming? Are you flying? This is “Body Language,” the lush intro that transports you to the world of Kali Uchis, a world the Colombian-American songstress invites you deeply into, as she compellingly keeps herself a mystery. From the all-Spanish, dancehall romance of “Nuestro Planeta” to the boss-ass-bitch anthem ”Miami”—as sexy and diverse as the city in the title—Uchis gives ample nods to her Latin roots, while asserting herself as a strong, independent woman. “Why would I be Kim? / I could be Kanye,” she sings on “Miami,” never content to be anywhere but the driver’s seat. On the Reggaeton highlight “Tyrant,” she’s pondering the question of whether or not to give her man any power, the slightest control only hers to hand over, even when she’s head-over-heels in love. For this self-preservation she sacrifices never being truly known—perhaps even to herself—a trade she seems eager to make, holding back to avoid being hurt on her road to ruling the world. “You never knew me then / And you’ll never know me now,” she sings on “Just A Stranger,” which infectiously glides over a bouncy groove courtesy of whiz-kid Steve Lacy, one of several promises she makes throughout the album to be untouchable. —Madison Desler

116. Drive-By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera (2001)

“Free Bird!” was an ironic punchline when the Drive-By Truckers first released Southern Rock Opera in 2001, but the Truckers’ breakthrough went some way toward rehabilitating Lynyrd Skynyrd for the hipsters. On a 19-track double album packed with cranked-up guitars and a throwback seventies vibe, the Truckers examined race, class, and arena rock, using Skynyrd as a focal point on rowdy songs including “Ronnie and Neil,” “Birmingham,” and “Let There Be Rock.” Part concept-album fantasia, part autobiography for principal songwriters Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Rob Malone, Southern Rock Opera showed that “the duality of the Southern thing,” in Hood’s words, was more complicated and nuanced than the standard cultural narrative has allowed. The Truckers provided context the best way they know how: with a three-guitar attack on a collection of songs that never flags. —Eric R. Danton

115. The Avalanches: Wildflower (2016)

Sixteen years after releasing an atomic bomb of a debut album, the Avalanches emerged from development hell with their sophomore LP in 2016: Wildflower, a mammoth, 21-song time capsule. At an hour in length, Wildflower exists in a completely different league than its predecessor, Since I Left You. Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi turned in a plunderphonics masterpiece that touched the corners of rap, disco, psychedelia and rock ‘n’ roll in the processs—a true gem of a genre that feels like the culmination of everything DJ Shadow was working towards in the nineties and on his album Endtroducing… and what J Dilla accomplished on Donuts in 2006. On songs like “Because I’m Me,” “Frankie Sinatra,” and “If I Was a Folkstar,” the Avalanches do extensive sampling of sixties rock tunes, jumping on an anti-establishment energy and attempting to piece together a surrealistic, urban oasis in the process—and the Melbourne electronica titans land every punch. Wildflower’s guest list, too, feels impossible in retrospect, with Camp Lo, Danny Brown, MF DOOM, Tame Impala, Biz Markie, Warren Ellis, Mercury Rev, Toro y Moi, David Berman, and Father John Misty all making appearances. Wildflower took a long time to happen, but it effectively changed the game once it arrived. That back-end sequence of “Over the Turnstiles,” “Sunshine,” and “Light Up” is my favorite three-song run on any album on this list. —Matt Mitchell

114. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America (2006)

After burrowing into the gritty lives of a handful of characters on the Hold Steady’s first two albums, singer Craig Finn takes more of a bird’s-eye view on the third, pulling back for a wide-angle shot of young adults trying to figure themselves out, often through a haze of intoxicants and questionable decisions. Finn’s lyrics, at once literary and street smart, blunt but empathetic and often bleakly funny, combine with galvanizing guitar parts from Tad Kubler—the album opens with one of his best-ever riffs on “Stuck Between Stations”—and melodic counterpoints on piano from Franz Nicolay on songs that can be raucous, wistful and anthemic, sometimes all at once. From the shout-along refrain on “Massive Nights” to the reflective slow-jam “First Night,” which revisits characters from the first two albums, the Hold Steady are in peak form on Boys and Girls in America, which demonstrated the extent of their depth, and also their heart. —Eric R. Danton

113. Vince Staples: Big Fish Theory (2017)

Big Fish Theory is Vince Staples’ electronic album, and he has even said as much himself. The Long Beach rapper’s sophomore record opens with a trance cut courtesy of none other than Justin Vernon, and the late dance savant SOPHIE handles the jittery, caustic production of standout “Yeah Right.” Like the Californian ocean itself, Big Fish Theory is aqueous and expansive, bridging Detroit techno and UK garage with harrowing details about Staples’ experiences with gang activity and police violence. “Swimming upstream while I’m tryna keep my bread from the sharks / Make me wanna put the hammer to my head,” he raps on the quasi-title track. It’s dark and nihilistic yet nonetheless inviting, like a beautiful, blue sea beckoning you into its depths where sharks hunt for prey. —Grant Sharples

112. Sunn O))): Black One (2005)

There are few experimental metal bands with the reach of droning freaks Sunn O))), and Black One is a key reason why. Black metal is a subgenre with a fraught history, but its heavy use of distortion and atmospheric production (not too far from shoegaze, as later precocious experimentalists noticed) gives it broader appeal than typical metal subgenres. Sunn O)))’s version of black metal is pummeling and immersive. Between standouts like “It Took The Night To Believe,” “Orthodox Caveman” and “Báthory Erzsébet,” there is a sense of dread and slow-moving terror that is entirely inescapable and keeps listeners coming back time and time again. There are few feelings as satisfying as enduring a Sunn O))) guitar-torture session. —Devon Chodzin

111. Portishead: Third (2008)

Portishead may have taken an extended group hiatus in 1997, but it’s not as if its members made like Rip Van Winkle, sleeping through the millennial turnover only to awaken and find that trip-hop (gasp!) had essentially disappeared. Beth Gibbons, the group’s sonic doppelganger for Billie Holiday, released the spellbinding (if understated) 2002 album Out of Season in partnership with Talk Talk’s Paul “Rustin’ Man” Webb. And Portishead’s resident beat alchemist, Geoff Barrow, remixed tracks from Gravediggaz and The Pharcyde while producing The Coral’s fourth LP in partnership with official Portishead third wheel Adrian Utley, the band’s invisible jazzbo instrumentalist. All of this converges to make Third that much more unlikely and remarkable. Portishead’s version of trip-hop has always overweighted the “trip” quotient when compared to hip-hop worshipping contemporaries such as DJ Shadow, U.N.K.L.E. and fellow Bristolians Massive Attack and Tricky; Barrow was as likely to sample film-noir soundtracks or the minor-key orchestrations of Lalo Schifrin as he was to go cratedigging in the Eric B. & Rakim archives. And then there was Gibbons’ shadowy voice, which often sounded more like a sampled artifact than the rare grooves in which the band traded. Her voice gave Portishead’s music a wounded, heartsick quality that elevated it to an altitude safe from the passing fads of pop culture. Trip-hop may have died a quiet, timely death in the intervening years, but Gibbons’ otherworldly gift guaranteed that Portishead’s music would survive any drought with its soul largely intact. —Corey Dubrowa

110. DJ Rashad: Double Cup (2013)

When DJ Rashad passed away at just age thirty-four, Chicago’s historic house music scene was bestowed with a saint it didn’t ask for. What Rashad could have done in the following years is limitless and tragically unknowable; just six months prior to his death, he had released his debut album Double Cup to widespread praise uncharacteristic for an underground electronic dance record. A decade later, DJ Rashad’s contemporaries are touring globally and footwork has grown into a tour de force of influence and inspiration for a new generation of producers worldwide. While dance music rarely works within the LP format, Double Cup lives as one of house music’s few great full-length records. DJ Rashad presents a sweeping view of Chicago’s oft-overlooked electronic dance music history in effortless fashion, touring twenty years of footwork, juke, and house history and highlighting the innovation of fellow Teklife members; DJ Spinn, Taso, Manny, and more. Like its cover, Double Cup is a perfect image of Chicago, its tightly woven streets shimmering and alive. —Benny Sun

109. The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You (2009)

It’s hard to let go. Of a girlfriend. Of an old hound dog. Of a tattered pair of jeans. And maybe most gut-wrenchingly of all, it’s hard to let go of your favorite heretofore unheralded band. Watching them grow from dingy clubs to cavernous ballrooms. Seeing them jump from a blurb in the local alt-weekly to the cover of a national magazine. And, finally, watching them walk all wobbly kneed and wide-eyed into the larger spotlight. This is the plight of the Avett Brothers fan: They must keep a stiff upper lip as their heroes trek off into the great unknown mainstream. As much as it should be about the music, the resounding, oft-repeated story-line for I and Love and You is as follows: Grassroots phenoms convert a congregation of followers with kamikaze touring and a deluge of boutique-label releases since 2001, then step up to the big microphone. A major label. A stylist. A recording studio in the surgically enhanced hills of Malibu. A mystical svengali-like producer (Rick Rubin) with globe stompers like the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers on his résumé. The Avett Brothers (Scott and Seth, plus bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon) no longer belong solely to the indie cult. But to concentrate on the names and dollar signs and intentional pining for mass appeal is to ignore the far more important point—for the Avett Brothers to make this record took ginormous, pendulous testicles. Having conquered every Saturday night music hall and holler between Asheville and Portland, they have made a record that is not just a stab at the mainstream—it’s a harpoon through its sternum. This is not at all a bad thing. The Avetts could’ve made some kind of caterwauling record full of flaming banjoes, hootenannies, and throaty hollers that encapsulates their reputation-making live show. In fact, that would’ve been a pretty damn sensible move as far as introductions go. Howdy, we’re the Avett Brothers. We’re gonna hillbilly-rock you like you’ve never been hillbilly-rocked before. —Bart Blasengame

108. Faye Webster: Atlanta Millionaires Club (2019)

If she prefers to stay inside, then Faye Webster makes music for her own kind: With all its droopy pedal steel, unhurried funk and a breezy island air that could sub in for your AC, Atlanta Millionaires Club is the perfect summer album for indoors-y types. Drawing on both her Americana roots and the bendy R&B of artists like Aaliyah (one of her cited inspirations), Webster creates a dramaticized retelling of romantic shortcomings that sounds like the sun crying. After her debut album Run and Tell and high school, Webster did what any aspiring songwriter would: moved to Nashville. There, she studied songwriting at Belmont University before trying out graphic design, but when she found herself jonesing for a trip home every other weekend, decided to abandon collegiate life altogether and made plans to return to Atlanta, where she has since stayed put. Since then she’s spent considerable time photographing various ATL stars like Offset and Lil Yachty. Webster released her second, self-titled album after college, which contains her first Spotify hit, the groovy “She Won’t Go Away,” a hazy country dream. But dreamier still is Webster’s third solo LP, Atlanta Millionaires Club, a steamy brush with R&B flourished with lots of twang and retro grooves. It’s weird and sleepy and full of droll one-liners like “I should get out more,” the chorus from “Room Temperature.” —Ellen Johnson

107. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)

Kendrick Lamar is a storyteller through and through. That narrative passion comes through clearest on his second album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, the 2012 record that solidified the Compton native’s title as one of the greatest rappers of his generation. Across its 12 tracks and hour-plus runtime, K.Dot documents his experiences growing up in Compton and how his home has shaped his understanding of the world and himself. He threads it together with trenchant lyrics about the perils of alcohol (“Swimming Pools (Drank)”), a successful home invasion (“The Art of Peer Pressure”) and the systematic nature of street violence (“m.A.A.d city”). On this bona fide SoCal tour de force, Kendrick sums up his legacy at the top of the closing track: “Now everybody serenade the new faith of King Kendrick Lamar.” —Grant Sharples

106. Sleater-Kinney: The Woods (2005)

If Dig Me Out was Sleater-Kinney’s sing-to-each-other album (see “One More Hour”) and One Beat was Corin Tucker’s baby, her nascent motherhood steering her towards politically anxious songwriting in post-9/11 America, then The Woods was Carrie Brownstein’s moment. Much of the writing took place while she was waylaid in California, post-breakup, contemplating such topics as suicide trends and society’s try-to-fill-a-hole-that-can’t-be-filled consumption. The Woods showed that “punk,” especially the kind affiliated (however incorrectly, or datedly) with the riot grrrl movement, didn’t have to be all about pick-up-and-play brevity. It could be gargantuan, biblical, and scare-you-straight—certainly more commanding than anything made by men in the year 2005, if not ever, with upgraded classic rrrock swagger, in-the-red live production, and outrageous riffs that sounded like they could topple buildings. In fact, they soon toppled the trio, who wouldn’t release new music for a decade. It’s apt really, because The Woods is an album to hold close when the end is nigh—to prep you for the final showdown and the messy after-times to come. We need it now more than ever. —Hayden Merrick

105. Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000)

Yo La Tengo are capable of both extreme quiet and jarring volume. The Hoboken trio’s disarming dynamism, partly exemplified by their stellar ninth album, 2000’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, is one of their key draws. “Cherry Chapstick” heralds the fuzzy indie-rock boom of the early 2020s in the vein of Feeble Little Horse or Hotline TNT. The Thomas Pynchon-referencing “The Crying of Lot G” induces a gauzy pensiveness with its 6/8 sway, hushed vibraphones and Ira Kaplan’s murmured delivery. Like many YLT records, it’s a maze to get lost in, one in which you secretly hope to never find the exit. —Grant Sharples

104. Noname: Telefone (2016)

Though Noname found fame within a crowded class of Chicagoan rappers championed by a then-unstoppable Chance the Rapper, her sobering perspective quickly became indispensable. Her words were searing and direct, taking on and outflanking the supposed saviors of the rap game. As the 21st century’s response to the broken promise of Lauryn Hill, Noname and Telefone were the perfect antidote to yet another decade of failed rap politics and its hedonistic fallout. She writes in the shadow of fallen heroes, old and new, reminiscing on a childhood soundtracked by Diddy while wishing for a eulogy from Kanye. Telefone doesn’t exactly make for feel good raps; Noname speaks much of the early death she witnesses, whether it’s the babies who fail to reach adolescence or the men gunned down in the streets by police. But it’s the type of music that, living under a constant floodlight of horrific headlines and crumbling institutions, makes it just a bit easier to close your eyes and sleep at night. —Benny Sun

103. Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell (2015)

Delicate yet deep, 2015’s Carrie & Lowell once again proved that some of the most personal art is often the best kind. Following 2010’s heavily electronic The Age of Adz, Sufjan Stevens returned to his indie-folk roots, mining thematic inspiration from the loss of his mother in 2012 and his relationship with his stepfather (both are name-dropped in the title and adorn the album’s cover). This process resulted in a devastating trove of songs about grief and death that still resonates due to Stevens’ impeccable craftsmanship and piercing autobiographical detail. It’s strange to say that an extremely vulnerable record has “no skips,” but truly, there isn’t a single track on Carrie & Lowell that feels out of place, from the amusing-turned-heartbreaking “Eugene” to the striking, stormy “Fourth of July.” It remains Stevens’s tightest, most cohesive work to date and a powerful testament to using art as a path toward finding closure and meaning in our memories. —Sam Rosenberg

102. J Dilla: Donuts (2006)

Donuts was one of the last albums J Dilla would ever get to work on, a fact that he knew quite clearly when he was hospitalized for complications with TTP and lupus in 2005. As he confronted his own mortality, Dilla recorded twenty-nine of the thirty-one tracks on Donuts in his hospital room. The intensity of his pain increased, with moments where it was so intense he could barely move his hands, but Dilla persisted through it all to continue his work on the impending posthumous release of The Shining and Dounts. The latter was his last gift to the world, a sprawling instrumental tapestry of grief and expression in which he faces his own diminishing life with heartbreaking clarity. The short, disjointed instrumental arcs feel frantic at times, abruptly cutting out of sequences in alignment with Dilla’s fraught emotional and physical state. He masterfully shapes samples of Dionne Warwick, Frank Zappa, 10cc, and the Isley Brothers into his final declarations. Dilla died three days after the album’s release in 2006 at the age of 32, with Donuts fully cementing his legacy as one of the most influential producers and creatives to grace the world of hip-hop. —Grace Ann Nantanawan

101. The Strokes: Is This It (2001)

When the Strokes hit the NYC rock scene with their debut album in 2001, no one could have predicted that Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, and Fabrizio Moretti were going to become figureheads of a “revival.” Continuing the history of what bands like Talking Heads, Television and Blondie started 25 years prior, Is This It emerged as a game-changer. You’ve heard it all before, how it inspired bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon, and the Libertines to kick up a fuss, or how it was a “template for rock and roll in the modern day,” as Zane Lowe once said on BBC Radio 1. And maybe that much is true, as songs like “Last Nite,” “New York City Cops,” “Someday,” “The Modern Age,” and “Hard to Explain” were all certifiably top-notch rock tracks fit for Gen X kids yearning for a post-adolescent identity. The Strokes set the gold standard for Y2K bands, showing that you can make a modern classic on your first go. What you know now about contemporary rock music likely owes a big number of thanks to Is This It. —Matt Mitchell

Tune in tomorrow for Part IV of our list.