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Genres

21 ranked lists, each arguing a tradition ten records deep, and 62 filter pages holding every record the canon carries under a term.

Ranked lists

Ten records each, argued one at a time, with the near misses named and the reason each fell short.

The 10 Best Techno Albums№ 1 Robert Hood — Minimal NationTechno as the four-four machine music that runs from Detroit outward
The 10 Best House Albums№ 1 Fingers Inc. — Another SideHouse as the four-four tradition that starts in Chicago and spreads
The 10 Best IDM Albums№ 1 Aphex Twin — Selected Ambient Works 85-92IDM as the listening tradition that grew out of British techno and rave in the early nineties and never stopped…
The 10 Best Ambient Albums№ 1 Brian Eno — Ambient 1: Music for AirportsAmbient in the working sense rather than the marketing one
The 10 Best Jungle and Drum & Bass Albums№ 1 Goldie — TimelessOne list, because it is one field. Jungle and drum and bass are the same lineage at different points in…
The 10 Best Dubstep Albums№ 1 Burial — UntrueDubstep as the South London lineage and what grew out of it
The 10 Best Trip-Hop Albums№ 1 Portishead — DummyTrip-hop in the narrow sense: hip-hop tempos slowed and turned inward, built from samples, with a voice at the front.
The 10 Best Synth-Pop Albums№ 1 Depeche Mode — ViolatorSynth-pop as pop music where the synthesizer is the engine rather than the trim
The 10 Best Electro Albums№ 1 Drexciya — Neptune's LairElectro in the machine-funk sense: the 808 lineage that runs from Kraftwerk through the Bronx and Detroit and out into…
The 10 Best Trance Albums№ 1 Jam & Spoon — Tripomatic Fairytales 2001Trance in the European sense: the Frankfurt and Berlin schools of the early nineties, the Dutch and British melodic wing…
The 10 Best Dub Techno Albums№ 1 Basic Channel — BCDDub techno as the Berlin lineage and its descendants
The 10 Best Downtempo Albums№ 1 DJ Shadow — Endtroducing.....Downtempo as the instrumental slow lane: the Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax school, British chill-out, nu jazz, and the Vienna…
The 10 Best Detroit Techno Albums№ 1 Carl Craig — More Songs About Food and Revolutionary ArtDetroit techno strictly: the Belleville founders, the second wave around Planet E and Underground Resistance, and the producers who came…
The 10 Best Industrial and EBM Albums№ 1 Front 242 — Front by FrontThe electronic side of industrial music and the body music that came out of it
The 10 Best Deep House Albums№ 1 Fingers Inc. — Another SideDeep house as the warm, chord-led, unhurried end of the tradition
The 10 Best Kosmische and Berlin School Albums№ 1 Tangerine Dream — PhaedraKosmische as a lineage rather than a sound. The Berlin school and its Dusseldorf and Cologne neighbours, the American, French…
The 10 Best Experimental and Deconstructed Club Albums№ 1 SOPHIE — Oil of Every Pearl's Un-InsidesClub music taken apart and reassembled by people who kept the volume and dropped the function
The 10 Best Big Beat and Breaks Albums№ 1 The Chemical Brothers — Dig Your Own HoleBig beat and the British breaks tradition that ran alongside it
The 10 Best French House Albums№ 1 Motorbass — PansoulFrench house as the filtered disco tradition that came out of Paris in the mid-nineties and what grew from it
The 10 Best Breakcore Albums№ 1 Venetian Snares — Rossz Csillag Alatt SzületettBreakcore and the extreme-tempo family around it: the amen-driven records, gabber, digital hardcore, speedcore, and the producers who moved between…
The 10 Best Progressive House and Rave Albums№ 1 Orbital — Orbital 2 (Brown Album)The long-form rave album: British dance music of the late eighties and nineties built into something that holds together across…

Every genre in the canon

Ordered by how much of the canon each one holds. A genre earns a page at 3 albums; below that it still describes its records, it just has nowhere to send you.

1522 placements across 62 genres. An album carrying four terms counts in four of them.