10-1

10. Lagwagon - Railer (2019)

On “Falling Apart” from 2003’s Blaze, Joey Cape laments “I’ll never be Ozzy, on stage when I’m 50. I’m gonna look like Elvis by the time I’m 40.”

Well, Cape, now 53, may not look like Elvis (although he, and the rest of Lagwagon, do look a bit older), and they are definitely still on stage, putting out energetic performances that many acts half their age can’t seem to keep up with.

Terribly prolific in the 90’s, Lagwagon began to slow down their output after the turn of the century, often seeming to wait until any new material was top-notch before releasing it instead of flooding their discography with mediocre tunes whipped out to make a buck (with the exception of 2005's grief-driven Resolve). Following on five years after Hang, Railer simply exploded. I can think of no other adjective to describe it. This album truly recalls the band’s thrashy roots primarily due to how much more accomplished and technical it is. Dave Raun’s drumming is tighter than ever, Joe Raposo’s bass lines are all over, up and down the neck of his bass; and the dueling sweet lixx of Big Bitch and Leon… so many face-melting solos, it is simply a step above anything they’ve done before. From the blazing solo that launches album opener “Stealing Light,” you know you’re in for a treat. The bouncy “Bubble,” cheekily riffing on being perpetually seen as an early-90s punk band, to the surprisingly catchy and mid-tempo (for Lagwagon) “Fan Fiction,” all the way to an long-missed staple- the Lagwagon cover song: Journey’s “Faithfully” in this case, the boys show time and again that age hasn’t dulled them a bit, and put out one of the best albums of their career.

We can only hope that the albums penultimate tack, “Auf Wiedersehen” isn’t a subtle hint that the band plans to hang up their hat anytime soon, since it is obvious that Lagwagon has so much more to give. -Jeff Sorley

9. Jeff Rosenstock - Worry. (2016)

Jeff Rosenstock has had his fingers in so many pies over the years the scope of his prolific catalogue can be… overwhelming to listeners looking for an entry point. Like Beefheart or Zappa, the false obligation to ‘catch-up’ in order to ‘get it’ keeps all too many away from just how easy it is to jump in, to just: listen. You don’t need to go all the way back to watching music videos from Jeff’s days fronting ska-kid deep-cuts The Arrogant Sons of Bitches, you don’t need to pour over and develop a personal ranking of all six albums from the Jeff-founded music collective Bomb the Music Industry!, and you don’t need to know shit about Jeff’s self-started DIY record label Quote Unquote Records. You just need to know there’s this guy Jeff Rosenstock and he wrote some songs that mean a lot to him and his friends, and depending on how much life you’ve lived and how many loves you’ve known, they might grow to mean a lot to you too. .

Worry. is his second proper studio album and in top-Jeff form every chorus and verse hits like a perfect summer breeze plowing in through the passenger seat window in your best friend’s car, twenty miles into an eighty minute drive down the freeway, singalong after singalong threatening the lifespan of stock-option GMC stereo speakers, the first day of a long weekend out of town, and on this album Jeff Rosenstock both revels in the premise of so much promise and delivers hefty returns on every ounce of optimism. .

Following up We Cool? Rosensomething ups his songwriting while emphatically turning up the dial on scale. The scope of this album is evident from note one, in the finale-cum-intro ‘We Begged to Explode’ the general grandeur is on full display and writing checks this record is well-equipped to cash. The absolute best pop-punk deliverable in the new century crashes wave after wave throughout the A-side, delivering classic-in-waiting tracks with the aplomb of such a road and life-weary pedigree only afforded to songsmiths as earnest, honest , and long-in-the-tooth as scene vets like Rosenstockian lifers could craft. “I’ve been doing this for half my years” opines Rosenstock as he continues to mouth off in bars on the same themes and exuberances he’s lyrically wrestled over album after album, but here coming to such a mature distillation as to reach a rare air of gospel truth. .

Upon it’s B-side the album delves into a monumental Abbey Road-esque medley that rides melody and momentum up and down and deep inside and screamingly outward, to such great affect not seen since on recorded medium. Jeff’s bellows, just as effective spat direct into the microphone as they are through his saxophone, used to maximum effect (and often directly amidst the crowd in live renditions). .

What Rosenstock created here stands as a solitary monument of the genre, a musical rendition of experience lived thoroughly and life spent generously. An album so grand in scope as to impossibly deliver something to everyone, and everything to a great many someones. The compliments to this album live forever in so many words already spread across the internet that can’t possibly contain the constellations of adoration spread across the hearts of adoring fans. “Love is Worry”, as true a lyric as has been penned, and to review the masterwork here, Worry. is Love. -Danny Wimmer

8. Titus Andronicus – The Monitor (2010)

The temptation in talking about this album, now nearly a decade removed from it initial release, is to focus on the mythology; the concept, the song lengths, the iconography, the interludes, the heroism. I assure you we’ll get to all that shit. Let’s start here: The Monitor is an incredibly fun, thrilling rock and roll record.

That thesis holds up even when looking at the record’s least substantive, least ambitious songs. “Theme From Cheers” is the physical manifestation of the band’s textual offering – basically, “what if a folk punk band played bar rock” – and the results are as booze-soaked and lifting as anyone could hope for in a partnership of those two styles. The bookending “Theme from the Monitor” tracks would be throwaways in less-competent hands. Here, they’re updates on Chuck Berry, as good for their loose grooves as they are for their tattoo-ready, timeless sloganeering (Does it get any better for a put-upon punk than “The enemy is everywhere?” It does, but we’ll get to that).

A word on slogans: However much hay is made of Patrick Sickles as a lyricists, it isn’t enough. He tosses off choruses that could launch a hundred bands as if they aren’t golden little summations of an entire movement’s raison d'être. “You will always be a loser.” “It’s alright, the way that you live.” “It’s still us against them / and they’re winning.” This is the bedrock of why isolated weirdos get into bands obsessed with leather jackets and power chords. This is the third rail of every seventh grader whose older brother gives them a copy of London Calling.

I’m not just name-checking the Clash for fun. In the 10 years since this album arrived (a decade in which I, and I think others, kept waiting for bands like Spider Bags and Diarrhea Planet and the So So Glos and countless other classic-rock inspired screamers to take up the challenge and spark a movement, so that an album like this would be lighting torch, not a signal flare), Titus Andronicus have answered the call they made for themselves with this record. Few rock bands have operated with as much ambition, as much creative brass, as much integrity and clarity in their time. If you’re making a list of the punk bands that matter, they go on it. This is the album that gets them there.

I said I was going to talk about the myth. I lied. The trappings of the record – the eight- and 10-minute long songs that are the record’s centerpieces, it’s tag of being loosely based on the Civil War while also reflecting the author’s collapsing relationships and self-exile from his home, the spoken word interludes in which Craig Finn gets to be Walt Whitman – these are fun to think about, fun to spark a person to listen to the album. But ultimately, you don’t need to know that the 10 minute long song, the one that sounds like a true anthem worthy of a virtuous nation that summarizes the human condition in easy-to-understand vignettes is called “The Battle of Hampton Roads” to understand or appreciate it.

The lyric that people take from this album, rightfully so, is from “Fore Score and Seven,” and it’s the one I referenced above: “It’s still us against them / and they’re winning.” Let us not think of that lyric now, 10 years after The Monitor. Let us instead focus on a much truer and less lauded couplet, taken from “A More Perfect Union:” “And if it deserves a better class of criminal / I’m gonna give it to them tonight.” Here’s to 10 years of better criminals. Here’s to 10 years more. Titus Andronicus, forever and ever. -ChurchillDowns

7. Japandroids - Celebration Rock (2012)

Japandroids' Celebration Rock aptly begins with the sound of fireworks, and adheres firmly to its title from there on in. The two-piece band's second LP was an absolutely joyous melodic punk record, but filtered through the trebly haze of fellow guitar-and-drums duo No Age’s noise pop, indie scrappiness, and heartland rock undercurrents, it was and still has a distinct, stand-alone vibe. It carries the ambitious ‘80s fuzz and snarl of Husker Du and the Replacements, but is digestible in a way without being watered-down or pandering. (Okay, it’s got lots of “whoa-oh”s too, granted.) The wistful Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen vibes are present without necessarily being glaring (save a little “American Girl” wink in “Evil’s Sway”). And with only eight songs, it’s high-quality over quantity as well; practically every track is an anthem, and it actually peaks during its second half. The excellent and jubilant “Younger Us” makes a re-appearance from the band’s singles series from two years prior, as does “The House That Heaven Built”, which might be their best song of all-time: Its fierce and embittered yet proud attitude and a palpable, enlivening urgency drives it along like a lost Against Me! track. But it’s not as though Celebration Rock struggles out of the gates either, as alcohol-swilling opener “The Nights of Wine and Roses” is full of fist-pumping hooks and finding camaraderie and joy in life. Celebration Rock had tremendous crossover appeal as well, to the point where it may actually be more popular among ordinary college alt music fans who also happen to enjoy push-moshing than the crowd at The Fest, admittedly, as it was named MTV's #1 album of the year, and the band played practically every big indie fest. But both audiences clearly adore it, as it's most certainly a punk rock album at heart, in spirit, and definitely in sound as well. While the band was developing a steady hype for several years by this point already, Celebration Rock felt like a true breakout and it carefully tiptoed the line between the indie and punk worlds, forging a path for bands like Beach Slang, Cloud Nothings, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Titus Andronicus to revel in similar success and adulation. -Brian Shultz

6. Against Me! - White Crosses (2010)

You could probably divide Against Me’s career into three different eras, maybe even more. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call it the pre-major years, the major label years, and the post-major years. In retrospect, White Crosses, the band’s second release on Sire Records, the second with producer Butch Vig, and the first and only release with George Rebelo (Hot Water Music) on drums can be viewed as the beginning of a transition; the sunset of the major label years.

Sonically, it sounded similar to its predecessor, New Wave. Some fans balked at the production because they felt it sounded too glossy and it was a far cry from their earlier material. But it could be argued that this was a natural progression for a band at this point in their career because they simply became more experienced at producing music. Yes, the record sounded bigger and not as explosive, but at its core, it was still Against Me! Songs like “White Crosses”, “I Was a Teenage Anarchist”, “High Pressure Low” and “Rapid Decompression” still maintained a semblance of their roots, but the album also showed a maturation in songwriting and sound. One of their biggest strengths as a band is their ability to provide the audience with a snapshot through a collection of songs, mainly because of Laura Jane Grace’s writing style. She tends to write in the moment and rarely returns to a song to rewrite it or edit the lyrics. All of this provides an honest perspective and allows the listener to feel more connected to the songs. And the songs on White Crosses were no exception to this.

It should be noted that the album was released various times with varying track lists. The record itself contained only 10 tracks, which is par for the course for Against Me. But it was also released as a 14 track edition (the original 10 songs plus 4 bonus tracks) and a double album the second of which was called Black Crosses. This contained acoustic versions of the album, demo tracks, and outtakes. This is worth mentioning because it gave fans a more indepth look at the songwriting and production process, possibly allowing for more appreciation of the album itself.

Though it may not have seemed like it at the time, this was a beginning of the end of an era for the band. You can see a clear shift in world perspective on this record, mostly due to simply growing older and wiser. It was also the last record on Sire before the group started putting out albums on their own label, Total Treble. And more lineup changes were yet to come. More significantly though, this was the last record before Laura Jane Grace’s transition, which was made public just two years later. This event alone was monumental, but it became even more significant with the release of the next record Transgender Dysphoria Blues, making White Crosses the last record that lists Tom Gabel as lead vocalist in the liner notes. This does not necessarily make the album better or worse, but it shows where the band was at this moment in time, just one part of the long evolution of Against Me! -Pete Vincelli / pvincelli

5. Propagandhi - Victory Lap (2017)

Like most aging punkers and Punknews.orgers, a lot of the Fat Wreck Chords/Epitaph Records hayday era bands grew up and dissolved before our very eyes. For christ's sake Voodoo Glow Skulls were on top of the WORLD when when I was falling in love with the genre. Teen Idols imploded, Bad Religion scored Brooks Wackerman, NOFX grew tired, and a hundred others went from being household names to "One of those Punk-O-Rama bands."

Propagandhi was always different for me. I think I "Napstered" and acquired everything physical media from them a few months after Less Talk, More Rock came out. Chris Hannah's guitar playing made Hefe, Noodles, and Warren appear non-methodical. He found some bizarre ways to play lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and lead singer at the same time. "Head? Chest? Or Foot?" is still my guitar check after twenty years.

It was the deep plunder via Napster, however, that glimpsed who Propagandhi truly aspired to be. Rough demos and Venom covers that presented the current Canadian trio as potentially "less than."

I wasn't surprised at all when Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes was released. It simply confirmed my pubescent obsession that perhaps in all of the brilliant brains connected to the band, there was also the desire to become timeless and not wash away with the rest of the snooty skatepunk tide. Chris, drummer Jordy Samolesky, and the void of bassist turned Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson was completed by bassist Todd Kowalski to really turn the band Propagandhi into the progressive thrash band they thrived to be entering the new millennium.

The result was exactly that. Like a "like a fine wine" cliche, Propagandhi, with the addition of David Guillas in 2006, has repeatedly released four other masterpiece LP's in the last 18 years. Enter the 2017 release of Victory Lap, the quartet, minus Guillas and replaced by powerhouse guitarist Sulynn Hago have been handed the tremendous duty of reflecting on the sad state of our society. Fossil fuel pipelines, murderer cops, immigrant incarceration, and orange Presidential Nominees have increased faster than the rising temperature of a dying planet. The 34 year old band delivers, fucking hard. A sonic roller-coaster of tempos, moods, and ambiances grinds to a halt after 44 minutes, ending with the total bummer "Adventures in Zoochosis."

Hago mentioned in an interview that Victory Lap was much more of a "different color" than 2012's Failed States, and she couldn't be more right. The blasting intensity of it's predecessor was replaced with keen storytelling, and a wide variety of the band's musical strengths. For me it is impossible to choose a "best" Propagandhi album, I will leave that up to the comment section to hash that out, but it is certainly a spectacular record. Skies the limit for this band. -Mike Elfers

4. The Menzingers – After the Party (2017)

My wife doesn’t really care for punk, and my sister, tortured with it for years, absolutely loathes it. But I tell you what, they both adore The Menzingers. “Your Wild Years” was their introduction, and from there they were hooked.

My kid doesn’t know much about music outside of pre-school jingles and the Peppa Pig chimes, but I’ve witnessed an “Alexa! Play the Jersey girls sha-la-la-la song” from her before. (“Lookers.”)

After the Party was a hit machine. It was a collection of earnest and heartwarming melodies that reached new and previously untapped audiences for the band, launching them into this purgatory between mainstream rock and punk supremacy. It was something initially expected with its predecessor, Rented World, but where that record presented itself with a more straight-laced, darker edgeAfter the Party followed with a tall boy and 12-pack of sappy reality-checks, brewed with jumpy charisma and radio-ready hooks. It had a simple charm to it, yet still embodied that gut-punching, blue-collar mettle that got them here. It made for the songs to go down smooth, but the heaviness and bitter bite of the tall boy - the penultimate and stand-out title track - was tough to swallow. “After the Party” navigated through the thick and thin of a chaotic relationship while delivering on the overall theme of the album. “After the party / It’s me and you” was a call for self-reflection. People will come and go, and life will have its share of sick-ass and shitty parties, but it’s how you live with yourself that’ll get you through the hangovers.

The Scranton, err, Philly boys really started to steamroll after its release, growing with bigger shows and more diverse crowds. The Menzingers die-hards however, were not left behind. As their following continued to expand and the media praise kept rolling in, After the Party was resonating most with those who’ve aged with the band and experienced life in parallel. From the A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technology days, or even prior, so much has changed within ourselves and the world around us to cause our paths to take a few detours. Together we were now at a crossroads of dwelling and dreaming, and together we realized that the future should only be approached while considering the crucial moments from the past.

After the Party’s underlying power and canorous rhythm was crafted for the masses without pandering or being lazy. The enormity came naturally and naturally people started to notice. This was a record that spring-boarded their career well after it had already been defined.-Terry McGinty

3. PUP - The Dream is Over (2016)

PUP played approximately 250 shows over the course of 2 years with little to no downtime. They took a small break, if you can call working on a new album taking a break, before setting out on tour again this time opening for Modern Baseball. On the first day of the tour lead singer, Stefan Babcock noticed that something felt off, so he went to the doctor where it was discovered that he had developed a cyst on his vocal cords. The cyst hemorrhaged and the band had to drop off of the remaining tour dates with Modern Baseball. Babcock’s doctor told him point-blank that “the dream is over” in regard to continuing to sing in PUP, going on to say that continuing could lead to permanent vocal cord damage. Babcock took a few weeks to heal and then PUP was back in the saddle again. PUP decided to immortalize the doctor’s words by calling their completed second album The Dream is Over, proof that the dream is very much alive and well.

The Dream is Over shattered the myth of the sophomore slump and cemented PUP as a name to watch out for. The album was full of growth, you could feel all the hard work that went into each track and every song brought a sense of triumph with it. They delved farther into themselves and their experiences to craft personal, meaning-rich lyrics that were presented in such a way that everyone could relate to and be an active part of. They sang about dealing with the darker parts of life with anger, sadness, joy, sarcasm, and humour, which made listening to The Dream is Over a form of emotional catharsis.

From the tongue-in-cheek aggression of album opener “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will” to the haunting ode to days, places and people gone by “Pine Point”, PUP weren’t afraid to show their range. The instrumentation sounded more polished without losing their trademark energetic spirit and urgency. They made use of unusual and changing time signatures which gave the impression that one song could easily be three rolled into one, making the album interesting to listen to over and over again. Every time you thought that you had figured out a song, you’d listen to it again and notice something that you hadn’t before.

The variety and complexity of The Dream is Over made more people pay attention to the album and to PUP themselves. They began to get more recognition and began to play venues as headliners. The venues would continue to grow in size in the time after the album was released, they went from playing to hundreds to playing to thousands and many of their shows would be sold out. Their exuberant on-stage energy won them even more fans and support. On top of all of this, The Dream is Over was short-listed for 2016’s Polaris Prize. Though they didn’t end up winning, the nomination made even more people take notice of PUP.

The Dream is Over showed that nothing could stop PUP and solidified their drive and passion for creating music. Overcoming difficult odds and opening themselves up to a greater degree instrumentally and lyrically made The Dream is Over a success that encouraged people to pursue their own passion and never give up. -Em Moore

2. PUP - Morbid Stuff (2019)

PUP is like no other band I listen to today, but I’m an indie dork who really mostly listens to shit from 1995 and earlier, like, early 90s UK shoegaze, 1960s Motown, depression-era country and Dixieland jazz-type-earlier stuff. But as I stated in my Masked Intruder and Teenage Bottlerocket blurbs earlier in this list, those two bands completely rekindled my love for Ramones-influenced punk rock, which was my bread and butter (along with EpiFat skatepunk and 3rd wave ska) all through my high school days (1994-1999). PUP is coming at punk from a completely different angle--barely recalling anything close to the Ramones--and alongside the most recent Direct Hit! records, have gotten me back into this kind of pop punk, the kind with a bit of that skatepunk but also more complicated guitar parts and a bunch more… yelling.

PUP is fairly indie for a punk band, but way too punk to be an indie band; they give me everything I love in one convenient package. I’m a pop music lover at heart--pop in the traditional sense, not modern pop--so I love that each PUP album is getting poppier. And yet, they still give plenty of that punk edge through the gritty, overdriven guitar tones, feedback, and especially that they keep dipping a toe into hardcore. One listen to “Full Blown Meltdown” will prove they haven’t gone total pop, but even in the big first single “Kids” the track alternates between catchy as fuck guitar leads, verse vocals that are half-spoken-half-yelled but always at a fevered pitch, followed by this huge chorus and bridge that combine the catchiness and aggressiveness of both those parts into a perfect meld. They even do multimetered shit, like on “Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley,” which is mainly in a powerful 6/8 after starting with some dissonant intervals in the guitars that would make even Sonic Youth proud. Then gets real purty and melodic, but those nutty intervals come back all while they mess around with dropping beats to change the meter. “Scorpion Hill,” smack in the middle of the album, is deceptive in that it comes off like a ballad but then slams hard into a double time beat, goes to 3 / 4 breakdowns more than once, then back to sounding like a ballad, then kicks it back up and then back down. It’s a 5 minute song which can seem like an eternity for a punk band, but these guys do so much in that time you don’t even notice. Who knows if these guys are music theory whizzes and are plotting these changes out or they just do what feels good, but either way it’s fun as fuck and keeps punk more interesting than a lot of bands they share bills with.

The fact that PUP took spots #2 and #3 (and #93) means that I’m not alone in my thoughts on the amazing things these Canucks are doing. Not everyone here on staff is an indie kid who abandoned current punk rock (I was still listening to Johnny Thunders, Television, Patti Smith, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, et al, don’t call me out, kids) for nearly a decade like I did, but clearly people from all strains of punk and indie fandom are finding PUP and enjoying them to extreme levels, and I only expect them to blow up more in the coming years. Greg Simpson

1. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2014)

It’s hard to remember now as more and more bands pour into the scene with music about trans issues and being trans, but as recently as 2014, nobody was making music about trans issues. Sure there were many artists in punk and beyond have been challenging gender roles for years, but nobody was writing music about literally being a trans person until Transgender Dysphoria Blues was released. What’s more is that the album was part of Laura Jane Grace’s larger process of coming out and, trust me, coming out as trans is hard enough when you’re not a public figure. So the album came in the midst of a terrifying ordeal that Grace was facing at the time, and yet somehow the album exudes confidence and a sense of hope for the future. And it’s a surprisingly coherent album for all the chaos that came with recording it, with the band having no permanent bassist forcing Grace to play bass on most tracks with Fat Mike filling in on a few, plus the fact that recording was split between four different recording studios across the country. So while that certainly could have been a recipe for disaster, Against Me!, and particularly Laura Jane Grace, managed to overcome adversity and persist into making easily the bravest and most groundbreaking album of the decade, hence why it won the number one slot on our list by a landslide. -Julie River / truthbealiar

Trivia Nuggets

- At 1287 points, Against Me!’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues was the clear #1, racking up over 700 points more than the next album on the list after the “mass appeal” modifier. Even without that, it still won by over 300 points.

- Transgender Dysphoria Blues not only reached #1, but also had the most votes of any album. 9 of the respondents included it in their individual Top 100 lists. Next in line were The Menzingers’ After the Party (#4) and Bad Religion’s True North (#16) with 7 votes each.

- Without the “mass appeal” modifier, the Top 10 would’ve been about the same, but slightly jumbled. PUP’s two albums would’ve swapped positions. The Menzingers’ After the Party would’ve dropped from #4 to #8, while their album Chamberlain Awaits would’ve moved into the Top 10 and kicked out Jeff Rosenstock’s Worry. out of it. Only Transgender… at #1 and Propagandhi’s Victory Lap (#5) would’ve held their positions.

- By my count (which may be wrong), Kody Templeman (Teenage Bottlerocket, The Lillingtons) has the most appearances of any artist in the Top 100: two Lillingtons albums, three TBR albums, and one TBR track on the Tony Sly tribute album for a total of 6.

- Between the 12 participants in the poll there were 11 unique #1 albums. Here they are, with their final position in parentheses:

ChurchillDownes - Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (#t145)

Mike Elfers - Propagandhi Victory Lap (#5)

Johnathon1069 - The Lawrence Arms Metropole (#14)

Chris DC - Against Me! Transgender Dysphoria Blues (#1)

Terry McGinty - The Menzingers On The Impossible Past (#t18)

Em Moore - PUP Self-Titled (#93)

Julie River / truthbealiar - Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues (#1)

Brian Shultz - Pianos Become the Teeth - Keep You (#t145)

Greg Simpson - The Hives Lex Hives (#t145)

Jeff Sorley - Various Artists - The Songs of Tony Sly: A Tribute (#24)

Danny Wimmer - Jeff Rosenstock Worry. (#9)

Pete Vincelli / pvincelli - Good Riddance Thoughts and Prayers (#t96)

10-1 Playlist

Methodology

12 Punknews reviewers, writers, and editors participated in this poll. Each chose their Top 100 albums of 2010-2019, assigning each album a point value with 100 being the highest, and 1 being the lowest. These scores were then cumulated and tallied.

Based on constructive criticism from the 2000-2009 poll, this time around we have also applied a modifier to each album's score based on how many individual Top 100 lists it was on. This "mass appeal" modifier allows albums that were more popular to get a boost in the score (and helped to limit, but not eliminate, ties). If an album had 2 persons vote for it, a multiplier of *1.1 was applied to the base score. For each additional vote, 0.1 was added to that modifier.

The resulting value is the album's final score and, as you'd expect, the final results are the 100 highest scoring albums.

The Whole Damn List

Click HERE if you'd like to see a Google Doc of all of the albums in their final ranking.

Don’t forget to check in next week, as each day we’ll be posting interviews with each staffer discussing their #1 pick, why they chose it, and what it means to them. (and, in a few cases, some wild digressions)