My discoveries per year

[dihansse]

These are the two albums of 1987 I listened to:

An album I already own:

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Strangeways, Here We Come by The Smiths
All in all in my opinion one of the most consistent Smiths albums. Except for maybe the last one, there is not a bad track here where even very strange tracks like Death Of A Disco Dancer and Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me turn out to be really interesting ones. And there's of course also Girlfriend In a Coma. I had underrated this one a bit so it climbs from the 30th to the 10th rank.


An album on my wishlist:

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Huevos by Meat Puppets
My first thoughts, when I read some comments about this albums and on hearing the first minutes, were, who needs an album which copies (or does a pastiche on) ZZ Top. But I was wrong. There are indeed a lot of resemblances with ZZ Top here (which is a bit strange for a band like Meat Puppets), but they do something interesting with that sound: the songs are good and especially they do something interesting with the guitars which really grabbed my attention. So all in all a good Meat Puppets album which lands at the 29th rank of the year.

Nearly at 1990 so I'll try to come up with two interesting ones till then (or can somebody advise me on one).

[Repo]

[dihansse]

Here are some albums of 1988 I listened to:

An album I already own:

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The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 by The T...g Wilburys
This is of course the supergroup of supergroups with 5 outstanding members but it's clear that Jeff Lynne has the upper hand. Sometimes this results in a fantastic track like Handle With care in which Roy Orbison sings his lungs out and a bit less but still good: End Of The Line. Apart some other OK tracks, there's not much else here. When those guys (ex George Harrison Harrison) and had each delivered some songs they are capable of writing and have each one of them sing them it would have resulted in a great album. Now it's just an ok album which goes from the 44th to the 33rd rank.

An album on my wishlist:

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Down In Earthquake Town by Russ Tolman
I suppose I must have got the tip from Johnnyo's charts because he seems to be a fan. This is a guy from the Paisley Underground and also friends with Steve Wynn which is not a bad reference. An the music also resembles Steve Wynn's but just a notch less good than him. Nevertheless a good album with the slow You Don't Have To Say Goodbye as the positive outlier. Immediately ok for the 26th rank.

[dihansse]

And two albums of the end of the eighties with two relatively classic rock albums.

An album I already own:

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The Road To Hell by Chris Rea
One of his best albums in my opinion exemplified by the great title track and other tracks like You Must Be Evil, Texas and Daytona. The album jumps deservedly from the 45th to the 28th rank.

An album on my wishlist:

Journeyman by Eric Clapton
After a number of shitty albums in the eighties, this is at least a good effort in which he partly returned to his old love, the blues. And it's the most uptempo and guitar based tracks which are the best. To give an example: there's a few covers and Before You Accuse Me is much better than the lame version of Hound Dog. And own good songs are the opening trio Pretending, Anything For Love and Bad Love. A bit of a mixed bag but still good for the 30th rank.

[dihansse]

So while Repo is trying to figure out what are the top albums of 1990, I arrived at 1990 and try to figure out:

An album I already own that I thought was underrated on my year chart and could climb a lot:

Nowhere by Ride
This album only figured at the 53rd rank of my year chart while lots of people think it's their best. In this it had to compete with Going Blank Again from 1992 which does appear in my top 10 of that year. And I must repeat: in my opinion the latter album remains by far the best. It's not that Nowhere is a bad album: to me it just hasn't got the standout songs which appear on GBA. And that even goes for their more special tracks like Vapour Trail. But the album does rise from the 53rd to the 24th rank.

An album on my wishlist:

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Gala by Lush
And then I thought: what is the album on the top 10s of other people that I'm most curious about. And by coincidence it's another "shoegaze" album (although to me Lush is just a genre on its own). In fact this is not a proper stand-alone album but a compilation of their older EP's which explains that some tracks appear in two versions. But this is as good an album as their best. The sound is already and definitely Lush and their first songs are already real crackers. I love it and it starts at the 23rd rank.

[dihansse]

Since we're in the nineties, this is 1991 with two more albums:

An album I already own:

The Real Ramona by Throwing Muses
One of these classic albums from the beginning of the nineties with the collaboration with Tanya Donnelly and Kristin Hersch, two artists I regard very highly, at their best. There's not really an outlier here but everything is at least good. The album rises from the 72nd (too low) to the 40th rank of the year.

An album on my wishlist:

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Jack Frost by Jack Frost
Again an album I didn't find on Apple Music so had to revert to Youtube but it was worth it. This is a collaboration between Grant McLennan from the Go Betweens and Steve Kilby and this album has a bit of both bands and it's very good. It seems to have the mellow mood from both bands but blended into something new. So already good for the 52nd rank of the year.

[dihansse]

Two albums of 1992 I listened to:

And album I already gladly own

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Slanted And Enchanted by Pavement
Next monday I 'm going to one of their reunion concerts which I'm really looking forward to because I was a big fan of theirs in the nineties. So this was a good opportunity to listen to this classic again which I bought immediately after its release and never regretted it. And I was completely thrown back to those wonderful years by relistening to it. This is a still a magnificent album although it's one of their least accessible and there most Pavement-like ones.
It starts with the still great Summer Babe, one of their most general rockers but then immediately moves to one of their special greatest Trigger Cut. And it just goes one with the near-slow Here and another one of my personal favorites Perfume V. They were at their most slackest here but that was just a cover for their great talent of song writing. In a year full of classics this classic moves from the 17th to the 9th rank.
I'm so looking forward to that concert.

An album on my wishlist:

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Hit To Death In The Future Head by The Flaming Lips
I had not yet found a Flaming Lips album I completely liked but this on is very close. Maybe because it's a bit heavier than most of their others but I think it's mainly because most of the tracks touch some emotional string in all their weirdness.
And of course I don't completely like it. Two songs are fairly subpar and of course that 29 minutes long boring drone at the end is a bit of a disgrace. But nevertheless one of their best which ends at the 30th rank.

[Pelorin]

Nice project! Looks like you are having fun with it.

My friend and myself are going deep into the 72, 82, and 92 (50 year, 40 year, and 30 year mark) , (will try to finish 02 by the end of the year too), by listening to 30-50 albums per each year. We are at 1992 atm, and so far my top 3 of 1992 are:

1. REM - Automatic For The People
2. Red House Painters - Down Colorfull Hill
3. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes

P.S. Slanted and Enchanted is an album I really had problem with myself, the sound is a bit too much... raw... for my taste.

[dihansse]

These are the albums of 1993 I listened to:

First an album I already own:

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Silver Sail by Wipers
This is the first album of this band I bought so that's maybe why it is fairly special to me. And to my shame I had also completely misranked this album at the 38th rank. I know that many people regard this as not their best, I suppose because it's slower paced as their first albums, but in my opinion, the very inventive guitar playing and seemingly lazy singing of Greg Sage even shines better on tracks like Y I Came, Back To The Basics and Prisoner. And please also note that the second half of the album equals the fierceness of their first albums in tracks like Line On A Roll and especially on the great ending title track. Maybe just a little bit less good as the classic Youth Of America but definitely a semi classic which goes from the 38th to the 13th rank of the year.

Then an album on my wishlist:

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The Temper Trap by The Temper Trap
Just pleasant and unpretentious jangle rock and the best thing of all, nearly all tracks are pleasant so that makes for an utterly pleasant album. It enters my year chart at the 38th rank.

[dihansse]

So last monday I went to that Pavement concert I already announced and it was as fantastic as I could ever imagine.
Only one negative point: it was in an old theatre with all seats and I was seated high up in a balcony with less leg space than in an airplane with a high sideview at the podium.

But that was the only negative point: it really felt as being thrown back to the nineties and like I would have seen at the height of their career (I had never seen them live before). The band sounded very fresh and the concert already started with a bang with Cut Your Hair and it went on with also most of their other "hits" at the start of the set. The second part was more of a jammy part which was also incredible and the concert also ended with a bang with Here, Spit On A Stranger and fantastic version of Range Life to end with Filmore Jive. With 25 songs they played a lot of my favorites and I was a very happy man to have seen one of my favorite bands at the height of their career, 20 to 30 years after their real top years.