Posted on 06/20/2005 9:34:09 AM PDT by Millee
Spin magazine named Radiohead's "OK Computer" the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive "even when its words are spoken by a robot."
The British band's album edged out Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a list in Spin's 20th anniversary issue, currently on newsstands.
"Between Thom Yorke's orange-alert worldview and the band's meld of epic guitar rock and electronic glitch, ('OK Computer') not only forecast a decade of music but uncannily predicted our global culture of communal distress," reads the editorial note on what separated the 1997 disc from the other 99 ranked albums.
Sandwiched between Radiohead's straight-ahead rock disc "The Bends" and the more experimental, electronic "Kid A," "OK Computer" was the album that propelled Radiohead to worldwide, stadium-sized popularity. Though it never went higher than No. 21 on the Billboard charts, it won critical raves and a Grammy for best alternative music performance.
Spin's Chuck Klosterman says the album "manages to sound how the future will feel. ... It's a mechanical album that always feels alive, even when its words are spoken by a robot."
Years earlier, Spin ranked Nirvana's "Nevermind" the greatest album of the nineties. In the time since, however, editor-in-chief Sia Michel and others simply found they were reaching for "OK Computer" more than the slightly less relevant "Nevermind."
"Whereas when Nirvana came out, everybody was talking about negation and slackers and everything like that -- seven years later, it was the dot-com boom and 22-year-olds were making $80,000 on Web sites," Michel recently told The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Irrelevant.
Since, there has been little if any good rock n roll since the mid-70s.....
Being a rocker girl myself, I would have rather listen to Top 40 Pop than grunge.
Anybody who tells me Kurt Cobain influenced music is wasting their breath on me. I don't buy it and to convince me otherwise is moot.
Ditto that.
Easy. Of the last 20 years...
...Slayer - Reign in Blood
Great album. But not even Dylan's best of the last 20 years.
The new junk bonds. The miracle of the "Clinton economy". Business practices that make Enron look like a moral leader of industry.
And it all went KABLOOEY. Gov. Bush was criticized for "jinxing" the economy in 2000 by mentioning the looming recession.
Ah, the glory days of Clintonation. < / BLARRRFFFF >
ping
HUH?
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Poison 13: Wine Is Red, Poison Is Blue (1994 - Sub-Pop); composite release of 2 earlier albums (Poison 13 - 1984 and First You Dream - 1985) that kicked off grunge in the mid-1980s. Without this, garge rock (bands on the labels: Estrus, Get Hip, Gearhead, Crypt, Sympathy For The Record Industry) as well as LA/Seattle/Texas grunge bands (Green River, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, among them) would not exist, or at least sound radically different.
1. One Step Closer (Carroll/Kerr)
2. Seventh Son (Dixon)
3. My Biggest Mistake (Anderson/Gates)
4. Spoonful (Dixon)
5. Out on the Streets (Carroll/Kerr)
6. Big City Lights (Aces 88)
7. Die for Me (Carroll/Gates)
8. Codeine
9. Grip on My Heart (Carrroll/Kerr)
10. Justice (Carrroll/Kerr)
11. When I Was Young (Briggs/Burdon/Jenkins/McCulloch/Weider)
12. Blank Generation (Hell)
13. Hellbound Train (Anderson/Carroll)
14. First You Dream, and Then You Die (Anderson/Carroll/Gates/Kerr)
15. Strange Movies (Presley)
16. Can't Cry (Carroll/Kerr)
17. Parchman Farm (Allison)
18. She's the One (Wingate)
19. What a Way to Die (Pleasure Seekers)
20. I'm Dangerous Tonight (Carroll/Kerr)
21. Love Me (Lott)
22. Strychnine (Roslie)
23. Warsaw (Joy Division)
I can't pull up the full list of songs (don't know if it is my browser).
I'd push Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Crypt Style (Crypt) over JSBX's Orange. Definitely the band developed the Lo Fi sound that seems to be everywhere in the indie/underground music scene.
Also Gibson Bros. - Memphis Sol Today (SFTRI).
Billy Childish (Headcoats, Milkshakes, Mighty Caesars, Buff Medways, et al) HAS to be on this list someplace. He has released over 100 albums since 1978. And yeah, Sub-Pop got around to releasing some things by him in the 1990s as well (not necessarily his best work). Kurt Cobain was a fan. As cruical to keeping garage rock alive as Poison 13. The Strokes are a limp wristed joke.
Don't know if I would put Rev. Horton Heat's Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em or Full Custom Gospel Sounds, but one of those albums (both Sub-Pop).
Johnny Cash The American Recordings Vol 1.
Prince The Black Album (1987). An underground only release and among the first strains of a major artist realizing he didn't need the major labels anymore (Bowie also realized this when he took his albums out of RCA's budget bin releases and moved his back catalog to Rykodisc).
http://www.spin.com/features/magazine/covers/2005/06/0507_cover_greatest_albums/
100. The Strokes, Is This It (RCA, 2001)
99. Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen (Elektra, 1993)
98. Cornershop, When I Was Born for the 7th Time (Luaka Bop, 1997)
97. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge, 1998)
96. The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash (Stiff/WEA, 1985)
95. Elastica, Elastica (DGC, 1995)
94. Slint, Spiderland (Touch and Go, 1991)
93. Pearl Jam, Ten (Epic, 1991)
92. Big Black, Atomizer (Homestead, 1986)
91. XTC, Skylarking (Geffen, 1986)
90. Sonic Youth, Sister (DGC, 1987)
89. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell (Interscope, 2003)
88. Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Elektra, 1996)
87. Blur, Parklife (Food, 1994)
86. Meat Puppets, Up on the Sun (SST, 1985)
yep.
And to think, he said that one of his greatest influences was the band:
The Captain and Tenielle
That's the album that immediately came to my mind as well.
I'm going to add "Appetite for Destruction" Guns & Roses
Let's see, "Gish" by Smashing Pumpkins, "Exile in Guyville" by Liz Phair, "Louder than Love" Soundgarden, "Q.O.T.S.A." Queens of the Stone Age,
Jeez! I can go on and on but I gotta log off for a few minutes! (I'm guilty of FReeping at work.)
I agree about Bob Marley. Redemption Song is my favorite. He is a giant. Or was.
Who is Radiohead? Never even heard of them.
How is Guns and Roses "Appetite for Destruction" not near the top? And surely Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" has to be higher than that slackerware put out by Nirvana. A little Crue would have been good too, though I never cared much for their mediocre guitarist.
And what about FREEBIRD! Oh wait, that was before the 20 year cut-off.
Appetite for Destruction by Guns N Roses
Yeah! G N'R was awesome. My Uni had a dorm nicknamed "The Jungle" (which was a pit) and I recall my first day there with "Welcome to the Jungle" blaring from various rooms.
"Hysteria" With all the hits on that album, it has to be there.
"The Wall" is the best of all time, period. Can't even be argued!
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