Pick one album from the year 1991.

Nevermind - Nirvana
Bandwagonesque - Teenage fanclub
Primal scream - Screamadellca
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Weld
Out of time - REM
Blue Lines - Massive Attack
Ice T - OG - Original Gangster
30 Something - Carter USM
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Never loved Elvis - The Wonder stuff
Of the heart, of the soul etc. - PM Dawn
Eat yourself whole - Kingmaker
Electronic - Electronic
Trompe Le Monde - The Pixies
Shiftwork - The Fall
Apocalypse '91 The enemy strikes.. - Public Enemy
Love & Life: A Journey with.... - Definition of sound
And now the legacy begins - Dream warriors
Don't try this at home - Billy Bragg
Achtung Baby - U2
Bertie's brochures - The Fatima mansions
Peggy suicide - Julian Cope
God fodder - Ned's atomic dustbin
Foxbase Alpha - St Etienne
Kill Uncle - Morrissey
The low end theory - A tribe called quest
Strange free world - Kitchens of distinction
Pretty on the inside - Hole
Leisure - Blur
Exiel - 808 State
To mother - Babes in toyland
Spartacus - The Farm
Diamonds and Pearls - Prince
Friendly Fascism - Consolidated
The real Ramona - Throwing Muses
The great white wonder - The pooh Sticks
Death certificate - Ice cube
The first of too many - Senseless things
Beatsongs - Blue Aeroplanes
Schubert dip - EMF
The white room - The KLF
Whirlpool - Chapterhouse
Honey lingers - Voice of the beehive
Watershed - GW McLennan
Just for a day - Slowdive
Slinky - The Milltown Brothers
Orbital - Same
Frequencies - LFO
Mush - Leatherface
In the presence of greatness - Velvet crush

Primal Scream - Screamadellca
R.E.M - Out of time
Public Enemy - Apocalypse ‘91 the enemy strikes back
Pixies - Trompe la monde
Massive attack - Blue lines
My bloody Valentine - Loveless
The Fall - Shiftwork
Teenage fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Ice-T - Origanal Gangster.
Intastella and the family of people - Same
Nirvana - Nevermind
Julian Cope - Peggy suicide
Definition of sound - Love and life
Neil Young - Weld
KLF - The white room
MC Buzz "b" - Words escape me
808 state - Excel
PM Dawn - Of the heart of the soul etc...
World of twist - Quality street
Throwing muses - Real ramona
Blue aeroplanes - Beat songs
St Etienne - Foxbase alpha
Spacemen 3 - Recurring
Mercury rev - Yerself is steam
Dinosaur jr - Green mind
Wonderstuff - Never loved elvis
KMD - Mr hood
Prince - Diamonds and pearls
Bongwater - The power of pussy
Terminator x - In the valley
Chapter and the verse - Great western
Lenny Kravitz - Mama said
Mock turtles - Two sides
Blur - Lleisure
Guns n' roses - Use your illusion 2
Kraftwerk - The mix
LFO - Frequencies
Thin white rope - The ruby sea
Ned's atomic dustbin - God fodder
Soul family sensation - New wave
Chapterhouse - Whirlpool
American music club - Everclear
Electronic - Same
Slowdive - Just for a day
Butthole surfers - Pioughd
Young disciples - Road to freedom
Jesus Jones - Doubt
Morrissey - Kill uncle
Springhouse - Land falls
Black radical mk2 - Undiluted

I love Blue Lines, The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, Nevermind, Bandwagonesque, Screamadelica, Out of Time, Nevermind, Yerself is Steam...i conclude that it was a good year. Even U2 made a decent record....

808 State 'Ex: El' - just as important for UK dance music as 'Blue Lines' basically, a real pioneering spirit throughout with the guest spots from Barney and Bjork proving how it could be about 'pwoper songs' as much as dancefloor mentalism ('Cubik' etc.) - the Chemical Brothers and co duly took note

Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
R.E.M. - Out Of Time
Nirvana - Nevermind
Pixies - Trompe le Monde
Pet Shop Boys - Discography
Robyn Hitchcock - Perspex Island
Public Enemy - Apocalypse '91: The Enemy Strikes Black
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
P.M. Dawn - Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience
Metallica - Metallica
Massive Attack - Blue Lines
Fugazi - Steady Diet Of Nothing
Urge Overkill - The Supersonic Storybook
Pearl Jam - Ten
Seal - Seal
De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead
Mudhoney - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I And II
Hole - Pretty On The Inside

normally i would pick mercury revs yr self esteem or flowered ups a life with brian but bongwater shade it today

The likes of Spacemen 3, Soul Family Sensation, Mock Turtles, EMF, The Milltown Brothers in the above lists makes me queasy.

classic jap psych crazyness from haino and co.

I'm not sure what I'd pick now though.

Yours
Jan

talk talk - laughing stock

(can't believe these haven't been mentioned yet???)

ANYWAY, apart from the obvious, here comes the obvious from me... "For Keeps" by The Field Mice, and even greater than that "Unholy soul" by The Orchids. And not forgetting "Laurel" by Brighter or "Make it loud" by The Wake. And if Moose had compiled its three EPs into an album, that would have been a goodie too. At the time it was probably a toss up between "For keeps" and "Loveless" for my personal album of the year.

Sure it's a decent album, but compared to 'Screamadelica'? You've got to be joking.

I know, I know, it's been said other places on ILM, I'm not the first to make any of these "observations," etc. But this album, it can be argued, had more impact ultimately than Nevermind. And the riffs are better.

Thank you!

Please - 1991 the year of Nevermind? In America, maybe, but Nirvana were never as massive in Europe as they were in their homeland.

1991 was also the year of the proper REM crossover album Out of Time - surely a more important album than Nevermind in itself.

And 1991 will always be the year of Blue Lines for me and many other music lovers.

Nevermind was, and certainly still is, a storm in a rather boring teacup.

Like I was going to say anything else than the obvious. And my second choice would be equally obvious, Laughing Stock. After that the list goes on.

I don't think that's true - Nirvana were HUGE in the UK. I always assumed this was more the case with Pearl Jam - didn't they sell more than Nirvana in the US, but they were def the smaller of the two in the UK, altho I'm not so sure about the rest of Europe.

and Foxbase Alpha. Didn't Joni Mitchell's Night Ride Home come out in '91 too?

My favourites which are more or less equally good, it's funny ten of them have one word titles:

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Lloyd Cole - Don't Get Weird on Me, Babe
Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Wedding Present - Seamonsters
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Robert Wyatt - Dondestan
This Mortal Coil - Blood
Electronic - Electronic
Gun Club - Divinity
Nirvana - Nevermind
Throwing Muses - The Real Ramona
Field Mice – Where’d You Learn to Kiss that Way (released later but there must have been a Field Mice album in 1991 I'd guess)

*brain splits open and leaks out ears under SO MUCH PRESSURE*

Ooops, it was the self-titled album that came out '91! And I don't really like that one nearly as much as I do Yank Crime, so yeah... Laughing Stock it is! (sorry MBV)

Anyway. I'll go with Voivod's *Angel Rat, Kix's *Hot Wire, Michael Jackson's *Dangerous, Corina's *Corina, Amy Grant's *Heart in Motion, Cypress Hill's *Cypress Hill, Mano Negra's *Amerika Perdida, Sandee's *Only Time Will Tell, Noir Desir's *Du Ciment Le Plaines, and Mariah Carey's *Emotions, in more or less that order. That leaves out a great issue by Electric Eels, but I left a great reissue by Electric Eels off my 2001 top ten, too. So it all evens out in the long run.

I don't know if I could say that was the best but most of the albums people are mentioning I'm not too enthused by, or I haven't heard. Of them, I wouldn't be surprised if Out Of Time, Cypress Hill and Trompe Le Monde made my top ten of that year. Possibly the Supersonic Storybook too.

1991 was a monumentally important year in rock history (for the world and me especially, since it was when I started reading Rolling Stone and picked up the RULES of being an underground rocker), but I must admit in retrospect I don't really dig a lot of the music from that era. Loveless and Nevermind (which are pretty much hit-and-miss 7's for my internal rating system) would probably mean a lot more to me if a certain writer hadn't popped certain aesthetic balloons (a "thanks" both genuine and sarcastic to that writer) in my mind a couple years ago.

Now I haven't the foggiest what years were really that much better than others for quanity of albums I like. Which is fine I guess.

well, hmmm, let's see here... i like those first two killing joke albums, before they got boring! does that count???

I'd definitely be considering Loveless, Screamadelica, and Yerself is Steam... but amazingly, two of my fave bands (Throwing Muses and Pixies) released two sub-par (for them) albums that year. Real Ramona, while good, is too bleak a portrait of Kristin's breakdown, and Trompe Le Monde is good too but is in no way prime Pixies.

And I'm pretty sure you're a fuckin' idiot.

"Really??? And here I thought ALL Alexes liked Killing Joke!! Oh well. I don't have much use for *Achtung Baby or Volcano Suns, either."

Well, we can't *ALL* be inexplicable Tina Marie fans, now can we?

Why inexplicable? Everything I ever heard from her I liked.

Well, it was the year punk broke, after all...

As for indie-rock, Slint was interesting, sure. Bongwater's "The Power of Pussy" was good for a laugh, but I think that was 1990. PJ Harvey, eh. Only Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r. struck me as something new and exciting. That and the Native Tongues sophomore/second wave: De La Soul Is Dead, Low End Theory, and in retrospect, Breaking Atoms.

Frequencies by LFO was 1991. What a fantastic record...

Pick only one album? I'll pass. :)

so wrong

This is complete nonsense.

(xpost)

My initial enthusiasm for LPs by Fishbone/Cypress Hill/Soundgarden/Ice-T/Galactic Cowboys only lasted a few years. And Pearl Jam/Smashing Pumpkins/Teenage Fanclub/Primal Scream/Geto Boys/Mercury Rev/Metallica (especially Metallica) never did a damn thing for me, other than inducing me to never again glance through SPIN at the newsstand, much less BUY it. (Last one I ever bought, around '88-89, had Jon Bon Jovi's moronic smirk on the cover. And a free condom! Possibly a subtle implication that Bon Jovi is a real dick?)

but best of all

Black Sheep - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Absolutely thirded.

Wow, what a year. pick one, my arse:

Bandwagonesque
Foxbase Alpha
The Real Ramona
Frequencies
Loveless
Screamadelica
Today Forever (best thing Ride ever released)

Sound Opinions

Show #270: 01.28.11
Twenty years later, Jim and Greg look back at 1991, the year that gave us Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses and Lollapalooza.

Read the Footnotes: (link)
Listen to the Reviews: (link)

Listen to the MP3 Stream: (link)
Download the Podcast: (Download the MP3)

I enjoyed listening to this episode that encapsulated this year which, nevermind the cultural and musical importance, was big for me personally: I turned 22, was living in NYC on my own, started the whole music writing / working for record stores and record companies, and wanted to gobble up any and all music I could.

Spiderland or Loveless. Probably the latter, since I prefer Slint's EP more.