The Bears
Artist: The Bears

The debut album from the Bears is a solid slice of great guitar-driven pop tunes. Although Adrian Belew was seen nominally as the frontman, this was truly a band; four friends who had known each other for years, playing for pure joy. Songwriting duties were shared, with each member contributing at least one track, and they also wrote several... Read More

Fuck
Artist: The Leaving Trains

With a new lineup anchored by the band's sole returning member, singer/guitarist Falling James, the Trains begin to solidify around the atavistic paeans to dissipation and alienation that quickly are becoming James' stock-in-trade. The roaring guitars still rumble, but many of the last album's softer moments are lost in a preference for... Read More

Daydream Nation
Artist: Sonic Youth
Community Score: 8.35

By refining the song-oriented breakthroughs of Sister and developing their fascination with noise and alternate tunings, Sonic Youth created a masterpiece of post-punk art rock with the double-album Daydream Nation. Though the self-conscious sprawl of the album might appear self-indulgent on the surface, Daydream Nation is powered by a sustained... Read More

Hard Volume
Artist: Rollins Band
Community Score: 3.50

A vastly looser affair than their debut album, Hard Volume is the first glimpse of what Rollins Band would become with 1992's The End of Silence. The songs here are based more on the groove than they are on Life Time. The opener, "Hard," may seem a little over the top lyrically, but it has a swagger unmatched in the Rollins Band's catalog. This... Read More

Mosquitos
Artist: Stan Ridgway

Ridgway is as much a storyteller as a songwriter, and the stories are wildly imaginative on this album. The sometimes exotic musical settings effectively evoke the literary landscapes Ridgway's near-spoken vocals describe. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read More

Eponymous
Artist: R.E.M.
Community Score: 6.64
Document
Artist: R.E.M.
Community Score: 8.21
Huevos
Artist: Meat Puppets
Community Score: 6.60

Recorded and released just a few months after the experimental Mirage, 1987's Huevos was a return to the Meat Puppets' earlier, more straight-ahead direction. The band (guitarist/singer Curt Kirkwood in particular) had always voiced their admiration of ZZ Top, and Huevos contained Billy Gibbons & Co.'s influence more than any other Puppets... Read More

Rehab Doll/Dry As a Bone
Artist: Green River
Community Score: 4.50

Collecting Green River's second and third releases, plus three rare tracks, Dry As a Bone/Rehab Doll is a near-definitive look at the Seattle band that, along with the Melvins and Soundgarden, virtually invented grunge. Out of all the bands that branched out from the Green River family tree, the originals sound most like Mudhoney upon first... Read More

Bent by Nature
Artist: Glass Eye

Very edgy, angular pop. Deconstructed? Visionary! ~ Robert Gordon, All Music Guide Read More

George Best Plus
Artist: The Wedding Present

This huge collection summarizes the early portion of the Wedding Present's career, the C-86 era of jangly, revved-up indie-pop. The release compiles the band's first album and its first two singles ("Nobody's Twisting You Arm" and "Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now") -- 23 tracks worth of the hyper pop the band is known for. Apart from the... Read More