61. Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance
(Beat Club/Interscope Records, 2003)
Alright, so he spends like half this record whining about how his first album didn't sell as much as he expected, even though it almost went platinum and is still the commercial peak his career (every whit rapper is emo, even the ones that aren’t). And he works the whole hillbilly angle even harder than you'd expect someone who performs under the name 'Bubba' to. But that's OK, because all the hayseed themes just give Timbaland a chance to stir fiddles and harmonica into his pot in place of squealing babies and Bollywood strings for a change, resulting in, for my money, the guy's last truly inspired album-length production (a few Organized Noize tracks aside). And all that handwringing about industry success just creates a somber contemplative mood that suits Bubba surprisingly well, and he's a truly thoughtful, heartfelt rapper at his best. I just wish I could take off the horrible original "Back In The Mud" and end the album with the Zone 4 remix instead.

62. Nels Cline - Coward
(Cryptogramophone Records, 2009)
Nels Cline says he’d been thinking about doing a record like this, just him and his guitar unaccompanied, for over twenty years, and I’ve probably been waiting for him to do it for about half of that time myself. Somehow, someone who gets in the studio with various bands and collaborators and backing ensembles often enough to release several records almost every year just never found the time to book a solo session until pretty recently. That’s part of the reason that Coward is a momentous records; the other part is that it actually lives up to all my years of anticipation, with 70 minutes of music both acoustic and electric, live and overdubbed, spontaneous and looped, improvised and written, by one of my favorite guitarists of all time.

63. Amerie - All I Have
(Columbia Records, 2002)
Even though they’ll probably both be most remembered for the popcorn drums and infectious onomatopoeia of 2005’s “1 Thing,” and have spent the years since then collaborating with many other artists to diminishing returns on both ends, Amerie and Rich Harrison pretty much found the perfect sound together on their very first album. And even if there’s nothing quite as flashy and explosive as “1 Thing,” Harrison’s lush sound is already fully formed here, with more mellow midtempo numbers than what he ultimately became known for, and interesting experiments in rhythm like “I Just Died” and “Hatin’ On You” that he never returned to later on.

64. Kanye West - The College Dropout
(Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam, 2004)
Kanye became my favorite producer in hip hop around 2002 (as much as I loved “This Can’t Be Life” and The Blueprint, for some reason I never really learned the name and checked for him until “Guess Who’s Back”). And around early ‘03 when I heard Get Well Soon, and realized he was this kind of earnest and amateurish but also kind of clever and strangely compelling rapper, he quickly became pretty much my favorite musician period for a while. For a solid year I snapped up every beat, every freestyle, every mixtape, every little thing that trickled out as anticipation mounted for his debut, all the time hoping he’d at least get a release date and sell enough to go gold; as much as I was a fervent believer, I didn’t really have a clue he’d become one of the biggest stars of the decade. And when he did, maybe I lost a little bit of interest because he wasn’t just my pet obsession anymore, but really I still considered myself a pretty big fan at least until all that frequently lousy stuff from Graduation onward. For a second it was really exciting, though, to see this guy I had rooted for actually make good on all his ambitions and have this huge event album that convinced everyone else of what I’d known. It’s really far far from a perfect or classic album, though -- would’ve been a bit closer in the pre-release version with “Keep The Receipt” and “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” and none of those boring-ass skits.



65. Lungfish - Feral Hymns
(Dischord Records, 2005)
As one of the canonical Baltimore bands (if not the, canonical Baltimore band), I’ve always felt more of an obligation to listen to Lungfish than an instant, effortless connection to their music. Still, as I work my way through their ‘90s back catalog and slowly start to ‘get’ them more, I’m surprised that the last album they made keeps coming back up as one of my favorites. Their malevolent lurch rocks pretty hard at times on this one, and “Sing” might be their catchiest song ever.

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