Spin magazine's 25 greatest albums of all time (April, 1989)

Whoops...meant for ILM.

The lol and the cobra

this one's tough! I love 15-20 of these

same poll on ILM and ILE would be interesting

By this gesture, SPIN attempts the equivalent of squaring the circle or patenting a perpetual motion machine; predictably it fails.

However, by the same gesture, SPIN attempts to project itself as much-cooler-than-thou. In my individual case, it succeeds beyond its wildest imaginings, but it is a meaningless triumph.

same era that called "It Takes Two" the best single of all time, no?

“Once I thought rock and roll would change the world. I loved that idea. I fought for that idea. But science really does change the world. Every day. The idea is to let as many people in on that fantastic adventure as possible—to make them feel the romance of the plunge of human intelligence into the unknown. That’s the mission here at Discover.”

That’s the Gooch. So what if he doesn’t understand relativity? He ran Spin for a dozen years and never, ever, listened to a Robert Johnson record. It is part of the Guccione family tao: the sense of mission, the messianic zeal for space exploration, better blow jobs, etc. Always captain of the ship (he’s never worked anywhere he wasn’t the boss), Gooch charges ahead armed with a somehow charming cut-throat trust in himself and his product, whatever it may be. It is easy to be swept away by the sheer enthusiasm of it all. As he once sat on his leather chair/throne at Spin’s mucky 18th Street office, extolling the planetary indispensability of Juliana Hatfield, some chick rocker on that issue’s cover mostly on account of being kinda hot, he now shakes his pom-pom for the unearthing of dinosaur soft tissue. “It must be something in the Sicilian makeup, a kind of crusading quest exceeding even an undying need to be cool”

woah, had no idea Discover was a Guccione property

pretty cool list imo. This Years Model is prob my personal favorite.

"It Takes Two" is far more the best single of all time than these are the 25 greatest albums of all time.

The four that mean the most to me:

1) Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
2) The Velvet Underground and Nico
3) Exile on Main Street
4) Blonde on Blonds

Prefab Sprout: made me laugh then, still does.

how are the smiths and depeche mode on there but not the cure?

lol @ Moondance

Answer is Double Nickels obv

This is the list where Spin tells the Beatles to fuck off

If I remember correctly, Ringo especially took the news very badly.

Nah, he was all peace and love, peace and love

same era that called "It Takes Two" the best single of all time, no?

I think it's even the same issue, iirc.

Neil's my fav, so that.

this list is amazing

voted replacements over smiths and van

probably could have voted for sly, dylan, aretha, al green, television, costello or vu too

but it felt right to pick the sentimental favorite first heard in college for a list that feels like someone's "25 best albums ever out of the 200 i own" list

Stick 'OK Computer' and a couple of Oasis albums on that list and it'd be published in Mojo nowadays.

echo & the bunnymen directly above the velvet underground and leonard cohen might be my favorite part of this

All good albums, though several ridiculous re "greatest." Going for the one, I voted Marquee Moon, because you do get verbal and aural imagery (xgau: "guitar like the Silver Surfer"), good beats, good jams, risky turns, appropriately freaky vocals, lots of beauty and some ugly and right amount of ugly beauty. Kind of in there between Blonde On Blonde, Exiles and Zep, but not really of course.

i'm torn, because 34 year old me is going to vote for al green, but he also feels like he's fronting because he knows 11 year old me would have probably voted for george michael.

then minutemen, then jb, then neil.

It's Minutemen or TV for me, which makes me feel like an old cliche.

Somehow Blonde on Blonde never quite makes it for me. I like the live versions of all those songs way better. And rainy day women can gtfo forever

Maybe I should have voted for Velvets, but another good connection to Marquee Moon.

Some of these aren't even the best albums by those particular artists. But Faith really is one of my favorite albums. Pretty impressed to see it here.

Faith owns.

Faith vs Minutemen....

vs Marquee Moon

this list is amazing

Because it's so perverse, right? Television vs Minutemen right now (prob Television) but I'd want to listen to the James Brown, Sly, Aretha, and Al Green albums first. II is easily in my bottom half of Zep albums. Great basslines though.

it just feels like a list of favorites by someone with genuine taste, but who first got into music through '80s college radio stuff, then explored the classic rock canon but still has huge gaps. the depeche mode blurb should talk about how this album totally got them through their first break-up and the neil blurb should note they haven't heard rust never sleeps yet and don't really dig after the gold rush

i mean it's actually kind of awesome if this list was crafted by a group of people rather than one person, though it's hard to fathom what sensibility they were trying to project

This list is kinda great in that in no way presages the pop trends that will shape the 90s and completely reshape the "dialectic" of what makes pop music records great. I mean, what list in the 2000/2010s would deign "Ocean Rain" or "Faith" as one of the greatest records of all time?

Also very strange they picked LZ II as opposed to III or IV.

this is basically all the stuff i loved in my early '20s. picking 'fresh' instead of the more obvious sly choices is kind of a cool surprise. probably listen to the smiths one the most out of any of these.

Black Celebration, natch.

it just feels like a list of favorites by someone with genuine taste, but who first got into music through '80s college radio stuff, then explored the classic rock canon but still has huge gaps.

this is otm

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'steve mcqueen' (aka 'two wheels good') for me

somewhat influential on destroyer's 2011 album 'kaputt', iirc bejar's list of inspirations correctly...

this is quite a likeable list for a change, anyway The Belle Album 200 per cent no question, JB & the Stones & the VU and the Minutemen slugging it out for second

random JB album to choose - hardly his best, and full of all that fake audience noise and weird edits

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