The 50 Best Indie Rock Albums of the Pacific Northwest | Pitchfork  ⚐

Sean Nelson, talking about Built to Spill’s There’s Nothing Wrong With Love:

“The shadow Nevermind of post-boom NW indie rock was unquestionably Built to Spill’s There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, which came out September 13, 1994—not so very long after a certain tragic event—and soon became the North Star to a great many bands that came along after. The songs were exuberant and melodic, but they were also, somehow, intensely private. Even the artwork—a white and gray cloud floating over a muted palette of cream and yellow—was a masterpiece of understatement. You might not even see it the first time, but when you caught it at just the right moment, just the right angle, you could recognize the solitary statement that you had been let in on, and you treasured it all the more.”

I discovered this album in college, my gateway the 1998 B-sides album Naked Baby Photos by Ben Folds Five, which had a cover of "Twin Falls, leading me to buy a copy of TNWWL at the Record Exchange in Blacksburg.

And then I was that guy coming back and putting Built to Spill songs on mixtapes (and CDs, because I was ahead of the times) for everyone.

Sean Nelson also, humbly, left at least one album by his own band off his list.

(Via Pitchfork.)