my reply to charlie

Top Four (these come before anything else):

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Van Morrison: Astral Weeks
The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night
The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground and Nico

Rest of Top Ten (I start taking the criteria into account here):

Sleater-Kinney: Dig Me Out
Prince: Dirty Mind
The Clash: The Clash
Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate

Honorable Mention (if we counted Greatest Hits or live quasi-albums):

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Aretha, Al Green

Honorable Mention (if we counted EPs, they'd make the Top Ten):

New Order

Just didn't quite make it (in alphabetical order):

Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique
James Brown: Live at the Apollo Vol. 1
Iris Dement: My Life
Derek and the Dominos: Layla
Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced?
Husker Du: New Day Rising
Randy Newman: Sail Away
Nirvana: In Utero
Ramones: Rocket to Russia
Otis Redding: Live in Europe
Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed
Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells a Story
Wild Tchoupitoulas: Wild Tchoupitoulas
Lucinda Williams: Lucinda Williams
Neil Young: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere