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

Out Of time is my favorite R.E.M. album, and I think is almost great as long as you skip "Radio Song". Didn't vote for it but I'm happy to see it here.

last one for the night

that was or the next one?

47 Pavement - Brighten The Corners (1997)
52 points
5 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: dog latin

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cL0Lfibqaog/SPNuNXYhhLI/AAAAAAAAB10/937i98n1_k4/s400/Brighten-The-Corners-by-Pavement_56695_full.jpg

Brighten the Corners is a huge underrated album. Lot of hate from some since it was Spiral Stairs who arranged the tracks and what not, but it's probably their best put-together album altogether.

― Pleasant Plains, Tuesday, 23 September 2008 16:32 (1 year ago)

Brighten The Corners is great.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:15 (3 years ago)

Brighten the Corners reminds me of a happy time, and contains some of my favourite lyrics.

― j-rock, Monday, 23 April 2007 07:42 (3 years ago)

fwiw, cuz, Brighten the Corners is the best Pavement record by a mile ...

― Chris O., Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:28 (4 years ago)

of course, I'm a Brighten the Corners kinda guy

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 04:30 (5 years ago)

pavement - brighten the corners is widely hailed as a bad album, though i disagree. ooh let's talk about pavement albums and whether they're good or not again.

― Wogan Lenin (dog latin), Sunday, 15 January 2006 05:17 (4 years ago)

hurrah!

or we could just go to bed *yawns*

;-)

they were great on that tour

now my ballot's starting to work. At times Brighten the Corners is my favorite of theirs. What would it have been like if they'd recorded more "straight" songs like "We are Underused"? Would I have gotten bored? I never get bored of this.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxpost but I wish I'd started posting here when this poll started, I could have ratcheted Angel Dust up higher. Maybe I'm projecting due to having a violent chronic illness when I first heard this, but this album comes across with such a weird 'negative' or 'depressive' vibe to me, despite being a zany and oddball album all the same. "Caffeine" packs a wallop, and so does "Kindergarten".

Hate the fuck out of "out of time". The nadir if rem for me, sorry dudes.

^ Secondary to Around the Sun, but most people pretend that one never existed.

I swore I was not going to be a negative Nancy on this poll, bit urrrggghhh.

Despite liking a handful of tracks on Out of Time, it was a huge disappointment for me when it came out and I've hardly listened to it since.

I came fairly late to Brighten The Corners and was very surprised at how much I liked it.

5/18 placed so far. I'm expecting probably four others to make it for a reasonably impressive average. Angel Dust was a last-minute cut from my ballot, and Out of Time did make it but had twenty points lopped off when I amended to get Woodface in. Will be interesting to see how high it would've placed if I hadn't amended. That graphic on the front is really annoying though, I kind of wish I'd taken it out entirely now.

I'm 0/9 so far. One album is guaranteed because I gave it 60 points, and another probably is because I'm sure I wasn't its only vote, but I have doubts about doing any better than that.

Another reason I'm glad I voted for a ton of albums, this poll is a lot more fun for me to watch (I'm 8/58).

6/16, and I almost voted for Bjork too.

3/18 I think. Burger/Ink, ODB and FNM

there's a couple of others on here I'd've voted for but I pulled my list out of the air in like 5 minutes.

angel dust!

still sounds amazing now, although, I do switch between that and king for a day as my favourite FNM album. AD has better songs, but is a little overcooked at times. KFAD is sonically gorgeous - so dry and raw and unfriendly.

there are many, many great things about angel dust, but the one song that always blows my mind is 'a small victory' - not necessarily my favourite track on here, but it's still an astonishingly unique and inventive pop song. I just love how all its awkward elements come together to form something streamlined and beautiful and direct.

When I first bought Angel Dust, I thought the tape was warped and took it back to Musicland to exchange it.

I did this with loveless.

The first time I heard Loveless was in my friend and then band-mate's room in the house we were both living in. He stuck it in the tape player and said "Alan McGee spent a quarter of a million pounds on this and it sounds like the tape's fucked" then we both rolled about laughing and agreed it was fucking awesome.

Great poll thus far, really intrigued to hear a number of these records. I'm sorry I didn't vote- ODB and Angel Dust would have been picks for me.

I still feel that way about Loveless.

xpost

I would have voted for Jagged Little Pill if I had heard it in time for this poll (actually still in the process of hearing it, so maybe I'm jumping the gun). How have I managed to go so long without hearing it? I have my ways. (It's not as though I hadn't heard some of these songs before, but I didn't know who they were by and had forgotten them.) I'm hoping it will still show up.

i looked at the 50 albums on my ballot that haven't shown up yet, and there are 6 that i'm pretty sure are still to come, 23 that definitely won't, and 21 that i really don't know about but think have a fighting chance. pretty excited about the next set of reveals!

Jagged Little Pill

I hear this 80 gazillion times in the summer of 1995 while working at a record store. I'd be happy to never hear it again.

hear=heard

This Biosphere thing is okay.

(I remember the Temple of Psychic Youth having a lot to say about the biosphere project back in the late 80s early 90s.)

Catching up - great to see Palace Music, Nomeansno and Ol' Dirty Bastard (wd've been vying for a number one for me, with There Is No One What Will Take Care of You and Levitate). For some reason I'm really really hoping Archive 1 by Dave Clarke gets in.

I'm listening again to this Biosphere album and it does the ambient music job pretty well (but that white noise I thought I was hearing on the album just now is actually my neighbor's shower). I like the occasional organic sounds (or organic sounding). I like this very quiet Master Musicians of Jajouka like drone on Sphere-of-no-Form (whoops, too many hyphens, but I like it that way).

(Louis, check your e-mail please.)

missed this so far---Out of Time and the dappled elegance of the band's style circa that time stand on the path of the 90s that I wish I'd followed deeper at the time, instead of ending up 20,000 miles with an Oasis or buying the myth that punk broke. Later in the decade the E6 would fuse its promises with different psychedelia. And I guess you could argue that fellow travelers like 10,000 Maniacs followed too. But I think Out of Time is singular: we talked it out on the poll thread I think so I won't clog this one anymore, but I'll just remark that it was a courageous album---they could have been radio stars being Green and with a sound half a world away they ended up there anyway.

where was I

#46?

We shiver with antici... pation.

46 Blur - 13 (1999)
54 points
4 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: Fetchboy

http://nogoodforme.filmstills.org/images/blur-13.jpg

I was lucky enough to hear this again recently by accident, at a friend's house. I still say it was their masterpiece, flawed as it is. I know Parklife is a formidable foe, but something about 13 satisfies me in a modern way, at times I think they were way ahead of their time with this one. What's that song where the drums echo a lot and draw you into their own universe?

BATTLE, INNIT?

― Bimble, Saturday, 19 May 2007 07:22 (2 years ago)

i loved it when i first heard it and i still do. i love the damon-ized gospel of tender (sure it's a whiny british guy singing instead of a soulful black woman, but the song still kicks ass). Bugman's fuzz bass is rivaled by few others in sheer driving force. Coffee and TV is just one of the best damn melodies ever. Swamp song, i could do without. 1992-just fucking beautiful. BLUREMI is totally blur's "my iron lung" but a hell of a lot cheekier (which is what songs in that vein should strive for). Battle just kind of floats you out their for while, with hints of Syd's melodies making you wonder if you're the one who had too many bad trips. mellow song through trimm trabb are pretty forgetable, but then no distance left to run comes on and reminds you of why you like this band so much. and of course, what else could really close out an album like that other than some nice decaying optigan. so yeah, classic. kicks think tank's ass 5 ways to kalamazoo.

― Felcher (Felcher), Monday, 10 November 2003 21:05 (6 years ago)

hated all the ballads on this album but the rest was great. first blur album i ever liked actually. i loved what william orbit did to/with them on this.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Sunday, 14 December 2008 10:16 (1 year ago)

I mean this album is the whole reason they beat Oasis in the end by miles.

― And you best believe Daft Punk is playing in my house (Bimble...), Saturday, 18 February 2006 22:21 (4 years ago)

I would think that 13 is the sound of Blur beating Mogwai at the own game.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Sunday, 19 February 2006 01:10 (4 years ago)

THIS IS THE SOUND OF RADIOHEAD BEING BEATEN AT A GAME THEY WEREN'T EVEN BOLD ENOUGH TO PLAY

Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 17 August 2006 23:41 (3 years ago)

first album on the poll that i've heard and have a visceral dislike of

;____________________________________;

I like 13 a lot more now than I did then, but I always thought "Tender" was a great single.

Tender was the only song I listened to at first. These days I usually start with 'Bugman' and listen through from there. Tender's still a great song, just not really part of this album.

Glad to rep for this one but that quote is LOL-2003-me.

I love Blur & 13

Tender is the song... that goes on much too long

Believe me, Fetchboy, LOL-2006-me was BURSTING for greater representation than it got

looool SMC

Not when when yr waiting in line at the grocery store and you just know in your heart of hearts that "sex bomb" by Tom Jones is coming on next.

xp obv.

Just wanna say I gave this album 13 points coz I'm cool like that

(and that's pretty much where it worked out in my order of preference anyway)

next one is by an absolute mile the most obscure thing so far, *maybe* the most obscure thing in the entire poll

This sounds like a set up...