Fresh Cherries and almost every other musical blog around have been doing this, so here’s my list of the best album from every year I’ve been alive. This was done in quite a hurry, so it’s subject to change if I find that I’ve forgotten something.
1981 - The Cure - Faith
1982 - The Cure - Pornography
1983 - David Bowie - Let’s Dance
1984 - The Smiths - The Smiths
1985 - The Cure - The Head on the Door
1986 - The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
1987 - The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
1988 - Morrissey - Viva Hate
1989 - Pixies - Doolittle
1990 - The Breeders - Pod
1991 - U2 - Achtung Baby
1992 - Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
1993 - PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
1994 - Weezer - Weezer
1995 - Radiohead - The Bends
1996 - Beck - Odelay
1997 - Pavement - Brighten the Corners
1998 - Beck - Mutations
1999 - Beck - Midnight Vultures
2000 - PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
2001 - The Strokes - Is This It
2002 - Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
2003 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
2004 - Interpol - Antics
2005 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
2006 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
2007 - The National - Boxer
2008 - Stephen Malkmus - Real Emotional Trash
Some notes - Yes, I would prefer to listen to Achtung Baby than Nevermind or Loveless. I don’t know why. 1992 is a killer, as I love PJ Harvey’s Dry more than most of the albums on the whole list, and I also like Your Arsenal a lot. Yes, I would prefer to listen to Brighten the Corners than OK Computer. 2004 was a good year, with many contenders. I couldn’t find room for any Suede anywhere. Funeral is great, but I still prefer Antics. I was struggling to come up with anything for several years, such as 2006, 1981 and 2008. I’ve obviously got quite limited tastes, given the amount of repeat artists. Either that or I haven’t listened to many pre-1996 albums. Odelay was the first album I ever bought. Somebody stole it, but I still have the CD case, without the inlay card.
Posted in Lists, Music |
i almost picked fever to tell. in fact, in the first draft, it made it. but her majesty, the decemberists narrowly edged it out, because it’s one of my favorite bands’ best album.
2004 had soooo many good albums. i liked antics better than funeral, too, but madvillainy is one of the best hip-hop records of the decade. ‘94 was a great year, too, but everyone knows i’m a nirvana kid, and everyone knows illmatic is the greatest rap record ever made, so if it weren’t for them and biggie’s ready to die, the blue album would have made the cut.
i struggled on ‘99, too, and almost picked terror twilight, but i listen to knock knock much more often. i told someone else that ‘93-’99 were no-brainers, but the only absolute no-brainer on this list was this year’s pick. at this point, nouns is my album of the year by a landslide.
okay, i sorta lied: ‘97, ‘98, and 2001 were all no-brainers, too. and did you really like pornography more than thriller?
I did this the other day but forgot to publish it. Twelve of my choices were the same as yours, so I can hardly post it now, I’ll look like a copycat. See if you can guess which ones are the same, for fun and time-wasting.
Douglas - I’ve still not gotten around to listening to Nouns yet (I know, I know), but I’m on a old music diet at the moment, with my (still) crocked PC and Zen. And yes, I think Pornography is completely amazing, the most menacing sounding album ever recorded. It’s hard to compare to Thriller I know, but I just don’t listen to Thriller very much, awesome as it is. I’m obviously not very well up on my rap, it’s just never floated my boat, with a few exceptions (I love Edan - does that count?), but I suspect that’s because I’ve never listened to many of the ‘great’ rap albums.
Another major conflict in my list was Doolittle vs The Stone Roses. Tough call.
Terror Twilight is one I forgot about for ‘99 - and realistically I probably like it as least as much as Mutations.
Helen, I’d say 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 95, 01, 02, 03, 04, 07. Or something like that.
nouns is a fucking blitzkrieg. of course, there are the ambient interludes that no age are so good at pulling off, but for the most part, it’s a thrashy, woozy, punk record that only lets you breathe on three out of the twelve tracks. i’d be genuinely surprised if it doesn’t top my year-end list.
don’t sweat it; i have a few friends who aren’t really into rap. it’s because the right rapper hasn’t found you, yet.
edan counts, for sure.
yeah. pornography and thriller are two entirely different albums, worlds apart, even. i guess thriller is sort of more my speed because every household i ever walked into as a child had one right by the record or cassette player. in fact, i didn’t even know CD’s even existed until i saw the CD copy of thriller at my uncle’s house.
doolittle was another no-brainer for me. to me, there’s nothing from that year that even came close.
‘Helen, I’d say 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 95, 01, 02, 03, 04, 07. Or something like that.’
Close… 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 95, 01, 03, 06, 07.
But what did you have for ‘02 that’s better than Turn On The Bright Lights? I think you should just post your full list anyway.
‘02 - QOTSA - Songs for the Deaf. It was actually my favourite album of the year at that time, unlike a lot of others, which I love now in retrospect. I might post mine, if only so we can argue about the other twelve that don’t match yours.
[…] again Fictional Sheep and Jusk have dragged me out of this deep pool of blogging squalor and rescued me. It’s a ‘name […]
Saw the Cure in Warsaw earlier this year. Great band.
Your 2006 choice does stand out a little alright. Not a bad album, but not a patch on Fever To Tell either. Here are a few from a quick scroll down through my iPod that I liked from waaaaaay back then:
* Band Of Horses – Everything All The Time
* Be Your Own Pet – Be Your Own Pet
* Cat Power – The Greatest
* Destroyer – Destroyer’s Rubies
* Fiery Furnaces – Bitter Tea (not all FF fans agree!)
* Final Fantasy – He Poos Clouds
* A Hawk and a Hacksaw – The Way the Wind Blows
* Jenn Grant – Orchestra for the Moon (a badly overlooked album in my opinion)
* Joanna Newsome - Ys
* Josh Ritter – Animal Years
* Liars – Drum’s Not Dead
* Max Richter – Songs From Before
* Most Serene Republic – Underwater Cinematographer
* Ohbijou – Swift Feet For Troubling Times (my curveball on the list)
* Regina Spektor – Begin To Hope (Soviet Kitsch would easily be my 2005 choice. Yes, you heard right Matt Berninger!)
* Secret Machines – Ten Silver Drops
* Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped (I thought this was a smashing album)
* Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Longman - I’ve not even gotten around to listening to a lot of those albums, two years later. I did consider ‘The Greatest’, which I liked, but I reckon I prefer ‘Show Your Bones’. BYOP was fun, but they annoyed me in Whelan’s lately, so perhaps that coloured my judgement, and though I love the FF’s, I never really got into ‘Bitter Tea’. Some interesting reminders for my future listening there though, thanks.
Goats and monkeys man, ‘Let’s Dance’? That overpolished ragbag of half-ideas and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s noodling? From the year of Soul Mining and Murmur? Been at the sherry again have we?
Glad I’m old enough to be allowed to put a proper Bowie album on my list.
That said, there is no my list.Despite having the requisite blogger’s love of chestbeating about my opinions and some sort of low-level autism that loves doing memes, I’m resisting this one.
I’d relish the anguished choice for 1977 (how do you compare Marquee Moon, Exodus, Saturday Night Fever and Never Mind The Bollocks, let alone choose between them?), but I’ve bought less and less new music in the last ten years so my choices after about 2000 would be somewhat forced and ill-informed.
Not that I’m being one of those nostalgia tossers who thinks all modern music is crap compared to when they were young. If anything, I’d guess it’s the opposite; it’s got easier and cheaper to make music, so in all likelihood there’s more great music being made now than ever before.
But I no longer find myself frequently spending hours on end sitting listening to music as a sole activity in itself. More of an issue is the fact that most of what I do get is old stuff. Way the majority of music I’ve discovered in the last couple of years is older than I am.
I strongly suspect we could go the rest of our lives discovering great black American music of the 60s and 70s and still not properly scratch the surface.
Oh, and no need to apologise for Achtung Baby. Just cos lots of their albums are mediocre and Bono’s a complete tosspot doesn’t mean it’s not a totally brilliant, inventive, affecting, gripping album.
