Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 1998 poll

we are already up to 1998, this summer has been fast.

This Is Hardcore

BoC

Car Wheels

BoC

― austinato (Austin), Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:27 PM

+1

A notable lull between '97 and '99.

or i should say, this summer has been flying by.

My fave of these years if we're going by just these lists alone. All of these are like A-range great:

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
OutKast - Aquemini
Madonna - Ray of Light
Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue
Belle and Sebastian - The Boy with the Arab Strap
Hole - Celebrity Skin

...and I may finally be coming around a bit on Miseduaction after all this time too!

lauren hill
aquemini
beta band

Mutations.

AQUEMINI

^^^^^^^^

Huh. Very possibly TNT.

This year was dud as fuck.

No it wasn't.

But if anyone thinks this list actually represents "the best of '98" they're out of their minds.

This year was dud as fuck.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, August 20, 2015 6:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

If I had to pick a least favourite year of the '90s for music, 1998 would be my immediate answer.

I suppose I agree but as far as "the worst year of the decade" goes it was still pretty good (compared to the worst year from other decades). Fugazi, Cardigans & Hum released their best albums this year. And hundreds of great singles that aren't represented in the OP.

Refused

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

I'd been casually buying old records for a few years before 1998, but looking at this list reminds me of why I began doing it in earnest right around then. 1998, 99 and 2000 are all kind of blur to me re: new music at the time because I had my head buried pretty deeply in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Whenever I'd come up for air, people would be talking about fucking Neutral Milk Hotel and I'd back away slowly and go put on some William Bell or The Troggs or something.

Never heard -- or heard of -- lots of these. Wasn't Adore 1998?

Gotta be Mezzanine. I'm hoping Geogaddi will show up in 2002 so I can give BoC some love.

May have been a dud year, but there sure was a LOT of great albums:
Air - Moon Safari
Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
OutKast - Aquemini
Madonna - Ray of Light
Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 - Live 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert

Voting Madonna, perfect late 90s album, great sound, coherence, emotion. Air/Dylan a close 2nd/3rd.

I love Frozen, but I hate the title track of Ray of Light so much.

i prefer "dud years" because "dud years" are more interesting. power vacuums enable the weirdos, which is good as long as you're talking about art.

I lovelovelove The 3 EP's. Mainly the lazy way it flows. I mean, the music is adventurous and great, but what's unique for me is the tripartite structure and sense of the album being a journey into the monolith and back to some sort of reality again.

Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come is my choice. Such a seminal album, I remember being floored by it when a friend took it over to my then- hardcore bands' practice room. We didn't rehearse that evening. We just sat around our boombox listening to it over and over. Saw Refused live that summer twice, right before they were planning to go the USA and split up. They were raging. I sincerely thought it was the best hardcore band ever (for us Euro kids Refused was quite a big deal).

3EPs is great but it makes me feel a bit nauseous sometimes. Monolith is one of those great lost 90s epics.

This isn't actually as bad a year as I remember. Plenty to choose from. Gonna vote Hello Nasty. I don't listen to it any more, but it felt so momentous at the time and I still see it as a flagship album for the year. To me, it spearheaded that renewed interest in eighties ephemera that would come to epitomise the coming decade, but taking it from a golden age of hip hop POV rather than electro.

although I could easily vote for Air, NMH, Mercury Rev, BOC, Outkast, Beta Band, Elliott Smith, REM and others.

New year, same drill. I'll post a personalised addendum in a bit. For me, this was a better year than 1997, I think, and even this list has quite a bit of stuff I still love, although billstevejim is quite correct above

my write-in vote is LP5 by Autechre.

I was all over Gastre Del Sol's Camofleur in 1998, but would probably vote for Gas's Zauberberg in hindsight

Gastr

Never heard -- or heard of -- lots of these. Wasn't Adore 1998?

― Sam Weller, Thursday, August 20, 2015 10:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

huh, i'd have thought that'd be in there.

never knowingly heard Gastr del Sol but whenever I hear the name, I just think 'trapped wind'

Lucinda, though I probably listen to Moon Safari more.
Has anyone actually heard the Costello? Thoughts?

I imagine it's like this = awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK2ABpZ4F3s

I was all over Gastre Del Sol's Camofleur in 1998, but would probably vote for Gas's Zauberberg in hindsight

― feargal czukay (NickB), Thursday, August 20, 2015 6:16 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I think I prefer Camoufleur to anything on this list. But I prefer Royal Trux - Accelerator to anything else that was released in '98. By like a country mile.

Oh, wait, christ...how is Moon Pix not in this list?!

Massive Attack, Boards Of Canada, Outkast, The Beta Band, Beastie Boys, PJ Harvey, and Mark Hollis are the only ones I care about. Maybe Air on a lazy day.

That Neutral Milk Hotel album will never not be horrific wailing to me.

It will never not be horrific either.

I don't know how long it's going to take for everyone to acknowledge that the first NMH album is the better NMH album. But it'll happen eventually. I can feel it.

I want to know how I was able to go almost twenty years without ever laying eyes on this amazingly incongruent cover art:

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0001/506/MI0001506241.jpg

1998 does feel like a weak year to me. As did 2008. I don't like the idea of 'weak' years - I suspect it means you weren't trying hard enough as a listener - but the fact that there seems to be a general consensus that they were weak is intriguing. Ontologically, how and why would this happen, both as a perception of lack of quality records and/or as an actual lack of quality (were it quantifiable)?

That NMH is indeed an acquired taste! The list has my #1, but my #2 is Arto Lindsay - Noon Chill. I guess a lost classic now? Or was it never found? See also Boredoms, Tom Zé, Cornelius. Cool to see the Mark Hollis in there. Didn't expect to see 'em that high but there's other rock beyond QOTSA - Turbonegro, Motorpsycho, Solstice, Blind Guardian, Afghan Whigs. I suddenly have the urge to listen to Long Fin Killie!

I'd say 1998 was solid, not weak. Just not as many career peaks from certain artists as other years.

yeah it's a good album but the combo of really agressively strummed guitar + dude trying to sing as LOUDLY AS HE CAN (without yelling) is a real turn off

It took a full listen for me to warm up to it again this time. Now I'm on like my eighth listen in the last couple days. *cough*

I'm not sure if it gets better in later tracks, but the middle stretch is where the lyrics get particularly obsessive and sad.

i wasn't drawn to ITAOTS the first time i heard it. i think i was expecting some OTC-style psychedelic whimsy and all i got was a guy strumming acoustic way too hard and singing in this really off-putting voice. but after a bit of perseverance i found there was a lot more to it than that. i'm a big fan of some of the instrumentation on the album - those whistles and woodwinds are very evocative and it's got an enjoyable steam-goth storyline with some very unusual imagery going through it.

It might help if you know going in that 'King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2 & 3' is sung from the perspective of a frustrated boyfriend on the phone with his girlfriend: "I love you! Jesus christ!...Jesus christ...I. Love. You... Yes. I do. (heavy sigh)'

― One Wittle Wee-Wee (Old Lunch), Monday, 24 August 2015 14:54 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ugh.

I think I just have to accept it's really not for me and I'll always find the acclaim baffling.

That was a joke, btw.

Sorry, couldn't tell.

phew, i was a bit worried that was what it was supposed to be.

It's not for everyone. And I think the most baffling thing is how the conversation around it seems to be that it should be for everyone. That it's this whimsical nice indie-record about loss and outsiders like Anne Frank and Two-Headed Boys. It's not. It's deranged noisy shouting about the holocaust...

I hated it at first but somehow grew to really love it. I think it was that the melody of "Two-Headed Boy" kept sticking in my head even though I hated Mangum's voice originally and I'd go back to listen to it despite his voice. I think I started to appreciate his voice better when someone pointed out that he generally managed to keep his pitch pretty accurate no matter how loud and strained he got in his upper register or how long he held some of those notes.

In an Aeroplane... is the most wretchedly awful record I try to listen to every time I see all the love for it. I think I've never made it past the first two tracks so it might get better afterwards but I somehow doubt it.

― Hamsters of Misfortune (ultros ultros-ghali), Monday, August 24, 2015 1:46 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've heard it in full a couple of times and, truth be told, I don't see what all the fuss is about. It strikes me as being one of those hipster totems that people put on a pedestal to such a ridiculous degree and froth at the mouth over, yet whenever I hear it it's like "really, folks? this is what you're getting in a lather about?"

I still haven't voted, but that's because I'm torn between The Three EPs and Mutations. Go with the latter as the former isn't really an album…nah, go with the former as it's really & truly incredible

I DON'T KNOW

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

LOL hipsters.

was not expecting a landslide, wow.

haha negative campaigning always backfires in ilm polls

I was pretty much expecting a landslide. Whattayagonnado.

Glad to see there are four other people on the TNT train!

Only 2 for Pulp is a bit surprising. I figured that was a contender.

Jeez people really like this garbage don't they

voted Mutations in the end (his best imo) but if I'd voted T3EPs they'd have both gotten the saaaaame. aw

my feelings on NMH are that hey it's ok, the second half is actually kinda great (well, Ghost->Untitled is, the whole album shd have been like that) but i will never rly choose to hear it

Wow, I have never heard that NMH album. Maybe I should.

Wah way lower showing for MA than I would've guessed.

I can't get through the first song of NMH, it's quite antithetical to my taste in music.

I was thinking the same thing about Massive Attack. I definitely expected it to be in the top five.

I am listening to In the Aeroplane for the first time right now. Holy shit this guy's voice is annoying.

That's kinda the essential "first listen" experience with that album. I remember really raising my friends' hackles by just dismissing it out of hand, on that basis, from like sophomore year of college through graduation or something. Then suddenly it clicked. It never became a deep album at the core of my heart, and I never sat down and listened to it as a Concept Album (like, paying attention to and processing all the Holocaust material) but I think it's really solid and it's amazing how often "King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1" gets stuck in my head now. It's really sad and honest in remembering and honoring the beautiful moments of youthful intimacy right in the thick of wretched circumstances.

I don't honestly know how much time I would've given Aeroplane if NMH hadn't previously accrued massive goodwill from me for their amazing live show. But NMH were my gateway into Elephant 6, which yielded a lot of my favorite music from the late '90s, so they'll always be swell on that tip.

xp I get those opening 'Chang Chang Chang chakachaka Chang Chang' chords stuck in my head all the time

I just realized that Zeek Sheck's Good Luck, Suckers was a 1998 release. Maybe not my top pick but way up there.

for me it is The Boo Radleys Kingsize that is my favorite release from the year.

btw, 1999 won't be coming tonight as i'm taking the week off. it will come out in a weeks time.

sad to see only one other vote for Hello Nasty. That was such an important album for me and my friends. We'd only discovered how amazing the Beastie Boys were the year before and we were so psyched for it. Bought it the day it came out and just rinsed it to death. It's a really fun album - some days my favourite by them.

The Beasties were really fun...I miss 'em. One of a kind.

I don't honestly know how much time I would've given Aeroplane if NMH hadn't previously accrued massive goodwill from me for their amazing live show. But NMH were my gateway into Elephant 6, which yielded a lot of my favorite music from the late '90s, so they'll always be swell on that tip.

― Herbie Mann's Push Push Pops (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 25 August 2015 16:06 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like Olivia Tremor Control a hell of a lot. By comparison, NMH always sounded painfully ordinary to me and nothing particularly special... just painfully ordinary music with a woeful singer.

Had my 1998 playlist on random - Royal Trux, Swervedriver, The Black Heart Procession, Unwound, Yungchen Lhamo, The Loud Family, Rachid Taha, Eels, Fugazi, Northwinds, Sunny Day Real Estate, Zeke, Ui, Hector Zazou, Leila, Sixteen Horsepower, Plush, Sloan, Baaba Maal, King Sunny Ade, Talvin Singh, Pere Ubu, Amon Tobin, Monster Magnet, Rocket from the Crypt, Mark Lanegan, Spoon, Colour Haze, The Daktaris, Shellac, Calexico, The Handsome Family, Orange Goblin. More fun hearing a lot of this for the first time in years than listening to the top ten poll winners!

Arto Lindsay covering Prince (it's from the previous year's album Mundo Civilizado, but Noon Chill is just as great): https://youtu.be/tVRze5vJxD8

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea 19
This was a shit album. Polls = hell. People are better off not knowing what the hive mind thinks (and if you have the hive mind I envy and pity you). I blame pitchfork for encouraging this behavior

FFS, that message was supposed to be merely a precursor to a post I had about Arto Lindsay but I can't find the youtube I was looking for.
All hail Arto!

I'm now imagining an actual hive filled with the buzzing of hipsters.

is one of the bees crying in the corner

I don't think NMH winning is anything to do with people following each other but due to their awful taste.

Darn would have voted either Mark Hollis or Calexico. Poor Calexico...

xpost:

Possibly both?

it really only makes sense that In the Aeroplane Over the Sea walked in this poll. not for everyone, agreed but always laugh when people go to great lengths to criticize it and put people down who love it. for me, it's one of the best albums if not the best album from the 90's. albums like this has people putting album art on their bodies, not many albums can say that.

drunk so = fuck off haters!

http://c0.thejournal.ie/media/2013/01/tatt3-319x500.jpg

(I love No Jacket Required though)

lol

you have a point.

Looks like Darth Maul has fallen on hard times.

catching up on this thread and kinda bummed that a handful of dismissive anonymous internet dudes with much better taste in music than me have successfully overthrown my 17+ years of loving Aeroplane :(

I cannot get into Aeroplane as an album much at all but I cant be too mad it walked because "Holland 1945" is still one of my all-time favorite songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAygQls6UNo