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

these guys kind of a deserve an award for being like the most unsettling looking ppl on the planet

I do struggle with Cardiacs on record, but they're one of the most staggering live acts I've ever seen. Utter genius.

Dan, you've reckoned without the middle onwards being some sort of quasi-religious experience ;_;

All I'm asking is that a few of you listen to those three Youtubes. Either insult me or throw roses at my feet but at least give them a listen. At least try and understand where my brain is coming from.

They became great on A Little Man... but Tarred And Feathered not only predates it by quite a few years, it also manages to be genuinely infuriating. Especially as it's often the first (and last) people ever hear of this band. Curse you, Youtube.

― Mansun was where I fucked up (acoleuthic), Friday, May 7, 2010 8:43 PM (1 minute ago)

I always loved that song, I recently got Songs For Ships & Irons and actually think it works as an album and is one of their best. It has a bit of everything. Sing to God is their masterpiece I am on your side with this one.

Also it really is worth sticking with Dirty Boy the last two minutes are just incredible.

like if I saw any of these ppl walking towards me on the street, I would be half-convinced they would lunge at me and start trying to eat my face while extolling the merits of flood insurance between bites

xp: I bailed around the 4 minute mark? my ears were aching by that point

ill give the youtubes a shot when i am not at work.

Dan, seriously, go back and listen to it all. Skip the first three minutes if you have to. Haha, you quit JUST as it gets good!

By 'good' I mean 'jaw hits floor'

This might be a good one to start with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYMkS11D_nA

next please

"Is This The Life?" is pretty good tho

okay it was pretty good until I clicked back to the annoying video

I would've probably liked Sing to God if I was about 14 the first time I heard it. It's too late for me now, though.

oh actually it was 5:37 where I bailed

I would like this a lot more with a different singer

really can't get past the vocal style

lol xp

Next one is very appropriate. Just sayin'. It's also one of the goddamn greatest things I've ever heard, so I'm only too happy to launch into it. I have a hunch more people will be with me on this one.

is it Wu Tang Forever

it is a bonus track vote for "Shut Up" by New York Style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-dd4fMUhAY

It's got everything going against it. It's an EP, a cover, and pretty much an instrumental. Hell if it's not coming to my desert-island though. I've actually written more about this record than anyone else on ILM, amusingly enough. Like, way more so than Cardiacs. I only gave it...7 points though. Felt right.

SEV-AHHHN The Boredoms - Super Roots 7 (1997)
148 points
5 votes
1 first-place vote
Greatest contributor: samosa gibreel

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cLI19EXK2oU/Sn5Aqy4DsRI/AAAAAAAAARw/RaIfshuiXPc/s400/superroots7.jpg

OK seriously, anyone who doubts that SR7 is one of the crowning achievements in modern music needs to go do one

― Robin van Injury (country matters), Monday, 9 February 2009 13:08 (1 year ago)

The way it gets going in the first 3 minutes is a bit like a process by which numerous keys have to be turned and numerous codes sequenced before the device that explodes the Sun can be put into gear

― Robin van Injury (country matters), Monday, 9 February 2009 14:53 (1 year ago)

Don't think I've recommended any other track as much.

― ogmor, Monday, 9 February 2009 14:16 (1 year ago)

oh my god. im listening to super roots 7 for the first time, after FINALLY finding it on slsk this morning. d00d. fucking unbelieveable. new one is very good, but this is really really great.

― peter smith (plsmith), Thursday, 30 September 2004 23:27 (5 years ago)

yea, i listen to super roots 7 all the fucking time dude

― Professor Challenger (ex machina), Thursday, 30 September 2004 23:39 (5 years ago)

when SR7 cranks into the super fast stuff at 10 minutes and then at 13 minutes, it annihilates me entirely. i value that.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 16:23 (5 years ago)

super roots 7 > everything else

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 18:28 (3 years ago)

The way it gets going in the first 3 minutes

I meant Boriginal itself here, not the intro track, btw

YES

nice

didnae vote fr boredoms (split vote anyway) but used to rly love them and still very fond

now cranking

Unlike Cardiacs, I don't actually have to justify this music at all. It speaks for itself. It's for everyone. Seriously. It's for fucking everyone.

maybe i voted for v-c-n akshly cannae remember also some doubts as to eligibility re jp/eu rls?

I saw Oval open for Tortoise and really wanted to throw shit at him perched behind his laptop. Pretty sure that was the first laptop set I had seen. To this day, when one of my cd's skips, I call it the Oval Mix.

can't remember which particular Boredoms album this is (I seem to perpetually receive random samplings of their catalog) but I'm sure it's good

Top 5 tomorrow, I'm thinking.

just do it tonight while americans are at work

No, I'm doing it tomorrow

dude I'm not reading this shit on the weekend, I got stuff to do!

FINE

6 Trumans Water - Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox and Ass(1993)
150 points
1 vote
1 first-place vote
Contributor: cwkiii

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UkdnMV_9N8Y/R8x0MC8BiyI/AAAAAAAAAgc/wzuPFgXtY38/s320/trumans+water.jpg

I still have yet to hear a band that has excited me as much as Trumans Water did a decade ago.

What they did right, IMHO, was that they took the above influences (Fellers, Girls, SY, etc.) and forced them into a hardcore/punk tradition.. whether Trumans intended that or not.

Sonic Youth, Boredoms, Fellers, etc. all had/have amazing rock moments of course.. but they don't rock all the time, or at least, that doesn't seem to be their "point" -- instead, following more of a tradition for higher art purposes a la Beefheart, Residents, etc. Well, supposedly.. I know I'm at least partially full of shit here... but you know what I mean. The Wire would have never touched Trumans Water... for example. Which is kinda why Trumans excited me. They took all my favorite elements of art rock bands and warped them into this ball of volume for hardcore kids.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 14 October 2002 19:03 (7 years ago)

eard "Spasm Smash Whatever" and it sounded exactly like I WISH Pavement had sounded (assuming Pavement ever learned to rock) - truly "angular" shards of lurching riffs that rattled and clattered and made me want to contort my body into weird shapes. Utterly simple guitar parts, yet deliberately sewn together with enough intricacy to sound real complex - a model for even such a crappy guitarist as myself to emulate, theoretically, and maybe even create something worth listening to. Genuinely tight-but-loose. Plus a septuagenarian drummer, no less! how cool is that?

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Sunday, 18 September 2005 20:20 (4 years ago)

i say classic - spasm smash is the SEARCH

― gygax!, Monday, 14 October 2002 20:35 (7 years ago)

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/ned/n130.html

!

I knew the top third of this poll was going to be full of weird choices!

I thought that would be in the top five for sure.

L I A R

hahahahahahahahahaha

it's weird to me that truman's water is #6 and there's no us maple anywhere

good album but dear oh dear

no offense to lj but i'm still not convinced of the greatness of the later cardiacs albums. they're really busy both production-wise and composition-wise in a way where it becomes uncomfortable for me to process everything that's going on and i end up just kinda AUGH TURN IT OFF MY EARS ARE BLEEDINg

"a little man and a house and the whole world window" is one of my favorite albums ever though so go figure

Ah, who could forget the lovely 90s combo Trumans Water and the soothing sounds of their classic "Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox and Ass"?

dude sarcasm is nagl for you

I actually had to look on Rate Your Music to check that was a real album.

Wow, I just got a huge flashback of Trumans + TFLU282, Six Finger Satellite, Brainiac, Clawhammer, local bands on Skin Graft label (Shorty, U.S. Maple, Dazzling Killmen, Mount Shasta, etc.) I sold almost all that stuff, sigh.

It's 4:49 in Chicago and I gotta leave soon anyway, thanks so much acoleuthic! I don't mind checking in tomorrow. I'll just say what I would have voted for after the fact, ha.

like i said if i had it to do over i woulda done 200 pts for us maple.