Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 1998 poll

Wait, there's a person who thinks End Hits is the best Fugazi album?

me

I've sort of skim-listened both Bwyd Time and Barafundle - they've both got cool moments but it doesn't quite come together until later for me - perhaps I should give both albums another go.

Trust you all to take the corniest thing off my amazing list and make a big deal out of it. Pfah!

That Air album came out of nowhere and was massive that year. I'm sure I dismissed it at the time for being "coffee table music" or "yuppie sex music". I like it now though. That Massive Attack album might be their best. I remember smoking weed for the first time around Xmas 98 and I listened to 'Risingson' and I felt like I was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I'll go for 'Deserters Songs" tho. It lacks the wildness the made early MR so great but it's a beautiful album for various different reasons.

I've sort of skim-listened both Bwyd Time and Barafundle - they've both got cool moments but it doesn't quite come together until later for me - perhaps I should give both albums another go.

― Yul Brynner playing table tennis with a deviled kidney (imago), Thursday, August 20, 2015 4:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You should give Patio and Tatay a go.

I think I'm in the minority here but I think 10,000hz the legend is Air's best album. so proggy compared to moon safari, which is a nice chill record but also sounds a bit 'brie' in places

I'm with you on that one tbf

10,000hz Legend is great. I like a lot of Moon Safari but have never fully connected with it. I looooooove Premiers Symptômes, though.

Talkie Walkie is the only Air album I ever have any desire to hear.

aw, it's nice enough but it's only got like 2 or 3 songs i'd call classics (cherry blossom girl is *extremely* classic, though, i'll grant, alpha beta gaga great too)

btw heads up, i've looked at the '99 list and hoo boy i'm gonna have a list of like not exaggerating 30+ albums i'd genuinely prefer to virtually all of them. get stoked ilm

I mean, compared to '99, this year's list is really, really solid & a good selection that represents its year well. Might even vote in this one! But yeah, '99 is a year of genuinely insane riches - I won't be doing any list of my own choices from 2000 onwards because it just felt like music exploded in 1999 and after that there was too much to keep track of, or something

Since Rhythm-al-ism isn't on the list I'll go w Aquemini.

PJ Harvery > Boards of Canada > Massive Attack > Air

Erm....Harvery?

harvey made you think harvester which made you think carvery imo

For albums that made me reconsider what music could be, this poll is between Refused, Beck and GY!BE.

(Remember I was 16 at the time.)

this list needs more Green Pajamas

and Push Kings

oh shit, super ae was this year? would have voted for that in a heartbeat

have boredoms been represented in any of these polls? some days when i feel like they basically won the 90s

they will show up next year.

I'll be interested in the '99 poll cos in my head that's an extremely weak year.

I was exaggerating when I said I'd have thirty '99 faves to prefer to the AM list. But there are about ten unbelievable highs which aren't even on the longlist

I'm going to probably vote in this one, validating everything that's wrong with ILM. But for what? Plenty suggests itself.

Good shout on 6x7, imago.

1999 is a funny one; looking at the AM list there are a handful I liked a lot at the time but don't revisit now (Flips, Sigur Ros, Death In Vegas, Kelis), some I passed over and have since rediscovered (Mos Def, Underworld, Low), a couple of weird outliers (Make-Up, Jim O'Rourke), and a few I still really, really like (SFA, Boredoms, D Plan, Orbital). I feel like there's quite a few things out of my peripheral vision though, that I can't quite recall, or which I don't associate with being from 1999.

Bwyd Time and Barafundle are brilliant compared to Gorky5 - that album is patchy as heck.

OTM! And the singles around that time... there's a couple of collections ("20" and "Introducing") and they have p. similar tracklistings but are great

(my copy of "Introducing" mysteriously appears to end halfway through a track but perhaps it is supposed to?)

Anyway I guess I'm voting for BoC above TNT, 3 EPs, Aquemini. Might have voted for Zauberberg or the Notwist's "Shrink" (sort of my at-the-time pick, though I didn't hear it until '99) if present. Glad imago reminded me of Quickspace and Ganger. I suppose for me this was a year not of mindblowing revelations but a lot of understated signposts down interesting paths

TBF Gorky 5 redeems itself with 'Hush the Warmth' which is my favourite song by them and the song that got me into them.

I know Smashing Pumpkins' Adore is divisive but if you whittled it down to like ten songs it's great. For Martha, Once Upon a Time, Blank Page are gems.

it is good. like you say, could do with a trim around the ears but still got some great moments.

Pulp over NMH/Elvis Costello/Outkast/Lauryn/Elliott Smith/R.E.M./etc.

NMH for me. I go through phases with this album, but it's sounding really great right now.

it's an album's album, whatever that means

Voted for Lauryn Hill. I seem to love that record more and more as the years go by.

Finalists:

Outkast
Hole
PJ Harvey
Pulp
Bragg-Wilco

The Lucinda Williams and Lauryn Hill albums have to my ears the same number of dud songs. I like'em though.

Mark Hollis

Ray of Light in 2nd place

Would vote for Super Roots 7 in a hot second over everything though.

Loved Gastr's Mirror Repair, Crookt Crackt or Fly, Upgrade & Afterlife and The Harp Factory on Lake Street but man I HATED Camofleur bitterly

Fuck an NMH

Why does Cameron Diaz's hair stick up like that? 90s thing?

That's the something about Mary. Her hair sticks up.

Ummmmm, you should probably just watch the movie, andrew.

Loved Gastr's Mirror Repair, Crookt Crackt or Fly, Upgrade & Afterlife and The Harp Factory on Lake Street but man I HATED Camofleur bitterly

I guess I get this, inasmuch as Camoufleur is occasionally pretty and tuneful? Which is not a dig on the earlier, noiser, more experimental and atonal stuff, which I also love.

This is absolutely In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This Is Hardcore and Mutations would be my next two.

BoC just over NMH

Have repped for a lot of these at one point or another, but none of them that I'd still say are just all-time super-classics except maybe Aeroplane. Voting Mutations, of which I'm the fondest. Just sounds good. Fun to sing along to, probably his most consistent record.

Why does Cameron Diaz's hair stick up like that? 90s thing?

Ummmmm, you should probably just watch the movie, andrew.

lol, something about male body fluids...

Voted NMH but my two favourite albums of '98 aren't on the list - Fugazi's End Hits and Sunny Day Real Estate's How It Feels to Be Something On.

Ooooh, good call on the SDRE record, one of my all time favs.

Acclaimed Music is updater their site today, glad there is only one year left but the change seems to be minor. he has added Genres and the list is moving around a bit on the Albums side.

Songs of the 1990's will start around Halloween, would be great if there is no update to Songs by then.

xp The Argument is actually my favorite Fugazi record, but I know a handful of people who love EndHits the best.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Aquemini without looking at the other options

(But shoutouts to Elliott Smith & QOTSA) (also A Thousand Leaves, Accelerator, Super Roots 7, Adore, Rhythm-a-lisms, How It Feels to Be Something On, they all deserved to be on here)