The evolution of the female solo artist over the past fifteen years has been a curious one. My generation grew up on solid, strong voices with apparent themes and lyrical twists. Tori Amos, Beth Orton, and Bjork were wildly different, but carried about them an obvious gravity; even Liz Phair’s sexual irreverence was rooted in the serious problem of sexual inequality.

Through the years, this picture of the solo female as singer-songwriter has shifted in interesting and probably heartening ways; these days, we’re more than familiar with Ida Maria, Lily Allen, Marnie Stern, and Kate Nash as figures that do their share to hold up images that are strong, but with a sense of irreverence. It’s somewhere in between the perceptions of serious, earthy songwriters and saucy, somewhat edgy singers that Polly Scattergood emerges; a forceful, breathy set of vocals taking precedence over a backdrop of ethereal sound.

It’s almost as if Scattergood has taken the best moments of the last 20 years in female rock history and studied them closely. Layered between moments of bare piano tracks are synthesizer-driven beats, creating an almost shockingly poignant soundscape. From the keyboard-heavy crescendos of “I Hate The Way”, it becomes clear that Scattergood’s forte is sadness. “My doctor said I’ve got to sing a happy tune,” she sings after weaving a tale of stark heartache, creating a wonderful and wrenching ending that evokes Marissa Nadler’s best lines.

Where Scattergood makes her true mark is in the ability to weave lyrical thickness with driving melody; “Other Too Endless”, “Please Don’t Touch”, and “Bunny Club” stand out immediately as very obvious and very British singles, though each track is laced with dark and contrasting imagery. Through the course of the album, her voice becomes a uniting factor, able to traverse both the twisted and the sweet through the album’s course. “Please Don’t Touch” hits a lilting note remniscent of Allen or Nash, where “Bunny Club”’s melody simply haunts.

It’s difficult not to find Scattergood’s work compelling from the very beginning, though it may take a few listens to make sense of the record as a whole. This is by no means a medley of sounds and moods; rather, it’s a well-orchestrated whole that executes each musical shift with a smooth elegance. What’s most remarkable is that no matter how far into the depths of despair Scattergood reaches (and when she channels death by suicide as in “Untitled 27″ or by cancer in “Breathe In Breathe Out”, those depths are very deep), her work retains a strange sense of hope. Polly Scattergood succeeds in evoking the serious while nodding at the irreverent, making for a most impressive debut.

Nothing can induce a potent combination of nostalgia and rage like the time-honored top 100 list. All the major music magazines have come out with at least one or two, and Rolling Stone has about a one-per-month quota. But this latest one comes from a slightly unlikely source — Amazon. Apparently they don’t just sell you music. They might actually know a little something about it, too. Maybe.

The Amazon list came equipped with a read-this-before-you-write-a-strongly-worded-letter clause, listing all the requirements and stipulations the Amazon music editors placed on albums worthy of the list.

The term “Indie Rock” is undeniably tricky. We challenge anyone to definitively define what is and what is not indie rock–you will fail. For the purposes of compiling this list we’ve decided to use a combination of hard and fast rules and gut instinct. Our hard and fast rules are listed below, but as for gut instinct—you just kind of have to know. For example: John Oates put out a rock record called Phunk Shui on an indie label, however, in no way should Phunk Shui be mistaken for indie rock. Likewise, Black Flag put out many seminal punk albums on SST, but we’re not talking about punk or grunge or classic post-kraut-rock, we’re talking about indie rock. Are Black Flag really indie rock? Not to our ears.

Here are the hard and fast rules:
• One album per artist.
• No EPs or singles, this list is about albums.
• No greatest hits collections or compilations of previously released tracks.
• Nominations must have been originally released on an independent label. Albums released on indies which were later acquired and/or re-released by majors are allowed (like Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, originally released by a pre-1989 major label merger Enigma Records).

With the only one album per artist rule, there are definitely a few that make you scratch your head — why Death Cab’s We Have The Facts instead of Plans, why does Sufjan Stevens fall higher than Bright Eyes, and both of them higher than Arcade Fire’s Funeral, which is higher than Husker Du?

But when it’s coming from Amazon, we know two things that bring us solace. No. 1, it’s an online marketplace ranking indie records, and thus any discrepancy should be taken with that proverbial salt grain. No. 2, the only reason something like this exists on a site like Amazon is to boost sales. And any outlet that wants to boost sales of indie rock? Pretty much okay in our book.

You judge for yourself. Here’s the top 20, you can see the full listing here.

20. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One – Yo La Tengo
19. Kill the Moonlight – Spoon
18. Give Up – The Postal Service
17. Dig Me Out – Sleater-Kinney
16. No Pocky for Kitty – Superchunk
15. I See A Darkness – Bonnie “Prince” Billy
14. We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes – Death Cab For Cutie
13. Michigan – Sufjan Stevens
12. Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth
11. 69 Love Songs Volume 1 – The Magnetic Fields
10. Bakesale – Sebadoh
09. Either/Or – Elliott Smith
08. Surfer Rosa – Pixies
07. If You’re Feeling Sinister – Belle & Sebastian
06. Slanted & Enchanted – Pavement
05. Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) – Unrest
04. Exile In Guyville – Liz Phair
03. Spiderland – Slint
02. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
01. Bee Thousand – Guided by Voices