Guides/A Riffiter guide
The /mu/core canon, revisited
The internet's most meme'd starter pack, taken seriously: what holds up and why.
/mu/core is the unofficial canon of albums most recommended on 4chan's music board /mu/ — a list that shaped online music taste throughout the 2010s. This guide revisits its ten pillars, from My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (1991) to Death Grips' The Money Store (2012).
Before algorithmic recommendations, there was a message board telling teenagers to listen to Loveless. The /mu/core canon — equal parts sincere and self-mocking — became the most influential informal syllabus in online music culture. Its picks turn up in every RYM top-100 and every "essentials" chart to this day.
It's easy to roll your eyes at the starter pack. It's harder to name ten better records. Here's the core of the core, and what each one actually did to deserve the meme.
- 1
Loveless
★ 4.7 · 10—The board's sacred text. Loveless (1991) reportedly consumed two years and a fortune in studio costs, nearly bankrupted Creation Records, and perfected the bent-pitch guitar sound every shoegaze band since has chased. The hype is, annoyingly, correct.
- 2
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
★ 4.6 · 8—A lo-fi 1998 song cycle haunted by Anne Frank, sung at full throat over fuzz bass and singing saw. Jeff Mangum retreated from public life afterward, and the album's cult only grew. The single most /mu/ record in existence.
- 3
OK Computer
★ 4.4 · 5—The consensus pick — #1 on RYM's all-time chart for most of the site's history. Pre-millennium dread rendered as guitar music of unreasonable beauty. The album every other album on this list gets compared to.
- 4
Madvillainy Instrumentals
Be the first to rate—MF DOOM and Madlib's 2004 collaboration: 22 tracks, most under three minutes, no hooks, no concessions. The blueprint for two decades of underground hip-hop and the board's proof that rap belonged in the canon.
- 5
The Money Store
★ 4.5 · 7—The album /mu/ willed into the canon in real time. The Money Store (2012) made industrial-strength noise-rap feel like pop music, and the board's evangelism for it basically invented modern internet music fandom.
- 6
To Pimp A Butterfly
★ 4.3 · 9—The 2015 record that ended every "is hip-hop album of the year possible" argument — jazz, funk and fury compressed into a state-of-the-nation address. Canonized on arrival, on /mu/ and everywhere else.
- 7
Illinois
★ 4.9 · 4—Orchestral indie-folk about serial killers, dying friends and the Sears Tower. Illinois (2005) is the canon's tender heart — proof the board's taste ran deeper than noise and irony.
- 8
Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!
Be the first to rate—Four sides, four movements, 87 minutes of slow-motion apocalypse. The 2000 post-rock landmark that taught a generation to sit still for twenty-minute songs.
- 9
Spiderland
★ 4.6 · 9—Whispered narration, clean guitars wound tight, then the scream. Spiderland (1991) sold almost nothing on release and now anchors every post-rock and math-rock family tree. Peak "trust me, it clicks" canon.
- 10
Person Pitch
Be the first to rate—Sample loops, Beach Boys harmonies and tape echo, assembled in Lisbon. Person Pitch (2007) is the canon's sunniest entry and the record that made a whole cohort buy samplers and reverb pedals.
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