Poll: Oliver Kemp's 50 Favourite Records Of All Time

Hats

there's like 20 others i feel bad that i can't vote for but Hats is just unfair

If anyone's curious about his ranking, I listed them top to bottom, so Hex is #1 and Hana-Bi is #50.

It's probably not the best album on there, but I feel like Bowery Electric's Beat was a super-formative record for me, so I'm voting in support of that one.

If you search for his name, you'll also find the substack in which he provides a bit of detail about his approach to the list as well as short blurbs on each entry. It helped me to understand his process a bit better, which should be understood as unabashedly subjective. I will probably vote for "Watershed" - it was a bit disappointing to me when I first heard it, but it has grown into perhaps my favorite Opeth album.

Paul's vs Journey is a tough call, went with the Beasties

cool list!

No Stereolab so I’m picking Slowdive

interesting list. one of the more interesting things is his riding for the streets in the year 2026 (i respect it)

POX
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Nina Simone - Pastel Blues
Pink Floyd - Animals
Carole King - Tapestry
John Coltrane - Ascension
Prince - Purple Rain
Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
Talking Heads - Speaking In Tongues
Miles Davis - Miles Smiles
Portishead - Dummy

Lots of great records here but Homogenic is the one for me.

Good list, a solid mix of classics, cult classics and clearly personal choices. At least 15 I play with some regularity.

For similar-sounding reasons to emil.y (I likewise don't see it as the 'best' album on here, but it made a big impact on me in my very late teens), I'll vote for the second Bowery Electric album.

feel like hats is gonna walk this, so i will bravely vote for animals by pink floyd

haven't heard that bowery electric album, gonna have to add it to my list

ha - i went through that list 3 times before noticing The Streets.

Lotta bangers here but gotta go with Paul's Boutique

wrong bowery electric album imo (but i suppose it's extremely personal of me to prefer lushlife)

Going with Underworld, I somewhat disagree w/his contention on the substack that they were never this good again, if only because I think Oblivion With Bells and Barbara Barbara come awfully close, and their other albums (except the merely “good” Barking) are about as good as I had hoped they’d be.

Went with Paul's Boutique as well. Was between that and Angel Dust for me. This list got me working on one of my own and both of those are near the top of it.

Journey In Satchidananda

Miles Davis - Miles Smiles
Slint - Spiderland
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
Glenn Branca - The Ascension
David Bowie - Low

Can I vote for this stretch as a whole?

Going with Underworld, I somewhat disagree w/his contention on the substack that they were never this good again, if only because I think Oblivion With Bells and Barbara Barbara come awfully close, and their other albums (except the merely “good” Barking) are about as good as I had hoped they’d be.

I disagree with this. I like Underworld a lot, but Beaucoup Fish is the moment where the wave peaked, crashed and rolled back. There are good albums and good tracks after that one, but you can hear/feel them getting older, to the music's detriment.

Fuck me, now this is a hell of a list! I could vote for 20 of these at least

Went with Discovery, it was just that massive for me.

There are good albums and good tracks after that one, but you can hear/feel them getting older, to the music's detriment.

I disagree with this disagreement, if only because I think the one album where I could feel things slipping away from them was on Barking, which felt like an effort to keep their sound fresher by bringing in other more youthful collaborators, and it didn’t sound like them. It’s where I could really feel their age, not desperation per se but just a misguided effort to sound more current maybe…

Whereas the albums released after Karl Hyde worked with Eno seem to strike a perfect balance between their ‘90s sound and some type of graceful aging via pushing things into more experimental zones.

Plus, I think the thing is they’ve never sounded particularly anything BUT middle aged to me (in a good way.)

I actually think the only thing that makes underworld feel older to me is they perhaps overly rely upon their classic hits during their live performances, when I think so much of their newer material is strong and interesting enough to sustain a compelling live show.

Fuck Buttons deserve a vote and I adore it

so many classics, i always name my wi-fi Spiderland. head says Hats, heart says Alice, but had to go with the Fishmans

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Not to doubt his sincerity, this is a pretty-hip-but-not-TOO-hip selection.

I've heard 24 of these and they're mostly more "greatly admired" than "beloved". I made a playlist of one song apiece from each album I know, and "Taphead" was the most revelatory, so voting Laughing Stock, for me very slightly the poor cousin of the Talk Talk/Hollis trilogy.

Tapestry is one of those records where every song is perfection, every bar a masterclass in songwriting

Trying to reconcile this with my forty-year held opinion that "Way Over Yonder" is the most boring song ever written.

"Way Over Yonder" by Carole King is so boring that Elton John wouldn't even have let it on A Single Man.

Low vs Purple Rain zzzxbrgl *smoke comes out of ears head catches fire*

There's a lot of records on this list that I love, but the one I've listened to the most - by a long stretch, because I bought it the day it came out and listened to it pretty much all summer - is Paul's Boutique, so that got my vote.

I voted Coltrane because when you realize that you are a part of everything there is no longer any loneliness or frustration or insecurity. Wherever you are, that's where it's at.

John or Alice?

It's a little weird to see Bark Psychosis as his number one record of all time because, in the more than a dozen times I've listened to Hex, I've received no more aesthetic impression than "pleasant Talk Talk copy".

yeah, I’ve really tried with them too, but the appeal eludes me

A lot of albums on this list, I love some more that I admire but one that continues to blow my mind away is John Coltrane‘s Ascension.

Fantastic list. Had to go with Hats just ahead of Homogenic which are both all timers.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Don Caballero

"We're going to make him an offer that...I think, will be to his liking!"

Who can argue with Journey In Satchidananda or Paul's Boutique?

Spiderland, Discovery, Ascension, Low, Laughing Stock, Hex, Tapestry, The Fragile, Venice, Ravedeath 1972, Purple Rain, Darkness On the Edge of Town, My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, Homogenic - all classics of course

Underworld definitely peaked with Beaucoup Fish imo. It is a pretty great peak and is also a classic and is one of my favorite albums

I like Don Caballero’s American Don, but my favorite math rock album is Battles’ Mirrored which feels like a pinnacle to me

man, Beaucoup never hit for me. Mine was and still is Second Toughest.

I found the music critic canon stuff to be the least relatable on his list. I suspected that he was at least a few years younger than me from certain picks (like Beaucoup).

Don Cab!