The Essentials Chart

The Essential Albums list is a list of albums that the community selects which we believe to represent a good scope of some of the most noteworthy indie albums. We operate on the basis that everyone has heard these albums, and if they haven't, they should hear them! It serves as a good starting list if you are just getting into Indie music or if you're looking for something new to listen to!

Current Chart (October 2017)

credit to u/geoff_ for the design

Original Thread

Rules

• Consisting of 140 Albums, 20 in the Indispensable section and 40 for each of the three decade sections.

• Only albums from 1980-2009 were eligible.

• Only Indie/Alternative albums were to make it on to chart. To determine that, we had a comittee rule on albums eligibility to eliminate the obvious ineligibility cases, and then put it in the voters hand to first determine if they consider an album indie/alternative before voting yes. That result left us with the current list, which will never completely match up to anyone's definition of Indie/Alternative, it should roughly reflect the consensus view of the community.

• Only one album per Band/Artist, with three exceptions (Pavement, Radiohead, and Modest Mouse) who got a second album on the list by gaining a strong consensus (>=75%) that they needed a second album on the list.

List of Albums

Linked albums will take you to the corresponding listening club discussion

Indiespensables

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Arcade Fire - Funeral
3. Björk - Homogenic
4. Elliot Smith - Either/Or
5. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
6. Joy Division - Closer
7. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
8. The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2
9. Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
10. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
11. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
12. Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
13. Pixies - Doolittle
14. Radiohead - OK Computer
15. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
16. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
17. The Strokes - Is This It
18. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
19. Talking Heads - Remain in Light
20. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

2000s

1. AJJ - People Who Can Eat People Are the Luckiest People in the World
2. The Antlers - Hospice
3. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
4. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
5. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
6. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
7. Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
8. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
9. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
10. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
11. Deerhunter - Microcastle
12. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
13. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
14. Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
15. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
16. Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness
17. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
18. Joanna Newsom - Ys
19. The Knife - Silent Shout
20. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
21. The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas
22. The National - Boxer
23. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
24. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
25. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
26. The Postal Service - Give Up
27. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
28. Radiohead - Kid A
29. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
30. Songs: Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Co.
31. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
32. St. Vincent - Actor
33. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
34. The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
35. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
36. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
37. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
38. The Wrens - The Meadowlands
39. The xx - xx
40. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

1990s

1. Air - Moon Safari
2. American Football - American Football
3. Beck - Odelay
4. Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
5. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See a Darkness
6. Built to Spill - Perfect from Now On
7. Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
8. Depeche Mode - Violator
9. The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
10. Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
11. Fishmans - Long Season
12. The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
13. Fugazi - Repeater
14. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
15. Jeff Buckley - Grace
16. The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
17. Massive Attack - Mezzanine
18. Mogwai - Young Team
19. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Let Love In
20. Nirvana - Nevermind
21. The Olivia Tremor Control - Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle
22. Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted
23. PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
24. Portishead - Dummy
25. Pulp - Different Class
26. Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill
27. Ride - Nowhere
28. Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun
29. Silver Jews - American Water
30. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
31. Slint - Spiderland
32. Slowdive - Souvlaki
33. The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
34. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen we Are Floating In Space
35. Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketchup
36. Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
37. Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind
38. Ween - The Mollusk
39. Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album)
40. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One

1980s

1. Arthur Russel - World of Echo
2. Bad Brains - Bad Brains
3. Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
4. Beat Happening - Beat Happening
5. Big Black - Songs About Fucking
6. Black Flag - Damaged
7. Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
8. The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
9. The Cure - Disintegration
10. Daniel Johnston - Hi, How Are You
11. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
12. Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me
13. The Fall - The Nation's Saving Grace
14. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
15. Galaxie 500 - On Fire
16. Glenn Branca - The Ascension
17. Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
18. The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy
19. Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
20. Kraftwerk - Computer World
21. Laurie Anderson - Big Science
22. Minor Threat - Complete Discography
23. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
24. Mission of Burma - Vs.
25. New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies
26. R.E.M. - Murmur
27. The Replacements - Let It Be
28. Rites of Spring - Rites of Spring
29. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Juju
30. Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription
31. The Stones Roses - The Stone Roses
32. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
33. The The - Soul Mining
34. This Heat - Deceit
35. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
36. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
37. Wipers - Youth of America
38. X - Los Angeles
39. XTC - Skylarking
40. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

Version 2 (May 2015)

Visual Chart credit to u/barrielake for the design

Original Thread

Version 1 (May 2014)

Visual Chart credit to /u/dreamtiwasabulld0zer for the design

Original Thread

See Also

Shoegaze Essentials Guide (credit u/jake_dpp)

Twee Pop Essentials Guide (credit u/rccrisp)