Music

gotta be a joke

"Classical" baroque classical classical guitar/flamenco minimalist modernist renaissance romantic twentieth century		Artsy alternative renaissance avante-garde avante-garde guitar cabaret/broadway/Europop Diamanda Galas jazz magickal psychedelic
Alternative alternative folk/blues alternative punk alternative rock alternative.swing dance electric body music (ebm) electronica-techno electronica-ambient gothpop grunge industrial new wave punk random weirdness speed metal		Etcetera Bahá'í (world/classical) blues celtic/irish childrens' christmas music compilations country and western eighties pop female vocalists folk gospel klezmer lounge new age pop world

The best of the best
(thoughts on some of the best or otherwise outstanding albums of non-"classical" late 20^th-century music. For those artists with a number of equally good works, I chose the most influential one.)

Laurie Anderson — U.S. Live (5-hour concert, ca. 1980)
The Beatles — The White Album (1968)
Johnny Cash — Unchained (1996)
Coil — Horse Rotorvator (1988)
Dire Straits — Brothers in Arms (1985)
Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959)
Madonna — Ray of Light (1998)
Metallica — Master of Puppets (1986)
Nirvana — Unplugged in New York (1994)
Pink Floyd — Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
Sonic Youth — Daydream Nation (1988)
Tom Waits — Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
Neil Young — Harvest Moon (1992)

The best of the rest

Coil — Music to Play in the Dark vol. 1 (1999)
The Cure — Boys Don't Cry (1979)
Miles Davis, remixed by Bill Laswell — Panthalassa (1969-74/1998)
Peter Gabriel — Passion (1989)
Dead Can Dance — Aion (1990)
Diamanda Galas — Masque of the Red Death quartet (1986-91)
Negativland — Escape from Noise (1987)
The Sex Pistols — Never Mind the Bollocks... (1976?)
Skinny Puppy — Bites/Remission (1984)
Throbbing Gristle — Second Annual Report (1977)

The rest of the rest

Tori Amos — Little Earthquakes (1992)
Leonard Cohen — Best of Leonard Cohen (1966-74)
Coil — Time Machines (1998)
Concrete Blonde — True (Concrete Blonde) (1986)
Cowboy Junkies — The Trinity Session (1988)
Creatures (Siouxsie Sioux) — Animus Anima (1999)
Einstürzende Neubauten — Strategies against Architecture II (1984-90)
Robyn Hitchcock — I Often Dream of Trains (1984)
Morphine — Like Swimming (1997)
The Police — Synchronicity (1983)
Pink Floyd — Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Sky Cries Mary — This Timeless Turning (1994)
Thighpaulsandra — I, Thighpaulsandra (2001)
Roger Waters — The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking (1984)