My Favorite Albums Evar: 100-91
Episode 100-91
I warned you, I threatened it, and now it’s here. My Top 100 Albums Evar. Join me! Yell at me! (No, don’t) Yell at each other! PS Go to Swoon to get the Evergreen LP!
100 Evergreen - Seven Songs LP
This is one of those albums that becomes more popular and less available, but it stands up for me as a beautiful reflection of emo’s birth in the mid-90’s and everything that was great about the sound before it got bastardized and overdone. The rumor goes that there were 600 LPs printed, and 300 accidentally left on the side of the road during the tour, after a tire change. 300 of the most talked-about LP in indie rock (and was, even then) is special enough, but add the fact that music is actually really fucking gorgeous and you have something worth taking note of. One of those I found melted in a basement after moving into a new place.
99 Jurassic 5 - Jurassic 5 (1998)
This debut EP, produced by Cut Chemist, stands strong as one of the strongest rap albums ever. Jurassic 5 brought back tried and true old-school influences with an undeniably unique style to put forth what is probably the best hip hop album of the 90’s, something you shouldn’t miss even if you aren’t into much rap or hip hop. I’m not (as this list will reveal), but I love this EP, can’t live without it. “Concrete Schoolyard” makes rainy days shiny and shiny days, well, shinier.
98 John Spencer Blues Explosion - Orange (1994)
Where blues has nothing really to do with the band’s sound, and Jon Spencer’s image is ultimate, Orange still shines for me as one of the best albums of the 90’s. During a time when plaid flannel and dirty fingernails were all the rage, Spencer was strutting about in bell bottoms, singing about fucking his wife while someone knocks on the front door. You love him or hate him, but you can’t deny him his masterpiece. Nothing was ever as fresh after this album, but that’s sort of how it goes with bands like the Blues Explosion - and that’s ok with me.
97 Sebadoh - Harmacy (1996)
In some way, all Sebadoh albums are the same: wildly fluctuating between incredible and intolerable, but for me, Harmacy sort of perfects Lou Barlow’s charms and failures by making lo-fi accessible enough to enjoy (I’m generally not a fan) thanks to its cleaner production. In a certain sense, The Folk Implosion took this concept to the next level, but never really managed to blend Barlow’s roots with the newer sound as Harmacy did.
96 Cat Power - You Are Free (2003)
Whenever I hear the spare piano opening for “I Don’t Blame You” pop up in a shuffle, I know I’m going to end up listening to the whole album. You Are Free travels between emotive AM Gold, country, blues, and ballads, but emerges as one of Chan Marshall’s strongest showings and a must-have for anyone interested in actual songwriting.
95 Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997)
Assisted by gospel choirs, Dr John appearances, and lots and lots of drugs, Ladies and Gentlemen floats above the rest of the so-called “headphone symphonies” inhabiting this genre’s neighborhood. The entire album glows with a sort of perfect feeling of resolution that only letting go can give, yet remains sad (despite heroic rock efforts like “Electricity”) as it becomes clear that the only release from the pain that continues to make appearances is drug abuse. It’s not over-the-top the way some musicians *cough Kurt Cobain cough* advertise(d) their dependencies, it’s subtle and honest and stunning. “I will love you till I die, and I will love you all the time” echoes in and out of the title track, absorbing itself and re-appearing again (and again, and again) as if to say “This is what I’m going through, this is what this album is about.” And it is.
94 Seam - Are You Driving Me Crazy (1995)
No one else but me thinks this is their best work, but with tracks like “Berlitz” and “Haole Redux”, this one consistantly gets more play than the others. Sooyoung Park’s incredibly fraught yet thorough voice combined with the band’s uncanny (and often impersonated) ability to blend heavy beats and loud guitars with sentimental melodies and quiet masterpieces makes all of Seam’s stuff great, but Are You Driving Me Crazy is excellent.
93 Yo La Tengo - Painful (1993)
Yo La Tengo is always hit or miss with me, whereas it seems like most fans LUV everything they do, I definitely have albums I like and albums I can’t listen to. Fakebook (oddly, considering it’s a different sound than usual) and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One are also favorites, but I like Painful because it’s less Experimental Jazz Drug Addict and more Dreamy Songwriting Influenced by 70s Guitar Rock, which I can definitely handle.
92 The Germs - GI (1979)
Hey look, it’s the first record not from the 90’s, wtf? I had no idea I liked so much stuff from the 90’s. If you like the Germs, you like GI, if you haven’t hear them before you’re pr0bably not going to start now, but suffice it to say that GI was a huge influence on me, not just as a rebel girl in high school (not in the Bikini Kill way, just the normal way the words are used) but as a music lover as well. While most people go on about Darby Crash (and with good reason), I couldn’t get enough of Pat Smear’s guitar style - and as a pre-teen just starting to form her own music tastes, this album (an a few other punk classics that will appear later) changed the way I thought about music in the most drastic way.
91 Jawbreaker - Unfun (1990)
Another rock band stuck with the term “pop punk” for sort of no reason, Jawbreaker created what might be one of the most perfect punk albums of the 90s with this emotional and electric collections of songs about hurt, friendship, love and want. In fact, “Want” remains one of my favorite songs evar, and when I wrote Blake a letter in 10th grade to tell him so, he wrote me back (on pink kitty cat stationary) to tell me about having the flu and breaking up with a girlfriend. It was on my nightstand for years. Memories aside, Unfun is a manatory album for anyone who grew up in the 90s and still stands strong even 16 years later.
god, i hate my 20-something self. heh.
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