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

I've always preferred Post to Debut, but Post was my introduction to Bjork.

I guess it was the other round for me, for a long time I would have said Debut was my favourite but there's maybe three of her albums I go back to a lot more now.

I was never that fond of debut, the odd couple of tracks aside. for me, post was where she started becoming interesting...

Debut and Post are quite uneven listens for me...two or three classics offset by pockets of duds. Although Post has this colourful eclecticism like a good Basement Jaxx album which gives it a definitive charm as an overall listen. Homogenic is top to bottom perfection, wonderful highlights yet most importantly, more than the sum of its individual components/tracks. Although I was disappointed to see the hating on Alarm Call on a recent thread..

95 Mark Eitzel - Songs Of Love (1991)
33 points
1 vote
0 first-place votes
Contributor: purrington

http://image.musicimport.biz/sdimages/disk3/201622.jpg

he's one of the greatest solo live performers ever

― ara, Friday, 12 December 2003 18:54 (6 years ago) Bookmark

Lacking sufficient data, I'll leave Hollis out of this. Kozelek vs. Eitzel, no contest: Eitzel. Anecdotally speaking, both are positively nuts, but at least Eitzel is not the sort of nuts that leads him to start totally sucking at the peak of his career (I'm talkin' bout _Songs for a Blue Guitar_ here). Eitzel's songs are usually better-filled-out and structurally sound, at least harmonically speaking-- he doesn't have to play things at 26bpm to make them sound interesting. His voice is definitely a lot stronger. And when he wallows in self-pity, it's just a bit harder to spot because he's so much more articulate than Kozelek.

I'm a huge fan of both, mind (or at least I was a fan of Kozelek to a point... and I keep hearing about Sun Kil Moon, too, which gives me hope). It should also be pointed out that, despite being a talented songwriter, Eitzel has not yet mastered the art of tuning a guitar during a performance.

― r, Friday, 12 December 2003 17:19 (6 years ago) Bookmark

also, cool thing happened at mergefest last summer - eitzel was on the bill with she & him. naturally the turnout for she & him was past-capacity & there were lots of people in the crowd, some of them friends of mine, who had no idea who eitzel was and who weren't really planning on paying a lot of attention - they were there for the marquee act. eitzel proceeded to completely blow them all away. people went from "who is this guy?" to "this is the best show of the festival!" & were talking about it forever. and some of us back-in-the-day types were like, fuck yeah, score one for our side mark

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Sunday, 24 January 2010 15:32 (3 months ago) Bookmark

hi lj how long will it take you to reveal the entire list?

A single vote? Well done that man.

About a week or so! Maybe less if I get into a groove. This week is a bit manic work-wise but tbh the more I have to do the harder I work, so this'll definitely form a substantial part of my ergonomic drive.

Anyway, this latest album. Just when you thought you were reading any old poll...

(I can confirm things are gonna get interesting, also would quite like to hear Eitzel now)

so far there's been 4 albums that i have/enjoy but didn't vote for (Buhloone, End Hits, Washing Machine and Debut). the De La just barely got cut from the end of my ballot where i gave a bunch of albums 1 point each, and i voted for different albums by Fugazi, SY and Bjork.

no wait i didn't vote for Bjork because Post was on the other list.

Spotify links:

Peng!
Apple Venus #1 - not on Spotify?
Buhloone Mind State - not there either
End Hits - nope
Woodface
Washing Machine
Debut
Songs of Love Live

Who is purrington?

strongo hulkington's cat iirc

Only one of mine so far (Peng!), presumably because the rest are in positions 1-15. Might have voted for Debut if I'd been reminded of it.

this wasn't even purrington's #1

94 Elliott Smith - Either/Or (1997)
33 points
3 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: billstevejim

http://betterpropaganda.com/images/artwork/EitherXOr-Elliot_Smith_480.jpg

agh i cant stop listening to elliott smith agh

― 69 (plsmith), Friday, 5 January 2007 18:49 (3 years ago)

On the way to school today I sang along to Either/Or and enjoyed the hopefulness and feelings of change the songs invoke in me.

Also, everytime my thoughts return to where they were yesterday, the image of him in his last moments and how he must have felt, I'm forcing them back to happy memories like sharing a joint with him or watching him play. Today will be a better day.

I won't subject my kids to him again but I'm not ready for hip-hop. Today we're listening to Miles Davis.

― A Girl Named Sam (thatgirl), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:01 (6 years ago) Bookmark

This is really sad... I was a fan, not so much of the last couple of records but Either/Or was the soundtrack to a really difficult time - I haven't been able to listen to it for years but maybe I should dig it out now.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 October 2003 07:11 (6 years ago) Bookmark

Before he got all
Chest stabby; his music was
So very pretty.

-a hoy hoy

Tough call between this and his s/t album as my favorite ES album of the '90s (and that doesn't even include Heatmiser).

first album from my ballot! i gave it 2 whole points!

2 essential points

92= The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde (1992)
33 points
4 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributors: lamp, parenthetical grillz

http://lyrics.smashits.com/artwork/38/3882af189d72624b10adb186cb852670.jpg

Unbelievably, there hasn't been a thread devoted to Pharcyde, who are, in my opinion, one of the best rap groups ever. I think one listen to the first album could convince most people that this is the direction that rap music should have gone in instead of gangsta. Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde is really an amazing album. The beats, courtesy of J-Swift, are great-- fun, jazzy, and upbeat; the lyrics are funny, self-deprecating, and jocular. What's really refreshing is that Pharcyde is just good fun without all the posturing, braggadocio, and hardness that comes out of a lot of rap. Listening to the first album is like hanging out with friends, a feeling that I rarely get from music, much less rap albums. Moreover, it's actually catchy.

You can't walk away from this album without feeling good. Pharcyde is like a better version of ATCQ-- one with funnier lyrics and better production. For this album alone, I say CLASSIC, but there are a number of good tracks on the second album too.

Has anyone who has heard Pharcyde not like them?

― punis (punis), Tuesday, 30 May 2006 20:00 (3 years ago) Bookmark

C/D : Pharcyde

I just noticed that rollercoaster comes out of an iron vagina.

Or goes into one, rather.

vagina dentata, no less (gotta say I noticed as soon as I GIS'd it)

Well I'll be ... I cut it late from my ballot, probably would've been worth a point for that

surprised to see debut so low! first from my ballot. i basically gave 20 points to 10 albums.

^^this is Al3x B, whose username I got wrong. He is a Greatest Contributor!

so proud

92= The Afghan Whigs - Black Love (1996)
33 points
4 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: M4tt H3lg3s0n

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IUKLs8mpGpk/SW-SzYzYhuI/AAAAAAAABr0/lDORqo0NNAc/s320/aw.jpg

Black Love can be fun if you want a 70's spy/cop show atmosphere thrown on top of things.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 18:11 (7 years ago)

Man, there is some great Shaft-style hi-hat + wacka-wacka guitar on Black Love.

― ilx chilton (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 January 2009 04:21 (1 year ago)

Destroy: Black Love. A meandering, hookless soup of despair.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 8 November 2003 06:06 (6 years ago)

as a fairly clueless young music fan I bought this without having heard anything by the band... I've never regretted it and keep coming back to it - compare that to all the albums I bought only to find that the single I already had was the only good thing on it or that the band I thought I loved had lost it... "Hookless" = you are on crack.

― Flyboy (Flyboy), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:22 (6 years ago)

Black Love. I could write a Lefsetzian rant on that mofo.

― Terrible Cold, Wednesday, 2 April 2008 16:31 (2 years ago)

GREAT ALBUM

gerrin there!

I fuck w/ this album.

Would've been on my ballot had I narrowed it down to top ten.

lol

91 Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel
34 points
1 vote
1 first-place vote
Contributor: The Lex

http://everythingtori.com/pm/uploads/music/tori_choirgirl.jpg

so this is probably my default favourite tori amos album, and therefore my default favourite album of the 90s. it's certainly amos at the height of her powers - somehow both her most accessible and her most experimental.

huge, huge turnaround from her previous work in that, having previously used a full band only occasionally, and mostly almost as an afterthought, the use of not just the band but weird electronic excursions on from the choirgirl hotel is so full-blooded and committed - "spark" for example is structurally and melodically a classic amos ballad but the surging arrangement lends it a real extra power. the whole album is really percussive - even on the ballads, the sense of rhythm is extraordinary.

anyway, lots to choose from! probably her most accomplished example of songcraft, "playboy mommy"; the aqueous percussion-and-bass of "liquid diamonds"; the deeply fucking weird electronic/structural mentalism of "iieee" and "hotel"; the, uh, cock-rock pastiche of "she's your cocaine"; the way she reacted to the van helden remix by making a pounding house joint herself - and pulling it off, "raspberry swirl" is a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXjMgolX3IM

i can't choose, like, at all.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 31 March 2010 15:25 (3 weeks ago)

omg i listened to from the choirgirl hotel for the first time in about a year last night, on the late train back to london - it fit the mood perfectly - and noted just that song! MINDMELD. i remember how, when it came out, that album blew my mind sonically, especially 'liquid diamonds': it's as if someone explained to tori that genres like free jazz and trip-hop existed, but that she didn't bother to listen to them before doing her take on them.

'liquid diamonds' is very...aquatic, but also decadent. a real sea of music.

the other song which still blows my mind is 'hotel' - about six completely different styles of music in one somehow-coherent song! kate bush trapped in a computer game shoot-em-up!

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 10 November 2005 11:18 (4 years ago)

I love anyone who belives in fairys and fucks her paino on stage . She is passionite and has a voice that chills me, one of the better vocalists in the last 25-30 years.

― anthony, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago)

ahh the 1st of the 1 high vote entries

it's gonna be pretty embarassing if my #1 vote is top 20

The Lex's enthusiasm for this record is kinda infectious, I gotta say. Although it only got in because he messed up his ballot and I ended up redistributing what turned out to be enough points to top-100 it.

Will you be posting later the list of albums with most votes?

I will, Pfunkboy

cool poll results thus far!

didn't realize how few points you needed to chart here, did ppl vote for 50 albums each?

To recap:

(tie) 100. Stereolab - Peng! (1992)
(tie) 100. XTC - Apple Venus, Vol. 1 (1999)
(tie) 100. De La Soul - Buhloone Mind State (1993)
(tie) 98. Fugazi - End Hits (1998)
(tie) 98. Crowded House - Woodface (1991)
97. Sonic Youth - Washing Machine (1995)
96. Björk - Debut (1993)
95. Mark Eitzel - Songs of Love (1991)
94. Elliott Smith - Either/Or (1997)
(tie) 92. The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde (1992)
(tie) 92. The Afghan Whigs - Black Love (1996)
91. Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)

This could be the only albums poll in internet/music journo history with Cardiacs in the top ten.

Rejoice!

(Some of these don't seem old enough in my own mind to have been from the '90s. I'm ancient.)

the diamond sea is just about the greatest thing ever and it sort of dwarfs the rest of that album

also has a rly terrible cover

2 of mine made it, (heh the fugazi album i didnt vote for made it so hurrah)

nakhchivan there was a very good mix of voting-styles. (obviously I went with your first ballot, as you'd probably have worked out by now)

and yeah, I won't reveal anything but I am extremely happy with the 100, not for personal reasons but because it's such a delirious spread, and there's so much to hear - I can guarantee nobody on ILM will have heard more than, say, 2/3 of them

The Diamond Sea is so, so, so very good, yeah. I'm also highly partial to Little Trouble Girl

Oh and I do like the Mark Eitzel so it's nice to see that in

10 more tonight I think

I can guarantee nobody on ILM will have heard more than, say, 2/3 of them

Hell, I'm ALREADY batting at about .666