411 Music Ten Deep 1.20.12: The Top Ten Sleeper Albums

Posted by C.A. Bell on 01.20.2012

From Radiohead's The Bends and Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine to The Who Sings My Generation and more, 411's Christopher Bell breaks down the top 10 sleeper hit albums of all-time!

The List

This week's topic is one that I find particularly interesting. An often-repeated statement, usually attributed to Brian Eno or Peter Buck, is that "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." There are certain classic albums in Rock history that just couldn't find an audience when they were first released. There are a lot of reasons why a great album might not be a hit upon its release. It could be that the music is too far ahead of its time to gain any traction. It could be that there was just too much good music being released at the same time. Of course, the most simple explanation (and favorite of musicians looking for someone to blame commercial failure on) is that the record company just didn't promote the album correctly. What I love about the albums I will be discussing today is that they found a way back into the public consciousness. Some of them build slowly, and some owe everything to one perfect exposure. Some only took a year and some took thirty. The one thing that ties them together is that they all came back from a flat-line and changed the way we look at music.

Alright, so a brief note on methodology. I am gauging success based on an album's peak performance on U.S. Billboard charts. With many apologies to our UK readers, you are simply more progressive than folks stateside and quite often classic records that did poorly stateside actually received a good amount of success across the pond. I have tried to take a good UK placement into consideration, but some crimes by U.S. album buyers were just too great to ignore. In terms of what constitutes poor sales performance, that was a bit of a sliding scale. Because the availability of independent records have increased over time, and Billboard ranking at 150 today is a slightly larger accomplishment than it was in 1965. That being said, due to the general tanking of record sales over the last decade, an album that ranks at 150 today also probably sells fewer copes than the same rank in 1975. Regardless, there won't be any albums on this list that ever ranked higher than 50 on the U.S. Billboard chart. Want to listen along while you read? Check out our Spotify playlist with key selections from the top ten and more. Now, let's get to it. This one should be fun.

The Honorable Mentions (And Excuses)

Okay, you are going to have to forgive me this week. The problem is that when I devised this topic, I had absolutely no idea how many great albums didn't initially sell well in the United States. There are a lot. I mean a LOT. The Spotify playlist (which only includes highlights from the albums) has 36 hours worth of music on it. So, I'm going a bit crazy with the honorable mentions this week, because there are just so many albums that I can't go on without mentioning. I hope you'll forgive me. This still isn't the entire list.

Willie Nelson - Shotgun Willie
X - Los Angeles
Wire - PInk Flag
The Ramones - The Ramones
The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
The Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
Townes Van Zandt - High, Low and In Between
Tool - Opiate
Television - Marquee Moon
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
The Smiths - The Smiths
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Randy Newman - Saill Away
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn
The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
The New York Dolls - The New York Dolls
Muddy Waters - Hard Again
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
KISS - KISS
Judas Priest - Stained Class
Big Star - No. 1 Record
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
The Pixies - Doolittle
The Replacements - Let It Be
Weezer - Pinkerton
Brian Eno - Before And After Science
Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle
Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
Husker Dü - Zen Arcade
Helmet - Strap It On

The Ten

10. The Stooges - Funhouse on Elektra Records.

Release Date: July 7, 1970
Peak Chart Performance: Never Ranked

The Stooges stand at the top of a family tree that is almost unparalleled in Rock music. There are more seminal Rock 'N Roll bands that consider The Stooges a direct progenitor of their sound than almost any other (save maybe the Beatles and Muddy Waters). Amongst Iggy & Co.'s incredibly loyal students were The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Black Flag, The Melvins, Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Jack White. Though all three of the band's studio albums are revered, Funhouse was both their least commercially successful and most beloved (the latter perhaps being fueled by the former).

Even though Elektra Records' Jac Holzman believed that the MC5 had more potential than the Stooges, he made a crucial intervention that former Kingsmen keyboardist Don Galluci produce the album. Having seen the group live, Galluci said to Holzman that it was an "Interesting group, but I don't think you can get this feeling on tape". Holzman said it didn't matter anyway because he had already reserved recording time in L.A. The album was recorded at Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles, California from May 11, 1970 to May 25, 1970. Galluci's plan as a producer was to record a about a dozen takes of each song every day and pick which one that would appear on the album. The first day consisted of sound checking and run-throughs of the songs prepared. The entire band used headphones with the bass and drums isolated by baffles while Iggy sang his vocals through a condensor microphone on a boom. The result was terrible in the band's opinion. They took notice to the atmosphere inside the studio with sound proof paddings and isolators. To achieve the vision that the Stooges and Galluci had, they stripped the entire studio of its attire to take the next step into a pseudo-live feel. According to Galluci, they set up the band in the way they normally play at a concert. For example, Iggy was singing through a hand-held microphone, and the guitar and bass amps were placed side by side.

Seemingly lost in time, Funhouse came back in a big, bad way after a Rhino Records 1999 repackage and collector's release. Numerous other musical artists have cited Funhouse as their favorite album, including Joey Ramone, Mark E. Smith (The Damned), Jack White, Nick Cave, Henry Rollins (along with The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat), Buzz Osborne (The Melvins), Maciej Cieślak from the Polish band Ścianka, musician/producer Steve Albini, and even celebrity chef/novelists/travel show host Anthony Bourdain. In 2003, the album was ranked number 191 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1998, the Paris-based music magazine Rock & Folk placed Fun House in the top position of its "discothèque idéale." In 2010 Funhouse ranked #25 in Gibson's Top 50 Guitar Albums. The last track on side one, "Dirt", is ranked #46 on Gibson's Top 50 Guitar Solo's. Album jewel "Down In The Street" was featured prominently in the film Smokin' Aces and tracks from the record have been covered by The Birthday Party, The Damned, Rage Against the Machine, Throbbing Gristle, and Spacemen 3. The Australian band Radio Birdman even took their name from the lyric of "1970". Not convinced yet? Alright, how about this; Funhouse has received perfect ratings from All Music Guide, Entertainment Weekly, Mojo, Punknews.org, Spin, Sputnik Music, and Uncut, along with 'very favorable' ratings from Rolling Stone and Stylus Magazine, a 9.4/10.0 from Pitchfork, and an 'A-' from famed critic Robert Christgau. Not bad for a record that the band couldn't give away on its release.

9. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks on Warner Bros.

Release Date: November, 1968
Peak Chart Performance: Never Ranked (#13 in Top Catalog Albums on March 14, 2009)

Right, so if you are like me at all, you are staring at the screen right now in complete disbelief. Astral Weeks is a perfect example of the list's dirty little secret; there are a lot of albums that you wouldn't even consider could possibly have been commercial failures. When I originally devised the concept for this week's list, I had my probable ten ready to go before I started researching. What I found was that there are a lot more classic 'failures' out there than you would think. The dumbfounding surprises actually make up about half of this list. What we have with Astral Weeks is an album that is often considered one of the very best from one of the very best musician's of his era. All Music Guide goes one step further, saying the record is "generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history." In 1979, Lester Bangs wrote in an essay, published in the book Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, "Van Morrison was twenty-two or twenty-three—years old when he made this record; there are lifetimes behind it. What Astral Weeks deals in are not facts but truths. Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend." How in the world was this record not a mega-hit?

Astral Weeks was Van Morrison's second record as a solo artist. He had already been established as an international act with Them when he released his first record, which spawned one of Morrison's most memorable hits, "Brown-Eyed Girl". The record after Astral Weeks was none other than the massive hit Moondance. So, what happened to this record? Astral Weeks received critical acclaim soon after being released, but it was not a best selling album with the general public, even though Rolling Stone named it album of the year and Melody Maker called it "one of the strongest albums of the year". Steve Turner relates how it was "one of the essential albums for travellers on the 'hippie trail' from Europe through to Kathmandu and there were even reports of vans painted in psychedelic colours being renamed 'the Van Morrison'." A year later with the release of Moondance, Warner Bros. ran full-page advertisements with the note: "It may be a little tough to find 1969's Astral Weeks in some record stores. Damn shame. It wasn't adopted by the Pepsi set and ended up as what you might call a critically acclaimed but obscure album... If you want it and can't find it, yell at the store's record buyer. Loud, because you're the customer and you're always right. Undo the veils of potential obscurity."

Do I even need to discuss the lasting legacy of Astral Weeks? Eh, why not. Elvis Costello described Astral Weeks as "still the most adventurous record made in the rock medium, and there hasn't been a record with that amount of daring made since." Johnny Depp, in a Rolling Stone interview in 2008, recalled how when he was a preteen his older brother (by ten years) tiring of Johnny's favorite music of the time said, "'Try this.' And he put on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. And it stirred me. I'd never heard anything like it." Steven Van Zandt (Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) has said: "Astral Weeks was like a religion to us." Joan Armatrading has said that Astral Weeks was the first album she purchased as a teenager and that it opened her up musically. In August 2010, director and choreographer, Jessica Wallenfels, staged a production in Portland, Oregon of a rock opera/story ballet of Astral Weeks called "Find me Beside You". Music critic Greil Marcus, said that Martin Scorsese told him, in 1978, that the first fifteen minutes of his movie Taxi Driver was based on Astral Weeks. In an NPR review, Marcus, who says he has listened to the Astral Weeks record more than any other, comments about it: "You can hear these moments of invention and gasping for air, and you reach your hand and close your fist and when you open your fist there's a butterfly in it. There was really something there, but you couldn't have seen it. You couldn't have known."

Astral Weeks has often appeared on "best of all time" album lists including the #2 rating by Mojo In 1995 and the #19 ranking by Rolling Stone in 2003. The Times listed Astral Weeks at #3 of The Times All Time Top 100 Albums. In 1998, it was voted the 9th greatest album of all time in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4 and The Guardian. In 2000, Q magazine placed it at #6 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. It was listed along with Moondance among the All-Time 100 albums by CNN/Time magazine in November 2006. In 2009, it was voted #6 on the list of The 100 Greatest Singer-Songwriter Albums of All Time by the editors at Amazon.com. In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians taken by Hot Press magazine. In 1999, Astral Weeks and Moondance, Morrison's next album, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. So, now you've got to be thinking, "If that is number nine..."

8. The Kinks - Are The Village Green Preservation Society on Reprise.

Release Date: November 22, 1968
Peak Chart Performance: Never Ranked

Is it possible that two of the greatest missed albums in history were released in the same month? Well, to me it is. Today, The Kinks are considered one of the greatest bands in Rock history, at least on the same level as contemporaries like The Rolling Stones, The Who, and even the Beatles. That being said, this band has maybe the most baffling chart history that I have ever seen. It honestly doesn't make any sense. After being one of the most decorated acts in music history, there was a period in the late-80s when The Kinks couldn't get a record deal. During their most successful period in the United States during the 70's, their records weren't even charting in the United Kingdom (which includes the absolute classic record Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround). But, I think the most confusing thing is that The Kinks Are The Villiage Green Preservation Society and its great follow-up Arthur Or The Decline And Fall of the British Empire never charted. Even though Ray Davies had only released one single at this point of his career that failed to make NME's Top 30 list, Villiage Green only sold about 100,000 copies worldwide upon its release. What were people thinking?

The album theme was inspired by the November 1966 track "Village Green", which was inspired by the Kinks' performances in rustic Devon, England in late 1966. (Davies has also stated that Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood was an indirect inspiration for the concept). This song neatly sums up the album's broad theme: "I miss the village green, and all the simple people..." In addition to nostalgia, the album's songs touch on a wide range of emotions and experiences, from lost friends ("Do You Remember Walter?"), memories ("People Take Pictures of Each Other", "Picture Book"), technological obsolescence ("Last of the Steam-Powered Trains"), bucolic escape ("Animal Farm"), social marginalization ("Johnny Thunder", "Wicked Annabella"), public embarrassment ("All of My Friends Were There"), childlike fantasy ("Phenomenal Cat"), straying from home ("Starstruck") and stoical acceptance of life ("Big Sky", "Sitting By the Riverside"). Davies did not compose many of the songs to fit the predetermined theme of the album, rather their commonality developed naturally from his nostalgic songwriting interests at the time. The title track, one of the last written and recorded (in August 1968), effectively unifies the songs through an appeal to preserve a litany of sentimental objects, experiences, and fictional characters from progress and modern indifference: "God save little shops, china cups, and virginity". This last lyric inspired the slogan, "God save the Kinks" which was used in the US promotion for the album, and was associated with the band through the 1970s.

Although it was commercially unsuccessful, Village Green, upon its US release in January 1969, was embraced by the new underground rock press, particularly in the United States, where The Kinks' status as a cult band began to grow. In The Village Voice a newly-hired Robert Christgau called it "the best album of the year so far", and Circus magazine ran an article under the heading "Kinks—Unhip But Original", which stated: "The Kinks are backdated, cut off from the mainstream of pop progression. Just the same they're originals and now have a fine new album out". In Boston's underground paper Fusion, a review was released stating "The Kinks continue, despite the odds, the bad press and their demonstrated lot, to come across... Their persistence is dignified, their virtues are stoic. The Kinks are forever, only for now in modern dress". Paul Williams in Rolling Stone wrote a review that heaped praise on Village Green, saying "I've played [Village Green] twice since it arrived here this afternoon, and already the songs are slipping into my mind, each new hearing is a combined joy of renewal and discovery. Such a joy, to make new friends! And each and every song Ray Davies has written is a different friend to me."

Village Green has had some more than interesting lasting impacts. The song "Johnny Thunder" was taken as a moniker by John Anthony Genzale, Jr. just before he became the lead guitarist for the New York Dolls. In 2003, the album was ranked number 255 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. After prominent showings of the title track in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Hot Fuzz and "Picture Book" in a nationwide commercial for Hewlett-Packard, Village Green went on to become the best selling record of original material from the entire Kinks' catalog. In my mind, that is the very definition of 'sleeper'.

7. Nick Drake - Pink Moon on Island Records.

Release Date: February 25, 1972
Peak Chart Performance: Never Ranked

Well, other than the Velvet Underground example from before, Nick Drake's Pink Moon is perhaps the easiest selection for a list of sleeper albums. Having spent 27 years is complete obscurity, Drake was posthumously brought to international fame in 1999 because of a Volkswagon commercial. That thing I just said was a perfectly normal English sentence.

Pink Moon is the third and final album by English musician Nick Drake. It was recorded at midnight in two separate two-hour sessions, over two days in October 1971, featuring only Nick Drake's vocals and guitar, as well as some piano later overdubbed by Drake on the title track. Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed contributed to his lack of commercial success. Yet he was able to gather a loyal group of influential fans who would champion his music, including his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records to ensure Drake's records would never be put out of print. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. On completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. There is no known footage of the adult Drake; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.

Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s but the 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree caused his back catalog to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press, and was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller and The Black Crowes. His first biography appeared in 1997, was followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Among Us. But it wasn't until the aforementioned car commercial that Drake would become something more than a deep reference for musicians. In 1999, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous 30 years. This is when the world really began to take notice of this doomed artist.

In 2000, Melody Maker placed Pink Moon at 48th in their list of 'All Time Top 100 Albums' and NME ranked it #8 in The NME "Top 30 Heartbreak Albums." In 2003, the album was ranked number 320 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2004 was named the 13th on Top 100 Albums of the 1970s by Pitchfork. The real impact of Pink Moon however has been Drake's very real impact on modern-day singer/songwriters. As an album reviewer, I can't tell you how many records I have heard in the last ten years that I have described as 'Drake-esque'. Drake's work has become as ubiquitous in Alternative Folk today as Stevie Ray Vaughn became in Electric Blues during the 1990s. In this case, I think that's a great thing.

6. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs on Island Records.

Release Date: September 30, 1985
Peak Chart Performance: #181 on November 23, 1985

Tom Waits is a man that had to wait an awfully long time to see commercial success. Over the coarse of twenty years, Waits slowly but surely built his audience by consistently making good-to-great records and always serving his own muse before anything else. He released his debut record in 1973. It would take 26 years and 16 records for Waits to have a record rank higher than 80 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200. Since 1999's Mule Variations, Waits hasn't had a record peak lower than #33. Forget sleeper album, this man's entire career has been a long wait for relevance. Luckily, we finally caught up with the man. In my opinion, 1985's Rain Dogs alone was worth the wait.

A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years. The album, which includes appearances by guitarists Keith Richards and Marc Ribot, is noted for its broad spectrum of musical styles and genres, described by Rolling Stone as merging "Kurt Weill, pre-rock integrity from old dirty blues, [and] the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass, into a singularly idiosyncratic American style." They also called Rain Dogs Waits' "finest portrait of the tragic kingdom of the streets." The album's title comes from an expression which suggests such an atmosphere. Waits cast further light on the metaphor by stating that the album was about "People who live outdoors. You know how after the rain you see all these dogs that seem lost, wandering around. The rain washes away all their scent, all their direction. So all the people on the album are knit together, by some corporeal way of sharing pain and discomfort."

In terms of critical love, Rain Dogs is one of the most honored records on the list. In 1989, it was ranked #21 on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s." In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rain Dogs was also ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time by Pitchfork, Best Albums Ever, and Metacritic. Rain Dogs also received perfect scores from Mojo and All Music Guide. Rod Stewart's cover of "Downtown Train" would become a huge hit single and help cement that track as one of Waits' most beloved songs. Even amongst a career as strong as Waits', Rain Dogs stands out as one of the very best things he's ever done.

5. Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine on TVT Records.

Release Date: October 20, 1989
Peak Chart Performance: #75 on November 23, 1991

Alright, Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine might seem like an odd choice. It ranked leagues higher than anything on the list so far during one of the biggest boons of the record industry. But there is something you might not notice immediately. Take a look at that date. It took Pretty Hate Machine two years to reach its peak chart position without a major record label or massive radio play. Sure, the MTV showings of "Head Like A Hole" were helpful and some more progressive radio stations did get behind the record, but this album was made by word of mouth from a stereotypically loyal metal audience that heard something completely new. I'll stand behind that any day of the week.

Trent Reznor didn't create Industrial Metal, but he did give it a face. Using influences like Front 242 and Pigface, Reznor started his path to international domination with a lonely scream. Written, arranged, and performed by Reznor, Pretty Hate Machine debuted in 1989. It marked his first collaboration with Adrian Sherwood (who produced the lead single "Down in It" in London, England without having met Reznor face-to-face) and Mark "Flood" Ellis. Flood's production would appear on each major Nine Inch Nails release until 1994, and Sherwood has made remixes for the band as recently as 2000. Reznor and his co-producers expanded upon the Right Track Studio demos by adding singles "Head Like a Hole" and "Sin". Rolling Stone's Michael Azerrad (also known for his significant book Our Band Could Be Your Life) described the album as "industrial-strength noise over a pop framework" and "harrowing but catchy music". Reznor proclaimed this combination "a sincere statement" of "what was in [his] head at the time". In 1990, Nine Inch Nails began the Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series, in which they toured North America as an opening act for alternative rock artists such as Peter Murphy and The Jesus and Mary Chain. At some point, Reznor began smashing his equipment while on stage; Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed the live band's early success in front of rock oriented audiences to this aggressive attitude. Nine Inch Nails then embarked on a world tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991.

Thanks to his constant touring in support of Pretty Hate Machine, the album reached its commercial peak in 1991 and spent a total of 131 weeks on the Billboard charts, appropriately amping fans up for the forthcoming commercial smash EP Broken and then Reznor's official foray into super stardom with The Downward Spiral. In the end, Pretty Hate Machine became one of the first independent label records to receive platinum certification from the RIAA, which is all the more impressive considering that a fallout between Reznor and TVT resulted in the album being out of print for the better part of a decade. All Music Guide's Steve Huey said of the album, "Perhaps the greatest achievement of Pretty Hate Machine was that it brought emotional extravagance to a genre whose main theme had nearly always been dehumanization." For me, Pretty Hate Machine's lasting importance was to bring an entire genre of music to international prominence and help create the myth behind an artist that is still vital today. Plus, without it, we wouldn't have gotten to see Trent Reznor accept an Oscar.

4. The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico on Polydor.

Release Date: March 12, 1967
Peak Chart Performance: #171 on December 16, 1967 (This could only be confirmed through Wikipedia and All Music Guide. Billboard.com reports that the album never charted.)

Well, you had to know this was coming. Personally, I don't think the Velvet Underground have aged as well as most of the others on the list, but based on sheer influence alone it has to be considered. The Velvet Underground & Nico was recorded with the first professional line-up of The Velvet Underground, including Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen "Moe" Tucker. For this record Nico was included, who would occasionally sing lead with the band at the instigation of their mentor and manager, Andy Warhol. Nico sang lead on three of the album's tracks—"Femme Fatale", "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "I'll Be Your Mirror"—and back-up on "Sunday Morning". In 1966, as the album was being recorded, this was also the line-up for their live performances as a part of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The bulk of the songs that would become The Velvet Underground & Nico were recorded in mid-April, 1966, during a four-day stint at Scepter Studios, a decrepit recording studio in New York City. This recording session was financed by Warhol and Columbia Records' sales executive Norman Dolph, who also acted as an engineer with John Licata. Though exact total cost of the project is unknown, estimates vary from $1500 to $3000. Soon after recording, Dolph sent an acetate disc of the recordings to Columbia in an attempt to interest them in distributing the album, but they declined, as did Atlantic Records and Elektra Records. Eventually, the MGM Records-owned Verve Records accepted the recordings with the help of Verve staff producer Tom Wilson, who had recently moved from a job at Columbia.

With the affirmation of a label, three of the songs, "I'm Waiting for the Man", "Venus in Furs" and "Heroin", were re-recorded in two days at T.T.G. Studios during a stay in Hollywood later in 1966. As the record's release date was bumped back time after time because of production problems, Wilson also took them into a New York studio in November 1966 to add a final song to the track listing: the single "Sunday Morning". The production on that song is far more professional and lush since it was intended to garner radio play.

Problems for the sales of the record began early. When the album was first issued, the main back cover photo (taken at an Exploding Plastic Inevitable performance) featured an image of actor Eric Emerson projected upside-down on the wall behind the band. Emerson threatened to sue over this unauthorized use of his image, unless he was paid. Rather than complying, MGM recalled copies of the album and halted its distribution until Emerson's image could be airbrushed from the photo on subsequent pressings. Copies that had already been printed were sold with a large black sticker covering the actor's image. The image was restored for the 1996 CD reissue. The controversial content of the album led to its almost instantaneous ban from various record stores. Many radio stations refused to play the album and magazines refused to carry advertisements for it. Its lack of success can also be attributed to Verve, who failed to promote or distribute the album with anything but modest attention.

The album first entered the Billboard album charts on May 13, 1967 at #199 and left the charts on June 10, 1967 at #195. It then re-entered the charts on November 18, 1967 at #182, peaked at #171 on December 16, 1967 and finally left the charts on January 6, 1968 at #193. When Verve recalled the album in June due to Eric Emerson's lawsuit, it disappeared from the charts for only five months. The critical world also took little notice of the album. One of the few print reviews of the album in 1967 was a mostly positive review in the second issue of Vibrations, a small rock music magazine. The review described the music as "a full-fledged attack on the ears and on the brain" and took note of the dark subject matter to be found in the majority of the song's lyrics.

It was not until decades later that the album received almost unanimous praise by numerous rock critics, many of whom made particular note of its influence in modern rock music. In April 2003, Spin led their "Top Fifteen Most Influential Albums of All Time" list with the album. On November 12, 2000, NPR included it in their "NPR 100" series of "the most important American musical works of the 20th century". Rolling Stone placed it at number 13 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in November 2003, calling it "the most prophetic rock album ever made." In 1997, Velvet Underground & Nico was named the 22nd 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. In his 1995 book, The Alternative Music Almanac, Alan Cross placed the album in the #1 spot on the list of '10 Classic Alternative Albums'. In 2006, Q magazine readers voted it into 42nd place in the "2006 Q Magazine Readers' 100 Greatest Albums Ever" poll, while The Observer placed it at number 1 in a list of "50 Albums That Changed Music" in July of that year. Also in 2006, the album was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time. Outside of the incredible critical reaction to the record, it also influenced some of the very best musicians of our time, including David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Beck, The Strokes, R.E.M., The Pixies, and on and on and on and on. In 2006 the album was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. So, it's got that going for it.

3. David Bowie - Hunky Dory on Virgin.

Release Date: December 17, 1971
Peak Chart Performance: #93 in 1975 (Again, this could only be confirmed through Wikipedia and All Music Guide. Billboard.com reports that the album never charted. No exact date on the peak ranking was confirmed.)

This was an absolute revelation of my research. If not for the major international success of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Hunky Dory might well have been a completely lost record. Bowie had been without a recording contract when he started work on the album at Trident Studios in April 1971. RCA Records in New York heard the tapes and signed him to a three-album deal on 9 September 1971, releasing Hunky Dory two months later. Supported by the single "Changes", the album scored generally favourable reviews and sold reasonably well on its initial release, without being a major success. Melody Maker called it "the most inventive piece of song-writing to have appeared on record in a considerable time", while NME described it as Bowie "at his brilliant best". Stateside, Rolling Stone opined "Hunky Dory not only represents Bowie's most engaging album musically, but also finds him once more writing literally enough to let the listener examine his ideas comfortably, without having to withstand a barrage of seemingly impregnable verbiage before getting at an idea".  However, it was only after the commercial breakthrough of Ziggy Stardust in mid-1972 that Hunky Dory became a hit, climbing to #3 in the UK charts. In 1973, RCA released "Life on Mars?" as a single, which also made #3 in the UK. Though the album certainly performed well in the UK, it took four years (assuming the All Music reference is correct) for Hunky Dory to break the Top 100 in America. Considering the fact that the man almost never peaked below #25 after that makes it all the more unbelievable.

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Hunky Dory the 43rd greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 16 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 107 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In the same year, the VH1 placed it at number 47 and the Virgin All Time Top 1000 Albums chart placed it at position 16. In 2004, it was ranked #80 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. In 2006, TIME magazine chose it as one of the 100 best albums of all time. Bowie himself considers the album to be one of the most important in his career. Speaking in 1999, he said: "Hunky Dory gave me a fabulous groundswell. I guess it provided me, for the first time in my life, with an actual audience – I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying, 'Good album, good songs.' That hadn't happened to me before. It was like, 'Ah, I'm getting it, I'm finding my feet. I'm starting to communicate what I want to do. Now: what is it I want to do?' There was always a double whammy there."

As a lifelong Bowie fan, I can't hardly imagine the man's catalog without Hunky Dory. Songs like "Life On Mars?" and "Oh! You Pretty Things" are constant staples in my listening rotation. What would The Life Aquatic have been like without that fantastic closing scene of Bill Murray walking away to "Queen Bitch"? Much like Astral Weeks, I thought it was a forgone conclusion that this album was an international smash hit. Also much like the classic Van Morrison album, I have to wonder how one of the greatest works from one of the world's greatest artists almost slipped through the cracks.

2. Radiohead - The Bends on Capitol Records.

Release Date: March 13, 1995
Peak Chart Performance: #88 on April 20, 1996

The story of Radiohead's 1995 sophomore album, The Bends, was something truly special. '95 was the second wind of Alternative, with major follow-ups being released by Alice In Chains, Bjork, Blind Melon, Blur, Collective Soul, Faith No More, Green Day, Oasis, Primus, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Smashing Pumpkins. In 1995 we also saw HUGE debuts/breaks from Alanis Morissette, Elastica, Elliott Smith, the Foo Fighters, Garbage, Matthew Sweet, Moby, Morphine, Natalie Merchant, PJ Harvey, Weezer and Wilco. Much like Weezer's Pinkerton, The Bends was released with a lot of big time competition. Also like Pinkerton, The Bends would make a quick fall from the charts. The album's first single, "Fake Plastic Trees", was deemed too long and too slow for radio airplay. Outside of appearing on a late night rotation on MTV, the song was barely heard upon the album's release. Little promotion, coupled with an Alternative fanbase that was leery of buying albums based on only one hit song, spelled almost immediate doom for The Bends. But this was no ordinary album.

The first time I heard The Bends was at a friend's house after having just bought the Red Hot Chili Peppers' One Hot Minute. As the follow-up to Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, the album was highly anticipated. Having both been largely let down by the Peppers' release, my friend tossed me a copy of The Bends. I let it set on my bed for three weeks before listening, but the second I did, I was sold. That was how The Bends survived. Passed from one friend to another, until almost a full year after its release, the album was suddenly on the charts again. And it went higher the following week. Word of mouth sales propelled The Bends into the Billboard Top 100. MTV pulled out a dusty copy of the "Fake Plastic Trees" video and threw it into heavy rotation. The album was good enough to literally wait out the competition. The Bends would stay on the Billboard charts until the release of Radiohead's next album on July 1, 1997. On my sixteenth birthday, Radiohead released OK Computer.

I would argue that if it wasn't for the phoenix rising of The Bends, then OK Computer and Kid A after it would not have had the full fan and media support that they did. Radiohead would have just been a one-hit wonder with a failed sophomore album. I can think of more than a few bands that broke up after that same origin story. I'm sure that my growing up with this record has unfairly increased its placement here, but I honestly believe that the organic growth of The Bends gave Radiohead the ability to change music after it. Luckily, I'm not alone. The Bends had an influence on the subsequent generation of British pop bands. In 2006, The Observer listed it as one of "the 50 albums that changed music", saying, "Radiohead's Thom Yorke popularised the angst-laden falsetto, a thoughtful opposite to the chest-beating lad-rock personified by Oasis's Liam Gallagher. Singing in a higher octave-range and falsetto voice to a backdrop of churning guitars became a much-copied idea, however, one that eventually coalesced into an entire decade of sound. Without this, Coldplay would not exist, nor Keane, nor James Blunt." Radiohead members said they later distanced themselves from their mid '90s sound partly because they felt little affinity for those that adopted the sound. The Bends took second place behind Radiohead's OK Computer in both 1998 and 2006 reader polls of Q magazine for the best album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 110 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The Bends was the highest entry of three Radiohead albums to make the list (OK Computer and Kid A being the others). In 2000, Virgin's "Top 1000 Albums of All Time" ranked The Bends at number two, second only to Revolver by The Beatles. In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organized a poll of which, 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and The Bends was placed at number 10 on the list. On top of all of that, I think it is one of my favorite records of all time.

1. The Who - Sings My Generation on MCA Records.

Release Date: December 3, 1965
Peak Chart Performance: Never Ranked

Yup, it's absolutely true. I triple checked my source. The debut album from The Who never charted in the United States of America. It was a top ten hit in the UK, spawned all-time classic singles like the title track and "The Kids Are Alright", and ushered in one of the most important careers in modern music history. In the United States, My Generation was released by Decca Records as The Who Sings My Generation in April 1966, with a different cover and a slightly altered track listing...and we didn't buy it.

The Who are one of the most influential rock groups of the 1960s and 1970s, influencing artists from Led Zeppelin to The Clash. Bono of U2 said, "More than any other band, The Who are our role models." Brian May of Queen said, "They were my inspiration." Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips said, "I already believed in rock & roll, but seeing The Who really made me feel it. I knew I had to become a musician after that." Geddy Lee of Rush said, "They were really influential on our band in a big way." Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder said, "The one thing that disgusts me about The Who is the way they smashed through every door in the uncharted hallway of rock 'n' roll without leaving much more than some debris for the rest of us to lay claim to." The Who's Mod genesis inspired Mod revival bands such as The Jam, as well as later bands of the Britpop wave in the mid-1990s, such as Blur and Oasis. The band has also been called "The Godfathers of Punk" due to their loud, aggressive approach to rock and the attitude evinced in songs like "My Generation". Many protopunk and punk rock bands from the MC5 to The Stooges to the Ramones to Green Day, point to The Who as influence.

The album was made immediately after the Who got their first singles on the charts and according to the booklet in the Deluxe Edition, it was later dismissed by the band as something of a rush job that did not accurately represent their stage performance of the time. On the other hand, critics often rate it as one of the best rock albums of all time: in 2003, the album was ranked number 236 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and named the second greatest guitar album of all time by Mojo magazine. In 2004, it was #18 in Q magazine's list of the 50 Best British Albums Ever. In 2006, it was ranked #49 in NME's list of the 100 Greatest British Albums. In 2004, the title track was #11 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

As a number one pick, this is almost not fun. It is such a crime of reality that U.S. fans didn't fully begin appreciating this group until Tommy that I didn't even consider it possible. I found this and knew it had to be number one immediately. It took all the fun out things. Thanks 1960's America. You ruined everything.

The Comment Bag

Lists like these tend to generate a lot of emotional debate (mostly of the angry kind). That's a good thing. There's is nothing better than a spirited argument about your favorite music. Here I will take a moment to answer some of your thoughtful statements/arguments/concerns/angry rants. Before I get to specific comments from last week's topic, I'd like to go ahead and answer some types of comments that seem to show up every week, regardless of writer, topic, or picks.

Frequently Written Hatemail

Who is this guy? What do you know about music?

I want to list my background so that you have some idea of where I'm coming from. In addition to writing for 411music and Earbuddy over the last three years, I have spent time working as a radio DJ, venue booking scout, and owned my own talent management company. I will tend to talk more about Classic Rock, Indie and Roots/Americana. Having said that, not a single one of those things makes my opinion here more important or definitive than yours. I may use a word like 'best', but it should always be taken as 'best for me'. There is no such thing as an objective 'best' in music, plus I'm too lazy to add those extra words in every paragraph. Let's try to have a little fun.

I don't know any of these artists, so they don't deserve to be on your list/The common person wouldn't know any of these artists.

I find this complaint somewhat quizzical, so I'd like to spend a little time here. First, as a reader, I appreciate it when someone discusses a musician that they love and I've never heard of. For me, that's an easy way to find out about something new I might love. Second, I think this comment represents a wholly impossible responsibility. How in the world am I supposed to know what artists you are familiar with? We live in a day and age when music is being defined by ever increasing and smaller circles of influence. With the biggest selling record of the 2011 selling a full two-thirds less than the biggest selling record of 2001, huge labels are folding on a regular basis and their stable of megastar musicians are downsizing with them. At the same time, the age of podcasts and fan groups allow us to sit completely within our own genre bubble, completely ignorant to things going on around us. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone (I still haven't listened to any record made by an American Idol alumnus). So, it is incredibly easy for any of us to have never heard of an artist that has sold millions of records. I can't possibly be expected to take that into consideration when making a list of the music that I think is best..for me. Making selections based on what I think anyone else would be familiar with is nothing short of dishonest. Third, I'm just not as 'hip' as you are giving me credit for. I defy you to find an artist I have discussed that hasn't also been covered by several other nationally-established media outlets, be it NPR, All Music Guide, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, or NME.

I think sometimes someone might make the assumption that I am attempting to be cool and lord my superior music knowledge over the masses. That really isn't my intent. I take the topic and make the most honest selections I can. If someone finds a new artist to love as a result of something I've written, that's great. If not, that's great too. Todd Snider sometimes uses a quote in concert that I love. It goes something like this, "I'm not here to change anybody's mind about nuthin'. I'm here to ease my own mind about everything."

To finish this, let's play a little word replacement game. Before you start writing that nasty comment about how this is a list full of nobodies ask yourself this. If you see a list of the 'ten best restaurants' in your hometown, do you think that author is wrong because you haven't eaten at one of them? Is an author wrong about every choice they make for a 'top ten countries to visit' list that you haven't personally visited? If you are in a conversation with a co-worker and they suggest a movie they really love, do you call them an idiot because you've never heard of it? Okay, now write the comments anyway and I'll keep ignoring them.

This list should just be called (insulting oversimplification)/I hate your mother and your stupid face...moron.

I understand we get passionate, but I really have no intention of slighting you or your taste in music on my stupid list. Here's the thing, I've done this long enough to expect these kinds of comments. Since they don't usually include what the thinking person might call "an argument", I can only assume the point is to hurt my feelings. I can assure you now that you won't. I think we can all agree that attempting to respond to that level of communication wouldn't do anyone any good, so I won't be doing that. So, you have the right to say anything you like, but it's really just a waste of your time and anger. Maybe go build something instead? An angry birdhouse is a place to put that frustration. The world needs more of those.




That's it for this week. Make sure and join me next Friday when we look at the ten best songs about girls (in the title). Let me know what's on your personal list in the comments section. Also, make sure to catch the latest columns from my colleagues at Earbuddy here on 411, like Nick Krenn's 3 R's and John Downey's Love/Hate News Report.


No synthesizers whatsoever were used during the writing of this column.

Follow me on Twitter @ChrisBell81 and keep the conversation going on our Facebook page.