Radiohead's OK Computer tops Spin's 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-Now

My copy of Spin hadn't arrived as of today's stop at the HowWasTheShow P.O. Box, but you can read their "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-Now" and see part of the list on their website here. (The magazine will reveal the list one piece at a time online, so go buy a copy if you need to see the whole thing right away. The issue hit newstands today.)

Radiohead's OK Computer (1997) tops the list. Spin says, "Between Thom Yorke's orange-alert worldview and the band's meld of epic guitar rock and electronic glitch, it not only forcast a decade of music but uncannily predicted our global culture of communal distress."

CNN gives a good overview of the article here and lets a few cats out of the bag while name checking Chuck Klosterman in the process.

Like Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time released in 2003, Spin's roll call is a sure-fire debate starter. Note, for example, that 25 of the 100 albums on the list are hip hop releases. And just looking at items 86-100 you can see The Strokes Is This It? (RCA, 2001) is at #100. Frankly, I'm surprised it's on the 2o year list at all.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's pick for the #1 of the past 20 years in the comments. It's the 20 years bit that makes this so hard. If it were 25 or 30 it would be a whole lot easier. In my own twisted brain anyway, many of the best albums of the past 20 years were made before 1985. It just seems wrong that The Queen Is Dead is on the list, but The Smiths can't be because it came out in a year to early in 1984.