Depeche Mode

Music for the Masses

“PAIN – WILL YOU RETURN IT?” The band at their most eclectic. Just look at their samples, which range from the Carmina Burana to Kraftwerk to a random porno.

Violator may be Depeche Mode’s crowd darling, but this album nails debauched high art in the vein of the Decadents. One moment it’s exalting and orchestral, and then it’s sexy and brutal. British pretty boys toying with BDSM and industrial music... that is peak pop, innit.

PJ Harvey

Is This Desire?

Love through the eyes and hearts of ill-fated folk women, Victorian misers, and biblical martyrs. Our best muses are tragediennes.

Coil

The Ape of Naples

BANDCAMP

An eerie comfort, even with its moments of disquiet. I can’t get enough of Tattooed Man and its spine-tingling romanticism – this song could’ve been sung felicitously in the streets of Weimar like a murder ballad. “This is a dark age of love.”

Marlene Dietrich

The Essential Marlene Dietrich

Effortless sultriness and disarming vulnerability – that is Marlene Dietrich. Featuring tracks from her film roles, this album also gives us a sneak peek of Dietrich’s intimate chanteuse future.

Stația Nouă

Câmpuri reci

BANDCAMP (link broken)

Teofan Gavriliu’s droning soundtracks bring to mind damp, musky abandoned buildings, surrounded by cascades of rain and black water. The artist writes of the album, “We were taught life is beautiful, but sometimes… it’s about the cruel reality.”

Câmpuri reci (“Cold Fields”) expresses a somber beauty akin to an Andrei Tarkovsky film, wherein Gavriliu’s cold, monodic voice might echo through grey skies, empty streets, and dark rooms. A special comfort and solace for downtrodden times.

Холодный звонок

Наваждение

BANDCAMP

Ditto with this album by Holodniy Zvonok (“Cold Call”). It was at the peak of COVID isolation when many of us first encountered the brilliance of Slavic post-punk (unless you were lurking on /mu/ in 2011… I won’t tell if you don’t).

Navazhdeniye (“Obsession”) is one of the best among these “doomer” albums, especially the cold, melancholic track Ubit Dozhdyom (“Killed by the Rain”). A favorite of my Decembers. The fact that I live in a tropical country is beside the point.

Lingua Ignota

ALL BITCHES DIE

BANDCAMP

Kristin Hayter, now possessed reverend (?), had already transcended the raw, vengeful brutality of her early work. Understandably so, because who wants to predicate their artistic merit on reliving and ruminating on past trauma? I do – that’s why the album is on this list.

Suicide Commando

Implements of Hell

BANDCAMP

“Nihilism is the most extreme form of romanticism” – Sarah Kane. This interview will say it better than I can.

Lady Gaga

The Fame Monster

Sensual and macabre. She truly lived the gimmick. Theater dorks will keep trying to be her, and it’s NEVER going to work... what do you mean she got it from Madonna?

Britney Spears

Blackout

Best album in the history of pop and albums EVER. This is basically horny electro-industrial. Me and the girls driving to the bimbo summit in balaclavas.

Taylor Swift

folklore

My favorite indie album… I think this artist is so underrated!