 | For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $9.75 Your tear ducts are wearing headphones and have this album turning and returning. Mericilessly Melancholy.
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 | Voodoo by D'Angelo
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $2.64 Play this album backwards and hear insights on alternative energy, a jumbalaya recipe and a Brooklyn Dodgers radio broadcast.
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 | Trouble by Ray LaMontagne
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $6.94 If you see a hobo with a harmonica hailing your hay truck, pick him and ask him for his story. The heartbroken hobo sobs so sweetly.
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 | No Way Out by Puff Daddy & The Family
Buy new: $13.98 / Used from: $0.46 To be the Father of such a great verb you must have some substance. This album empties a clip and each bullet is equally potent. Bonus: all-star cast.
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 | Person Pitch by Panda Bear
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $9.94 Your dream girl in front of a circus mirror. A cotton candy stomach ache. 3D glasses on a Ferris wheel. Good ol' family fun.
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 | The Tennessee Fire by My Morning Jacket
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $12.48 What Nashville used to be. Out-of-luck outsiders out on the town.
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 | Veneer by José González
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $6.59 There's a film that has trimmed the loneliest corner of every man's heart, pieced it together and ran it at fifteen frames a second. This is the score.
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 | Amnesiac by Radiohead
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $1.99 Flying over a death camp in a hot air balloon.
*I love how this is most likely their best album and it comes up as the 7th album (out of 7) in an Amazon search for "Radiohead."
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 | Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $3.32 A worn-down city sleeping. Fireworks followed by fireflies. The opera at the end of the hallway.
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 | Let It Bloom by Black Lips
Buy new: $14.98 / Used from: $8.68 Swamp Rock at its best: ripped slime & rhythmless blues. Acid on Ice. Bewildering bellows reciting repugnant rhymes.
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 | Easy Beat by Dr. Dog
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $5.62 A time warp back to the California Gold Rush, Prohibition & the ham sandwich. A record born vinyl that will die digital. Poetic injustice.
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 | Endtroducing... by DJ Shadow
Buy new: $13.98 / Used from: $4.95 A symphony of cymbals and scratch. The best use of "borrowed" music since the Beasties from the East.
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 | Dire Straits by Dire Straits
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $4.68 I'm not biased; music did exist before I started listening. But you don't want and I refuse to make a list full of the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, the Who...(yawn). BUT, you might not have this one yet, or you might have it but haven't listened to it in a while. Or you might already love it and want someone to acknowledge your good taste.
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 | Chinatown by The Be Good Tanyas
Buy new: $15.98 / Used from: $3.89 This is the kind of breath that puts life back into lungs. Without discouraging the purchase of the entire (exceptional) ablum, "Horses" is the single most surreal song on any album on this list. Be careful before listening because you may have an emotional overload.
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 | Scared Famous by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Buy used from: $6.90 Not for the faint of heart, the closed-minded, or Mom. But for everyone else, just let it sink in like aerosol spray to the eyes. Once you get done rinsing and cursing and rinsing again, your world will be a lot more blurry and confusing and colorful.
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 | Aman Iman: Water is Life by Tinariwen
Buy new: $16.99 / Used from: $12.25 I've never been to the Middle East. But I can go anytime I want. Here lies the portal to another world.
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 | Buhloone Mindstate by De La Soul
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $4.98 Way before their time and way past it. No one will ever quite understand how far beyond this group is from anyone or anything "hip-hop" has ever produced.
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 | Cold Mountain by Various Artists
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $2.59 I could do without the internet, the frozen pizza and the Boeing 747 if life sounded this good. Set your clocks back and roll your sleeves up for a finger lickin', finger pickin' good time.
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 | Lullabies to Paralyze by Queens of the Stone Age
Buy new: $13.98 / Used from: $2.94 The record that pounds you into submission. And then rocks you furiously to sleep.
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 | Paul's Boutique by Beastie Boys
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $0.41 For all you Boomin' Grannies shakin' fannies. Proving there's room for three Jewish MC's (and one DJ) in the world of hip-hop music. Before the guns, girls and glitz killed and simultaneously globalized a once indecent, respectable genre.
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 | YoYoYoYoYo by Spank Rock
Buy new: $11.98 / Used from: $3.98 (1) Connect one end of your jumper cables to your left and right headphones. (2) Connect the other end to a juicy left and right butt cheek. (3) Press play. (4)Watch the booty bounce to life.
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 | In the Dark by Toots & the Maytals
Buy new: $9.98 / Used from: $6.15 The winner of the gilded steel drum. A gem from the perished era of good times with ganja. A little grit in your britches never did you much harm. Paradise on vinyl.
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 | Harvest by Neil Young
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $1.90 The crop's come in and momma's a'cookin somethin' mighty fine.
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 | Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Touré
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $2.99 Nile river wisdom. A surfin' safari on a bloody, black sand beach. The sounds of an achy breaky heart without the big belt buckles and the line dancing.
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 | Ridin' Dirty by UGK
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $6.75 The result of a simple hip-hop equation: testimonials + bass = good. Oozing with authenticity; teeming with talent.
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Listmania!
