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

I wish I could still like Pavement. :(

They just annoy me now. I used to be the biggest fan, but Pavement more than any other band I've ever loved has become a mere nuisance.

Does anyone agree?

No, still love them.

I'm completely with you I'm afraid, Captain. I think the only thing I could bear to play nowadays is Watery Domestic. I know in my brain that S+E is still good, but I tried listening to it the other day and had to take it off. The other albums don't stand a chance.

i'm with Ahab, Wowee Zowee is the album I still have the most lingering affection for but I couldn't bring myself to vote for that fuckin band.

Ist rad!

Pavement becomes a lot more tolerable when you realize they actually got *better* through their progression of albums, peaking at Terror Twilight -- not the other way around.

S&E is like the tattered blueprint for Terror Twilight, which is the picture-perfect mansion resort on the lake.

i hate S&E and really like Brighten but ugh son

In the 90s I was massive Pavement stan and sorta talked myself into thinking S+E was the masterpiece (cz "everyone else" said so) even though I really preferred WZ and CRCR. Now S+E is the one I can't really bring myself to play ever, but WZ has never got old for me - it has enough weird twists and turns that there always seems to be something new I haven't noticed in it, little hooks and cryptic lyrics that you find yourself thinking about months after listening which drag you back in.

WZ + CRCR together just fit on a 100-minute tape and make (what I was sure at one point was) the perfect summer road trip tape.

Still don't care that much for post-WZ stuff. It always sounds better than I remember, but not quite enough.

WZ is head and shoulders my fave Pavement but I didn't care enough to vote for it.

Can't imagine ever getting tired of Pavement or Wowee Zowee.

It's easy if you try.

I haven't heard anything after Crooked Rain. Not going to rectify that either.

WZ is head and shoulders my fave Pavement but I didn't care enough to vote for it.

that

they had some good songs

felt kinda bad given alla those pts 2 nachtstrom cuz i didnt even hear that record until a couple yrs after it came out & the new millennium was in full effect but its such an amusingly disconcerting record & really shyly pretty. mb has in common with all the other things i really love a puzzle like quality, a capacity for organized randomness, a joy in the personal & the trivial.

wish i had sum interesting personal anecdote 2 share but its not a record thats really abt "big moments" all i really associate with this record is traveling. i was a snr in high school when i 1st heard its sort of an "in transit" record for me. the cut-up dissociative nature of its songs makes it gr8 for listening to on planes and trains - the enforced idleness & the strangeness. that heavy sense of waiting in motion. its the sdtrk to running along the lake when its windy & watching the sailboats & the harbor and dreaming of college. or the long subway rides to the club where i practiced tennis after school. of seeing again the same ppl and the same places and expecting them to be different even if they never really changed.

Yay 13!!!!

I just recently fell in love with Wowee Zowee after merely liking it for a number of years. It was just one of those Saturday afternoons where it sounded like the absolutely accurate summation of the state of my world at that moment. Which has always been the way I've fallen for the band's album. I remember listening to CRCR and liking it well enough, but not getting anyone going nuts over it, until I listened to it on headphones while ambling through town on a hot summer afternoon - and it just sounded so perfect. Didn't vote in the poll, but glad to see that album make it.

ATLiens is a fucking standout amazing album.

http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads5/milky2.gif
Milky is happy about 13's placement in the alternative 90's poll.

acoleuthic: I know you're busy (me too) but i am very anxious to see more results. This is just a gentle prodding though. Get your stuff taken care of. :)

Hey, a college guy's gotta enjoy his strippers and blow in the evenings.

lj - you betster have yr schoolwork and this poll done by next tuesday so we can enjoy boadrum without any nagging doubts about shit you should be doing.

I personally don't mind a slow unveiling as long as albums I voted for continue to place.

0/4 over here

40= Julian Cope - Peggy Suicide (1991)
60 points
1 vote
1 first-place vote
Contributor: EZSnappin

http://arrieux.img.jugem.jp/20090919_1110342.jpg

Goddammit I love this record so much. Alright...it's Saturday night, and I've already had three beers on a relatively empty stomach, so this might not be as coherent as my usual In Praise Of's, but I threw this on this afternoon and it provided such a buoyant kickstart to my evening that I cannot effectively articulate how much I love this record.

Released when the rest of the music-loving words seemed to be furtively fondling itself over stuff like Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Screamadelica by Primal Scream (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with those records), Peggy Suicide came along as this sprawling, whip-smart, ambitious concept album that restored all faith in Julian Cope's wildly erratic solo career. Simply put, Peggy Suicide has fucking EVERYTHING, from balls-out rockers ("Hanging Out & Hung Up on the Line") and blissful pop ("Beautiful Love") to loping "baggy" funk ("East Easy Rider") and bizarrely ambient stretches ("Western Front 1992 CE"), it's a remarkably diverse record that has no business sounding as coherent and cohesive as it does (almost lending legitimacy once again to the maligned notion of 'concept albums'). Cope hadn't yet re-chashed in his chips and was still focussed (before the rot set back in with Autogeddon) and comes across as furious and rocking as he is enlightened and conscious.

The guitar-spiralling, yowling climax of "Double Vegetation" alone renders this vast album an absolute classic. And GAWDALMIGHTY don't I love. Even if Copey said all sorts of nasty stuff about Jaz Coleman in "Head-On," I'd spare his life for bestowing this prize on the undeserving, cursed globe.

If you don't own it, go fetch it at once, earth-hater!!!

Tell me I'm wrong, go ahead. I'm too blissed out to care.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 9 November 2003 00:22 (6 years ago)

Picked this up last night and, after a couple full listens, I'm wondering where this album has been my whole life. Really strikes me as a parallel album to Sign 'o' the Times, a double album overflowing with ideas, not merely genre exercises but fully realized songs and ideas. In the sound I hear bits of Bowie, Nick Cave, Peter Murphy (all things I'm used to listening to, of course -- I'm sure there are influences I'm not picking up on) and also Bunnymen/McCulloch and of course the Teardrops and '60s psych-pop and on and on it goes. What an album!

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Wednesday, 15 July 2009 14:18 (9 months ago)

Total classic, don't listen to it nearly enough but it nestles in my chaotic cd cupboard like a fine wine in a cloistered basement.

Still gives me shivers when Cope's voice ascends for that first chorus of Double Vegetation.

― mzui (mzui), Sunday, 17 July 2005 18:21 (4 years ago)

The exceedingly low expectations derived from his prior Skellington and Droolian meant that Peggy Suicide felt like a blinding electric shock. Lotsa fave moments though the most staggering remains the metamorphosis of "Safe Surfer", from Droolian's unremarkable demo cut to this sprawling snake-coiled guitar monster on PS.

The irony of course is that this album is fucking GREAT to drive to.

― doug watson (solid air), Monday, 18 July 2005 23:41 (4 years ago)

i'm really starting to think there's gonna be no u.s. maple on this list ;_;

0/4 over here

― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, May 4, 2010 11:36 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if you only voted for 4 albums doesn't that mean you gave them each enough points to place really high?

not necessarily

1 point each for 3 of them, 197 points for the other?

^^^enlightening music discussion

Really looking forward to a post-reveal alternative ranking by vote count with score total being the tiebreaker. Just saying.

Cope seems like a cool dude with great taste and a bunch of interesting projects, and yet I have never heard any music of his that particularly impressed me

I had a cassette of Demos for that album, including the not-released title track.

It eventually was remade as "Peggy Suicide is a junkie" but lost the innocence/immediacy of the original.

Still, nice to have.

40= Straitjacket Fits - Melt (1991)
60 points
1 vote
1 first-place vote
Contributor: Johnny Fever

http://bp2.blogger.com/_PX52VR97IYE/SCoG6nDMVqI/AAAAAAAAAHw/FbH_YqqnwY4/s320/stjacket.jpg

Hook-heavy, real catchy, but with a blissed-out gauzy production that places it forever in 1991. What's the general consensus on these Kiwi post-punkers?

― Brandon Gentry (Brandon Gentry), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 13:20 (7 years ago)

I listened to Melt for the first time in ages last night in a hypnagogic state while in bed, and Andrew Brough's tracks sounded like some heavenly Kiwi distillation of John Lennon and George Harrison's best Beatles traits. The man is a fuggin' genius, yet he only received George-like song rations. Scandalous.

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Thursday, 30 June 2005 04:47 (4 years ago)

Listened to Melt and Done repeating all night and, even though the knowledge of how great they are is always with me, I forget how great until I'm actually playing them.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, 29 June 2009 09:16 (10 months ago)

this song is basically what i wish the music i made sounded like

fucking incredible track

― private static void (electricsound), Saturday, 25 April 2009 06:17 (1 year ago)

Favourite Straitjacket Fits moment: Andrew Brough stopping the gig for five minutes because he had to go to the toilet. Plus announcing it to the audience.

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Tuesday, 15 February 2005 04:56 (5 years ago)

nobody?

Next?

level?

I guess this is the risk with a non-consensus poll

I have a vague memory of hearing Straitjacket Fits at the time, but they never made an impression.

*yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn*

38= Pole - 1 (1998)
60 points
2 votes
1 first-place vote
Greatest contributor: abanana

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/212FS6ZZXPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Utterly classic - i remember the first time i heard it i was like "what the fuck!?" i read about it before it was released in the uk and i was sure, from the description, it was going to be like music i had imagined my whole life and never actually heard. I wasnt dissappointed. It sounded better than i had imagined.

― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Sunday, 24 August 2003 18:25 (6 years ago)

CD1 is an example of someone who got it absolutely right on the first go -- I really think they needn't have bothered making more records. It reminds me of a Miles Davis adage about thinking of a sound and then not making it.

It's also a record that works for me first thing in the morning or last thing at night in a way that few others do.

― Nom De Plume (Nom De Plume), Sunday, 24 August 2003 19:06 (6 years ago)

If you're talking about the "blue" album, yeah, it's one of my favourite records of all time too. Pole's minimalism is minimalism with soul, because of the dub and jazz influences. According to AMG his new album has rapping in it, sounds weird.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 25 August 2003 11:00 (6 years ago)

i really liked the first cd, especially the first track (can't recall the title) which is just like a dark night, moon shining on snowbanks. beautiful.

― your null fame, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (8 years ago)

Am I the only one who think's Pole's early records, especially 1, can be seen building on what Miles did with In a Silent Way? Sure, formally they belong to a different genre, but there's a similar feel to them.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:10 (4 years ago)

you guys like some shitty indie rock

lol @ ambient techno-dub being indie rock

i saw pole open for trans am once, and it was bowel shaking bass

I think that was in response to Straitjacket Fits, LJ

I remember hearing about the Straitjacket Fits. I've never heard their music, but's a pretty cool band name. I'd really like to hear Johnny Fever defend them.

yeah sorry some xposts there

Would definitely have voted for Pole if I thought my vote would have a chance in hell of advancing Pole 1 to the final round. I actually have listened to Pole 2 about three times as much, as its less the sound of your space station malfunctioning and more the sound of William Gibson's rasta space station.

Aerol, with no particular provocation, related the tale of the
baby who had burst from his forehead and scampered into a
forest of hydroponic ganja. `Ver'~ small baby, mon, no long'~
you finga.' He rubbed his palm across an unscarred expanse
of brown forehead and smiled.
`It's the ganja,' Molly said, when Case told her the story.
`They don't make much of a difference between states, you
know? Aerol tells you it happened, well, it happened to _him._
It's not like bullshit, more like poetry. Get it?'
Case nodded dubiously. The Zionites always touched you
when they were talking, hands on your shoulder. He didn't
like that.
`Hey, Aerol,' Case called, an hour later, as he prepared
for a practice run in the freefall corridor. `Come here, man.
Wanna show you this thing.' He held out the trodes.
Aerol executed a slow-motion tumble. His bare feet struck
the steel wall and he caught a girder with his free hand. The
other held a transparent waterbag bulging with blue-green al-
gae. He blinked mildly and grinned.
`Try it,' Case said.
He took the band, put it on, and Case adjusted the trodes.
He closed his eyes. Case hit the power stud. Aerol shuddered.
Case jacked him back out. `What did you see, man?'
`Babylon,' Aerol said, sadly, handing him the trodes and
kicking off down the corridor.

38= Various Artists - Guitar Paradise Of East Africa (1990)
60 points
2 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributor: KMS

http://www.ljplus.ru/img3/l/e/lestp/gpoea.jpg

What's some of the best of that African pop, you think?
--burt s.

For an intro, go with comps. Guitar Paradise of East Africa (Virgin Earthworks), The Indestructible Beat of Soweto (Shanachie), Kings and Queens of Township Jive (Virgin Earthworks). All good (brief) surveys of Mbaqanga and its offshoots in the 70s & 80s.

― contenderizer, Monday, 28 April 2008 21:08 (2 years ago)

Guitar Paradise of East Africa is also terrific; track 3 (Daniel Kamau's "Mumbi Ni Wakwa") is one of my favorite tracks ever.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 03:48 (4 years ago)

Earthworks has a couple of good comps of Kenyan pop, too. "Benga Blast" was a good one, and even better is "Guitar Paradise of East Africa".

― pauls00, Monday, 17 September 2001 01:00 (8 years ago)