Follow-ups to minor classics that were a letdown at the time but turned out to be mostly pretty good 1988-91

Don't Tell a Soul is NOT "mostly pretty good."

yeah its mostly crap. Talent Show excepted.

Don't Tell a Soul has some outrageously funny lyrics

most of the album is an outrage.

I love Don't Tell A Soul but we've had this debate before.

Oranges And Lemons is comfortably XTC's worst hour imo, although there ARE gaps in my knowledge (first two records, Mummer)

the live versions of the Don't Tell a Soul material are infinitely superior to the album versions. Just some really terrible production decisions made on that one.

Oranges And Lemons is comfortably XTC's worst hour imo, although there ARE gaps in my knowledge (first two records, Mummer)

― Zayatte Mondatta (country matters), Friday, April 3, 2009 7:23 PM (2 minutes ago)

yeah see i would give that reward to every album that came after oranges and lemons personally

Al, you don't think Sister - DN or Goo - Dirty is less of a stretch than DN - Goo?

xposts

I loved Goo when I was a kid, and it still contains my favourite SY song--"Disappearer"--but the album as a whole seems really really slight to me nowadays...it's one of those high school albums, like The Bends and Gish, that I just can't hear anymore...

whereas Doolittle pwns...it was just revealed to me, like two days ago, that "Hey" is a searing vision of a humanity bound to the world of flesh and filth...so that.

"yeah its mostly crap. Talent Show I'll Be You excepted."

Who didn't like Doolittle?

Now for my favorite pasttime, "you forgot about..."

Throwing Muses - House Tornado (1988, following up 1986 debut)
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (1989, following up 1986 debut)
Game Theory - Two Steps From the Middle Ages (1988, following up Lolita Nation from 1987)

"Oranges And Lemons" is my favourite album of 1989, which makes it a very obvius pick for me here. Surely no "letdown" even though it isn't quite as fantastic as "Skylarking". But then, "Skylarking" is in my Top 3 albums of all time.

yeah see i would give that reward to every album that came after oranges and lemons personally

"Nonsuch" is amazing. IMO the second best XTC album ever!

^^^I agree!

Although my #1 is probably Black Sea or English Settlement or something (haven't quite sorted out the order...Nonsuch is definitely 2nd tho)

Also Apple Venus is awesome, wtf haters

"Slight" is how I'd describe Goo too. "Disappearer" is my keeper as well, though "Dirty Boots" and "Mote" aren't bad.

Metallica looks best right now but I haven't heard a bunch of these. Not even sure why ...And Justice For All would be considered a letdown. I think "One" might be the best thing they've done.

xposts

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln (1989, following up 1986 debut)

?! If anything this is even better than the debut, probably the best in their catalog (lolz I just dl'd it yesterday cuz my cassette copy is dead)

in fairness i think i mostly dont "get" XTC

xposts: i still think ...And Justice was a huge letdown, but maybe a mitigated one considering how much i hate the black album

yeah i look at ...and justice as a let down too but a few people i've talked to have told me it's their favourite Metallica album. I love Blackened and a few of the other tracks but it's a million miles away from the awesomeness of Master.

given how much farther Metallica had to go its more like ...And Justice For All is their last halfway decent gasp.

not being a huge Metallica fan during my youth, Justice was always my fave bcz it sounded to me like the soundtrack to the original Legend of Zelda...

more like it ramps up all the awesome things about master of puppets

(parts of it anyway, amirite? xpost)

don't get love for Key Lime Pie, CVB became more like other bands w/ that one, who needs that? (I don't care bout engineering btw)

I like Oranges & Lemons and Doolittle just fine.

ha more like what other bands?

I can't think of very many albums that sound like that one.

Al, you don't think Sister - DN or Goo - Dirty is less of a stretch than DN - Goo?

xposts

― Sundar, Friday, April 3, 2009 3:26 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

For me personally, no. I feel like there's kind of a subtle but significant leap from the manic in-the-red feel of Sister to the more controlled atmosphere and longer, proggier instrumental sections of DN. But Goo has the same producer as DN and all but maybe a handful of songs on it wouldn't have fit in on its predecessor pretty easily. Dirty to me has a whole different feel from the previous albums, lotta shorter crunchier songs with a more 'grunge' bass sound, so very Vig and post-Nevermind, and just a lot of other stuff they had never tried before lyrically and musically, for better or worse.

Doolittle is better than most albums ever, let alone whatever else is on this list.

btw re title, 3 Feet High & Rising and Daydream Nation are not minor classics

I said that above, Morbs. :)

Goo has some of Kim Gordon's best moments, as well as one of Sonic Youth's best songs in "Kool Thing". The furious guitar mantra at the end of that track is astonishing...

kool thing is not one of sonic youth's best songs...

I would add Lovesexy by Prince to this list.

its good to have you back, Tuomas...

the main thing i fathom from this poll is that one has to be pretty on the ball/presumptuous to call fugazi's bluff on 'steady diet of nothing' way back when it was released.

Many, many folks were pumped about Doolittle from the day it came out. It is also one of my all-time favorite albums, so that.

I own 15 of these and wouldn't mind owning the rest.
The one I play the most though is Beet, so that's my vote.

Good idea for a poll. I'd probably vote "Goo" or "Doolittle"- but I still need to hear "De La Soul is Dead".

Most of those minor classics are kinda major, but def. good poll.

"Green" >>> "Document".

yeah Document kinda blows
don't know about Green though

yeah Document kinda blows

Rong (aside from the mostly-insufferable It's The End Of The World As We Know It).

whats good on it? Finest Worksong? Exhuming McCarthy? Disturbance at the Heron House? (I might have repped for this song in posts past, but I just remembered that I was talking abt Welcome to the Occupation)...flaccid and unappealing, Document is reminiscent of the worst of the 80: Springsteen, U2, and Tracy Chapman...uninspiring ego-inflated rock that meant much less than it meant to mean...

Springsteen is a whole different can of worms. I loved Born In The USA, but that's not the normal Springsteen vibe that resonates with me. My two favorite Springsteen discs are Tunnel Of Love and Nebraska, both of which don't seem ego-inflated (indeed, they seem, alternatively, humbled/tortured and sinister/desperate).

What's good on Document? Welcome To The Occupation; Exhuming McCarthy; Disturbance at the Heron House; The One I Love; Fireplace; and King Of Birds.

I'm with you on U2 and Chapman, tho.

I don't find those REM songs flaccid at all. To the contrary, I think they roar in a way REM never had before or since (aside from some of Life's Rich Pagent, I guess). It's one of the few times I loved a group of REM songs after their "early," Southern-Gothic rock period.

that springsteen remark might be off the mark...the whole idea of addressing huge political issues in pop songs in the 80s struck me as very egotistical...perhaps Peter Gabriel's So is more like it?

I like Occupation, and King of Birds, and the Wire cover (and One I Love)..the rest sounds like draggy flavorless funk-pop to these ears...

I've wanted to hear Green for some time now, though...all I know is 'Stand'

Green is the first REM disc I thought was really bland (or "draggy flavorless"). I still think it had a few winners: World Leader Pretend; Turn You Inside Out; I Remember California; and especially the 11th, untitled song. Still, a fairly uninspired disc (especially considering how good they'd been to that point).

De La Soul is Dead. Better than 3 Feet if you ask me.

not too many albums piss me off more than the cheez whiz feel of oranges and lemons

I just realized how many of these are the groups' "jumping to a major" album-- Sonic Youth, REM, Eleventh Dream Day, Dinosaur Jr. Pixies too, I guess.

Green Mind, Steady Diet, Doolittle, and Goo are the first records I heard by any of these bands so they get a pass in that first-record-you-loved kind of way. None is my favorite by any of the bands but I still love them more than I might had I gotten them as follow ups.

De La Soul and Fishbone were the two that I was eagerly anticipating, and I loved both probably a bit more than their predecessors. Both came out within a couple of weeks of each other and became a big part of the soundtrack to my summer after 11th grade.

i think either de la or cvb.

It's good ("Billy Don't Fall"), but Symphony or Damn, which can you find cheap in any used record store, is even better.

"I Have Faith In These Desolate Times" A+++++

Wild Card is also fantastic. Poor old arrogant crazy TTD

huh i guess i should give camper van beethovan a chance? dude always kinda bugged me, at least in cracker who was more my era i guess.

I always hated Cracker (who were also more my era) and I just think of CVB being a jokey cover band cause I've only heard their cover of "pictures of matchstick men" and "take the skinheads bowling".

what you haven't heard their jokey cover of Black Flag's "Wasted"? or Ringo's "Photograph"?

Or their hoedown cover of "White Riot?" Or "Interstellar Overdrive?" Or Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All the Time?" Or their track-for-track cover of "Tusk?" Among other awesome CVB covers.

(Well, OK, the reinvented "Tusk" is pretty hit-or-miss, but the other covers the band has done are all awesome).

missed this poll, would've voted for Only Life -- sometimes my fave Feelies record, though they all occasionally hold that title.

Listened to The Woodentops' Giant. First impressions: A little Good Earth-era Feelies, but more Conspiracy-era Jazz Butcher with a bit of Housemartins feel in the vocals. Pretty good; I would probably now have very fond memories of it if I had heard it at the time. Flisten in 2009: only OK, lyrics a bit weak. But def. has the potential to grow on me (or maybe not).

I realized I left out a few more:

Love And Rockets - Earth-Sun-Moon 87
The lack of the heavy buzzsaw sounds of Express lead me to write this album off at the time. Now it sounds pretty inspired compared to their more disappointing self-titled album from '89.

The Church - Starfish 88
Heyday was a big favorite in 1986, but when this came out, it sounded too clean and sterile to me. In retrospect, their singles were some of the prettiest stuff you'd hear on the radio at the time.

Julian Cope - Peggy Suicide 91
I got turned on to 1987's Saint Julian before I even was aware of Teardrop Explodes. Reading his Head-On/Repossessed auto-bio reminded me that he also released the mediocre My Nation Underground in 1988, which I totally was unaware of at the time. I remember checking out bits of Peggy Suicide at the college radio station and being impressed by the concept, but not the songs. Finally got a copy just recently and still growing.

Earth Sun Moon is their best album

Didn't get to vote in this the first time around (I would have gone for Goo, which I actually think is miles better as a brilliant pop album than the unfocused sprawl that was Daydream Nation)...

But Starfish? Come on, most casual listeners would probably say that was the Church's finest hour. And still their biggest commercial success.

Ditto Earth Sun Moon, which was really L&R's breakthrough album. I'm not sure how you're judging this "followups" business here.

Explained upthread, but they were judged at the time with my teenage ears that were expecting something better. And now I'm re-evaluating them a couple decades later.