Is This It
2001
Singer Julian Casablancas sang through a guitar amplifier to get that flattened, distant voice, and the whole thing was recorded in a basement.
★ 3.8
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Fever to Tell
2003
There is no bass player, just Nick Zinner's guitar and Brian Chase's drums under Karen O's yelping. Maps was written about missing someone.
★ 4.4
Brothers
2010
The Black Keys took two people and a lot of noise to Muscle Shoals, and came out with the record that filled the arenas.
★ 4.5
White Blood Cells
2001
Recorded in Memphis in about three days. Michel Gondry animated the video for Fell in Love with a Girl entirely out of Lego bricks.
★ 4.8
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
2006
The band's early demos spread on burned CDs and file-sharing sites, passed around by fans rather than the band, long before any label appeared.
★ 5.6
The Stooges
1969
John Cale of the Velvet Underground produced it, and the band arrived in New York with only five songs, writing the rest overnight.
★ 6.3
Elephant
2003
Recorded in eight days on equipment made before 1963, with no computers. The bassline everyone knows is a guitar pushed down an octave.
★ 7.7