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 ...
"OK Computer?" What in the bloody world are they thinking?
"OK Computer is a great album. But it is not "The Bends."
Best of the last 20 years?
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
I'm with you on "The Bends." Fake Plastic Trees is one of my favorite songs ever.
However, best album of the past 20 years? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Afghan Whigs - Gentleman.
What's the YHF stanfd for?
Appetite For Destruction, hands down.
The Black Album by Metallica was their last good one. Load had one good song but that was it. The rest of their collection afterward sucks.
What are you yelling at me for???? I don't even know WHAT a metal church is? : ) (Of course, the last 25 threads have been lost on me too..)
When I think of the black album I think "Ruff to never-never land!". That, to me, is James Hetfield jumping the shark.
I find And Justice for All listenable, but not up to MoP standards.
yeah but Enter Sandman is an all time classic.
MoP was easily their best album they have put out. I have to agree.
I like music that gives me goosebumps and makes me think, and that's what this album does. Its songs are dark, beautiful, intelligent, unconventional and powerful. The experience of listening to OK Computer is similar to that of listening to Dark Side of the Moon -- you kind of get swept up in it. It has that rare cinematic quality that some music has, in the sense that it evokes a lot of visual imagery as you listen. It's an exceptional album.
Okay, I have to say it:
Slippery When Wet/Bon Jovi.
And I still think he's cute. What a fun party album...
But seriously:
What about the Talking Heads? U2 (esp Joshua Tree)? Sting's album The Dream of the Blue Turtles?
My fourteen year old (I'm on the old end of "X") is buying and digging through my Ramones music lately.
Boy, U2. Nuff said.
Fine choice, but I think Boy is still the definitive U2.
Radiohead is nothing but hate-America filth. Nirvana should have been #1, followed by Thriller or Purple Rain.
I think you would enjoy this article...
http://getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=1855
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