L
Artist: Steve Hillage
Community Score: 8.50

After a stint with Gong as their trippy, hippy, New-Agey, guitar guru of cosmically and extremely raga-esque trance rock and improv heaven, Steve Hillage went solo. He branched out to carry his own version of the Gong gospel of personal freedom via his special blend of cosmic brotherhood/ eastern religion/ new age/ pyramids/ ley lines/ crystals... Read More

Plastic Box
Artist: Public Image Ltd.

Most who own Plastic Box probably use the second half as coasters. Those who don't probably get headaches when listening to the first two, and a select few find much to love about the whole thing. As if conceding to the consensus that PiL's early years were their best, the first half is devoted to the band's first three studio LPs cut over four... Read More

Downtown Flyers
Artist: Streetwalkers
Generation: The Best of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Artist: Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

A fine introduction to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry for the curious in the States, Cleopatra's Generation: The Best Of selects 13 of the Leeds group's finest moments prior to their signing with RCA for 1988's Nothing Wrong. It shares nine songs in common with 1986's Smashed Hits singles compilation, stretching out the time period covered by its... Read More

A Can of Bees
Artist: The Soft Boys

One of the band's earliest recordings, featuring their signature tune "Give It to the Soft Boys," A Can of Bees includes a lot of the zaniness principal member Robyn Hitchcock would become known for in his later work, but the band had not yet jelled and found them still in search of their ultimate sound, an amalgam of new wave and psychedelia.... Read More

The Return of the Durutti Column
Artist: The Durutti Column

More debut albums should be so amusingly perverse with its titles -- and there's the original vinyl sleeve, which consisted of sandpaper precisely so it would damage everything next to it in one's collection. Released in the glow of post-punk fervor in late-'70s Manchester, one would think Return would consist of loud, aggressive sheet-metal... Read More

Three Imaginary Boys
Artist: The Cure
Community Score: 7.65

Maybe it was youthful exuberance or perhaps it was the fact that the band itself was not pulling all the strings, Three Imaginary Boys is not only a very strong debut, but a near oddity (it's an admittedly "catchy" record) in the Cure catalog. More poppy and representative of the times it was made that any other album during their long career,... Read More

Plastic Box - UK
Artist: Public Image Ltd.

Most who own Plastic Box probably use the second half as coasters. Those who don't probably get headaches when listening to the first two, and a select few find much to love about the whole thing. As if conceding to the consensus that PiL's early years were their best, the first half is devoted to the band's first three studio LPs cut over four... Read More