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

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