I trust the people putting it together – but I just want to say again that we should be very Bauhaus The Sky’s Gone Out shirt about artists with multiple albums. I think VERY few artists deserve multiple albums on here, and exceptions should only be made when the albums in question are different enough in sound that they stand on their own. Like AnCo and Radiohead will definitely each have 2 (maybe 3? Maybe?). I could see people wanting Modest Mouse to have 2 (though I’d probably be content with 1). Vampire Weekend, for example, only deserves 1. Bauhaus The Sky’s Gone Out shirt, ladies tee, tank top, and v-neck
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Sufjan’s Illinois definitely deserves it, but Michigan and Seven Swans aren’t different enough to also deserve it, in my mind. Absolutely. I feel like if we had to take one off, it would be Bauhaus The Sky’s Gone Out shirt, even though it’s my favorite album. And at the same time, Banshee Beat, Grass, and The Purple Bottle are so amazing, and so distinctively AnCo, probably more than anything else they’ve released. They definitely did more for alternative/indie as a whole, no argument there. And yeah I forgot about Loser. Probably overstated its importance a little, but I still think it had a pretty significant influence.
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I think they’re both really good examples of types of music that were prevalent/became prevalent in the time period. Good News has definitely affected the “indie” sound. Dream pop, shoegaze, lo-fi were all considered indie, but they all sound different. Good News set a standard for indie rock and pop. That said, as an album, Helplessness Blues should be the one on the essentials list. The s/t has the most popular and accessible tracks Bauhaus The Sky’s Gone Out shirt but as a whole, Helplessness Blues is a better embodiment of them as a band. HB is more consistent thematically than the S/t, is more ambitious (more instrumentation, more towering harmonies), and is more experimental (Shrine/Argument).