Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 1998 poll

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)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/moonrockmambo/jewlietattoo.jpg

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.

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)'

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.