This week Sub Pop turned Twenty-five years old, and though that youthful number is as questionable as the birthday of Albert Pujols, I took a little time to reflect on their quarter of a century.

It’s a miracle that Sub Pop is still around today.  They not only managed to pass through the post grunge blues of the Pacific Northwest, but also managed to escape a time in the early 90’s when the company was effectively broke.  They’ve powered through two major recessions, the Seattle dot com boom and bust, and even the collapse of the music industry.  Some twenty-five years after releasing the infamous Sub Pop 100, the label is as strong as ever, with some of the countries most dynamic artists, releasing some of the most influential music.

For me Sub Pop is synonymous with my musical education.  Not counting a Mickey Mouse Club CD I bought when I was 10, my first music purchase was Nirvana’s Bleach.  From then on Sub Pop was my musical barometer, helping gauge the best music around.  I can remember begging my mom to take me downtown to the Sub Pop Mega Mart.  A contradiction in terms, the Mega Mart was really just a hole in the wall beneath the Moore Hotel, but the walls were lined with releases that I typically found only in their catalogue.

When browsing the record store shelves looking for a particular band, I always chose their Sub Pop release.  These weren’t particularly informed decisions I was making, they were those of someone who needed a voice to tell them what was good.  For many years, especially in those first ten years, Sub Pop cultivated bands with a very distinct sound, typically loud, hard edged, and seemingly unmarketable.

The height of my Sub Pop obsession peaked around 1998-99. A time when vinyl had yet to become collectables and I could purchase used copies of iconic Singles Club albums for a few bucks.  Wearing my Sub Pop “Loser” shirt around school didn’t have the same effect back then that it has now.  There was a time that in most circles, Sub Pop was mostly unknown and little cared about, and it definitely was not cool to like a bunch of obsolete bands that no one had ever heard of.

My music tastes have changed over the years and I hope that it goes without saying that I don’t simply buy the album emblazoned with that iconic black and white logo, but I still think of Sub Pop as the height of quality and excellence.  A few years back I purchased a copy of the Head and the Heart LP and remarked to myself as I cut through the cellophane, “holy shit, Sub Pop really knows how to package an LP.”

Sub Pop hasn’t just been important to me, it’s been important to this Pacific Northwest region, this country, and possibly or probably the world.

In honor of 25(ish) years of Sub Pop I’ve compiled my ten favorite albums from their storied history.

The Supersuckers – The Smoke of Hell
Though it was released at the hight of grunge, it always felt like a more traditional punk album to me.  Though I haven’t listened to this album in years, I do remember wearing out the grooves on the record when I first bought it.  I never developed a love for 90’s punk bands like Rancid or Pennywise, The Supersuckers were as close as I ever got.  Between the songs Hell City Hell and I Say Fuck, this is an amazing album

Nirvana – Bleach
I don’t think any list of Sub Pop’s greatest albums would be complete without Nirvana’s debut, but I’m not sure every list would mean it.  I mean it.  The night after I bought Bleach, I boldly proclaimed to my best friend that “this was Nirvana’s best.”  That may have been a bit of bloated enthusiasm, but to this day I find myself more and more gravitated to this album.  It’s a different Nirvana, a less emotional and heavy hearted Kur(d)t C(K)obain.  When I think of grunge, I immediately picture the negative image that graces the album’s cover.

The Head and the Heart
There was a period of time that I wasn’t necessarily digging Sub Pop’s bands.  The Head and the Heart’s self titled debut jolted me right back.  From start to finish this is just a great album.  It’s one of those albums that seems to accompany you wherever you go and inserts itself into the soundtrack of your life.  There were plenty of albums that I would have loved to play during my wife’s labor with our daughter, but the only one she would allow was The Head and the Heart, because of that it has a special place in my own heart.

Tad – 8-Way Santa
Though I loved this album at the time I bought it, I didn’t come to appreciate it until much later.  If there is any one album that challenges Bleach as the image of Grunge, it’s 8-Way Santa.  This might be the heaviest album of the movement, fueled by the deep grunting voice of Tad Doyle.  These guys could have been so much bigger, they should have been.  I could listen to the song Giant Killer over and over.

Flight of the Conchords
I want to lay a big kiss on the lips to whoever was responsible for signing Flight of the Conchords to Sub Pop.  They had a steady but underground following before their HBO show, and it’s unclear just how big their following was after. But I imagine it was still a risk to sign this New Zealand comedy duo who not only wrote funny and catchy songs, but really good songs.  There was a time in my life where I wanted to listen to nothing else.  This isn’t just some tie-in to a television show, this is an album full of genuinely good and funny songs.

Mudhoney – Superfuzz Bigmuff
Occasionally a tune will pop into my head and I’ll start to get into before I realize it’s from Superfuzz, even when I haven’t listened to the album for months.  This might be the so called “Seattle Sound” at it’s best, messy, hard hitting, ever catchy. Since this was Mudhoney’s debut, I hesitate to say that this was their peak, but Steve Turner’s guitar never sounded more fuzzy, and Mark Arm’s voice was never as passionately scratchy. This is the kind of album that defines an era.

Father John Misty – Fear Fun
Like Flight of the Conchords, I imagine that it was a bit risky to sign Josh Tillman and his alter ego Father John Misty.  Though he cut his teeth as the drummer for The Fleet Foxes, and solo as J. Tillman, Father John Misty is a different sound entirely.  But then, this kind of sound only comes once in a lifetime and so I imagine that the decision to sign him was easy.  What can I say about Fear Fun that I haven’t said already, besides that this is the kind of album that I’ll be listening to in a year, twenty years, a lifetime.

Steven Jesse Bernstein – Prison
Signing comedians a few of years ago was a natural progression for an indie label like Sub Pop, but it was actually over twenty years ago that they released Seattle underground legend Steven Jesse Bernstein’s Prison. The album is ten spoken word poems read brilliantly by Bernstein, with music composed and integrated to perfection by Steve Fisk. Prison was originally recorded at the State Penitentiary Special Offenders, but later rerecorded in a studio. Bernstein committed suicide before he could hear Fisk’s final mix of the album.

Mark Lanegan – The Winding Sheet
Still the Northwests premier poet rocker, Mark Lanegan was brilliant with The Screaming Trees and equally brilliant on his own. When it comes to albums that fluctuate between heavy rock songs, and soft folk ballads, The Winding Sheet tops the list.  His voice doesn’t have great range, in fact it has almost none, but he knows how to write songs for himself that don’t require range.  Kurt Cobain collaborated with Lanegan on this album, most notably on Down in the Dark. I Love You Little Girl is one of my favorite songs of all time.

Sub Pop 200
This is the definitive collection of Northwest Music of the late 80’s.  I dare you to find a better collection, Soundgarden, Nirvana, the Fluid, Mudhoney, Green River, Beat Happening, Steven Jesse Bernstein, the Fastbacks, Girl Trouble, Catt Butt, The Screaming Trees, are just some of the amazing bands on this 1988 release.  I originally bought it for the rare Nirvana song Spank Thru, but found myself falling in love with everything.  If you’re looking to start a Sub Pop collection but don’t know where to begin, look no further. I love everything on this album from the packaging down to the very last song.

There’s so much I could have included in this list, and certainly many incredible albums that I didn’t list, Soundgarden’s Screaming Life, Sub Pop 100?  This list is comprised of those albums I bought in my youth and today, albums that I’ve listened to a million times, and in some cases albums I wore out and had to buy twice.  The point?  Sub Pop has released too many great albums to count.