5 Essential Indie albums
 

I was reading the Hip Hop thread, 5 essential albums for a hip hop noob and I was curious as to what people felt were essential Indie albums.

Let's say someone whose extent of Indie is The Kooks and The Pigeon detectives or someone who has never heard the genre. You have a chance to dazzel them with 5 albums, what 5 albums would you choose?

I'll do mine later. :thumb:

ys-joanna newsom
the lonesome crowded west- modest mouse
either/or- elliott smith
f#a#∞- godspeed you black emperor
i can hear the heart beating as one- yo la tengo

not exactly sure what you mean by indie but that should do

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Sebadoh - Bubble & Scrape
Archers of Loaf - Icky Mettle
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Elliott Smith - Either/Or

This actually brings up a point I was going to come in here and post. I feel like Hip Hop is working with a shorter period than Indie would be. Not that its bad, just expect no 2 lists to be the same. I'd say -

NMH - Aeroplane over the sea
YYY's - Is Is EP
TVotR - Return to Cookie Mountain
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta!

Some obvious ones from me, I couldn't work in a MM album and I didn't know if Paullelujah counted since its "rap" but whatever, its me.

Radiator-Super Furry Animals
Crazy Rhythms-The Feelies
Summerteeth-Wilco
Heartworm-Whipping Boy
Alligator-The National

Yeah, hip hop does have a pretty long 30 years or so but I feel you'd see a lot of the same albums; the sounds considered "indie" vary a lot more than what hip hop is... there's so many types of music grouped under the term.

Anyway, here's my 5:

Neutral Milk Hotel In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When You're Gone?
Defiance, Ohio - The Great Depression
Eels - Beautiful Freak
Sebadoh - Harmacy

I opted out of putting Dinosaur Jr. because I guess it's more noise rock than it is indie like all the other albums in here so far.

Hmm...

Various Artists - CD86
The Wedding Present - George Best
Gomez - Bring It On
Rainy Day - Rainy Day
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Take Them On On Your Own

^ Or something along those lines.

Some good shouts in this thread :thumb:

NMH - In An Aeroplane Over The Sea
Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Titus Andronicus - Airing of Grievances
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles Pink Robots (If TFL can be counted as Indie.. I think they can.)

Off the top of my head, to give these albums to someone who doesn't really know what Indie is about would work wonders.

I tried to avoid some obvious ones (NMH, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, etc.)

Pixies-Surfer Rosa
Thom Yorke-The Eraser
The National-Boxer
Sigur Ros-( )
Mew-No More Stories... (might be a bit of a stretch but it's staying)

Hmm...


The Hold Steady- Boys and Girls in America
Neutral Milk Hotel- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
The National- Alligator
The Mountain Goats- All Hail West Texas
Okkervil River- Black Sheep Boy