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

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.