Urban75 Album of the Year 1991

[belboid]

Here we are now, another in the Recurring series of polls to find the Goat. You’ll have to change from your steady diet of nothing and put some shift work in, wander through the lands of Bird and Spider, remembering that Fa$cism isn’t friendly, indeed you’ll need a Thirteen Point Plan to Destroy America. If you’re peckish remember that Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, but no Biscuits I’m afraid. Manage that and you’ll feel pretty on the inside, with little danger of going out to ‘trompe le monde’ as they say. Come on, weld those lists together, sort through the diamonds and pearls, recall what was in your orbit, al. Don’t jump on a bandwagon, eskdale bound or not, but do scream a delicatessen and knock back ten blue lines. I heard a rumour and sighed because it was true, there was a Tin Machine II. Don’t vote for it.


Votes have to be in by November 14, so don’t run Out of Time.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. Oh well, nev…..

 

[Pickman's model]

the levellers' levelling the land might be in there
also the ak47s' don't call me vanilla

 

[killer b]

I love how the top rated albums on ratemymusic change over the decades - in the 1960s & 70s there's lots of variety, plenty of canon albums everyone has heard of... by 1991 the first page is almost exclusively obscure death metal and post rock.

 

[Steel Icarus]

It's this





Leatherface's Mush pisses all over Nevermind, musically, lyrically, melodically

I HAVE SPOKEN

 

[nogojones]

I think there were some good hip hop albums from 91, but apart from that everything I was listening to back then was either 12 inches or mix tapes

 

[hitmouse]

Getting my annoying format question in early: The Revolution Girl Style Now tape counts as an album, right?

 

[hitmouse]

Loveless was 1991 btw, I can see that being in a few people's lists.

 

[hitmouse]

Also, well done to Public Enemy for remembering to put 91 in the title of their album so everyone would be able to remember what year it came out in, if all musicians did that then compiling these lists would be a lot simpler.

 

[Indeliblelink]

The Orb - These have to be up there for me.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Some terrific albums I'll be leaving out of my top ten because I just don't/haven't listened to them as much as others. So sorry Tribe Called Quest, Slint, Swans, Massive Attack

 

[Spandex]

Nevermind

I was mystified at the time and remain mystified to this day why Nevermind made Nirvana the biggest rock band in the world.

It's a perfectly good alt-rock album, like many other alt-rock records that preceded it. It's got the big single with the More Than A Feeling riff and the cheerleaders in the video for maximum MTV airplay, Come As You Are and Lithium are both good tracks, but then there's filler like On A Plain and Lounge Act. If it was held in the same regard as The Pixies' Dolittle or something then it would probably be rated about right. But I had the misfortune to have Radio 6 on for the 30th anniversary of it's release and jesus fuck they were overdoing it. Someone literally said it was the first time melancholy and anger had been put to music. My mum knows who they are and she'd give me a blank face if I said Sonic Youth or Husker Du to her. I always thought of Mudhoney and Tad as the big grunge acts until it Nirvana became so so massive.

It's not like they were spectacular live. Leatherface were way more intense, L7 were more engaging. They're probably on a level with Snuff live and I don't see teenagers wearing Snuff t-shirts down the high street these days.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I mean SLTS is for me one of the best songs ever made but the trouble is it's about ten times as good as everything else on Nevermind, as good a record as some of it is. I always preferred Dinosaur to Nirvana anyway, Bleach is a great record in parts and Sliver is a brilliant single, but I've said elsewhere on Urban Nirvana were more interesting as people than their songs ever were, kind of the opposite to how I feel about Dinosaur and Sonic Youth

 

[Steel Icarus]

It's not like they were spectacular live. Leatherface were way more intense, L7 were more engaging. They're probably on a level with Snuff live and I don't see teenagers wearing Snuff t-shirts down the high street these days.

Funnily enough I saw Leatherface supporting Snuff and the former were just gargantuan compared to the latter. Snuff were fun but for me it was a bit "after the Lord Mayor's show". Leatherface that night were possibly as good a band as I've ever seen (out of about 80 I've seen live, I would estimate)

 

[Knotted]

Well I'm reaching straight for the Czech neo-goth band Dunaj with probably their best album Rosol. The drumming in particular is something quite stunning on this.



Live on Czech TV

 

[Spandex]

In the second half of '91 I moved to Wellingborough to do voluntary work with abused children. Anyone who's been to Wellingborough will know it isn't a bright cultural centre and is one of the last places to discover exciting new music (this was before the internet). But one day I was in the HMV at the Swansgate Shopping Centre in town and on the floor was a TDK cassette with no case, so I picked it up and pocketed it and took it home to see what was on it. It was Dub Syndicate's Stoned Immaculate and that's the first dub album I listened to. It totally blew me away and remains one of my favourite albums, one of those albums that I rate far more than it perhaps deserves because it introduced me to a whole style of music. I just listened to it and, yes, I still love it as much as ever.

 

[Knotted]

I was mystified at the time and remain mystified to this day why Nevermind made Nirvana the biggest rock band in the world.

It's a perfectly good alt-rock album, like many other alt-rock records that preceded it. It's got the big single with the More Than A Feeling riff and the cheerleaders in the video for maximum MTV airplay, Come As You Are and Lithium are both good tracks, but then there's filler like On A Plain and Lounge Act. If it was held in the same regard as The Pixies' Dolittle or something then it would probably be rated about right. But I had the misfortune to have Radio 6 on for the 30th anniversary of it's release and jesus fuck they were overdoing it. Someone literally said it was the first time melancholy and anger had been put to music. My mum knows who they are and she'd give me a blank face if I said Sonic Youth or Husker Du to her. I always thought of Mudhoney and Tad as the big grunge acts until it Nirvana became so so massive.

It's not like they were spectacular live. Leatherface were way more intense, L7 were more engaging. They're probably on a level with Snuff live and I don't see teenagers wearing Snuff t-shirts down the high street these days.

Was never that into alt-rock or grunge but I liked Nirvana's Nevermind. Strong songwriting and a bit bluesier than similar bands. I thought they were at their best when they went acoustic. Never that keen on In Utero. But I guess all that just damns Nevermind even further. Grunge for people who don't really like grunge.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Was never that into alt-rock or grunge but I liked Nirvana's Nevermind. Strong songwriting and a bit bluesier than similar bands. I thought they were at their best when they went acoustic. Never that keen on In Utero. But I guess all that just damns Nevermind even further. Grunge for people who don't really like grunge.

Bleach is bluesier, Nevermind is a pop rock record

 

[Knotted]

I was really blown away by Doctor Nerve's Beta 14 OK when I discovered it (a couple of years after its release). It felt like a level of complexity in rock that nobody else was really trying. Includes insane and inhuman computer generated compositions. Also includes a few little outbursts and snippets of things at the end so that you can build your own Doctor Nerve tune by programming your CD player. That just appears like a load of shizzle at the end now though.

 

[Spandex]

The first dance I album I bought. I know some people grumble that it's a move away from their purer dancefloor stuff that came before it, and they've got a point with guest vocalists like Barny Sumner and Bjork popping up, but this was my gateway album to dance music and it's still a great album.

 

[Knotted]

Loved this album from the French post Zeuhl Shub-Niggurath (I think there's a metal band of the same name - not to be confused with them). Trombone heavy soundscapes. I remember my CD player breaking and producing a crackling hissing noise with this on. I didn't realise it had broken for around 2 minutes. That's how great this album is.

 

[Knotted]

There's no doubt at all in my mind that the rock album of the year is The Ex + Tom Cora's Scrabbling at the Lock

 

[belboid]

I’m not even sure why we're bothering with a poll, considering the number 1 is obvious, what with it being the greatest album ever recorded.

Coming soon after the death of his great friend Pete de Freitas, Peggy Suicide saw a move from the cartoonish My Nation Underground or the acid campfire folksiness of Fried into a fuller, heavier and much more righteous sound. Environmentalism, feminism, anti-imperialism and community action were the themes of the hour (and a half) with magnificent polemics on the gulf war and the poll tax set to squalling guitars and some proper funky beats.

It has everything, krautrock, Funkadelic, hints of Roky, as well as Cope's trademark lush melodies and off-kilter love songs all held together by the finest band Cope ever compiled; the genius of Donald Ross Skinner, Moon-Eye Watts, a little bit of Mike Joyce and the astounding percussion from the great Rooster Cosby. Cope's voice itself was fuller, older and richer, as if he was almost mature.

Ontoppable genius.

 

[Spandex]

Ragga Twins step out!

 

[cloudyday]

I seem to recall this came with a packet of king sized Rizzlas

 

[Knotted]

Robert Wyatt's Dondestan

 

[cloudyday]

I think this is their best album

 

[Spandex]

Lush are one of the few early 90s indie bands that I still often listen to and it's a close run thing, depending on my mood, between this and Split which is their best album.

 

[The39thStep]

One of my cult favourite bands Honolulu Mountain Daffodils,led by fearsome guitarist Joachim Pimento ( Adrian Boreland), third album Aloha Sayonara.
A blisteringly barmy album including influences from Nue to grungy psychedelic rock described in one review as '"A scatterbrained and perhaps drunken recording entity"'. Tremendous bold fun.

 

[killer b]

Nation of Ulysses debut 13 Point Plan to Destroy America isn't Plays Pretty for Baby, but it's still brilliant. Cf. Drive Like Jehu's S/T debut, also released in '91

 

[zahir]

Marisa Monte - Mais