My discoveries per year

[dihansse]

These are three albums of 1994 I listened to:

First an album in my collection:

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Stoned & Dethroned by The Jesus And Mary Chain
The album where The Jesus And Mary Chain, famous for their fuzz sound, did away with the fuzz and actually released a normal rock record. And the wonder was: it was a good record because it became clear that the fuzz on their previous records hid some excellent songwriting which became all the more apparent on their defuzzed album. I know a lot of people regard this one as a sacrilege but for me this is one of their best albums and for me the best example of this is Between Us. There are still some songs which go back to their old sound but in general and even the duet with Shane MacGowan is actually not bad. This album goes up from the 32nd to the 27th rank.

And then two albums on my wishlist which are also part of Mercury's nineties list and the difference for me between the two couldn't be greater in discovering two noise-rock bands of which I really like one and completely dislike the other:

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New Plastic Ideas by Unwound
The noise rock of Unwound is completely my thing. Maybe not as good as the predecessor I listened to before but this album still had enough good tracks to keep my interest (although none are real standouts) so the album enters at the 38th rank of 1994.

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Down by The Jesus Lizard
And this album. I tried to get into this band listening to a few other of their albums but it never clicked and it doesn't click on this album either. I don't know if it's the elastic bass sound, the singing or just the songs but there is something in this band and album I just dislike. This doesn't mean that I dislike all the tracks here and ex the first one actually has a groovy bass but that's not enough.

[dihansse]

These are two albums of 1995 I listened to:

An album I already own:

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Weasel by Gutterball
Another reincarnation of Steve Wynn, one of my favorite artists of course mainly known as the bandleader of the Dream Syndicate. To me this album is very underrated generally and it can compete with the best albums of The Dream Syndicate. There are some weaker songs but gems like Transparancy, Your Best Friend, Hesitation and Suger Fix are just awesome also because of the excellent guitar work of Steve Wynn. The album even rises to the second rank of the year (coming from nr 9).

An album on my wishlist:

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The Future Of What by Unwound
At least I want to tell Mercury which is the best Unwound album and I don't think it's gonna be this one. It's not that it doesn"t contain any great songs because it even has one of Unwound's best: Demolished. But there's too much clutter here which kinda dominates the album and of course the terrible 4 part Excuse Me But Pardon My French is for a large part responsible for that. But certainly not a bad album as a whole and enters my year chart at the 47th rank.

Btw: I also tried to listen to Morbid Angel but stopped after two tracks of terror to my ears (and not because it was so extreme).

[dihansse]

Two albums of 1996 I listened to:

An album I already own:

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Being There by Wilco
Compared to their first album A.M., this is a giant leap forward for Wilco. It's a double album and that means there's a bit of filler: there's sad songs which are a bit country schmalz (The Lonely 1) but a track like Say You Miss Me never misses to nearly bring me to tears: a real beauty of a sad song. And of course with Misunderstood, it also features the first of a string of tracks on the different later albums which starts as a beautiful melodic song after which is completely deconstructed after it which returns to the same beautiful melody (and here to end into the biting Nothing repeated over and over). So even with its filler there's enough gems to promote this album from the 18th to the 9th rank of 1996.


An album on my wishlist and still an Unwound album per year:

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Repetition by Unwound
After five tracks in the album I thought they lost it: production a bit cleaner and screaming a bit louder but not big on actual songs. But that got much better further on the rest of the album which is really on par with the best of their other albums and For Your Entertainment even exceeds that. Good for a 41st rank.

[dihansse]

Two albums I listened to of 1997:

An album I already own:

An album on my wishlist:

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Either/Or by Elliott Smith
His best album would come a year later with XO but this is an excellent second.Pictures Of Me and Ballad of Big Nothing are the highlights but there are more beautiful songs all around this album: a beauty and it rises from the 13th to the 6th rank.

An album on my wishlist:

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Egyptology by World Party
The first of this album is fantastic in its beatle-esque atmosphere. If the second half would have been as good it would have made it a semi-classic to me. But it isn't but still ok for the 31st rank.

[Mercury]

Just catching up on all these cool little reviews of Unqound and even Death and PJ and a mention of Morbid Angel. First MASSIVE 1990s post is up and so now the cat is out of the bag on many of these albums. I look forward all the more to sink deeeeper into the discogs of these 1990s pioneers and icons!
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[dihansse]

Two albums of 1998:

An album I already own:

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Success by The Posies
Their first album was called Failure and this on Success but it wasn't really when you read the general comments that this albums is not as good as their previous ones. But to me this is not the case because Auer and Stringfellow again really shine here and together produce again a number of fantastic harmonic singing. And it features a few of their finest tracks: Somehow Everything and Friendship Of The Future are only a few of them. I don't understand why this album is so underrated and it remains firmly at the second rank of the year.

An album on my wishlist:

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Challenge For A Civilized Society by Unwound
Why no throw in another Unwound album. And again a good one even featuring two very long tracks with What Went Wrong and Side Effects Of Being Tired which enters into a long but interesting drone. Ends up at the 26th rank of the year.

[dihansse]

Ending the nineties these are two albums of 1999:

An album I already own:

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Terror Twilight by Pavement
Don't let anyone fool you that Pavement were a bit less good or lost a bit of their weirdness. This album is maybe better produced and not so lo-fi as their other albums but that only results in better songs with nearly no filler. Especially the end trio with Speak, See, Rember, The Hexx and Carrot Rope are magnificent. This is just another Pavement classic, unfortunately it's their last. And its ranking on my year chart goes from 12 to 5.


An album on my wishlist:

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The Days Of Our Nights by Luna (US)
You can't go wrong with Luna, I like all their albums and I also very much like this one. They even succeed to do their own take on Sweet Child O' Mine and they do it well. There is something very laidback in the way they play and Dean Wareham (former Galaxie 500) sings but the songs are profiting from that. Good for the 30th rank of the year.

[dihansse]

Two albums of the new (and already old) millenium:

An album I already own:

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More Light by J Mascis + The Fog
There's already a small comment on this album on BEA and I can't repeat it better. This feels like a genuine (and very good) Dinosaur Jr album except for the last track which just sounds like a storm passing by. A terrific album which immediately goes from the 5th to the 1st rank of this otherwise not very fantastic year.

An album on my wishlist:

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The Death Of Quickspace by Quickspace
It's for these kinds of albums that I go into the trouble of listening to all this albums. I bought their first self-titled album when it was released and liked it but I never took the effort to listen to their others. And this third one of theirs was on my wishlist but had to find it on youtube. When I started listening to it I thought: there's a lot of references to Yo La Tengo. Until I tried to find reviews and discovered that Pitchfork had written a raving review of it and it seemed Quickspace had toured with YLT around the time.
This album is sooooo underrated. It's wild and goes into all directions but is so fantastic. There are the seering guitars but in many instances they are just soothing love songs like Gloriana which then completely derail and there are some epic long ones like Climbing A Hill and They Shoot Horses Don't They. Do I need to tell you that this album blew me away and enters at the 5th rank of the year.

[dihansse]

Here are two albums of 2001 I listened to:

And the last album from Unwound and also the only Unwound album I already owned but had not listened enough to:

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Leaves Turn Inside You by Unwound
If you have listened to all their other albums and not to this album, forget that you will be treated to the same old Unwound story. By listening to their previous ones you think of raw in-your-face unpolished punk. Well that is completely not the case here: the buzzwords here are droning, psychedelic, soft/hard. The first reference I thought of when I heard some of the tracks was Yo La Tengo and to me suprise, when I looked up some reviews and stumbled upon an absolutely raving Pitchfork review I found out that they had toured with YLT some time before recording this album so that reference was clear.
Now for the album itself: although I own the album I had not listened to it more than two times I think and although I liked it, it never completely clicked. Well, now it did and full force. I Liked the relatively short Summer Freeze most but the longer tracks also made a big impression because they never failed to create some kind of an other world in which it's easy to forget this world. Not a lot of albums succeed in that with me but this one did. I think I will have to listen another time to this album to see if this effect is lasting but for now it climbs from the 30th to the 13th rank of the year.
I suppose I don't have to hide that I think this album is by far the best Unwound album.

And an album on my wishlist:

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Bright Flight by Silver Jews
After the great American Water, this one feels like a bit of a disappointment. Because it's a bit too much steeped in country maybe it's because Stephen Malkmus was too busy with the Jicks to cooperate on this album. In any case the songs are to me a lot weaker than on many of the other albums with one exception: Tennessee is very good. But not enough to include this in my year chart.

[Repo]