poll: megaselling rock albums released in 1991

Out of Time. It was the beginning of the end for REM but it still blows everything else on this list out of the water.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik was such a massive disappointment when I finally heard it - I was amazed that people worshipped these guys or even just took them seriously.

Badmotorfinger wasn't a megaseller? That would be my fav.

Superunknown is their megaseller.

i liked bloodsugarsexmagic but i was 12 in 1991

REM, just ahead of Nirvana -- "Losing My Religion" hasn't aged well but a lot of the album tracks here ("Low," "Belong," "Shiny Happy People," and especially the eternal "Me In Honey") are peak REM.

And the Chili Peppers are a close third here, dammit. I thought I was too good to like this record when it came out but I was wrong.

I'm flabbergasted that terrible Genesis album sold 4 million copies, and you're hearing this from a guy who loves every second of Invisible Touch, including "Silver Rainbow."

anyone who doesn't vote nevermind please raise the hand!

― alex in mainhattan, Friday, August 21, 2009 3:56 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

::raises hand::

not sure what i'm going for yet, though. probably Achtung Baby but I'm tempted to go for one of the GNR's, and Ten was pretty much the first favorite album i ever had. my least favorite is Out Of Time, which I think might actually be my least favorite REM of the 90s.

Not at all a fan of Pearl Jam or of this Peppers album; like a few tracks off Metallica. The rest are all pretty decent to downright great. The R.E.M. and U2 albums are my favorites from their catalog. Went with Achtung Baby because it's the one this list made me want to hear right now.

Don't see how the Nirvana album is so obviously better than the two GnR's; I'd say they're all more or less even (rated them 65, 74, and 81 among the 100 '90s albums I added to to my metal book when I updated it -- which is which doesn't really matter.)

Anyway, I'm going with Illusion II here.

now I'd say Achtung, w/ Nevermind close behind it. at the time it prob would've been a 3-way split between Nevermind/Ten/BSSM (hey i was 14 wtf do you want), even tho I remember really really wanting to like the R.E.M. more than I did.

after spending my jr high years worshipping at GnR's pagan altar, I distinclty remember thinking Illusion I & II were utter crap. can't say i've heard anything other than the singles since then though, so who knows...

I remember really really wanting to like the R.E.M. more than I did.

Yeah, that. I think it was "Shiny Happy People" that ruined it for me. I'd rather hear Nevermind today.

listening to illusions now. both about 90% filler. overproduced and overplayed it may be but at least nevermind is short and catchy.

UYI is overproduced and overplayed but is still often really good in part for that reason.

tempted to vote for the black album for various challopy/non-challopy reasons but nevermind is still better.

"Losing My Religion" hasn't aged well
really? whenever I hear it, I'm surprised at how, er, "out of time" it seems ... anyway, let's see, I was 12 when these records came out ... I had the Guns n Roses, R.E.M., and U2, but obviously heard all of these records endlessly from middle school pals/mtv ... would probably say that the U2 was my favorite at the time.

i'm curious how many other people had most or all of these albums in their house. i'm pretty by '94 either i or someone in my family had a copy of every one mentioned in this thread (including Genesis and the Spin Doctors, lol)

my memory is so bad -- i always thought achtung baby came out a year or two before the rest of these

actually i don't think i got really into REM until maybe 95 or 96. and i didn't get Nevermind until 94 (the only Nirvana album i had when Cobain died was In Utero, oddly enough).

i might go to bat for that spin doctors album

i actually ordered them by release dates, so AB was the last one released! it definitely broke faster than most of the others, some of these really didn't sell huge til 92 or 93

i owned them all back then. Senior year of high school/freshman year of college. I skipped class to get the two Use Your Illusion albums as soon as the store opened.

At the time we had the R.E.M. and the Pearl Jam around the house. This must have been the year we switched to CDs, because I remember I bought "Out of Time" on cassette and my wife bought "Ten" on CD. I got the Nirvana and Metallica a year or two later ... never owned the others.

IIRC, my mom owned the U2 and Genesis, my stepdad owned Metallica and UYI2, my brother owned RHCP, and I owned Pearl Jam, UYI1, Nirvana, REM and Spin Doctors.

I owned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Spin Doctors and the Chili Peppers.

The only ones I'd pull out now are Nirvana, U2 and REM...

and maybe

BLOOD SUGAR BABY SHE HAS IT A SEXA MAGIK

i owned all of these except the UYIs

i re-bought GNR and U2 in the past year or so, so i'm most into listening to those now. haven't heard Nevermind in years, probably would enjoy hearing that now that i've had some time away from the non-singles.

I can still play all of nevermind on any given day, save "Teen Spirit"

I was gonna ask where Adrenalize was, but I guess that was '92. Which seems strange, in retrospect, because it feels like that had to have been huge prior to the influx of grunge.

if i still owned it, i'd pull out BSSM just to make sure the three or so songs that I think may have held up, do, in fact, hold up.

cock rock dinosaurs were still doing fine for a while after Nevermind. Aerosmith's Get A Grip was released in '93 and was selling steadily through '95!

I hated all of these at the time, except for "Nevermind" and "Metallica". I still don't fancy any of them much,m except for "Nevermind", which I enjoy plenty when I (occasionally) give it a spin, so I voted for that. I used to like REM loads, but went right off them for some reason after "Green", I dunno why, I still kind of like everything up to "Green" now, but the idea of listening to any of their later records kind of makes my ass drag.

i'm curious how many other people had most or all of these albums in their house.

Between my brother and I, we had every single one.

I was hugely into Nirvana and Pearl Jam at the time, so I'm a little surprised to find myself leaning towards the Gn'R. I became very taken with those albums upon a relisten after reading the 33 1/3 book.

I love about half of Out Of Time, but not enough to make the album a favorite.

oh man i've been meaning to read that 33 1/3

i'd be fronting if i didn't vote for the black album, i basically learned to play drums from that tape (and from nevermind, but still).

haha i remember when i first signed up for a music class in 5th grade and got drum sticks, i took them home and would drum "In Bloom" and "Teen Spirit" on the couch cushions

i don't know the g n r records as albums enough to judge them so i picked nirvana

I had all these except for UYI at the time, well, b/w my brother and I. I listened to both UYIs recently, and still think they're just ok. Mostly I have these for "Civil War". "You Could Be Mine" is still a bummer of a single; wasn't it the first single (on the T2 soundtrack before the albums dropped)?

the one that i would vote for if possible is 1 CD mixtape of the best songs of use yr illusion 1 & 2

Going with Achtung. Fuck Nevermind, by the way.

yeah only because they stole Jaz's precious riff.

I hated 1991.

You can't hate a year in which Amy Grant's Heart in Motion was such a big hit.

'91 was sick.

I owned every single one of those albums but it's gotta be Nevermind.

This probably only is due being born in 1980, but pre-grunge 90s is the era I get most nostalgic for.. including the brief time when "Teen Spirit" actually sounded different than everything else on the radio.. by summer '92 that was not the case.

nevermind gets the edge for era-defining blah blah blah. song for song, r.e.m. and u2 are close contenders. the others all have at least a few great tracks. i don't hate any of these.

its hard to believe now that RHCP used to be good.

izzy def was on fire on his songs on UYI

i wasnt checking any of these at the time other than radio singles but the stuff i heard off nevermind caused me to peek outside of hip-hop for the first time in years (still didn't hear the whole album until a few years later) so that. 'under the bridge' was my shit though, and i loved the rem i had heard, just didn't occur to me to buy rock albums when i was using using bus money to buy the rap tapes i wanted

i like how these bands have mostly been paired off in the public's mind as the yin/yang of a particular rock subgenre -- Nirvana/Pearl Jam, GNR/Metallica, REM/U2 -- and then there's RHCP, holding down the funk by themselves.

i guess the can bro down with the Spin Doctors, at least

hen there's RHCP, holding down the funk by themselves.

Mike Rutherford slapped his bass a couple of times on We Can't Dance, so here's another reason to decry its omission here.

and u2 is a weird blind spot for me --i had loved joshua tree, one of the first albums i ever bought, but if you had told me they had broken up after that i wouldve believed it, totally not paying attention. i do remember seeing the thing with the big TVs in the background, don't remember any songs coming out though.

Yeah, and putting it that way points toward an explanation of RHCP's longevity: they were accepted by the Nirvana/PJ crowd and the U2/REM crowd, if not the metal crowd (cf. the 2nd Lollapalooza).

eh, I'm not sure there'd be a Limp Bizkit or a System Of A Down if RHCP hadn't been accepted by the GNR/Metallica fans

Guns n Roses - Use Your Illusion I vs II Poll

Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest the metal kids never fell for RHCP; they didn't in 91 I don't think.

tru

yeah we did, at least it did. that was a weird time. i remember waiting in line at midnight for Use Your Illusion 1 & 2, listening to Nothing's Shocking in the car tape deck outside of music land....

faith no more's the real thing came out in 89, so that was a couple years ago then, and "knock me down" and "higher ground" had gotten mother's milk some inroad

plus there's also sortsa uncool shit like warriorsoul that gets left out of the equation now....

or living colour was huge with all us

Someone interested in modern rock this decade would find it fruitful to write a book about 1991 (you could add the first Lollapalooza to that).

no doubt...

also Infectious Grooves "The Plague That Makes Your Booty Move" came out in 91, wiki tells me, which seems silly to say now but was probably just as influential to all us as RHCP

i saw a lot of Infectious Grooves videos on Headbanger's Ball back in the day but i don't really remember any songs/song titles specifically

lol neither do i but i listened to that shit all the time

"you can't bring me down" by suicidal and "trip at the brain" were big favs too

btw:

this juju hounds record is on part with the first x-pensive winos record!

fuck yeah - Izzy Stradlin and the Ju-ju Hounds - Classic or Classic?

woah just looked up juju hounds wiki

lead guitarists was from Georgia Satellites!

bassist went on to be in Buckcherry!

drummer was in OG LA punk band The Plugz and also Agent Orange...went on to be in 00s era Social Distortion

I bet you could six degrees of Kevin Bacon Juju Hounds with any band from California EVER

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

this juju hounds record is on part with the first x-pensive winos record!

OTM + mods please make this the board title

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

we have a winner

as a big Pearl Jam stan i say them getting that many votes is bullshit

it's only 18 votes. Plus it was probably a big album at the time for lots on here.

it was a huge album at the time for me, probably my first favorite album, but today I'd rank it in the lower half like roughly: Achtung > UYI2 > Nevermind > Black Album > Ten > BSSM > UYI1 > OOT

its the 2nd best album there for me