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

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