Nas - Illmatic (1994)
Official | RYM

All the albums I've put on this page are albums I think are perfect from front to back. Albums that if any tiny detail were changed, they would be worse for it. Illmatic is somehow the most perfect in this list of perfect albums, if that makes sense. I want to put on surgical gloves just to listen to it.

Natural Snow Buildings - Daughter of Darkness (2009)
Official | RYM

Eerie, heavy droning folk. Sounds like it was made by ghosts of medieval plagues. I can't say I'm intimately familiar with it since it's seven hours long, but every time I've listened to it in installments it's left a massive impression on me.

Nina Simone - Pastel Blues (1965)
Official | RYM

Nina Simone is my favorite singer. Her voice is so strange and strong and beautiful and is perfect for this bluesy vocal jazz. Simone's performance of "Strange Fruit" is the most powerful I know of. It being in an otherwise fun album is like war photographs being published in a newspaper alongside the sports and comics pages.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Shahen-Shah (1989)
Official | RYM

Religious/classical Sufi music from Pakistan. I'm definitely not well-versed in this type of music but Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's performance here is amazing and the music is so incredibly energetic and infectious.

Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)
Official | RYM

Opeth's unique brand of progressive death metal mixed with gothic folk/rock hit its apex here. Some of the best songwriting and performances across the entire metal landscape.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (2009)
Official | RYM

Slightly noisy, punk-inspired twee pop. Super warm and melodic and sweet.

Pat the Bunny - The Volatile Utopian Real Estate Market (2014)
Official | RYM

Pat Schneeweis has been making drug-fueled anarchist folk-punk under a bunch of different names since he was a teenager. A lot of it is pretty awful, some of it is brilliant, and it's all near to my heart. His post-rehab songs about sobriety are incredibly uplifting but his post-rehab songs about the futility and naivety of anarchism are bittersweet at best. Still, there's an overarching positivity in his later music that consistently shines through. This is a big compilation of some of his later songs.

Patti Smith - Horses (1975)
Official | RYM

Perfect intersection of country, blues, Heartland, punk, glam, rock, and a dozen other music scenes that somehow comes together as one cohesive sound. As influential an album as it was an influenced one.

Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage d'Hiver (1999)
Official | RYM

Relentlessy cold and evil atmospheric black metal. So black metal at times it's not even recognizable as black metal. Probably my favorite album in the entire metal universe.

Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things (2002)
Official | RYM

Deep, emotional indie rock/pop with a small town Americana flavor. Sounds straight out of "mall parking lots on holidays."

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