Poll's early because I'm busy for a lot of the morning tomorrow and I had time tonight. Besides, I wouldn't want to keep you guys waiting
Goddammit. I wanted to put Digital Underground's Sex Packets and They Might Be Giants' Flood on this poll, but too many other seminal albums were there, so I went with Neil Young and Sonic Youth instead. I hate voting other, since it's my own friggin' poll, but I highly doubt anyone else is voting TMBG and if I left Ragged Glory off I'd probably never hear the end of it. Grrrr.
Other omissions:
# The Breeders * Pod (4AD)
# De La Soul * Three Feet And Rising (Tommy Boy)
# Souled American * Around The Horn (Rough Trade)
# The Jesus Lizard * Head (Touch & Go)
# A Tribe Called Quest * People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm (Jive)
# Buffalo Tom * Birdbrain (Beggars Banquet)
# Helmet * Strap It On (Amphetemine Reptile)
# Babes In Toyland * Spanking Machine (Twin/Tone)
# Brian Eno & John Cale * Wrong Way Up (Opal/WB)
# Bad Brains * The Youth Are Getting Restless (Caroline)
# Flaming Lips * In A Priest Driven Ambulence (Restless)
# Slayer * Seasons In The Abyss (American)
# Afghan Whigs * Up In It (Sub Pop)
# Yo La Tengo * Fakebook (Bar/None)
# Claw Hammer * Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Not Devo! (Sympathy)
# Ministry * The Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Taste (Sire)
# Megadeth * Rust In Peace (Capitol)
# Peter Murphy * Deep (Beggars Banquet)
# Ice Cube * Amerikkka's Most Wanted (Priority)
# L.L. Cool J. * Mama Said Knock You Out (Def Jam)
# The Pixies * Bossanova (Elektra)
# Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds * The Good Son (Mute)
# Youssou N'Dour * Set (Virgin)
# Cheb Mami * Let Me Rai (Virgin)
# Tragic Mulatto * Chartreuse Toulouse (Alt. Tent.)
# Loop * A Gilded Eternity (RCA)
# Dead C * Trapdoor Fucking Exit (Siltbreeze)
# Godflesh * Streetcleaner (Earache)
# Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 * Beasts Of No Nation (Universal)
# Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 * O.D.O.O. (Overtake Don Overtake Overtake) (Universal)
# Nice Strong Arm * Stress City (Homestead)
# Gary Clail & On-U Sound System * End Of The Century Party (On- U Sound)
# Digital Underground * Sex Packets (Tommy Boy)
# Lloyd Cole (Capitol)
# The Blue Aeroplanes * Swagger (Chrysalis)
# The Jazz Butcher * Cult Of The Basement (Rough Trade)
# KMFDM * Naive (Wax Trax!)
# Entombed * Left Hand Path (Earache)
# Run Westy Run * Green Cat Island (Twin/Tone)
# Sinead O'Connor * I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Chrysalis)
# Victims Family * White Bread Rules (Mordam)
# The Gun Club * Pastoral Hide And Seek (Buddha)
# Dwarves * Blood, Guts And Pussy (Sub Pop)
# Teenage Fanclub * A Catholic Education (Matador)
# Arsenal * Factory Smog Is A Sign Of Progress (Touch & Go)
# Cop Shoot Cop * Consumer Revolt (Circuit)
# Prong * Beg To Differ (Epic)
# New Model Army * Impurity (EMI)
# Foetus Inc. * Sink (Wax Trax!)
# Deee-Lite * World Clique (Elektra)
# Pegboy * Three Chord Monte EP (Touch & Go)
# Blind Guardian * Tales From the Twilight World (EMI)
# Didjits * Hornet Pinata (Touch & Go)
# Soul Asylum * And The Horse They Rode In On (A&M)
# Queensryche * Empire (EMI)
# Bad Religion * Against the Grain (Epitaph)
# Gear Daddies * Billy's Live Bait (Polygram)
# L7 * Smell the Magic (Sub Pop)
# Salt-N-Pepa * Black's Magic (London)
# Social Distortion (Epic)
# Laughing Hyaenas * Life Of Crime (Touch & Go)
# Fastbacks * Very, Very Powerful Motor (PopLlama Products)
# Eric B. & Rakim * Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em (MCA)
# Primus * Frizzle Fry (Caroline)
# Cocteau Twins * Heaven Or Las Vegas (4AD)
# Boss Hog * Cold Hands (Amphetamine Reptile)
# Prefab Sprout * Jordan: The Comback (Epic)
# Boogie Down Productions * Edutainment (Jive)
# Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. * New Funky Nation (4th & Broadway)
# Mellow Man Ace * Escape from Havana (Capitol)
# Brand Nubian * One For All (Elektra)
# Above the Law * Livin' Like Hustlers (Ruthless/Epic)
# Gang Starr * Step In The Arena (Chrysalis)
# Napalm Death * Harmony Corruption (Earache)
# Poor Righteous Teachers * Holy Intellect (Profile)
# Compton's Most Wanted * It's a Compton Thang (Capitol)
# Lord Finesse * Funky Technician Wild (Pitch)
# Kid Frost * Hispanic Causing Panic (Virgin)
# K-Solo * Tell the World My Name (Atlantic)
# Geto Boys * Grip It! on That Level (Def American)
# Monie Love * Down to Earth (WB)
# Urban Dance Squad * Mental Floss for the Globe (Arista)
# Pantera * Cowboys From Hell (Metal Magic)
# Judas Priest * Painkiller (Columbia)
# Soul II Soul * Vol. II: 1990, A New Decade (Virgin)
# Nikki D. * Daddy's little Girl Def (Jam/Columbia)
# Movement Ex * Movement Ex (Columbia)
# Living Colour * Time's Up! (Columbia)
# World Party * Goodbye Jumbo (Papillon)
Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
Quote:
Ritual de lo Habitual served as Jane's Addiction's breakthrough to the mainstream in 1990 (going gold and reaching the Top 20), and remains one of rock's all-time sprawling masterpieces. While its predecessor, 1988's Nothing's Shocking, served as a fine introduction to the group, Ritual de lo Habitual proved to be even more daring; few (if any) alt-rock bands have composed a pair of epics that totaled nearly 20 minutes, let alone put them back to back for full dramatic effect. While the cheerful ditty "Been Caught Stealing" is the album's best-known track, the opening "Stop!" is one of the band's best hard rock numbers, propelled by guitarist Dave Navarro's repetitive, trashy funk riff, while "Ain't No Right" remains explosive in its defiant and vicious nature. Jane's Addiction always had a knack for penning beautiful ballads with a ghostly edge, again proven by the album closer, "Classic Girl." But it's the aforementioned epics that are the album's cornerstone: "Three Days" and "Then She Did...." Although Perry Farrell has never truly admitted what the two songs are about lyrically, they appear to be about an autobiographical romantic tryst between three lovers, as each composition twists and turns musically through every imaginable mood. And while the tracks "No One's Leaving," "Obvious," and "Of Course" may not be as renowned as other selections, they prove integral in the makeup of the album. Surprisingly, the band decided to call it a day just as Ritual de lo Habitual hit big, headlining the inaugural Lollapalooza tour (the brainchild of Farrell) in the summer of 1991 as their final road jaunt. Years later, it remains one of alt-rock's finest moments.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Ragged GloryQuote:
Having re-established his reputation with the musically varied, lyrically enraged Freedom, Neil Young returned to being the lead guitarist of Crazy Horse for the musically homogenous, lyrically hopeful Ragged Glory. The album's dominant sound was made by Young's noisy guitar, which bordered on and sometimes slipped over into distortion, while Crazy Horse kept up the songs' bright tempos. Despite the volume, the tunes were catchy, with strong melodies and good choruses, and they were given over to love, humor, and warm reminiscence. They were also platforms for often extended guitar excursions: "Love to Burn" and "Love and Only Love" ran over ten minutes each, and the album as a whole lasted nearly 63 minutes with only ten songs. Much about the record had a retrospective feel -- the first two tracks, "Country Home" and "White Line," were newly recorded versions of songs Young had played with Crazy Horse but never released in the '70s; "Mansion on the Hill," the album's most accessible track, celebrated a place where "psychedelic music fills the air" and "peace and love live there still"; there was a cover of the Premiers' garage rock oldie "Farmer John"; and "Days That Used to Be," in addition to its backward-looking theme, borrowed the melody from Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages" (by way of the Byrds' arrangement), while "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)" was the folk standard "The Water Is Wide" with new, environmentally aware lyrics. Young was not generally known as an artist who evoked the past this much, but if he could extend his creative rebirth with music this exhilarating, no one was likely to complain.
Public Enemy - Fear of a Black PlanetQuote:
At the time of its release in March 1990 -- just a mere two years after It Takes a Nation of Millions -- nearly all of the attention spent on Public Enemy's third album, Fear of a Black Planet, was concentrated on the dying controversy over Professor Griff's anti-Semitic statements of 1989, and how leader Chuck D bungled the public relations regarding his dismissal. References to the controversy are scattered throughout the album -- and it fueled the incendiary lead single, "Welcome to the Terrordome" -- but years later, after the furor has died down, what remains is a remarkable piece of modern art, a record that ushered in the '90s in a hail of multi-culturalism and kaleidoscopic confusion. It also easily stands as the Bomb Squad's finest musical moment. Where Millions was all about aggression -- layered aggression, but aggression nonetheless -- Fear of a Black Planet encompasses everything, touching on seductive grooves, relentless beats, hard funk, and dub reggae without blinking an eye. All the more impressive is that this is one of the records made during the golden age of sampling, before legal limits were set on sampling, so this is a wild, endlessly layered record filled with familiar sounds you can't place; it's nearly as heady as the Beastie Boys' magnum opus Paul's Boutique in how it pulls from anonymous and familiar sources to create something totally original and modern. While the Bomb Squad was casting a wider net, Chuck D's writing was tighter than ever, with each track tackling a specific topic (apart from the aforementioned "Welcome to the Terrordome," whose careening rhymes and paranoid confusion are all the more effective when surrounded by such detailed arguments), a sentiment that spills over to Flavor Flav, who delivers the pungent black humor of "911 Is a Joke," perhaps the best-known song here. Chuck gets himself into trouble here and there -- most notoriously on "Meet the G That Killed Me," where he skirts with anti-homophobia -- but by and large, he's never been so eloquent, angry, or persuasive as he is here. This isn't as revolutionary or as potent as Millions, but it holds together better, and as a piece of music, this is the best hip-hop has ever had to offer.
Depeche Mode - ViolatorQuote:
In a word, stunning. Perhaps an odd word to use given that Violator continued in the general vein of the previous two studio efforts by Depeche Mode: Martin Gore's upfront lyrical emotional extremism and knack for a catchy hook filtered through Alan Wilder's ear for perfect arrangements, ably assisted by top English producer Flood. Yet the idea that this record would both dominate worldwide charts, while song for song being simply the best, most consistent effort yet from the band could only have been the wildest fantasy before its release. The opening two singles from the album, however, signaled something was up. First was "Personal Jesus," at once perversely simplistic, with a stiff, arcane funk/hip-hop beat and basic blues guitar chords, and tremendous, thanks to sharp production touches and David Gahan's echoed, snaky vocals. Then "Enjoy the Silence," a nothing-else-remains-but-us ballad pumped up into a huge, dramatic romance/dance number, commanding in its mock orchestral/choir scope. Follow-up single "Policy of Truth" did just fine as well, a low-key Motown funk number for the modern day with a sharp love/hate lyric to boot. To top it all off, the album itself scored on song after song, from the shuffling beat of "Sweetest Perfection" (well sung by Gore) and the ethereal "Waiting for the Night" to the guilt-ridden-and-loving-it "Halo" building into a string-swept pounder. "Clean" wraps up Violator on an eerie note, all ominous bass notes and odd atmospherics carrying the song. Goth without ever being stupidly hammy, synth without sounding like the clinical stereotype of synth music, rock without ever sounding like a "rock" band, Depeche here reach astounding heights indeed.
Fugazi - RepeaterQuote:
With its righteous disdain for capitalism and the almighty dollar, Repeater sounds like an angrier American update of Gang of Four's Solid Gold, which had been made ten years earlier. Lines/slogans like "When I need something/I reach out and grab it," "You are not what you own," "I was caught with my hand in the till," and "Everything is greed" bear this out. Though not lacking any sense of conviction, Repeater honestly gets a little stifling. It's not too difficult to see why the band was allegedly lacking a sense of humor at this stage. They could have been yelling about filing their taxes; the yelling begins to fade into a din after a while. The title makes sense, if only by mistake. But -- and that's a big but -- Repeater nearly matches the Fugazi and Margin Walker EPs with its musical invention and skill, spewing out another group of completely invigorating songs, which makes the subject matter and finger-pointing a little easier to swallow. Few rhythm sections of the time had the great interplay of Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. Likewise, the guitar playing and interaction of Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto almost always get overlooked, thanks to all the other subjects brought up when the band is talked about. A guitar magazine even rated Repeater as one of the best guitar records of the '90s, and rightfully so. Anemic revs spiked by pig squeals (or is it a screeching train?) highlight the title track, one of the band's finest moments. (Don't miss MacKaye's vicious double-tracked vocals, either.) As always, MacKaye and Picciotto's noise-terrorism-as-guitar-joust avoids flashiness, used as much as rhythm as punctuation device. Sharp, angular, jagged, and precise. Other gnarling highlights include the preachy "Styrofoam," the late-breaking "Sieve-Fisted Find," and the somewhat ironic "Merchandise," which skewers Mr. Business Owner by asking, "What could a businessman ever want more/Than to have us sucking in his store?" Plenty of fans had to suck in someone's store to get this record, after all.
Ride - NowhereQuote:
Nowhere seems to hold consensus as the second-best record of the shoegaze era, and with very good reason. All of the common words, phrases, and adjectives commonly used with the short-lived subgenre fit properly here, and they're all positive, every one of them. Whir, whoosh, haze, swirl, ad nauseum -- this record holds all of these elements at their most exciting and mastered. But in the end, great pop records necessitate quality songs, which Nowhere delivers throughout. Undeniably, it's Ride's zenith -- dense, tight, hypnotic. "Seagull" serves as a dynamic opener; after a couple seconds of light feedback, bassist Steve Queralt kicks in with a rubbery, elliptical line (reminiscent of a certain Beatles song), which is soon followed by Andy Bell and Mark Gardener's guitar twists and Loz Colbert's alternately gentle and punishing drumming. After the upbeat "Kaleidoscope," the record falls into a tempo lull that initially seems impenetrable and meandering. However, patience reveals a five-song suite of sorts, full of lovely instrumental passages that are punctuated with violent jabs of manic guitars. The endlessly escalating "Polar Bear" is a high point, featuring expertly placed tom rolls from Colbert. The tempo picks up for the closing "Vapour Trail," a wistful pop song with chiming background guitars galore and mournful strings to close it out. The U.S. version was bolstered significantly with the remainder of the Fall EP ("Dreams Burn Down" having reappeared earlier in the record). "Taste" is one of their finest pure pop numbers; the moody/driving "Here and Now" rates well, and the five-minute "Nowhere" is a nasty distorto-freakout. [Nowhere was remastered and reissued by Ignition U.K. in 2001. Added to the 11 tracks featured on Sire's U.S. edition are the four selections from the equally wondrous Today Forever.]
Uncle Tupelo - No DepressionQuote:
Uncle Tupelo's landmark opening salvo is the group's most rock-oriented album, steeped more in breakneck speed, punk crunch, and guitar dissonance than any of their subsequent efforts. Indeed, despite the presence of mandolins, fiddles, and banjos -- as well as inclusion of the title track, a faithful cover of the A.P. Carter classic -- the trio's vaunted country leanings are less musical than thematic on No Depression, thanks in large part to singers/songwriters Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy's acute depictions of rural, blue-collar life. Like the Replacements -- never more obvious an influence than on this LP -- Uncle Tupelo's songs paint grim, unrelenting portraits of aimless Midwestern existence, split between days working on the opening cut's "Factory Belt" and nights spent blurry-eyed and wasted ("Whiskey Bottle," "Before I Break"). Still, for all of the record's doleful cynicism -- virtually every cut nods toward dashed hopes, broken promises, and paralyzing fear -- there's an undeniable electricity afoot as well; by channeling the mournful clarity of country into the crackling fury of punk, No Depression brings new life to both musical camps.
Sonic Youth - GooQuote:
Any doubts as to the continuing relevance of Sonic Youth upon their jump to major-label status were quickly laid to rest by Goo, their follow-up to the monumental Daydream Nation. While paling in the shadow of its predecessor, the record is nevertheless a defiant call to arms against mainstream musical values; the Geffen logo adorning the disc is a moot point -- Goo is, if anything, a portrait of Sonic Youth at their most self-indulgently noisy and contentious, covering topics ranging from Karen Carpenter ("Tunic") to UFOs ("Disappearer") to dating Jesus' mom ("Mary-Christ"). Even Public Enemy's Chuck D joins the fracas on the single "Kool Thing," which teeters on the brink of a cultural breakthrough but falls just shy of the mark; the same could be said of Goo itself -- by no means a sellout, it nevertheless lacks the coherence and force of the group's finest work, and the opportunity to violently rattle the mainstream cage slips by.
eter, aka 
halk
