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

Are Built To Spill gonna dominate the higher echelons of this poll?

I'm guessing yes.

Y'all forgetting Color Me Badd.

77= The Auteurs - New Wave (1993)
38 points
2 votes
1 first-place vote
Greatest contributor: purrington

http://www.merseyside.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/the-auteurs-new-wave.jpg

I loved this album upon its release. "Starstruck" and "American Guitars" are wonderful songs. The problem is Haines' vocals: he sings like a wuss. Even Neil Tennant sang with more force.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 15 July 2005 19:12 (4 years ago)

An EVIL wuss. Very important.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Saturday, 16 July 2005 19:00 (4 years ago)

i like this record a lot.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Monday, 6 August 2007 15:22 (2 years ago)

joseph cotten (joseph cotten) wrote this on thread TS: Definitely Maybe vs. Parklife vs. Different Class vs. Dog Man Star on board I Love Music on 03-May-2005

And the answer to the original question is: The Auteurs - New Wave.

did that first Beautiful South album come out in 90? That's my guess for #1 if it did

dom doesn't post here anymore

but yeah the remainder of the poll will be 'sophisticated' Britpop

Gah, this is another one of those threads that bookmarks don't work on. I'm regretting my 10-album ballot now, btw.

Nowt wrong with sophisticated britpop - I think the other Auteurs vote was mine.

ughhhhhhhhh @ the divine comedy, just ugh ugh ugh

74= Burger/Ink - [Las Vegas]
38 points
3 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: Noodle Vague

http://www.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/burgerink.jpg

burger/ink's 'las vegas' is great. for some reason every track on that album has a title that pays tribute to roxy music.

― pro bowl was fun (omar little), Wednesday, 25 February 2009 19:09 (1 year ago)

[las vegas]by Burger/Ink, one of the best albums of the 90's and still sounds so fresh. I think Kompakt could release it now and it would still seem brand new.

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 21 November 2004 15:51 (5 years ago)

Burger/Ink's "Las Vegas" is ageless... which I think is a test for a truly classic album.

HS

― hector savage, Sunday, 21 November 2004 16:49 (5 years ago)

Burger/Ink - Las Vegas is essential. Might be my fav techno lp.

― Ulysses, Monday, 26 November 2007 15:36 (2 years ago)

Burger/Ink's Las Vegas is unstoppable, easily one of the best dance full-lengths ever release.

― Bill in Chicago, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:06 (3 years ago)

This is very true by the way, though I wouldn't call the album "dance". It's the perfect midpoint between Ink's minimalism and Burger's more melodic sensibility, I don't really know any other record that sounds like it.

― Tuomas, Friday, 20 February 2009 07:02 (1 year ago)

e.e. cummingstonite (Noodle Vague) wrote this on thread What is your favorite steady-state record? on board I Love Music on 09-May-2009

Burger/Ink's Las Vegas epitomises this for me. This kind of thing is my favourite sound I think. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is a prototype. Reich, obviously. Basinski's loops. A lot of Bossa does it in its own way. Plenty of Krautrock tracks but can't think of any albums as a whole. Motorik etc.

Have been listening to this for fifteen minutes; am absolutely loving it. All three voters placed it highly. Party poppers going off in Finland.

Never heard of it; intrigued by the comments.

kinda surprised to see some stuff (this is the 3rd instance) I have never, ever heard of (much less actually heard) on here

First one I've never heard of at all.

Shame I'm going out now for a bit! I'll have to pause it. But yeah, I recommend a listen for anyone interested in techno.

I'm on the never heard train on this one. Not much of a techno guy but I'm open to the idea.

I'm obviously delighted The Divine Comedy made the list. I know they split opinion but they've been my very favourite band for a long time now.

I was the other DC vote and am equally delighted!

Burger/Ink is essential. For a few years I was buying used copies and giving them to friends. It's that kind of record. I did the same thing with Vocalcity when it started turning up used.

never heard of burger/ink...very curious now...

this poll is pretty awesome

I didn't notice this list had started until now, maybe put the link on the og thread for others who rely on bookmarks?

Love some of these albums; can't believe I forgot to vote Pharcyde. 2 albums made it already and from the points total, it looks like my #1 will do very well :)

Yeah this poll is terrific. Kudos to teh jag.

I was the other DC vote and am equally delighted!

― Olivier Messiaen Control (Paul in Santa Cruz), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 5:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Casanova was on my list for a while but I ended up just allowing one album by each artist.

Yay for Burger/Ink! That was #3 in my ballot, it's one of the best electronic albums of all time. Like I said in the quote above, it's quite unique in how it sounds, the beats and arrangements pretty much belong into the minimal house/techno category, but the synth sounds and drones remind me of trance, except that they're slower than on any trance record of the era. It's almost like a trance album slowed down to make it home listening music instead of dance.

Divine Comedy is fantastic and I gave them many points, but not for this record! I guess with some effort I can construct an argument for not liking them, but it is wrong.

listening to burger/ink on lala.com now...

i like it

thx to this thread because with that band name i would have NEVER checked them out in a zillion years otherwise

I totally would have had I realized that album existed since I assume it's a collaboration between Mike Ink and Burger Industries, both of who are amazingly awesome.

Listening to burger/ink again, was excited when a friend gave me a copy he nabbed from a give-away bin at a college radio station, because I had heard someone recommend that album long ago. I liked it but I put it aside for awhile until now. Better than I remember!

Evan, you should have voted!

Yeah I know... all I listen to is 90s music. I collect it! Don't know why I didn't.

I'm surprised LJ isn't providing Spotify links in his rundown

http://open.spotify.com/track/0qZ1MpsGN8TsMg2mWcyTTR

^Burger/Ink

but if you have Spotify, just goddamn search it, isn't hard

thx to this thread because with that band name i would have NEVER checked them out in a zillion years otherwise

Well, "Burger" is the other guy's real surname, and the other one was known by the pseudonym "Mike Ink" back in the 90s, hence "Burger/Ink". But I agree it's can sound rather odd if you don't know who these guys are.

74= Electronic - Electronic (1991)
38 points
3 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: Euler

http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/e/electronic/album-electronic.jpg

No Peter Hook on the first Electronic album either and that is one of the best collection of songs ever to come from Bernard Sumner. I love Hooky as much as the next middle aged balding man but I guarantee the Bernard Sumner project is going to piss all over the Freebass/Peter Hook project.

― brotherlovesdub, Saturday, 25 April 2009 15:50 (1 year ago)

It took me one Smiths album to make me realise that Morrossey had lost his sense of humour and write him off. (Though it took 2 Electronic albums to accompish the same thing with Johnny Marr.)

― kate (kate), Friday, 18 July 2003 07:59 (6 years ago)

Relistening to the first album, I was struck by how Marr and Sumner add their respective specialities (the former's melodic acumen and way with a groove, the latter's low boredom threshold and ear for hooks) to what are pretty standard acid-house tracks. My favorite non-classic is "Some Distant Memory," whose production and arrangement (a live oboe solo doubling a synth!) evoke the wistfulness of the title and lyrics.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 11 July 2005 21:29 (4 years ago)

HUGE classic, as is the entirety of the album that spawned it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 01:07 (4 years ago)

My favorite non-classic is "Some Distant Memory"

non-classic? not in my world. one of the very first songs i ever wrote - and boy, that's a long fucking time ago - was a blatant copy. it kind of defined everything a song should be.

for the next six years, i kept trying to get it right. eventually i gave up trying to write songs.

incredible, awesome, teenage-life-defining song. incredible, awesome, entire-life-defining album. "technique" has the edge, but only slightly.

no love for "gangster"? perhaps it was moving to glasgow that made it work for me, but suddenly it made sense. a truly incredible song, and barney's single greatest lyric.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 27 May 2006 23:50 (3 years ago)

New order are officially my FAVOURITE BAND, but the first electronic album is my FAVOURITE NEW ORDER ALBUM, and the third electronic album is the BEST THING NEW ORDER HAVE DONE SINCE TECHNIQUE EXCEPT FOR THE FIRST ELECTRONIC ALBUM, even though electronic != new order.

Get The Message was one of my learning-to-play-the-piano songs. It'll always mean a lot to me.

― JimD (JimD), Sunday, 28 May 2006 00:54 (3 years ago)

"Gangster" is fucking awesome. Really, the only song on this album that isn't fucking awesome is "Idiot Country".

― HI DERE, Thursday, 16 August 2007 12:36 (2 years ago)

Love this album, but the fact that Johnny Marr only has one visible eye on the cover has always bugged the shit out of me for reasons I can't explain. Move to your right one step, Johnny Marr!

At what point are we going to take a significant leap from albums scoring in the 30-40 pt range?

just to clarify, "Idiot Country" is very good compared to everything else's fucking awesome

never xp

Yay, another one of mine. It's quite lovely, but one thing that's been bothering me about it is the drums - it's like they've just settled for the first pattern the keyboard came up with, rather than putting proper care into them. I don't mind that much, but now I can't shake the feeling that I'm listening to the bonus demo disc rather than the real thing.

Really glad to see the Electronic album in the list. It's full of great tunes and features some great Barney rapping.

I didn't like this when it came out and never revisited. Might give it another go - it's been long enough it might be enjoyable.

74= Sleep - Dopesmoker (made during mid-90's, edited version released as 'Jerusalem' in 1999, finally released 2003)
38 points
3 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: Captain Ahab

http://file.blog-shinjuku-metal.diskunion.net/Sleep-Dopesmoker.jpg

High On Fire puts me to sleep. Sleep gets me high.

― - (smile), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:29 (4 years ago)

PROCEED THE WEEDIAN.

NAZARETH!

― peter smith (plsmith), Saturday, 30 July 2005 19:20 (4 years ago)

i can't tell why i love dopesmoker. hearing it makes me want to hear more doom, but on the other hand i wouldnt like the style of singing on dope smoker if the novelty of having a 60 minute journey about weed wasn't present. i can't tell whether i just like them because after smoking a blunt the album is perfect for my state of mind.

― buyabiznatch (buyabiznatch), Monday, 17 October 2005 19:34 (4 years ago)

i always enjoyed listening to it. I have no problem with the length. I'm kinda lazy, so I'm not big on getting up anyway. i was never fanatical enough to buy the later dopesmoker version though. i never cared for the first sleep album. that one bored me, not as good as st. vitus, etc. but, yeah, jerusalem is funny and cool and it is nice and heavy. great riffs. what's not to like?

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:28 (4 years ago)

I listened to Dopesmoker last night for the third time...but I had never been stoned before while listening to it, and had never really paid attention. But last night, I was blunted up and positioned in front of an astounding sound system-- I could feel the bass in every fibre of my body. Totally sick and awesome.

― trees (treesessplode), Thursday, 29 June 2006 15:45 (3 years ago)

yes!

I have Jerusalem and love it but am always kinda baffled about what could possibly be that different about Dopesmoker that makes it categorically "better", as so many claim

It's the way the band wanted it to be heard. It just is ... better

much-loved ilxor 'ilxor' voted for both Dopesmoker and Jerusalem so I combined them into a 2-point single vote, fwiw

a bit of pollster corruption for ya

have this album, haven't listened to it all in one go. need weed.

It's the way the band wanted it to be heard. It just is ... better

which is all as one track, right? but I mean, is it mixed differently too or something? or are parts different? what happened, I am confused.

apparently it's longer, mixed differently, and has more of an intro/outro

were all the drum and bass parts re-recorded by Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin