FREEFORM 1990's ALTERNATIVE ALBUM POLL - THE RECKONING (TOP TEN COUNTING DOWN NOW)

xpost

Spiderland's cover picture is so great....it's always even more bizarre to me in light of the fact that the man on the other side of the camera is Bonnie Prince Billy

the mansun cover though....

is epic XD

Wow Mansun one place higher than Slint, that's kind of shocking.

That's only the third album of mine to place.

I thought I was immune to Britpop, and hated its disavowal of any post-1970 influences, but "Wide Open Space" on one of ILM's "Rough Guide" comps swayed me. Mansun was better.

hated its disavowal of any post-1970 influences

?? Oasis were knee-deep in glam references. Gary Glitter sued them for fuck's sake!

pistols influence too, esp on the 1st album. The Gallaghers never even mentioned the beatles until the 2nd album came out and liam got into them

I could push that year back. My sense, at the time, was the britpop genre was an ancilliary to "Fortress Britain" ideas of a world prior to Jamaican & West African immigration, prior to disco, electro, hip hop (all deeply non-anglo) influences. I find its fine for genre cul-de-sacs to retreat into self-absorbtion for a while, often self-reinventions occur. But at the time, and from thousands of miles away, it seemed strange for the "center" of a mongrel pop culture to become suddenly so chaste...

Jamaican & West African immigration started in like 1947 or something

to help rebuild post-war britain

Though Blur did have the music hall influence

i don't think it's that simple though, cuz didn't noel and liam like dance music? noel worked with chemical bros. and shit like that...pulp and blur also made overtures to dance too

though maybe i'm wrong i thankfully don't know that much abt brit pop

They had several dance acts supporting them too.

Noel did listen to a lot of dance music supposedly

infact everyone was expecting the 3rd album to be their screamadelica, hence the disappointment when be here now came out (despite all the 9/10 reviews)

yeah I won't rep for every britpop band but I think tarring them with some kind of WHITES ONLY regressive tag is some specious reasoning

like don't take Geir's word for it knowhutimean

also....all the brit pop dudes prolly had to go to the dance scene for drugs at some point

lol didn't one of the Blur dudes go all West African himself at some point? (I don't keep track of these guys)

A lot of early britpop fans were part of the madchester scene so were very much into dance music. With dadrock (which noel has to take the blame for) things did change. But you can only blame the brit public for that, they bought it in droves.

i blame the british public for a whole lotta things tbh

TBH, what I really disliked about Britpop at the time is that it displaced media interest from really fertile areas that were being explored by the "Lost Generation" bands (Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, Insides, etc). It had its own set of geniuses, but novelty seekers like yours truly were bound to be underwhelmed.

As to Mansun, awful name, poor image management, but they had one of the best melodic senses of any of that generation.

I played pool with Mansun once. I had one of those rare sessions where *everything* went in. I could see them rolling their eyes, thinking I was a shark, but I wasn't, I was just really lucky.

Generally speaking, the albums with 2 or more votes seem to be higher quality than those with 1 vote.

this is why i didn't give anything enough points to make it into the poll w/o anyone else voting for it, i'd feel weird and guilty about it.

I can't wait til LJ works up the pivot tables on this bitch.

I only voted 1 record high enough to know it will absolutely make it in and was reasonable w/ my points elsewhere. But now I am starting to worry that if fucking Earl Brutus or whatever makes it in over [rap classic a] or [rap classic b] then ilx is fucked up and we need to make the rap listening club compulsory.

I only voted 1 record high enough to know it will absolutely make it in and was reasonable w/ my points elsewhere. But now I am starting to worry that if fucking Earl Brutus or whatever makes it in over [rap classic a] or [rap classic b] then ilx is fucked up and we need to make the rap listening club compulsory.

― tart w/ a heart (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, May 4, 2010 6:51 PM (6 minutes ago)

No need to take it out on Earl Brutus that record deserves its place.

yeah my bad, couldn't think of another record while being grouchy.

I remember hearing about the Straitjacket Fits. I've never heard their music, but's a pretty cool band name. I'd really like to hear Johnny Fever defend them.

― M. Loh, Tuesday, May 4, 2010 9:36 PM (2 hours ago)

Melt is about layers of guitar over somewhat straightforward songwriting, kind of like most dreampop at the time. However, Straitjacket Fits had a little bit of a taste for more ambitious structures and chord progressions. Nobody will ever prove it, but I think Thom Yorke and the Radiohead fellas listened to Melt quite a bit when they were working on their own first album. Anyway, it's a great album with some absolutely wonderful songs and great guitar playing that I have some pleasant memories attached to but also still love objectively to this day.

xpost Sorry I got a little defensive there as I really love that band.

I am starting to think some of the albums I thought would easily make it won't. My highest points were below the lowest album on this list, I'm lucky that three of my choices had a couple of other fans. Its frustrating but it's also making the list really unpredictable and interesting.

well i agree but grouchy

Anyway, WTF? I haven't bagged on anyone else's choices, so why does my (ONLY, so far) choice have to be justified? Eff you Ismael, Shakey, ilxor, Kitchen Person.

For the record, that fucking Slint record is garbage. I've always thought that. I wasn't going to point that out here, though, because it was a pretty light atmosphere before.

Listening to Six on spotify and....not really feeling it so far. Sounds like it warrants more than a cursory stream listen though.

Not looking forward to defending my no 1 oh dear

xp:

Yeah dude, I was kinda worried about the non keepin'-in-positive tone of the comments upthread. Plus, LJ encouraged me to represent for my somewhat-arcane choice that I awarded a ton of points to, so I figured you deserved the same fair treatment.

Anyway, WTF? I haven't bagged on anyone else's choices, so why does my (ONLY, so far) choice have to be justified? Eff you Ismael, Shakey, ilxor, Kitchen Person.

I wasn't yawning about your album (which I haven't heard), just the lack of any sort of interesting discussion or posting activity.

everyone will have a chance to pile on my albums, don't worry!

xpost to Johnny Fever: I'm sorry I didn't mean to attack your choice personally, there's been loads of records in this list that I have never heard of and yours was one of them. No need to justify your choice or the points you gave it.

For the record The Divine Comedy album that made the list was my first choice to appear and I think that's had the most negative comments so far.

i have to say...slint hasn't aged that well for me

― the Rob Based god (M@tt He1ges0n), den 4 maj 2010 19:15 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i feel the opposite. still think it's really original and idiosyncratic guitar music, but it's definitely possible i haven't heard what new stuff that's come along since then to make it sound dated

It's okay, everybody... hugs and kisses!!!

I'll take that elfing - just hadn't heard of it was all. I'd assumed the band was called Melt, actually, that'd've been very nineties-generic

Many invested their youth in shoegaze.
Many invested their youth in Britpop.
Many invested their youth in IDM.
Many invested their youth in Amerindie.
Many invested their youth in Trip-hop.

We've all been disappointed. Most of us grew up.

All I know of Straitjacket Fits is Hail. I like it though!

Was bummed that I forgot to vote for Julian Cope's Jehovahkill, so it's nice to see Peggy Suicide turn up.

I actually haven't been disappointed. I've found plenty of music to like in every single year since I left high school in 1992, though some years are definitely better than others, and some styles are definitely much longer-lasting than others. I guess I just place the music of my youth in beautiful and untouchable amber, while everything since then is still open to critical evaluation and positioning and could be thrown out of favor at any moment even while its enjoyed.

The music from your teen years will remain the best music ever for the rest of your life. Right or wrong?

We've all been disappointed. Most of us grew up.

into soulless ilm posters

lol I knew a hoy hoy would fucking hate Earl Brutus

as I get older I really don't listen to stuff that I was into 10 years earlier or whatever - I hardly listen to anything that was current when I was a teenager/in college, for ex. there are things I'm perenially fascinated by, but oddly they are more often than not things that came out either before I was born or when I was a young child and was oblivious to their existence (the Beatles, Zep, the Beach Boys, P-Funk, reggae, etc.)

there are some exceptions, some of which will appear in this poll haha