Lists are meant to generate discussion, of course, and no list that seeks to represent each of the last 25 years with one indie-rock album could hope to be definitive. That said, the list featured on Entertainment Weekly's web site today, "The Indie Rock 25," is downright awful. There are some obvious picks, but much of it either selects albums that are far from the best/most interesting of the given year or are not the best album from the chosen act, which shows how artificial such an exercise can be.

Then again, when you set constraints like these, how can you win?

1. Only one album may represent each year.
2. All the bands had to have been signed to an independent label for the given album.
3. The term ''band'' must be taken literally.

This year's pick, Radiohead's In Rainbows, was an obvious choice. Such lists are tailor made to recognize the fact that a band like this has left its major-label home for indie-land, so it's no surprise, and one that's hard to argue. So is Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the pick for 2007, or Boys and Girls in America from the Hold Steady, the 2006 pick. From there, however, things occasionally go off the rails as often as not.

Bright Eyes in 2005, a year with Okkervil River, Antony and the Johnsons and Sufjan Stevens all making critically acclaimed and well-received discs? Please. And this has little to do with my inability to comprehend Connor Oberst's appeal, and more to do with the fact that he had made his impact long before and, with this tepid disc, came nowhere near the artistic heights of the aforementioned discs. Arcade Fire in 2004 makes sense, but again, the White Stripes' Elephant in 2003 is a strangely out-of-touch pick. It's really White Blood Cells or nothing for this group. That spot, for 2001, goes instead to the Shins, whose album that year, Oh, Inverted World, may have included the future hit "New Slang," but which didn't make a dent in the public consciousness the way it's follow-up, Chutes Too Narrow did in, you guessed it, 2003.

The rest of the list can be split into three groups: no brainers (1998's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel or 1994's Bee Thousand from Guided by Voices) miscast (Sleater-Kinney's relatively underwhelming The Hot Rock in 1999 as opposed to 1997's absolutely scorching Dig Me Out or the Smiths' Meat is Murder instead of the later, superior The Queen is Dead) and just plain wrong (no matter their parsing of things, My Bloody Valentine and the Pixies were major label bands on their respective releases, UK releases to the contrary).

The compilers seem to know all this, spending more time in each write up explaining why better and more appropriate albums were not picked than they do extolling the virtues of those that were. Still, the list does what it should, sparking the desire in fans to pull out old albums, listen to great music and discuss the merits.

Labels: criticism, lists, music