The Nineties

I was flying today. Have to love short haul flights after the ordeal that is a trip back to Australia from Europe. I had the misfortune to misplace one of the buds on my special plug earphones. So I lost the plug part that makes them noise cancelling, well at the volume I play at anyway, but could still hear the music. So all was not lost. Need new headphones me thinks. These ones have lasted a record . . .18 months. Recommendations welcome.

I ramble on , sorry, i was on the plane and listening to shuffled music and I thought I would make a mental list. What are the best albums of the nineties? I limited myself to the vaguely mainstream, as it could go on for a very long time otherwise. i then also limited myself to 5. I am not trying to say that these are the best 5 albums of the nineties, I am saying that these five are among the best albums of the nineties, in the vaguely mainstream area and i like. . .you can comment if you disagree.

The first one I think is universally accepted. Endtroducing by DJ Shadow.

That is Stem / Long Stem. This is a great album, every time it seems to lull you into a sense of complacency it takes you somewhere unexpected. It basically re-invented being a DJ. I love of the seemingly old and new sound it creates. This really was a landmark album of the mid 90's. 1996 it came out. There are few occasions it doesn't seem right for. it also has dated surprisingly well, considering the big drum beats etc.  it was followed up by The Private Press which is well worth a listen. He released another album in 2006 called The Outsider, but that was a bit of a disaster. Anyway, here is hoping that 2011 brings a new album.

Listen to Endtroducing on a rainy afternoon when you don't have much to do and immerse yourself into it a bit. it's very cool.

Another truly great album of 1996, wow good year with hindsight I didn't realise, was Aenima by Tool. Tool have won three grammys and been nominated in total for 7. They have sold something in the region of 12 million albums from only 5 releases, which I admit isn't huge, but then they are still underground which is a little

Tool are prog. They are possibly the best Prog band in the world. if only they would be a proper prog band and release huge amounts of material. I love Aenima, it is the most accessible of their albums. Which if you haven't heard them before I know will sound a bit weird. But then you should listen to their other stuff. Brilliant in the extreme, but not readily accessible. I challenge anyone to say differently. I honestly listened to this album almost exclusively in about 1998. When I was living in Sydney. Somehow it seemed to gel for me. I would say this is a great album because I can listen to every song, except for the intermission type stuff, over and over again and find something in the song I think is brilliant. Whether it is a drum breakdown, a sudden wall of sound, an amazing guitar riff. It has it all.

It would be hard to mention the nineties and not mention Radiohead. OK Computer came out in 1997. This is an album that Uncut magazine described as the truly great album to come out in the last 15 years. Obviously they forgot to mention DJ Shadow and Tool, but we will let them off, but only because they didn't say that a U2 album was ever any good.

By the time OK Computer came out Radiohead were already massive. I know a lot of people would actually claim that The Bends , their album from 1995 is their best album of the 90s, but I think that was their best attempt at being popular. OK Computer is just so startling different. I was trying to think of which song I would post here and was struggling as, quite with a lack of originality , I would say they are all great.

So I will post this one.

Exit music for a film. The reason is a bit long winded. But I had a period were I was a very bad flyer. After 9/11 I freaked out about the whole flying thing. I will not go into why as this is not a therapy session as such. But I was on a plane in Hong Kong flying somewhere. Freaking out more than a bit about my imagined impending death and this song was on the mini disc I had made. As we took off I kept the headphones on. I know, they normally take them off you, why I ask?. But well I was at the front of the pane and sometimes they just let you get on with things there. Anyway , this song calmed me down immensely , because it is so climatic I think. Anyway, you can make your own mind up. I love it.

My next album is unsurprisingly Wish by The Cure. If you have read some of my other blogs you will know that I am a huge fan of The Edge of the deep green sea. But the whole album , from 1992, is brilliant. The whole that is except for High and Friday , I'm in love. Which are the definite low points. The rest of the album though is just so amazingly bare and desolate. I could, have and will, argue about the merits of Wish as opposed to Disintegration, but that was released in 1989, so i am absolutely sure this is their best album of the 90s. Even if certain people are going to bring up Bloodflowers again . .

here is To wish impossible things.

I am unfortunately now stuck. I am having a huge amount of trouble talking about a single album. here is why

Jar of Flies - Alice in Chains

The color and the Shape - Foo Fighters

Ill communication - The Beastie Boys

Splendour Solis - The Tea Party

music for a jilted generation  The Prodigy

The Marshall Mather LP - Eminem

Angel Dust - Faith no more

Nirvana

Ten - Pearl Jam

Metallica- Metallica

So this is totally off the top of my head and as such I then need to pick something. So I am going to my beloved metal and the best metal band of the 90s, Pantera and Far Beyond Driven.

I love the strength of Pantera's music. It just simply radiates a menace and a muscle flexing aggression. This is what metal was about. There are no comparisons to Tool, it is a completely different genre of music even though a lot of people just talk about heavy Metal.

To illustrate my point, here is Becoming

Doesn't sound anything like Aenima does it. This album also has a cover of Planet Caravan by Black Sabbath, I'm broken, 5 minutes alone, Good friends and a bottle of pills, that is a cool song name, amongst others. It is a great album of hard, guitar driven metal. Well worth a listen at the gym.

There is a song from there previous album, Far Beyond Driven called This love. In it there is a lyric which goes

I would kill myself for you

I would kill you for myself

Scary huh, I mention it because Dimebag Darrell, guitar for the band, was shot onstage and died. Two guesses what he guy was listening to before he did it. Anyway, just to make it weirder, Dimebag was buried in a KISS coffin, inspired by the band, with a Eddie Van Halen guitar. I am rambling again, sorry. But what is cool about allof that is that there is a connction between musicians that you do not always see in their music , I mean KISS and Pantera . . really . . .

When writing this I actually realised there are a huge numbers of great albums of the 90s. I mean really in a decade that isn't much thought of as a golden age, there are huge numbers of brilliant albums.

Any thoughts?