I would like your opinions. Generally speaking, a great album is usually listenable from beginning to end without much, if any skipping of songs. You can put it on at a party and just let it go and people will love it.
Pink Floyd used to be this way with their albums where they were “set and forget”. That said, my nominee that not only encompasses the 1990’s, but was also great music and an awesome CD that holds up to this day is The Red Hot Chili Peppers “Blood Sugar Sex Magick”.
I think it’s their best release, produced by Rubin, funk for days, Flea bass like a boss, but hooks and great melodies throughout. Any challengers to this recording?
That’s definitely up there. I am thinking in a general sense as to the “soundtrack of the 1990’s”, but am furthering it with the quantifier about a “play and forget” album. I don’t think “Dookie” makes that cut, despite having some great and memorable songs.
I don’t even think it’s close. 18 songs without a dud, first time out.
But I have no affection for grunge, metal, or nu anything.
One thing that happened in the 90s was that Nirvana made it big, and a lot of underground musicians were summoned to have their major label record made and released to try and get “traction”. This included almost everyone on the scene, like Sonic Youth, the Meat Puppets and on and on. If you took all these records by the great and small, you would have one of the worst collections ever. Nobody seemed to be able to get up to the plate and rock the people with a great melody, with their one chance. (Yo La Tengo had the best: Painful with the single “Double Dare”) Competent and OK was all I saw back then.
You’ve got to be kidding with this obscure shit. YOU don’t get to define the genre, record sales, playability or band duration. I stand by my decision. The Chilis were better then than almost any band musically and writing hit songs.
His is a perfectly valid choice, and not ‘obscure’ just because you don’t know it. It would be at least in my top 20 for the 90s, but I’d have OK Computer at the top.
That was a great album, and considering it’s formative consequences, is certainly in the running. But it was TWO hit songs, “Say Hello to Heaven” and “Gone Hungry”. I sill argue that the Chilis “Blood Sugar” made a greater impact.
Did Liz Phair make a greater impact than Nirvana, Chilis, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, etc?
I don’t think so. Therefore, she is obscure compared to them and the grunge movement that rocked the early 1990’s. Fuck, Courtney Love was more influential than Liz.
That’s your entry? A concept album written at the very end of the decade comprised of love songs? Look, personal opinion matters, but shaping the genre of rock and record sales matter more.
A) Your original post asked for opinions on the very best rock albums of the 1990s, not the ones with the “greatest impact”. Liz Phair’s record was very well received at the time, and got a ton of play on college-type radio stations.
B) I find it amusing that you started off your original post with “I would like your opinions”, and you have gone on to make it very clear with your responses again and again that, no, you don’t want anyone’s opinion.
