39. Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs: At first glance shoegaze and black metal are not genres that would mix well together, but the french have repeatedly proved that wrong with bands such as Les Discrets, Alcest, and, most notably for me, Amesoeurs. Leaning more to the shoegaze rather than black metal side of things, Amesoeurs' first and last album is absolutely gorgeous. Rich textures, a great variance in the songwriting, and most obviously Audrey Sylvain's fantastic vocal work all combine to make an album that overshadows every other offering from the genre.
38. Barenaked Ladies - Gordon: The debut album from BNL remains my favorite even after listening to it for nearly half of my life (!). What's interesting to me about Gordon is that when I first got into the album I didn't understand much of the humor in the songs (it's difficult for an 11 year old in 2001 to get references about being a high school freshman in the 80s), but yet I still adored the album. In hindsight, that really just speaks to how strong the songwriting on the album is; just looking at the tracklisting there isn't a bad song on the album, and if I tried to cite the strong songs I'd end up listing half the album. To put it simply, Gordon is an album that manages to couple fantastic songwriting with a great sense of humor.
37. Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory: DT's best album. Great music, their best vocal melodies, and I love the musical reprises of Metropolis Pt. 1. I'm not sure what else there really is to say about it.
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