Your top 10 non-canonical albums
Posted by: Kevin-W on 20 February 2014
Ok - let's have some fun. We're all used to those "Best albums ever made" lists, which feature - often with good reason - the same old suspects (Fabs, Pet Sounds, etc).
But what are your 10 fave albums which lie outside the canon? You can choose anything you like, as long as it's not a "reference" or revered album. So, that means no Beatles, no Dylan (except the terrible 1980s ones like Knocked Out Loaded, Down in the Groove or Empire Burlesque), no Astral Weeks, no Joy Division, Zep, Stones, BBs, Smiths, Nirvana, Neil Young, KoB, Radiohead, Can (or any classic Krautrock), Velvets, Moon-period Who, Wonder, Gaye, Floyd, Layla, Bowie etc. Artists who've become canonical recently, like Nick Drake or the White Stripes for example, aren't allowed either. You could have an unloved album by a canonical artist (so you could have Squeeze by the Velvets, but none of the others 
).
Them's the rules!
To get you started, here are mine:
The Return of The Durutti Column, The Durutti Column. Beautiful, milkily erotic guitar sketches by Vini Reilly, wrapped up in Martin Hannett's extraordinary production. Factory's best album outside of Joy Division and New Order:
Ain't That a Bitch, Johnny Guitar Watson. Stinging but languid 70s funk. Beautifully played, produced and sung, with witty lyrics to boot:
Every Man & Woman is a Star, Ultramarine. A perfect meld of English folk whimsy, psychedelia and electronica. The best British album of the 90s?
Yellow Magic Orchestra, Technodelic. Brilliant, dark electro-funk from the Jap electro-pioneers:
Lightning's Girl, Nancy Sinatra. Awe-inspiring collection of off-beam pop, most of it written and produced by the wonderful Lee Hazlewood. Many duets with the great man too:
Greatest Hits, Abba. Some of the best pop ever made. Beneath its shiny surface lies a peculiarly Scandinavian melancholy:
Sextet by A Certain Ratio. Another Factory gem, ACR's unique take on funk and latin:
Ralf & Florian, Kraftwerk. Before they turned competely electronic, a marvellous selection of tone poems:
Hawkwind, Quark, Strangeness & Charm. The peak of the Calvert years. Great lyrics and the 'Wind displaying an admirable sense of self-awareness:
Bobbie Gentry, Touch 'Em With Love. The Queen of Delta Swamp-Pop's undisputed masterpiece. All killer and no filler:
....non-canonical?
Suppose that rules out AC/DC For Those About To Rock, and the 1812 : )
This thread will probably get rather subjective:
One persons non-canonical could well be another persons Holy Grail
On any given week i may pick out a completely different ten,
but i'll try my best below [not in any particular order] : )
Cat Power - Myra Lee [CD only]
Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
On vinyl it's currently a baragin £11.69 from Amazon.uk! 
Top 7 non-canonical in no particular order or quality
Cud- When in rome kill me , worth hearing just for "Only a Prawn in Whitby" alone
Kitchen indie sink drama at its finest
thought it best to include a cheery pop record
noisy boys with guitars ,
terrible name for a band , but one of Steve Albinis finer records
UKRAINSKI VISTUPI V JOHNA PEELA ,
Brakes - Give blood , if you havent heard this you havent lived ,
I wouldn't put any of these forward as essential but I like 'em and they sound good.
Little late to this K .....
Great idea for a thread! nice to see something different on here.
In no particular order:
Adam Green - Sixes and sevens
Cloud Control - Bliss release
Dead Mans Bones - Dead Mans Bones
Dry The River - Shallow Bed
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below
Elvis Perkins - In Dearland (he's the son of Psycho actor Anthony Perkins)
Johnny Flynn - A Larum
Me'Shell - Plantation Lullabies
Musee Mecaniqe - Hold this ghost
The Cave Singers - No Witch
The Felice Brothers - Yonder is the clock
May have gone over my allocation sorry. Could have put another 20 down!
Television - Marquee Moon ( not sure whether it's within the rules brilliant nonetheless)
That's way too canonical! (If you'd have chosen Adventure, I'd have let you off! ).
Good call on the others though...
Not sure if these qualify and do I look bovered
Well, I'm struggling to think of an album by any of "Kevin's Canon" I'd consider to be in my fave top fifty.
Well, I'm struggling to think of an album by any of "Kevin's Canon" I'd consider to be in my fave top fifty.
Not my canon. THE canon.
Well, I'm struggling to think of an album by any of "Kevin's Canon" I'd consider to be in my fave top fifty.
Not my canon. THE canon.
THE canon according to WHO?
Well, I'm struggling to think of an album by any of "Kevin's Canon" I'd consider to be in my fave top fifty.
Not my canon. THE canon.
THE canon according to WHO?
Nobody in particular - just all those lists of "greatest albums ever". There are gazillions of them everywhere, in mags, papers, books and the interweb. The LPs that get consistently put in those lists are "canonical" - stuff like Revolver, Pet Sounds, What's Going On, Blonde on Blonde, etc etc. This doesn't mean that they are the best, or that you or I have to like them, it rather means that they are regarded as the best by the people who make these lists. You might not think that Revolver is one of the best LPs ever made, but lots of people do. That's the point. What my question was intended to discover was the records outside the usual suspects that people really like.
Chill bro' - it's supposed to a bit of fun.
That's the trouble with this thread, there is no "The Canon" that anyone can agree on. You've let a masterpiece like Stormcock in but stopped Television FFS.
See my reply to FC above.