Speaking of Liz Phair, I saw her on a billboard today, some fashion brand. So I guess Liz Phair is ... mainstream?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 30 September 2022 18:51 (one year ago) link
I have so much to say about 90s American indie that I have no idea where to start so I won't say anything.
...except just this one thing: the best 90s American indie album of all time is Swirlies – They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days In The Glittering World Of The Salons
― Evan, Friday, 30 September 2022 18:56 (one year ago) link
i personally don't get a transgressive thrill out of dissing someone who was good thopollard responsible for some of the funniest indie rock lyrics of all time ("shit yeah it's cool") but i don't think he's on the level of either malkmus or berman
― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Friday, 30 September 2022 19:09 (one year ago) link
I feel the exact opposite. Never got the 'Robert Pollard is such a songwriting genius he could toss off a hit in his sleep but chooses not to' hype.
I mean, he DID try on Hold on Hope, and that was awful.
― The Ghost Club, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:12 (one year ago) link
Pollard's wordplay is like his collage art. It sounds like he is narrating an experimental comic. I love that about it.
― Evan, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:12 (one year ago) link
lip 1ol, I never got into GBV but ended up seeing them during a festival this summer and a friend who was definitely a 90s indie rock dude was explaining "he's just written so many songs!"
the show was fine but I wasn't about to run home and work my way through the discography
― mh, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:14 (one year ago) link
Evan's description rings true
if anything seeing gbv live (more than once) soured me on them
love the good records from the '90s and '00s tho. i made a mix of essential gbv jams for my car in college and it was my favorite cd to blast around the neighborhood. ooohhh yeahhhh i'm going to drive my car
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Friday, 30 September 2022 19:24 (one year ago) link
Calling it now that self-titled Liz Phair places in their 2000s list -- the one they gave a 1.4 or something.
― billstevejim, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:27 (one year ago) link
Considering the wtf revisionism in the new albums list.
― billstevejim, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:28 (one year ago) link
Liz Phair's self-titled album won't place in a new 2000s list, but Avril Lavigne will.
― MarkoP, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:32 (one year ago) link
Anniemal better place, that album is a banger.
― The Ghost Club, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:34 (one year ago) link
Early prediction:10. Discovery9. Stankonia8. Sound of Silver7. Ys6. Fever To Tell5. Vespertine4. A Britney album that isn't Blackout3. I Am Sasha Fierce2. The Fame1. Miss E So Addictive
― billstevejim, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:49 (one year ago) link
Avril Lavigne willBased on this 2018 review, she’s not likely to.
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Friday, 30 September 2022 19:50 (one year ago) link
I'm right in the Gen X demographic for maximum Pavement and GBV love but they never did shit for me.
― sweating like Cathy *aaaack* (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 30 September 2022 19:51 (one year ago) link
Oh I forgot Extraordinary Machine. not sure where it will place.
― billstevejim, Friday, 30 September 2022 19:51 (one year ago) link
Avril Lavigne will
At Lollapalooza this summer, at least two acts covered her, and she showed up on stage with Machine Gun Kelly.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 30 September 2022 20:26 (one year ago) link
I'd like some posters to show up and tell us that Portishead and Bjork suck ass
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, 30 September 2022 20:27 (one year ago) link
xp Yes I know she's having a "moment," but I don't think Pfork blows in the wind to that degree (fwiw, I think Let Go is better than that rating suggests). In a few years, though, I guess who knows.
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Friday, 30 September 2022 20:36 (one year ago) link
Pavement suck ass― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Friday, September 30, 2022 12:41 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
Pollard's cool, very capable guy who grasps multiple strains of why 60s rock was so explosive & can sort of process & reiterate it -- no shade on Bob. Malkmus can play his ass off, one of the most interesting soloists of the 90s easy, and as a lyricist is much, much more interesting to me than Pollard, who's a pop culture guy. Malkmus is interested in pop culture because he's an 80s/90s academic at heart whether he went to grad school or no, but he's also old enough to be more into some of the sub-pop (sorry) stuff like Ashbury (major influence on his elliptical writing style imo) -- he's just a better writer and storyteller, and again like I'm into the Dead. Pavement are too self-interested to ever actually grow into the jam band they ought to become, but the kernel's there, they're almost a meta-jam band with an Ashbery jones, that's pretty much exactly my alley even if my preferred 60s poets are a little less opaque.
also Pavement has bass tone in their records and GBV tends to EQ their bass really trebly which drives me fuckin nuts.
the table, just knowing you a little & your work & your aesthetics I would honestly say I think you've sold Malkmus short but maybe there's hx there I don't know about.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 30 September 2022 21:57 (one year ago) link
HOWEVER I think Pollard has a much better idea of how to make an album interesting, at the end of the day Pavement's sense of an album is "the jams we've got" and it's one of their major failings, this interest in form which Pollard certainly has, however he's also a guy for whom "it's got 48 songs!" is not a barrier and honestly come on Bob, not everybody is wired that way
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 30 September 2022 21:59 (one year ago) link
Yeah these two bands seem pretty different to me, in terms of aesthetic & approach (obviously they were both big Matador bands). I’ve never been into GBV, but I understand how they hit the target for some people… I have a friend who’s a big fan.
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Friday, 30 September 2022 22:43 (one year ago) link
the top of my personal 90s indie canon is probably electr-o-pura, those three ylt albums are the best
this is impressively out of touch lol
― ufo, Friday, 30 September 2022 22:57 (one year ago) link
― circa1916, Friday, 30 September 2022 23:02 (one year ago) link
fan-fictioning a pitchfork list they haven't even suggested they were going to do and then arguing about the imaginary results is like... why don't you just ship some Harry Potter characters at that point
― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:03 (one year ago) link
Early prediction:
*places ryan schrieber figurine in jar*
― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:05 (one year ago) link
the top of my personal 90s indie canon is probably electr-o-puraMan, this album is so good, and I feel like it just gets overlooked in favor of the other two
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:12 (one year ago) link
(there may also be a “first album by them that I heard” bias at play here for me)
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:13 (one year ago) link
*places ryan schrieber figurine in jar*― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, September 30, 2022 7:05 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, September 30, 2022 7:05 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
I love that this post is literally incomprehensible to anyone under 40
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:31 (one year ago) link
I've seen GBV eight times I think, but none since 2011. Absolutely loved them in the 90s and early 00s. Great drinking band, Pollard can be a showman, and I certainly participated in that whole thing. That 2011 Classic Lineup show felt kind of bad though - needlessly loud; Pollard needlessly drunk (and old).
― i need to put some clouds behind the reaper (PBKR), Friday, 30 September 2022 23:37 (one year ago) link
Count me among the first-album-bias Electr-o-Pura fans!
Pablo and Andrea is my favourite song on that record. When they came to Auckland on their Nothing tour, I called out for them to play it when they took requests for the encore. And they did! I was so stoked.
I was 17 then so I had to get my dad to chaperone me to the R18 show. I think the Neil Young fan in him really enjoyed Ira's guitar workouts.
― The Ghost Club, Saturday, 1 October 2022 00:15 (one year ago) link
nice!
― Dan S, Saturday, 1 October 2022 00:36 (one year ago) link
My first YLT was President Yo La Tengo. Very influential on me as you can tell.
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Saturday, 1 October 2022 00:59 (one year ago) link
my most favorite Yo La Tengo album is still Fakebook, which I guess is forgotten now
― Dan S, Saturday, 1 October 2022 01:04 (one year ago) link
The video is dated now (although we may appreciate it more as an artifact in the future), but “Kool Thing” was a revelation on late night MTV at the time and it still sounds really good to me. I liked what Garner’s Pitchfork review said about its sarcasm, and how its guitars emphasize every line in the verses with an acidic shoulder shrug. The laser-focused guitar interlude was awesome
― Dan S, Saturday, 1 October 2022 01:08 (one year ago) link
“Tunic” was also amazing. That video featured thrift shop stuffed animals, which suggests that they were already friends with the artist Mike Kelley, who did the yarn doll artwork for Dirty. Mike Kelley was an amazing artist, no longer with us, whose art was beautiful and varied. One of his greatest works was Plush Kundalini and Chakra Set, which I got to see in person. He focused on abject art with dark undertones, for example a homely crochet blanket left over from a charity donation, covering dolls and toys as lumps underneath it
― Dan S, Saturday, 1 October 2022 02:01 (one year ago) link
Just a last post re this subject: I am not a member of the Ashbery cult— two good books early in career, one mid-career triumph (the flabbergastingly good and underrated ‘Flow Chart’). I actually do agree that Malkmus and Berman have a relation to Ashbery, but for me, that means poems/lyrics that are clever but cold and affectless. There’s nothing that stirs me, tho there’s obviously a lot of talent there. Pollard’s sense of parataxis and pastiche bears more resemblance to Language writing, in a lot of ways, with some of the attendant gross masculine energy that male Language writers have. Personally, I find his lyrics more interesting because they require me to make leaps in logic and bizarre connections, and I also find his evocations of sadness quite rending at times, partly because they are so absurd.
― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Saturday, 1 October 2022 13:10 (one year ago) link
"Tunic" and "Kool Thing" aren't even my favourite songs on Goo ("Dirty Boots" towers over them imo), let alone my OP2 for the 90s, but idk it's a list where "Believe" is top 25 who knows what can happen
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, 1 October 2022 13:38 (one year ago) link
"believe" is good and i can understand it being on the list because it's so influential but it is weirdly high for sure
i do appreciate how its use of autotune still comes across as very alien & distinct from most later uses
― ufo, Saturday, 1 October 2022 13:58 (one year ago) link
"Believe" absolutely belongs.
"Kool Thing" doesn't.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 October 2022 14:24 (one year ago) link
“Mote” or “Dirty Boots” over either of the songs on the list afaic
― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Saturday, 1 October 2022 14:28 (one year ago) link
I honestly don’t understand any form of poptimism that makes room for some of this stuff but not Bel Biv DeVoe’s “Poison” which seems like a Hall of Famet for longtail 90s pop hits
― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 1 October 2022 14:56 (one year ago) link
*Famer
Esp since the criteria for like 60% of the list is “Is it a good karaoke song?”
― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 1 October 2022 14:58 (one year ago) link
I still think Sugar Kane is so clearly SY’s best ‘90s song; it feels like a no-brainer to me…
― "Cool ranch dressing!" (morrisp), Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:06 (one year ago) link
the middle 8 of “poison” is all-time but I don’t know about that song lyrically :-/
― brimstead, Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:07 (one year ago) link
pre-chorus not middle 8, the “it’s driving me out of my mind” part
― brimstead, Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:08 (one year ago) link
At the time I'd never heard beats that hard in a pop crossover outside a Janet single.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:09 (one year ago) link
That's why songs like "Poison" and "Pony" have weathered the passage of time so well. No matter what they're about, they hit hard.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:12 (one year ago) link
"kool thing" having a public enemy connection makes it worth a mention.
― ミ💙🅟 🅛 🅤 🅡 🅜 🅑💙彡 (Austin), Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:32 (one year ago) link