MusicOlogy presents… The Top 50 Albums In Ology History: our look back at the best albums, mixtapes and EPs of the past three years.
Since January 2009, our crack team of smarter than the average bear music editors has scoured every last corner of the internet to bring you… the frustratingly smart and dazzlingly attractive readers of Ology.com… the absolute best new music in the world. From leaks to street dates, reviews to Rewinds, we've brought you all the latest in pop, hip-hop, indie/alternative rock and more with wit, know-how and, most of all, enough tasteless sarcasm to last two or three more lifetimes.
| Related: The 10 Best Indie/Alternative Albums Of 2012 (Halfway Edition) |
Three and half years and a billion cups of coffee later, we presented ourselves with a seemingly simple challenge: compile the definitive list of the 50 greatest music releases in the history of our (we think) pretty awesome web destination. What did that entail, exactly? So glad you asked. Since April, music editors Brett Warner and JT Langley have been digging through three years worth of music, checking out your suggestions, staying up sleepless nights and eventually debating, deciding and arm-wrestling the pool down to a final 50.
We'll be rolling out the entire list every Monday all this month here at MusicOlogy, so keep checking back to see if your favorite records made the cut. (Last week: Nos. 50-41)
Maestro, if you please...
Bad Meets Evil
Hell: The Sequel (2011)
Eminem was still riding his comeback from Recovery when he linked back up with longtime collaborator Royce da 5’9,” who was well busy with his Slaughterhouse crew and solo LP Success Is Certain, so to call Hell: The Sequel a vanity album is to overlook one of the more significant aspects of its conception. With emcees like Big Sean and Danny Brown beginning to pick up steam from the Detroit scene, the example set by Em and Nickel Nine in their unity from the same roots speaks on the revitalization of a hip-hop heavy hub being revived by the veterans, which shows plenty of selflessness in the endeavor. Outside of that Hell: The Sequel, conceptually, does everything Watch the Throne seemed it should have done. The album’s relentless, and bluntly speaks through the sound that hip-hop doesn’t need to waste its time being pretty.
Our Favorites: "Welcome 2 Hell," "Loud Noises" (Feat. Slaughterhouse's Joe Budden, Joel Ortiz and Crooked I) and "Fast Lane."
The Dead Weather
Horehound (2009)
What started off as a necessary chemistry experiment between The Kills singer Alison Mosshart and then-Raconteurs frontman Jack White (the former was forced to fill in for the vocally-injured latter while both bands were on tour together) evolved within a matter of weeks into an entirely new band and the year's most sonically devastating debut album. Rounded out by The Raconteurs guitarist Jack Lawrence and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertitia (White opted to return to the drum kit), The Dead Weather's Horehound is a thick, bluesy, aggressive crawl through the dirt of an album, peppered with alternately shuffling and stomping tempos, littered with sludgy guitar riffs and wrapped up in a not-so-neat bow by Mosshart's raw (emotionally and otherwise) vocals. Needless to say, no one else in 2009 (or since) was making rock 'n' roll music like this—Horehound is an spontaneously inventive Frankenstein's monster of a record, one that manages to sound more earth-shattering with each subsequent revisit.
Our Favorites: "Hang You From The Heavens," "I Cut Like A Buffalo" and "Treat Me Like Your Mother."
Childish Gambino
Camp (2011)
"'Man, why does every black actor gotta rap some?' / I don’t know, all I know is I’m the best one," boasts Community star Donald Glover (better known to fans, critics and Wu-Tang name generator programmers as Childish Gambino) three tracks into his debut album Camp. A bolder, brighter, smarter affair than his indie breakthrough Culdesac, the record weaves Glover's deeply personal, often intensely hilarious rhymes ("My dick is like an accent mark, it’s all about the over E's") through lush, cinematic productions courtesy of Community composer Ludwig Göransson. How many rappers out there (up and coming or otherwise) would have the audacity to end an album with a lengthy, entirely un-ironic monologue about first romance on the bus ride home from summer camp, awash in gospel choirs and sweeping violins? "No live shows, 'cause I can't find sponsors / for the only black kid at a Sufjan concert," he laments at one point. Talk about short-lived problems.
Our Favorites: "All The Shine"/"Letter Home," "Heartbeat" and "Sunrise."
Ski Beatz
24 Hour Karate School Presents… Twilight (2012)
In his second installment of the 24 Hour Karate School series, Ski Beatz brought on a perfect family of emcees to accompany his trademark instrumentals once again, and continued to show that the hip-hop producer doesn’t always need to take the backseat to the man on the microphone he’s setting the foundation for. While 24HKSP: Twilight looks on paper like a random mesh of notables working alongside Ski, the music tells it true, as there’s a continuity to the sounds that showcase an underlying theme based in musical theory which Ski simply invited emcees to rhyme over. It’s rare you come across a producer’s album worth mentioning more than once, and Ski Beatz showed us once again that he’s the premier artist on his album, not the company he keeps.
Our Favorites: "Do It 4 The Green" (Feat. Dash and Retch), "Heaven Is" (Feat. C Plus) and "Fly High" (Feat. Smoke DZA and Terri Walker).
Curren$y
Covert Coup (2011)
Pilot Talk (2010)
Pilot Talk II (2010)
While Spitta might not be the premier emcee of the day in terms of albums sales and radio play, it’s difficult to argue that he’s not the most consistent artist in the works, especially considering the rate of his output, and that’s essentially why we had to lump three out of his thirteen projects from the last year together, otherwise he’d hold real estate all across the list.
After a long run of independent albums and tapes following the Cash Money drift, we saw Curren$y begin to refine his lax smoked-out serpentine flow style, and Pilot Talk marked his first major break as a highly-original artist easily proving that his sound is unrivaled in hip-hop when regarding individuality. Releasing Pilot Talk in one year was enough, but to follow it up with a second only four months after that showcased equal pedigree is something you don’t often find, especially considering the fact that multiple other projects were in the works at the same time; regardless, the official Roc-A-Fella releases established Curren$y as the cars, cash, grass and women high-guy of hip-hop that had come our clean from the "Where Da Cash At" days, and companions like Covert Coup only made the deal sweeter. I’d go on, but I’ll just end up writing a thesis on the guy, so I’ll leave it there.
Our Favorites: "Scottie Pippins" (Feat. Freddie Gibbs), "8 Double 07" and "The Type" (Feat. Prodigy) (Covert Coup)… "Address," "The Day" (Feat. MosDef and Jay Electronica) and "Seat Change" (Feat. Snoop Dogg) (Pilot Talk)… "Michael Knight," "Silence" (Feat. Mckenzie Eddy) and "Airborne Aquarium" (Pilot Talk II).
Apollo Brown & OC
Trophies (2012)
There’s nothing experimentative or aberrational in Trophies; the sounds are purely hip-hop fundamentals, and the pair of skill sets Apollo Brown and O.C. hold showcase the truth that basic elements are all that’s necessary to produce quality. While records like "Options," "We The People" and "Trophies" philosophize on the steering of the human spirit and sociopolitical issues, the whole of Trophies is, outside of an analytical level, a collection of sounds that make the fast-forward button obsolete. The fingerprints of a grandiose design are rare, and the main ideology behind the project seems only set to show a hip-hop that continues to glamorize itself with grandiloquent instrumentals and character gimmicks that the list of necessities for legendary output still resides in the genre’s roots, the place where price tags only apply to the tools, where the MPC, microphone, mixer and mind are the way. As is with most releases from Mello Music Group, Trophies was highly overlooked despite its brilliance, but is surely one you’ll remember once you discover it whenever you happen to.
Our Favorites: "Prove Me Wrong," "Signs" and "Angels."
Florence + The Machine
Lungs (2009)
Ceremonials (2011)
Somewhere in between Amy Winehouse and Adele, there was Florence Welch: a fiery-haired gothic-folk siren with a voice for cathedral rafters and a penchant for beyond-majestic, sweeping arrangements a la Kate Bush on steroids. The instant buzz surrounding first single "Kiss With A Fist" was rewarded tenfold with Lungs, a critical and commercial smash bookended by the pastoral anthem "Dog Days Are Over" and an epic take on Candi Staton's "You've Got The Love." Ceremonials was an even bigger, bolder effort— preceded by an early leak of the Virginia Woolf-minded "What The Water Gave Me," Florence and her Machine's sophomore effort buried her moments of existential malaise and spiritual release under layer after glorious layer of strings, booming percussion and enough choral voices to make more than one god stand up and take note. Believe the hype—both albums marked the beyond-stunning debut of one of if not the singular new voice of the new decade.
Our Favorites: "Dog Days Are Over," "You've Got The Love" and "Hurricane Drunk" (Lungs)… "What The Water Gave Me," "Shake It Out" and "Leave My Body" (Ceremonials).
Wiz Khalifa
Kush & O.J. (2010)
It’s difficult to say why Kush & O.J. was Wiz Khalifa’s final breakout mixtape considering the track record of his previous releases, but something about the chronic-themed chillers and easy-going hooks managed to snag with the public in every right way to brand him as the Mary Jane mascot of the genre feeding out those well-needed mainstream bud anthems. Everything of the pre-Rolling Papers era showed us the trial–and-error Wiz that tagged his street style via the Prince of the City tapes, lower tones on Star Power, and various other experiments, and after having nailed it with the one hit "Say Yeah" and well-received How Fly with Curren$y where the full greenery was brought to the forefront of personality, the right recipe was cooked, and funneled through Kush & O.J. following Burn After Rolling. It’s simply a story of searching for the right way, and Wiz obviously found it with this one, as you can’t do much without catching his name.
Our Favorites: "Mezmerized," "In The Cut" and "Glass House" (Feat. Curren$y and Big K.R.I.T.)
Jay-Z & Kanye West
Watch The Throne (2011)
With all the furor and hype leading up to its release, Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch The Throne simply couldn't have been anything except the single greatest album ever released, right? Once the rabble died down, of course, the album revealed itself to be both simply and not-so-simply one of the best progressive hip-hop crossovers of the past decade. The record's well-noted flaws (ex: its all over the place, often over-crammed arrangements) are also its biggest virtues—from beginning to end, Watch The Throne is a restless, sprawling, ambitious, glorious mess of a record, trickling Jay and Kanye's rhymes (harder, bolder, and more confident than ever, somehow) over oddball samples, gritty guitar riffs, dubstep breaks, orchestral flourishes and beats from a who's-who roster of hip-hop luminaries (RZA, Swizz Beatz, 88 Keys, Q-Tip, Pharrell, etc.) Frustratingly incohesive at times, Watch The Throne is nevertheless an undisputable new classic merely by virtue of the massive talent involved in its creation.
Our Favorites: "No Church In The Wild," "Ni**as In Paris" and "Murder To Excellence."
Deftones
Diamond Eyes (2010)
In the fall of 2008, Sacramento alternative metal icons the Deftones were nearly finished with a new album called Eros when founding bassist Chi Cheng was injured in a near fatal car accident, slipping into a coma from which he has yet to fully recover. Fighting the temptation to break up altogether, the band instead hired longtime friend Sergio Vega to step in on bass and, within the space of a few months, kicked out an entirely new record called Diamond Eyes. Tighter, dreamier, more textured and melodic than anything else in the alt-metal scene (aren't they always?), the latest Deftones masterstroke arrayed their intricately layered, brutally heavy brand of art rock around frontman Chino Moreno's typically impressionistic imagery better than ever before, boasting songs as achingly beautiful as they are crushingly aggressive. Despite its tragic beginnings, Diamond Eyes is a spiritually, sonically and lyrically rich heavy metal classic from one of the few remaining bands willing or able to make them.
Our Favorites: "Rocket Skates," "Sextape" and "Beauty School."
Don't forget to leave your responses/reactions in the comments section below and be sure to check back next Monday (July 16), when we'll be unveiling Nos. 30-21 in our list of The Top 50 Albums in Ology History. See you all then.
Nos. 50-41 | Nos. 40-31 | Nos. 30-21 | Nos. 20-11 | The Top 10
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