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The top album of the last 20 years is ...
AP ^ | June 20, 2005 | Staff Writer

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 ...


TOPICS: Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: genx
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To: Petronski

EXACTLY my reaction.

Spin works its way further into oblivion.


61 posted on 06/22/2005 3:51:07 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile (<-- sick of faux-conservatives who want federal government intervention for 'conservative things.')
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To: Mr. Silverback

Tweedy was listening to the Conet Project at the time, and a couple of bits of it are sprinkled in the recording, so you get some disembodied voice call letters. That's really about it.


62 posted on 06/22/2005 3:54:25 PM PDT by lugsoul ("She talks and she laughs." - Tom DeLay)
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To: T.Smith
Best Metallica cd's are:

1) MoP

2)...and Justice for All

3) Black Album

When I think of the black album I think "Ruff to never-never land!". That, to me, is James Hetfield jumping the shark.

"ruff"...lol. I know what you mean, but it's not that bad when you hear it in the context of the whole song. Enter Sandman was the first released song off TBA and it was played non-stop on the radio at the time. I had to turn it off at times it was getting so over-played and annoying.

Metallica, as a band, pretty much "jumped the shark" ten years ago.

63 posted on 06/22/2005 4:23:40 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70 (Todd Gack. That's a nice name. What is that Dutch?)
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To: T.Smith

ok well I act like I am in my late 20's, except that I am only in my mid 20's :)

As I said, Load had like one good song, but I hated that album and all the rest of them have sucked.


64 posted on 06/22/2005 4:26:58 PM PDT by MikefromOhio
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To: MotleyGirl70
I remember, in 1991, gathering around the TV with my friends anxiously awaiting the premier of the new Metallica video, Enter Sandman. We were so pumped. And then they played it...we all stared at each other and said, "What is this {expletive deleted}?".

I've been anti-Metallica ever since. Just think, their new album doesn't have one guitar solo on it. Kirk Hammett is the best rock soloist of all time (IMHO). Him recording an album without a solo is like Rembrandt painting in black and white. It's just not the same.
65 posted on 06/22/2005 6:19:18 PM PDT by T.Smith
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To: Millee
Yeah, something is wrong in the universe if Spice Girls did not make the list


66 posted on 06/22/2005 6:24:56 PM PDT by Always Right
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To: Millee
Best CD of the last 20 years...


67 posted on 06/22/2005 6:27:53 PM PDT by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior

I don't agree - but that's a hell of a choice.


68 posted on 06/22/2005 7:46:23 PM PDT by lugsoul ("She talks and she laughs." - Tom DeLay)
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To: Millee

blond on blond by bob


69 posted on 06/22/2005 7:47:04 PM PDT by ken21
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To: Millee
Thom Yorke's orange-alert worldview

I LOVE the color-coded alert. I think it's useless, but it gives us so much mileage because it drives wimpy liberals inSANE.

70 posted on 06/23/2005 2:09:59 AM PDT by Darkwolf377 (Don't suffer fools gladly? I don't suffer them at all.)
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To: dfwgator

yes the ff does.
picked up the latest one last week.

wow.


71 posted on 06/23/2005 2:15:12 AM PDT by Robert_Paulson2 (I remember when conservative meant, CUTTING the government's POWER and SIZE down.)
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To: Millee
Every Brit should know:



72 posted on 06/23/2005 2:21:04 AM PDT by nickcarraway (I'm Only Alive, Because a Judge Hasn't Ruled I Should Die...)
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To: lugsoul

I got a chance to them live last year here in SF. They were in the middle of a 40 shows in 40 nights swing. There were only about 15 people in the audience, but they sounded good.


73 posted on 06/23/2005 3:35:58 PM PDT by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior
I haven't had a chance to see them, but I have seen Salas-Humara before. A serious talent.

15 people? In SF? I thought y'all were more attuned than that. I think the Silos would draw a lot better than that here in Atlanta.

74 posted on 06/23/2005 3:38:13 PM PDT by lugsoul ("She talks and she laughs." - Tom DeLay)
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To: RockinRight
"...Slayer - Reign in Blood"

With the 20th anniversary of that album coming next year, I hope a double disc reissue, with disc 2 loaded with unreleased demos, is in store. "Reign In Blood" sounded 2005 back in 1986. Not many albums that old still sound like they were recorded yesterday.
75 posted on 06/25/2005 2:10:24 PM PDT by jdm (The answer to the extra credit question on a Columbia U exam is always choice C: "Bush's Fault.")
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To: Millee

"HANSEN LIVE"...............THE BOX SET........hee hee hee


76 posted on 06/25/2005 2:17:18 PM PDT by WyCoKsRepublican
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To: weegee
"Definitely the band developed the Lo Fi sound that seems to be everywhere in the indie/underground music scene."

I beg to differ. Lou Barlow (early Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Sentridoh, etc.) introduced and subsequently perfected the lo-fi sound. Also, the Mountain Goats 1994 "Zopilote Machine" CD is a seminal gem.

Two other CDs mentioned on the list are worth picking up as well:

91. XTC, Skylarking (Geffen, 1986)
90. Sonic Youth, Sister (DGC, 1987)
77 posted on 06/25/2005 2:17:53 PM PDT by jdm (The answer to the extra credit question on a Columbia U exam is always choice C: "Bush's Fault.")
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To: Millee

78 posted on 06/25/2005 2:22:15 PM PDT by x
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To: jdm

Well Jon Spencer "wanted" to be Sonic Youth at one point. SY talked of doing a cover version of the Beatles' White Album but Jon's band Pussy Galore did a full release of the Stones' Exile On Main St. (recorded in 3 days).

It was a limited cassette only release (250 copies I think).


79 posted on 06/25/2005 11:52:47 PM PDT by weegee (Re: immigration "Those Syrians are coming to Iraq to do the bombings that Iraqis won't do.")
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To: weegee

"Jon's band Pussy Galore did a full release of the Stones' Exile On Main St. (recorded in 3 days)."

You're correct. Exile on Main St. was first released as a cassette then a very limited CD run. I had the CD at one point (long, long time ago).


80 posted on 06/26/2005 6:57:11 AM PDT by jdm (The answer to the extra credit question on a Columbia U exam is always choice C: "Bush's Fault.")
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