Strut-nip...the 90 best albums of the 90s
The_Hook_Up
8,182 Posts
meh...some great under-the-radar inclusions like the Grifters, but otherwise, the absence of albums like Sleep "Jerusalem", Mercury Rev "Yerself Is Steam", any Melvins LP, Built to Spill's lame-asses getting more than one entry and Bjork not in the top 20 makes it more than a little suspect IMO.
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/02/the-90-best-albums-of-the-1990s.html
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/02/the-90-best-albums-of-the-1990s.html
Comments
Wasn't expecting much but fully lost the will to even maintain disappointment when I saw Moby at number 33.
I admire their insistence on trying to average one rap album per page while at the same time choosing quite possibly the worst cross section of rap releases I've ever seen in a best releases from a decade. Fair enough they may not be familiar with some of the more underground releases but they really still think that Lauren Hill is the best rap album of the nineties? And no Gangsta Rap of any kind, even Dre or Snoop?
Also..........
Arrested Development
The whole idea that gangsta rap categorically isn't worthy of making the list is trash.
Trying to rank Nevermind anywhere but in the top spot is garbage.
Dummy not being in at least the top10 is rubbish.
Endtroducing is in no way better than Illmatic. Neither is Things Fall Apart.
And no Soundgarden???
What sort of limp wrist wrote this?
Harvey, just let loose on this. Arrested Development: proto-Z-Ro
92 was a year after Geto Boys blew up. And 2 Live Crew came before Geto Boys. Look at the later rise of Southern rap to mainsream domination in the 2000's and you'll find more similarities between Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew than you will Arrested Development.
This was also pretty rich, on Massive Attacks' Mezzanine: "The reigning kings of Trip Hop took a sharp turn from their bouncy dance-hall anthems."
Bouncy dance-hall anthems? I don't think so.
The next article - artists' recipes - was pretty cool though.
This Nappy Roots song jams...
its the "don't say anything bad about anyone, just ignore them, passive-aggressive mindset" combined with a "everybody gets a trophy, my opinion is valid, blog culture" is recipe for mediocre insight into mediocre music. Yay.
WTF is going on???
Built To Spill - URGH.
(I'd never heard of this band before they did a mammoth support-set at a Dinosaur Jr gig i was at a couple of years ago. I couldn't understand the idolatry in that venue because to me they sounded and looked hammy as f*ck. Drank so much to get through it that in the end I couldn't concentrate on the main event.
Failure.)
Those are reasonable points you and DustedDon are making, broadly speaking. But where does "everything sucks" journalism fit in with all that? Because I think there's a far greater proliferation of that than anything else in "traditional" music criticism these days. Trashing something for fun isn't difficult - any idiot can do it, and they often do. But as a reader, a music fan and an occasional writer, I would much prefer to read an enthusiast talking about why he or she thinks this record I've never heard or that band I know nothing about is amazing, or someone trying to identify greatness and build a convincing case for it. I'm all for setting the dogs on things that promise lots and fail to deliver, but another piece on how Nickelback/Creed/Limp Bizkit/Kenny G/whoever sucks isn't really going to add to the sum of human understanding. Unless it's funny.
So many great albums just in '93 alone...
Im talking about how most (at least the ones I see) reviewers lean heavily in the direction of the indie rock aesthetic, they are uninformed on other forms music and have no faculty to review it, even if they like it or hate it. So then it ends up as hyperbolic praise for a handful of acts because the critics have no way to articulate why they think something fails or are worried about offending an artist (which is the case for a lot of local music reviews in the local press), so a lot music gets ignored. Not really wanting more fish in the barrell hate on bullshit like Nickel Bizkit...just more critique of the shoots but misses vareity.
No Pixies either.
In all fairness, I think all of the Pixies best records are pre-1990. But no PJ Harvey, no Beastie Boys, no Missy Elliott, no Fugazi, no Sleater-Kinney, no gangsta or heavy rock of any kind... c'mon.