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

But generally it just means someone who's older and been around longer.

20% British, 70% American, 10% Portuguese (including some dual residents of outre space). Whole lotta guitars - some loud, some not - even on the non-indie stuff.

I went for some sort of weird US/Germany/Japan/UK/Norway/Switzerland/New Zealand sandwich.

Good on you, Nick. This poll needs a Dead C album to turn up!

for my part, and i told louis this...

a couple of my rap votes got vetoed for placing on the actual poll (i didn't know that was a rule at first)

so...anyway the way i voted was basically i voted for the 90s as i listened to them THEN, not as i would now, if that makes sense.

i basically voted for the albums that i listened to the shit out of then.

tuomas:

it's so funny because i always associate your tastes in hip hop especially as being really stuck in the 90s, even more than mine so i think this whole line is pretty lol

I'm not sure if I get you... My taste in rap is indeed pretty 90s-centric, but I wasn't saying anything about rap in this poll, just about the rock/electronic music ratio. I'm happy if there'll be more rap in here than in the previous poll.

i dunno....i guess i felt like this poll was supposed to be super quirky and personal and weird resultswise, like it's not supposed to be some "defining" thing at all, so who cares if there's not enough X genre in it

there won't be so many today...i'm going out later + i have super-pressing work concerns :(

this will probably spill into next week, if that isn't too much of an issue

you savage

I don't think people should vote based on a quota for certain genres, but anyway, my ballot was 57% rock, 23% hip-hop, with the remaining 20% fairly evenly divided between jazz, electronic, classical, and other. Geographically, it was about 60% American, with the rest fairly evenly divided between UK, Scotland, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, and Sweden.

UK, Scotland

Are they the same? I dunno. They seem distinct in my mind.

Scotland is a part of the UK. If you want to differentiate between areas in the UK, you should've said England, Scotland.

Yeah, I guess I should have done that, but I'm not sure really which bands are English or Welsh, so I fudged it a bit by saying UK.

I think Tuomas has a valid point. My votes are 66% American, 33% Canadian, and 90% guitar based. But that is an accurate reflection of what I was exposed to in the 90s.

69= Sun City Girls - Torch Of The Mystics (1990)
39 points
2 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: NickB

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cr2kX4NUkro/SKr1iQRj7dI/AAAAAAAAAIk/kwFTycoL67s/s400/fronst.jpg

67= Sun City Girls - 330,003 Crossdressers From The Rig Veda
40 points
1 vote
1 first-place vote
Contributor: Jon Lewis

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_K2esD1Ixp84/SuwHtmnNvDI/AAAAAAAAAjc/RPRDE2TM5W4/s320/92767.jpg

Sun City Girls' best albums (which for my money are the inevitable _Torch of the Mystics_, plus _330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond the Rig-Veda_ and the long-out-of-print _Live from Planet Boomerang_) are completely mindblowing, completely unpredictable, like nothing else around. Their worst (_Midnight Cowboys from Ipanema_, _Jacks Creek_) are completely unlistenable--like, so bad it's hard to imagine how they finished making them. Most of their stuff is somewhere in between. I love how unpredictable they are, but then again I buy a lot more records than most sensible people do.

― Douglas Wolk, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (8 years ago)

torch of the mystics is great but 330,003 crossdressers is far better although much harder to locate. it turns up on ebay now and then and usually brings $30. its worth it. the band's output is highly uneven, they are damnably prolific, and their oop stuff impossible to locate or way expensive if you can locate it. all this makes being an impoverished fan a risky proposition. but torch and crossdressers are incredible you cant go wrong scoring those.

― , Saturday, 16 February 2002 01:00 (8 years ago)

Best band of the last 25 years, imho.

― sleeve, Friday, 13 April 2007 22:12 (3 years ago)

330,003 crossdressers blows 'torch of the mystics' right out of the water, in my opinion. it's not as much a 'rock records' as 'torch,' of course.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Tuesday, 8 April 2003 03:16 (7 years ago)

Sun City Girls: Torch of the Mystics (1990)

Weird poll, but this is a bazillion star album AFAIC.

― Gunther von Hagen Daas (NickB), Tuesday, 6 October 2009 11:07 (6 months ago)

But I really look forward to discovering what I was missing out on.

Yeah! I wish I had remembered about SCG. Torch of the Mystics would have definitely made my list.

^^^
likewise.

yeah - there's so much stuff i never checked out although i was actively listening to music for almost the whole of the nineties (probably not as fiendish as in the 00s though). i wonder if were i to check out somethign like Sun City Girls, whom I've never knowingly heard, would i like it or would it sound too much of its day? This is interesting to me, because I wouldn't shirk from hearing some great lost 80s postpunk or hiphop record, but I'm more cautious of 90s stuff. Guess the 90s revival's yet to kick back in.

Also, seeing Rick Bishop play Esoterica in Abyssinia on acoustic was mindblowing.

Crossdressers is 1996, btw

I saw Sir Richard Bishop support Earth in Glasgow, it was the only electric set he played on the tour apparently, and it was mindblowing.

Do it dog latin. It being from 1990 is almost irrelevant. It's simply an awesome record that from the first song onwards sounds familiarly foreign. It was one of those revelatory records for me anyway.

There's an even better Built To Spill album

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 3:30 PM (Yesterday)

wondering if you are thinking of the same one as me, which is perfect from now on. if so internet high 5s to u.

didnt vote in this, wish i had.

also tuomas shut the hell up

aye, it is jj.

Damn, only 3 votes for SCG. Torch of the Mystics is the most easily digestible and definitely the album for the unfamiliar imo.

anyone who has even fleeting interest in BTS should listen to "I Would Hurt a Fly" which is like one of the best songs ever

67= Pete Namlook - Air (1994)
40 points
1 vote
0 first-place votes
Contributor: abanana

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/24_frames/Tangerine%20Dream%204/AIR.jpg

Pete Namlook's early nineties albums had a lot of cool drones, but can't think of any off the top of my head.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 14 November 2006 17:26 (3 years ago)

I have control! I dominate!

Last 24 hours? A split between AMG reviewing work (early Green Day, Green River), Amnesiac and Hot Shots II in anticipation of the show tonight, and Pete Namlook's Air discs to relax in the evening yesterday. Fun fun.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (8 years ago)

HAPPY NOW TUOMAS

lol

never heard of this... whowhatwhy?

who the fuck is that

it is MORE AMBIENT TECHNO

thing is both of the first two ambient techno albums were really quite good

so maybe this is really quite good too

jeepers I am 14% British, 7% Scottish, 3% Canadian, 3% Swedish, and the rest good old US of A. And mostly guitar.

I am 100% don't-give-a-fuck-which-countries-the-albums-I-voted-for-are-from.

yeah me too

66 Palace Music - Lost Blues And Other Songs (1997)
40 points
2 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributors: seandalai, M4tt H3lg3s0n

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Lost_Blues.jpg

weird, gulf shores popped up on my ipod yesterday and i was struck by how gorgeous it was.

― Brolotov Cocktail (n/h) (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 15:22 (11 months ago)

I've long been familiar with the early Palace/Oldham albums, but was never really a fan... never heard any of the singles... recently, I bought Lost Blues because I enjoy the Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music CD, and wanted to hear the original versions of the songs I didn't know... and, my god, what an incredible CD that Lost Blues is. I'm almost embarrassed at how perfectly it hits my early/mid-'90s Drag City sweet spot. "Gulf Shores" is currently my favorite song by anyone.

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Monday, 9 August 2004 20:15 (5 years ago)

Lost Blues and Other Songs - the perfect introduction to Palace era Oldham, contains nearly all of his classic singles. Essential.

- paid in cigarettes (paid in cigarettes), Friday, 14 July 2006 23:41 (3 years ago)

Gulf Shores - Palace Music

many xposts. My intro to Built to Spill was that live album with the 20 minute "Cortez The Killer" cover. None of the studio albums I heard after lived up to it.

that Lost Blues comp is an amazing collection, I think there's like one song on it I don't like. Gulf Shores is all time classic

awesome palace music!

I've kinda grown out of Palace Music/Bonnie Prince Billy as the decade's grown on. I definitely think he rises above the whole "lol indie guy w/ beard" phenomenon; just don't have a desire to put on his records anymore.

last one for now coming up

I gotta say having this weird rainstorms-alternating-with-sunshine-spring weather totally makes me feel like listenin to some Palace.

65 Sonny Sharrock - Ask The Ages (1991)
40 points
3 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: contenderizer

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p238/michaeldustdevil/g3xXon.jpg

It is a great album, however for me this pales into insignificance compared with:

Alex in NYC in "I went to jazz gig and enjoyed it" shockah!!!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Sunday, 25 May 2003 03:58 (6 years ago)

Yeah, everyone kills it on this record, but it especially made me appreciate Charnett Moffett (I think at the time I only knew him as a Wynton-alum). I think I'll have to go dig it out as well.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 25 May 2003 12:17 (6 years ago)

That moment in the first song when Pharoah is going ape at the end of his solo and Sharrock comes screaming in out of nowhere is one of my favorites in all of free jazz.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Sunday, 25 May 2003 18:50 (6 years ago)

Beautiful, jaw-agape album. I love the part in the title track during the theme restatement when Sharrock plays the straight melody and Pharaoh wails underneath of it -- vicious. The themes on the entire record are incredibly strong and catchy, and the musical sigh of the second track is unbelievably gorgeous. Sundar, I'm interested to know why you love this particular record so much.

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 8 July 2003 04:30 (6 years ago)

(Needless to say), 'Ask the Ages' is so gorgeous. He was in talks with Chrysalis when I interviewed him in September '93 (the Voice reported RCA interest in its obit the next April) and enthusiatic about his chances in the post-Nirvana climate. It might've been doomed to fail, but the music would've been great, and at the very least it would've been interesting to watch the attempted crossover.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Monday, 21 February 2005 12:28 (5 years ago)

Ace!

It's all Americans with guitars

lol this list is so random. full of surprises!

full of stuff I really want to hear