And a lot more albums of 1997 I listened to:
- Whatever And Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five (nr 22 on the overall BEA to chart of 1997): not their best album but OK enough to be part of the lower parts of my top chart for 1997
- Life After Death by The Notorious B.I.G. (nr 24): not my thing
- Strangers Almanac by Whiskeytown (nr 27): a bit too country for me but I like Ryan Adams and it was only when I heard the better last tracks on the album that I decided to include this album in my top chart anyway
- Nimrod by Green Day (nr 28 ): a solid Green Day album nothing more nothing less although there was one standout: Good Riddance.
- Dots And Loops by Stereolab (nr 29): didn't really connect with me
- Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney (nr 30): a solid S-K album nothing more nothing less
- Baduizm by Erykah Badu (nr 35): I don't like this type of R&B
- Butterfly by Mariah Carey nr 36): bad R&B with no soul: there isn't a thing I like about this kind of albums. The real queens of soul would turn themselves in their graves.
- Dude Ranch by Blink-182 (nr 37): no
- Vanishing Point by Primal Scream (nr 39): some things were not bad here but overall not my album
- The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson (nr 40): this lady does have soul and some of the songs were not too bad but overall not enough for me to include it in my top chart
- Fantasma by Cornelius (nr 41): not bad but maybe a bit all over the place to make this a consistently good album
- S.C.I.E.N.C.E. by Incubus (nr 42): this album represents everything I don't like about nu-metal: sorry for the negativity
- Fabulosos Calavera by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs (nr 43): I can understand why this album caught on in Latin America but overall not really good enough for me
- Come On Over by Shania Twain (nr 44): I was pleasantly surprised by this album because there are some good tracks to be found here and the album is much better than lots of her peers but still not something I would spin again.
The next album to listen to is Bricolage by Amon Tobin, an artist I like.
This is my final entry for albums of 1997 in the overal BEA top 2500 I still had to discover:
- Bricolage by Amon Tobin (nr 45 on the overall BEA top chart of 1997): as I said I like the music and the rhythms this man produces. It's not his best album but still ok for inclusion in my own 1997 top chart
- Static Age by Misfits (nr 47): A good punk album nothing more and nothing less. I didn't now they did Last Caress first and this is also the best song on the album
- Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan (nr 48 and the album of 1997 with an overall BEA rank better 2500): I couldn't really find a lot of interesting music here so no
To finish my quest into 1997 I listened to three more albums of that year outside the overall top 2500:
- Secret Samadhi by Live (nr 60): I always liked Throwing Copper so wanted to look how the successor was: I must say I liked it better than what some of the critics made me believe. Especially Rattlesnakes was very good and overall I enjoyed the album well enough to include it in my top chart of the year as well
- Sehnsucht by Rammstein (nr 63): not a bad Rammstein album but you can't accuse them of inventiveness: but overall good enough
- Accident Of Birth by Bruce Dickinson (nr 134): and I couldn't help listen to this solo album of Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson and the album was like an album of Iron Maiden but without the absolute highlights. I really liked it and will certainly be a part of my 1997 top chart but it doesn't rank amongst the best Maiden albums
But I liked it well enough to also listen to the follow-up of that album of 1998:
- The Chemical Wedding by Bruce Dickinson; and my conclusion is exactly the same: a good album but no real highlights.
And this concludes my tour of 1997 albums which allowed me to include 17 more albums in my 1997 top chart which is not bad. And the number of albums in the list is now just over 50. It's maybe not the best year in music but hey it includes the overall best BEA album and it's also my best album of the year. Here is the list with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year rank and my personal rank before and after this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
1 OK Computer By Radiohead 1 - 1 To 1
2791 Songs From Northern Britain By Teenage Fanclub 51 - 2 To 2
326 Perfect From Now On By Built To Spill 9 - 3 To 3
1485 In It For The Money By Supergrass 32 - 4 To 4
3526 Adam & Eve By Catherine Wheel 70 - 5 To 5
11352 Mag Earwhig! By Guided By Voices 241 - 6 To 6
1339 Brighten The Corners By Pavement 26 - 7 To 7
257 The Colour And The Shape By Foo Fighters 7 - 8 To 8
12669 Evergreen By Echo & The Bunnymen 275 - 10 To 9
14854 Hand It Over By Dinosaur Jr. 334 - 9 To 10
149 Either/Or By Elliott Smith 3 - 11 To 11
38255 Dare To Be Surprised By The Folk Implosion 769 - 12 To 12
5686 Earthling By David Bowie 113 - 13 To 13
436 I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One By Yo La Tengo 12 - 14 To 14
69603 Johan By Johan 1331 - 15 To 15
219 Urban Hymns By The Verve 5 - 16 To 16
1380 Nimrod By Green Day 28 - To listen To 17
12882 Kon Tiki By Cotton Mather 282 - 17 To 18
1456 Dig Me Out By Sleater-Kinney 30 - To listen To 19
2377 Static Age By Misfits 47 - To listen To 20
565 Blur By Blur 14 - To listen To 21
6660 Accident Of Birth By Bruce Dickinson 134 - Not yet listened To 22
1162 Be Here Now By Oasis 23 - 18 To 23
181 The Lonesome Crowded West By Modest Mouse 4 - To listen To 24
68770 Cry By The Rock*A*Teens 1332 - 19 To 25
377 The Boatman's Call By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 10 - To listen To 26
1670 Pop By U2 34 - 20 To 27
220 Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space By Spiritualized 6 - To listen To 28
3283 Sehnsucht By Rammstein 63 - Not yet listened To 29
4584 Under The Western Freeway By Grandaddy 93 - 21 To 30
74090 These Days Are The Quiet Kind By Gore Slut 1420 - 22 To 31
19610 Dust Bunnies By Bettie Serveert 424 - 23 To 32
37201 Pup Tent By Luna (US) 744 - 24 To 33
3179 Secret Samadhi By Live 60 - Not yet listened To 34
46636 Eighth By Eleventh Dream Day 930 - 25 To 35
5371 Static and Silence By The Sundays 104 - 27 To 37
11562 Transmission By The Tea Party 247 - 26 To 36
4740 ReLoad By Metallica 97 - 28 To 38
81402 Nothing's Gonna Cheer You Up By The Outrageous Cherry 1560 - Already listened To 39
768 Portishead By Portishead 19 - 29 To 40
5434 A Short Album About Love By The Divine Comedy 107 - 30 To 41
1048 Whatever And Ever Amen By Ben Folds Five 22 - To listen To 42
35221 Too Many Days Without Thinking By Swell 712 - 31 To 43
86957 Superflies By Triptych 1674 - 32 To 44
1358 Strangers Almanac By Whiskeytown 27 - To listen To 45
8804 Bridges To Babylon By The Rolling Stones 183 - 33 To 46
2367 Bricolage By Amon Tobin 45 - To listen To 47
4594 The Dandy Warhols Come Down By The Dandy Warhols 94 - 34 To 48
7532 Blue Moon Swamp By John Fogerty 155 - 35 To 49
27594 Nighttown By The Walkabouts 572 - 36 To 50
2060 Flaming Pie By Paul McCartney 38 - 37 To 51
Since I now listened to all years of 1990 it's time to tie up some loose ends for the decade in my next post to come to my final conclusive top chart of the nineties.
There were a number of albums of the nineties I hadn't yet listened to so here they are:
- Eureka by Jim O'Rourke (1999 and rank 2084 overall): a weird album and a weird cover but anyway a number of tracks that are very good so good enough to include it in my top charts
- Mic City Sons by Heatmiser (1996 and rank 4926): so not part of the overall top 2500 but an album of the nineties I just wanted to listen to because I saw that Elliot Smith was part of it and of course for that reason a good album of which Half Right I already knew.
- Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik by OutKast (1994 and ranked 2112 overall): not my thing
- Chill Out by The KLF (1990 and ranked 2397 overall): sometimes interesting atmosphere but overall not sufficiently interesting
- Senderos De Traición by Héroes Del Silencio (1990 and ranked 2406 overall): I fairly liked Hechizo and Oracion but the overall quality of the album didn't impress me.
- Incunabula by Autechre (1993 and ranked 2449 overall): not my thing
- Roots by Sepultura (1996 and ranked 2448 overall): I band I like but not love but since this album features Roots Bloody Roots and Ratamahata, it sticks out above other of their albums. I also checked out Arise also from the nineties (1991) and just outside the overall BEA top 2500 (2775) but doesn't have a standout song so I decided not to include this one in my top charts.
So I finished the nineties albums in the overall BEA top 2500 but just want to check out some more album just outside the top 2500 but before I do that I wanted to do something on two nineties bands I already know very well: Adorable and Sloan.
Let’s begin with Adorable. They were a UK band which started in Coventry in 1990 and took their inspiration both from shoegaze and bands like Echo and the Bunnymen though they definitely had their own sound. The most important member was the singer with Polish background Pete (Pjotr) Fijalkowski. They started with the great 12’’ Sunshine album, a fantastic song which is also featured on the US and Japanese version of their first album Against Perfection but not on the original UK version (in any case also not on the CD version I have) which was released in 1993.
Against Perfection by Adorable
When I bought that CD, oh man, that was pure bliss. The opening trio of that album is one big salvo of exhilarating songs and I still think they are: Glorious, Favourite Fallen Idol and A To Fade In, all very different but all so fantastic. Just look at this clip to see how great this last one is (I'll tel you about these two guys later):
The lyrics, the guitar hooks and especially the very good bass lines make this album what it is, one of the finest examples of just good powerrock.
After listening to it again I promoted this album to the 22nd rank in my overall list of best albums ever.
Their second album was titled Fake and was released in 1994. While it didn’t reach the heights of Against Perfection it was still very good.
Fake by Adorable
In short as Pitchfork described it: they were caught between shoegaze, Britpop and American Indie and didn’t get the success they certainly deserved. If you haven’t heard Against Perfection yet, do yourself a favor and listen to it.
And there was an after-life: after being disappointed with the record industry, Fijalkowski started a new aptly named band Polak in 2000 with the album Swansongs: an ok album but to me not very good (if there’s one track you want to check out try Shipwrecked).
Swansongs by Polak
According to Fijalkowski their second album was better but I couldn’t even find it.
After that he started a cooperation with old band member of the House Of Love (another one of those great bands of the nineties I will come back to) named Pete Fij /Terry Bickers. Their album of 2014 was called Broken Heart Surgery, an album Graeme2 considers to be his second best album of 2014 and I can’t disagree with him. It’s nearly completely acoustic but sometime one has to be grateful for little gems like these.
Broken Heart Surgery by Pete Fij / Terry Bickers
And then I listened to their second album, We Are Millionaires (2017), via Bandcamp, and this one’s nearly as good as their first one although maybe a bit too much Richard Hawley-like.
We Are Millionaires by Pete Fij / Terry Bickers
In any case good to see that old Pjotr is still making music.
This is my final entry for nineties albums I listened to with first a few loose ends of albums in the overall BEA top 2500 chart I hadn't yet listened to:
- ...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin (1995 album and ranked 2494th overall): not really my thing
- Good by Morphine (1992 album and ranked 2493th overall): I actually like this album better than their bigger hit Cure For Pain because it has a better jazzy flow. But overall still a bit always the same to make it to my overall top charts
And then some album just outside the 2500 I also wanted to listen to:
- The Razors Edge by AC/DC (1990 album and ranked 2699th overall): not their best album but with Thunderstruck they have a bomb of an opening track. The album slackens a bit near the end but overall still good enough for my top chart of 1990.
- I Am The Cosmos by Chris Bell (1992 album and ranked 2828th overall): I had expected a bit more of this album because I liked his role in Big Star and because I really like You And Your Sister. But overall his singing gets rather annoying after a while and the songs are not all of big star quality. But again overall good enough to make to my overall top chart of 1992
- Kerplunk by Green Day (1991 album and ranked 2895th overall): a fairly average Green Day album but still ok
And with this I have covered the whole of the nineties overall top 2500 albums and especially the start of this decade are absolute top years in music for me. This is my overall top 20 of the decade with at the start my rank of the decade and after that the year, the BEA year rank and the BEA overall rank:
MyDecade Title By Band Year - BEA YearRank - BEA Rank
1 Rocking The Forest / Sebadoh Vs. Helmet by Sebadoh 1992 - 213 - 10553
2 Ascension by The Aints 1991 - 89 - 5442
3 Bakesale by Sebadoh 1994 - 59 - 2153
4 Copper Blue by Sugar 1992 - 32 - 1355
5 Nevermind by Nirvana 1991 - 1 - 10
6 Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins 1993 - 2 - 60
7 Swagger by The Blue Aeroplanes 1990 - 171 - 10054
8 Troublegum by Therapy? 1994 - 57 - 2052
9 The Bends by Radiohead 1995 - 1 - 18
10 Beaster by Sugar 1993 - 85 - 4101
11 Bob Mould by Bob Mould 1996 - 240 - 10137
12 Dirty by Sonic Youth 1992 - 10 - 653
13 File Under Easy Listening by Sugar 1994 - 140 - 6190
14 Autocannibalism by The Aints 1992 - 455 - 25938
15 Palomine by Bettie Serveert 1992 - 78 - 3991
16 If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle And Sebastian 1996 - 2 - 122
17 Against Perfection by Adorable 1993 - 103 - 5362
18 Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement 1994 - 9 - 165
19 Blue Sky Mining by Midnight Oil 1990 - 37 - 2101
20 Last Splash by The Breeders 1993 - 16 - 884
21 OK Computer by Radiohead 1997 - 1 - 1
22 Where You Been by Dinosaur Jr. 1993 - 33 - 1859
23 The Word And The Flesh by Band Of Susans 1991 - 206 - 12867
24 Harmacy by Sebadoh 1996 - 150 - 6498
25 Sweet Oblivion by Screaming Trees 1992 - 43 - 2132
And these are the album of 2002 which are part of the overall BEA top 2500 to listen to with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year and my personal rank of the year before this listening session (or to listen):
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
47 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco 1 - 2
79 A Rush Of Blood To The Head by Coldplay 2 - 3
83 Turn On The Bright Lights by Interpol 3 - 5
94 Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips 4 - Already listened
127 Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age 5 - 1
264 Sea Change by Beck 6 - 25
284 You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene 7 - To listen
307 ( ) by Sigur Ros 8 - Already listened
319 By The Way by Red Hot Chili Peppers 9 - 10
325 Up The Bracket by The Libertines 10 - To listen
472 The Eminem Show by Eminem 11 - To listen
473 In Absentia by Porcupine Tree 12 - To listen
611 American IV: The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash 13 - 24
615 Geogaddi by Boards Of Canada 14 - To listen
638 O by Damien Rice 15 - Already listened
683 Original Pirate Material by The Streets 16 - To listen
796 Audioslave by Audioslave 17 - To listen
817 The Rising by Bruce Springsteen 18 - To listen
1049 Kill The Moonlight by Spoon 19 - To listen
1073 The Mantle by Agalloch 20 - To listen
1109 Come Away With Me by Norah Jones 21 - To listen
1135 Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground by Bright Eyes 22 - To listen
1180 Source Tags & Codes by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead 23 - Partly listened
1192 Neon Golden by The Notwist 24 - 30
1273 The Last Broadcast by Doves 25 - 21
1297 The Creek Drank The Cradle by Iron And Wine 26 - To listen
1335 One By One by Foo Fighters 27 - 8
1411 All Hail West Texas by The Mountain Goats 28 - To listen
1431 Yanqui U.X.O. by Godspeed You! Black Emperor 29 - To listen
1542 Songs About Jane by Maroon 5 30 - To listen
1593 Let Go by Avril Lavigne 31 - To listen
1636 Highly Evolved by The Vines 32 - To listen
1712 Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater 33 - To listen
1741 The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski 34 - To listen
1864 Castaways And Cutouts by The Decemberists 35 - To listen
1911 Tell All Your Friends by Taking Back Sunday 36 - To listen
1924 Heathen by David Bowie 37 - 20
2086 Finally We Are No One by Mum 38 - To listen
2137 Alice by Tom Waits 39 - Already listened
2140 Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos 40 - To listen
2217 Heathen Chemistry by Oasis 41 - To listen
2225 Murray Street by Sonic Youth 42 - 9
2278 Oceanic by Isis 43 - To listen
2279 Steal This Album! by System Of A Down 44 - Already listened
2327 I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love by My Chemical Romance 45 - To listen
2361 18 by Moby 46 - To listen
2384 Century Child by Nightwish 47 - To listen
2448 Songs About Leaving by Carissa's Wierd 48 - To listen
And at the same time the collaborative diary for 2000 is taking place so this could be a bit of an overdose of the 2000's decade
Post subject: A side dish: Jeffrey Lee Pierce/The Gun Club
And here I’d like to do something on Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club.
I don’t have a lot with JLP as a person: he’s a gun lover and loved his booze so much that he died in 1996 of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 37. But boy, I like him as a singer and as a songsmith.
He started the Gun Club in 1979/80 and immediately it was clear that the mix between punk, blues and country was something very special and turned into something called psychobilly.
Their debut Fire Of Love is by many seen as his classic but in my opinion they reached their real height with their second album of 1982, Miami, which is the first of their classics. Their third album Las Vegas album was also great.
And then all of sudden, the Gun Club broke up in 1985 and JLP went solo and released the also very good but very underrated Wildweed.
And then the Gun Club was put back on its feet again with Mother Juno of 1987 and that other classic of theirs, Pastoral Hide & Seek, maybe I’m biased because this was the album I discovered them with. Their last real album was Lucky Jim, another very good one.
And then just when JLP wanted to get sober he died but that was only the beginning of his legend because it seemed that he had lots of unreleased material lying around so artists which were also his fans started the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project which led to three albums between 2010 and 2014 featuring fantastic artists like Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, Steve Wynn, Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore and Debbie Harry (to make this completely ironic: JLP once was the president of the Blondie fan club). On the first of the three, We Are Only Riders, there are each time three covers of three songs. These albums are also really recommended but as good as they are, they cannot match the original JLP energy and emotional depth.
And as a coincidence it has just been announced at the start of this year that a documentary is being made on JLP with the fitting name Elvis of Hell and it will contain interviews with many of his fan artists (see list above) and it will be out somewhere in 2020.
And now my list of favorite regular albums in reverse order (and each time with my favorite tracks):
The Good ones:
7. Fire Of Love by The Gun Club (1981): this is the best ranked album of The Gun Club on BEA so I'm again a bit contrarian; but still a very good Gun Club album of course but with no real highlights
6. Lucky Jim by The Gun Club (1993): ranked 7th GC album on BEA and the standout here is A House Is Not A Home
The Very Good ones:
5. The Las Vegas Story by The Gun Club (1984; ranked 4th GC album on BEA): best tracks are Stranger In Our Town and Give Up The Sum
This album just rocks with very heartfelt tracks like the opener Humanesque and it just goes on with The Straits Of Love And Hate, Emily's Changed, I Hear You Heart Singing, St. John's Divine, The Great Divide, Another Country's Young and Eskimo Blue Day. When JLP screams like on The Straits Of Love And Hate, he really screams unto the verge of just loosing it. Just give this underrated classic a chance !!!!
Only marginally better than the number two here above and also a real classic with best tracks abound again: Carry Home (that opening three words: Come Down To which than just moves on to completely breakable to rocking like hell) and Brother and Sister (which sounds as dangerous as its title suggests) are two of my all favorite top 1000 tracks ever and other standout tracks are Like Calling Up Thunder, Run Through The Jungle (a great CCR cover), Devil In The Woods, Texas Serenade, John Hardy, Fire Of Love and Sleeping In Blood City.
If you haven't heard this band yet, just check them out.
Back to 2002 and these are the first albums of that year I listened to:
- You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene (nr 7 on the overall BEA top chart of 2002): some good songs like Almost Crimes but overall not for my top chart. BSS are a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion
- Up The Bracket by The Libertines (nr 10): I liked their self titled one better: this one is a bit too bratty for my taste
- In Absentia by Porcupine Tree (nr 11): I was doubting whether to include this one in my top chart until I heard the last track: one of those vintage Steve Wilson slows which really hit it.
- The Eminem Show by Eminem (nr 12): not my thing
- Geogaddi by Boards Of Canada (nr 13): I can't get into Boards Of Canada at all
- Original Pirate Material by The Streets (nr 16): not my thing
- Audioslave by Audioslave (nr 17): every element of grunge I don't like
- The Rising by Bruce Springsteen (nr 18 ): and then this gem. I like the Springsteen of the year 2000's like Magic and Working On A Dream so I don't really understand why I haven't listened to this complete album yet. Waitin' On A Sunny Day, the title track and especially Worlds Apart with its world music atmosphere are absolute gems and while the album seems to be a bit long it is varied enough to hold my attention. I Like it very much
And Im currently listening to Kill The Moonlight by Spoon.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
