And that made me think I have forgotten to discuss the best album by the man of 1996:
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Ik Ben God Niet by Raymond Van Het Groenewoud
maybe again an album with many highs and lows but it contains two of the best ballads ever written starting with Lied Van De Zee (Song Of The Sea).
And finally there is this: Twee Meisjes (Two Girls (On the Beach)): The corpus of the song is based on a very simple but effective piano melody with also very observational lyrics (a bit in the style of Suzanne Vega but in Flemish) and it is absolutely gorgeous and then the very lyrical guitar outdo still has to come.
This one of the best songs of the nineties and if you want to listen only to two Belgian songs of the nineties: hear this and Instant Street by dEUS.
This is a live version (but if you can listen to the album version as well):
Here are two choices of Belgian albums I own for the year 2002:
Don't Put Your Head In A Bucket by Red Zebra
Comeback album from this eighties postpunk band and they go on the same vein and still a very good album especially on the first tracks where the quickening of the pace at the end of Landslide is interesting. This album remains at the 19th rank of the year.
Cago by Dead Man Ray
Maybe a bit more commercial than former albums of theirs but certainly not worse. Especially the first two tracks Landslide and Centrifugitive are very danceable and catchy. This one moves from the 21st to 20th rank.
Floatr by Happyness
British but they sound American with their mixture between Pavement, Elliott Smith and between dreamy pop and guitar rock. First listen to Ouch (Yup) and Seeing Eye Dog (rank 23)
And finally an album from earlier on in the year I discovered by going through other member's year lists (Repo, father of Real Tilly 🤤 ):
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See You Tomorrow by The Innocence Mission
And what an album this is. The voice of the singer Karen Peris is really special but has the same timbre as Harriet Wheeler from The Sundays and also the music is very similar but they really do their own thing: at the same time very intimate and very expansive sounding little gems based on piano and acoustic guitar and the wonderful voice of Karin Peris, each one of outstanding quality.
I didn't know the band but it seems they already released more than 10 albums so I wanted to discover what seems to be their best:
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Glow by The Innocence Mission
And also this is a WOW album especially on Bright As Yellow and especially That Was Another Country.
I still am more fan of The Sundays (but they only made one really good album) but this was a real discovery. Thx Repo! What would you recommend as a third album to listen to?
M For Means And L For Love by Mintzkov Luna
A good power rock album by this band and Mimosa was a Belgian hit but there are Many other good tracks here and the album rises from the 16th to 9th rank of the year.
And an album I already owned but hadn't included in my year chart yet:
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Blond by De Mens
Another fine album by the Belgian band who sings in Dutch: a bit heavier than their other albums proven already by the first track Kamer In Amsterdam. Enters at the 22nd rank.
This is my choice of Belgian album for 2004 and now a
Albums in my collection:
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Blow by Ghinzu
This is again one of those Belgian albums I would consider a classic and advise everybody to listen to: it's experimental but has good songwriting at its base. The core of the music is not really the guitars, which are also sounding very good, but mainly the piano (and synthesizers) which don't sound out of place at all in the really potent sound of this album. One of those examples is Cockpit Inferno which is based on a throbbing synth baseline and just goes forward in an all-encompassing drive and also High Voltage Queen, 21st Century Rockers and Mine are top notch. But the core of the album is The Dragster-Wave which starts off fairly dull, tha evolves in a really beautiful piano melody which gradually grows darker and is the accompanied by soaring guitars and shout outs: a real beauty. At the end there are a few lesser songs and that's why the album only rises from the 19th to the 14th rank of the year.
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Songs Of Innocence by Jasper Steverlinck
Another album by this sweet-voiced man (former singer of the band Arid) with on this album a number of covers, but it seems he didn't get the permission to cover a song by Jeff Buckley whose voice is very comparable to the one of Jasper Steverlinck. But very good covers of The River Knows of The Doors, Life On Mars of David Bowie, Late Again Of Steelers Wheel and Sympathy of Rear Bird. Not all covers are a success so it ends up only at the 32nd rank of the year.
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Echoes From The Engine Room by Mint
Try Tragedy At The Book Shop, the best track on the album to see that this is again one of those many good Belgian rock albums of the year. Goes from the 34th to the 28th rank.
An album which originally was classified as a 2005 album but has been released in 2004 (and I already owned):
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From Here To There by Girls In Hawaii
Sometime blue and dreamy like Grandaddy (Catwalk) and their best song Short Song For A Short Mind, sometime harder edged like dEUS (Time To Forget The Winter and Organeum). Also a fine album that is recommended listening and ends up at the 24th rank of the year.
And finally an album really on my wishlist of that great band of the nineties, Red Zebra (remember Can't Live In A Living Room: a must hear). This is a six song mini-album which is not bad but has no real standouts either. It ends up at the 20th rank of the year.
And finally an album from earlier on in the year I discovered by going through other member's year lists (Repo, father of Real Tilly 🤤 ):
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See You Tomorrow by The Innocence Mission
And what an album this is. The voice of the singer Karen Peris is really special but has the same timbre as Harriet Wheeler from The Sundays and also the music is very similar but they really do their own thing: at the same time very intimate and very expansive sounding little gems based on piano and acoustic guitar and the wonderful voice of Karin Peris, each one of outstanding quality.
I didn't know the band but it seems they already released more than 10 albums so I wanted to discover what seems to be their best:
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Glow by The Innocence Mission
And also this is a WOW album especially on Bright As Yellow and especially That Was Another Country.
I still am more fan of The Sundays (but they only made one really good album) but this was a real discovery. Thx Repo! What would you recommend as a third album to listen to?
And Umbrella was just the album I liked a bit less because I felt it to be a bit of a rip-off of the Sundays (which is less the case with their later albums).
It's clearly an album that grew on you in your youth just to show how important that is because the same goes for me and my and my love of that Sundays album.
But I'm still very glad that you made me discover the The Innocence Mission.
These are the Belgian albums of 2005 I listened to:
Two albums I own:
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Good Morning Hope by Woodface
This is the band of the brother of Sarah (now Sam Bettens) who was also in K's Choice. This is a side project with a more potent rock sound than K's Choice although there some absolutely beautiful ballads to be found here. The first track, Something To Break is one of those powerrock songs which never fails to put a big smile on you face and it's one of my favorites. But there are many more highlights to be found here so it moves from the 21st to the 7th rank of the year.
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Grand by Monza
After Noordkaap, the singer of that band, Stijn Meuris, started Monza. Overall Noordkaap was better and most of the album is just OK but Als Techniek Faalt has a a great guitar outro. It moves up from the 53rd to 45th rank.
An album on my wishlist:
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Mass III by Amenra
This is one of the Mass albums by Belgium's most extreme metal band. the music is a mixture between sludge metal and black metal and the singer Colin H. van Eeckhout is the example of the pained artist who expresses that pain both in his music and his stage performance as can be seen in the rendition of one of a full concert in the AB, one of Belgium's concert halls:
https://www.abconcerts.be/nl/nieuws/abtv/herbeleef-amenra-in-ab/2355/
This album only consists of four tracks but their long development has a mesmerizing effect. It is not completely the kind of music I listen to every day but this album has something and it enters at the 37th rank of my year chart.
There aren't any 2006 Belgian albums currently in my top chart but I chose 2 albums of that year from my wishlist:
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A Field Between by Madensuyu
This is the first album from this band and it sounds very much like Sonic Youth. Not that that's a bad thing but they would develop their own sound on their following albums. But nevertheless a good album because they do a fine job and it certainly not worse than Rather Ripped of SY of that year so it enters at rank 12 of the year.
I also listened to Small Town Boy, an album by My Little Cheap Dictaphone, also a band that would make better albums later on. But this one is not good enough yet to include in my top chart.
2006 was not a really good year for Belgian music but for 2007 the list of potential contenders was very long so I limited myself to 4 albums:
Two albums already in my collection:
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360° by Mintzkov
The best album by this great power rock band formerly known as Mintzkov Luna. The best track is One Equals A Lot and the album goes from the 5th to the 6th rank of the year.
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There Is Nothing by Absynthe Minded
One of the best albums of this band which has fairly big career in Belgium with 7 albums in 16 years. Plane Song, Stuck In Reverse and the title track are the standouts here and the album goes from the 21st to 13th rank of the year.
Two albums of artists which I knew nothing about:
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Ryunosuke by Mud Flow
This album pleased me at the first listen. The singer is French speaking and the English is not the best but their Sonic Youth light sound was very good. The album immediately moved to the 7th rank of the year.
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The Killbots by The Killbots
I would call this fun metal: sometimes catchy sometimes bordering the ridiculous but the first wins so goes to the 26th rank of the year.
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dihansse
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