The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Category Classic Albums

CLASSIC ’00s: The Strokes – ‘Is This It’

Pressing reset on an alternative scene that had gone stale and corporate by the turn of the millennium, The Strokes’ 2001 debut ‘Is This It’ remains singularly influential and important today.

CLASSIC ’70s: Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’

A quantum leap in the singer-songwriter paradigm, Joni Mitchell’s flawless essay on love, loss and regret ‘Blue’ remains hugely powerful.

CULT ’10s: Bon Iver – ‘Bon Iver, Bon Iver’

Justin Vernon’s reinvention of Bon Iver as a full-band endeavour for its second album, replete with electronic washes, has been quietly but massively influential.

CULT ’00s: The Shins – ‘Oh, Inverted World’

The Shins’ 2001 debut ‘Oh, Inverted World’ still stands as an influential archetype for 21st century American indie.

CULT ’00s: Radiohead – ‘Amnesiac’

Recorded at the same time as its more illustrious sister album ‘Kid A’, 2001’s ‘Amnesiac’ showed Radiohead matching the scope of rock with the sonic possibilities offered by electronic music.

CLASSIC ’70s: Marvin Gaye – ‘What’s Going On’

Analyzing a bitterly divided America in 1971, Marvin Gaye’s gorgeous soul suite ‘What’s Going On’ has a legacy that resonates well beyond music.

CLASSIC ’80s: Grace Jones – ‘Nightclubbing’

1981’s ‘Nightclubbing’ was the second of a quick-fire brace of releases that transformed Grace Jones’s image.

CULT ’80s: Kraftwerk – ‘Computer World’

The last of their masterpieces, 1981’s ‘Computer World’ represented Kraftwerk’s perfection of form and content.