58.

The Books
Thought For Food
(Tomlab, 2002)

Remember when Thought For Food first came out? How it was revolutionary? The deft use of samples in combination with beautiful chamber folk and glitch electronics – it was astounding. Even going back to it now, I am incredibly impressed. The album inspired a lot of imitators, but no one has ever really captured the magic of what The Books have started. And I can’t post about this without mentioning the sample at the beginning of “Motherless Bastard”. I am still shocked with the humor and horror of it every time.

-Thistle

25.

The Books
The Lemon of Pink
(Tomlab, 2003)

When I first picked up The Lemon of Pink I was with my sister. I started playing it in my car and for some reason my sister thought that I had just purchased a scary sounds album or the soundtrack to a horror movie. The tonal impression of the album couldn’t be farther from the mark, but I can understand her confusion. The Books' use of samples in conjunction with the beautiful instrumentation of Nick Zammuto’s acoustic guitar and Paul de Jong’s Cello was certainly unique and totally different from anything my sister might have been listening to on the radio. For me the contrast is significant – The Lemon of Pink inhabits the resilience of the human spirit, and that is reason enough to have it here as one of the top twenty-five very best albums of the decade.

-Thistle