Afghan Whigs - "Up In It" (1990)
Like a Midwestern Houellebecq on a whiskey bender, Greg Dulli isn't afraid to skewer his own desires while chasing skirts. While not as strong as their later efforts, "Up In It," is an excellent portrait of a band finding their identity as chroniclers of dark desires in the relatively emasculated nineties. Dulli's soulful, blues-influenced voice also sets the band apart from the howling masses of the time, and even to this day, the album stands out as strong and sexy. -- Cortney Harding
TRACK: Retarded
Band of Horses - "Everything All the Time" (2006)
Band Of Horses emerged in 2004 out of the Northwest, and before anyone else might have had a chance, was snapped up by Sub Pop. The band rightfully garnered comparisons to My Morning Jacket and Neil Young, primarily due to lead singer Ben Bridwell's reverb-laden, high-register singing voice. But "Everything All the Time" is not just a carbon copy of the aforementioned. Sure, there are hints of anthemic Southern rock on "The Great Salt Lake" and "Weed Party " but for the most part, the Horses favor a slow, dreamy approach with a few hints of Shins-style pop thrown in for good measure. The album excels with its last three tracks, countrified ballads that show moments of genuine tenderness without cliched metaphors. -- Michael D. Ayers
TRACK: The Great Salt Lake
Codeine - "Frigid Stars" (1991)
In rock trio Codeine, Sub Pop stumbled on its very own Slint before anybody had even heard of "Spiderland," but with vocals! Stripped completely free of irony or pretense, the songs rise and fall on crushing soft-to-loud transitions and Stephen Immerwahr's matter-of-fact laments. Lines like "I miss your smile" and "It's not so sad for me" were enough to hang the material on, because the unrelentingly moody music echoed the sentiments so perfectly. Codeine's mastery of tension and release would quickly emerge as a clear influence on bands like Seam and Red House Painters, proving that volume and emotion didn't have to be mutually exclusive. -- Jonathan Cohen
TRACK: 3 Angels
David Cross - "Shut Up You Fucking Baby" (2002)
This "Mr. Show" star was long an indie rock favorite before signing on as the first comic on Sub Pop's roster, but his acid-tongued barbs are much more concerned with universal topics (religion, Republicans, the war on terror) than obscure references. Not even The Bible is exempt; Cross deems the beginning of the book of Genesis "the funniest six pages in literary history. God gets tired? God needs a nap?" Also hilarious: recountings of growing up Jewish in the South (a friend's mother asks him with a straight face, "Do ya'lls people eat oatmeal?") and getting blackout drunk with reality show has-beens in Kansas City. -- Jonathan Cohen
Fastbacks - "New Mansions in Sound" (1996)
Long before Sleater-Kinney grew out of Olympia, Washington and long before Krist Novoselic met Kurt Cobain, the Fastbacks -- formed circa 1980 -- were churning out an endless supply of punk-laced pop with Kurt Bloch's spiky guitars counterbalanced by rhythm guitarist Lulu Garigiulo and bassist Kim Warnick's fun harmonies and the longest procession of drummers in Seattle history (even Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan drummed for them back in the 80s.) The foursome had grown into their up-rocking sound comfortably by the time of their solid 1996 Sub Pop offering, tossing in head-bopping three minute wonders like "Just Say" as well as a little guest spot from tourmate Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam on the Who cover "Girl's Eyes." Hello! -- Jessica Letkemann
TRACK: Just Say
Fleet Foxes - "Fleet Foxes" (2008)
One of the most valuable qualities of good music is its ability to transport you to a moment in your past, a place you'll never see or somewhere that doesn't even exist. Thanks to their gloriously retro (and occasionally eerie) three-part harmonies, Seattle's Fleet Foxes accomplish all the above with their self-titled debut. Led by vocalist Robin Pecknold, those harmonies usher in a remote, parallel-universe America that lies far from the interstate-maybe somewhere in Appalachia-where contemporary music sounds a lot like a doped-up daydream at church. Pecknold conjures the sedate, acoustic side of My Morning Jacket's Jim James, and the band traverses the same scenic waters as the "Lee Shore" side of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with great effect. And on songs like "Oliver James," where Pecknold's voice dances on top of and glides along with the melody, the band makes it sound much easier than it is. -- Wes Orshoski
TRACK: Ragged Wood
Flight of the Conchords -"Flight of the Conchords" 2008
Despite being "New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk paradists," Flight of the Conchords have managed to be America's new favorite comedy duo. With a deal in place with HBO for their hour-long comedy series, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement also debuted with their first, self-titled full-length in 2008, bowing at No. 3. Rhyming ("Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenoceros"), cooing ("The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)") and imitating everything from a Speak-n-Spell ("Robots") to David Bowie ("Bowie"), these Kiwis run a gamut of styles with dry hilarity. -- Katie Hasty
TRACK: Mutha'uckas
Green River - "Dry As A Bone/Rehab Doll" (1987/1988)
Green River, comprised of future members of Pearl Jam and Mudhoney, "was one of the first bands to merge metal and glam into punk rock," then Sub Pop publicist told Goldmine in 1993, and both "Dry As A Bone" and "Rehab Doll" are documents of that. "Bone," issued in 1987, was Sub Pop's inaugural full-length. 1988's "Doll," which was finally released a year after the band broke-up, features what the liner notes call a "sonic groan" by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon on "Swallow My Pride." Sub Pop reissued the two records together on one disc in 1990. - Jessica Letkemann
Hot Hot Heat - "Make Up the Breakdown" (2002)
Way before Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, Sub Pop was once again ahead of the curve with this delicious dance/rock album, which at the time turned into one of its only hits in recent years (it was eventually upstreamed to Warner Bros.). "This Town" puts a funky kick into the old bones of new wave, while "Bandages" was sufficiently heavy to garner a ton of Modern Rock radio airplay. The sights and scenes were familiar to any 20-something fond of a nocturnal lifestyle: the attention-starved over-achiever who's "intoxicated by a quarter to 10" and ladies who first inspire you to shave your head in an attempt at wooing them before you wise up and realize, "you are my only girl but you're not my owner." -- Jonathan Cohen
TRACK: Bandages
"Hype! The Motion Picture Soundtrack" - (1996)
If for no other reason than it's sheer variety, Sub Pop's soundtrack to Doug Pray's 1996 documentary about the rise of the "Seattle Sound" neatly offers a grab bag of the actually very diverse music coming out of the Pacific Northwest during the administration of Bush Sr. While the headline names are represented -- Pearl Jam's "Not For You" (live), "Negative Creep" from Nirvana -- the comp. offers some delirious, gleefully random rawk from smaller bands like Supersuckers ("I say f*ck and you say yeah!"), scene forebears U-Men ("Dig It A Hole") and Some Velvet Sidewalk (whose "Mousetrap" includes the hypnotically silly lyric "you be the cat and I'll be the mouse"). -- Jessica Letkemann
TRACK: Mousetrap by Some Velvet Sidewalk
Iron and Wine - "Our Endless Numbered Days" (2004)
Sam Beam, architect of the folk-pop outfit Iron and Wine, finally stepped out of the bedroom (recording studio) on 2004's "Our Endless Numbered Days," the sophomore follow-up to his whispering debut, 2002's "The Creek Drank the Cradle." With the aid of understated but masterful engineer Brian Deck, Beam further fleshed out his descriptive and pastoral narratives in the confines of Chicago's Engine Studios. The set yielded some of his most memorable performances, including "Cinder and Smoke" and "Sodom, South Georgia." -- Katie Hasty
Mudhoney - "Superfuzz Bigmuff" (1988)
In the realm of the early Sub Pop sound, it doesn't get more classic than this first record by the Stooges-loving faction of Green River that mutated into Mudhoney in 1988. In a self-aware nod to the quartet's loud, hard, buzz of a sound, the record was named after guitarist Steve Turner's distortion pedal. Some of the first in Mark Arm's long line of snarling, yelping lyrics about malaise surface in the form of the crunchingly catchy "Touch Me I'm Sick." The record spent a year on European alternative charts, and the typically smirky catalog entry for it brought the word "grunge" into the label's orbit for the first time. -- Jessica Letkemann
TRACK: Touch Me I'm Sick
The Postal Service - "Give Up" (2003)
"Give Up" was a momentous release for Sub Pop not only because it represented the sonic meeting of the minds of Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Dntel/Headset's Jimmy Tamborello (along with guest vocals by Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and Tattle Tale's Jen Wood) but also because it was just the second Sub Pop album to score gold certification or better with sales of over 650,000 copies. "Loaded with blistering beats that skitter along like some updated version of Pong" was how Billboard.com's Todd Martens described "Give Up" upon it's 2003 release. "The marriage of electronic orchestrations and earnest lyrics has helped the Postal Service find an audience more accustomed to a rock-oriented sound." - Laura Leebove
Sebadoh - "Bakesale" (1994)
"Bakesale," Sebadoh's fifth album, climbed to a peak of No. 8 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers (Northeast) chart soon after release in 1994. Sebadoh had been formed by Eric Gaffney and Dinosaur Jr. bassist Lou Barlow, but "Bakesale," was the first release after Gaffney left the band in 1993. Moving into a more songwriter-ly, traditional - yet still low-fi -- sound than the pop noise the band had been known for before it, "Bakesale" is often cited as a foray into accessibility that successfully won the group a wide the range of listeners. - Laura Leebove
Nirvana - "Bleach" (1989)
Before "Nevermind" and worldwide superstardom, Nirvana was just a scruffy Pacific Northwest rock band with a shy lead singer. After Sub Pop released Nirvana's "Love Buzz" as its first Singles Club installment in October 1988, the group hit the studio with about $600 and producer Jack Endino for its full-length debut. Songs like "Negative Creep," "About a Girl" and "Blew" pointed at greater things to come from Kurt Cobain and company, but it wasnąt until "Nevermind" exploded in 1991 that legions of new fans came back around to "Bleach." It's been said that Sub Pop's subsequent financial windfall helped keep the company afloat for years afterward.
-- Jonathan Cohen
TRACK: Negative Creep
The Shins - "Oh, Inverted World" (2001)
After struggling to develop a killer new act for a few years prior, Sub Pop hit paydirt in 2001 with the Shins, who were immediately embraced by indie rockers with "Oh, Inverted World." The album is full of charming indie pop with roots in the Beatles and the Beach Boys, exemplified on songs like "Know Your Onion!," "Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang," the latter two of which appeared in the 2004 film "Garden State" and elevated the Shins into the mainstream. -- Jonathan Cohen
TRACK: New Slang
Sleater-Kinney - "The Woods" (2005)
By the time the era of the riot grrl drew to a close, the ladies of Sleater Kinney had not only mastered their instruments, they had hit the big rock big time. The last album the band released before splitting in 2006, "The Woods," is their effort to compete with the big boys and their big guitars, and more often than not, they win. While lacking some of the emotional intensity of their earlier efforts, "The Woods" is a more than solid, if somewhat removed, rock album that does as the band's t-shirt suggests: it shows us their riffs. -- Cortney Harding
TRACK: Jumpers
Soundgarden - "Screaming Life" (1987)
One version of the Sub Pop story goes that Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman didn't team up in earnest until they saw the chance to put out the inaugural EP by local favorites Soundgarden. "Screaming Life" showcases the band's quasi-operatic, Robert Plant-esque metal singer Chris Cornell, the muscular but inventive drummer Matt Cameron, and a passel of guitarist Kim Thayil's dirty dropped-D tuned chords. "Nothing to Say" is a dirge of a jam featured on the Sub Pop office's hold music circa 1988. After this set hit, labels from So-Cal punk indie SST to major A&M came calling for Soundgarden, setting up the band's rise to fame as one of the marquee Seattle groups of the early 90's alongside Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains. -- Jessica Letkemann
TRACK: Hunted Down
Sunny Day Real Estate - "Diary" (1994)
For better or worse, this hometown combo practically drew up the blueprints for what's now called "emo" with its Sub Pop debut (despite the fact that it's probably not even the group's best album). Operating as if the squalor of grunge never entered its members' ears, "Diary" is powered by dead-on rock riffing that frequently mesmerizes. Jeremy Enigk's impassioned singing (the shout-out during the chorus of "In Circles" was the first of many passages that forged a direct musical connection between band and audience) spawned a score of imitators, but internal squabbles ensured that Sunny Day's commercial fortunes never came close to equaling its critical acclaim. -- Jonathan Cohen
TRACK: In Circles
Velocity Girl - "Simpatico!" (1994)
Another album that upended the male-dominated indie grunge of the era, "Simpatico" crystallized what it felt like for a girl in this scene the early '90s, where strings were attached at every turn ("The All-Consumer"), intellectual rocker boyfriends translated everything you ever said ("There's Only One Thing Left To Say") and you apologized even when you totally didn't mean it ("Sorry Again"). Super-hooky choruses ("Drug Girls") with just the right splash of distortion and Sarah Shannon's clear-as-a-bell voice allowed the music to stick in your head as easily as it did your heart. -- Jonathan Cohen
