SPIN Alternative Record Guide (1995) Top 100 Alternative Albums (1-50)

Most of these hold up really well

A Madonna greatest hits collection seems like an odd, but also oddly forward looking inclusion for a 1995 Alternative Record Guide

Maybe beyond the scope of this conversation, but when did Murmur become the critical consensus "must-have" R.E.M.? Most people seem to prefer Reckoning, which is a richer, more representative album, but the lists always default to Murmur

Since micci0 doesn't post here any more, I'll have to be the guy who points out that the Madonna GH was only given an 8 and knocked in the write-up for not having truncated, non-12-inch versions to fit it all on a single disc.

Murmur has been a consensus pick since the end of the 80s at least. xp

I prefer Wild Planet to the debut, but since that's not here I'll vote for the first B's album. I'M NOT NO LIMBURGER!!

the same guy (Sheffield) who reviewed PSB also said their comp was OK and gave it a 7 or 8.

can't fuck with the #17-27 sequence:

Thought for sure I had this, but apparently not. Madonna, Lucinda Williams, and Flying Burrito Brothers seem like a real stretch (is this list included in the book?)...One of the two VU albums for me.

This book changed my musical life, no joke. It sent me from new rock alternative radio to madly buying crazy old records in no time.

This has to be between Public Image and X-Ray Spex for me, but there are tons of other albums on the list that I love just slightly less.

Murmur has been a consensus pick since the end of the 80s at least. xp

If not since the very beginning, it was so instantly lionized. It's a great album but it feels like nobody bothered to update the canon for the next 34 years

13	Funkadelic	One nation under a groove	1978

Good on them.

Yeah, being 15 when this dropped, it def informed my taste, for better or worse.

My top 3 of all time (Nation of Millions, Double Nickels, Ramones) are all here & appx. 40% of my Number 4 (Raising Hell)

This book changed my musical life, no joke

mine too, especially anything written by Weisbard (Wire, Pere Ubu, Feelies).

Probably my No. 5 and 6 too if they had picked the right X and Beasties albums

Whiney, is Tribe in the bottom 50? I'm pretty sure it also got a 10.

I never had any of the SPIN books, but several editions of the Trouser Press guide. This is all foreign to me.

My favourites are probably Loveless and The Ramones. There's nothing I dislike on here.

It's a bit light on 60s music.

think i may be the only ilxor who actually contributed to this book (cabaret voltaire)

Yeah, Tribe is in the bottom 50

It's a bit light on 60s music.

A necessary corrective.

I was happy Human League and Culture Club got their due. The King Sunny Ade and Fela entries also excellent intros.

amazing list. voting loveless

Re: the Sixties, I put this together during my time at SPIN and you can read it on their dogshit new list design

http://www.spin.com/2013/03/best-100-albums-1960s-sixties-alternative-list/

I never had any of the SPIN books, but several editions of the Trouser Press guide. This is all foreign to me.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, March 13, 2017 10:35 AM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I discovered the Trouser Press '90s alternative guide probably a few months after the Spin book, and then discovered CMJ a few months after that. It was all over from there.

4 Hüsker Dü - Zen arcade (1984)

Not my pick, but this band - and esp this album - kind of towered over 80s/90s American indie & alternative. Wonder if it'd even make top 50 on similar list put together today.

Yes.

my least favorite major Husker album; prefer FYW.

I like it a lot & understand why it's the representative HD album, but it & they don't seem to be held in quite the same esteem these days.

think i may be the only ilxor who actually contributed to this book (cabaret voltaire)

― mark s Hi Mark, Frank K and Chuck E are in there too; maybe John D as well? Seems like there's somebody else. The Top 100 was less useful to me than the deep and sometimes complete discographies (incl. the most noteworthy bootlegs, in several cases) for so many artists, esp. when the internet was so bereft, and other reference books likely to be found were more all-inclusive yet limited by one man's taste and time (xgau's duh) or Boomercentric like those Rolling Stone guides (revising their original kneejerking vs. Stooges, Sabs, for that matter Joplin, and many others later elevated). I didn't agree with every opinion of course, but plenty of info and enjoyable writing.

Don't like the idea of voting for a singles collection, but Run DMC Together Forever is flawless

Don't like the idea of voting for a singles collection, but Run DMC Together Forever is flawless

― Evan R, Monday, March 13, 2017 12:37 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Run-DMC is one of my favorite bands of all time, but I'll definitely count "Here's a solo from my homeboy Stanley Brown" as a flaw

lol fair enough

haha, i bought that guide at the time and registered an ilm account a couple of years later...

too many great albums. "loveless", "crazy rhythms", "another green world" and "velvet underground" are the ones i could niot live without. deciding between them is like killing all your babies except one, absolutely impossible. therefore no vote from me.

Tonight's the Night for me.

come the fuck on people

24 Prince Sign o the times 1987

I'm not even saying everyone needs to vote for it but for it not even to have come up yet in the conversation is ridiculous.

Pretty much all good albums, but I don't really get how they are defining "alternative" here. Like Madonna's greatest hits are hardly alt.

I know it's Controversy-al, but SoTT is my least favorite (although still very good) of a solid run of Prince albums that otherwise remain entrenched in my all-time top 100.

Pretty much all good albums, but I don't really get how they are defining "alternative" here. Like Madonna's greatest hits are hardly alt.

― Moodles, Monday, March 13, 2017 1:02 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't hold your hand through this, used copy is $10

https://www.amazon.com/Spin-Alternative-Record-Guide-Weisbard/dp/0679755748

Pretty much all good albums, but I don't really get how they are defining "alternative" here. Like Madonna's greatest hits are hardly alt.

― Moodles, Monday, March 13, 2017 1:02 PM

Weisbard's introduction addresses this. One of his points is how subcultural phenomena like Madonna or gradations of queerness (Culture Club, also pop) change mainstream tastes.

Besides which, Hootie and the Blowfish was played on alternative stations in the '90s so it's not as if we'd collectively agreed on any hard and fast criteria.

the first Pretenders album is still woefully under appreciated - flawless collection of songs. James Honeyman-Scott was an extraordinary guitarist. such a fucking shame what happened to them

sub-conversation, what's the WORST album on this list. Probably Pavement or Hole

I just voted for Hole.

I'mma get pummelled but Double Nickels is my least favorite on the list. I've never been able to get into it.

what's the WORST album on this list

it's Hole by a considerable margin

oooooooooOOHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!

actually it's Modern Lovers

hi don, yeah i guess i meant current ilxors but i was just stirring the water a bit really to see who else might be here

lol at shakey and his transsparent hared of courtney love

(siren seems an odd roxy music lp to land on)

it's the remains of America's hesitation to canonize Roxy; for a while it was the only album American critics rated, which is why Rob's calling it their best surprises me, especially after his intro paragraph

Lots of amazing stuff on this list--leaning towards voting for Let It Be, but Prince, The Clash, the Ramones debut, Television and De La are nipping at its heels

Flip Your Wig or even New Day Rising should be the Hüskers LP here

I'mma get pummelled but Double Nickels is my least favorite on the list. I've never been able to get into it.

― Milkwalker's World (Old Lunch), Monday, March 13, 2017 10:28 AM (forty-four minutes ago)

i will not pummel, but you'll have to live with my look of wounded confusion for the rest of your life

I'll have to give this one some thought.

Put me down as another who prefers Reckoning to Murmur.

Let's talk about the same albums over and over and over again!

Best: Murmur
Worst: Slanted and Enchanted

I've only heard about half the albums on this list, though.

Yeah can't really choose one album over others by a lot of those bands, another reason for caring more about the descriptions of discographies. Without knowing the deadline for this 1995-published collection, I would like to plug one late-'94 release, Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York, which cogently combined originals and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Lead Belly, and Meat Puppets, whose Cris and Curt Kirkwood joined Nirvana onstage and made it work, by cracky. In retrospect seems like it might have served some listeners as gateway (back and forward) to thee more effective kind of "acid folk" etc. inclusiveness.
As Wikipedia also points out, it has become the group's most successful posthumous release, having been certified 5x platinum in the United States by 1997. (source: RIAA.com). It's several of my friends' most-played Nirvana by far, and in some cases only-played, incl. those who never did care about any of their other albums.

LJ, you have a point. You should work your way through all of the ILX threads that aren't to your taste and make your voice heard. You're changing minds and lives with your good works.

Let's talk about the same albums over and over and over again!

― an uptempo Pop/Hip Hop mentality (imago), Monday, March 13, 2017 11:23 AM (three minutes ago)

I guess you missed the thread title. These are the 50 top alternative albums ever.

xxp Unplugged is my favorite & most listened to besides In Utero

Voted Public Image but I probably like the two Velvets records and the Modern Lovers as much. Just picked it as the bassline to Poptones appeared in my head when I read it.

I had no idea the Spin Record Guide existed at the time but bought a secondhand copy after seeing it mentioned a lot on here... This whole list is an interesting snapshot, definitely a few things that have fallen out of favour but it actually seems more in line with today's indie/alternative canon than I would've guessed.

Voted Murmur just over Radio City.

voted B-52's cuz are we not men? isn't an option

the group's most successful posthumous release

not much competition tbf

lol

Easier would be a list of the ones from this I don't still listen to on the semi-regular... Went with Ramones because I have likely played that more often than anything else on the list.

I couldn't not vote for Daydream Nation but Another Green World put up a good fight.

seems a little unfair to have so many comps on here

idk what the best is but Licensed to Ill is probably the worst, in my humble opinion

Slanted and Enchanted 4EVA.

The most unlikely thing on this list could be More Songs About Buildings and Food. It's a great record obviously but Remain In Light seems to be the consensus pick. It was in 1995 too.

never read this, I did have rolling stone's 90s "alternative rock" book which had Lou Barlow' grilled cheese sandwich recipe and a bunch of other random "essays" and lists

Voted Nation of Millions without a moment's hesitation, even as roughly 25+ other life-changing records lurked beneath.

How does Barlow make grilled cheese?

voted Flying Burrito Brothers because huh?

Since micci0 doesn't post here any more, I'll have to be the guy who points out that the Madonna GH was only given an 8 and knocked in the write-up for not having truncated, non-12-inch versions to fit it all on a single disc.
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, March 13, 2017 11:14 AM (four hours ago)

the same guy (Sheffield) who reviewed PSB also said their comp was OK and gave it a 7 or 8.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 13, 2017 11:24 AM (four hours ago)

I always was more intrigued by the 10s that made the list: Cut! This Nation's Saving Grace! The Queen is Dead! AR Kane's 69! Dub Housing! Soon Over Babaluma! Throwing Muses' first album! Suicide's first album! etc etc etc

(FWIW both Madinna and PSB had studio albums ranked as 10s--Like a Prayer and Introspective iirc--but I assumed Weisbard pulled editorial rank and included the lower-scored comps instead)

pavement/young/big star made other records i feel stronger about so voted double nickels

Thought it might be a difficult decision, but then I saw Loveless and the choice was obvious.

I made an google sheet of all the 9s and 10s if anyone has any questions

A necessary corrective.

to someone raised on the rolling stone guides, this whole book was a welcome, necessary and wonderful corrective. it had its own weird and unexplained exclusions, none of which i can remember off the top of my head, but that's the price of admission for anything like this. also, the personal top 10s sprinkled throughout the book were great.

that said, i can no longer endorse any list that thinks sign o' the times is only the 24th best of anything.

I think I'm the first one to say this "Parallel lines."

this'll have a nice spread i feel

the Duran Duran entry is LOL.

#77 Freedy Johnston - Can You Fly

I've never even heard of this artist.

to someone raised on the rolling stone guides, this whole book was a welcome, necessary and wonderful corrective.

Many of the records on this list were released years after the last RS guide in 1983 (unless you're counting the '92 RS guide, which is irredeemable dogshit). And most of these records that did appear in the '83 RS guide got 4 or 5 stars (PiL, Roxy, Pretenders, Velvets, Patti Smith, Wire, Neil Young, Richard & Linda Thompson).

i'm referring to the classic RS red and blue guides, not the irredeemable dogshit one that came later. they were invaluable to me. but there's a sea change between them and the spin guide. RS devotes three times as much space to the first four southside johnny albums as it does to the first four ramones albums, which, combined, get one short paragraph. and gives one star to the entire black sabbath catalog. etc. it's different people on a different planet writing for different readers who breathe different ear.

...who breathe different *air*.

it's different people on a different planet writing for different readers who breathe different air.

Interesting way to put it. I'd have to think about this.

(The Southside Johnny vs. Ramones comparison is definitely a strong argument in support of that formulation...I think there's probably more continuity there than you might initially think, though.)

Voted SIGN O'THE TIMES

#77 Freedy Johnston - Can You Fly

I've never even heard of this artist.

― jmm It's scruffy folk-rock and (to me) kinda power-pop too--anyway it's catchy enough, melancholy but not too navelgazing--he's from the farm, he's lived in the city, not overly impressed with either one, but the city's good for material---and sometimes exhilarating. Lot of other good albums too (and some a bit off), but this still seems like his peak.

Think somebody compared him to 70s Jackson Browne, but Johnston's a better singer and not as wordy---to me, closer to The Go-Betweens.

Could rep for almost half of these, but my gut says Gang Of Four. I still find it thrilling how these sounds work together.

Love Freedy's "Trying to Tell You I Don't Know."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9hTt43AD_U

freedy was critically adore in the early 90s, era of liz phair & gbv. never really understood the appeal, but singer-songwriter "americana" escapes me, by and large.

Ask Lucinda Williams

There's entries for Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, and Roseanne Cash, along with Parsons and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (no Uncle Tupelo though!)

Minutemen

Anyways, I voted for Fun House, no question

pavement/young/big star made other records i feel stronger about so voted double nickels

This was also my logic.

it's different people on a different planet writing for different readers who breathe different air.

...separated by 12 years. I mean, sure, the RS guide overall has a different bent, but the writers being older and being maybe more pro-Southside than pro-Ramones (or pro-Sabbath -- the Sabbath bit was by longtime TV critic Ken Tucker, oddly enough) is still notable for how much agreement there is with the Spin guide.

(tbh, I've only thumbed through the Spin guide; the Trouser Press Guides were always my go-to for "alternative," and at least three editions appeared before the Spin dealie)

If we're doing worst on the list as well, it's this

28 Television Marquee moon 1977

longtime TV critic Ken Tucker

was a longtime rock critic first!

Yeah, wrote for Creem and the Voice in 70s, and of course overshadowed by the fabled Noise Boys, Bangs-Meltzer-Tosches.

mild-mannered reporter

classic RS red and blue guides = dave marsh's POV.

A lot of great records on that list, but Double Nickels will always get my vote.

(xpost) The red, definitely. Didn't they really try to soften that in the blue (which I have but hardly ever looked at)?

never owned this book or even knew it existed I don't think, '95 was kinda peak Who Cares About Yr Critical Hegemony times for Joan Crawford

voting either Don't Break the Oath or Seven Churches

dark blue in like 82/83 still was marsh's work in the main. red one in the 90s ("dogshit") was the work of like four writers, one of whom has been a very active ILM-nik over the years. Light blue was in 04: me and several ILM dudes are therein.

Kneejerk vote for Fear and Whiskey

I agree Johnny, "Marquee Moon" should get the vote for most overrated album ever. Hardly ever has guitar play sounded so boring and uninspired. I hate that album and all the critics who made me buy that rubbish.

voting either Don't Break the Oath or Seven Churches

― though the tempest rages, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Monday, March 13, 2017 2:47 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

(xpost) The red, definitely. Didn't they really try to soften that in the blue (which I have but hardly ever looked at)?

Marsh liked Sabbath, which got trashed in both editions. He hated Pere Ubu, whom he trashed in the first edition, but handed over to someone else for the second, who praised them to the skies. He hated the Doors, who were comically lauded by Billy Altman in the first edition, so Marsh wrote a necessary corrective for the second. Marsh hated Rush, but co-editor Jon Swenson dug them, and their post-2112 records all got 4 stars in the second edition.

So...no, it's not as simple as DAVE MARSH WROTE ALL THE WORDS AND THEN ATE ALL THE WORDS AND THEY HAD TO CLOSE THE RESTAURANT.

I knew you were gonna swan in here and defend his honor. Is he yr pal or something?

The one name that comes to mind is Neil Young--he got a more sympathetic writer in the first blue one, no?

He's my Robert Christgau.

xp

If we're doing worst on the list as well, it's this

28 Television Marquee moon 1977

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, March 13, 2017 2:11 PM (one hour ago)

I agree Johnny, "Marquee Moon" should get the vote for most overrated album ever. Hardly ever has guitar play sounded so boring and uninspired. I hate that album and all the critics who made me buy that rubbish.

― it's the distortion, stupid! (alex in mainhattan), Monday, March 13, 2017 3:33 PM (seventeen minutes ago)

is this some late-emerging backlash or just you two? mm may not live up to its rep, but it's at least half a great guitar album. side one's flawless.

PERE UBU
✸Dub Housing / Chrys.1207
Art rock with a New Wave face is no less pompous, pretentious or irrelevant because of its claim to association with Johnny Rotten. Anti-rock for anti-rockers. Boo. DM

^^^This is the totality of the Pere Ubu entry in Red. Filed under U, which is not where I would file it. He's no Christgau. Boo.

I thought we all got "overrated" out of our system already

For the love of god

is this some late-emerging backlash or just you two?

heh Alfred doesn't like it either iirc

Boo Ubu.

I got my first copy of Marquee Moon when I was probably 17 or 18 and I've tried to figure out why people like it for the last 25-ish years and idgi sorry

Murmur was loved by critics the moment it was released. Christgau’s write-up that year in Pazz & Jop (where it came in second to Thriller) was titled “Who Else? A Goddamn Critics’ Band, That’s Who Else”. It feels like it has the best aspects of both the enigmatic sound of Chronic Town and the more straightforward rock of Reckoning

Marquee Moon is one of the best albums on this list imo

It seems like very little I hear these days sounds iconic in the way that so many of these records did…

One of my favorite reviews in those RS record guide is for the first three U2 albums and the writer calls them "one of the freshest new sounds of the decade." It must've been really exciting to be alive in the early 80s.

Also, Chase: "Flee."
Also, Pyramyd: "Wyse gys."

PSB - Discography isn't an album and shouldn't have been included in this list, but since it was, I voted for it.

Since I'm nitpicking, I've probably only listened to Horses a handful of times since I first heard it. My go-to Patti Smith album is always Wave, but it's never on any lists. :(

It must've been really exciting to be alive in the early 80s.

It was a joy just to get out of bed every day.

dark blue in like 82/83 still was marsh's work in the main. red one in the 90s ("dogshit") was the work of like four writers, one of whom has been a very active ILM-nik over the years. Light blue was in 04: me and several ILM dudes are therein.

i have absolutely no memory of the existence of light blue, and i apologize to you and the other ilm dudes within. is it good?

"dogshit" edition, besides being not good, was riddled with more factual errors than the average sean spicer press conference.

Puzzlement over Marquee Moon and Horses is one of ilm's most charming running jokes

why do people like music

I found good records out of all of those guides. I had the Trouser Press guides (blue and red), Rolling Stone (dark blue & red) books and the Spin book. I also had a zine version of "bands missed by the Trouser Press" I found somewhere that had some good punk LP reviews in it.

I'm pretty sure the Spin book led me to check out Swell Maps, Fela and probably many others. Some of the total "bullet" reviews in the Rolling Stone guides would make you wonder more about what they were like than something with two stars. I know Bloodrock was a bullet review that made me want to check them out.

the rolling stone book i had was this one

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51272EWJ3KL._SX305_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

why do people like music

I'm torn between the Ramones debut and ChangesOneBowie (though that's cheating a bit). I read SPIN quite a bit during this period of time, and it's weird because looking at the list now the choices of what to include seem rather random, but at the time it did feel like it cohered into some aesthetic one could call "alternative". Also, at the time, a lot of these things were rarities known only to true heads, whereas now of course any kid with an internet connection has heard all of these. It seems like a somewhat idiosyncratic list of the currently popular, the undeniably influential, and then a kind of personal smattering of overlooked shoulda-been-classics. I feel like any list done today would include a lot more disco and experimental krauty stuff.

While we're generally talking about it in this thread, I still can't believe there's no Melvins or Fishbone entries in this book

I was all excited to go dust off my copy of the Spin guide, but it's nowhere to be found. i must have given it away somewhere along the line.

In any case, this reminded me of another SPIN list which coincided with my first forays into the critical pantheon: Spin magazine's 25 greatest albums of all time (April, 1989)

And, d'oh, there's fucking Marquee Moon again. Couldn't agree more about that one being overrated.

"Marquee Moon" on paper sounds like something I should be totally into, yet it's never really clicked with me. Lots of people whose taste I respect seem to love it though.

Though to be fair, about 40% of this list is stuff that's never really clicked with me, though I can see why it's admired.

also had a zine version of "bands missed by the Trouser Press" I found somewhere that had some good punk LP reviews in it.

Badaboom Gramaphone, they did a great job of it. The Trouser Press guides were invaluable for me, and remarkably reliable in (most) calls on which records were bands best work.

Before the Trouser Press, the NME Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock was where it all started for my buying. I still find myself buying records whose covers featured there.

Marquee Moon is great.

Julian Cope's "Krautrocksampler" was another book of the same time period that was hard to find even then that led me to search for many records.

I can't see going for any other Husker record but Zen Arcade. That record was raising the bar big time on what a punk band could try to do I think. Flip Your Wig is more pop and more the future sound of grunge to come. New Day Rising is buried in reverb and while intense, is only part of what they pulled off in Zen Arcade. Kinda doubt it would be #4 in any similar list now. Meat Puppets seem to be perhaps just as less known now although I saw some pretty cool live semi-recent stuff by them on line a few days back. Too High to Die is out of print.

The thing that really stands out looking at that list 20+ years down the line is how little electronic music is in the list, considering all that was going down at the time and still resonates now. It seems like there "should" be something Detroit techno or from Warp on that list, but you know post rock and electronic music really blossomed some in popularity really in the year or two after this book came out.

Yeah, this thread inspired me to pull Marquee Moon out again and the first two songs still sound like magic.

Title track is obv unstoppable.

No Spacemen 3 is kind of weird.

I think Can was probably the band that {all of these various record guides] led me to listen to, in spite of all obstacles. Faust would be #2.

shags
Fugs
Elevators

just felt like posting those bands' names

These days I'm feeling the banana album pretty hard for some reason

Those Spacemen 3 records were pretty obscure in the US I think. Pretty sure they got an entry in the book. It seemed to me that the Spaceman 3 stuff got reissued around the same time Spiritualized records were getting out there a year or two later.

The Birthday Party was also a band where you had to look to find their records for a while that Hits comp was the only thing 'easily' found in the US. They all got reissued around the mid 90s by Mute as Cave's profile rose.

Sometimes I forget and think spacemen 3 are from texas

Rolling stone alt rock book had goo goo dolls list of worst bathrooms in America

I used to browse this book endlessly at the store but never bought it, which I still regret. Love all 50 albums, basically.

(Spin guide that is.)

Fun House or Marquee Moon

or uh Loveless

If we're doing worst on the list as well, it's this

28 Television Marquee moon 1977

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, March 13, 2017 5:11 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn, son!!!!!!!!!

Those Spacemen 3 records were pretty obscure in the US I think. Pretty sure they got an entry in the book.

...The Birthday Party was also a band where you had to look to find their records for a while that Hits comp was the only thing 'easily' found in the US.

― earlnash, Monday, March 13, 2017 7:15 PM (thirty-six minutes ago)

The Perfect Prescription and Junkyard seem like obvious omissions. Along with The Fall, Can, Sex Pistols. Maybe bottom 50?

And I'm kind of holy shit at no Pixies

Did I miss something with '90s Spin that would make people expect to see the Spacemen 3 in a top 100 list?

I read both spin & Forced Exposure in the mid/late 80s into the 90s, along with the British weeklies and various "underground" "zines". Byron Coley pushed S3 hard in his writing for both (iirc). I had the sense at the time, perhaps delusional, that they were as central to American indie/alt as SST, Touch & Go, and the Seattle sound. But I'm often on wrong planets, browsing wrong feeds, so what I know?

But there are only three SST albums and a Nirvana album on this list. I don't think Spacemen 3 were very big at all in the United States, though they had a little carryover beyond their lifespan. The albums were mostly available as imports or on small labels like Genius.

Bomp and Sympathy for the Record Industry

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was deeply impacted by this book. I remember first reading it
a few years before the advent of Napster and discovering Mark Prindle's blog. It was a perfect
convergence for a neophyte rock fan who wanted to get serious about music.

I still can't stand Rob Sheffield's contributions, though. He's like the Dave Eggers of Rock critics; a smug
prick with no talent

Ha, although looking now, they had an album released by RCA in the U.S. (Recurring)??? That's news to me.

xp

just weighing in on Marquee Moon. never heard it until I was 29, and it knocked me over completely. I feel like Adventure is almost better which is challops but it's got such a vibe. both records inferior to Seven Churches

so many good records here but only one changed the course of my life and i'll bet you can guess which one (i'm 40)

Surfer Rosa is in second half of list, which is even crazier

Worst album here imo is Murmur

Voted VU&Nico, grail record for me, still 100% listenable and great.

Also, that record turned 50 years old yesterday too, amazing!

I'd love to pull out my copy of this book but it literally fell apart on me after 5-6 years 'cause I read it so much. Just a massive influence on my teenage listening years. Weisbard's reviews probably most important for me, but Sheffield's are probably the best purely as writing (they're certainly the funniest).

Murmur remains my favorite R.E.M. record. It was only the third or fourth I got, but I instantly understood why critics fell over themselves to praise it from the moment I first listened to it. They were one of my favorite bands for years and years, and probably would have been even if the debut didn't exist. But that album is sui generis - they never made a record as mysterious or romantic again.

Most unforgivable omission from the spin guide: Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention

In any case, this reminded me of another SPIN list which coincided with my first forays into the critical pantheon: Spin magazine's 25 greatest albums of all time (April, 1989)🔗.

This issue and its lists had a similar impact on me that the Spin guide seems to have had on others. Totally altered my thinking on a number of things, but also a much sharper corrective to RS listy hegemony than the Spin guide.

I don't know that Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock were even mentioned in RS prior to 1989, and here's Spin picking "It Takes Two" as the greatest single of all time.

But that album is sui generis - they never made a record as mysterious or romantic again.

It sounds contrarian, but some days my favorite R.E.M. album is Dead Letter Office, so mystery was never an important part of this band's enigma to me

hard to figure out what to vote for here tbh. a lot of these records were very crucial to me in college but my taste has drifted since. daydream nation is probably the canon record here that i'm most indifferent to; i way prefer the surrounding sy albums and i wish i could approach daydream in the same way but after x years of trying it still doesn't work

the psb and madonna records feel like cheating but the immaculate collection figured into very different points of my life (like the 6/7-year-old me who absolutely loved the dallas austin-era madonna singles and the college-aged me who was trying to reapproach pop music after being a dick about it for years and finding, of course, that i loved pretty much everything madonna did all along up to a certain point). it's v flawed bc it's brutally remixed and truncated but the songs survive the process.

sign of the times is probably the album that i love the most here but also i feel extremely inclined to vote for parallel lines bc of its perfect economy

I'm leaning towards Pretenders because it's often my favorite and favorite sounding album

" I still can't believe there's no Melvins or Fishbone entries in this book"

this may be down to the fact that Weisbard (and to a certain extent C. Marks) may not have been too keen on the aggro/testost-y aspect. Somewhere in the book, the MC5 is referred to as quasi frat boys, I don't believe there's any am rep shit or Misfits, and more or less metal was still at this time very present in the culture and in no way had metal culture and "alt" culture made peace.

Yeah, they hated industrial too iirc (which I very well may not)? Kind of funny to remember this supposed rivalry. I remember wondering who this book could have been meant for. The mainstream alt-rock listening kids I knew were just as likely to listen to Metallica or RHCP or NIN as Nirvana; the punk kids were mostly into hardcore (or crust punk) and extreme metal; the goth kids listened to industrial, synthpop, and female singer-songwriters. I think I figured it would make sense when I went to university.

(Obv answer: it was meant for me.)

yeah, me too

I never owned this book, but this is reminding me that Spin's top 50 punk albums list from 2001 had a big impact on me. My first exposure to a bunch of post-punk bands.

Ha, although looking now, they had an album released by RCA in the U.S. (Recurring)??? That's news to me.

Recurring was well-distributed enough in the states that I could find it in my shitty little town. Although I wouldn't expect it to be on this list tbh (much as I love it)

so many good records here but only one changed the course of my life and i'll bet you can guess which one (i'm 40)

― alpine static, Monday, March 13, 2017 11:27 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same here, but I'm much older, and mine's likely a different record. Then, now, forever: B-52's.

Three others that didn't change the course of my life, and I don’t play nearly as often, that were still hugely influential to me in various ways: Modern Lovers, Gang of Four, Minutemen.

I'm still not sure which one alpine static meant. Nevermind?

that'd be my guess, but it doesn't seem obvious

this may be down to the fact that Weisbard (and to a certain extent C. Marks) may not have been too keen on the aggro/testost-y aspect. Somewhere in the book, the MC5 is referred to as quasi frat boys, I don't believe there's any am rep shit or Misfits, and more or less metal was still at this time very present in the culture and in no way had metal culture and "alt" culture made peace.

Halo of Flies has an entry, as does Helmet and yes def Misfits. Even Primus has an entry. Also AC/DC and Sabbath. Other stoner bands like Kyuss and Vitus missed out, but considering how hugely in thrall this book is to the Nirvana phenomenon (does the Vaselines comp show up on any other list?) Lack of a Melvins entry seems really o_0

Yeah, I was doing my re-read recently, and was astonished that like THREE OR FOUR entries mention the Melvins, sometimes in passing, and Buzz even does a Top 10, but they don't get an entry

Not like I need one at this point, but it's def funny

At one point I def had an idea for a thread about the most perverse omission from this book: Melvins definitely, Fishbone too, considering that Living Color and King's X (& RHCP/Primus) have entries. The book somewhat apologizes for excluding Game Theory in the foreword (as well they should). I'd also say Pop Group, Chrome, probably Blue Oyster Cult. Fleetwood Mac probably belongs there, too.

Fleetwood Mac was a P4k era retcon, in 1995 they were the corny band the president liked and Hole didn't do their cover until 1996

BOC & Fleetwood Mac perhaps too much of the trad RS canon Spin were gerrymandering their way around

plus whiney otm

has anyone quizzed weisbard on the editorial choices made over who gets left out? (question partly inspired by reading wikipedia entry for the rolling stone series and having to quell a spasm of irritation when it said that duke ellington was one of the artists omitted from later volumes)

zorn in, zappa out is an excellent corrective obv bcz fuck him, sometimes you earn yr deserts

pop group vanishingly unavailable at this date i think (y was no.2 in my 10 so not entirely absent from the book)

wtf at no.9 in my 10: sonic youth "the walls have ears" -- rest is acceptable except new picnic time is the best ubu not modern dance

he mentioned in the intro that Squeeze no longer met the tenets of the book's thesis or something – an odd thing to say about Squeeze in 1994.

"alternative" is by definition a word that ports in a statue-felling manifesto with it

I mean, "Hourglass" was being played next to Kenny Loggins at that point, so I get it

wish i'd put a squeeze lp in my 10 for that sonic youth tbh, i far prefer squeeze now and liked em then (but i probably didn't then file em under alt, more fool me)

but then we get to the discussion about Madonna's inclusion and then I'd say Madonna sounded alternative in 1994 than Squeeze ever did and I say eh why bother.

Can I just point out that the dorkiest, most insular nerd entries in the book – Stockhausen/Xenakis/Varese, La Monte Young, Negativland — were written by the dude who would become a probable millionaire writing a book on how to psychologically trick the most women into letting you blow loads in them

dreams of fuckin a musique concrète bitch

Strauss has continued to be involved with pickup artistry through his dating coaching company Stylelife Academy, founded in 2007. Most of the coaching is done by employed coaches, rather than Strauss himself, though he does make appearances at yearly conferences and in some video products sold by the company.[24]

In 2012, Strauss released a board game/party game as a follow up to The Game and Rules of the Game called "Who's Got Game? The Game with Benefits."[25]

On August 31, 2013, Strauss married the model Ingrid De La O, whom he met in 2010. Before the wedding, he held a funeral-themed bachelor's party, laying to rest his 'Style' persona.[26]

In March 2015, Strauss had a child and shared it on his website,[27] along with information on his new book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, which was released on October 13, 2015. The Truth, a sequel to The Game, covers his struggles to build and maintain a relationship with Ingrid after his years of immersion in the seduction community.

this is probably the saddest career and life arc i can imagine

years of immersion in the seduction community.

Ha, I don't know who that is but I don't think I ever knew that those composers were reviewed in this book. 3xp I guess I know who it was now. Huh.

Ever heard of a funeral before getting married? Well its and idea most man do think about burying the inner single-bad boy before tying the knot but “The Game” author 39-year-old Neil Strauss is actually holding a funeral to burry his freedom for his alter ego “Styles” before tying the knot to his model/girlfriend Ingrid de la O!

this is probably the saddest career and life arc i can imagine

― nomar, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 1:19 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the sad arc that ends with untold riches and marriage to a model

Fleetwood Mac was a P4k era retcon, in 1995 they were the corny band the president liked and Hole didn't do their cover until 1996
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 1:00 PM (nineteen minutes ago)

Well...Pumpkins' cover of "Landslide" (which was the turning point for that song becoming a classic rock staple) was '94, but I misremembered the Hole cover. There was a Newsweek article iirc around 96 about Mac's rusing alt-cache

*rising alt-cache

The French term for a bachelor party is "enterrement de vie de garçon", burial of life as a boy.

idk i guess Neil probably is a father figure to guys with pepe avatars and the like.

Anyways, what qualified ABBA for inclusion in 1995, Miriel's Wedding ? xxxp

ABBA Gold was a case of a new compilation turning a lot of next gen kids on to an old band, tbh.

no scholarly or descriptive howlers that i can recall (i'm p rusty on this stuff myself) in the stockhausen/xenakis section [filed under "electronic music/musique concrete] -- but the case made for it to be there is pedestrian-to-unconvincing (rappers use tape splicing kinda! sonic youth paid hommage to karlheinz w.the sleeve of a single! cardew prefigured punk rock! metal machine music!) and strauss makes no attempt to sift the good from the bad even on its own terms, let alone the book's

abba *very* feebly covered in rolling stone red (1980): two stars for everything except gtst hits, "a fixed cheeriness pervades" listen again ken tucker

Weisbard saw the intersection of dance music (and queer identity therein) and pop and novelty weirdness as essentially alternative (cf. his MTV Party to Go entry) and Abba was a precursor to that the same way that Kiss was to to the intersection of pop and metal and novelty weirdness (cf. grunge).

Anyway, I think the intro essay and the tone of the pieces really make a good argument for every inclusion in the book. The only places it trips over its dick is trying to guess what '92-'95 hype bands were going to have longer legs. Good lookin out on PJ Harvey, Moby, Bjork and the Wu-Tang Clan. Bad lookin out on the Pooh Sticks, Freedy Johnston and Bettie Serveert

And that is to say no one taxed to that job in any year would have bat 1.000 trying to do that

The Pitchfork 500 ends with like The Go Team, Art Brut, Peter Bjorn and John and Johnny Boy(?)

these 4,205 YouTube views a living testament to one of the 500 greatest songs of from punk to the present

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNTUAQ6F74k

idk i feel like i hear YOUNG FOLKS more than i hear the damned beatles sometimes, i wish Peter Bjorn and John didn't have this kind of shelf life.

Speaking of forecasting big things: Belly's King got an 8 or 9 at the same time it got ravishing reviews in SPIN and that infamous RS cover.

http://gossipbrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Belly-Rolling-Stone.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-HLxpWGCzc

post-punk power pop!

RS Style

Paul Reiser

The 90s were so good

the '90s were a good decade to wear spangled outfits for magazine covers

or nothing

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-03/enhanced/webdr02/20/9/enhanced-buzz-3114-1395322343-15.jpg

Wow, Shannon Hoon looks about 15 in that pic.

if we're posting 90s alt-rock RS covers, no one is gonna top this, so

http://stmedia.stimg.co/ctyp_6636228RS_Nov9_soulasylum_250.jpg?w=800

remember when Live won artist of the year? neither did i.

https://images.wolfgangsvault.com/rolling-stone-issue-726/magazine/memorabilia/RS726-MZ.jpg

xp the band that really started the Fleetwood Mac revival with their White House performance of Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.

does the Vaselines comp show up on any other list?

the vaselines comp belongs on pretty much all lists everywhere for all time.

and pretty much every alt-leaning friend's collection through 2002

Munching popcorn, smiling

I still can't believe Mission of Burma wasn't on the list.

their albums scored high though.

The alternative tag always seemed sorta random, arbitrary. I agree that Sign of the Times is far and away the best music here. While I love lots of other albums here very few are from the 90s. Never crazy about the writing in Spin it always had this cool kids in school vibe to it. Hey maybe that makes me the original poptimist!

Dogshit Critic (m coleman)

haha

A MEMBER OF THE INFAMOUS DOGSHIT FOUR WEIGHS IN!!!!!!!

re: the light blue RS guide from 04, which FCC does not remember: while it is true that Scott S, some other ILXors and myself (I updated many of dogshit critics entries, like for post 92 records from Iggy, Nuge, Ozzy, as well as new shit for Shania Twain and Kylie) contributed to this edition, it is notable for how the editors let Rob Sheffield do far far too many entries.

But his Paula Abdul entry is essential.

Too many artists for Table of Contents, and my new replacement for dead 4-in-1 hasn't been delivered, so can't scan the index---let's see how this looks:
ABBA (Barry Walters)
ABC (Rob Sheffield)
AC/DC (Natasha Stovall)
Adam and the Ants (Sheffield)
King Sunny Adé (Milo Miles)
Adverts (Jonathan Bernstein)
Afghan Whigs (Eric Weisbard)
Alice In Chains (Gina Arnold)
American Music Club (Weisbard)
Tori Amos (Weisbard)
Laurie Anderson (Ann Powers)
Angry Samoans (Weisbard)
Aphex Twin (also: AFX, Polygon Window)(Simon Reynolds)
A.R. Kane (Reynolds)
Arrested Development (Weisbard)
Albert Ayler (K. Leander Williams)
Aztec Camera (Johnny Huston)

Aphex Twin (also: AFX, Polygon Window)

Good luck when you get to the Adrian Sherwood entry

Pretty sure Siren is Christgau'd favorite Roxy Music album which may explain its presence here. I would've picked Avalon which is even more of an outlier.

Lmao xp

10000 Maniacs were in this book right? I mean, what were they an alternative to besides good music?

heart xgau but boy is he not who i'd turn to to explain me britishes music

(avalon > siren)

Babes In Toyland (Huston)
Bad Brains (Stovall)
Bad Religion (Jonathan Gold)
Derek Bailey (also in collaborations w Han Bennink, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, and many many others) (Byron Coley)
Afrika Bambaataa (also w James Brown, Shango) (S.H. Fernando Jr.)
Bananarama (Sheffield)
Bangles (Sheffield)
Syd Barrett (Weisbard)
Basehead (Colson Whitehead)
Bats (Sheffield)
Bauhaus (Joy Press)
Beastie Boys (Sheffield)
Beat Happening (incl. w Screaming Trees) (Arnold)
Beck (Weisbard)
Belly (Jen Fleissner)
Bettie Serveert (Evelyn McDonnell)
B-52s (Huston)
Big Black (Ivan Kreilkamp)
Big Star (also: Alex Chilton, Chris Bell) (Weisbard)
Bikini Kill (Powers)
Birthday Party (also: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) (Reynolds)
Black Flag (Weisbard)
Black Sabbath (Rob Michaels)
Blake Babies (also: Juliana Hatfield) (Sheffield)
Blasters (Weisbard)
Blondie (Sheffield)
Bongwater (Fleissner)
Boogie Down Productions (also: KRS-One) (dream hampton)
Borbetomagus (also: collabs w Voice Crack, Dietrich Sauter & Thurston Moore, and others) (Coley)
Boredoms (Mike Rubin)
David Bowie (also: Tin Machine) (Sheffield)
Billy Bragg (Arnold)
Glenn Branca (also: w John Giorno) (Coley)
Bratmobile (Sheffield)
Jeff Buckley (Coley)
Tim Buckley (Peter Margasak)
Kate Bush (Sheffield)
Butthole Surfers (Jason Cohen)
Buzzcocks (Walters)

All the Roxy albums scored rather high iirc

Cabaret Voltaire (Mark Sinker)
Caifanes (Ed Morales)
John Cale (also: w Terry Riley, Brian Eno) (Powers)
Camper Van Beethoven (also: Cracker) (Bill Wyman)
Can (Reynolds)
Cannanes (also: Ashtray Boy) (Fleissner)
Captain Beefheart (Jeff Salamon)
Cars (Sheffield)
Rosanne Cash (Weisbard)
Eugene Chadbourne (also: w Shockabilly, Violent Femmes, Sun City Girls, Camper Van Beethoven, and others) (Coley)
Cheap Trick (Jim Greer)
Neneh Cherry (Charles Aaron)
Chic (Walters)
Chills (Weisbard)
Clash (Sheffield)
Clean (Sheffield)
Cocteau Twins (James Hannaham)
Leonard Cohen (Weisbard)
Ornette Coleman (also: w Pat Metheny) (Williams)
Consolidated (Weisbard)
Elvis Costello (Wyman)
Cowboy Junkies (Will Hermes)
Cramps (Jesse Berrett)
Cranberries (Hannaham)
Crass (Lee Foust)
Marshall Crenshaw (Renee Crist)
Culture Club (Sheffield)
Cure (Sheffield)
Cypress Hill (Chris Norris)

hey now

http://assets.teamrock.com/image/b4accdef-a1aa-4ce7-becd-bdd5dc35106f?w=800

serious q, people who think "the 90s were amazing" (or the 80s, or the 70s, or w/e) - how much "what that time meant to me at the time"/confirmation/experience bias math do you do? some? none? "this is objectively the case"?

I would say the 90s are hardest for me to evaluate because my personal listening experiences of the time are so bound up with it. The 90s were the time when I was buying/listening to the biggest volume of contemporary music in my life (free time + disposable income will do that). Unlike prior decades where there was lots of stuff I would only discover much later, with the 90s it's pretty rare that I go back and find something to like that I missed the first time around, and I don't feel much compulsion to revisit stuff I hated at the time to re-evaluate.

I think the 70s, 80s and 90s were all uniquely amazing, and I lived through the 00s and the 10s which pretty much suck shit from the rooter to the tooter

I think the 70s, 80s and 90s were all uniquely amazing

I agree w this (would also stick the 50s and 60s on there lol - I guess every decade is uniquely amazing! Except for the ones that happened on the internet)

yeah was just gonna type

its messy, but you can pretty much draw a line from Napster to President Trump

I know for me it's pretty subjective, i.e. My love of early 80s R&B postpunk new pop is tied in with middle age nostalgia for my 20s (yuk, ik) while the first half of the 90s was a real mixed bag personally. I'd like to think my musical tastes are at least partly objective but I don't trust myself.

The 90s were so good

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 6:09 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A guy I once worked with once said to me he believed the '90s were the worst decade for music ever. I have no idea what the hell he was basing this opinion on.

No decade had worse jeans than the '90s.

if you think the 00s and the 10s have been shit for music then you should probably not be a music critic, or talk about music, or be on ilx

huh guess I'll be off then

maracas.wav

fwiw I think there's plenty of good stuff from the 00s and 10s, just that the exponential explosion in the overall amount of music produced has resulted in good stuff being outnumbered by garbage. so it's hard, on the whole, to say they measure up to previous decades that had a better hit/miss ratio

Napster ruined music.

are we literally judging musical decades in terms of

good music
-----------
total music

are these our maths

I think the 70s, 80s and 90s were all uniquely amazing, and I lived through the 00s and the 10s which pretty much suck shit from the rooter to the tooter

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 2:50 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the 70s, 80s and 90s were all uniquely amazing

I agree w this (would also stick the 50s and 60s on there lol - I guess every decade is uniquely amazing! Except for the ones that happened on the internet)

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 2:51 PM (one hour ago)

you get old, the joy dies

internet fundamentally changed music, I don't think getting old has anything to do w it. I still love music and listen to it p much all day every day

music was better when there were only seven notes in a major scale. when the internet added notes #8 and #9, that did indeed change and ruin everything

i would probably be ok if the last record ever made was "plastic dreams" or something

music was better when there were only seven notes in a major scale

three chords good, two chords better, one chord best innit

hard to separate from personal circumstances (and personality) but i way preferred the 00s and the early 10s to the 90s, and the internet (= ilx, inc.fites w/shakey) was a lot to do with that

i'm also enjoying writing abt music way more than i did when i did it professionally in the 80s and 90s but that probably also explains itself

(second half of the 10s seems to be sucking but i can't honestly blame music for that)

"internet fundamentally changed music"

this is said often, as if obvious. Why/how is this so?

let's ask the internet

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/044/247/297.png

I thought the '00s was actually a fairly decent decade for music, the '10s hasn't been without its highlights but it has often felt underwhelming.

internet fundamentally changed music, I don't think getting old has anything to do w it. I still love music and listen to it p much all day every day

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 4:10 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

first part is almost certainly true, but not necessarily a bad thing. and while we all love music, just about everybody over 40-sh experiences diminishing returns wr2 contemporary pop. we inevitably get to a point where our wiring is too crowded with old shit to be properly blown away by the new. mistaking this for evidence of some external decline is called "being old".

I agree that the music in the last 10 years hasn't been as exciting as, say, the early 80's. But I assumed that was just because I'm over 40 now, not because the quality has actually dropped off.
The internet did ruin a few things, though: a) the pleasures of having a finite music collection, and b) well-demarcated musical trends that define the sound of a decade.

first part is almost certainly true, but not necessarily a bad thing. and while we all love music, just about everybody over 40-sh experiences diminishing returns wr2 contemporary pop. we inevitably get to a point where our wiring is too crowded with old shit to be properly blown away by the new. mistaking this for evidence of some external decline is called "being old".

― Not raving but drooling (contenderizer), Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:37 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not that I'm anywhere near this point yet, but what if you're over the age of 40, still listen to and appreciate contemporary music and still manage to be blown away by music that is new to you, but it isn't the new releases that are tending to blow you away? What then?

Yeah that's where I am

OK so these updated happened when I was writing a list of posters I should send to the NSA

but what if you're over the age of 40, still listen to and appreciate contemporary music and still manage to be blown away by music that is new to you, but it isn't the new releases that are tending to blow you away? What then?

― Coolio Iglesias (Turrican), Tuesday, March 14, 2017 4:48 PM (five minutes ago)

i think that's common. i'm the same, and it makes sense. older undiscovered music is more likely to square with our established tastes, expectations & interests.

I could see why the Melvins not being in the Spin guide, you got to figure this book was being put together in '94 right after Houdini came out. They had the Nirvana connection and had been around a while, but they were still fairly odd and kinda obscure. I think the fact that they kept going and hardrock/metal kinda turned towards what they were doing that their profile rose. This was also true for your Saint Vitus, The Obsessed/Wino and other early odd doomy bands.

It could also be the Melvins like probably Uncle Tupelo (don't remember if they are in the Spin book) and definitely Kyuss were a bit too contemporary to quite yet be in such a guide, yet in a snapshot of American rock music circa '94-95 from now they probably definitely would be.

contenderizer is droppin some knowledge

...you got to figure this book was being put together in '94 right after Houdini came out. ...I think the fact that they kept going and hardrock/metal kinda turned towards what they were doing that their profile rose. This was also true for your Saint Vitus, The Obsessed/Wino and other early odd doomy bands.

― earlnash, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 5:15 PM (one minute ago)

yeah, doom & stoner rock didn't really enter mainstream alt consciousness until the late 90s/early 00s.

I mean, all the other big Cobain-championed bands made it in -- Meat Puppets, Shonen Knife, Vaselines, Raincoats, Flipper, Wipers...

Plus there's the Mudhoney connection!

And the Melvins were even sampled on Beck's 'Mellow Gold!' (in the bottom 50 of the top 100!) They weren't some total obscurity in alternative circles

I for one will continue listneing to Sia albums for the hidden gem

Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains, Screaming Trees all made it in, maybe the Melvins expert didn't make deadline? Anthologies have all kinds of problems. Most surprising absence I've noticed: Miles Davis--- considering that they've got Derek Bailey, Ornette, Sun Ra, Sonny Sharrock, Kip Hanrahan even.

And Albert Ayler!

And John Zorn.

Does anyone else remember a syndicated TV show that aired around the time this Spin book came out--it was a weird political show set in a diner where stock characters like the Waitress and the Blue Collar guy mouthed usually right-leaning positions? Once a week or so Spin editor Eric Weisbard would sit with the host at the diner and talk about issues and stuff. Came on right after the Rush Limbaugh tv show.

always thought it was a little weird that Zappa wasn't included, maybe nobody wanted to wade through that discography.

I mean, and I think this goes into the Squeeze clause, Zappa was really only "alternative" from like 1966 to 1971, and then spent the next 20 years of his life being jazz-prog for Guitar World readers and novelty pop for everyone else. Miles Davis was the vanguard of hard bop and modal jazz and cool jazz – basically "traditional jazz music as we know it" by 1995. His days of an vanguard that would fit the definition of the SPIN guide was maybe 1969 to 1973, four years that are surrounded by a career that goes back nearly 20 years in either direction

Surely you mean 1975? Agharta is p "alternative"

Yeah Miles' electric period 1969-75 was a huge influence on the postpunk NYC scene from Contortions to Material James Blood Ulmer Defunkt and on down to ESG Konk Liquid Liquid and a dozen other forgotten bands.

Ok, yeah, extend Miles through maybe Dark Magus in 1977? Still

Ornette's in

of the people m coleman mentions only material get an entry (unless contortions are filled somewhere i haven't guessed yet)

this was my jam in the 80s so i was used to it being omitted -- seems odder now than it did then

could be wrong, but miles' electric period might not have been so universally beloved in the 80s-90s as it is now? seems like it took a while to really sink in.

miles' electric period might not have been so universally beloved in the 80s-90s as it is now

it was

Mark S is right, this period was largely forgotten in the alt 90s in fact one of the things that first drew me to ILM ca 2004 was the love for NYC punk funk no wave my jam and personal inspiration/obsession

I reviewed a big CD reissue of 70s Miles in the late 90s and got the idea that people still didn't quite know how to process something like Agharta or He Loved Him Madly. #directionsinmusic

greg tate was writing about it all in the late 80s

(the wire was also but i had sight of our sales figures so i know we were not exactly shifting the scales any)

Think this may be partly a US/UK difference - Soulwax reissued Liquid Liquid in the 1990s, SoulJazz reissued ESG same sort of time, so they def weren't ignored or forgotten groups in Britain (ESG had also been spun a lot at the Hacienda).

Beastie Boys/Luscious Jackson were hyping ESG at the height of the Grand Royal era. LJ used to cover ESG stuff live.

my intro to Miles' electric/funk period was a huge retrospective in Motorbooty, doesn't get any more 90s alt than that

hmm iirc Bitches Brew was the only Jazz album on that Rolling Stone Best 100 Albums of the Past 20 Years list in '87. Maybe Miles was too much of a token artist for SPIN at that point.

Miles was also cited by aural auteurs of the DJ-producer persuasion (mostly in Wire but still) re the cutnpaste flow, never mind the turntables----do we really think his electric music made less of a widespread, sometimes deep impression on musos and other listeners of the 90s than the guys who did get in, than Bailey and Zorn, say? C'mon, it's a gap. But maybe the Miles reviewer didn't make deadline either,

why is the complete on the corner session box like $200 now

I would kill for every back issue of Motorbooty.

Christgau wrote about Dark Magus, Panthalassa, and Black Beauty in the late '90s; it's how I learned about the first album.

xpost Ridiculous box, if it's the one I heard: goes way past anything relevant to the original LP, just because he was recording so much in the same time frame. xxpost It's not like Miles don't and didn't get no respect plenty of elsewheres, but having all those electric albums in the Guide might have been a revelation to some, and handy to more.

Yeah xgau covered Miles pretty well, incl. the comeback.

why is the complete on the corner session box like $200 now

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, March 15, 2017 1:58 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bc it's out of print iirc

Ridiculous box, if it's the one I heard: goes way past anything relevant to the original LP, just because he was recording so much in the same time frame

otm, the material from these sessions got issued across like four albums iirc

Right, and four distinctly different albums!

columbia does all this cool miles stuff that immediately goes out of print

https://www.discogs.com/Miles-Davis-The-Complete-Columbia-Album-Collection/release/2019307

Prob cos Miles heads already have all or as much of that stuff as they can afford, and then some.

Columbia can then backdoor sell the deleted Complete dognose where (Russia, Japan?)

The oligarchs prob already got it all also.

Columbia used to reissue the metal-spine Miles boxes as much cheaper longbox-shaped sets. But the On the Corner set apparently didn't sell well enough to justify a cheaper reissue (and it was prohibitively expensive when it was in print, iirc).

yeah, a few of those sets could be had for very cheap at some point (maybe still) but things like OTC and the cellar door tapes never got a cheaper reissue afaik. which is lame.

I have that miles columbia box, whiney

i do regret not buying the OTC box and the other ones but I couldnt afford it. I only have the in a silent way box. The complete columbia only has the actual albums

I would kill for every back issue of Motorbooty.

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Wednesday, March 15, 2017 11:00 AM (two hours ago)

twice, even

big chief were kind of bad tho

OTC box is definitely the best one imo

Big Chief is a bit like Kyuss in what they were doing kinda fit more to the late 90s than when the records were actually coming out. The guitar playing and riffs on those Big Chief records are great. They are one of those bands I liked much more years later and have listened to them quite a bit the past few years.

Big Chief definitely fits along side the stoner rock bands like Fu Manchu, Clutch, Kyuss etc. than the grunge bands.

I fucking loved Big Chief!

re: big chief

i dug the early singles ("chrome helmet", "get down & double check", "time dirt money", the surprisingly good "superstupid" cover), but the albums were relatively short on punk energy & hooks. and the fake blaxploitation shtick never sat right. prescient in retrospect, tho.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

So unfucking fair to have to (with Whiney's Glock at my head) vote for just one, but: VU & Nico---what other has such range & depth, groovy toons & scary sounds incl. some of the words etc., so limber & locked etc.? And even if there are several, can't vote for more than one, but mention 'em anyway.

VU & Nico---what other has such range & depth, groovy toons & scary sounds incl. some of the words etc., so limber & locked etc.?

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back?

I hear young ppl aren't feeling that one

If I could pick more than one, I'd pick that (not being burdened with youth).

But before it, maybe one not quite so testosterone-(almost?)-only.

nation of millions or 3ft high.

Second Johnny Fever's preference of Wild Planet.
Overrated: Mekons Fear and whiskey. Does anyone actually listen to the Mekons? Zzz.

I still like Fear and Whiskey, esp. as the main part of their Original Sin round-up. Also really enjoy their 2016 album Existentialism, which is rough and slick in all the right ways.

where is Third Eye Blind's first record?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

damn! What a spread!

lmao i think i was the winning vote for zen arcade

was Shoot Out the Lights even discussed upthread

I wish it had been. Shoot Out the Lights is a great album.

glad to see Murmur do so well.

Shoot Out the Lights is one of hose albums I've introduced to friends, and they've responded "Dammmmmn" but tend to forget it when naming their favorite albums.

*those