Volume One

1. Miles Davis - Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus) {1958}

Porgy and Bess is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1958 on Columbia Records. The album features arrangements by Davis and collaborator Gil Evans from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. The album was recorded in four sessions on July 22, July 29, August 4 and August 18 in 1958 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City. It is the second collaboration between Davis and Evans and has garnered much critical acclaim since its release, being acknowledged by music critics as the best of their collaborations.[1] For many jazz critics, Porgy and Bess is regarded as historic.


2. The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs {1967}


The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut album by experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and vocal collaborator Nico. It was originally released in March 1967 by Verve Records, a subsidiary of MGM Records.
Recorded in 1966 during Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour, The Velvet Underground & Nico would gain notoriety for its experimentalist performance sensibilities, as well as its focus on controversial subject matter expressed in many of their songs.
Though largely ignored upon its release, it has since become one of the most influential and critically lauded rock albums in history, appearing as #13 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time[1] as well as being added to the 2006 National Recording Registry by the Librarian of Congress.[2]

3. Sparkehorse - Cow {1995}

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot is a 1995 album by Sparklehorse. The album was largely recorded with musicians who played with the band Cracker, for whom Mark Linkous worked with at the time as a guitar tech / roadie and a sometimes collaborator. In fact, most of the album was produced and recorded by David Lowery (of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven) under the pseudonym "David Charles."

4. Bob Dylan - Queen Jane Approximately {1965}


Highway 61 Revisited is Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, released in 1965 by Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album to be recorded entirely with a full rock band, after he experimented with the approach on half of Bringing It All Back Home. It is commonly tagged as documenting the "angry young man" period in Dylan's career, in-between the playfulness of its surrounding albums; many of the songs on Highway 61 are of an accusatory nature and feature rough, loud takes.
Featuring hits and concert staples such as "Like a Rolling Stone", "Desolation Row", and "Ballad of a Thin Man", it is also generally considered to be among the artist's best and most influential efforts. Dylan himself commented, "I'm not gonna be able to make a record better than that one... Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to."[1]
The album peaked at #3 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart and #4 in the UK, while "Like a Rolling Stone" reached #2 on the US Pop Singles chart and #4 in the UK, also receiving the accolade of being placed #1 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The album itself was ranked #4 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

5. Radiohead - Faust Arp {2007}

In Rainbows is the seventh album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead. It was first released on 10 October 2007 as a digital download, followed by a standard CD release in most countries during the last week of 2007. The album was released in North America on 1 January 2008. In Rainbows was Radiohead's first release after the end of their contract with EMI and the end of the longest gap between studio albums in their career.
In Rainbows was recorded in London, Somerset, Wiltshire, and Oxfordshire with producers Mark Stent and Nigel Godrich. Radiohead worked on In Rainbows for more than two years, beginning in early 2005. In between recording, the band toured Europe and North America for three months in mid-2006. The songwriting on In Rainbows was more personal than that on Radiohead's other albums, with singer Thom Yorke describing most tracks as his versions of "seduction songs".[1] Radiohead incorporated a wide variety of musical styles and instruments on the album, using not only electronic music and string arrangements, but also pianos, celestes, and the ondes Martenot.
Days after announcing the album's completion, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a digital download that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit. Upon its retail release, In Rainbows entered the UK Album Chart and the U.S. Billboard 200 at number one; it went on to sell three million copies worldwide in both digital and physical formats. The album earned widespread critical acclaim, and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2007 by several publications.

6. Lou Reed - Perfect Day {1972}

Transformer is Lou Reed's breakthrough second solo album, released in December 1972.[1] Unlike its predecessor Lou Reed, eight songs of which were leftovers from his Velvet Underground days, this album contains mainly new material. However, there are still a few songs that date from his VU days--Velvet Underground-recorded versions of "Andy's Chest" and "Satellite of Love" surfaced in 1985 and 1995, respectively; and "New York Telephone Conversation" and "I'm So Free" are known to have been played during the Velvets' run at Max's Kansas City in the summer of 1970.
Transformer was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, who had been strongly influenced by Reed's work with the Velvet Underground. The album features some of Reed's best-known songs such as "Walk on the Wild Side", "Perfect Day" and "Satellite of Love", and made him an international star in his own right.
"Andy's Chest" had been recorded in 1969 for The Velvet Underground's "lost fourth album" (see VU and Another View) and "Satellite of Love" had been demoed for the band's 1970 album Loaded, but neither had been used. For Transformer, the poppy up-tempo feel of these songs was slowed down to turn them into ballads. Although all songs on the album were credited to Reed, it has long been rumoured that "Wagon Wheel" is actually a David Bowie composition.[2] Although there are no known performances of "Vicious" by the Velvet Underground, the song apparently dates from Reed's time in the band and its association with Andy Warhol. According to Reed, Warhol told Reed he should write a song about someone vicious. Reed inquired what he meant by that, and Warhol replied, "Oh, you know, vicious like I hit you with a flower."[3]
The first single from the album, "Walk on the Wild Side", became an international success, despite its adult subject matter (it was edited in some countries and banned in others) and it is now generally regarded as Reed's signature tune. "Satellite of Love" was issued as the second single in February 1973. In 2002, a 30th anniversary edition of the album was released; in addition to demos of "Hangin' Round" and "Perfect Day", it includes a hidden track featuring an advert for the album.
The cover art was from a Mick Rock photograph.
In 1997, Transformer was named the 44th greatest album of all time in a Music of the Millennium poll conducted in the United Kingdom by HMV Group, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. Transformer is also ranked number 55 on NME 's list of "Greatest Albums of All Time." In 2003, the album was ranked number 194 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[4] It is also on Q Magazine's list of "100 Greatest Albums Ever".

7. Holy Fuck - Lovely Allen {2008}

Holy Fuck is an electronica band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They were a part of Dependent Music, a music label and artist collective that began in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1994.[1]
The band uses live instrumentation and miscellaneous instruments and non-instruments (including a 35 mm film synchronizer, toy keyboards and toy phaser guns) to achieve electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops or programmed backing tracks.[2] According to Pitchfork Media, "The band was formed with the intent of creating the equivalent of modern electronic music without actually using the techniques—looping, splicing, programming and the like—of that music."[3]
LP is the second album from lo-fi improvisational electronica band Holy Fuck. The album was nominated for Alternative Album of the Year at the 2008 Juno Awards and was nominated for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize.[1]

8. RJD2 - 1976 {2004}

Since We Last Spoke is the second Studio album by American Hip hop producer & singer RJD2. It was released on May 18, 2004 by the Definitive Jux label. This album's tracks moved away from the DJ Shadow-inspired Instrumental hip hop music of RJD2's previous offering, Deadringer, and toward much more Rock music-influenced sounds.

9. Double Dee and Steinski - Lesson 2 (James Brown mix) {1984}

Doug DiFranco ("Double Dee") and Steve Stein ("Steinski") were hip-hop producers who achieved notoriety in the early 1980s for a series of underground hip-hop sample-based collages known as the Lessons. Although they never had a hit record, they proved highly influential for subsequent artists such as Coldcut, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, the Avalanches, and Girl Talk.[citation needed] Their music has never been widely available on CD due to their use of copyrighted material, but there have been occasional illegal re-issues, and several internet sites have mp3s of their music available for download.
DiFranco and Stein followed up this success with Lesson 2 — The James Brown Mix in 1984, which began with a sample from The War of the Worlds before quickly running through a montage of memorable breaks from classic James Brown records, with sampled appearances by Dirty Harry and Bugs Bunny. Also that year, DiFranco teamed up with David Witz, a CBS Records producer who recorded as Arthur Ether, to create "Taste So Good", which they released under the name File 13. "Taste So Good" was built from snippets of recorded sex-phone calls over an original instrumental bed, and while too racy for radio in 1984, the 12" single found success in nightclubs and reached #38 on Billboard's Dance/Disco Top 80 on 10/6/1984.[citation needed] File 13's "Taste So Good" is included on Volume 3 of the "Street Jams; Electric Funk" series on Rhino Records, as well as other compilations.

10. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules Theme {2008}

Hercules and Love Affair is the debut album by American house group Hercules and Love Affair. The album, which was released by DFA Records in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2008 and a day later in North America, was produced by Andy Butler and Tim Goldsworthy. The album was recorded at the Plantain Studios in Manhattan.[1] Andrew Raposo (of fellow DFA band Automato) and Tyler Pope (of !!!) contributed bass to the album,[2] while Antony Hegarty contributed vocals on some songs.

11. Primal Scream - Come Together {1991}

Screamadelica is a 1991 album by Primal Scream and was their first to be a commercial success. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted it the 27th greatest album of all time. The album was a massive departure from the band's early indie rock sound, drawing inspiration from the house music scene (and associated drugs) that was becoming popular at the time of its production. The band enlisted house DJs Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley on producing duties, although the album also contained a wide range of other influences including gospel and dub.
The album's title track did not appear on the album itself; the ten minute dance track was also produced by Andrew Weatherall and sung by Denise Johnson. It appears on the Dixie Narco EP released in 1992, and featured in the opening credits of the now rare Screamadelica VHS video tape.
The album includes "Loaded", which was a top twenty hit single in the UK. Dance DJ Andrew Weatherall began remixing "I'm Losing More than I'll Ever Have", from their previous album, and the resulting track disassembled the song, adding a drum loop from an Italian bootleg mix of Edie Brickell's "What I Am", a sample of Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues" and the central introductory sample from the Peter Fonda B-movie The Wild Angels.

12. The Chemical Brothers - Out of Control {1999}

Surrender is the third album from The Chemical Brothers and was released on June 22, 1999. It features Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Hope Sandoval (ex Mazzy Star) and Bernard Sumner (New Order) as guest vocalists. Leeds band The Sunshine Underground took their name from the sixth track on the album. It was certified 2x Platinum by the BPI on September 30, 2005. [1] The song 'Asleep from Day' was used in a commercial for the French airline Air France.[1]

13. The Knife - Silent Shout {2006}

Silent Shout is the third full length album (not including the Hannah med H Soundtrack) by Swedish electropop duo The Knife, released initially in Sweden on February 15, 2006, then for the rest of Europe the following month on Rabid Records. The album was released in the U.S. on July 25 via Mute Records. Silent Shout is a darker album than its predecessor Deep Cuts[1]. The album has produced five singles: "Silent Shout", "Marble House", "We Share Our Mothers' Health", "Like a Pen" and "Na Na Na".
After being awarded "Best New Music" status by the influential online magazine Pitchfork Media in February of 2006, Silent Shout was later named Pitchfork Media's top album of 2006 [2], with the title song being ranked the #2 song of the year[3].

14. DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World {1996}

Endtroducing..... is the debut studio album by hip hop artist DJ Shadow. It was first released on November 19, 1996 by Mo' Wax Records, but was later reissued on June 7, 2005 by Island Records. It is noted for being the first album created entirely from samples of other records. The album received near-unanimous worldwide critical acclaim upon release.

UPDATE: Originally, I had Underworld - Underneath the Radar between Primal Scream and Chemical Brothers but it is now omitted due to the surprising (or unsurprising) difficulty in finding an mp3 legally, or otherwise of the track as I don't own any Underworld. Tracks still flow OK so it is now gone. This has nothing to do with either Bill or Mark.