The two ongoing-experiments ringmaster Wayne Coyne juggled for the entire decade-plus life of the Flaming Lips suddenly blossomed, converged, and became The Soft Bulletin, an album so obviously great that the Lips had to rethink the whole idea of "concert" and "band" to make the thing go off live. The first experiment using the recording studio to mix and blend the sounds of guitars, pianos, drums, and sundry other instruments to the point where each ended became indistinguishable made the album sound good. The second experiment Coyne's lyrics, fable-like, childlike in their simplicity, but deeply resonant in their unexpectedness made it great. The songs somehow have a weird focus on density. There's "A Spoonful Weighs A Ton," the substance that's "just too heavy for Superman to lift," and the thickening orchestral swells of the instrumental "The Observer." What does it all mean? Not even the dedicated scientists of "Race For The Prize" can tell us that. But both for them, the Lips, and that poor guy with the spider bite, the search is more important anyhow.       - Western Homes

59. Swervedriver - Raise (A&M, 1990)

Quite possibly one of the most cohesive records ever made. The self-produced debut is by far Swervedriver's best offering, but is often overlooked by fans and critics alike. You'll be hard pressed to find this record on too many folks' favorite album lists, which is a shame. Raise laid a lot of influential groundwork for many other shoe-gazers throughout the early '90's. Raise isn't so much an album as it is a piece of art. It is flawless in its production, perfect in its songwriting, and "sounds" like no other record ever made.       - Jeff Garber

58. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars, 1997)

No matter how many fawning issues Rolling Stone dedicates to their cause, women in rock still have a lot of catching up to do. The enormous critical success of Sleater-Kinney, a reasonably good angular guitar band from the Pacific Northwest, shows how great a void there was for decent female-led bands, and how far an even okay one could go. Sure, S-K are overrated, but they deserve to be. Dig Me Out is kind of hit-and-miss, but the hits "Heart Factory," "Dig Me Out," "Words and Guitar" are good ones.       - Western Homes

57. The Sea and Cake - The Fawn (Thrill Jockey, 1997)

When I saw Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt perform solo sets back in September, both songwriters had solid, albeit different sets, with Prekop's set focusing on jazzier and more eclectic stylings, and Prewitt forming his songs more along the traditional lines, with acoustic guitar covering the songs' breadth easily. Couple these two men with John McEntire, producer mastermind and drummer, and you have the basic foundation for The Sea and Cake's supergroup. The Fawn focuses more on McEntire's talents than before, but the songs are still quality material because of the undercurrents.       - Sebastian Stirling

56. Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante (Warner, 1995)

This album is a study in the art of the dirge. There seems to be a very reactionary feel to Mr. Bungle's second release, which aims to dispel the notion that the band was nothing more than a horny-fun porno-circus. Every last detail about Disco Volante - the songs, the production, the cover art, the fonts used for the text - is dark. While it's my least favorite of Mr. Bungle's three releases, it remains very near and dear to my heart and showcases some of their most mind-boggling and best musical moments ("Desert Search for Techno Allah," "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz," "Merry Go Bye Bye," "Chemical Marriage") to date. This is Runzelstern and Gurgelstock jamming with Brutal Truth, Carl Stalling conducting the whole thing and Esquivel and Ennio Morricone at his side, supervising. Death to false metal.       - Leigh Newton

55. Don Caballero - 2 (Touch and Go, 1995)

Don Caballero is progressive music for the 90's. There's a fair deal of instrumental wankering to Don Cab's formula, but the facts that these are some of the best musicians of the decade, and that their utmost attention is always peeking at the rock allows them to border into the bad lands. Damon Che plays in his boxers live for a reason, as for pure speed and power, no one can hope to even contain him as a drummer, and Ian Williams' taffy-pulling guitar lines skree off of every hit. It's like seeing a rubber band coil until it has no option but to fly off or break.       - Sebastian Stirling

54. Shiner - Lula Divinia (Hit-It / DeSoto, 1997)

The value of thunderous rock has decreased steadily since the early nineties, paving way for the prevalence of genres with less immediate impact. Shiner has been an unfortunate victim of this decrease, as few bands can match the breadth of sound and the force Shiner brings to the table on Lula Divinia. Tim Dow and Paul Malinowski bring new sonic dimensions to drums and bass, with the math-rock time signatures being smothered by quaking bass and detuned guitars that cite Tim Lash and J Robbins. Allen Epley's strong voice eschews comparisons with benign emo lyrics with clever quips like "I loved the time when a little clumsy rhyming could fit the crown on your head."       - Sebastian Stirling

53. Pavement - Wowee Zowee (Matador, 1995)

Perhaps the definitive statement made on Pavement's difficult third album comes halfway through the punk thrashing of "Serpentine Pad" when frontman Stephen Malkmus snarls with mock-Johnny Rotten venom "We don't need no corporation attitude!" Recorded hot on the heels of the out-of-the-left field commercial success Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Wowee Zowee could have easily been a slick hit machine, ready to cash in on the media hype surrounding the band and the modest radio hit "Cut Your Hair", but instead, the Pavemen threw a spanner in the works, immediately garnering the worst reviews of their career, and alienating more than a few fans at first. Those lucky fans who stuck it out and kept up with Pavement through what at first seems like an awkward and eclectic mix of styles and tossed off songs learned gradually over time that Wowee Zowee was in fact a rich tapestry of stoner pop, each song carefully crafted, with a perfect flow that made sense over time. Like a perfect mixed tape, Wowee Zowee glides from one song to the next covering a wide range of emotions, from the euphoria of "AT&T" to the wistful Sunday afternoon melody of "Black Out" to the solemn "Pueblo" to the thoroughly bad-ass strut of "Half A Canyon". Pavement's perennial second banana Spiral Stairs damn near steals the whole show with his brilliant "Kennel District", which could very well be the most sincere moment on any Pavement album. Subsequent LP's Brighten the Corners and Terror Twilight are competent enough, but never quite achieve the spontaneous free form weirdness here. Wowee Zowee is Pavement in its purest form, and at the top of their game no less.       - Matthew Perpetua

52. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (Matador, 1997)

Wow. I'm still trying to find out where exactly this record came from. Yo La Tengo had always hinted that they were capable of something like this, showing flashes of brilliance from Painful onward, but on this one they somehow put it all together. The result was a beautiful, lilting, droning, and at times even danceable, sonic masterpiece. This record somehow mixes bubblegum pop, trip-hop, buzzy distortion, sampling, and minimalistic folky acoustic bits almost seamlessly into a whole which is much more than the sum of its parts. This is assuredly one of the most striking, unique, and unforgettable records of the past decade.       - Jared Dunn

51. Cap'n Jazz - Analphabetapolothology (Jade Tree, 1998)

Punk rock had always been known for its relative lyrical immediacy. Nuts to that, said Tim Kinsella, an art student at heart even though he was singing in a hardcore band. Counterintuitively, the work of Cap'n Jazz (collected in its entirety on Analphabetapolothology) sounds great, even with Kinsella babbling nonsense. Just to list the bands its members have gone on to form (The Promise Ring, Joan of Arc, American Football) is to acknowledge Cap'n Jazz's importance. Their particular conceit call it "literatecore" has become a whole genre in the late '90s, where bands like At The Drive-In make music to headbang to with guitars and thesauruses.       - Western Homes