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

i have to say...slint hasn't aged that well for me

I think about it as a well-written alt-rock record, rather than 'post-rock' which is a bit of a misnomer IMO.

yeah, but it's not really fair to play monday morning quarterback with spiderland...shit did really sound like it was from a strange, mysterious place

id be lying if i said i bumped this often, but i don put it on every now and then and i always get something out of it.

surprised it wasn't on the original poll and surprised it's not higher here

didn't vote for it but some of it is sublime, the coda to 'good morning captain' especially

never cared about Slint personally but know its held in high regard by others, surprised it wasn't on the OG list

shit did really sound like it was from a strange, mysterious place

absolutely!! it's a very crepuscular, penumbral record, the moments of high angst somehow still sounding displaced and uncertainly-derived. a pretty psychedelic experience, IMO

36 Mansun - Six (1998)
61 points
4 votes
0 first-place votes
Greatest contributors: useless chamber, acoleuthic

http://image.ohozaa.com/ii/0000054699_350.jpg

This album is fairly good. I rather like it.

l0u1s jagg3r (Haberdager), Friday, 28 July 2006 01:14 (3 years ago)

this is the best of the britpop-bands-go-weird albums by a country mile. it was obvious career suicide, it had tunes and hooks all over it, it has fantastic geetar, and it's lyrics appears to tell the tale of a man in the midst of a genuine nervous breakdown. like 'the holy bible' without the laughs. recently it came to light that the sequencing of the tracks without a break in such a bizarre fashion, was a tribute to prince's 80's albums.

i love it. am i alone?

― piscesboy, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 13:05 (4 years ago)

(I never make these ridiculous hyperbolic posts but here I go)

Mansun's "Six" is my favorite record of all time.

(Did you make it past that sentence?)

Maybe a little more for sentimental and influential reasons now, but I still haven't found a record that has had more impact on my life than Six. I picked it up when I was 17, and it changed the way I listened to music from the very moment I started listening to it. The ambition, the nerve, the way every song had 14 different sections, how it dipped its hand in art-rock, techno, opera, guitar pop, psychedelia, pomposity, anarchy, and sheer ridiculousness was completely inspiring to me as a musician, and frankly, it still is today. It encompasses most of the qualitites and elements I love in music and in life.

Sure, I'm more into techno and house these days, but I have no shame at all in loving Mansun.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 21 January 2005 04:03 (5 years ago)

The production on the Mansun record is overstuffed, but in an interesting way. I have made my best attempt to 'approach with glee' but came away feeling exhausted...yet fairly impressed.

― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Saturday, 1 May 2010 17:46 (3 days ago)

I feel I have finally reached a balanced, reasonable perspective about this album, and can discuss it rationally. It dazzled me then and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. It dazzles me now and I merely regard it as brilliant. Its power is undeniable, and Draper's own explanations, although often rambling, endear it to me as a record whose making is scarcely credible, a succession of happy accidents and musical mania.

We were all in the car the other night. It was dark. Random shuffle on my brother's iPod. Being A Girl came on. Everyone fell silent. For eight minutes, Mansun were glorious, and we uttered not a word. It had been a while since I last put that song on, but even allowing for this, it was like hearing it for the first time, the 200 mph escalating bliss-out. These guys really fucking had something.

― alien vs the smiths (country matters), Monday, 21 September 2009 23:52 (7 months ago)

xpost

Spiderland's cover picture is so great....it's always even more bizarre to me in light of the fact that the man on the other side of the camera is Bonnie Prince Billy

the mansun cover though....

is epic XD

Wow Mansun one place higher than Slint, that's kind of shocking.

That's only the third album of mine to place.

I thought I was immune to Britpop, and hated its disavowal of any post-1970 influences, but "Wide Open Space" on one of ILM's "Rough Guide" comps swayed me. Mansun was better.

hated its disavowal of any post-1970 influences

?? Oasis were knee-deep in glam references. Gary Glitter sued them for fuck's sake!

pistols influence too, esp on the 1st album. The Gallaghers never even mentioned the beatles until the 2nd album came out and liam got into them

I could push that year back. My sense, at the time, was the britpop genre was an ancilliary to "Fortress Britain" ideas of a world prior to Jamaican & West African immigration, prior to disco, electro, hip hop (all deeply non-anglo) influences. I find its fine for genre cul-de-sacs to retreat into self-absorbtion for a while, often self-reinventions occur. But at the time, and from thousands of miles away, it seemed strange for the "center" of a mongrel pop culture to become suddenly so chaste...

Jamaican & West African immigration started in like 1947 or something

to help rebuild post-war britain

Though Blur did have the music hall influence

i don't think it's that simple though, cuz didn't noel and liam like dance music? noel worked with chemical bros. and shit like that...pulp and blur also made overtures to dance too

though maybe i'm wrong i thankfully don't know that much abt brit pop

They had several dance acts supporting them too.

Noel did listen to a lot of dance music supposedly

infact everyone was expecting the 3rd album to be their screamadelica, hence the disappointment when be here now came out (despite all the 9/10 reviews)

yeah I won't rep for every britpop band but I think tarring them with some kind of WHITES ONLY regressive tag is some specious reasoning

like don't take Geir's word for it knowhutimean

also....all the brit pop dudes prolly had to go to the dance scene for drugs at some point

lol didn't one of the Blur dudes go all West African himself at some point? (I don't keep track of these guys)

A lot of early britpop fans were part of the madchester scene so were very much into dance music. With dadrock (which noel has to take the blame for) things did change. But you can only blame the brit public for that, they bought it in droves.

i blame the british public for a whole lotta things tbh

TBH, what I really disliked about Britpop at the time is that it displaced media interest from really fertile areas that were being explored by the "Lost Generation" bands (Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, Insides, etc). It had its own set of geniuses, but novelty seekers like yours truly were bound to be underwhelmed.

As to Mansun, awful name, poor image management, but they had one of the best melodic senses of any of that generation.

I played pool with Mansun once. I had one of those rare sessions where *everything* went in. I could see them rolling their eyes, thinking I was a shark, but I wasn't, I was just really lucky.

Generally speaking, the albums with 2 or more votes seem to be higher quality than those with 1 vote.

this is why i didn't give anything enough points to make it into the poll w/o anyone else voting for it, i'd feel weird and guilty about it.

I can't wait til LJ works up the pivot tables on this bitch.

I only voted 1 record high enough to know it will absolutely make it in and was reasonable w/ my points elsewhere. But now I am starting to worry that if fucking Earl Brutus or whatever makes it in over [rap classic a] or [rap classic b] then ilx is fucked up and we need to make the rap listening club compulsory.

I only voted 1 record high enough to know it will absolutely make it in and was reasonable w/ my points elsewhere. But now I am starting to worry that if fucking Earl Brutus or whatever makes it in over [rap classic a] or [rap classic b] then ilx is fucked up and we need to make the rap listening club compulsory.

― tart w/ a heart (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, May 4, 2010 6:51 PM (6 minutes ago)

No need to take it out on Earl Brutus that record deserves its place.

yeah my bad, couldn't think of another record while being grouchy.

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.

― M. Loh, Tuesday, May 4, 2010 9:36 PM (2 hours ago)

Melt is about layers of guitar over somewhat straightforward songwriting, kind of like most dreampop at the time. However, Straitjacket Fits had a little bit of a taste for more ambitious structures and chord progressions. Nobody will ever prove it, but I think Thom Yorke and the Radiohead fellas listened to Melt quite a bit when they were working on their own first album. Anyway, it's a great album with some absolutely wonderful songs and great guitar playing that I have some pleasant memories attached to but also still love objectively to this day.

xpost Sorry I got a little defensive there as I really love that band.

I am starting to think some of the albums I thought would easily make it won't. My highest points were below the lowest album on this list, I'm lucky that three of my choices had a couple of other fans. Its frustrating but it's also making the list really unpredictable and interesting.

well i agree but grouchy

Anyway, WTF? I haven't bagged on anyone else's choices, so why does my (ONLY, so far) choice have to be justified? Eff you Ismael, Shakey, ilxor, Kitchen Person.

For the record, that fucking Slint record is garbage. I've always thought that. I wasn't going to point that out here, though, because it was a pretty light atmosphere before.

Listening to Six on spotify and....not really feeling it so far. Sounds like it warrants more than a cursory stream listen though.

Not looking forward to defending my no 1 oh dear

xp:

Yeah dude, I was kinda worried about the non keepin'-in-positive tone of the comments upthread. Plus, LJ encouraged me to represent for my somewhat-arcane choice that I awarded a ton of points to, so I figured you deserved the same fair treatment.

Anyway, WTF? I haven't bagged on anyone else's choices, so why does my (ONLY, so far) choice have to be justified? Eff you Ismael, Shakey, ilxor, Kitchen Person.

I wasn't yawning about your album (which I haven't heard), just the lack of any sort of interesting discussion or posting activity.

everyone will have a chance to pile on my albums, don't worry!

xpost to Johnny Fever: I'm sorry I didn't mean to attack your choice personally, there's been loads of records in this list that I have never heard of and yours was one of them. No need to justify your choice or the points you gave it.

For the record The Divine Comedy album that made the list was my first choice to appear and I think that's had the most negative comments so far.

i have to say...slint hasn't aged that well for me

― the Rob Based god (M@tt He1ges0n), den 4 maj 2010 19:15 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i feel the opposite. still think it's really original and idiosyncratic guitar music, but it's definitely possible i haven't heard what new stuff that's come along since then to make it sound dated

It's okay, everybody... hugs and kisses!!!

I'll take that elfing - just hadn't heard of it was all. I'd assumed the band was called Melt, actually, that'd've been very nineties-generic