Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969)

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Released in 1969, Trout Mask Replica remains one of the most inaccessible yet influential albums to emerge from contemporary music. Considered to be Captain Beefheart's magnum opus, the album is oft regarded as the apex of Dadaist musical experimentations, or as an elaborate parody of 1960s psychedelic excess. According to legend, Beefheart held his Magic Band captive for nearly a year, feeding them soybeans and enforcing an exhausting 12-hour daily practice regimen upon them. The results are perplexing, disturbing, entertaining, and magnificent. Upon first listen Trout Mask Replica comes off like a slow-motion drive-by, but over time Beefheart's "compositions" come into focus, rewarding listeners with a profound experience similar to a spiritual awakening.

The Police - Regatta de Blanc (1979)

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Ah, the Police. Like many groups emerging from Britain during the 1970s, the Police capitalized on the sounds of oppressed Jamaicans. But at least these musical pirates had a sense of humor regarding their stylized appropriation, the literal translation of Reggatta de Blanc being "white reggae." By the release of their sophomore effort, the Police had tightened up the reggae-rock blend they had toyed with on 1978's Outlandos d'Amour, which led to a massive commercial breakthrough. Reggatta de Blanc spawned the now-classic songs "Message In a Bottle," "Walking on the Moon," and "The Bed's Too Big Without You." This is probably the most consistent Police record and is certainly less pretentious than the group's 1983 swan song Synchronicity.

The Residents - Commerical Album (1980)

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Dedicated avant-gardists and multimedia pioneers The Residents simultaneously dazzled and confused listeners with their 1980 concept album Commercial Album. The Residents realized that popular songs were structured around two distinct parts, the verse and chorus, which generally repeat three times in a three-minute song, which in reality reduces popular music to only about 60 seconds of music. With this as their model, The Residents created an album of 40 60-second pop songs that come off as absurdist soundtracks to television commercials. While this may not sound like a toss-it-on-the-stereo-and-relax kind of listen, it actually works--and many of the pieces get deeply lodged into your subconscious, not unlike the advertisement soundtracks they emulate.

Slint - Spiderland (1991)

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To this day, Spiderland remains a profound influence upon emotive post-rock. Despite being a product of obscurity, word of Slint spread among late-'80s music fanatics, causing a deafening buzz that led to Spiderland being released on indie mainstay Touch and Go. Slint's quiet-loud motif became the sound, and was copied by just about everybody in '90s underground and indie rock. But no other group could match the paranoid experimentation achieved with Spiderland. Fifteen years later this collection of songs still sounds innovative, and it's a worthy addition for any record collector drowning in a deep post-rock malaise.

Erik Satie - Hidden Corners (2002)

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Every so often it becomes imperative to wash the sounds of contemporary rock from your palette. French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) can provide that necessary aural cleanser. Satie dedicated himself to a life of poverty; by rejecting affluent patrons and the corrupt influence of popular acceptance, he was free to explore his imagination and his self-taught techniques. Caustic, ironic, and deceptively simple, Satie's works would eventually act as templates for the 20th-century avant-garde movement. But you need not concern yourself with the discipline driving Satie's compositions; all you need to know is that Satie's work is deeply emotional and at times borders religious experience.