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The Top 40 By 40

Well, here it is. A Top 40 of records compiled by myself and my friends on the cusp of my 40th birthday. Points were assigned to ranks in a simple linear fashion (1st = 40 points, 2nd = 39 etc.) and then totalled up for all records. All records with 2 or more votes were eligible for the Top 40. I also weighted the scores by popularity, so records with 3 voters had their score boosted a bit more than those with 2. More posts dissecting this project will follow in due course. After that, it's back to listening to records (without over analysing them!) and perhaps pondering an updated Top 50 by 50 in ten years time... Enough of that. Here's the list and voting data. Thanks to everyone who contributed. 40 - Sonic Youth - Sister (1987) (2 voters, 36 points) 39 - The Verve - Urban Hymns (1997) (2 voters, 37 points) 38 - Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks (1975) (2 voters, 39 points) 37 - The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (1989) (2 voters, 39 points) 36 - Grandaddy - The Sophtwar...
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My Top Forty

For posterity! Joe Grassby Position Artist Record 1 Guided by Voices Bee Thousand 2 Sonic Youth Daydream Nation 3 Pixies Doolittle 4 Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! 5 The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground & Nico 6 The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin 7 Sonic Youth Goo 8 Frank Black Teenager of the Year 9 Pixies Trompe Le Monde 10 Sonic Youth Sister 11 Grandaddy The Sophtware Slump 12 Nirvana Nevermind 13 Hawkwind Space Ritual 14 Silver Jews American Water 15 Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols 16 Yes Close to the Edge 17 Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea 18 Dinosaur Jr. You're Living All Over Me 19 Pixies Surfer Rosa & Come On Pilgrim 20 Pavement Slanted & Enchanted 21 Pink Floyd Meddle 22 Fucked Up David Comes to Life 23 Nirvana In Utero 24 Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited 25 Liars Drum's Not Dead 26 Les Savy Fav Inches 27 Shellac 1000...
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Selection: Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster...

Los Campesinos! -  Hold On Now, Youngster... Hold On Now, Youngster... was included in a ballot by my friend Steph . These are her words on the record, followed by mine. Steph: The ultimate in quotable quotes and the philosophy of life for the MySpace generation / bookish graduates – I just love how happy this album is, and the noisy, insanely catchy riffs. I also love the very specific lyrics, that you could imagine in the past using as a quote for a status on social media, and the use of xylophones and scratchy strings on top of the music. While I'd loved the singles before, I got more into the album once I started working in a library, as I particularly enjoyed the literary poetic nature of the lyrics, and lines such as "and then we'll maybe drown in Dewey Decimal", and "the second-hand book shop employees / Reading the inscriptions that were never meant for their eyes", (both from Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s)). Elsewhere, the range of references...
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Selection: Turnover - Peripheral Vision

Turnover - Peripheral Vision (2015) Peripheral Vision  was included in a ballot by my sister Rebekah ! These are her words on the record, followed by mine. She's gone for the deep dive approach. “You call my name, and it pulls me in” – Hello Euphoria, track 4, Peripheral Vision. Rebekah: The exact details of how I first discovered Peripheral Vision, the sincerely seminal album of the vaguely-genred Virginian band Turnover, are something of a blur. The haziness of the memory matches the hazy sound of this 40 minute reverie – marked by a liberal use of reverb, which helps leave its sound and themes lingering in your ears. In track 4, Hello Euphoria, the echo of the line “I feel so far away” gives a sense that the minds of the people constructing it were not entirely clear. I was in a similar mind when I first heard it (I think) – late night browsing through the suggested songs presented by the algorithms of the 21st century musical industry, looking for a song to help me sleep...
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Selection: Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas

Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas (2002) Do Dallas [let's not argue about whether Mclusky is in the title] was included in a ballot by  Alan Stephen . These are his words on the record, followed by mine. Alan : The reformed mclusky are a joy beyond compare. Their sets are heavy on this album, which isn’t surprising because it’s got their best songs on it and nothing better than the bobbysoxer bop of ‘whoyouknow’ which I always assumed I would play at my wedding until I didn’t. Shamefully, I ignored mclusky while they were going the first time solely because of their name and therefore I assumed sounded like Hefner. (Who I still have never heard for the same prejudiced reason and might turn out to be brilliant after all.) Then I saw them at an ATP where the bassist gaffer taped his glasses to his head to stop them falling off, which would have been a masterplan had he not just wound the tape round and round and taped over the lenses in doing so. They played the Scala a few mont...
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Selection: The Jesus Lizard - Goat

The Jesus Lizard -  Goat  (1991) Goat  was included in a ballot by  Alan Stephen . These are his words on the record, followed by mine. Alan: The best recorded performances by the best frontman of our generation. At the brink of a spiral of excess down to college radio fame after a split single with Nirvana, and a fortuitous right-place-right-time major label deal and subsidised touring that ultimately saw four alcoholics stagger off in their own directions (before regrouping as they approached 50 to jump around like teenagers again), the band are on amazing form here and show light and shade in the bastard blues squall they conjured like probably at no other time. As a frontman, Yow remains incredible to this day even when (as last time I saw him) being very, very restrained as the frontman of the 40th Anniversary Flipper. As a counterpoint, I once saw him join the Melvins wearing only a toga and dive into the audience after the first line of the song to eventually...
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Selection: Chrome - Half Machine Lip Moves

Chrome -  Half Machine Lip Moves  (1979) Half Machine Lip Moves  was included in a ballot by Alan Stephen . These are his words on the record, followed by mine. Alan: A landmark. I could have picked either this or Alien Soundtracks - not least because there was a twofer cd release which would probably have been higher if eligible. Famous fans like Prong and Celtic Frost might prefer later albums (like 3rd From The Sun in particular) but the fried psych and tortured industrial squalls and percussion on these two set them alone at the time and since. Topped off with an entirely singular production style that obscures more than it reveals, this was such a huge record in Edinburgh that more than one band covered You’ve Been Duplicated (including the immense Varikose Veins) and it was an absolute floor-filler at certain clubs. David Yow thinks they’re his favourite band. You should listen to him.  Joe:  Where have Chrome been all my life? Well, one of their songs t...
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