1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die - 1991

A much better list. But then... 1991 is kinda famous.

Hard for me to avoid Crowded House here, even though there are many better songs on the "Woodface" album ("Four Seasons In One Day" for starters....).
Still, lots of other tracks here that might have been worth voting for as well. The usual 1991 contenders: U2, Nirvana, Metallica, R.E.M... But also a couple of nice "dance" tracks by the likes of KLF and Shamen. And Lenny Kravitz too. Not to mention Bob Dylan - not from 1991, really, but great song. One of his best.

KLF, Bonnie Raitt, Massive Attack, one of my favorite Crowded House singles, and "Summertime." I can't fuck with any of'em.

Massive Attack

KLF so, so easily. Despite Nirvana pretty much defining my teens SLTS was never close to my favourite.

Whoever wrote this book is insane.

Errr idk. Maybe Enter Sandman or One. Life is a Highway is strangely calling to me though.

It's Calling All Angels vs. Unfinished Sympathy for me, and I'm only going for the latter because I suspect no one else will vote for it.

Give It Away, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Losing My Religion, One and Life Is A Highway are all songs I've heard more than enough of for one lifetime, despite liking some of them.

Also should mention that although they weren't in the running for me, I'm happy to see Vincent Black Lightning, I Can't Make You Love Me and Weather With You all listed here.

90s are gonna be pretty grim huh

Unfinished Sympathy for me, and I'm only going for the latter because I suspect no one else will vote for it.

Massive Attack

― Bee OK, Monday, October 24, 2011 6:58 PM (1 hour ago)

weird list

"Summertime" is an easy vote for me; "I Can't Make You Love Me" gets second, "Teen Spirit" third (sometimes I'm tired of it, sometimes not--right now, I prefer "On a Plain"). I've never understood the appeal of "Losing My Religion." From the hard drive: Black Sheep's "The Choice Is Yours," Bongwater's "What If," Culture Beat's "No Deeper Meaning," Digital Underground's "Kiss You Back," Feelies' "Find a Way," Fudge's "Girlwish," Geto Boys' "Mind Playin' Tricks on Me," Jellystone Park's "Consider Me Gone," Marty Stuart's "Tempted," My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep," Naughty by Nature's "O.P.P." (absurd omission), P.M. Dawn's "Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine," the Primitives' "Lead Me Astray," Seaside's "Completely," and the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes." Good-to-great year. Scott Woods and I launched Radio On, and that dominated my life for the next seven years.

Richard Thompson: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Ministry: Jesus Built My Hotrod
Ozzy Osbourne: No More Tears
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince: Summertime
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away
Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy
The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette: Justified & Ancient
Cypress Hill: How I Could Just Kill a Man

I will always and forever stan for these. Leaning towards "Summertime" because its probably stood up the best over the last 20 years. Well, I mean, its probably the only one that I pull out year after year without fail.

cmon folx, JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD!

voted richard thompson. had no idea the song was that recent tbh

these 90s lists are really weird so far

Unfinished Sympathy for me, and I'm only going for the latter because I suspect no one else will vote for it.
Massive Attack

― Bee OK, Monday, October 24, 2011 6:58 PM (1 hour ago)

― Bee OK, Monday, October 24, 2011 10:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

By which of course I meant I'm only voting for the *former* because I suspect no one else will...

Balada Conducatorolui is fuckin sick so that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS-_W-dOYeo

Everybody will be too afraid to vote for the obvious one. Ha. Go on I dare ya.

voted richard thompson. had no idea the song was that recent tbh

good list.

I remember when rock was middle aged (there, didn't say back whenever), "Unfinished Sympathy" won some 'best of' by a big margin and I was like "really?". Never thought a lot about it, but considered it after that and knew they wre probably right.

Still, of that list I only bought two at the time.

Voted Ministry.

(the other was the KLF)

weird list

It does contain all the typical rock canon picks, but I can imagine that - even though it has its share of dance numbers - people who think of 1991 as particularly a wonderful vintage for dance, finds the choices a bit underwhelming. Yet it has all of the typical "canonical" 1991 album contenders represented, other than "Loveless" and "Screamadelica" (and the latter was represented in the 1990 selections).

Also let me add that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have won this poll anywhere outside of ILM, but I suspect it will not win here. :)

It's an underwhelming list. Nothing that 'shouldn't be there', really, but then again, nothing that comes unexpectedly.

The "O Superman" days are over...

A much better list.

???

This is Justified & Ancient fairly easily, though much love to the Shamen, Candi Staton and Jesus Built My Hotrod. (Which are not better songs than Unfinished Sympathy or SLTS, but I am less tired of them.)

but then again, nothing that comes unexpectedly.

Taraf de Haidouks: Balada Conducatorolui
Yothu Yindi: Treaty

And, sure, this is a much better list. But then, the reasons why I think it is a better list are largely guitar bands with traditional songs, so I can understand some disagree.

I don't mean "like that"..

Those aren't songs that became big chart hits with unusual aspects, etc, blah, ties self up in knots trying to explain...

xposted, yes, Guitar bands with traditional songs. Kinda short shelf-life with me.

Alot on this list I would have no sadness if I never heard them again, I like "Teen Spirit", "Religion" is alright, etc ...

I approach these polls and others like them as a punter with a 50p for the jukebox. I'd like to hear "Jesus built my hot rod" plz...

Life is a Highway is strangely calling to me though.

hearing this too lol. voting massive attack

Ministry: Jesus Built My Hotrod
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince: Summertime
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away
R.E.M.: Losing My Religion
The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette: Justified & Ancient
The Source feat. Candi Station: You Got The Love
Cypress Hill: How I Could Just Kill a Man

Love all these. Even the RHCP track (Hate them, but I always liked this song). Suddenly this book is recognising hard rock/metal. I heard You've Got The Love in a chazza the other day and was struck at how restrainedly great it is compared to Florence's version. 'Summertime' relies very much on the Kool & The Gang sample, but it uses it well. Never a Will Smith fan, but this is pop-rap magic. My KLF fave was always 3am Eternal (which no one ever talks about even though it's their best single). The Cypress Hill track - there are better ones on the album, but Cypress were my introduction to underground music as a kid.

Went for "Summertime". It just works so well and does exactly what it set out to do - to make a cool summer jam for barbecues and family fun.

"Move Any Mountain"!!!

Had the Shamen track been "Pro:Gen (Land of Oz)" and not the remix, I would have voted for it.

(or "Hyperreal Orbit")

Also let me add that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have won this poll anywhere outside of ILM, but I suspect it will not win here. :)

I bet it wins by at least 20%

I voted for Metallica. Does that make me a bad person?

yes

My guess is that SLTs comes in third after Massive Attack and REM, maybe tied with W Smith

ranking the songs I know/remember:

Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince: Summertime
The Source feat. Candi Station: You Got The Love
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away
Cypress Hill: How I Could Just Kill a Man
R.E.M.: Losing My Religion
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette: Justified & Ancient
Bonnie Raitt: I Can't Make You Love Me
U2: One
Tom Cochrane: Life Is a Highway
Lenny Kravitz: Always On The Run
The Shamen: Move Any Mountain (Progen 91)
Ministry: Jesus Built My Hotrod
Metallica: Enter Sandman
Ozzy Osbourne: No More Tears

(the big drop-off happens after "I Can't Make You Love Me")

I cried when I heard "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" for the first time, that was live and the recorded version's never sounded as good to me

um what is this list? who made it? it seems completely random - massive ubiquitous classics mixed in with, uhhh jane siberry?!

voted richard thompson. had no idea the song was that recent tbh

― done took the whine out of YG garden (symsymsym), Tuesday, October 25, 2011 5:16 AM (10 hours ago)

I assumed it was one of those 'recorded earlier released later' deals but it seems not. It is a great track.

"Jesus Built My Hotrod" destroyed the last vestiges of goodwill I had towards Ministry. I will not listen to anything they've done since A Mind...

Lex, it's from a book called 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die. There have been loads of these polls already. Most people (including me) agree with you, though, it is a bit of a stupid list. Still, it occupies time.

oh okay. i think i glanced over previous polls but they were from years before my time.

that jane siberry song is gorgeous btw - i know candi staton/massive attack/jazzy jeff are the unfuckwithable classics here but i might give this a nod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5byDGADKs

i wasn't calling it stupid, i was just boggling at how such a random selection of songs came together

Jesus Built My Hotrod gets my vote because of Gibby. Not enough Butthole Surfers on these lists.

thought this was Summertime all the way, then I noticed the Ancients of Mu Mu!

Tom Cochrane by a country mile

j/k

this thread is giving me the urge to listen to Jesus Built My Hotrod, haven't heard it in probably at least ten years

KLF all the way. As much as I love Massive Attack's song on here, this really isn't a competition. KLF meant a lot to me in '91, for opening the portal and paving the way to incredible music.

Is KLF a Euro thing btw? Or was it a huge thing in America too?

At this point I would not have been surprised if "I'm Too Sexy" was included.

"Justified and Ancient" was pretty big in the US. It reached #11 on the charts. It was great to hear something so nonsensical on the radio, and the video was, if anything, even more absurd and amazing.

KLF blipped on the US radar but those blips were "3AM Eternal" and "Justified and Ancient"

listening to the Shamen "mix" on youtube, thinking how their work is really not sounding as dated as I'd expected

and then still voting for the JAMMs

At this point I would not have been surprised if "I'm Too Sexy" was included.

― billstevejim, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 19:54 (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

The way the 'lists' are going, I can imagine voting for it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhA3Dlg83XI

"Progen (Land of Oz)" 4eva

"Justified and Ancient" was pretty big in the US. It reached #11 on the charts

I WISH it had peaked that high.

oh never mind -- I guess it did! All these years I thought it peaked in the top thirty.

Wait, why is Progen 91 the pick on this list? DJP's mix is the one I always heard on the radio. OK, I know it's not necessarily a singles list, but, DJP OTM.

(I am now mad at myself that despite quite rightly liking the Shamen and the Prodigy in 1991 I spent a good chunk of 1992-1993 being all "REAL music with REAL guitars". smh@me.) (man I hope On A Ragga Tip is on the '92 list) (is the MC on On A Ragga Tip really called R0nan F!tzgerald or is wikipedia being funny?)

This list seems far worse than the 1990 one

lol the wiki entry is by one of his friends

xp

"Move Any Mountain" is the pick because that's the version that came out in 1991; "Progen" came out in 1990 and was summarily erased from existence once "Move Any Mountain" blew up. It's almost like the musical equivalent of George Lucas constantly changing Star Wars movies and not releasing the originals.

That wikipedia entry has been impressively long-lived and widely copied! Congrats all.

Daer wikipedia mods, nothing to see here.

Weird, Progen sounds way more familiar to me than the 1991 version, but most of the times I've heard either were on the radio in 1991 or later, so it must be a trick of the memory.

My top three would be the Dylan, KLF, and Cypress Hill. Probably would vote Cypress Hill.

No Bryan Adams no credibility

I voted for Metallica. Does that make me a bad person?

This may sound surprising to some, but that song is probably my second choice here (well, maybe third after "Teen Spirit). I love "Enter Sandman".

I don't think that's surprising at all!

At this point I would not have been surprised if "I'm Too Sexy" was included.
― billstevejim, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 19:54 (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

I had "Deeply Dippy" pop into my head while showering this morning. Technically a better song.

"I'm Too Sexy" has almost become a classic of sorts, but only for the same reasons that "You Can Leave Your Hat On" has.

Because Kim Basinger stripped to it?

Ministry vs The KLF

This is the point in time when I went from teen goth to young adult raver.

Sandman

Worst list yet of these things

My vote for worst list goes to the 1996 one, a completely unrepresentative selection of perhaps the best year for music in the past 25 years. But now I am getting ahead of myself here ;)

Ew. Gross. I'm glad that sorry list was from 20 years ago. 'Summertime' I guess, because I saw the video being made in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, and it's a pretty good song.

the mighty nirvana.

the Fresh Prince's old defintion of summer madness

Voted for "How I Could Just Kill a Man", which I've always considered a classic. Surprised it isn't getting more support in this thread.

I voted for Cypress Hill, too. Almost voted Nirvana, but figured it'll probably win anyway.

Minimalist Summertime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jp_OnjFO2c

No love for "Blind Willie McTell", the classic example of why-didn't-he-release-this Dylan?

Lots of good stuff on this list.

The Dylan is my favorite song on this, but it was recorded in 1983. I hate to penalize Bob for the randomness of the listmakers' rules, but nothing about it says "1991" to me.

Ministry 2nd to Nirvana, probably bcz "My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style" isn't here.

that was 1990, sorry to break it to ya.

ah, pre-album I guess

Voted for SLTS, just beating out Unfinished and J&A. Great year but this list doesn't really show that (where's "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"?)

good catch, Duane. an unforgivable slight.

Great year, shit list

two of Sally Timms' finest moments with the Mekons: "Brutal" and "Waltz"

"Give It Away" is THE worst song. Loving it but hating RHCP is like hating pork but loving scrapple.

That said, I voted Life is a Highway

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

don't even have to think about this, candi staton ftw

i love Candi Staton and "You Got the Love" is one of the most boring turds of all time

u just plain rong buddo

tho the 'original' version that uses the frankie knuckles "your love" beat is def better

didn't hear that cover version v much tho, perhaps this is tainting your judgement. otherwise there is no excuse

"Summertime" is easily my favorite song on this list but i'm voting for "No More Tears" out of surprise and gratitude for it even being an option, that song rules

frankie's "Your Love" slays "You Got the Love"; i can't rationally explain why i hate the latter, it's just such a dirge-y murder of the original

^ hard to top THEE classic house song, but that beat! plus those vocals. ok it's kind of a mashup but it works p damn well

is this the original you're talking about? or do you mean "your love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFgbtb_qozM&feature=related

i meant "Your Love". i know my aversion is irrational, i just resent fucking with THEE classic house song :)

I've always preferred the perky 1986 diet-video version of You Got The Love. The mashup with Your Love has always sounded wrong to me, and the Now Voyager version is nice enough but overrated. (Ms Staton, on the other hand, is totally fantastic.)

idk it's just... "your love" is great but house music is not exactly a genre that is averse to SAMPLING wtf ppl this is not sacrilege and it doesn't discount candi staton in any way

postscript i am drunk

yeah it's not a sacrilege thing i just think the Candi mashup is lumpen and plodding

anyhoo i think i voted "Move Any Mountain" here cos this list is a bit shit and i was on a wind-up, but the "rap" is straight fire

imo "move any mountain" gives new meaning to 'lumpen and plodding' :)

"move any mountain" is weak but so's this list :)

shd've vote KLF and Tammy tho, or Cypress Hill, or Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

would've gone for klf if it "you got the love" wasn't so obviously the right choice

it

I have to go with KLF - one of the most sublime pop songs ever. Though even "Justified and Ancient" isn't as good as Talk Talk's "New Grass", which is the year's - and perhaps the century's - best song. The absence of anything from Loveless is also madness.

book is about songs iirc

?

hence the absence of anything from Loveless, doy

I suspected that was the reason for your statement, but I was hoping for something less lumpen and plodding.

not having songs isn't a criticism of Loveless

but sometimes when people get all up in Loveless's batty criticising gets fairly irresistable

i mean, let's not be whimsical and cute and sarcasteric, the phrase "the absence of anything from Loveless is madness" re: a book about pop songs is squinty world-viewed madness, or preposterous hype, or some combo of that sort of thing

Appendix: Songs You Must Hear Before You Die 1991 (Non-featured)

A Tribe Called Quest - Check the Rhime
Catherine Wheel - Black Metallic
De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"
Earth - A Bureaucratic Desire for Revenge
Field Mice - Missing the Moon
Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks on Me
Magnetic Fields - 100,000 Fireflies
Mano Negra - Out of Time Man
Moby - Go
Moonshake - Coward (2nd Version)
Naughty by Nature - OPP
Negrosex - Tekno La Droga
Pavement - Summer Babe (Winter Version)
Pearl Jam - Even flow
PJ Harvey - Dress
Smashing Pumpkins - Rhinoceros / Siva
St. Christopher - Say Yes to Everything

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The three in a tie for third all better than the top two.

lol is a highway

rmde @ 29

The lurkers have spoken again.

geir i think you have to be less indignant about this, you yourself acknowledge nirvana's dominion over 1991 with the inspired bart simpson cartoon in the opening post

Unfortunately, they haven't been heard from even once in these polls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVcD8kbgocg

geir i think you have to be less indignant about this, you yourself acknowledge nirvana's dominion over 1991 with the inspired bart simpson cartoon in the opening post

Nirvana winning a 1991 poll wouldn't be a surprise anywhere outside of 1991. However, most of the posts are very much anti-Nirvana in in fact anti-guitar rock in the thread here.

Also let me add that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have won this poll anywhere outside of ILM, but I suspect it will not win here. :)

I bet it wins by at least 20%

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 15:34 (6 days ago)

i think you owe kr69 a dollar bill, geir

i'm as over "teen spirit" as anyone most days but tbh there was just no other song on this list that posed serious competition for poll winner

gawd i'd better go hear that song before I die...!

Noone else mad at the exclusion of 'mind playin tricks on me'?

i think it would be unreasonable to get mad at the exclusion of anything from these terrible lists

^^^

Yep I've scanned that list three times and still no sign of Amy Grant

good call on Rhinoceros, moka

"Losing My Religion" massively sucks. Voted for SLTS. "Lurkers."

My second favorite song on the list is the Cypress Hill, but I admit I haven't heard everything on the list (that I know of).

I wonder if Jimmy Savile heard them all.

I really can't argue with the placement of the bottom two.

Low turnout for "One"!

Arguably, it's the worst Achtung, Baby! single, so that doesn't surprise me.

Yeah "One" is pure aural giraffe vomit.

One hate is like Everybody Hurts hate - not unjustified but way too overstated.

Some great analysis of U2 on Slate today.

I actually don't hate Everybody Hurts...? It has a certain sort of soul vibe that I'm not knowledgeable enough to put my finger on, but that vibe is I think one of the strongest elements in 90s REM (which is roughly my favorite REM ftr)

Like I get the same sort of vibe from Star Me Kitten, maybe Tongue, and the organs in the chorus on E-Bow the Letter...does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I see why some people might find it cloying and over-sentimental, but I like Everybody Hurts too.

I think "Strange Currencies" has taken over the mantle.

i'm as over "teen spirit" as anyone most days but tbh there was just no other song on this list that posed serious competition for poll winner

there are at least three other songs on this list i think of as totally canonical

Unfinished Sympathy, Losing My Religion, Enter Sandman, You Got The Love and possibly Justified are all unarguably canon.

xp interested to know whether you like Nirvana or not Lex, questions of canon, influence etc. aside.

"the phrase "the absence of anything from Loveless is madness" re: a book about pop songs is squinty world-viewed madness, or preposterous hype, or some combo of that sort of thing"

I don't think so. The book isn't necessarily solely about pop songs with a capital P. To take one example, "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" turned up on one of the seventies lists, and indeed there's been enough - for want of a less vacuous term - alt stuff in general in the lists, so that the inclusion of something from Loveless would hardly be especially incongruous. As such, I was only considering quality as the basis of my statement.

On an unrelated note, there should be major restrictions on the use of the word "canon" as an adjective.

Also, I like "One". It's probably the third best song on the list after KLF and Massive Attack.

"pop songs" as in popular music, the whole spectrum. the point isn't that Loveless is too alt, the point is that no way are its virtues centred on the songs qua songs, they're at best unremarkable. but i'm gonna stop doing that thing Nietzsche warned me about now.

xp interested to know whether you like Nirvana or not Lex, questions of canon, influence etc. aside.

nope. kind of hate cobain's voice, whenever i listen to nirvana i always think "well if i felt like that i could be listening to hole instead"

actually no - the key difference is that when i listen to hole it makes me feel uhhh powerful or something? all that rage and energy is directed outwards, it's catharsis with a target. when i listen to nirvana it all feels claustrophobically directed inwards, kind of dank and self-absorbed and sulky.

Holes should be directed inwards not outwards.

Only on ILX...

Holes should be directed inwards not outwards.

Not if it's a window

It's ajar

...in-fucking-sane...

xp to Lex depends which record you listen to IMO. In Utero definitely has that element, but the production and guitar sound are astonishing. I never liked Hole, they never had the songs.

Hole always sounded like the female Nirvana to me, although I only ever heard Live Through This. Love's vocal affectations are almost exactly the same as Kurt's. The idea that Nirvana were an introspective band is a bit of a one-dimensional way of looking at them IMO.

Yeah, I don't see how you can make such a huge distinction between Hole and Nirvana's attitudes beyond gender. When Courtney sings Old Age, originally a Nirvana demo, it seems like a natural fit. Though I guess her voice is more of an instrument of fury than Kurt's.

Why the female Nirvana? They were contemporaries.

i'm as over "teen spirit" as anyone most days but tbh there was just no other song on this list that posed serious competition for poll winner

there are at least three other songs on this list i think of as totally canonical

― lex pretend, Tuesday, November 1, 2011 7:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lots of songs here are in the canon, i'm saying none of them have the kind of ILM consensus to beat "teen spirit." imo it says a lot that i can't hum more than half of the top 10.

The Candi Staton/Source version of You Got The Love is so so much better than the Florence version. I thought I'd fallen out of love with the song after hearing hers for the fifth time, but when I heard the 90s versh again it was like trying the Gold Top milk after years of skimmed.

Anyone who doesn't know that version of "You Got The Love" should really REALLY go investigate it.

i think lex otm re: Nirvana & Hole, I think that his songs took definitely took punk rage and turned it inward, transmuted into agony. In Utero is my favorite album of the 90s, and the time it resonated most was during a weird emotionally masochistic crisis, when Kurt's gestures of sef-evisceration almost...felt cathartic?? I don't know Hole as well but I've never heard anything to refute the fact that she was railing outwards, against forces that would contain + control her...

I do think the gender differences blur the distinctions between the two. Courtney is raging against her own body, but in a weird way, that's still an outward rage, because it's her body that is being primarily used to control her...obviously Kurt's own fierce self-loathing heavily influenced her learning how to do this...

Nirvana is the male Hole.

pffft

there's a bean burrito joke here, I just know it

^^^

Kidding aside, I recoil from statements like "Hole always sounded like the female Nirvana to me," dog latin. No offense. It's so condescending, and doesn't take into account the probability that Courtney Love influenced Cobain.

But she's a girl! They're not influential!

Hole always sounded like the female Nirvana to me, although I only ever heard Live Through This.

That's a pretty small sample size to go from. Celebrity Skin is nothing like Live Through This.

xpost How is it condescending? Similar way of playing, dress sense, singing-style, overall vibe etc. They're not exactly poles apart. Nirvana and Hole were pretty similar bar only a few ways other than gender, so I think it's justified. Okay, saying they're the "female Nirvana" is a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but mine was a response to Lex's "Why should I listen to Nirvana when I could be listening to Hole?" which is plain bizarre to me. Of course Lex attempted to clarify this in a later post, by saying Hole's rage is internal rage being thrust out, whereas Nirvana's is the outside world's problems being internalised. I guess if we were to analyse each band's lyrics on a song-by-song basis that could well be true, but at the end of the day they're not really that different. Championing Hole over Nirvana is something I can see only the Lex doing, and my first reaction was that it's either challops or the fact it's a female-led rock band (more likely, considering Lex's history of preferences in rock music). Didn't mean this to become a debate about gender politics - Nirvana's music is just plain better than Hole's IMO, and saying you don't like Nirvana but you do like Hole is inconceivable to me. And yeah, I haven't heard much after Live Through This but I have a feeling Celebrity Skin won't top In Utero if I were to hear it.

just read all that back - it's difficult to express what i mean without coming off as a major prick, so i apologise for that.

Championing Hole over Nirvana is something I can see only the Lex doing, and my first reaction was that it's either challops or the fact it's a female-led rock band (more likely, considering Lex's history of preferences in rock music). Didn't mean this to become a debate about gender politics - Nirvana's music is just plain better than Hole's IMO, and saying you don't like Nirvana but you do like Hole is inconceivable to me.

xhuxk also prefers Hole. I probably listen to Hole more often these days; I find her hooks and words, insofar as I pay attention, trenchant, incisive, and witty in ways that Cobain's aren't, but I acknowledge that Cobain and Love wrote about different experiences.

I didn't understand lex's point either.

Well, it's reminded me to check out some of their other stuff. Admittedly I first heard Live Through This back in the mid-90s and wasn't impressed enough to keep following them. Plus I'm just not a big fan of Courtney Love.

I find her hooks and words, insofar as I pay attention, trenchant, incisive, and witty in ways that Cobain's aren't

I'd disagree with this, or at least the couched implication (to me) that Cobain's weren't incisive or witty. I do think that, lyrically, In Utero was a big step up from Nevermind, so that might possibly be some of Love's influence there...?

Or heroin

lol @ "influence" only going one way

you guys are talking about a married couple, not a ventriloquist and his/her dummy

Yeah, I mean, it's the John and Yoko argument all over again.

OTM

"hole > nirvana" is an argument that's been made plenty of times, including ON THIS BOARD, at this point how is it even a challops? i also find courtney a way smarter lyricist but am really just going off nirvana's singles here.

its a challops often made on this board. i like hole well enough but theyre not in the same league as nirvana

but nothing wrong with preferring one over the other either.

saying you don't like Nirvana but you do like Hole is inconceivable to me

I prefer Nirvana myself, but I don't think there's any opinion that's inconceivable, where matters of taste are concerned. I'm sure there are people who prefer Yoko Ono to the Beatles.

Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy 21

lol @ britain

Don't really like any of these

I'm sure there are people who prefer Yoko Ono to the Beatles.

uhhhhhhh yeah

lol I was actually gonna troll dog latin along the lines of "itt dog latin tacitly admits to preferring John Lennon over Yoko Ono"

"the point isn't that Loveless is too alt, the point is that no way are its virtues centred on the songs qua songs, they're at best unremarkable."

You should keep in my mind that Geir is merely starting the threads, he didn't write the book itself! ;-) If the songs on Loveless are unremarkable, then it's only in the same way that "I Feel Love"/"Bring the Noise"/insert whatever you prefer are unremarkable. Whatever the book is, it certainly doesn't just consist of "songs" in the classical sense of the word, which seems to be your argument as to why nothing from Loveless should be there.

Also let me add that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have won this poll anywhere outside of ILM, but I suspect it will not win here. :)

I bet it wins by at least 20%

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, 25 October 2011 15:34 (6 days ago)

Ha! Whaddya know. My bold claim came true. Everybody's gotta get it right sometime. ILM has always had a very strong Nirvana silent majority.

bold.

who will be president of the united states in february 2012?

Obama.

The best the GOP had, my governor Chris Christie decided to sit it out. He was their only chance. Romney is a perfectly capable fellow and would probably be a fine GOP president, but for some reason, nobody likes the guy. The fact that Herman Cain is beating him in the polls speaks volumes.

consider Jesus Built as in thr 3rd place cause that's what i would have vote if and when...

2012 election results:

1. Barack Obama (D)
2. Mitt Romney (R)
3. The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette (Independent)

"Jesus Built My Hotrod" would be the best electoral slogan ever.

who will be president of the united states in february 2012?

I detect a trick question.

so is this the end of the line for this sad book?

nah i think geir said it lasts til 2000?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1aCaG_On20

Geir, just wondering if you're going to continue with these polls, I always enjoyed reading the varied opinions. Or does the book end at 1991?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsN7BAtLs8I