1991 - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

dihansse wrote:

Yeah but some years are difficult however: I started that thing to go through every album of the BEA top 2500 for every year and years like 1991 were just a pleasure and 1996 is hard to get through.
The thing I'm more and more discovering, and that's also true for 1991, is that the real gems are hidden below the top 2500.
Btw the first three tracks of Smell The Magic are not bad but I don't know yet if it's going to become a favorite.

Oh, yeah. For the most part, I cannot stand the overall charts on BEA. The charts only serve to act as a survey or measure to what everyone thinks about a given year and really it just narrows down to popular opinion.

dihansse

Gender: Male
Age: 60

dihansse wrote:

Btw the first three tracks of Smell The Magic are not bad but I don't know yet if it's going to become a favorite.

But the fourth track, Deathwish, is just in the style that I didn't like of Bricks are Heavy.

F1Aaron

Gender: Male
Age: 27
Location: Somewhere in NC

In NO particular order

1. Loveless by My Bloody Valentine
2. The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest
3. Achtung Baby by U2
4. Laughing Stock by Talk Talk
5. Blue Lines by Massive Attack
6. Spiderland by Slint
7. Human by Death
8. Screamadelica by Primal Scream
9. Nevermind by Nirvana
10. Death Certificate by Ice Cube

dihansse

Gender: Male
Age: 60

And now for something completely different: a review of an album I know very well, is one of my favorite albums ever and is terribly underrated everywhere including BEA:

The Last Days Of Pompeii by Nova Mob

After the demise of Hüsker Dü in 1988, Grant Hart, who had a big Heroin problem and after doing a solo album, he created Nova Mob and this is their first full CD.
It is clear on this album that Grant Hart still had his portion of drugs on a daily basis: while this album is loosely based on the last days of Pompeii (hihi), there are also references to Nazi Germany and other kinds of strange stuff like space travel and time travel.
But the album is brilliant. It is beyond my understanding that an album with such fantastic songs and emotional strength is so not picked up and many of these tracks could be played on every radio and be popular: although a few of the sharp edges of Hüsker Dü remain (see the end of Persuaded) many of them like Admiral of The Sea are very melodic. Only Space Jazz is a bit more experimental.
Finally I would like to mention two special tracks which belong to my most favorite songs ever:
Getaway/Gateway In Time which starts very mellow but gradually builds up and than slows down again and some of the speed-ups are just brillant (see 2:55) and then goes to a great finale.
The Last Days of Pompeii/Benediction: a fairly simple but steaming song which ends in aptly placed final explosion of Pompeii.

So an album which deserves a listen and in listening back to it, I even upgraded it from the 17th to the 11th rank on my personal top chart of 1991.

Grant Hart played an important part in Hüsker Dü and had some other solo albums and with Nova Mob but this was his masterpiece. RIP Grant Hart who died last year and will be missed by many.

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

dihansse wrote:

And now for something completely different: a review of an album I know very well, is one of my favorite albums ever and is terribly underrated everywhere including BEA:

The Last Days Of Pompeii by Nova Mob

After the demise of Hüsker Dü in 1988, Grant Hart, who had a big Heroin problem and after doing a solo album, he created Nova Mob and this is their first full CD.
It is clear on this album that Grant Hart still had his portion of drugs on a daily basis: while this album is loosely based on the last days of Pompeii (hihi), there are also references to Nazi Germany and other kinds of strange stuff like space travel and time travel.
But the album is brilliant. It is beyond my understanding that an album with such fantastic songs and emotional strength is so not picked up and many of these tracks could be played on every radio and be popular: although a few of the sharp edges of Hüsker Dü remain (see the end of Persuaded) many of them like Admiral of The Sea are very melodic. Only Space Jazz is a bit more experimental.
Finally I would like to mention two special tracks which belong to my most favorite songs ever:
Getaway/Gateway In Time which starts very mellow but gradually builds up and than slows down again and some of the speed-ups are just brillant (see 2:55) and then goes to a great finale.
The Last Days of Pompeii/Benediction: a fairly simple but steaming song which ends in aptly placed final explosion of Pompeii.

So an album which deserves a listen and in listening back to it, I even upgraded it from the 17th to the 11th rank on my personal top chart of 1991.

Grant Hart played an important part in Hüsker Dü and had some other solo albums and with Nova Mob but this was his masterpiece. RIP Grant Hart who died last year and will be missed by many.

Great write-up!!! I will totally check this out this week. Grant Hart's solo career is total blindspot for me for some reason despite tons of friends telling me to listen to his stuff. So I'm all over this. Thanks, brother! Very Happy

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

I will also give it a listen.

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Fantastic EP that's transportive. Never heard it before but it captures 1991 perfectly. Highly Recommended for couple of spins. Nothing really captures what 1991 Indie rock sounded like as well.

CharlieBarley

Gender: Male
Age: 48
Location: Mount Olympus

The Levellers - Levelling The Land
Nirvana - Nevermind
Slint - Spiderland
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
R.E.M. - Out Of Time
Julian Cope - Peggy Suicide
U2 - Achtung Baby
Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Crowded House - Woodface

Blue Lines missed out becos although it has some essential standout tracks it's just not a consistently good album for me.

I also like the James Brown compilation from '91 - Sex Machine. Modesty was never his strong point.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

I find it very interesting that in my own "blind" test I rated/ranked these three albums the same.

If I were to just tell someone my favorites of those three it would go like this, yet my "blind" test said they were pretty equal albums:

Way better:

Gish by The Smashing Pumpkins

Pretty dang good:

Ten by Pearl Jam

OK:

Metallica by Metallica

dihansse

Gender: Male
Age: 60

Here is another of my favorite albums of 1991 I would like to recommend to everybody who likes their powerrock powerful and catchy.

Blind Love by Ratcat

Ratcat is an Australian band which already existed from 1986 on but only had their heyday on this 1991 album which is a gold nugget not rivaled by any of their other albums. They were fairly big in Australia (they even reached the number 1 place on the Australian album charts with this album) but not really known in other countries which is a pity.

One of my favorite tracks, Don't Go Now appears on this album but there's also the slowburners Hopeless mind and The End and the Ramones-like That Ain't Bad and especially Strange with its quirky stop start nature and experimental feel.

If you want a fantastic feelgood powerrock/punk album don't hesitate and give this one a go. After listening back to this album I moved it from the 6th to the 4th rank in personal top chart of 1991 and it's also high in my overall one album per artist top chart (at nr 34).