Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no value in being a hater. It can be a beautiful engine of self-change, especially when that hate is petty enough to annoy people, but tied to something just deeply-enough held that it can push you to grow just to prove yourself correct. This story, for instance, begins with me hating on Radiohead.
I don’t, and never did, actually hate Radiohead. I did have some Radiohead-related trauma: when your heroin-addicted college roommate spends all night pacing your dorm in flip-flops, the sound of Radiohead and Spiritualized percussion audible despite his headphones, as you struggle through depression-induced insomnia, it’s hard not to tie the band to the experience. I’ve still never listened to Spiritualized outside of the nightmare of beats and flip-flops I suffered through, but Radiohead is so ubiquitous, there’s no escaping them entirely.
The thing about Radiohead, beyond the above, is a thing that always sets off my Spidey-Hatesense. When people insist that very obvious, very safe, very commonly respected artists are the Best To Ever Do It, Hands Down, the grouch in me storms out. Our favorites are our favorites regardless of the context around us, but there’s something frustrating about a passionate argument in favor of conformity that I, admittedly, overreact to. I feel the same way about demands to treat Scorsese or Tarantino — directors whose work I love, and have even written about! — as Unmatched Gods, or lists that call The Sopranos the best, most important television of all time. Okay, that last one I actually disagree with on a lot of levels that I’m happy to argue on behalf of, but the Yeah, Obviously-ness of it still rankles me.
Anyway, part of the value of Hating is to challenge that hate. So I decided to see how much of my crankiness about Radiohead’s position as The Best To Ever Do It was actually hating my former roommate, hating the Common Wisdom of the opinion, or if I really did have a problem with their music that was worth digging into. I listened to nearly their entire discography, chronologically, and… yeah, okay, so they’re a great band. I’ll admit that. I was shocked to find that their 2000s work, starting with Kid A, really landed for me, and that I more than respected them. I liked them! Maybe it was just the Common Wisdom thing. Maybe I just wanted to hear more cases for other bands, bands that I knew had as much to say, and maybe even as much of an impact.
I did what I always do after a moment like that, where my Hate remains somewhat intact, but on shakier ground: I went hunting for other people’s opinions. Who other than Radiohead did people make a case for? Was anyone willing, at least, to argue for weirder, less obvious choices? How much of an island was I on? I discovered two things. First, I’m on a pretty small island. Second, I discovered a list of the 30 best bands of the last 30 years (as of 2018), and lost two months of my music-listening life to a project I had no intention of beginning until it was already underway.
I’d never heard of Treble, an independent music publication whose critical mission to give readers a “thoughtful discourse on music as both personal and universal experience” is something that immediately came through when I stumbled across their list. Even though Radiohead was, inevitably, at the top of the pile, the list overall was so eclectic, personal, and nuanced that I found myself more interested in the larger story of what bands were the most important and great, not whoever ultimately won the gold medal. More than that, as I read through it, I was struck by how many bands on the list were not only ones I'd never listened to, but never heard of at all.
I started to think about why I hadn’t heard so much of this music. It also made me realize how little new-to-me music I’d picked up in any way in the last, like, two decades of my life. In fact, the last time I really dug into music that was new to me was in 2006, when a coworker with obnoxiously great taste put me onto artists like Wolf Parade, cLOUDDEAD, and Sage Francis. It took me a long time to realize this was something a lot of people experienced. In high school, as my music taste developed, I attacked new music with a passionate open mind, then as college began, and other things in life took precedence, I started to close off. Then, in my twenties, during one of those Becoming A Real Adult emotional growth spurts, I reassessed, rechallenged what I was into, and my tastes evolved more.
Then… that thing happened. I didn’t want to stop listening to music I hadn’t heard before, I just didn’t know where to begin. I had a hard time finding the energy and focus to do it at all. Streaming hit around the same time, and playlists and genre-focused radio pushed me (and almost everyone, I guess) into a singles-focused place. The novelty of always getting a new song thrown at me lowered the incentives of spending an entire album’s worth of time with anything. There was no choice to do this, no real desire. If I’d been called on it, I probably would have denied it was happening at all. The truth, unfortunately, was that I’d become stuck with what I knew.
The Treble list woke something in me up. That it wasn’t an argument for conformity, or even for a ranking that was meant to express anything more than the perspectives of its writers, made engaging with it beyond a quick read alluring. I realized that there was another thing holding me back from engaging with new music: so many recommendations feel like Homework. Things you’re supposed to like, supposed to know about. There’s value in those things, certainly, but art is also supposed to be more than that to us. It’s supposed to be personal, a conversation we want to have with artists through their work. Treble’s list was a mix of the expected and weirdo curveballs. I wanted to have an opinion on it. I wanted to listen to this stuff.
So, for two months, I did just that. I listened to every band on the list. Every essential album called out. I did the bands in list order, and the albums in chronological order. Did it change my opinion of Radiohead? Maybe, maybe not. What it did change was far more important. It taught me to enjoy listening to music I’d never heard before again, to engage with not just full albums, but entire discographies. It helped me find my way back to loving the discovery of music in a way I hadn’t since I was sixteen.
Of the thirty bands on the list, I was very familiar with a whopping four of them. Another four, I’d say I knew enough to have an opinion, but not enough for that opinion to have been accurate. That left twenty-two bands that I knew little of beyond maybe a few singles. Nine of them I’d literally never heard of. The bands ranged in genres from metal to hip hop, and while obviously the earliest albums are from 1988 (they took the thirty years part of the list seriously, even for bands that released earlier albums), the “first” album for a band launched in 2007 (there may have been earlier albums, but I was sticking with their listed essentials). The murkiest thing about the list is that it’s not entirely clear how they define a band, and there are choices that could easily be debated. But hey, that’s how it works with lists.
Before I go on, if your reaction to any of this is, “Jesus, how don’t they know about that band!” then I’d recommend that you find a list full of different bands, write in and tell me who you haven’t heard of, and I’m sure I’ll find a few where I can return the favor. This is my journey, and it’s the journey of someone who listened to as much Steely Dan and Bach and Weather Report and Miles Davis as I did Stone Temple Pilots and Dave Matthews Band.
Things began with one of those totally-new-to-me bands, Bikini Kill. The overwhelming reaction in that moment was something like nostalgia, but for the sound, not the music itself. Bikini Kill was a band I would have loved had I come across them as a teenager. It wouldn’t be the only time I had this experience of a band that I couldn’t believe I’d missed, because they so fit in with the kind of music I loved at the time. Yo La Tengo and My Bloody Valentine, especially, would feel like huge missing pieces of my understanding of the music I already loved falling into place.
From there, I was thrown three bands in very different genres, genres I knew very little about. The Roots were an exploration of a style of hip hop I only knew existed from the fringes of it — one I’d return to later with Outkast. Animal Collective was a band I was warned I would probably not like, a more noise-and-sound psychedelic rock experience than a band that played banger hits. But hey, I was someone who already loved Godspeed You! Black Emperor and just failed to realize there was a whole genre to explore. Finally, Baroness was my first true experience with metal, and while their style is more on the boundary of sludge (yeah, I learned there’s a subgenre of metal called “sludge”) and something weirder than straight metal, I was not ready for how much I’d vibe with both this and the later metal entry in Neurosis.
The most surprising part of working my way through this list was how few bands ended up making me cranky. All lists are subjective, and so deciding whether or not someone was truly one of the top thirty bands wasn’t a priority, but I’ll admit there were two bands that I really couldn’t understand the case for — Blur and LCD Soundsystem, for largely similar reasons. Still, that’s only two out of thirty! Styles of music I’d never been able to find my way into suddenly felt open and ready to explore. Bands that had felt inaccessible to me for years were approachable through the lens of a great list with a clear perspective as a launching pad.
At the same time, I was surprised by the genres I struggled to connect with despite my respect. Punk and hardcore, specifically, were genres where, despite understanding why the bands were great, I couldn’t find a way to love them; Fugazi and Converge were entries that I didn’t hate listening to, but I don’t know if I’ll ever return to them. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was an especially weird experience of a band that I think I would have loved as an earlier-life theater nerd desperate for some goth theatricality. Today, though, I moved on without looking back.
The experience wasn’t exactly consistent, though! Sleater-Kinney and, to a lesser degree, The Pixies were both bands with feet in the punk scene, and I really enjoyed both of them. Sleater-Kinney, in fact, was one of those bands where I was outright mad at myself for having literally never heard until I got into this project.
Even with the bands I already knew, I got some new experiences. R.E.M. has always had claim on my personal Best Band of The Modern Age list, and yet there were three albums of theirs after Bill Berry’s departure that I’d never listened to. I also realized how much of the work of Nine Inch Nails — one of the “is this really a band?” choices that nonetheless is at the near top of my list — I’d simply fallen off from. There really wasn’t a single moment of this project where I wasn’t discovering, deepening my understanding of someone’s work.
This is the second time in my life that I’ve done an intensive, focused dive into art. The first was Operation: 1999, a year-long journey through nearly every major release film of 1999, triggered by my annoying insistence that it was one of the best years of cinema ever. Like that, listening to everything on this list ranks as one of the most important experiences I’ve ever had with art. Both forced me to move outside of what was obvious and comfortable, within a structure where I was always learning, always assessing, always challenging myself.
There’s something beautiful about an arbitrary but intriguing structure to nudge yourself into new territory. Having the list gave a path forward, and more importantly, the list itself was a wild and weird collection of choices important to the actual people making the list and not the cachet of choosing The Right Options.
That’s the emotional part of my reaction, the part that matters. If you thought I’d leave it at that without also re-ranking the list and intellectualizing this, you obviously don’t know me. If you don’t, beware, because the project that began with hate is certainly ending with some of that hate intact.
Without further ado, my re-ranking of Treble’s list, with some additional categorization for fun.
GET OFF MY PLANE
Bands that should not be on this list. Why are these bands on this list? They aren’t bad, but WHY ARE THEY HERE?
30. Blur
Do you like THE BEATLES??? Would you like a BORING retread?????? No? Then skip to 13, their only really great album. Sorry, Britpop sucks, y’all.
29. LCD Soundsystem
A dreary trudge through albums full of songs backed the exact same beats interspersed with a couple of tracks that actually slap. Why are people so weirdly in the tank for these guys?
RESPECT FOR THEIR GAME
I get it. I see what they’re up to. I may never listen to them again, but I understand why you might.
28. Converge
I need something more than screaming. I don’t know what else to say, here. They’re good at screaming, if screaming is something you like.
27. Fugazi
Fugayzi, Fugazi. It’s a whazy. It’s a woozie. It’s fairy dust. It’s an obviously great punk band that my intellectual brain appreciated, and my heart felt nothing for.
26. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Finally, a band for emotionally effusive theater kids who are too cool to listen to opera.
25. Bikini Kill
I’ve got no complaints, but it’s weird to have a band on here with only two “essential” albums. Nick Cave had ten albums listed! Bikini Kill felt like what it is: a great but somewhat abortive project by people who would go onto other things.
VERY GOOD
Bands I’d be happy to return to, but didn’t really wow me.
24. The National
Sad dad music for Millennials. I don’t think their sound evolves into anything new or deeper between any of their albums, but they’re admittedly good at what they do, and sometimes I dig some sad dad music.
23. The Roots
They’re early enough into the project that I’m worried I’m underrating them only because I remember them less well than others. Great music, though.
22. Portishead
One absolutely killer album, one album that sounds like the killer album only less good, and a third album that I think I need to give a second listen to. Dummy is as good as an album gets, though.
PRETTY RAD
Anything here and above I loved, though maybe not enough of their discography to make them really rise to the top.
21. Outkast
A group I knew of for, well, like the one song you can imagine I knew. Their earlier work is so, so much stronger than their popular era albums, a thing I hate to hear myself say. Why am I being a hipster about a band I listened to for the first time after they broke up?
20. The Pixies
I swung around a bit on their work between respecting-but-not-loving, Fugazi style, and vibing with them hard. I probably owe them a second go to get a better opinion, though.
19. Neurosis
Not as much evolution from album to album as I’d love, but you also have stuff like the entirety of Through Silver In Blood, so I don’t know how much I should complain. Every once in a while, they have a twelve-minute all-drums piece that sounds like an action scene in Battlestar Galactica. It rules. They rule.
18. Animal Collective
I bet their fanbase is so annoying. I can’t hold that against them if it’s true, though. Full of choices that would sound irritatingly overthought from the outside, but that work organically and beautifully in reality.
17. A Tribe Called Quest
One of the things I came to appreciate most was when a group from the 80s or 90s could go on a hiatus, then return in the modern era and drop an album that’s such an evolution of their own sound that it still feels fresh and vital. While not their best album, 2016’s We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service exemplifies that victory more than anything else on the list.
16. Baroness
The thing I didn’t appreciate about metal before going into this project is how nerdy and goofy it is. That isn’t a knock, the earnest absurdity inherent in a lot of what I heard in metal makes the genre endearing and beautiful in a way that, say, metalcore simply is not. Yellow/Green is the thing to pick up if you only grab one album.
15. Sonic Youth
The one respect-not-love band that I still ended up finding more affection for than expected. Something about their sound created a feeling that I can only describe as anti-nostalgia, a resonance of my youth that felt so stuck in a moment of reaction to popular music that’s been reassessed so many times that the reaction itself felt almost parodic. Goo is a great album, though.
14. Wilco
Another “I bet their fanbase is irritating as hell” band that I liked nonetheless, though admittedly I think I enjoyed their earlier country-adjacent stuff more than their later pure indie rock work. Mermaid Avenue, their collaboration with Billy Bragg, is my clear favorite.
13. Beastie Boys
If you’ve ever heard me talk down about the Beastie Boys… I admit it. I was wrong. I’ve really enjoyed some of their singles, but never thought much of them as an important band. The stuff happening beyond the singles, though was so surprisingly diverse and inventive, though. What a group! Dang! Let the beat drop, boys.
NO NOTES
From here on, you can pump this shit directly into my veins.
12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Yeah, I like 20 minute ambient noise tracks. Sue me. No one does it better than Godspeed, either.
11. Pavement
One of the peak “damn, how did I not know about these guys?” bands on the list. Straight down the middle indie rock of the 90s. But also some of the best of the style you’re going to find.
10. Unwound
The most surprising moment on this trip was running into Unwound. I’d never heard of them. I’ve never been gaga for grunge or noise rock. I expected to pass through their town with little to say. Instead, I find myself wondering even now if I’m putting them too low, while also not knowing how to justify my deep affection for their work. You’ve probably noticed I’ve knocked bands for not evolving. Unwound is the exact opposite, building from album to album until dropping Leaves Turn Inside You, one of the absolute best albums I heard through this entire project. Then they quit! Last album! About as literal a mic drop as you’ll find, I guess.
9. Public Enemy
What did I know about Public Enemy coming into this? “Fight the Power” and Flavor of Love. What did I get? Some of the looniest album and song titles around and nothing but incredible tracks.
8. The Flaming Lips
The run of Clouds Taste Metallic, The Soft Bulletin, and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is the kind of thing bands dream about pulling off. Another band that I should have been listening to contemporaneously, though of all of the bands I feel like I missed the bus on, this is the one I’d heard the most of.
7. My Bloody Valentine
No band with three albums should be this high on the list, but when one of those albums is Loveless, how can you complain? You can hear an entire subgenre of music launch with that album.
6. Sleater-Kinney
Damn, riot grrl, where have you been all my life. An unbroken string of incredible albums, and a band I’m downright mad I’d never heard a single track of for my entire life.
5. Yo La Tengo
Had I heard of Yo La Tengo before starting this project? Yes. Had I heard any of their music? Yes, on Gilmore Girls, I think. Did I realize they’d be perhaps my favorite single discovery of the entire project? I did not! Has a band ever been this consistent for this long? Go listen to I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One immediately.
THE GREATEST?
A special category for a single band whose work was tragically cut off and thus I don’t know whether to put them in the NO NOTES category or the THE GREATEST category.
4. Nirvana
I was never much of a grunge fan when I was growing up with grunge as one of the big musical movements, and so I hadn’t dug into Nirvana’s worth with any focus before now. I’d missed out. It’s hard to know where Cobain would have gone after this, but Nevermind and Unplugged are as perfect of albums as you’ll ever hear, and the others are only marginally below those.
THE GREATEST
What it says on the tin. Even if I didn’t like these bands (and I do), I would have to admit that their contribution to their genres is irreplaceable.
3. Radiohead
Hate never dies! I kid: I really, truly loved Radiohead’s work, and my main reason for putting them a hair below the next two is a mix of belief that Radiohead’s work rests a bit on their foundations, and that their work is just a bit more interesting to me on the whole. But when you get this high on the list, it’s a game of inches. Kid A and In Rainbows were my favorites.
2. Nine Inch Nails
There’s really no one like Trent Reznor, and I guess that’s why Nine Inch Nails is a Band of One (until Atticus Ross joins down the line). While The Downward Spiral is the obvious choice for their best album, I think The Fragile is perhaps the more interesting entry. The Ghosts cycle of albums are beautiful work if you enjoy the more ambient side of Reznor’s work.
1. R.E.M.
If I was going off of list rules and cutting their work off at 1988, and thus leaving behind everything from Document back off, then they’d fall below both Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. I don’t know how to actually assess a band that way, so I’m including their full discography. Because O.K. Computer gets called out as being the moment that modern electric+rock music was born, you may forget that New Adventures In Hi-Fi came out a year earlier to much more concerned critical and audience grumblings. I’d argue that R.E.M. broke the ground that Radiohead ultimately made fertile for the larger rock scene. But it’s also documented that the bands were basically besties through this era, cross-pollinating ideas as both albums were written and recorded.
Hate my rankings and opinions? Good. Let your hatred be an engine for your own growth. Go out into the world and piss the next person off. If we do our work correctly, we haters can make everyone better. Even ourselves.
