Maybe it's just recency bias, but the nineties was the best decade for rock albums(1990 and 1998 notwithstanding). As we proceed through the "slow cancellation of the future", there may never be another period of new, creative music; just nostalgia for shoegaze, or power pop, or disco or The Beatles. It could be argued that the eighties was a better decade for singles, but certainly not albums. The seventies was the decade of great live albums. The sixties was a decade of great singles from diverse genres. Ironically, they weren't making vinyl records to any great extent in the nineties. It's only now with the resurgence of vinyl that we can here The Bends on LP. The RUSH reissues of their nineties albums are going for huge dollars online. When I started these nineties Mt. Rushmores, I declared that The Soft Bulletin would be the best album of the decade. As I have actually gone through the exercise I soon discovered I was wrong. There were so many 5 star albums. Something in my brain tried to retcon that Nevermind really wasn't that big of a deal. How do you rank a crazy album about Anne Frank? How do you choose between The Bends and OK Computer? How did Teenage Fanclub not have a number one on my list? Did Sloan name themselves after he urinals?
Part of me doesn't want to rank the number ones from the nineties. The rankings could literally change everyday. So this is my ranking for today. Peace.
1) Nevermind
2) The Bends
3) In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
4) The Soft Bulletin
5) OK Computer
6) It's a Shame About Ray
7) Transmissions From the Satellite Heart
8) Bee Thousand
9) One Chord to Another
10) Blue Sky Mining
No comments:
Post a Comment