Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 1994 poll

Kaboom, what a list of albums. i could vote for so many of these albums. 1994 was a excellent year for albums.

was going to take a break because of the Spoon poll but it's open for 10 days so i still can squeeze a few more of these out first.

Man, that Jeff Buckly album is overpraised as hell.

Don't really want to vote for anything in this list after giving it the once over, but I guess I'll vote Vauxhall and I since it's the best Morrissey joint. Either that or CrazySexyCool.

Man, that Jeff Buckly album is overpraised as hell.

Indeed.

Live Through This is the one I played as an album. Great year for singles.

Inclined to vote Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, although I play Mellow Gold as much and it was more influential on me personally.

NIN for me.

First time I don't particularly love any of the albums listed - NiN and Beastie Boys are the only two I dig

1994 was a real great year for music of course. Snivilisation, Ruby Vroom, dubnobasswithmyheadman, the first Sea and Cake album, Chocolate and Cheese...ahem

Really like a lot of these but don't fully love very many. Will probably vote Mellow Gold (I dismissed 'Loser' as just another dumb, doofy single among the scores of dumb, doofy singles on alt radio back then, and was floored once I incidentally heard the album in a friend's car, and it's still an album I listen to fairly often) over Bee Thousand (great, but I think I might prefer Alien Lanes).

Actually, I realize after a second perusal that do kinda love a lot of these.

Again, like the 1993 list, there's about 8 or 9 albums that I could vote for here, but unlike the 1993 list, there's not really very many of those albums that I still find myself listening to these days. Looking over the list, 1994 feels like one of those years where I know I like a lot of what was released that year, but at the same time I don't feel an urge to listen to many of those records, whereas there's a lot of stuff on the 1993 list that I looked at and thought "shit, I wanna listen to that now". I just don't get the same feeling from a lot of these 1994 records, as great as I know they are. I'll have to give this some thought, because nothing really sticks out for me as something I should vote for without any hesitation.

Soundgarden. I don't play it much anymore but that record was a fucking monster in 1994

Dummy.

Welcome to Sky Valley

ha, that is number 32, so close.

Wow! Went for Biggy over Pavement because I expect Malkmus to win, anyway. Now it'll lose by one vote to Buckley, ugh. Ready to Die is proof that masterpieces can emerge from any subgenre, no matter how cynical IMHO.

Had no idea Korn was around in 94, always considered them a Late 90s incarnation (incl that album). The rich musical knowledge I absorb on this board.

Oops, *KoRN. Apologies all around, no disrespect intended. We cool?

i own all these on CD:

1 Jeff Buckley - Grace
2 Portishead - Dummy
3 Oasis - Definitely Maybe
4 Blur - Parklife
5 Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
6 Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
7 Nas - Illmatic
11 Soundgarden - Superunknown
12 Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York
13 Green Day - Dookie
14 Weezer - Weezer ("The Blue Album")
15 Johnny Cash - American Recordings
16 Beck - Mellow Gold
20 Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
22 Suede - Dog Man Star
24 Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong with Love
25 Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
31 Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Sleeps with Angels

i could still vote for about 1/3 of these.

Dog Man Star is all time for me

disrespect? no not at all, it's just a list of albums. i just thought it was funny that the one you picked happened to be next.

Really spoilt for choice here, this was a great year for albums. Illmatic narrowly over Bee Thousand. Also really really love Grace, Ready to Die, Crooked Rain, Weezer, Parklife, Definitely Maybe, Live Through This...

Illmatic and Live Through This are the ones that have grown over time for me. Voted Nas.

Eventually settled for Parklife, although it's quite possibly one of the Blur albums I listen to the least.

among my favorite albums of all time:

2 68 Portishead - Dummy
6 191 Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
17 421 The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation
19 553 TLC - CrazySexyCool
21 616 Massive Attack - Protection

Also, as much as I like the band, this was the last year in popular music history that people weren't jizzing their pants over Radiohead. That'd all change the following year with The Bends.

to be fair, I don't think there's any way anyone could have predicted that Radiohead was capable of an album like The Bends, let alone any of the albums that followed (still not a fan of In Rainbows tho)

GBV v BIG v Hole

the jeff buckley album is still great. who cares if its overpraised in some circles? its hardly got sgt peppers overpraise and most people in the real world havent heard it.

It's weird to me that ilx user Bee Ok doesnt own a copy of that GBV album

re: Buckley, yeah I might be just being reactionary due to him inspiring the OTT American Iconoclast smashing of Cohen mid-naughts -- too personal for me to distil taste. I'd be an awful critic. (Not to mention most of his catalogue was introduced to me by the worst kind of acoustic party-crashers in HS... y'all acquainted w/ that whiny whiteboy coochie coochie DMB soul voice)

It's weird to me that ilx user Bee Ok doesnt own a copy of that GBV album

that makes sense because Bee 0k is 0 times Bee 1k </dadjokes>

got to vote Crooked Rain though at the time I would've voted for Jilted Generation or Superunknown (also the albums I had the biggest urge to revisit on seeing the list were Mellow Gold and, yep, Bee Thousand; have listened to CRCR so many times there's not much to revisit)

I think 1994 will forever be up there as my personal best year for music. Didn't hurt that I was 16.

I voted for Dummy.

Wait, I just realized that SAWII was released in '94. How on earth did that not make the top 30 (particularly when the first SAW made it into the '92 results)? Bakesale is missing, too!

Honorable mentions to other no-shows: Lush - Split, the other two Beck albums released this year, Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet, Luscious Jackson - Natural Ingredients, Sugar - File Under Easy Listening, Grant Lee Buffalo - Mighty Joe Moon, REM - Monster, Lisa Germano - Geek The Girl. Yeah, '94 was a good year.

I think my favorite from '94 might be Orb's Pomme Fritz EP.

so many good ones. this was the year i got properly turned on to album-oriented music, and what a year! went for the Prodigy. their last truly great piece of work.

How on earth did that not make the top 30 (particularly when the first SAW made it into the '92 results)?

Well the first one is more significant and more accessible and probably more popular.

I've never got into SAW II the way I have the first one anyhow.

It's a bit of a shame that, Dummy aside, the top five is dominated by the more traddy rock offerings on the list.

xxpost I've always been under the (perhaps mistaken, admittedly) impression that the exact opposite was true.

illmatic or dummy.

who is jeff buckley really

Portishead, Pavement, and nin are all solid picks here, leaning toward Portishead because there isn't a single off moment on that album, it's perfect through and through

who is jeff buckley really

― Van Horn Street

Yeah very overrated in such company.

As are Oasis, but that is always the case.

Was gonna say, feeling embarrassed about Sarah McLachlan on the '93 list but not Oasis on this (and future) lists represents a particularly ugly mix of male privilege/privileging and rockism.

(just to clarify, that post wasn't directed at calling out any particular poster. was just remembering a feeling revulsion at Sarah M that was expressed during the '93 poll)

It's weird to me that ilx user Bee Ok doesnt own a copy of that GBV album

haha, my user name comes from a Boo Radleys song called "Put Your Arms Around Me and Tell Me Everything's Going to Be OK."

should still probably know that album however.

Lots of good albums here but it's Dog Man Star for me by an absolute mile.

I think 1994 will forever be up there as my personal best year for music. Didn't hurt that I was 16.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Friday, July 17, 2015 6:16 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was also 16 and, yeah, same. Either JSBX or Hole but probably the latter.

I'll second Lush and Stereolab as honorable mentions. These would all be up there too.

The Divine Comedy - Promenade
Pulp - His 'n' Hers
Global Communication - 76:14
Jeru The Damaja - The Sun Rises In The East
Bark Psychosis - Hex
Saint Etienne - Tiger Bay
Gang Starr - Hard To Earn
Digable Planets - Blowout Comb
The Cardigans - Emmerdale
The Magnetic Fields - Holiday
Madonna - Bedtime Stories
Redman - Dare Iz a Darkside
Autechre - Amber
Future Sounds Of London - Lifeforms
Disco Inferno - D.I. Goes Pop
Insides - Clear Skin
Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep
Edwyn Collins - Gorgeous George
Method Man - Tical
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci - Tatay
Scarface - The Diary
Warren G - Regulate.. G Funk Era

of if those were included I'd vote His 'n' Hers no question

I think 1994 will forever be up there as my personal best year for music. Didn't hurt that I was 16.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Friday, July 17, 2015 6:16 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was also 16 and, yeah, same. Either JSBX or Hole but probably the latter.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Friday, July 17, 2015 8:33 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Another member of the "16 In '94" club representin'. Music is probably always the best when you're 16, though.

I was 16 in 1990, but prefer 1989, so....DEBUNKED

I turned 16 in '02 and that year suuuuuuucked.

I turned 16 in 1998 and I already felt like music had peaked for me. All my favorite albums were from 1996.

16 in 2001... can't say I'm the biggest post-grunge fan. Eminem, yeah I appreciate those albums now as art but that's not how they were consumed at the time. Easy to see why Radiohead were considered geniuses in that context... I remember conversations about how low rock had fallen that the mediocre Strokes and White Stripes were the new saviours (Unfortunately I was only acquainted with Outkast singles at the time, wish I'd bought their albums). There was great stuff coming out of course but nothing that spread across great swaths of our teenage tribes. Sad to say I was a bit of a defener.

Spent most of 94 listening to Crooked Rain Crooked Rain again and again and again and again. So much so that I almost can't really hear it anymore, and wonder whether I should vote for it. But of course I voted for it. Tempted by Bee Thousand but in the end that record is about the high points ("Echos Myron" for me) and doesn't stand together as a no-piece-can-be-missing whole like CRCR. And this is an album poll, not a sum-of-songs poll.

The regrettable choice here, I think, is Nirvana unplugged -- and I still really like those Nirvana records, but at the time there was a sense that the acoustic version were more "real", more "direct," more "authentic," and that was what appealed. But in retrospect it seems absolutely clear that the album versions are the realest versions and I have no more need to hear these takes than I do the slow version of "Layla."

normally i hate those unplugged things but the nirvana album actually works for me, it feels more like a genuine album than live stuff usually does. i think it helps that so much of it is just kurt covering his favorite songs.

Yeah say what you want about subsequent Grohl but relistening to Nevermind earlier this year it became apparent how vital his kick was to the band's drive. I found myself focusing in on the percussion as much as Be My Baby, seriously. Songs are still great in Unplugged, and the highs are stellar (Sleep) but yeah Nirvana was an oomph act

Oh yeah, Lisa Germano, Global Communication... a top 30 has never been so inadequate.

I was a teen from 2000-2007 and can't think of another era of popular music post-Beatles that means less to me. My 20s have been way better.

I stand corrected. I figured it was a 'the best era of SNL is the one that aired while you were in jr. high' kinda thing.

There have definitely been better years, but I don't think I've ever felt as intensely about music as I did when I was in high school.

If I had to pick my least favourite year in music from the '90s, it would probably be 1998. In hindsight, there still some good to great records released that year, but at the time I remember feeling that it didn't really compare to 1993 up to 1997. The last two years of the '90s felt like a bit of a drop-off to me at the time.

I thought 2000 and 2001 were great and 2002 was a bit of a lull. 2003-2007 being my favourite period of the 00's. 2008 and 2009 probably my 2nd and 3rd least favourite years of that decade after 2002.

As for the current decade? Fuck knows, although 2013 has been my favourite year of the decade so far.

i also think this is Dog Man Star.

Hard to not pick Big or Nas, but this goes to Soundgarden.

Voted for NIN.

I would vote Nas but once at the TGI Friday's in Penn Station an especially tedious friend of a friend sort of lectured me about how "life's a bitch and then you die / that's why we get high" was "pretty much his life philosophy." He said that he was a "very cynical person" but in a way that seemed like he was proud of it, like people who cared about stuff were deluded. This worldview is like kryptonite to me. I know that Nas is expressing nihilism borne of desperation and that the overall tenor of the album is tragic rather than cynical, but still, he inspired this guy.

but after nas, i don't know what i could vote for. i like pretty much all of these albums OK but i don't love any of them.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

GBV narrowly over B2S

Neil Young for no massive reason, Tiger Bay would've got it were it here. Lots of vv good records here but kinda unamazing as a list

there aren't many albums I'd vote for over the Blue Album in any poll, but Crooked Rain is one of them

anyone else think it would be fun to pull the ego trip annual lists http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/ego_trip_page1.htm ?

after thinking about this for a few days, i decided upon Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. will never forget the first time hearing it. there were about five of us driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. my friend Mike said i have this CD by a California band called Pavement. he put this on, we were all blown away and i think we ended up playing it three times in a row.

i think it helps that so much of it is just kurt covering his favorite songs.

covers on incesticide > covers on unplugged

Nah, I disagree: Unplugged has 'Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam', a great version of 'The Man Who Sold The World', it also has 'Plateau' and 'Lake Of Fire' (which I vastly prefer to the Meat Puppets' originals by a million miles) and closes out with a great rendition of 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night?'

Incesticide has two Vaseline's covers: one excellent ('Son Of A Gun'), one decent ('Molly's Lips') and a not-so-hot Devo cover.

of if those were included I'd vote His 'n' Hers no question

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Saturday, 18 July 2015 01:40 (2 days ago) Permalink

^^^^this. Quite surprised not to find this here, as it's not only a great record but was also under the impression it was highly regarded amongst critics.

So it's Jeff Buckley for me which despite some naysayers here is fully deserving of any critical praise it gets.

Grace had a hugely formative role of my musical life and still has a lot of sentimental importance to me but, even so, I can admit that it's maybe only about 2/3 great at best. Sketches... is roughly the same percentage of great (while simultaneously not as important to me and also a sign of the greatness he would likely have achieved).

role IN my musical life

I agree but that 2/3 is stunning. Really, if "Lover, You Should've Come Over" and "Last Goodbye" were the only great songs on it I still may have voted for it, they're that good.

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

Yes, thought Pavement would win this but only a few talked about voting for them.

gross

I wouldn't say it's the best album here at all.

ILM loves Pavement far more than I would've thought.

Also, though its only like my 4th fave album on this list (I was one of the ten GbV voters), Protection remains underrated both in the voting here and in the band's discography.

Protection is my favorite of theirs. It probably doesn't bear mentioning that I haven't heard Heligoland.

Illmatic got robbed.

The vote that I almost gave to Illmatic, but gave to Bee Thousand because I was so sure that Illmatic would win, is gonna haunt me now.

Orange deserved better. Not to win, but better.