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Music
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A community to share and talk about music: great albums, favorite bands, best concerts, etc.
If you're sharing links to songs you can use https://song.link/ to create a single link that takes to Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Music, etc.
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Out of all the legendary albums on this list, I doubt many of them had their origins as an abandoned rock opera. Many arrangements and scraps of Pete Townshend’s abandoned Lifehouse project became the basis for Who’s Next, an album that has no underlying theme or storyline. This sense of freedom allowed The Who to focus on making great individual songs rather than an overarching story.
The result is The Who growing up in public. The songs combine the hard-hitting energy of the band in their youth with the more experimental elements explored on Tommy. The most noticeable improvement is Roger Daltrey’s voice, reaching heights that were only hinted at in the past. Keith Moon’s drum solo followed by Daltrey’s scream at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” remains as one of rock’s greatest moments.
While everyone knows about the singles, from the opening keyboard of “Baba O’Riley” to the building acoustics of “Behind Blue Eyes,” every song on this record is a potential hit. Listen to the explosive chorus of “Bargain.” Check out a rare lead vocal from bassist John Entwistle on “My Wife.” With tracks like these, it’s easy to see why Who’s Next moved The Who from a great band of the ’60s to a rock superpower in the ’70s. — Joe Marvilli (2010)
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Who would have thought four twenty-somethings from Minneapolis could produce something so timeless, so vital, and so vivid? Back in 1984, when The Replacements dished out their magnum opus, Let It Be, nobody did. While all eyes were on Prince at the time, Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, Chris Mars, and Bob Stinson were creating pure, unadulterated rock and roll. With his heart on his sleeve, Westerberg poured his love, his loss, and his inhibitions into each and every lyric, note, chord, and yelp.
On “Androgynous,” the first hit of the piano strikes your nerves, tugging at your eyes, and by the time Westerberg sings, “Future outcasts, they don’t last,” you’re right there beside him — in the dusty bar, within the late hours of a week night, and with nobody to hold onto but the music. That’s everything The Replacements were meant to be; here they do that in every note, over 11 tracks, and for 33 minutes and 31 seconds. It’s not an album, it’s a life preserver. — Michael Roffman (2010)
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With new jack swing falling out of favor by the mid-’90s and Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez dealing with personal struggles that kept her away from the group for extended periods, TLC found ways to mature their sound on their sophomore album. Reuniting with Babyface, Jermain Dupri, and Dallas Austin while adding contributions from Sean “Puffy” Combs, Organized Noize, and Chucky Thompson, they bumped up the hip-hop and soul vibes to utter R&B perfection on CrazySexyCool.
At the same time, they helped spur a sex positivity movement that still evolves today by tackling romance from numerous angles: the tryst of “Creep,” the sweetness of “Diggin’ on You,” the XXX of “Red Light Special.” In between, they delivered one of the most enduring cautionary tales of all time in “Waterfalls.” CrazySexyCool was the R&B album of the decade. Today, it stands as a testament to confident womanhood, a statement sealed in the record books as the best-selling album by an American girl group ever and the first to reach Diamond status. — B. Kaye
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There is an alternate universe that exists where Wilco never releases Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, an album that would not only secure the band’s place in rock history, but would fundamentally alter the landscape of the music industry at the turn of the new millennium. Yes, this record is awash in mythology and backstory, best encapsulated in Sam Jones’ I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which just so happens to be one of the best music documentaries of all-time.
But YHF endures as a classic over 20 years later less because of that lore and more because it’s a collection of songs that’s so damn strong. Jeff Tweedy channels all his anxiety and self-consciousness into songs like “Ashes of American Flags” and “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” complementing those heavier tracks with the warm nostalgia of “Heavy Metal Drummer” and heart-on-your-sleeve romance of “Reservations,” which features a lyric that’s devastatingly direct: “I’ve got reservations about so many things, but not about you.”
The genius of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the decision to add layers of feedback and field recordings and noise and distortion on top of Tweedy’s folk and country and indie rock songs, leaning into the experimental to such an extent that the record dispatched the “alt-country” label that had dogged the band since its founding. From start to finish, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot mesmerizes and beguiles, and somehow manages to sound like both falling in love and the end of the world. It’s untouchable. — S.D.
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After making a name for themselves with their self-titled debut, System of a Down reached new heights with their sophomore album, 2001’s Toxicity. Melodic, chaotic, and downright hypnotic, the album expanded the boundaries of heavy music. The frenetic “Chop Suey!” became one of the most bizarre hits of all-time on rock radio (even with Clear Channel temporarily removing it from airwaves after the September 11 attacks), while songs like the crushing title track and the haunting “Aerials” also served to propel the album to multi-platinum status.
Sounding like no other band before them, Serj Tankian’s operatic vocals soar over Daron Malakian’s complex musical compositions, with Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan forming a relentless rhythm section. All told, Toxicity stands as one of the finest works of heavy music in the 21st century, if not all time. — S.K.
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