what i'm thinking might be fun is a "10 entries per decade" kinda thing, with the following restrictions: 1) no more than one entry per year, 2) three bonus entries per decade to that override the one-per-year rule, 3) bypass a given year as one sees fit, and 4) as many honorable mentions per year as one sees fit.
for example, 1991 (see below): i might choose MBV's loveless as my entry for that year but invoke nevermind as a bonus entry and give still feel gone an honorable mention.
all of which would have to be accompanied by prose explanations, justifications, makings of the case, however personal, empirical, etc.
at any rate this is all highly provisional, but heregoes....
1980s
- the clash, london calling (1980)
- cabaret voltaire, red mecca (1981)
- birthday party, junkyard (1982)
- mission of burma, VS (1982)
- u2, war (1983)
- the wipers, over the edge (1983)
- echo and the bunnymen, porcupine (1983)
- r.e.m., murmur (1983)
- cocteau twins, treasure (1983)
- hüsker du, zen arcade (1984)
- minutemen, double nickels on the dime (1984)
- title (1985)
- xtc, skylarking (1986)
- dinosaur, you're living all over me (1987)
- title (1988)
- galaxie 500, on fire (1989)
- the pixies, doolittle (1989)
- title (1990)
- my bloody valentine, loveless (1991)
- slint, spiderland (1991)
- uncle tupelo, still feel gone (1991)
- nirvana, nevermind (1991)
- the wedding present, seamonsters (1992)
- p.j. harvey, rid of me (1993)
- fugazi, in on the kill taker (1993)
- yo la tengo, painful (1993)
- title (1994)
- guided by voices, alien lanes (1995)
- sonic youth, washing machine (1995)
- red red meat, bunny gets paid (1995)
- jon spencer blues explosion, now i got worry (1996)
- archers of loaf, all the nation's airports (1996)
- title (1997)
- tortoise, TNT (1998)
- title (1999)
2 comments:
I love lists like this, because now you have to defend your choices. Woo hoo! So: how could you possibly prefer Still Feel Gone to Tupelo's two later and much superior records, March 16-20 and Anondyne? I await your justifications.
Mark
well, if anyone else is going to play ball i'll solidify my list and author a a full defense. until then, i can at least offer what surely amounts to heresy among uncle tupelo fans. and it's not simply that still feel gone was the first UT recording i'd ever heard (which i'm sure you'll admit always colors one's subsequent appreciations). i think still feel gone simply rocks harder than the subsequent two albums and contains the purest expression of the harnessing of punk energies to american twang that defined alt.country.
don't get me wrong, i love those last two records. but march 16-20 decidedly does not rock, and i feel anodyne to be rather cloying at times, the title track especially bordering on the maudlin. by contrast, songs like "gun" and "punch drunk" are explosive; "postcard" is especially furious, which is what makes those breaks into acoustic and slide guitars so stunning!
t.
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