My Top 100 Bands Of All Time

Laurent

When I – Laurent, creator of concertandvinyl.com and The Record Club – come across a flyer on the web, Instagram or Facebook claiming to show the TOP 100 Bands Of All Time, I am ashamed. How many times have I been asked, “Oh, you like rock, so you like **** *********?” Well, no, not at all. The usual TOP 100 (Rock) Bands Of All Time is a museum of all the horrors sold to us through marketing campaigns and radio shows, and backed by the majors (the big record companies). What we call “alternative rock” is exactly the opposite of that: many great alternative bands and independent labels struggle to organise tours and sometimes even to release records at all.

At concertandvinyl.com, we try to change that. Ultimately, we would love to make the Billboard staff change their “50 Best Rock Bands” list for the better, the current list being stuffed with bands we, and here I include all the speakers at The Record Club (see The Record Club), can’t listen to for even one minute.

Now, one thing I can relate to when looking at the Billboard list is that you need time to recognise the specific talent of a band, which is why my list doesn’t include any band that has existed for less than five years.

The flyer is a first attempt at ranking what I think are the TOP 100 Bands Of All Time. There is room for improvement, and I will constantly work on it. But I felt a sense of urgency about publishing a list. The fight to promote alternative and punk music and make it better known makes this list necessary. Hopefully, other mainstream lists will eventually fall behind thanks to our numerous counter-proposals.

And how did these bands make it into my TOP 100? Sometimes with just one great album, sometimes with more than one, but one is good enough.

Happy to have your comments on instagram @concertandvinyl

Below, I’m listing every band and the album that earned them a place on this list.

  1. The Cure “Pornography”
  2. Slowdive “Blue Day”
  3. Ride “Nowhere”
  4. My Bloody Valentine “Isn’t Anything”
  5. Nirvana “Nevermind”
  6. Nine Inch Nails “With Teeth”
  7. Chapterhouse “Whirlpool”
  8. Catherine Wheel “Ferment”
  9. The Jesus & Mary Chain “Psychocandy”
  10. Lush “Spooky”
  11. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “God Fodder”
  12. Red House Painters “II”
  13. Metz “II”
  14. Martial Canterel “Austerton”
  15. Swell “41”
  16. Moose “Sonny & Sam”
  17. The Doors “The Doors”
  18. The Soft Moon “Deeper”
  19. The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced”
  20. Massive Attack “Mezzanine”
  21. Christian Death “Only Theater of Pain”
  22. Ministry “The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste”
  23. Hole “Pretty in the Inside”
  24. L7 “Bricks are Heavy”
  25. Babes in Toyland “To Mother”
  26. Have a Nice Life “The Unnatural World”
  27. Linea Aspera “Linea Aspera”
  28. Essaie Pas “Demain est une Autre Nuit”
  29. Mazzy Star “So Tonight That I Might See”
  30. Portishead “Third”
  31. PJ Harvey “Dry”
  32. Dinosaur Jr “Green Mind”
  33. The Smashing Pumpkins “Machina / The Machines of God”
  34. Throwing Muses “The Real Ramona”
  35. Joy Division “Closer”
  36. Fleshwater “We’re Here to Be Loved”
  37. The Pixies “Trompe Le Monde”
  38. Swervedriver “Mezcal Head”
  39. Prolapse “Pointless Walks to Dismal Places”
  40. Diabologum “Ce n’est pas Perdu pour Tout le Monde..”
  41. Th’Faith Healers “Lido”
  42. Les Thugs “Still Hungry”
  43. Blink 182 “Enema of the State”
  44. The Charlatans “Some Friendly”
  45. The Boo Radleys “Everything’s Alright Forever”
  46. The Happy Mondays “Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches”
  47. Neil Young “Weld”
  48. Miossec “Boire”
  49. Daniel Darc “Crèvecoeur”
  50. Mary Goes Round “Highway Planet”
  51. Rise and Fall of a Decade “Rise and Fall of a Decade”
  52. The Brian Jonestown Massacre “Something Else”
  53. Hum “Inlet”
  54. Belong “Common Era”
  55. Black Marble “A Different Arrangement”
  56. Medicine “Shot Forth Self Living”
  57. Depeche Mode “Violator”
  58. Sufjan Stevens “Carrie & Lowell”
  59. The House of Love “Babe Rainbow”
  60. Slow Pulp “Yard”
  61. Garbage “Version 2.0”
  62. Lydia Lunch & Rowland S. Howard “Shotgun Wedding”
  63. Pure Ground “Standard of Living”
  64. Hørd “Parallels”
  65. In Letter Form “Fracture. Repair. Repeat.”
  66. In Trance 95 “Shapes in New Geometry”
  67. TR/ST “Trst”
  68. Crystal Castles “Amnesty (I)”
  69. Chain & The Gang “Best of Crime Rock”
  70. Kurt Vile “B’lieve I’m Goin Down…”
  71. Snail Mail “Lush”
  72. Soccer Mommy “Clean”
  73. Momma “Welcome to My Blue Sky”
  74. Nothing “Tired of Tomorrow”
  75. The Men “Devil Music”
  76. Sugar “Beaster”
  77. Yo La Tengo “May I Sing with Me”
  78. The Lemonheads “It’s a Shame about Ray”
  79. Chvrches “Every Open Eye”
  80. Sleaford Mods “Key Markets”
  81. L.A. Witch “L.A. Witch”
  82. Morrissey “Southpaw Grammar”
  83. The Smiths “The Queen is Dead”
  84. Gamine “Dream Boy”
  85. The Myrrors “Borderland”
  86. Chastity “Home Made Satan”
  87. Spiritualized “Lazer Guided Medodies”
  88. Dream Wife “Dream Wife”
  89. Blur “Leisure”
  90. The Stone Roses “Turns Into Stones”
  91. The Stooges “The Stooges”
  92. Fuzz “II”
  93. Slint “Spiderland”
  94. Godspeed You ! Black Emperor “Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress”
  95. Sneaker Pimps “Becoming X”
  96. The Wedding Present “Bizarro”
  97. Cowboy Junkies “The Trinity Sessions”
  98. The Music “The Music”
  99. Miss Kittin & The Hacker “First Album”
  100. The Pogues “Hell’s Ditch”