Best Album on OUR Favourite Albums of......1998 Part One

Best Album on OUR Favourite Albums of......1998 Part Two

this is v difficult

gillian welch or juvenile prob but agreed

Boards of Canada v Royal Trux

went BoC

moon pix moon pix moon pix

I'll still stand by that Mercury Rev album

its lovely

Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty: legitimately a life changing album when I purchased it at the age of 12. funny I always thought of them as 'old guys' back then though they're about the same age I am now. i'm probably alone in thinking this but it's my favorite Beasties album. even though it's 70+ minutes I don't think I'd cut any of the tracks. I love how all-over and goofy it is.

Boredoms - super are: possibly the best album here though I'd have to give it another listen. the big guitar riff one (track 3) and "Super Shine" felt huge back when I was into Boredoms, idk what they'd sound like to me today

Fatboy Slim - youve come a long way baby: probably would be my favorite if I actually took this in 1998. have not listened to this in about a decade, it probably sounds impossibly stupid now

Lo Fidelity Allstars - How To Operate with a b lown mind: this one I do pull out every now and then. the songs are way too long but I think it's held up pretty well, about as good as any "big beat" act really could have. I read an article on Stylus likening this to the future dance-punk movement and I think that's spot on. Shame they never made it bigger, I thought "Battleflag" was a genre-defining single and they had some real talent, though I think it doesn't really come through until the 2nd album (after the lead 'singer' left)

New Radicals - Maybe youve been brainwashed too: even though Gregg Alexander is a particularly obnoxious brand of songwriter, he did really have a knack for it. lotta good ideas on here but probably could've been executed better

PLAID--Not For Threes: still a bit ahead of its time but this was a '97 album right? anyway I just heard this last week and it's still quite good, though it's way too long. Rest Proof Clockwork is def a stronger album

Really tough one. 18 Musicians is an all timer but feel weird voting for a piece from the 70s (though this is the version I know best). Will probably go Boards of Canada

Royal Trux

could vote for almost any of these

That Gillian Welch album is a belter btw

GORGUTS

def the hardest poll yet, gonna have to narrow it down from a list of 20 or so

aquemini is probably too good not to vote for

Easily Billy Bragg / Wilco for me, leading me into the world of alt country.

I already owned Dirty and Experimental Jet Set when I got it, but A Thousand Leaves is the album that made Sonic Youth my favorite band back then. Probably by far the album I listened to the most that year and made me go back and purchase all the previous albums.

mutations vs. konigsforst

I love Super Ae, but gotta go with Accelerator... RTX made the album of the year, for the 2nd year in a row!

(Glad American Water is in the other poll, tho)

Would've been nice to see El Oso by Soul Coughing in there, it's an absolute mess of an album but also quite brilliant. This was Mike Doughty at the low point of his drug addiction, not even bothering to show up to the studio until halfway through the session. Which left the other guys to try out all these crazy DnB-style rhythms, almost like a modern-day Can. Wish they'd lopped off about 10 minutes of it but man the good stuff is awesome

Surprised not to see The Shape of Punk to Come by Refused on here, seems like a pretty seminal '98 album that a lot of people here probably know well. Used to be one of my favorite albums but I'm a bit afraid to listen to it now.

My favorite from this year is Susumu Hirasawa's Technique of Relief which is one of my 3 favorite albums ever. understandable that it's not here but I implore y'all to check it out

PS if you don't already follow, this twitter account is mid-way through a bracket-style tournament for the best albums of 1998. https://twitter.com/bestalbum95

someone wanna explain to me why the Steve Reich is on here at all

because mike really likes it?

XO over MHTRTC in a poll missing the actual best album of 1998, Adore

Voted for Air in the absence of Ed Rush & Optical - Wormhole

this is tough but my favourite at the time was Hello Nasty.. perhaps not so much any more, but that's what I went for.

I like Super Are and it's probably a better album than Vision Creation New Sun, but I heard the latter first and I was so blown away by it at the time that it dissipated the impact of that previous album

i'm probably alone in thinking this but it's my favorite Beasties album. even though it's 70+ minutes I don't think I'd cut any of the tracks. I love how all-over and goofy it is.

Yeah I always liked this one but in recent years its really grown in my estimation. In the CD-bloat era when so many albums were too long and too full of detours & precious genre experiments, this one has always felt to me like one of the few records that actually pulled off getting that type of album right.

some brutal decisions in this poll, 15 contenders at least for me. what a year.

xp I remember reading a buncha Amazon reviews at the time and a lot of them said to axe "Dr. Lee, PhD" which broke my heart, how can you not smile when that song is playing

shame boredoms aren't on Spotify. I'd love to revisit all those albums

FWIW when it came out, Hello Nasty was definitely my favourite Beasties album.

I think everyone remembers the first time a pop song came on the radio that really spoke to them and to me it was "Intergalactic"; so gloriously stupid and fun at the same time

Fatboy Slim did a really kick ass remix of "Body Movin" which I saw once on the Sifl & Olly show and became obsessed with. the CD single was Japan only (as I later found out) so I would record KISS FM onto a blank tape every morning before I left for school with the hopes of capturing it. eventually I got it...at the very end of the tape side. so I only got the first minute, not much after the "BODYBODYBODYBODYBODYBODYBODY" part. it came out next year on the anthology so all good!!

At the time, I would have said Moon Safari, I played it to death. I guess now, I would still put Wagon Christ on repeat play.

I really like/love loads of these albums!

Wasn't a tough vote though. Still Mansun :)

from the choirgirl hotel, which isnt on either of the polls

accelerator or konigforst... or 400 degreez

I Must Protest . . . that the three eps is not an album

it works well as an album

that fatboy slim remix of body moving was the best thing he ever did

I really like/love loads of these albums!

Wasn't a tough vote though. Still Mansun :)

― imago, Wednesday, 21 August 2019 23:03

Whew, the real LJ is back.

someone wanna explain to me why the Steve Reich is on here at all

The first Nonesuch recording of it was released in 1998.

lots of great albums but hole's celebrity skin is probably my favourtie record ever, so.

lists for 1998 seem way better to me than 1997.

could pick a lot of these

I still love In the Aeroplane Over the Sea after 21 years of listening to it

Boards of Canada vs Gorguts vs NMH. I already voted for Music for 18 in the 1976 poll, even though it was the 1998 recording that I first had. There's a lot of great stuff on A Thousand Leaves too, although it's not going to top this; the SYR stuff from this period might actually be more exciting.

‘in a poop-plane over the poop’ is more like it, amirite?

probably the Yoof

Boards of Canada, Outkast, Mansun, and NMH are all favourites. Leaning BoC.

Music Has the Right to Children still sounds amazing to me

my favorite SYR is Goodbye 20th Century from 1999

I'd figure BOC walks with this one.

I was a huge Beastie Boys fan from License to Ill onward. Hello Nasty was the one that made me never want to listen to them again.

At the time, my most listened to on this list was Mutations. These days, it's XO.

Pole - CD 1 is one of my favorite albums from 1998

also Coil's Time Machines

aquemini and lol at anyone thinking hello nasty is better than this

Voted for Air but it was a tough call between them, Hole, Neutral Milk Hotel and Boards of Canada.

I never thought of 1998 as a great year but God what a great year

Voted for Wagon Christ, ahead of Air and Boards of Canada.

I love the Steve Reich record but I can't think of it as a 1998 album really.

Sparklehorse. Maria's Little Elbows, Hundreds of Sparrows, Ghost of Her Smile, Painbirds. Capitalized on Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and loving Someday I Will Treat You Good and Cow. He pops up on mixes in the car, and I still catch myself thinking "wonder when he'll put something out?"

Elliott Smith, New Radicals, Mercury Rev, B&S also contenders.

The Beta Band - I'll hear one song, think it's the greatest thing ever, pull out that release, and find my mind wandering by the second track.

No mention of Lauryn Hill in this thread so far, but I'd be surprised if she doesn't finish toward the top.

It's funny to see 'Mark Hollis' amongst this list, because most of it (even the good stuff) is painfully dated for me (the year I turned 18, the year I started breaking free of prioritizing 'now' as a criterion in listening to/valuing music). I think I first heard it the following year and it's been on of my most cherished albums since. But it just has no relationship with "late 90s" at all--completely timeless.

I love 'Music for 18 Musicians' but isn't it more like 1978 (on record anyway)?

despite the high standard still moon pix by a distance... might put on six later though, it's been quite a while and I know it will cheer me up

Love Super Ae and the Three EPs but nothing beats Accelerator!

Haha I feel like a lot of stuff kinda-sorta in my wheelhouse from this year has managed to evade my ears thus far; this is perhaps the most ilxor-y of my yearly lists

Aquemini
A Thousand Leaves
Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels To Be Something On
QOTSA s/t
DJ Quik - Rhythm-al-isms
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
XO
Accelerator
Pearl Jam - Yield
Super Ae

mark hollis for me

Accidentally voted for Good Morning Spider & just realized I was confusing it with It's A Wonderful Life from 2001. I like Spider but wldnt put it in the top tier of this group. Oh well.

Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels To Be Something On

Oh this would get my write-in vote, one of my favourite records of all time.

mike replaced it with cat power at the last minute!

/Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels To Be Something On/

Oh this would get my write-in vote, one of my favourite records of all time.

mike only wants to do one poll for 99 so be prepared for a lot of your faves missing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

not really expecting Musick to Play in the Dark Vol 1 will be included for 99, but just want to say it's amazing

there's only going to be one poll so there's not going to be a lot of things not in it since ilm prefers to vote for the best known albums so more niche stuff gets booted

another vote for 'please include Coil'

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

Finally got round to putting a 1998 top ten together and, well, this explains how bewildered I was at both of your lists - i guess I had a very different year (although I didn't hear my current #1 until a couple of years later): 1. Club 8 - The Friend I Once Had, 2. Bran Van 3000 - Glee, 3. Belle and Sebastian, 4. Delgados - Peloton, 5. Saint Etienne - Sound of Water, 6. Board of Canada, 7. Massive Attack, 8. Black Box Recorder, 9. Madonna, 10. His Name is Alive - Ft. Lake. Air, Cardigans, Beastie Boys bubbling under.

I should probably give that Cat Power a listen.

My list, if it matters.

I like your write-up, Alfred, agree about Thousand Leaves being one of "the strangest and most leisurely of Sonic Youth albums"

also really like how this poll came out