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Omit the 21st century

Best albums for us

I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness.
I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness.

Dear Hipster: Top five desert-island album choices? — Hannah (listening to My Bloody Valentine in Talmadge)

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now, not afraid per se, but reticent to meet this fraught and most demanding challenge. This is the kind of thing that makes friends into casual acquaintances and makes enemies out of people you’ve never met before. Ten of ten hipsters agree that this is a grade-A can o’ worms. But, I can shirk duty no longer. From oldest to newest:

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(1) Bach: The Goldberg Variations, by Glenn Gould (1955);

(2) Axis: Bold as Love, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967);

(3) Another Green World, by Brian Eno (1975);

(4) Doolittle, by the Pixies (1989); and

(5) 69 Love Songs, by the Magnetic Fields (1999).

Cool. Now that that’s out there, I will explain my criteria, which, unsurprisingly, don’t reflect any kind of common-sense qualifications.

As an initial caveat, I’ll stress that I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness. That task demands far too much of even the cagiest hipster. On the whole, I have selected the preceding five albums because they represent, in my opinion, the most hipster musical achievements of the final decades of the 20th Century.

You ask, why do I ignore the 21st Century? Because the current century has been more or less dominated by hipsters, as a consequence of which it’s a lot harder to do something actually hipster when hipsterness is pretty mainstream. Maybe in 20 years or so that will change.

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I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness.
I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness.

Dear Hipster: Top five desert-island album choices? — Hannah (listening to My Bloody Valentine in Talmadge)

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now, not afraid per se, but reticent to meet this fraught and most demanding challenge. This is the kind of thing that makes friends into casual acquaintances and makes enemies out of people you’ve never met before. Ten of ten hipsters agree that this is a grade-A can o’ worms. But, I can shirk duty no longer. From oldest to newest:

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(1) Bach: The Goldberg Variations, by Glenn Gould (1955);

(2) Axis: Bold as Love, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967);

(3) Another Green World, by Brian Eno (1975);

(4) Doolittle, by the Pixies (1989); and

(5) 69 Love Songs, by the Magnetic Fields (1999).

Cool. Now that that’s out there, I will explain my criteria, which, unsurprisingly, don’t reflect any kind of common-sense qualifications.

As an initial caveat, I’ll stress that I could never pick five of anything based on relative greatness. That task demands far too much of even the cagiest hipster. On the whole, I have selected the preceding five albums because they represent, in my opinion, the most hipster musical achievements of the final decades of the 20th Century.

You ask, why do I ignore the 21st Century? Because the current century has been more or less dominated by hipsters, as a consequence of which it’s a lot harder to do something actually hipster when hipsterness is pretty mainstream. Maybe in 20 years or so that will change.

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Stunning sycamores, Mars rising
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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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