1994 NME/Melody Maker/Q Best Albums Poll

the first five listed made me cover my eyes but there is some great stuff there! at the time i'd have gone for portishead but i hadn't heard any of the albums now competing with it - the prodigy, hole, snoop dogg, madge.

that sinead album is pretty good also.

prob go with the prodigy...

its a strange list, theres not many records i love there, but...not many (comparatively) that i actively dislike

i went for haunted dancehall in the end.

i got my mum the nirvana unplugged album, she loves that. i remember thinking it was surprisingly not bad

actually no. snoop.

wait a minute, boston made a 94 list? BOSTON?

Jeez, someone actually liked The Division Bell enough to include it on a years-end-list?

Live Through This is my favorite of that lot (and maybe of the year in general).

Wonder which list THAT appeared on (ditto Clapton and Floyd) readers?

Wot no Enter The Chamber or SAW2???

Grace, Dummy, Tiger Bay and Bluff Limbo all have an equal claim for me, but, um, Grace.

you mean the first wu? wasnt that 93?

Since January, I drive a 1994 VW Golf Pink Floyd :-)

Weirdly, at 2/3 of the list title and artist are flipped. Had me confused for a moment.

At the time, Dog Man Star was my favourite by far. Since then Bakesale has become associated with some great moments so that gets my vote.

Colour me bad - Time and chance

er...

what's wrong w/ color me badd??

not that i've heard the album but 'i wanna sex you up' is a better song than half the artists in this poll could dream of making

The first Wu record didn't come out in Britain until '94.

I Love Everybody - Lyle Lovett

Did someone delete his board?

No Ready to Die? Wasn't that out in the UK in '94?

hope Shed Seven win

Yeah, Ready To Die was out here in '94 - another absurd omission!

Especially when useless plankton like These Animal Men and Senser and that crappy last Ride album get in!

I had forgotten that S*M*A*S*H existed!

I guess I'll be alone in voting for Dodgy, but so I did anyway ;)

I like the Senser and Ride albums! But They don't get my vote.

"i've been stabbed in the back so many, many times, i haven't any skin, but that's just the way it goes."

I guess I'll be alone in voting for Dodgy, but so I did anyway ;)

-- Geir Hongro, Monday, 21 May 2007 14:14

fixed

Now I can imagine Geir singing that Tiffany song.

ew

"I Think Geir Alone Now".

Watch out for vote-splitting, Echobelly fans.

at the time i'd have gone for portishead

I think the MM poll did as well didn't it?

The gap between the highs and lows in this thing are kind of hilarious. Portishead and Kristin and Sabres could all get my vote deservedly. The singular Manics, Beasties and Soundgarden albums that have endured for me are in here too, but they're second-tier compared to the ones I mentioned

So many to choose from but Underworld for me

There are lots I could have voted for, but it had to be St Etienne in the end.

Dog Man Star made my list then too. Now either Hole, Pavement, and Wu.

I have about 33 of these. I wonder what ILM thinks was the best 1994 or 1995?

Suede - that album caught my attention much more than anything Oasis did. Am I alone on that? I always felt like Oasis wasn't really very innovative at all, and 'Asphalt World' is easily one of my favorite songs ever. Is it just my tin ear?

Hips and Makers is duplicated on the ballot. We're gonna need a Florida recount.

it's a tie between unplugged and dummy for me. dummy gets my vote 'cause it was touching while sounding new whereas unplugged was touching while sounding old. my real 95 fave was the first sparklehorse btw.

bollocks. my 94 fave was 41 by swell. good psychedelic music beats anything.

This is easier than 95. I'd have gone for Dummy at the time, and might still. Haunted Dancehall, tho. Hm.

Pavement over Portishead and Nas. Pretty close.

Nas was pretty good. But I think Mobb Deep really perfected what Nas was doing in 95.

Rather, in 95, Mobb Deep really perfected what Nas started.

Lots of classic albums in 1994: Blur - Parklife, Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet, Portishead - Dummy, and Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume 2 are all excellent in very different ways, but somehow Aphex Twin doesn't even feature in this list. Of the three that do, I'd have to say Portishead is the one I'd least like to listen to right now. It seems a bit too 'of its time' (even though it didn't really sound like anything else at the time, and I didn't hear until the start of 1995 anyway). Also, a bit too fucking miserable. The Prodigy album has got some great tracks on it (Break & Enter, Poison, Claustrophobic Sting), but I wouldn't say I like the whole album. This might be a slightly odd decision, but in the absence of Aphex Twin I'm going for Blur.

As I remember, the press thought SAW II was pretty poor at the time. Me too for what it's worth. It is, of course, brilliant, but at the time, it was at the arse end of ten million rubbish ambient albums and I think everyone had pretty much had enough.

I vaguely remember a review in Select that was struggling to work out what to say about it: no drum beats, no 'tunes', two and a half hours of slightly sinister sounds, none of the tracks had any names. I think they described it as a great album for those times at 5am when the wallpaper is talking to you.

It *was* at the arse end of ten million rubbish ambient albums, but it sounded very different to at least nine million of them.

I bought it when it came out from Our Price in Hamilton and despite having heard a lot of those ambient albums, it immediately struck me as totally different from the others.
Aphex Twin/Autechre/FSOL/Underworld/Orbital/Leftfield had a MASSIVE impact on me. Led to me to listening to non-rock stuff for the first time and led to me checking out other genres which then led to me checking out older releases by Kraftwerk and Tangerine dream and stuff like Can, Neu! , Amon Duul II and of course funk.

It *was* at the arse end of ten million rubbish ambient albums, but it sounded very different to at least nine million of them.

This is true - well, I would go as far as to say that it's pretty much unique, but I guess I'm saying I didn't see it myself at the time, though. I was fed up and just wanted to rock.

There was also the rumour that you were supposed to play both CDs at the same time. Obviously rubbish, but no-one I knew at the time had two CD players to try it on.

hah! I remember that rumour. Didn't the Flaming Lips drive that plan up to 4 cds?

[checks] Oh yeh, but it was 4 different CDs. Hum.

Yeah I think they did. What a shit idea.

Gold: BECK - Mellow Gold

Silver: Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Bronze: Beastie Boys - Ill Communication

Between Mellow Gold, One foot In The Grave, Stereopathetic Soul Manure, and all the B-sides, Beck put out at least 30 songs in 1994 that I still love.

Mellow Gold which Beck never bettered. And where the funk is M People?!?!?

Suede - that album caught my attention much more than anything Oasis did. Am I alone on that?

Obviously not, but personally I find "Dog Man Star" one of their weakest albums. It lacks their stylistic main trademarks so obviously evident on "Suede" and "Trash".

Geir is wrong.

I think we're all agreed on that, generally.

Well, I've yet to see anyone ever agree with Geir.

the misunderstood general may yet inherit the party

OVER MY COLD DEAD HANDS

Voted for the Holy Bible, but it certainly wasn't easy.

I'd find it difficult to vote for that too.

(snigger)

the lurkers will vote for the manics now just to annoy everyone.

And the Manics will vote for The Lurkers yatatataa ta ta oy oy.

The Manics fans can vote for The Holy Bible over on this thread
Best RAW/Kerrang/Metal Hammer Album of 1994

You fucking spell dEUS with a capital? BAH!

Shame on the melody maker or whoever it was

I just hope all the dance and hip hop fans don't avoid this because it says NME and Oasis end up winning. Wonder what The Lex would do if that happened?

Voted for American Recordings. Far and away the best of the Cash/Rubin albums. Best performances and best, least obvious, selection of songs. The Danzig cover is rad.

But lots of favourites from a watershed year in my musical life. I was 13/14 and finally got into contemporary music, as opposed to listening to Beatles and Stones etc.

Of course most of these I didn't get into at the time! It was all about Britpop and the last gasp of grunge for me then.

Being a bit older, as i said above under my other log in, it was the year that got me away from that stuff! Not that I stopped liking grunge. I never have. Mind you I never stopped liking The Second Coming, A Northern Soul, Definitely Maybe or Parklife either.

I always meant to check out that Satchel album. Is it any good?

Or were you all too busy listening to The Division Bell?

I guess I'll be alone in voting for Dodgy, but so I did anyway ;)

I would hope other ilxors would have better taste.

That's easily the worst album on the list. Worse than Pink Floyd, Counting Crows,Cranberries and Crash test Dummies for a start.

Now come on, be fair - Dodgy were always pretty, um, dodgy, but worse than THEIR GUNS AN' THEIR BOMBS AN' THEIR BOMBS AN' THEIR GUNS?

Well, on their 1995 album there's a song good enough which is far worse.

You remember the hi-nrg cover version of zombie?

"Good Enough" is annoying, Dodgy were mostly genius though. And "Homegrown" includes the marvellous "Staying Out For The Summer", probably their best ever song. (Well, besides "In Your Room")

That europop cover of "zombie" is one of the worst covers ever along side the "smells like teen spirit" one.

hah, I remember that. It was on one of those awful mid-nineties compilations with the word "bass" in the title.

I always liked the Cranberries, even 'to the faithful departed', but understand perfectly well why many people hate them. At the end of the day, this one has to go to Dummy, since it was what got me into the whole Bristol music scene.

As much as I love "Music for the Jilted Generation", I have to go for Gravediggaz. My favourite album of that year is probably "Nephology" but Air Liquide, but it seems Britons weren't digging German electronic music back then. If I remember correctly, Westbam, Marusha, Alter Ego, and Mouse on Mars (and Yello!) released great albums that year.

There's a mouse on mars album in the 1995 poll. My favourite by them actually.

A.D.A.M. and Amy - "Zombie" - I love that record.

"Good Enough" was 1996, off the Free Peace Sweet album.

God Machine or Nas. Tough one. A grear year.

God Machine!

Terrorvision - How to make friends and influence people

Hahaha! (Can't really laugh though, I owned it)

Finishes tonight.
Was that Terrorvision album the one with "alice whats the matter" on it?

That's the one.

Beasties for the win I presume? Or does the pavement fanbase come out and sneak it for them?

will find out in less than an hour

portishead will win this. 90% sure. after that? maybe pavement and nirvana.

You can never tell with the lurker vote though!

And the lurkers are pavement fans!

Good to see there are at least some people here who do still appreciate the magic of "Parklife".

Amazing to see Portishead second. I haven't listened to that record since the day it came out, because despite thinking I was going to like it, I found it absolutely tedious, despite even at the time liking stuff like that, and indeed still liking stuff like that.

What am I missing?

Pavement are first? For f**k's sake; what a load of pish.

Naw, pavement and portishead(and parklife) are all great.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement 9
One last laugh in a place of dying - The God Machine 5
Second Coming - The Stone Roses 4

Unbelievable.

Awesome about some people seeing sense that the stone roses album is great!

Where did all the Manics fans go?

i think they work for Foxtons now

Maybe there's not too many Manics fans on ILX. But I thought that there would be more than 4 votes for THB.

That's The Manics worst album. "She Is Suffering" is a great song and "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart" may be the greatest song title ever, but other than that, nothing much on that album.

Not that I would have voted for "This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours" (my favourite Manics album) in a 1998 poll either, mind you.

hahahaha. The Holy Bible is their best and TIMTTMY is the worst album apart from the one a few years ago.

You are so completely wrong.

hmm, top 2 same as P&J basically.

Just looking at those results again and there's some surprising albums with 0 votes here. Prodigy,Orbital,Neil Young, Nick Cave, Massive Attack.