19 genuinely, absolutely perfect albums
Those records that are awesome from start to finish - from Fleetwood Mac to Kanye West
Arcade Fire - Funeral: Rainn Wilson once described every Arcade Fire album as an event and Funeral is the most impactful of them all. Arcade Fire is just the label, what they really are here are 'The Funerals'. Every route the band went down following this album is present on this record, from the Haitian dance vibes of 'Power Out', the low-key mourning of 'Crown of Love' and even the homely Suburban nostalgia of 'Tunnels’, it’s all here. (Will Butler)
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours: When Fleetwood Mac were at their lowest and most fractured, they somehow created one of the most perfect albums ever made. Every track but one was written by various members, whose personal relationships with each other were in tatters, individually - and yet the resulting album is beautifully cohesive. Each track is steeped in love and bitterness in equal measure. "Now here you go again / You say you want your freedom" sings Stevie Nicks in 'Dreams', "Well, who am I to keep you down?" Simple, heartbreaking poetry. (Alex Pollard)
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible: Critics have spent the last 20 years attempting to explain the genius of The Holy Bible, but few have done so with such succinct perfection as Keith Cameron who hailed it as 'a triumph over logic'.
It's everything that 'pop music' shouldn't be. It's a journey on the spike of a buzzsaw, the sound of four men staring out at the world and seeing nothing but murder, the sound of the soul being torn inside out. It's to the Manics credit that every idiosyncrasy in the twisted schizophrenia of 'Faster', the political-sexual paranoia of 'Revol' and the Holocaust nauseua of 'The Intense Humming Of Evil' touch something in everyone. We'll be scratching our heads and flocking to this album for generations to come. (Andrew Trendell)
Kanye West - The College Dropout: Before Mr West dived head first into the vapid fashion industry and announced his plans to run for presidency of the United States, he dropped his debut studio album at the age of 27. Soaked in rich, colourful instrumentation and stepped in nostalgia, family and camaraderie throughout trying times, Kanye raps with a ferocious poignancy across the LP’s 21 tracks. From Bernie Mac's inspired high school principal skits to the heartbreaking 'Through The Wire' and victorious combination of final tracks 'Family Business' and 'Last Call', the album leaves the listener with an infectious smile and a great deal to think about. (James Moore)
The Strokes - Is This It: Widely considered the cornerstone of noughties rock, The Strokes inadvertently changed the game with their rough-around-the-edges debut. With pop melodies lining scuzzy and insatiable instrumentals, their immediate success put an irreversible change in motion, namely, the indie-rock standard was raised and guitar solos were cool again - God bless The Strokes. (Will Butler)
St. Vincent - St. Vincent: "I was reading Miles Davis’ autobiography and in it he talks about how the hardest thing for any musician to do is to sound like yourself," explained St. Vincent of her fourth album. "And I thought, 'You know what? I sound like myself on this record' and so I just self-titled it." If that is the case, then Annie Clark's self is scuzzy, dark, sharp-tongued and beautiful. Comprising twisted but angelic vocals drenched in noise, this album can only be improved upon by seeing it, in all its genius insanity, performed live.
LCD Soundsystem - Sounds Of Silver: From the Bowie-chanelling mini epic of 'All My Friends' to the raised eyebrow of 'North American Scum' via the crystalline perfection of 'Someone Great', James Murphy made everyone realise that electro albums could be genuine classics, packed full of intelligence, credibility and flawlessly beautiful. Dance music has never sounded so forward thinking, genre-defying and essential. Oh how we could use LCD Soundsystem in music today. (Andrew Trendell)
Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me: After building an undyingly loyal fanbase through emo and punk pop-esque offerings with their first two LP’s Your Favourite Weapon and Deja Entendu, Brand New returned with an album that turned the alternative rock scene on its head. From the wall of sound that greets listeners with album opener 'Sowing Season' to the unrelenting anthem of 'You Won’t Know', The Devil and God hurls you into a whirlwind of precisely constructed chaos and sharply written portrayals of loneliness, adulthood and guilt. Far from formulaic, songs alter drastically at will halfway through and keep the listener guessing, before an acoustic reprise of 'luca' brings proceedings to un understated and haunting conclusion. (James Moore)
Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone: Post-rock embodies emotional resonance like no other genre. The sprawling track lengths and lack of lyrics empowers listeners to find their own meaning within the noise. All of a Sudden is an exceptionally emotive record. From its song titles alone, there's a wealth of depth and significance. 'It's Natural To Be Afraid' and 'So Long Lonesome' are wrenching enough without the outstanding compositions that lie under the words. (Will Butler)
Joni Mitchell - Blue: Mitchell has made no secret of her disdain for the word "confessional", so we won't dare use it here - but few albums have laid bare such stark emotions and revelations with as much beauty as the astonishing Blue. Each song is a lyrical odyssey, meandering through themes of love, loss and pain, with injections of dark humour. "Just before our love got lost," she sings in 'A Case Of You', "You told me, 'I am as constant as a Northern Star' and I said, 'Constantly in the darkness? Where's that at? If you want me, I'll be in the bar.'" Blue's melodies, too, are both breathtakingly complex and seemingly effortless. (Alex Pollard)
Interpol : Most bands never achieve greatness – let alone perfection. In 2002, dark, dapper and determined, Interpol arrived. And they arrived fully-formed. So many tight-jeaned troubadors rode the mighty heights of new wave in the wake of The Strokes., before falling into irrelevance and obscurity. Above all of this furore, one band stood alone. Before inspiring wave after wave of imitators. From the subtle melodrama of ‘Untitled’ and the wild-eyed ambition of ‘Say Hello To The Angels’ to the tender mourning of ‘The New’, the songcraftsmanship on Turn On The Bright Lights is loaded with feeling, confidence and intent. (Andrew Trendell)
Bright Eyes - I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning: If you’re searching for sharply written and vocalised melancholy, look no further than Conor Oberst's seminal Bright Eyes album. Oberst doesn’t miss a beat musically or lyrically throughout the record, combining elements of stripped back acoustic, country and rock n’ roll to forge unforgettable storytelling tracks like 'At The Bottom Of Everything’, 'Land Locked Blues’ and 'Lua.’ From start to finish, Oberst captures elements of life that haunt us all with spectacular precision, album closer ‘Road To Joy’ brining things to a rousing and unforgettably epic close. (James Moore)
Madvillain - Madvillainy: The two most potent catalysts in hip-hop are competition and collaboration. Madvillain is a denouncement of the former and an embracement of the latter. Madlib and DOOM reached new peaks in alternative hip-hop blending the off-kilter beats with the unique and genre-defining bars of DOOM to make one of the most iconic and cult records of our time. (Will Butler)
Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can: "My husband left me last night" is not a lyric you'd expect to come from a 20-year-old. Drawing from Greek epics, folk tales and modern novels though, Marling's are not songs to be taken literally - it's the broad emotional insight underneath onto which she hangs her own soul. Every single track on her second album uses grand themes to uncover and unravel universal truths. Halfway through, in the form of 'Goodbye England (Covered In Show)', she allows a little of her own story to filter through, and it's perhaps the most poignant track on the album. (Alex Pollard)
Ryan Adams - Gold: Heartbreaker made R'Adams shine as a fiery troubadour who could more than cut it away from Whiskeytown, but Gold is what landed him the status as a true great of his generation. From 'New York New York' to 'When The Stars Go Blue' via 'Touch, Feel & Lose', every moment feels essential the daddy of alt-folk struts a fine line between beautiful ballads and balls-out Americana rock n' roll. It's as close to a modern classic as you can get. (Andrew Trendell)
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion: With this particular LP, the electronically psychedelic collective crafted a perfect collection of wonderfully immersive, dreamlike songs. Sweet melodies float effortlessly over rich and complexly layered instrumentation, transporting listeners into another sonic world. With tracks like 'In The Flowers’ and 'Summertime Clothes', listeners are treated to infectious beats and sounds that many other musicians are simply too afraid to mess with. As an experiment in how far the boundaries of electronic music can be pushed, no other albums comes even remotely close. Album highlight 'My Girls' is also a masterclass in how electronic dance music should be done. (James Moore)
Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West:
Modest Mouse are an indie-rock treasure as far as anyone is concerned and LCW is their miserable magnum opus. Isaac Brock's honesty and bare bones songwriting is humanising in the softer moments and feral in it’s wilder eruptions embedded with the creeping feeling of non-existence in a world on the precipice of collapse. (Will Butler)
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea: Helmed by the highly talented and ever elusive Jeff Magnum, this cult album will send shivers down your spine at worryingly regular intervals. The angst and stripped back simplicity of 'The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1' transitions seamlessly into parts 2 and 3, the second track closing in rapid, unrelenting punk rock fashion. Magnum has the unique talent of using dense and beautiful poetry to portray raw emotions and the simples of situations, particularly notable on Oh Comely. It's a simple fact that he has inspired and heavily influenced an endless amount of other songwriters throughout the music world since the LP's release in 1998.
Radiohead - In Rainbows: They'd already released two of the greatest albums of all time in OK Computer and The Bends, but it was on In Rainbows where Radiohead harvested all that made them such an essential band and artfully dealt it out in perfect measure. It's complex and insatiable but emotionally resonant, an otherworldly record created for the ears of this world - that's the Radiohead way. (Andrew Trendell)
We can all reel off our favourite albums and list the 'greatest' LPs that we can imagine, but honestly - how many of them are genuinely, absolutely perfect? We mean, as great as they are, there's usually at least one dud track or even the briefest of moments where things lose momentum.
Well, in that spirit, we've pushed ourselves to filter through those that don't quite reach 100% absolute perfection, and present the records that in our humble, personal opinion, are absolutely flawless.
Get these 19 albums in your life.