 | Everything and Nothing by David Sylvian
Buy used from: $6.38 A perfect career summation by an artist who writes spiritually transcendent, sublime songs. Also, the coolest male vocalist in music, bar none.
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 | Smoochy by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Buy used from: $2.10 If Brian Wilson had made Pet Sounds as a lo-fi electronica album sung in a Japanese lisp, it still wouldn't be as good as this.
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 | Essential Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen
Buy new: $14.49 / Used from: $10.79 The songwriter's songwriter, and the greatest lyricist, EVER. Never has melancholy been so perfectly set to such tinny, CASIO synthesizer arrangements.
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 | Thrill of It All by Roxy Music
Buy new: $143.99 / Used from: $75.00 All the hits from the most idiosyncratic, underappreciated Brits ever. The true world's greatest rock band.
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 | The Return of the Durutti Column by The Durutti Column
Buy used from: $21.86 Post-rock was born in Manchester in 1979. Most people listen to that OTHER factory band, but Vini Reilly, the true genius, is responsible for everything from the Smiths to Sigur Ros.
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 | Boy Child 67-70 by Scott Walker
Buy new: $11.98 / Used from: $4.73 The mad, baroque baritone genius destined to languish in obscurity. If Hannibal Lecter could sing, his name would be Scott Walker. Divine and devilish, serve with wine and cheese.
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 | Two Wheels Good by Prefab Sprout
Buy used from: $3.59 Nick Hornby couldn't have picked anything better. Pure, Perfect Pop from start to finish. THE sound of heartbreak as it was meant to be.
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 | Avalon by Roxy Music
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $6.00 Roxy Music's 1982 'swansong' masterpiece is the sound of heaven in a bacchanal afterlife. Quite possibly where I want to go when I die.
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 | The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $3.43 Dark, disorienting classics of sublime beauty and depravity. Everyone who's ever worn a black turtleneck knows what I'm talking about.
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 | Wrong Way Up by Eno
Buy used from: $6.98 A sublime set of well-crafted, incredibly catchy synth gems. Brian Eno and John Cale are the forefathers of nearly everything you've ever listened to. Respect them to no end.
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 | Secret World Live by Peter Gabriel
Buy used from: $6.62 The most mercurial and intelligent bald guy (next to Eno) working in pop music today. Buy it for 'Sledgehammer,' LOVE it for 'Washing Of The Water.'
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 | Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $4.99 Undeniably trendy, but also undeniably unique. Music beamed in from another planet and as divine as anything you could ever concieve of.
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 | New York by Lou Reed
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $2.88 A master class in lyrical, poetic songwriting. Also, the first concert I ever went to.
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 | Tango: Zero Hour by Astor Piazzolla & New Tango Quintet
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $6.90 Wrench your heart and throw it on the fires of anguish. We're getting a little darker here, but man, who knew that the hurt could sound so good.
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 | Public Image Ltd. - Greatest Hits So Far by Public Image Ltd.
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $4.00 Arty, literate, and completely obnoxious, PiL is what happened when John Lydon got serious about his art.
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 | Dog Man Star by London Suede
Buy used from: $0.23 If you buy only two Brit Pop albums in your lifetime, let this be one of them. The sound of liberation makes you want to put on eyeliner, lipstick, and platform shoes.
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 | Different Class by Pulp
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $2.75 The second Brit Pop album you absolutely need. Dickens meets Trainspotting at the end of the millenium. Cracking good tunes too.
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 | Disintegration by The Cure
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $3.19 Epic, gothic and a thousand times more existential and anguished than anything produced by dudes in tattoos, piercings, and goattees.
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 | Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground by Bright Eyes
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $2.79 This young punk has accomplished more in one album than most artists do in their entire careers. I hate him.
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 | Primitive Man by Icehouse
Buy new: $31.99 / Used from: $4.99 Forget 'Electric Blue.' Leave Iva Davies to his own devices and he'll reinterpret the history of Australia on an epic, timeless scale.
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 | Live at the North Sea Jazz Festival by Rosenberg Trio
Buy used from: $34.99 Pure elation. If joy were an acoustic guitar at the speed of light, this would be it.
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 | The Best of Aztec Camera by Aztec Camera
Buy new: $29.98 / Used from: $10.99 Prefab Sprout gone Glaswegian, AKA High Fidelity Part II... delerious and divine in much the same way as #7, and equally as indispensable.
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 | Cinemage
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $2.22 Highlights from the wizard's impressive body of filmscore work. Impossibly beautiful.
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 | Here Be Monsters by Ed Harcourt
Buy used from: $0.01 Singer-songwriter work done to perfection. A quiet magnificence that ensnares and seduces you through songcraft and smoky textures.
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 | Beheaded by Bedhead
Buy new: $13.98 / Used from: $4.02 Somnambulistic indie rock splendor, the sound of American music if American music didn't generally suck.
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