Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 1991 poll

what a Monster year. i want to be like Spin and vote for Bandwagonesque but can't seem to pull the trigger.

Went with my first instinct: "Trompe Le Monde".

1991 is like PEAK year for "albums I used to listen to a lot that I don't ever want to hear again!"

Nevermind

For me, the Nirvana and Crowded House are in the category of "like a lot but don't feel the need to ever hear again". I still listen to the De La Soul and Cypress Hill sometimes.

where is the Electronic album?

the De La Soul album is their worst major period release but still damn good

loveless

a lot of these are good though.

Loveless vs Badmotorfinger

Tribe > De La > U2 > Talk Talk > Nirvana > UYI II > Temple of the Dog > Ice Cube > Metallica > Soundgarden > Pearl Jam fuuuck what a year

Tribe over Nevermind

Loveless vs Nevermind vs Spiderland vs Temple Of The Dog. What a year.

Finally went with Loveless, probably my favorite album ever, though Nevermind comes pretty close.

This is Laughing Stock vs. Loveless for me but there's a lot of great stuff here.

Loveless is the best, Badmotorfinger is the most personally resonant. There are a bunch of albums on the list that I like a lot because nostalgia but that I don't think I'd ever include on a list of actual best albums from that year.

strong year

It's probably Laughing Stock, but so many favorites on this list.

The Low End Theory

For me it is going to be between Blue Lines, Loveless and Achtung Baby. Nevermind is a "classic" album that I never need to hear again.

Spiderland

Loveless vs Throwing Muses vs death metal

Sure sign that I was 13 in 1991: at the time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day meant way more to me than any of the albums here, and probably any album in general.

then vote for "You Could Be Mine" via Use Your Illusion 2

Good point! But, no.

voted Laughing Stock (a record I only discovered a couple of years ago)

jesus christ

Of the albums I've heard front to back, all of these are stellar:

1 3 Nirvana - Nevermind
2 37 Massive Attack - Blue Lines
3 64 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
4 82 U2 - Achtung Baby
6 147 Pearl Jam - Ten
8 221 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
9 227 A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
11 313 R.E.M. - Out of Time
13 517 The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
15 707 The KLF - The White Room
17 849 Cypress Hill - Cypress Hill
19 854 Crowded House - Woodface
20 934 De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead
21 948 Pixies - Trompe le Monde
23 1150 LFO - Frequencies
25 1210 Derrick May - Innovator: Soundtrack for the Tenth Planet / Innovator [1997]
30 1510 Ice Cube - Death Certificate

Very little I can get excited about here...Nevermind is too stiff and click-tracky, Ten is basically Night Ranger marketed to a different demographic, GnR were no good post-Adler, Apocalypse '91 a huge disappointment (aside from 1 or 2 songs)...will probably go with either Low End Theory or Laughing Stock.

As formative as some of this stuff was in my life, nothing stands out as a truly amazing album beyond Loveless. I'm surprised Dangerous didn't make it into the top 30. Looking at the other albums released that year, the only other ones that stand out for me are Gish, Ween's The Pod, and Sebadoh III. Lots of good stuff but nothing I get that excited about.

Trompe Le Monde over Laughing Stock and Low End Theory, Blue Lines, Spiderland. What a year.

Ten is basically Night Ranger marketed to a different demographic,

people always say this on ilx! Ten is just Poison. Ten is just Night Ranger. Pearl Jam is butt rock. What the hell are you people talking about?

When I heard the Ten songs on the radio, I assumed it was a band of studio hacks hastily assembled by an Epic Records boardroom, eager for the label to get a foothold in this new "alternative" thing. I was genuinely surprised to find out that's not how the band formed.

There are at least 10 great records here but only one of them reconstituted my whole taste in music and even concept/approach to all art forms forever in one lightning strike

Ten

Just kidding, fuckin laughingstock.

Ten is basically just a madeline that transports me back to my sullen high school freshman days. I basically have no objectivity towards it (or any of the other albums I listened to obsessively back then) as an album.

I don't think Ten sounds like Night Ranger, but if some band ever wanted to do some sort of Frankenstein-amalgam of the aesthetics of, say, Queensryche and Rusted Root, they probably wouldn't get closer by trying then Ten already is

I remember reading a big article about Pearl Jam in SPIN before Ten came out, and wondered why such a big article was about a band that hadn't released anything yet. In a way, the earnest, no-frills rock of Pearl Jam matches my earnest, no-frills mistrust of music publicity.

I'm not sure I've ever heard the album all the way through but I'd bet dollars to donuts Temple of the Dog has aged way better than Ten

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/85/1f/67/851f6775ef294ff8a08921944cf39da8.jpg

Wow, almost a quarter of a century later and people are still hating on Pearl Jam for cool points.

Low End Theory, was the soundtrack for many a high school party

Ten was probably even more of a big deal among my peers in the 9th grade than Nevermind was. To this day, my main association with it is how when teachers would do attendance that first semester of high school, and would get to my name (Jeremy), about a third of the class would break into "Jeremy spooooke in claaaaaaass todaaaaay." In retrospect, I can't help but question the wisdom of taunting someone with a song about a kid who shoots up his classroom.

Another vote for Laughing Stock.

1991 is like PEAK year for "albums I used to listen to a lot that I don't ever want to hear again!"

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, June 18, 2015 2:10 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, I'm with you on this.

Voted for Nevermind.

The UK didn't really take to Pearl Jam in the same way as they did Nirvana. Ten only sold 300,000. When I heard it for the first time, I remember thinking the production values on it were akin to those on, I dunno, a Bryan Adams record or something.

I kinda want to vote for "Weld" as it was my Neil Young gateway.

Nevermind is too stiff and click-tracky

"Lithium" is the only song they used a click track on!

When I heard it for the first time, I remember thinking the production values on it were akin to those on, I dunno, a Bryan Adams record or something.

The production on Ten is definitely the main reason I could never really get into this album. I have my problems with the production of Nevermind as well. I think for both bands, the followup albums to their breakthroughs were much better and this is due in large part to the production being a much better fit for the kind of music they were making.

Anyway, I voted for Spiderland, an album I haven't heard or even thought about for many years but now suddenly have the urge to listen to.

xpost I agree and I think (the surviving members of) both bands would agree with your assessment.

TBRR, Incesticide had waaaaay more of an impact on me than Nevermind did.

When browsing through my CD collection, people always thought it was weird that I owned ever Nirvana album except Nevermind

(I have a dubbed cassette copy somewhere)

Oh yeah, I definitely prefer In Utero over Nevermind, but I don't have any problems with Nevermind. I mean, yeah, Nevermind was sweetened up in the mix by Andy Wallace (rather than anything Butch Vig did) but I feel the production on Ten has dated far worse.

I'm not sure I could ever listen to Nevermind again, but in my memory it's still a great album. (I still listen to In Utero on occasion).

I voted for Achtung Baby, that album has aged incredibly well. In 1991, I might very well have voted for O.G.

Lots of great ones, but I went with the one I'd like to re-listen to most right now and it's Out Of Time - not everyone's favourite REM, but certainly one of mine.

oh shit, i missed Laughing Stock. And Loveless. too many to choose from. Ten is excellent but not my favourite PJ

Voting for an album that hasn't even been mentioned yet but meant a hell of a lot to me in 1991 and it's Screamadelica. That tour was absolutely mind numbing.

Loveless, but threw a vote to Bandwagonesque, which I might have listened to more times than Loveless.

is Blue Lines really that good? when i saw that is was the 37th best album ever i sort of took notice, i do own Mezzanine and really like it but not on this kind of level.

In 1997, Blue Lines was named the 21st "greatest album of all time" in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 1998, Q readers placed it at number 58 in its list of the "100 Greatest Albums Ever", and in 2000, the album was voted at number 9 in the magazine's poll of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2003, the album was ranked number 395 on Rolling Stone‍ '​s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 85 in its list of "The Top 100 Albums of the 1990s". According to Acclaimed Music, a site which uses statistics to numerically represent critical reception, Blue Lines is the 37th best-received album of all time, and third best-received of the 1990s.

I'm not sure I could ever listen to Nevermind again

― Modern French Music from Failure to Boulez (askance johnson), Friday, June 19, 2015 2:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I often go through periods of thinking this, but then I listen to it and realise I actually just think I'm bored of it when I'm actually not.

No Slowdive so I voted Primal Scream.

It's no Spirit of Eden, but once I saw Laughing Stock, I knew nothing would beat it.

One significant reason why Nevermind is great and Ten is garbage is the average tempo on Nevermind is literally about 30 bpm faster.

Ten is my least favorite PJ album because of that. I'm okay with slow songs, even some of PJ's slow songs, but half of Ten is just this dirgey wavy plodding goop. I was really glad when Vs. came out so I had a PJ album I prefer to Ten.

is Blue Lines really that good? when i saw that is was the 37th best album ever i sort of took notice, i do own Mezzanine and really like it but not on this kind of level.

Yeah, I'm not as crazy about it. '91 seems to be the year of albums whose follow-ups I'm way more into. I love Protection and U.F.Orb and am comparatively more fond of Incesticide/In Utero and Vs.. There was a time when Automatic For The People was my favorite REM album, and while that isn't true anymore, I do think it tops Out Of Time just a smidge in terms of having fewer songs which tarnish the overall greatness of the album.

Blue Lines is probably only my third favourite album on this list after Loveless and Achtung Baby, and I certainly wouldn't call it the 37th best album of all time or anywhere even close to that, but it is still pretty damn great in case you've avoided ever hearing it until now. Protection and Mezzanine are probably more fully developed albums in terms of the consistency of their overall sound, while BL takes detours into pop-reggae (for example), but it remains the record (thanks in large part to "Unfinished Sympathy," sure) that I'm most likely to pop in whenever I'm in a mood to listen to Massive Attack.

i feel like even Pearl Jam has quietly admitted that the production on Ten sucks, via never working with its producer again, and having the producer of most of their other albums remix it for the reissue. even the drummer that left shortly after the album was recorded just has a cheesier stadium rock feel than their later drummers. "Porch" still rules but a lot of the album i can take or leave now, and i say that even though it was the first album i ever really loved.

is Blue Lines really that good?

Yes.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

where is the Electronic album?

here are the next 15:

31 The Jesus Lizard - Goat
32 Lenny Kravitz - Mama Said
33 Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha
34 Simply Red - Stars
35 American Music Club - Everclear
36 Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam
37 P.M. Dawn - Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience
38 Electronic - Electronic
39 Julian Cope - Peggy Suicide
40 Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages
41 Sebadoh - III
42 The Wedding Present - Seamonsters
43 Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
44 Seal - Seal
45 Young Disciples - Road to Freedom

oh man, Goat is probably better than any of the albums in the top 30.

Forgot Ask the Ages came out in '91. Would've voted for that over everything else in the top 45 easy.

Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience would have offered a serious challenge to my already tense Loveless vs. Achtung vs. Blue Lines struggle.

voted Cypress Hill, not sure if it's really my favorite (tbh that's probably Out of Time) but the Cypress Hill was pretty important to me as a Latino, def no Gerardo ish, plus that Duke of Earl sample is like the all-time-est

Forgot Ask the Ages came out in '91. Would've voted for that over everything else in the top 45 easy.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat),

ditto

'91 is a strange year for me in that I was probably just a year or so too young to really appreciate it at the time. I started high school in the Fall of '92, so a lot of these albums were in the periphery of my awareness without actually being things I listened to yet. Within a year or two of their release, Achtung Baby and Of the Heart... were among the most frequently played albums in my admittedly small personal CD collection. My sister owned Nevermind and Ten, and anyways the weren't albums that a kid starting high school needed to personally own in the early 90s in order to hear them everywhere (ditto Blood Sugar Sex Majik, which, at least at my school, seemed to rival both Nirvana and PJ in popularity). Blue Lines, Loveless and Bandwagonesque were things I wouldn't discover for myself until either the very end of high school or in my early university days. So while I get that 1991 was indeed a "monster year," it is still one that I can only appreciate through several layers of distance, not completely unlike, say, 1966 or 1977 or something.

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

Heh!

No Gish, eh?

To be quite honest, I might have voted for Gish if it had been there.