Poll: Bandwagonesque v. Nevermind v. Loveless

I was 17 in 1991 - "Nevermind" definitely felt like a massive sea change to me at the time. After interminable 80's hair bands, generic indie, and rave/dance music, it was like someone had swept the chicken carcasses from the banqueting table. After losing a lot of interest in music between '89 and '91, Nirvana's album was one of the things that got me right back into it. I won't vote for it though. As the Tiny Mix Tapes review at the top of the thread mentions, it's badly sequenced on side two and just drags. OTOH I won't be voting for TFC, because "Grand Prix" >>>>>>> "Bandwagonesque". I'm not familiar enough with MBV to vote for "Loveless" either. So I guess that makes me an I-hate-fun-me curmudgeon, or perhaps someone who's just knocked out that I'm now more that twice the age I was when these albums came out.

do you ever think some ppl are fronting with this whole OMG WEEN/BOLT THROWER/COWS IS BETTER THAN NEVERMIND shit nowadays?

yup absolutely

i think loveless is probably the "best" of the 3 albums in the poll -- inventive, influential, thoroughly conceived and executed, etc. nevermind is undoubtedly the one i've listened to most, cumulatively, although if you limit it to the last 10 years it's probably a close call. bandwagonesque is nice but there's plenty of latter-day power-pop i like more.

I voted Loveless without hesitation; the only '91 album that comes close to it is Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide.

Nirvana was important to me culturally - it made the freaks, weirdos and music geeks temporarily cool. I think Bleach and In Utero are both better than Nevermind, as is Incesticide. The last may just be a compilation, but it is sequenced better than Nevermind.

do you ever think some ppl are fronting with this whole OMG WEEN/BOLT THROWER/COWS IS BETTER THAN NEVERMIND shit nowadays?

actually no, and I think it's because how you feel about nevermind probably correlates heavily (with notable exceptions amongst the oldsters) along age lines. I think it had a massive impact on people who were in college and that it seemed like a terrific-not-timeless record to people who were a few years older. Exceptions aplenty amongst then-greying-now-greyer critics, I'm sure The Gun Club's Divinity did a lot more for me in '91 than Nevermind did, and so did the Swans & Death albums on Scott's list upthread. if it's challops to honestly report one's listening habits instead of saying "I TOO WAS THERE AND FELT THE LOVE" then I dunno, but then and since, it's been for me a fine album about which I don't really care and which I don't expect to ever listen to again. unlike mental funeral, which I still listen to at least once a month, because I enjoy it more.

^^^ Yeah. Bought Nevermind and Steady Diet of Nothing on the same day, played Nevermind pretty solidly for 3 months, got bored and ended up preferring Steady Diet. At least in the UK Nevermind wasn't this brain-sweeping force that cleared everything around it, it was just a really good album that got kinda inexplicably popular.

despite never having heard Nevermind or Bandwagonesque all the way through in one sitting, I can confidently state that this poll would be a lot more evenly-balanced without a certain Irish colossus decimating the opposition

Shields isn't that fat.

Louis means that he's thinking of how much better Yeats is than any of these guys

He's talking about The Importance of Being Earnest, John.

Louis means that he's thinking of how much better Yeats is than any of these guys

A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're wanted
And I meet you at the cemetry gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose
'Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n922.jpg

^^^Wilde's much more talented uncle

louis doin the lit equivalent of what whiney was accusing cats of upthread

Can't front, MTW is pretty damn anti-Catholic.

Too bad it's hellaciously exciting!

"anyway, loveless wins cuz i like it. and i've never heard the other ones. (well, i've heard nirvana. just not the whole album.)"

Scott, I think we were separated at birth.

And yeah, Goat by Jesus Lizard destroys any of the above. (props to Warmaster as well).

1991 albums better than nevermind

The Electric Eels – God Says Fuck You (Homestead)
Kix – Hot Wire (Atlantic)
Amy Grant – Heart In Motion (A&M)
Malidita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5 Patio – El Circo (Ariola Mexico)
Corina – Corina (Cutting)
Bang Tango – Dancin’ On Coals (Mechanic/MCA)
Sandee – Only Time Will Tell (Fever/Ral/Columbia)
Mylene Farmer – L’Autre (Polygram France)
Anacrusis – Manic Impressions (Metal Blade)
Gazebo – I Like Chopin (Alex)
Mecano – Aidalai (BMG U.S. Latin)
Mano Negra – Amerika Perdida (Virgin France)
Lisa M – Flavor Of The Latin (Sony Discos)
L’Trimm – Groovy (Atlantic)
Fobia – Mundo Feliz (Ariola Mexico)
Cypress Hill – Cypress Hill (Ruffhouse/Columbia)
The Nomads – Sonically Speaking (Sonet)
The Neon Judgement – Are You Real (Play It Again Sam)
Les Negresses Vertes – Famille Nombreuse (Delabel)
Michael Jackson – Dangerous (Epic)
Kik Tracee – No Rules (RCA)
The KLF – The White Room (Arista)
Los Prisioneros – Grandes Exitos (Capitol/EMI Latin)
The Kentucky Headhunters – Electric Barnyard (Mercury)
Junkyard – Sixes, Sevens & Nines (Geffen)
I Start Counting – Catalogue (Mute)
Guns N Roses – Use Your Illusion II (Geffen)
Guns N Roses – Use Your Illusion I (Geffen)
Daddy Freddy – Stress (Chrysalis)

yerself is steam was almost as 'revolutionary' and certainly as good as loveless fwiw

I can definitely see an Anacrusis vs Nirvana thread blooming... ;)

Amy Grant – Heart In Motion (A&M)

Xhuxk we don't see eye to eye on everything but I'm with you here

Did we ever discuss Heart in Motion, J0hn? I have a feeling we did.

I was never convinced that Nevermind was the best record of 1991 until I saw all these lists. I mean, I'm pretty fond of Blue Lines and I've had a lot of fun with some of the others, but it's not even close.

Actually, I reckon Woodface was 1991, and it at least makes me pause

"do you ever think some ppl are fronting with this whole OMG WEEN/BOLT THROWER/COWS IS BETTER THAN NEVERMIND shit nowadays?"

i felt the same way back then though. in 1991, i liked all the stuff on my list better than the stuff i heard on nevermind. i'm just old though. nirvana wasn't a "sea change" for me and they weren't saving me from anything. i listened to tons of cool stuff before they put out a record and after. doesn't mean i think they suck or anything. those are catchy songs! but the one and only time i ever got excited by nevermind was for a brief second when i first heard it at a party and thought it was a new squirrel bait album. then someone told me, no, it was nirvana. and then i thought, well, at least they are squirrel bait fans!

Eh, Nirvana - Nevermind > Amy Grant - Lead Me On > Amy Grant - Heart In Motion. Lead Me On has at least half a dozen great songs on it, Heart In Motion has "Every Heartbeat" and, uh, a bunch of other songs.

When I was 16 it was Nevermind for me all the way. Hadn't heard Loveless until years after that, and while it has its mindblowing parts, but that time I was also getting into Flying Saucer Attack and Spacemen 3 and JAMC, etc. so the for me shoegaze thing was about appreciating all these different approaches rather than one monumental album. Around that time I went back to Nevermind by downloading tabs and learning the songs. I read the lyrics to the songs for the first time and it made me appreciate Kurt's songwriting even more than I did originally.

Are there any threads discussing Landmark Albums you thought were just okay because you weren't the right age? Scott's response to Nevermind reminds me of how I acted when Kid A came out.

Heart In Motion has "Every Heartbeat" and, uh, a bunch of other songs.

"Good For Me!" "I Will Remember You"! "Baby Baby"! "Hats"!

Trompe Le Monde is insanely better than most of the records that came out in 1991 or since for that matter.

my brother played me pod by ween when it came out and it blew me away!!! i was really stoned though. that helped. but it excited me and made me laugh and was a memorable listen. i probably haven't heard it since, but that was a memorable moment! i haven't listened to blue lines in years either, but i thought it was great back then. and profound in some new way. though nothing can probably surpass how i felt when i brought the safe from harm twelve inch home and playing it for the first time. before the album came out. that actually did feel like some sort of sea change. in retrospect, it didn't lead to much except maybe some cool portishead singles, but i didn't have to care about that then.

i'm just old though. nirvana wasn't a "sea change" for me and they weren't saving me from anything. i listened to tons of cool stuff before they put out a record and after. doesn't mean i think they suck or anything. those are catchy songs!

Yeah, they're pretty good. I like the album, love "Teen Spirit," always have. But if you'd been listening to loud weird noisy indie guitar bands since at least, say, the first Flipper album or Butthole Surfers EP, it was honestly not that big a deal. Even the pretty pop-melody part of just seemed like something Husker Du/Replacements/Squirrel Bait/Soul Asylum/ Dinosaur Jr/etc. had been doing for the previous seven or so years. Refined, maybe. But refinement isn't the same thing as a sea change.

is it possible that something other than Loveless will win in ilx?

xp Though Teenage Fanclub, fwiw, seemed like a much much much smaller deal. They didn't even seem like a decent powerpop band, as far as I could tell.

And I've just never liked MBV much; they bored me then, bored me now. Always reminded me of Jesus & Mary Chain with the hooks taken out. So despite my list above, my vote here easily goes to Nirvana.

Always reminded me of Jesus & Mary Chain with the hooks taken out.

holy mother of god

i bought that first teenage fanclub album on matador and listened to it all of once. so, i guess i kinda wrote them off. i lumped them in with boo radleys and other bands that were a big deal in the u.k. and were only worshipped here by the bob magazine and magnet. the same people who still listen to new bob mould and robyn hitchcock albums. you know, like jack rabid.

loreena mckennitt "the visit" ftw

FWIW, I think that Teenage Fanclub album gets misunderstood when taken as a power pop album. Yeah, everything they did after it was power pop, and they wanted it to be power pop, and they ripped off power pop to make it, but it's not power pop to my ears. Which is probably why I like it.

Other thing I always come back to is: I bought Never Mind The Bollocks, Confusion Is Sex and Creamed Corn From The Socket of Davis at three different *mall record stores* in New Jersey so the idea of Nevermind suddenly ushering in some sea change has always seemed weird. I mean, I know what happened in its aftermath, but it wasn't like water suddenly came to the desert, at least for me.

do you ever think some ppl are fronting with this whole OMG WEEN/BOLT THROWER/COWS IS BETTER THAN NEVERMIND shit nowadays?

Maybe not frontin. Maybe they just enjoy being quantitatively wrong.

i laughed at "these are without question the three best albums of 1991"

also at scott including 'arc' over 'weld', surely the most contrarian piece of contrarianism on this thread so far. chuck and scott r u doing these off the top of ur head

when i was fourteen (almost ten years later, and in england) pretty much all my friends listened to nirvana, or at least this album. they did not listen to either of the other two albums. probably none of the other albums mentioned in this thread, except use yr illusion i and ii.

from what i can tell, the global advent of emo seems to have given 14-year-olds away from the pulsebeat something else to listen to and latch onto, which is a good thing: and i guess nevermind is historical for them, now, in a way it isn't for me, even though i was six when it came out. i mean, it's historical if you're over 40 or under 20 or so, it seems like. (feel free to quibble with the range here.)

hands up: how many people who have posted on the thread care enough about the question, as posed in the thread title, to actually have voted?

i voted for nirvana just because i didn't want to see the absolutely boring loveless take the win.

important thinking itt

loveless is just as overrated as nevermind is.

"Banwagonesque" I thought mediocre & derivative when it came out, I never understood why it got all the props it did, didn't understand why I never seemed to read any dissenting opinions about it at the time either. On top of that, my abiding memory of the fucking thing is that if you went out to the indie disco on a fri or sat night, you couldn't avoid hearing it, and it fucking ruined many nights out for as much as a year, due to it being heavily rotated by the local DJs. In retrospect, I wonder if it was the shock troop advance commando attack sorta thing for the wave of tedious nostalgia/retro rock that ruined british guitar music in the wake of britpop. Probably not, but y'know.

"loveless" I like plenty though if I'm reaching for a MBV rekkid, it's almost always going to be "isn't anything" Even though I like it, I think Xhuxk's "Jesus & Mary Chain with the hooks taken out" is kind of apposite and I do think that the mary chan blow MBV into the weeds generally.

"nevermind" I still like a lot, the tunes are still good & strong generally, the performances still propulsive & thrilling if you crank it up. I voted for "Nevermind"

From the stuff listed upthread by Scott & Xhuxk, i like "Blue Lines" about as well as nevermind, "Spideralnd" a little better, though I haven't played it in many years, "Laughing Stock" and "Cypress Hill" nearly as much.

People that vote MBV are like people that convince themselves that Trout Mask Replica is better than Abbey Road

but the thing is dude

ohhh, that first Cypress Hill record is fucking amazing! It's so overlooked. It's got a great vibe, kind of like "Illmatic" does. I think the production is even better than "Low-End Theory."

for comparative purposes whiney maybe start the '68/9 (?) thread with abbey road, trout mask replica, and a donovan album

in the court of the crimson king?

talk talk - laughing stock
eh

bathory - twilight of the gods
Is this their Viking stuff? No thanks

slowdive - just for a day
this is fine

jesus lizard - goat
dude’s voice = no

slint - spiderland
dude’s voice = no

paradise lost - gothic
lol no

mercury rev - yerself is steam
dude’s voice = no

the field mice - for keeps
some of this is amazing but some of it is terrible

cows - cunning stunts
haven’t heard

neil young - arc
fuck yes

coil - love's secret domain
I am too lame to enjoy Coil but I love the idea of them or whatever

ween - the pod
sounded great when I was 21 and trippin

massive attack - blue lines
not a massive attack fan

the rest of those albums are pretty good to great. sorry for all that.. eeesh

I really hope you lot are all confusing Arc with Weld.