To celebrate our 30th anniversary and all the great music that made the past three decades special, MAGNET contributors past and present chose their 30 favorite albums released between 1993 and 2022. The only rules were that each record has to be a full-length and that no artist could be represented more than once in the same incarnation. We’re posting these lists throughout the rest of the year.
Jamie Kemsey, contributing writer
1) Died Pretty Trace (Columbia), 1993
2) Jim O’Rourke Bad Timing (Drag City), 1997
3) Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come (Burning Heart), 1998
4) Japandroids Celebration Rock (Polyvinyl), 2012
5) Tindersticks Nénette Et Boni (Bar/None), 1996
6) The Bronx The Bronx (White Drugs/Ferret), 2003
7) Sufjan Stevens Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty), 2005
8) Destroyer Kaputt (Merge), 2011
9) Mercy Rule The Flat Black Chronicles (Caulfield), 1998
10) Belle And Sebastian The Boy With The Arab Strap (Jeepster), 1998
11) Teenage Fanclub Grand Prix (Creation/DGC), 1995
12) Waxahatchee Saint Cloud (Merge), 2020
13) The War On Drugs Lost In The Dream (Secretly Canadian), 2014
14) Yo La Tengo I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (Matador), 1997
15) Queens Of The Stone Age Songs For The Deaf (Interscope), 2002
16) Cordelia’s Dad Comet (Omnium), 1995
17) Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (Anti-), 2006
18) Sense Field Building (Revelation), 1996
19) Six Organs Of Admittance For Octavio Paz (Time-Lag/Holy Mountain), 2003
20) Nikki Lane Highway Queen (New West), 2017
21) Tortoise TNT (Thrill Jockey), 1998
22) Arbouretum Coming Out Of The Fog (Thrill Jockey), 2013
23) Sleater-Kinney The Woods (Sub Pop), 2005
24) The Soundtrack Of Our Lives Origin Vol. 1 (Republic/Universal), 2005
25) White Denim D (Downtown), 2011
26) Everything But The Girl Amplified Heart (Atlantic), 1994
27) The Clientele Music For The Age Of Miracles (Merge), 2017
28) Rainer Maria S/T (Polyvinyl), 2017
29) Hum Inlet (Earth Analog), 2020
30) Morcheeba Big Calm (China/Sire), 1998
