Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

So before we reveal our respected number one's lets remind you of the top ten. We're going to start with the albums and here we go.

"Oh Charles Don't You Ever Crave To Appear On The Front Of The Daily Mail, Dressed In Your Mother's Bridal Veil", when it comes to statements of intent and tracks that encapsulate the entire ethos of a band in one glorious pop song, no album opener is finer than The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty). It's a track that had it all, and thundering rhythem, glorious flourishes of guitar and of course Morrissey at the pinnacle of his powers. Morrissey is not only in fine voice, but he is dishing out these delicious witty jabs, that are so deep and cutting that they set him apart from any other song writer in musical history. The juaxtaposition on this record is utterly irrestiable. The Queen Is Dead track sees the Smiths reverse their usual roles, the guitars and drums kick hard, the message of the track is serious and dark, a bold and anti-monarchy statement combined with a some brooding introspection, yet in the midst of all this swirl visercal rage comes such sheer hilarity. It's ridiculous, and it's not a punk rocker decrying George Bush and making a cock joke, this is humour of the highest order, it's utterly delicious, it's self deprecating, it conjures ridiculous imagery. This is the record when Morrissey was a rock god, a pop star, a political activist, a poet, an operatic diva, a stand up comedian and best of all and honest to god artist.

We'll start with the comedy because Morrissey is on brilliant form, his turn of phrase is perfect from the first line ("Her very lowness with her head in a sling"). The highlight of the albums opener comes when Morrissey croons of breaking into Buckingham Palace;

It's barmy, it's off the wall, it's destinctly British and it's completely unique. When we look back at music's great lyricist, it will always be said that Morrissey is without a peer. There are other greats, but Morrissey is incomparible he's in a class of his own, he's like a huge one man melodrama, playing each and every part, going from the sublime, to the ridiculous. I struggle to think of another lyricist who can be so funny and yet so cutting and so affecting all in the same instance. You can see the Smiths influence to this very day, they pretty much created the entire cultural underpinning of Emo and of course it only takes a cursory examination of a Lily Allen record to see that the art of juaxtaposition is still going strong. Of course I said I'd start with the comedy and could there be a record more joyous and more comedic that Frankly Mr. Shankly, a track so charming, it completely disarms you on first listen and it's more serious undertones grab you subconsciously. It's a work of pop art, it combines timeless truisms ("This job pays my way and it corrodes my sould") and ludicrious lyrics that can't help but make you smile ("You are a flatculant pain in the arse"). Of course Morrissey is at his best when he does both at once, in possible my favourite lyric of all time; "I want to live and I want to love, I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of".

The Queen Is Dead is an emotional rollercoster, it takes you from hilarious highs to utter heartbreaking lows. From the laugh out loud thrills of Frankly Mr. Shankly we head to the tragedy of I Know It's Over. A song of such great resonance, It expresses such powerful emotive themes that we've all felt at one time or another, it's about loneliness and heart ache.

It's full of tragic eternally quotable lines;

"Loud loutish lover treat her kindly, though she needs you more than she loves you"

It's a brutal wrenching song, it feels like an opera, it's starts slowly and sombrely before building and building into a glorious widescreen full blown epic conclusion. It's huge, it's mamoth, it's almost uncontainable, but at it's heart it's a touching and emotive masterpiece of tender emotive song writing. It is part of a trio of tracks whose emotional power is only matched by their knowing pomposity. Never Had No One Ever follows, and this track is without the joy, it's hard, it bludgens, it's an unrelenting emotional beatdown as Morrissey insists again and again "I'm Alone, I'm Alone, I'm Alone", it's a bold track, it has a ghostly arrangement with a huanting whistle that blows towards the end, it's harsh and chilling, it's like a suicide note come to life, but in the form of a Shakespearean stage play. Then of course there's the third of the albums emotional epics, a song that hardly needs introduction, and you should damn well know it's name before I type it. The track I'm refering to is of course the devine There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. This is the undisputed pinnacle, it has power, it has punch, and it's biggest emotional punchline is interlinked with a maccabre peice of humour;

The Queen Is Dead is the ultimate in black humour, no record even comes close. The fact that you can have a track so beautiful, so powerful and so god damn brilliant as There Is A Light... and then follow it with Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. A track of whismy and of throwaway humour, it's light, it's frothy, it's inescapibly infectious and yet it closes the album. Is it one last big joke orchestrated on us, the paying costumer? We are taken on this heartwrenching thrill ride culminating in the perfect moment of There Is A Light... and then they end with a two minute jape. It's as ballsy a move as I've ever seen; imagine if at the end of Gone With The Wind if after saying "Frankly I don't give a damn" if they'd thrown in a fart gag. It's ridiculous, it's the last thing they should have done, yet it's absolutely perfect.

It's always hard to single out tracks on a record of this quality to talk about but the one track that is deserving of extra special attention is Cemetry Gates. It's quite simply the wittiest song ever written. It's a delightful romp, with a lovely sunny guitar line, while Morrissey shows of his brilliant turn of phrase. It's joyous and maccabre, a walk through a cemetry on a "dreaded sunny day", they skip along and "gravely reading stones", before falling out over a quote which one of the protaganist tried to proclaim as their own work when of course it wasn't. It's seems a bizzare topic for a novel let alone a song but it works to a tee. Each and every line is enthralling, as Morrissey croons "if you must write prose or poems the words you use should be your own, don't plagarise or take on loan". The whole scene is ridiculous, but it's so querky and it's some how believable, walking through a grave yard and becoming engrossed in a pretentious debate, no wonder the Smiths are the prenenial students favourites. Cemetry Gates encapsulates the album as a whole it deals with deadly serious themes of death and the meaning of life but it gets lost in futility and comedy. It speaks to the futility of human life, we have our big hopes, dreams and ambitions but somehow we always get side tracked, corrupted and plans change. The Smiths laugh out our and their own pomposity, at the hopelessness of it all. Life can be hopeless, tragic and brutal if you let it, but instead take it lightly, treat it as one big joke a flight of fancy. After all as Oscar Wilde once says "Life Is Far Too Important To Be Taken Seriously".

The real key to the track are the wits who get named dropped "Oh Keates and Yates are on your side, but you lose, for the love of Wilde is on mine". It's a great line, but the point is more subtly, when we think of the Smiths as musicians and albums, it ranks not along side Doolittle and Thriller, instead The Queen Is Dead sits alongside The Importance Of Being Earnest and Twelfth Knight. It's a great work of melodrama and wit, Morrissey's peers are not Lennon and Cobain but Wilde and Yates. The Queen Is Dead is a work of art, it's utter tragic whismy, and that is why it is the best album of the eighties and possible of all time. It's transcendant, it's sets itself apart, it breaks as many rules as it writes. Morrissey's does have the love of Wilde on his side, Morrissey is his twenty first century heir, and The Queen Is Dead is his masterpiece. It is everything and nothing, it is the most important emotional affecting album you will ever hear, and yet it isn't, it's a silly goof, fully of jokes and flights of fancy. The Queen Is Dead is The Importance Of Being Earnest it's as hugely deep and incredibly shallow, it's beautiful and it's hideous, tragedy and joy, it's all of these things all at once, and yet it's none of the above. The Queen Is Dead is like nothing else, it is a truely unique work, and it most certainly is the greatest of album of the eighties by the decades greatest artists. So remember next time you list the great artists it goes Oscar Wilde, Mark Rothko, Stanley Kubrick, Tom Ford, Woody Allen, Stephen Morrissey & Johnny Marr.

So of course after having the tragic predictable number one in the album list, I had to throw a little bit of a curve ball in the singles list. It's not really that much of a stretch however, as Take On Me is still an unstoppable anthem to this very day. It's the ultimate in eighties synth pop. While I'd be hard pressed to ague against anyone who'd suggest Love Will Tear Us Apart is the greater song, it most certainly is. It has greater resonance, emotive power, it has great swathes of tragedy and dispear and it's endlessly danceable but that's not what the eighties were all about. When we think back to eighties pop culture now, two words spring to mind; fun and cheese. A brutal heart wrenching slice of death disco wouldn't suffice, the true greatest song of the eighties, has to be huge, commercial, silly, and utterly irrepressible. Take On Me is all of those things, it's utterly glorious, every inch of it is pop perfection.

It's one of those tracks that will forever be engrained in our collective consciousness. I could go up to every single person I know and start singing this song and I garentee they'd start singing along, try doing that with Joy Division I dare you. This truely is a case of everythings in it's right place, the way the drums pound in and then that epic keyboard line, followed by the gloriously syruppy eighties vocals leading to that ridiculously high chorus that everyone at one time in their life has tried and hideously failed to belt out. It's an utter gem, it's almost too well regarded to call it cheese, it's just an epic, and no matter how many horrible cash in covers are churned out the original has never been phased. It's one of those tracks that forces you to drop your facade and just enjoy at one time or another. It's sheer unrelenting joy, not to be taken too seriously.

Of course how could I conclude without mentioning that video. If I have to describe it to you, then I seriously question why your reading this blog, have you been devoid of pop culture for the last twenty years? It remains my all time favourite video. There are those that are better, more artistic, funnier, but this is a video that ticks all the boxes, it's charming and it's utterly captivating. Hell even twenty years later it's still being parodied just watch Family Guy (actually don't its horrible lately) or go on youtube have a browse, this is a piece of music television history that will never die. This track is eternal, forever young, it's incredibly dated, yet it never ages, what could be more eighties than that?

I recently wrote a very long peice on this album (it's listed under music reviews if your interested), because I have to be honest until this summer I had never listened to this record. It seems quite incredible looking back, considering my love for American Alternative music in this period that I'd never actually listened to the Genre's magnum opus and many American's concensus pick for the greatest album of all time. Well of course I fell in love with the record on first listen, it's simply sublime and incredibly infectious. It's an album of great contrasts, the gorgeous laid back dreamy observational songwritting of Thurston Moore and the scathing rath of rock goddess Kim Gordon. This was a band that perfectly captured the zietgiest. That disaffected alternative American culture is perfectly encapsulated by this record. From the perfect title DayDream Nation to that beautiful and affecting album artwork, every inch of this album is sublime.

Thurston's spacey day dreamy melodies float perfectly on the gorgeous Teenage Riot as he croons with such a sense of disaffected joy. You feel like your walking around New York City half a sleep in a daze, it's a heavenly track. Elsewhere, Sonic Youth are torturing there instruments and warping perceptions, the excellent Silver Rocket starts out as a straight rocker before breaking down into a rasping scraping musical meltdown. This is a signature of Daydream Nation even the most seemingly simple of songs confounds you expectations, they warp, evolve and the challenge you the listener. The music can be abbrasive but it's always controlled you feel like your on a journey, that every last scrathy riff and stab of guitar is utterly essential. Kim Gordon is the real star on this record, while this album is perfect from track one to track twelve, she is simple uber cool. On The Sprawl she's the ultimate femme fatale, she in your face, she's disgusted by you, and yet while she's mocking you and burying consumerism you can't help but love it, her cynical tones are a sheer delight. My own personal highlight is album closer Trilogy bringing together three great invidual tracks into one great music clusterfuck, its a long esxcaberating journey, grueling and yet beautiful. As far as musical relevance and importance records don't come much bigger than this, it's simply impossible to imagine the next twenty years of American music without Daydream Nation and Doolittle. Ultimately this record is all things to all people a visceral jab of rough around the edges alternative punk, an ice cool pop record, or the first and last word in avante guard rock, honestly, who cares? Only one word can really do justice to Daydream Nation: genius.

The eighties had been one of the most incredible decades for British pop music, manchester had turned into the world centre for great singles. The Smiths seemed to release a new best record ever, every other week for seven years straight, but then they began to break up and Morrissey went solo, so suddenly Manchester wasn't looking so hot. However out of seemingly nowhere The Stone Roses arrived fully formed with one of the most remarkable, and joyous debut albums in music history. Considered by many to be the greatest British album of all time, I think that's a bit of a stretch, but I'd certainly have it in my top five Greatest British pop records of all time. While I'm most certainly not a fan of Ian Brown, and have never really been that into the Roses, to deny the power of their polished and powerful pop music would be infantile. The Stone Roses is a charming album, that begs to be loved, quite literally, the opening track and signature track I Wanna Be Adored bares it's soul to the world. This would be the template for the Roses success, big honest pop songs, that everyone from Aberdeen to Brighton could relate to, this was music for the people at it's finest.

It's perhaps fitting that five years later two brothers from Manchester owning a huge debt to Stone Roses would once again reinvent, honest, relateable, excapist pop music for the mases. Unfortunately they weren't half as interesting or half as creative as the Roses. What makes the Roses really special is how tight the band is, particularly the rhythm section. Alot is made of John Squire and his deftly layered guitar but the driving force behind the band was always Mani's bass lines and Reni subte drum work. The Stone Roses records always had the best grooves, unfortunately, fellow Manchester wanksters The Happy Mondays would butcher this approach and create the regretable "madchester" era, no wonder Morrissey left the country. Alot is made of the artistic merits of the album closers This Is The One and I Am The Resurrection but I always feel that people that harp on about these tracks are missing the point. I Am The Ressurrection maybe the epic, but when it comes to the Roses it's all about irresistable pop gems, just whack on Made Of Stone and drift away.

Now I originally had the ridiculously sublime Purple Rain slated for a top four finish, but I thought hard about it and I had to take it down a few notches. Now this may seem a little harsh because this album is complete and utter balls to the wall insane genius from the first moment but it has one detracting factor: It's soooo eighties, it's too eighties. Prince is an absolute transcending genius and he is arguably the eighties greatest superstar and certainly its most unique, but there is something about his music that sounds dated in 2009. Now don't get me wrong a Prince record never sounds bad, and Purple Rain never feels anything less than crazy, sexy, beautiful but it is distinctly defined within in its era and for that reason it finds itself in nineth and not fourth.

Anyway enough banter lets get down to the music, and as I hope you should know this album absolutely rocks. Prince obviously got bored just being a pop and R'n'B god and decided it was time to get the guitar out and on Let's Go Crazy he absolutely blows the roof of the record with his end solo. It's the perfect album opener, over the top of some strained synths, Prince raves like a crazy preacher/door to door sales men and he promises us the "after world" and he duly takes us there. This is pure escapism, life is tough, life is drab, so fuck it lets go crazy. That after all is what Purple Rain and Prince down is all about. It's immediately followed by two ludicriously perfect ballads in the form of Take Me With U and the ridiculous The Beautiful Ones, this is music to make women go weak at the knees. It's amazing that even at his most smultzy, even while wearing a purple jacket, tight trousers and a blouse, Prince effortless maintains his cool, the way he drops in subtle lines "If we get married....would that be cool?".

How could I conclude this little retrospective on Purple Rain without mention those two tracks. Come on you know the ones, and if you don't, you best head to youtube and itunes right now. Yes it's those two monsterous world conquering tracks. First the perfect slice of georgeous sexy odd pop When Doves Cry. A killer key board hook, and a quirky rhythmic arrangement, sets the base while Prince goes to town with his best lyrical performance;

"How could you just leave me standing,

And as if I needed to tell you the other track that you need to own, and I simply couldn't omit is the title track, Purple Rain itself. A track so overblown, so pompous, so ridiculous it couldn't help but be one of the greatest most emotive tracks of all time. It will always be one of the greatest visuals I've ever seen when at the superbowl Prince made it litterly made it rain purple rain. Okay so this is a hell of a long entry for our number nine album, but by all rights this album should be in the top three. It will always be hard for some to drop their preconceptions about Prince and about pop music in general but this is one of the those glorious sequined delights that at one time or another everyone should enjoy.

So the award for the greatest album title of all time goes to...okay well that might be a bit too bold a statement, but when it comes to a statement of intent they don't come bigger than It Takes A Nation Of Billions To Hold Us Back. This was a group of angry young men, scratching the shit out of their records, while one of the greatest MCs of all time laid down some sick rhymes while one of hip hops great enigmas jumped around stage and erh...shoued "yeah boys". Well maybe Flavour Flav wasn't so great but Chuck D was a bonified legend. A man filled to brim with visercal social outrage and a message to spread. It's testiment to their genius that the insane bounce of along fun of the scychofrenic Bring The Noize could be so fun and yet carry such a high level of outrage and bile. Chuck D was bringing the race war to the people, he was uniting his brothers and sisters and bringing his brand of authentic hip hop to the mainstream. He was slamming everyone from "Radio stations I question there blackness, they call themselves Black we'll see if they play this" to the more familar targets of the heavy handed police force. Best of all he draws out the inequality in perception between Rock and Rap stars, Chuck was fed up of rappers having to commercialize their sound to be accepted and he was prepared to let everyone know "Roll with Rock Stars, we still never get accepted as".

This was rap that had a message, had a cause and best of all had some attitude. This is rap that was heavy, heavier than the heaviest metal. Listening today to Jay Z's Death On Auto-Tune and his calls for a rap revolution for "niggas" to stop singing cause their "T-Paining too much". This is exactly what he's talking about, when he tells "niggas to get violent" this is what he means, he wants raw primal aggresion, people who are making music for a reason not just to make bland interchangible hits. She Watch Channel Zero? is the albums clear highlight, as Chuck D and Flav rave over a monsterous Kerry King riff, and they are exploding with energy especially Flavour who delivers his best performance as he gloats about having a black quarter black in the superbowl. Before he slams bland consumerist culture as he decries those who sit at home watching garbage, as TV presents its image of "perfect women", and he demands you "go read a book or something". It's utterly thrilling and just as essential today as it was all those years ago. As celebrity culture, and women's magazines have us drifting away into a cultural abyss a track like She Watch Channel Zero? could not be more releveant. It Takes A Nation... is quite simply the most important hip hop record of all time.

It's a pretty bold statement but I'm gonna say it, Closer is Joy Division masterpeice. Now I'm sure there's a lot of people wearing unknown pleasures t-shirts whose face will be boiling over with anger upon reading those words, but it's true. Is it the better album? That's debateable, but this is Joy Division Magnum Opus, this is the real Joy Division, at their dark and brooding best. This was the final endnote to one of the most astonsishingly tragic stories in music history. The album is gloomy, sombre and sparse, yet it's fragile and beautiful and best of all it's highly danceable. Every once in a while you can tell everything you need to know about an album from it's opener, and this is certainly the case on Closer. The album opens with the staggering Atrocity Exhibition it's starts with a gorgeous rumbling drum line that hooks you instantly, before the guitars scratch away like unholy axe grinders against your cranium, until finally the solumn and soulful voice of Ian Curtis takes hold you and carries you through the sea of music abbrasiveness. It's a amazing arrangement, and as abbrasive as they come, Curtis warns you this record will be torture "For entertainment they watch his body twist, behind his eye's he says I still exist" before Curtis like some ghostly gatekeeper beckons you in "This is the way, step inside". It's a staggering opening gambit, come inside if you dare.

For those bold enough to step beyond the six minute opening slab of gloom rock, endless pleasure await. While no one will ever be putting Joy Division top of a technical musician's poll, the arrangements on Closer are staggering and challenging. Passover chugs like a car that can't quite click into gear, while Curtis croons georgeously and before an unsettling but beautiful guitar line kicks in. Every track has an intriguing flourish. The John Carpenter's sub sonic squelch of Hooky's creeping bassline on Colony, the killer keys on Isolation, or the suicidal Blondie guitar hook of Twenty Four Hours. The latter is a staggering track that kicks like a mule while Curtis voice booms as though he'd suddenly been turned up to eleven. Means To An End sticks out like sore thumb with it's death disco bublby baseline, it's positively thriling. However the albums ultimate highlight is The Eternal which sees Joy Division at their gloomiest, their scariest and their most beautiful, it's a huanting emotive epic and stands along side Atomsphere as a beautiful epic that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Sad, heartbreaking, frequently beautiful and occasionally fun, Closer is quite simply one of the greatest works ever created.

There are certain situations that no matter how hard you try you simply can't empathise with. As a causcasion male who was a one year old babe when this album came out there's no way I can't possible fully understand just how vital and earth shattering this record sounded in 1988. I just can't put myself in the shoes of an unemployed black twenty something in Cali in the eighties faced with one of the world's most renouned and brutal police regimes. I can't understand the pressures of being in a gang and I never been beaten with a nightstick and hopefully I never will be. It's important to put myself in perspective because this album represents a moment in time, it's a piece of history. Fuck The Police quite simply is a historic document, it wasn't a bolshy claim, it's not Eminem claiming he'd "kill a faggot" to look cool, this was four young men expressing the feelings of an entire generation and a then underclass. This was as real as it gets, the tensions and uncurrents of a oppresion and social unrest would explode by the time that Curt Cobain reached number one. It's not like the N.W.A didn't warn us.

This album is much more than a political statement, and a cultural phenominom. Dr. Dre and Yella's production is utterly sublime, the tracks bounce and crackle perfectly, they feel years ahead of their time and age much better than their peers. Hell this is the sound and the passion that Jay Z is trying to bring back to hip hop in 200-and friggin-9, twenty years after it's release this album is as relevant as ever. Express Yourself is still one of the greatest feel good rap tracks of all time, the title track kicks just as hard as it did the first time you heard it, and the guest spots are still perfect. Snoop Dogg reminds us that once upon a time he used to pull his finger out of his arse and be serious, WC keeps the agressive atomsphere and it's remarkable thinking back that the more laid back tracks were seen as too soft to be singles, but they turend out to be the template for the hip hop of the next twenty years. Ultimately, this albums importance will always over shadow it's critical merits, and rightly so, this album is like stepping into the tardis and stepping out of the streets of L.A. in '88, and it's scary as fuck.

Okay before I start because I'm sure someone will point it out, I am fully aware that I have not used the original artwork, but honestly who cares, that cover is as iconic as they come. So it's incredible the consider these last two albums side by side, on one side of California you had four angry young black men raging against the harsh reality of society and the brutality and biggotry of the police, and just down the road five other young white men are having exactly the opposite experience. While Straight Out Of Compton is the bleak reality, the album that exposes the hypocracy of the 1980s, Appetite For Destruction revels in the worst excess of the decade, for Guns and Roses It's So Easy. Axl has the world at his feet, he has it all drugs, sex rock and roll and he's about to get a hell of alot of money, and he's dissatisfied, it's not enough, where's the challenge. The more I compare the two the more I begin to dislike Appetite... and all it stands for, it's greedy, it's glutony, it's all of the seven deadly sins rolled into one, and you know what? It'd rocks you to your core.

So even though I should detest everything about this record, I can't, I should be saying it's overated, superficial, bloated but I can't because it's too much fun. Take Sweet Child O' Mine just as Axl's god awful syruppy drivel is about to make me slam my head through the nearest wall a sick solo and a killer riff explode out of Slash's guitar. Equally when it seems like Slash is over doing it, turning a track into some bluesy wank fest Axl comes in with the killer hook that's utterly irresistable. By the time Mr. Brownstone rolls around all your critical sensors have been destroyed, it rocks too hard, how can you care about the worries of the world when you could be snorting cocaine of half naked women. See that very sentance should fill me with moral outrage but allas it doesn't, just like Mr. Brownstone this album keeps on knocking, it just won't leave you alone, it's going to numb or brain with riff after riff, hook after hook and mind blowing solo after mind blowing solo until you conceed defeat and simply become another G'n'R junkie.

Okay so this entry is garenteed to raise some eyebrows, and no not because it's Kate Bush, seriously if you don't rate Kate Bush you need to go read someone elses blog about now. No the more discerning reader will be noting that this is a greatest hits complilation, and yes your right that is a cheap way to get someone into a list, but like Girls Aloud in the contemporary list, while Kate's albums have their individual merit it is as a hit maker and a cultural whirlwind that she shaped music and left her legacy. So no one album could do her legacy justice, no one album could give you the whole story, except The Whole Story (yes sorry i apologise for that in advance).

So what makes Kate Bush so special? Well if I have to answer that question for you you've probably never heard a Kate Bush record. Her music is querky, it refuses to be defined by the rigid boundaries of eighties pop, she's like a musical orgasm, she's sound constantly on edge, her music will suddenly pulse unpredictably. It won't stay in one place, one minute she's singing softly the next she leaps forward and grabs you by the balls, and before you know what's hit you she's on the other side of the room twirling around singing devinely. She was much more than a simple oddity, she was the female Bowie, she was a revolutionary, she burst open the door(along with Grace Jones) for the women of the next twenty years . While the boys were busy making lame synth pop, she was experimenting, she was redefining art pop. Bjork, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, and countless others from Girls Alouds Biology to the wonderful Joanna Newsom in some part owe there exsistance to this spectacular lady, underestimate her at you peril.

So the I've placed the least loved of all The Smiths albums and collections at number twelve. You may point out my lists are supposed to rate albums on critical quality, influence, cultural relevance and to a lesser extent popularity; so why is Meat Is Murder the album that some would argue has none of the above factors make the list? Because this is my list, and I want to make a big ballsy statement. After all that is what Meat Is Murder is all about, just look at the title and the album artwork. This is an album with balls, giant water melon sized balls, it has nothing to hide and nothing to fear. This is a group of artists at the top of their game saying there going to do what they like and they are damn sure going to say whatever's on their minds.

Take one listen to album opener Barbarism Begins At Home it's a walking contradiction. Morrissey rages about the foolhardy practice of beating children as a method of reforming their character traits or sexual preferences. It's in your face, it pulls no punches. Morrissey's forked tongue delivers deliciously powerful wittism;

"A crack on the head is what you get for asking,

So after that statement your full of emotion and rage, you agree, disagree whatever, so what next? Wait the track isn't over, no Marr and Rourke drop into a full anglo-disco stomp groove-athon, no I'm not joking, this full Play That Funky Music White Boy mode. It's remarkable, it's melodrama at it's finest, it's not cliche at all in this instance to say we've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. This is an album full of jauxtaposition on one side the bouncy grooves and side splitting silliness of Nowhere Fast, and on the other Morrissey's two most serious chilling slices of indignant rage, Meat Is Murder and How Soon Is Now. This album is everything the naysayers hate about the Smiths in one package, and it's absolutely brilliant. Easily the Smiths most nagging, moral and preachy album but even the most ardent hater couldn't deny the beauty of these few lines "Oh Shut Your Mouth, How Can You Say, I Go About Things The Wrong Way, I Am Human And I Need To Be Loved, Just Like Everyone Else Does".

So after the touching and heartfelt Meat Is Murder is an album that says "Fuck that shit". Ride The Lightning, were it a person would proably run up to Meat Is Murder and punch it straight in the face, before downing a bottle of vodka, and going on a never ending spree of crime and destruction. Ride The Lightning doesn't exactly cocern itself with themes like homosexuality, vegitarism, the human condition, socail pressure or class antagonism. No this is an album that talks about fighting fire with fire, it talks about being strapped in the electric chair and feeling the rush of electricity as it frys your brain. Infact if albums were films Meat Is Murder would be Milk and Ride The Lightening would be Evil Dead II. There both utterly brilliant, in totally different ways.

Okay enough silly comparisions lets get down to the music, and I could complain about how James seems to be on a mission to steal every last inch of Ozzy Osborne's shtick but honestly who would care? Because after all this album is about one thing and one thing only; The electric guitar. More specifically the electric guitar turned up to 11, 000! Seriouly put the title track on you itunes right now (if you don't have it then shame on you) and just listen first to strutting thrusting guitar line (I can just picture Kirk lifting his guitar up and down in the Maiden styly), then listen to the mind blowing solo that emerges from the riff, and then suddenly when you think it's over, and all is safe, of course it bloody isn't we're not even half way there. Kirk goes spiraling off the into the heavens with the most ridiculously frantic fretwork imaginable. And that ladies and gentlemen was just one track, just one. This is the album that brought you Ride The Lightening, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Creeping Death, Trade Under Ice and Fade To Black. While this isn't regarded as Metallica's best album (no prize for guessing what coming along later), it is regarded by many as their favourite Metallica album, and you'll be damn hard pressed to find a more fun way to spend forty seven minutes than jumping up and down to this evil hell spawn.

It's amazing how a simple sentiment, with the right intonation and tone can sum up great swathes of emotion and define a movement. When the Replacements semi-crooned the pharse "I Don't Know" in a nonchalant and disenfranchised tone, they managed to perfectly sum up the feelings of a generation. Better than any raging punk rocker, better than an entire punk rock album, that one chorus captured the zietgiest. That feeling of socio political isolation, of emotional displacement, it was utterly perfect, and truth be told it was done with the tongue firmly in cheek, but it was perfect. Pleased To Meet Me was the work of a band who saw genres and stereotypes and rejected them, they scoffed and turned their noses up. The Replacements will always be considered a punk band, but they were so much more, Pleased To Meet Me shows them skipping around stylisitcally with ease, from punk, to rock and roll, to diseffective alternative, to full on balladeering, to big solos; but they never get lost stretching their creative wings because each song is rooted around glorious melodies and delicious witty ironic lyricism.

It must have been remarkable experience listening to this record for the first time back in '87. Who would you have compared them to? Is this punk rock? Or are they influenced by Poison and Kiss or should that be Aerosmith or is it The Misfits, The Clash and the Sex Pistols, but then there's the big ballads; are they the ice cool credible Bryan Adams of punk? Then there's trumpets, and Nite Club Jitters are they America's answer to The Specials? The solos drop from the 70s to the 80s then suddenly go all Buddy Holly on us, then from out of no where they sound like the E Street band. My advice? Give up trying to define The Replacements, just settle for this simply conclusion they are bloody brilliant. Please To Meet Me is a band at the height of its powers, everything this album touches turns to gold, a collection of eleven sublime tracks immediate and varied tracks.

Sometimes you can tell instantly that your listening to a special album by a truly special band from the very first track, this is certainly true of Surfer Rosa. When the thundering drums of Bone Machine kick the song into life your already on the edge of your seat you know this going to be big. Then immediately it's like nothing you've ever heard before, Joey Santiago guitar comes sliding in and it still sounds revolutionary to this day. They may be rocking one note solos but there's a primal thrill to the Pixies guitar lines, it's an audio assualt. Joey Santiago never really gets the respect he's due as a guitarist, sure technically he's nothing special, but his signature sound is perhaps more influencial than any other guitarist of his generation. Alternative acts still try to simulate the primal sound of Surfer Rosa not to mention a little band called Nirvana who were playing particularly close attention. However after the thundering drums and wailing guitar suddenly it drops away and Kim Deal and Frank Black unleash a soft and sweet hook "Your bones got a little machine" and an alternative anthem was born. I'm not going to wax lyrical for too long about the Pixies trade mark sound and it's influence, as I'm sure you've figured out we'll be seeing them again in this list.

As far as Surfer Rosa is concerned its the moment when the Pixies proved that the rough and ready promise of Come On Pilgrim was ready to be fullfilled, with slick rhythms, killer basslines, crunching guitars, some organised chaos and some of the best melody/screamo combinations in rock history. Yet at the heart of this album it was the two HUGE pop moments that proved the Pixies were for real and set them on route to rock and roll legend status. First came Gigantic, Kim Deal's signature ballad, with crunching guitars and a sugary sweet hook about errh...a black dude with a huge wang, then it was Frank Black's turn; he unleashed Where Is My Mind? A song that needs no introduction, it is the definitive Pixies track and a unparrelled festival anthem. It couldn't get better than this, could it?

So come 1983 and the Police were on their last legs, this would be their final record comprised of original materiel, but how would it fair, they had become a band of declining returns after the early brilliance of Next To You, Can't Stand Losing You, Roxanne and Message In A Bottle. Synchronicity would stop the rot and make sure the Police went out with a bang. Make no mistake this was still the Police, the filler boardering complete and utter wank is still there, I challenge all you to find a single positive thing to say about Mother, but for the most part this was an album that showed of the Police as the mature clever and consistant hit makers. Of course this was the album that spawned the worldwide stalker anthem Every Breath You Take which hardly needs introduction or description. It marked a more moody and considered direction for the band. While gloriously slight and shimmering pop gems like Oh My God and Synchronicity Part I liter the album its the tender moments of the (other) two stand out singles King Of Pain and Wrapped Around Your Finger that steal the show. When Sting's came in with "There's a little black spot on the sun today" you knew it was going to be classic. It's suprising that a band so oft criticised for bland balladry and ska light wankery would finish their career by mastering these dark art forms. I always found it peculiar that a song with such a dark punchline ("I'm always hoping that you'll end this rain, It's my destiny to be the King Of Pain") was built around such a light beat and such a gorgeous harmony, but its this kind of juaxtaposition that not only makes the Police so intriguing but so darn popular too. Synchoronicity starts of like any other hit a miss Police album before going on a truly staggering seven track run of sheer pop genius ending in the sublime Murder By Numbers. So Synchronicity is an apt metaphor for the Police's career, a great start a rocky decline and glorious conclusion.

Sometimes you can tell everything you need to know about an album from the artwork. The sleeve for Nebraska was perfect, shot in monocrhome, its a grainy rough around the edges photo, it's bleak, the sky is covered in thick cloud, the image is dark and haunting, it feels cold and tragic. That picture in many ways does more to describe Nebraska than a million well chosen words could. Take one listen to the albums biggest single the powerful Atlantic City and you should have known something was up, in the back ground gone was the euphoric sax and cheery backing vocals in its stead was the ghostly coos of the backing vocals. It starts tragically enough as Springsteen talks about imfamous mafia killings in Philidelphia, and the tragedy continues to thicken however unlike other Springsteen records there isn't the uplifting endnote of The River; instead solace is found in the desperate hope that "Everything dies baby, that's a fact, well maybe everything that dies someday comes back". Really Bruce, no happy ending? It also features one of my all time favorite Springsteen lines "Down here it's just winners and losers, and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line". It's a work of emotive beauty, and it's no stand out, every second of Nebraska equals its intensity and power.

Nebraska is a stripped down and sparse record, it's Springsteens most intimate and by far his most soulful and tragic. Nebraska is not a studio album, it's a collection of demos that Springsteen recorded and decided to release completely unproduced, and its quite simply one of the greatest decisions he ever made. This is blood and guts music. This for the most part is Springsteen, an accoustic guitar and a harmonica telling some truly heartbreaking tales without a happy ending in site, it's bleak but it's never dreary, this is as thrilling as any record Springsteen has ever released. Springsteen immerses himself in crime and criminality, there's the mafia crime of Atlantic City, the title track sees him telling the first person story of a real life nineteen year old seriel killer. Elsewhere there's tragedy, heartache and even a man awaiting the gallows. It's blue collar, its gritty, in many ways it's classic Springsteen, without the punch and the pizzaz, the spark is instead provided by the strenght and intimacy of the narrative. Nebraska was the third of the three master peices released by Springsteen in the eighties, it's full to the brim with sorrow, it's minimalist, it's bare and it's without doubt the best record he has ever released.

So I decided when I started this list that I was only going to include one Tom Waits album, I'm not sure why exactly, as both Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones are gorgeous albums, equally deserving of a place in the top 50, yet I chosen in favour as variation, as both records are seen as part of a trilogy, a song writing movement. So why Rain Dogs? It's certainly less concise than Swordfishtrombones, it's all over the place in comparision, Waits lyrics are often barmy to the point of abstraction. Yet it's these factors that make Rain Dogs so special, it's a bloated epic, it's the insane genius that lerks dark within the depths of Tom Waits cranium set free to run wild, and best of all it has the glorious addition of electric guitar to bring some sex to Waits' wild and imaginative arrangements.

It's amazing that a talent so different, so uncommercial and frankly so left field continues to have such a mamoth influences on modern pop music. Norah Jones ripped half the arrangements on her latest album directly from this record, My Chemical Romance continue to indulge their camp musical theatre sides and Mama feels like a rock re-inventions of a track like Tango Until They're Saw, perhaps most suprising of all the Arctic Monkeys brilliant Humbug is heavily influenced by Rain Dogs. Not simply in it's dark and ominous arrangments, but it seems Mr. Turner has been taking notes of Mr. Waits' rich storytelling devices and his creative abstracted metaphors. Yet let us put influences to one side, because while it's remarkable how relevant Rain Dogs continues to be, there is still only one Tom Waits, he is a true original. His arrangements are darker, richer and more fanciful than any of his peers, it's beyond me to list every instrument he employs across this epic undertaking, and yes note to Mr. White I'm afraid Tom beat you to the Marimba. However as spectacular as Waits musical theatre arrangements are, the strenght of his music with always be his raspy smokey delivery and his superb lyricism. Picking out individual lines is fruitless, as Waits' words are intrinsically tied to his arrangements, they are deep emotive stories, that demand your undivided attention. You'll hang on his every word, because Waits is a truly unique and unpredictable, and Rain Dogs is legitimately a timeless classic, and a triumph of individuality and creativity.

Now the astute readers may be saying to themselves hmmn.....didn't this album come out in 1979, and isn't it called Metal Box? Well you'd be a hundred percent right. The only problem is Metal Box literally came in a metal box and was made of four vinyl discs, so I've never listened to it, and most people my age have instead heard this version re-realeased one year later named Second Edtion. So I've decided to included it as an eighties record because this is one of the definitive post-punk records. One of the biggest departures from the seventies era defining punk sound. Welcome to the new generation, the new sound, the new decade, welcome to death disco. You have to give it to John Lydon after setting the world on fire in the 70s with Never Mind The Bollocks he then took a huge departure and brought us the greatest avante guard punk album of all time. Opening with the 10 minute long Albratross it was positively evil dance music with a killer wobbly baseline and some incredible guitar work while Lydon haunting wailed away, it was different, it was challenging and best of all it was groovy as fuck. Jah Wobbles should be considered one of the greatest bassists of all time, listening to Second Edition its staggering ever single track is built on the back of these huge irresistable bass lines. It's worth looking around for a good version of this record online as the basslines have been terribly muted on some MP3s. Keith Levene's gorgeous sliding guitar is another highlight a huge contrast to Matlock's Sex Pistols work. While Pil will never be considered as influencial as the Sex Pistol in Second Edition they spawned one of the boldest and most creative records in rock and roll history. A Giant leap forward.

So how do you top Zen Arcade the then career defining album, that accross twenty three tracks did whatever the hell it wanted with remarkable creative brilliance. Well you tighten up, make the album more concise (a plutry 15 tracks by comparision) and you set about launching a vital punk assault. New Day Rising forgoes the punk asthetic slightly, it has a big pretentious cover, the songs on this album actually sound as if a producer has got to grips with them but fear not none of the pace, fury or bounce has been lost. Instead the all encompassing powers of Husker Du have been channelled into short sharp brilliant tracks. Now don't get me wrong Husker Du haven't transformed into Blink 182 your gonna have to look long and hard to get through the waves of disortion and studio fuzz, this is still a gritty punk record. After a rather take it or leave it album opener, New Day Rising suddenly bursts into life with unrelenting rock of Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill and then the goregoues melodic rocker I Apologise. Looking back now you kind of feel bad for Husker Du they get all the creative critical acclaim while ten years later when the world was truly ready Green Day took their formula gave it the whiny teen sheen and turned it into a globe straddling phenominon. Listening back to Celebrated Summer you can't help but think what could have been. When it comes to rock and roll history make sure that when you talk about The Pixies, Dinosaur Jnr. and Sonic Youth, remember to throw Husker Du into the mix, they've more than earnt it.

Now the more astute among my readers, yes those of you who knew that Second Edition was really a re-release of an album from 1979, they will surely point out that this is not an album of original materiel. This is a live album, and not just any live album, it's the live album that is the soundtrack to a movie, a movie which is a concert movie, that concert being of course a Talking Heads concert. Okay so why does a live album make the cut? Is Stop Making Sense the best live cd you'll ever hear? Probably not I could imagine better live cds, most of Iron Maiden's spring to mind. However it is stacked from top to bottom with stone cold classic tracks and it's a darn good performance. You may wonder why things sound a little odd, well to answer this question you need to watch the movie Stop Making Sense quite simply the greatest concert film of all time ever. It's not even close, it set the tone for the genre and as a result Stop Making Sense was a landmark album, it stayed in the charts for two years! It's the only Talking Heads album to manage this feat which staggering considering how great the Talking Heads were. The concert was shot superbly but the film and the record is carried by the performance of David Byrne my choice for the greatest front man of all time, he has this nervous energy, you just can't take your eyes of him. A revolutionary record, the concert record these days is a necessarily evil, back in '85 it was an artistic statement.

Okay do you know one thing I regret more than anything else in my musical life? That I didn't go to see Leonard Cohen on his recent and possibly last tour. You may be wondering why I didn't go, well consider this; have you ever tried to say the sentance "hey wanna go see Leonard Cohen?" to a bunch of twenty year olds, it's impossible to force those words out of your mouth. Then I thought okay I'll ask my mum she likes Leonard Cohen and of course by then it had sold out. So I thought no worry I'll sit back and enjoy his performance at Glastonbury on the telly, well no the BBC wouldn't or couldn't show it? Seriously what a pain in the arse. So why did I tell you this story, I'm not sure, maybe I'm just venting, but maybe it's because I'm Your Man is so mind bogglingly awesome that I simple had to see Leonard perform it live.

The album kicks off with First We'll Take Manhatten arguably Cohen's second most famous song (behind the obvious) and it kicks like a mule (for a Cohen track) the lyricism is anthemic and awesome. It's musical sloganeering at its best "You Loved Me As A Loser / Now Your Woried That I Might Just Win / You Know The Way To Stop Me / But You Don't Have The Discipline". With lyrics that cool no wonder every band walking the face of the earth wants to have a crack at covering it. I'm Your Man was Cohen's bold leap forward bringing the big arrangements and most noticably some keyboards, but unlike the rest of his eighties cohorts he avoids the cheese factor. Cohen's voice is as seductively nilhistic as ever especially on the stand out Everybody Knows. Cohen's voice is perfect on this record, the shrug and sigh which marks the end of his lines are just sublime, the ultimate apethic despair love record.

So no compound word sends me running to the hills like the dreaded term Double-Album. When you think of double album the terms that normal come to mind are pompous, bloated, overstretched, repetitive and pretentious, and lets face it most of them are just self indulgent bollocks. So could Prince pull it off? Could he fuck, of course he could, the most multi-talented genius of his time simply could not fail at anything, expect failing of course, kind of like Gomez Adams. The big rumour in the lead up to this album was that Prince was going to get serious, talk about politics and socail issues and those fears were borne out with first single Sign 'o The Times. Showing off Prince's serious side and it didn't take a genius to figure out that AIDs was a theme on this album, however it was a small theme. This wasn't Prince's serious album, this was still a sticky sexy funky groovy album. Prince was showing off all his skills he'd talk about abadoned children on one hand and then launch into the mega eighties funk of Hot Thing, If I Was Your Girl and of course the brilliantly ever so eighties sexathon of You Got The Look. You can never quite tell whether Prince is self indulgent or just having a laugh at our expense, whatever your opinion it matters little, because this album is just wall to wall genius, pop songs like Strange Relationships simply cannot be denied. As much as I'm pleased at contemporary pop's revival you feel that we'll never see another talent like Prince again. This album showed off all of Prince's skills expect one, this was Prince the god of sexy bass, Prince the guitar God was yet to come. I have never seen this album get a review lower than 5/5 or 10/10, and I can't say I wish to buck that trend, not in the slightest.

So those of you who are familar with greatest hits albums, who use itunes to pick and choose or those who frequent singstar may well be familar with The Cure's goregeous single Pictures Of You, a delightfully tragic hearftfelt pop single. Hearing this song may have led you to conlude that Disintegration would be packed full of The Cure's best pop gems. If you made this presumption, you were dead wrong, the single Pictures Of You was editted down from an epic seven and a half minute mood music masterpeice into a four minute pop single. Disintegration is a mamoth album, huge in scope. The Cure work to create this giant (literally eight tracks clock in at over five minutes) atomspheric magnus opus, where songs brood and float around and slowly moving and merging from place to place, taking you on an emotional journey (normally a depressive one). It's a staggering accomplishment, driven by droning key boards and the Cure's trademark guitar twinkles and shimmers, you feel like you floating around inside the torturous landscape of Robert Smith's mind. The title track is the clear stand out, an atomspheric epic for the ages, Smith's vocal performance is sublime, changing modes and intensity as the song glides around in the throws of a mood swing, it's a sublime track and possible the Cure's best. When it comes to creating a mood and altering feelings Disintegration is the finest work by any band since Joy Division's endote Atomsphere in 1980. When you look back at the Cure while they will always be remembered as one of the 80s great hit makers, yet Disintegration will always be their career defining masterpeice.

I'm always bound to upset someone when it comes to ordering the Metallica albums and I'm sure some will be outraged to see the technical masterpeice ...And Justice For All slot in so low. However I have limmited space and I'm not here to justify why it finished below other Metallica albums I'm here to tell you why it deserves to be the 29th greatest album of the eighties. First of all ...And Justice For All is stacked with classic Metallica tracks most noticably One. The concensus choice for the greatest ever Metallica track, a huge epic, with machine gun blasts of guitar, a huge solo, some killer drumming and some of James' best lyrics. One remains Metallica's magnus opus. It's matched in scope by the albums title track, that while never threatening to be as vital as One it's full of anti-capitalist rage, and built of a series of monster riffs and a mamoth choruse. Seriously you have to feel bad for other bands, Kirk Hammett throws out more killer riffs in a single track than others can manage across a whole album. Elsewhere we have the chuggathon Harvester Of Sorrows and the pummelling Blackening as good a track as Metallica have ever penned. While there is no doubting the technical majesty and the extreme visceral drive of ...And Justice For All it's an album of one dimension, one gear, it lacks the subtly, nuance and dare I say the fun of their other records, yet when it comes to thrashing the holy fuck out of you, no album does it better than ...And Justice For All.

Having come from the angry and relentless ...And Justice For All we head back in time to Metallica's first album, and my personal favorite, Kill 'em All. This has one big factor that ...Justice lacked; Fun! This album is an absolute riot, you can hear that Metallica are still indebted to their early influences, the ligthening fast punk of the seventies and of course Black Sabbath. Hit The Lights sets the tone, it's visceral, it's fast as fuck, it doesn't relent, but it's not a pummelling, it's a laugh, it's Metallica being the best Irish/sea santy punk band in human history, with a thrashing riff that makes you want to jump up and down and bounce of the walls before Kirk launches into a killer solo. This was the natural evolution of music, and would redefine hard rock for decades to come, it was also a glorious contrast to the rest of the scene. Don't forget Metallica were from L.A. the very home land of hair metal and all it's excess, and here were four dudes full of anger who wanted to rock your socks. It's hard to imagine just how revolutionary this album must have seemed in that time and more than anything in that place. The album is loaded with classics (exlcuding the Diamond Head and Blitzkrieg covers on the '88 re-release), there's the Dave Mustaine penned Four Horsemen, the live staple Motorbreath, the fury of Whiplash and of course Seek And Destroy Metallica's live anthem, their eternal set closer. All in all Kill 'em All was a rock revolution and the most fun album Metallica have ever released, they were still finding their identity but they made one hell of a first impression.

It's completely fruitless to argue that Isn't Anything is better than Loveless, I like tough challenges and being contentious but that's a bridge to far even for me. Yet just because it's not the masterpiece doesn't mean it should be overlooked, not for one second. In many ways Isn't Anything was more daring than Loveless, this was the moment a bunch of ex punk rockers and indie popsters decided to give up the day job and created something new. Isn't Anything is incredibly brave, on release they must have worried that no one on earth was going to like this, the ways they fucked around with the guitars, warped the sounds and brought in huge waves of static, how they put the melody on the back foot, they really could have become a music footnote had this album failed. However we needn't of worried, Isn't Anything didn't fail, it ended up one of the most important and influencail albums of all time. It pretty much invented shoe gaze single handledly and spawned an army of imitators. Hell even when they were doing more traditional and pedestrain rockers like Cupid Come and (When You Wake) Your Still In A Dream they sounded more vibrant and more intriguing than most anyone out there. Yet it will always be the glorious burnt out torch tracks All I Need and Lose My Breath that will grab the critical attention enen though they are easily matched in quality my straight rockers Feed Me Your Kiss and the melodious Several Girls Galore. So make no mistake there's more to My Bloody Valentine than Loveless, Isn't Anything can deservedly be labelled one of the decades greatest records.

When it comes to talking about the greatest punk bands of all time and the greatest punk albums the deabate always seems to start and end with The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash. While there is no doubt that those acts are deserving candidates it's quite ridiculous how little mention is given to Husker Du. During the eighties they went on an unparrelled spree of releasing awesome punk albums while the genre was seemingly dying around them. Zen Arcade is one of those albums you just know is going to be great the second you press play. When the killer bass hook of opening track Something I Learned Today you can't help but say "fuck yeah" because you know this album is going to kick all kinds of arse. It's also a punk rock album in the truest sense of the word, half the tracks on this album were first takes, the band didn't have a producer, they just mixed them and threw them out there, how rock and roll is that? When it comes to influence they're as far reaching as they come Pixies, Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, Green Day but fuck them, you know you've really made it, whe your a legitmate big deal, when you influence comedy, yes those lovely New Zelanders Flight of the Conchord couldn't resist pinching the riff from the brilliant Never Talking To You Again. Zen Arcade is a legitmate classic, a stylistic scatter gun, where ever they decided to land the results are devastating, ground braking and just plain awesome.

Now I'm sure some will be scratching there heads and wondering how Raising Hell has snuck above 3 Feet High And Rising, it certainly should raise your eyebrows as De La Soul's album is superior, but Raising Hell has a special place in hip hop history, it was one of the first hip hop albums to go main stream in a BIG way without comprimising itself stylistically. Run DMC were essentially two MCs and some scratching, Run and DMC's interplay is superb and a clear influence on all hip hop duos and certianly on the Beastie Boys. This record conquered the world, it took hip hop all over the globe, riding on the back of Walk This Way Run DMC made sure they were bringing the hits It's Tricky, My Addidas and You'll Be Illin. The symbolic success of Run-DMC came at the imfamous live aid concert, they were the only hip hop act on the bill and they went out there and did there thing. No gimmicks, no rock riffs, no comprimise they brought hip hop to the masses and shoved it in there faces. When DMC said there's a lot of rock bands here today but I've got one thing to say and then launched into King Of Rock it was the ballsy in your face moment that said hip hop had arrived. Raising Hell made sure that recorder labels world wide would be on the look out for urban acts because Raising Hell proved hip hop would remain counter culture no longer.