Not counting stuff that's too new to be on the list or somehow not eligible, of course.

For me it's easy. Lucinda Williams - Sweet Old World. Pretty much everything else I really like is at least somewhere on the lower reaches of the list, with maybe a few exceptions for stuff I still like from the years I got most of my music from the radio.

(And as an aside. Lucinda Williams' self titled REALLY needs to be reprinted. I am not paying $40 for it just to get a used copy!)

Eye In The Sky by The Alan Parsons Project. Brilliant album from a brilliant group of artists that don't have a single song or album on AM. Such a shame.

I won't include music from friends, where I can't trust my biased ear. My top-10:

1. Rhythm of the Saints - Paul Simon
2. Seasick - Imperial Teen
3. Fashion Nugget - Cake
4. Good Humor - Saint Etienne
5. Once Upon a Summetime - Blossom Dearie
6. D-D-Don't Stop the Beat - Junior Senior
7. Life - The Cardigans (Don't know if this qualifies. It was their first U.S. release, but think it combined their first two Swedish albums.)
8. First Love, Last Rites - Shudder to Think
9. Halos & Horns - Dolly Parton
10. Spilt Milk - Jellyfish

I think this is a GREAT topic and I hope more people answer as it should be way to find some worthwhile new music.

Here are two that come to mind for me:

The Flatlanders - More A Legend Than A Band.

John Hartford - Aereo-Plain.

The AMG reviews do a better job describing them than I can. The Hartford album is available on Napster only.

(And I agree that they should re-issue the "Lucinda Williams" album. I think its her best one.)

How do you pick just one? Here's 10 that aren't on the list or bubbling under

1. Jonathan Richman- Jonathan Goes Country
2. Destroyer- This Night
3. Dealership- TV Highway To the Stars
4. Starflyer 59- The Fashion Focus
5. Johnny Q Public- Extraordinary
6. The Faint- Danse Macabre
7. Homosexuals- The Homosexuals Record
8. Velvet Crush- Teenage Symphonies To God
9. Mason Jennings- ST
10. Bill Fay- ST

Prince- The Gold Experience

It's every bit as energetic, raw raucous and inspired as his more celebrated albums.

I've done a rought draft of my top 100 albums for the pending poll, and here are the top ten not on the 3000:

Opal - Happy Nightmare Baby
Fall, The - Slates
Bryars, Gavin - Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Pernice Brothers - Overcome By Happiness
Feelies, The - Only Life
Smog - The Doctor Came at Dawn
Scud Mountain Boys - Massachusetts
Haggard, Merle - Hag
Wyatt, Robert - Ruth is Stranger than Richard
Gilmore, Jimmie Dale - Spinning Around the Sun

Damo! I've missed seeing you around!

Hey MB, how are things?

I'm logging lots of hours at work these days - so much so that when I do make it home, I'm so drained I can barely work up the mental energy to post anything. See my patchy comments in the sweet 16 round for evidence.

Thank you for the kind words in that other thread, by the way - I was going to leap to your defense (not that you need me to do so, but I wanted to), but the situation seems to have resolved itself by the time I saw the thread.

Just to prove that we do almost always disagree on everything, I have to mention that the Gold Experience is an album I've never quite fallen for - I thought it had too many funk jams, not enough rockers. Come is the Prince album from that era that I really love.

Come is a nice record and has several really nice songs, but I don't think there's anything outstanding on it. It does add up to more than the sum of its parts, though.

DeVotchKa - How It Ends is the one that surprises me since they've had quite a bit of success of late, but it seems no critics have gone back to revisit that album, which is quite phenomenal.

The following are also from my top 100 that are M.I.A. from AM:

The Sunday Drivers - Little Heart Attacks
People Under the Stairs - O.S.T.
Big Head Todd and the Monsters - Midnight Radio
Talib Kweli - Reflection Eternal
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Tyranny of Distance
Julieta Venegas - Si (yeah, I know, but at least it's technically #101)

Well, I will not talk about albums not released in the USA (like some awesome french albums from Noir Désir or IAM).

There remains one french album, which have been released worldwide and which is only bubbling under, it's Vitalic - OK Cowboy which is my favourite electro album ever.
It's fresher than any Daft Punk album and way better than that really overrated Justice album.

My opinion might be biased on some other albums that I really love when I was younger and still appreciate a lot, especially the fake sound of progress (Lost prophets), illusion of safety (thrice) and pennybridge pioneers (Millencolin). I'm sure those bands are suffering for their images and the music they play (punk-rock or "anything that sounds, even just a bit, like neo metal" ), but also for the fact that the majority of their other albums really sucks... but I think that those album are like little gold boats floatting in the middle of mud.

I am also quite surprised that Enema of the State by Blink 182, which totally sucks and has not even the slighter interest, is in the list, while Dude Ranch, which was really pure fun which really enjoyable songs, is not ranked.
I think the same about Rancid, I can't stand "and out come the wolves" while I still enjoy listening to "Rancid 2000"

It leaves us with The Subways - Young for Eternity which I found overlooked too !

I guess those are my top 100 albums which are not in the AM top 3000 (all the others are in I think, even if In Case we die is incredibly low in it !)

The following 3 albums are currently among my all-time favorite 15 and not in the AM top 3000:

1. The Triffids - Treeless Plain
2. The Sound - From The Lion's Mouth (bubbling under only)
3. Jason & The Scorchers - Lost & Found

I hold special memories to these albums from early to mid 80's, the time representing my last years at high school and first study years at university.

And further down the list of my all-time favorite albums:

4. Johan - Pergola (one of the better Dutch bands around!)
5. Eels - Daisies of the Galaxy (bubbling under)
6. The Fixx - Reach The Beach
7. The Triffids - Calenture
8. The Tragically Hip - Road Apples (bubbling under)
9. The Fixx - Shuttered Room
10. The Rifles - No Love Lost (bubbling under)

Rifles' debut album is from 2006, so might still be premature to acclaim. Great album though!

I don't think I'm gonna answer precisely cause otherwise it would unveil my top 100

Let me drop some names : The Divine Comedy, jacques Brel, Doc Watson, fabulous Trobadors, Georges Brassens
(not necessarily in order)

Damosuzuki

Let me back you on 2 of the albums you mentionned

- Gavin Bryars "Jesus Blood" (nb 110 in my favorite album list)
- Robert Wyatt "Ruth is stranger than Richard" (not yet ranked but it will go high I guess)

In fact, the Jacques Brel album I thought about ("Brel") is listed so I take it out and replace him with "Adieu verdure" by Dick Annegarn
Of course, a lot of my favorite albums not in the 3000 are French records.
Not French : Roy Orbison "A Black And White Night"
JJ Cale "Really"
THERE'S NO JJ CALE ALBUM IN THE TOP 3000 !
Can you believe it ??? it's worth a thread

Orbison's "A Black and White Night" is a fine album.

My favorite not-on-AM-at-all albums (AM oldtimers should feel free to yawn here - my list hasn't changed a lot) would be

Steve Wynn, Kerosene Man
Pearl Before Swine, The Use of Ashes
Bob Dylan, Live 1975
Bruce Cockburn, Salt, Sun and Time

Oh, and
Warren Zevon, Stand in the Fire (recently out as kick-ass CD reissue with top notch bonus tracks)

Good to see Pernice Brothers and Scud Mountain Boys championed.Other personal favourites conspicuous by their absence from AM are:-
Seam-Headsparks
Lilys-Better can't make your life better
Come-Eleven:Eleven
The For Carnation-s/t

Most baffling of all is the total non-appearence of Swell.They were one of the great guitar bands of the nineties and created three stone classics(Well?,41,Too many days without thinking)between '92-'97.
Swell and the other bands mentioned above may seem almost wilfully obscure choices now,but all attracted a considerable amount of acclaim before the weekly music press was written exclusively by sub-literates.

Jason & The Scorchers - Lost & Found

LOVE THAT ALBUM

I think I haven't heard as many of the good albums not in the top 3000, because I really didn't break away from mostly radio music until 2004, and I've mostly used critic lists to fill in my exposure to music from 1965-2003.

Most of my mentions would probably be the stuff I still kinda like from when I mostly listened to radio music. Stuff like Wallflowers - Bringing Down The Horse, Tool - Undertow, and Sheryl Crow's album after her self titled the name of which escapes me.

I was about to say Neil Young's biggest remaining "I'm not letting you release this on CD because the existing mix sucks" album Time Fades Away, but apparently it's just barely on in the 2700's.

Plus I'm sure half the good country and folk albums miss the list, because critics tend to ignore those genres. Stuff from this year like Children Running Through by Patty Griffin, Beauty & Crime by Suzanne Vega, and Crazy Ex Girlfriend by Miranda Lambert will probably be left off. I can only imagine what's missed the list due to genre bias in previous years.

Aimee Mann, I'M WITH STUPID (1996). Almost as good as the debut that preceded it (WHATEVER, which should also be ranked a lot higher) and the one that followed (BACHELOR NO. 2), full of brilliant songcraft and clever Jon Brion production tricks.

Darden Smith, LITTLE VICTORIES.

Or, to eliminate personal bias (Darden was in my circle of friends at the time), let's see...how about Midnight Oil's EARTH AND SUN AND MOON? They weren't critical darlings anymore by the early 90s, but I remember playing that one a lot, especially the first five songs (through "Truganini"). The band was showing a lot more range than they had on DIESEL AND DUST and BLUE SKY MINING (and there are one or two misfires for that reason).

Wait, I've got a better one: Various artists, THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEAT OF SOWETO. During apartheid, it was fashionable for political reasons, but it's just happy, happy, funky music. This is the sound Paul Simon tried to replicate on GRACELAND, but it's the real deal, and it's wonderful.

Julee Cruise--Floating into the Night (bubbling)
The Louvin Brothers--Satan is Real
Huey Lewis & the News--Sports (bubbling)

I have a Darden Smith song, "Little Maggie";
Good Austin country (like Neko Case, Toni Price, the Robison brothers)

Roger Waters' The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking.

schleuse, I've handled THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEAT OF SOWETO as a compilation, and that's the reason why it's not included. It's like a South African NUGGETS, isn't it?

Here are three great albums not in the AM 3000.

They all come from the same period (early 1970's) and they are all folky--but far from being run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter records. They are sonically interesting (especially Karen Dalton) with great songs:

(1) Paul Seibel – Woodsmoke and Oranges

(2) Bob Martin – Midwest Farm Disaster

(3) Karen Dalton – In My Own Time

Has anybody else heard these records? Do you like
them?