This is the sound of skateboards grinding on the Wailing Wall and BMXs leaping over burning cars in Berlin. MDĭe-Loused In The Comatorium (DiS review here) For a while, at least, they were anything but unimportant to a select few punk-rock fans: Erect The Youth Problem is a lo-fi punk classic. They collapsed in a bloody mess in London before catching a flight back to Los Angeles and eventually regrouping, minus one, as No Age. “I’m much too young to be unimportant.” That’s what they screamed, fuck-you passionately, on ‘Babies’ a few months after the release of their explosive debut, Wives had burned themselves out. MDĮrect The Youth Problem (DiS review here) Unusual but immediate, it’s the creation of a truly maverick individual and many similarly-minded friends. Why?’s Elephant Eyelash is a joyous, Technicolor-drenched patchwork of cut-and-pasted this, that and the other. Is it folk, hip-hop, both or neither? Do such pigeonholes, such pre-determined hooks to hang a piece of art upon, even matter when the artist in question so brilliantly sidesteps everything obvious? No. However, those that made the effort were rewarded greatly: soaring melody after melody after melody, caked in West London eccentricity and a homebrew of off-kilter lyricism, ensured Mystery Jets became an instantaneously joyous proposition. The audience they were pitched at often didn’t ‘get it’, and many shied away due to high-brow acclaim. The hype and hysteria that preceded the release of this, Mystery Jets’ debut long-player, was never meant to happen. Fun, danceable and with a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards all things ‘gangsta’, Journey To Anywhere cemented my interest in hip-hop for years to come. Ugly Duckling’s debut full-length was different, though: it embodies aspects of the ‘old-skool’ that appealed greatly to this writer at the time. Oh, and only one album per artist was allowed, before you ask.įew hip-hop albums can truly lay claim to making a sizeable impression beyond a limited, often existing audience nor do they often sweep people off their feet. So, that makes this a fairly interactive experience, no? We look forward to reading your reactions, dissatisfactions and congratulations in due course. Even if a record’s already been reviewed by a DiS writer, you can still submit your own opinions as a user review. Simply click ‘Who owns this release?’ where indicated and add yourself. So, fire away with your commendations, critiques and cussing, but most of all enjoy OUR 66.īut before you do, know this: by clicking on any link, to either a listing or a review, YOU can both write a user review of the album in question and add it to your online record collection using DiS’s new ‘I own this album’ feature. They’re ours and yours to share, as is DiS itself. They’re the lifeblood that courses through these virtual veins you see before you. You’re welcome to disagree with our ordering and recommend that we pursue our callings as dustbin men rather than continue to joke around as ‘journalists’, but we know we’re right, right? You’re damn right: these are the records that comprise DiS’s foundations, they’re what gave the site life and continue to nourish it. That said, in our minds these are the finest albums to emerge from their makers’ proverbial wombs during the past 72-or-something months – yes, six years. This is a labour of love, an undertaking that’s seen tears shed and marker pens tossed across rooms like burning spears. We heart these records, and can’t possibly be absolutely objective about any of them.
To say that it was difficult trimming what was a list of many hundreds to just 66 is just about the most ridiculous understatement this side of suggesting that beer is pretty ‘okay’. The record at 45 isn’t fantastically superior to that at 66, and likewise there’s no tremendous gulf between the final entry here and our eventual winner (although our top ten are our top ten for a reason). If you got the money, buy them all if you own all of them already, you’re way cooler than us. Here we present to you the first part of our countdown, but don’t let those numbers wholly mislead you: every album below is a well-recommended release, a long-player par excellence. What other way is there to talk music ‘til you’re hoarse, bloody-eyed and black-and-blue of cheek? Arguments have been won and lost, a handful of frankly incredible artists have improbably missed the cut through forgetfulness and space constraints, and we’ve all got quite, quite drunk along the way. Let the DiScussing begin! We’ve been racking brains – prior to pulverising each other’s – at the DiSopolis these past few weeks to come up with our top 66 albums of the past six years the very best records to see the light of day during DiS’s lifetime (yes, six years).