This was a great year for "alt country" or whatever became that genre. Bottle Rockets also had a great record out in 95...almost tipped WT off 6-pack.

One of my all-time favorite years.
BIG +1s on the GBV, Jayhawks, and Son Volt.

The Apples in Stereo - Fun Trick Noisemaker
Pulp - Different Class
The Amps - Pacer
Pavement - Wowee Zowee
Oasis - What's the Story Morning Glory?
Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves

This has become one of my favorite all-time years. I just keep discovering more stuff from it that I love.

+1
GBV - Alien Lanes




The Flaming Lips - Clouds Taste Metallic
Mr. Bungle – Disco Volante
Fugazi – Red Medicine
U.S. Maple – Long Hair in Three Stages
Yo La Tengo – Electr-o-Pura
Mouse on Mars – Iaora Tahiti

This is just barely scratching the surface, and I like the Son Volt, SY, and Pavement albums already mentioned a lot, too.

Some okay stuff, but not a great year.

Cibo Matto -- Cibo Matto
GZA -- Liquid Swords
Ol' Dirty -- Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version
Sleater-Kinney -- Sleater-Kinney
The The -- Hanky Panky
Tupac -- Me vs. World

+1's:

Rancid
Son Volt
Wilco
Whiskeytown
The The
Gene

6 more:

+1: wilco, son volt, whiskeytown, us maple, red red meat, pavement, matt sweet



s walker - tilt
teenage fanclub - grand prix
palace music - viva last blues
smog - wild love
hum - you'd prefer an astronaut

Yeah so this year was pretty much absurd.

Plus 1's on GBV, Sonic Youth, Apples in stereo, Amps, Pavement, YLT, Sleater-Kinney. Insane year.

Additional six:



Juliana Hatfield--Only Everything
Cornershop--Woman's Gotta Have It
Radiohead--The Bends
Nagisa Ni Te--On The Love Beach
Helium--The Dirt of Luck
The Softies--It's Love

Plus shitloads I left off. Incredible year.

More +1s:
Cornershop
Palace
Teenage Fanclub
Matthew Sweet
Watt
Tricky
Yo La Tengo
Flaming Lips
Fugazi
Elastica

This was a deep goddamn year.

Yeah these are all great:

Red Red Meat
Mike Watt
Scott Walker
Palace Music
Radiohead

Plus there are several mentioned that I haven't heard but would like to, and many more I really love/like from this year that haven't been mentioned.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised as I know I'm much more into 60's and 70's music than the average obner but calling '95 a great year after we just did '72? It's a good year for sure and there's a bunch of albums I like that haven't been named yet but there's probably at least 10 albums from '72 that I like more than any album from '95. I don't see an Exile here anywhere.

I get it.
Maybe this is not a 1972, historically speaking, but insofar as good years for music during the peak of my years discovering new music and new bands, this one is the bomb.
That GBV album (I know you are not a fan) alone was instrumental in the way that I listened to music -- made lo-fi listenable. And I am not the only one. And then, lots of other excellent albums and bands emerging from the underground.
So, yes, this is a great fucking year.

Yes, 1972 is probably a better year. However, I personally find it remarkable that I've found so much to love in a year like 1995 which I think is sort of viewed as a transitional period from the "grunge era" of the early '90s to the more pop-oriented late '90s/early '00s. It isn't supposed to be a landmark year for anything. No big movements started in 1995. There were just a whole lot of really good albums. Not many that are widely-agreed-upon classics, but plenty that are important to a lot of us.

And as many acknowledged classics as there are from 1972, only a handful are really that important to me personally and representative of what I really enjoy and look for in music. There are several albums from 1995 that mean a lot more to me than Exile on Main St does.

Yes. To quote Todd, "this is a great fucking year." Obviously it does not have the access to the aging process that records 20+ years it's senior has, but that in my mind makes it more remarkable how good it was. Also, lest we forget, opinions and whatnot.

However, I don't think it's even just a matter of recent memory or "darn younger obner" population going on either. One year forward or back from 1995 in my mind doesn't produce as many great albums. But after seeing many great records already posted, I immediately thought of two additional 6-packs without any difficulty and later had many other records that had me thinking "oh man I forgot about [xyz]." I can't do that with 94 or 96. Again, not just records I like or dig quite a bit but records that I think are really excellent.

But, right, opinions and whatnot. But it was a great year.

I don't think there's any recency effect going on. It's 17 years ago after all. That was enough time for me to lose interest in a whole lot of stuff that I loved when it first came out. It was also enough time for me to not notice GBV at all, decide I was a fan and buy a whole bunch of their albums, and then decide while I enjoyed their live show I really wasn't a fan of any of their recorded music and sell it all back. And I personally don't think it's any better a year than 1994 on balance and I actually own more 1996 albums than either 1995 or 1994 although I don't think that year had as many really good records. **Shrug** which gets us back to:



which is all fine and good. I suppose it's just nice to see enthusiasm on the board whether it's something I agree with or not.

Shit, I'll take that Jayhawks album over a lot of stuff from a lot of years. "Blue" is a classic but "Miss Williams Guitar" is just a flat out amazing song. My god.

Also:



So good.

+1 to many already listed. Son Volt/ Trace = Top 25 all-time

I'd like to add-

sparklehorse - vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
pj harvey – to bring you my love
richard buckner - bloomed

- Mcaputo reporting from Espana

These are 6 albums I listened to at the time. I can't really separate albums that I liked then from albums I like now, but never heard at the time.

Me Against the World - Tupac
And Out Came The Wolves - Rancid
What's The Story - Oasis
Son Volt - AM
The Infamous - Mobb Deep
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx - Raekwon

Uncle Tupelo never broke up?