Criminially Underappreciated 90's Guitar Bands

SLOAN!

yeah, I'm going for Sloan too (although partly because they're practically the only band on here that stuck around and made one of their best albums in this decade).

if the wedding present doesn't top this poll i will eat my computer.

i think the absence of Archers of Loaf on the list proves a point

ditto here, that's a great album. Sloan still make great records, although live their April Wine obsession can become a bit oppressive.

Not trying to have a go at the pollster but I don't really think many of those bands are exactly "criminally unappreciated". (like boohoo, no one pays any attention to poor old Mercury Rev). In fact if anything, many of those bands are overrated IMO.

Triple Fast Action was the type of thing I was going to vote for. (Walt Mink would qualify, maybe the Figgs... etc)

Um Royal Trux is on this list guys.

Was Luna and Guided By Voices really all that underappreciated?

Also when did Stereolab avoid guitars entirely?

Is there a single Portishead track with "no" guitars on it?

Ah, here comes the nitpicking, yay. It's all to varying degrees. We don't care who you think is overrated, you only have to pick one underappreciated one. I meant to include Archers of Loaf but forgot. To keep the list under, say, 500 bands I limited it to bands who had at least 4 albums in the 90s, with the two worthy exceptions being Screaming Trees and Wedding Present, who could fill the gap with their compilations. I'd assume whatever band you pick would also likely be one of your top 5 or 10 overall favorites of the 90s. Hence the lack of [insert your favorite local band with maybe 1-1/2 albums worth of decent songs here].

I'm just asking questions. I already voted.

Also when did Stereolab avoid guitars entirely?

Yeah, I was going to say this. Stereolab used loads of guitars.

I voted for Mano Negra.

I also prefer Stone Temple Pilots to almost every single band on this list (and don't understand in what sense they were more "conservative" or "bland" than most of them. Sorry, but that's ridiculous.)

"It was hard to be a good guitar band in the 90s."

really untrue! but whatever. it's yer poll.

us nits be picking.

If there be nits, they wilst be picked.

I think that Gumball were maybe the most sadly underappreciated bands of the era.

there is a thread somewhere where people pick their fave forgotten 90's alt/whatever records and there are TONS of guitar rock records on it.

they might not have gotten famous, but there was no lack of great guitar action. from that list above my faves are probably goat, chrome, and circa:now. but there is a lot of indie shmindie stuff up there that i've never heard.

I voted for the Afghan Whigs as their last album was their best album hinting at something even better, and they brought back a sense of groove and sex which most of these other bands lack.

Another thing I find perplexing: Were Talk Talk actually a big deal to anybody in the '90s? If they were, it totally passed me by. The way so many people on this board seem so obsessed with them actually makes me curious about their post-one-(or two or however many)-hit-wonder career, but I can see a whole bunch of bands on that (mostly bland and conservative by the way) list that I noticed getting "appreciated" more than Talk Talk in the '90s. But maybe Talk Talk were big with, like, British critics, or huge in the rest of the world? (I've no opinion on their music at all, either way.)

Also, obviously plenty of great bands are missing (including but not remotely limited to a bunch that might be termed "metal".) (Also, I'd take Caifanes over Mango Negra, Cafe Tacuba, or Los Cadillacs for whatever that's worth.)

talk talk were a big deal to me in the 90's.

and the 80's.

To see people citing the likes of Gumball and The Archers of Loaf is ridiculous when Redd Kross are not included. Third Eye and Phaseshifter are two essential 90's albums. Gumball were just horrible - the beginning of the end for me in terms of enjoying this kind of music.

Teenage Fanclub: underappreciated?

UK chart positions:
Bandwagonesque (1991) #22
Thirteen (1993) #14
Grand Prix (1995) #7
Songs From Northern Britain (1997) #3

teenage fanclub can never be underappreciated enough.

i should probably buy a polvo album. i'd probably like it. i don't own any bitch magnet records either.

And Teenage Fanclub (who Scott is right about, btw -- i.e., they sucked) won a frigging Spin magazine album of the year poll too, didn't they?

I need to hear more Six Finger Satellite one of these days. The stuff I heard was vaguely intriguing.

now playing: Tiamat - Wildhoney (1994)

thanks to the interweb everything always seems appreciated.

haha, exactly scott

it's a shame we don't get more talk about Low's 400 albums on ilm.

write-in vote for thinking fellers union local 282, actual vote for polvo.

oh yeah, I forgot about Redd Kross (and Urge Overkill also).

What was so bad about Gumball in your opinion?

I think Don Fleming is a great songwriter and always has been. It's actually a shame that he wasted so much time in B.A.L.L. mainly doing silly Beatles piss-takes etc. He is also rarely appreciated for being as important a part of Half Japanese as he actually was. (His mom asked me to write this stuff).

Redd Kross are actually one of my favorite bands, just ask anyone who has to put up with me on a regular basis. I have probably forced more people to watch their movies than they have! They of course really have their roots in the 80s which is maybe why I didn't think of them right away. But their 90s output is absolutely great, agreed, no question.

China Drum and Compulsion were the best guitar bands on the 90s.

Ok, maybe not, but in my top 10 for sure.

And Strangelove. What about the Blue Aeroplanes, they use loads of guitars.

I mentioned Talk Talk and Slint merely as stylistc milestones that a certain number of musicians paid keen attention to, even if the masses were unaware of them.

After Bandwagonesque, Teenage Fanclub were largely forgotten in the U.S. They hardly sucked (at least not as bad as STP ;), but it's understandable how they wouldn't appeal to all iLxers.

Metal doesn't really apply here -- especially the pretty extreme sounding stuff that I liked in the 90s. As great as, say, Entombed were, one would ever expect them to be very popular outside of their subculture. And bands like Monster Magnet and Kyuss didn't really seem underappreciated to me.

Yes, nit pickers, I should have said "avoided guitars almost entirely." I saw Stereolab a couple times, there was some use of guitars. But I rarely heard them, as they were overwhelmed by the gloriously distorted keyboards.

Chuck wasn't alone in characterizing the bulk of these bands as "mostly bland and conservative." Sure, I often found the likes of Disco Inferno, DJ Shadow, Cornelius, etc. as more interesting and thrilling at times. But in actually relistening to the guitar bands, I found them pretty diverse sounding, with a lot of great songs that have been unfairly written off overall.

Please do listen to some SFS and Polvo and Bitch Magnet. I forgot about TFUL282 cuz I sold those CDs, crap. I need to hear some Caifanes, and probably revisit Redd Kross even though I've tried to get into them a few times already. Blue Aero are there, but I'm unfamiliar with China Drum, Compulsion, Strangelove.

Redd Kross ...have their roots in the 80s

Not to mention all of their great music

their 90s output is absolutely great, agreed, no question

I would question this, actually. Never really understood why people cared after Neurotica.

entombed were more popular than friggin' red red meat!

er, in response to:

"As great as, say, Entombed were, one would ever expect them to be very popular outside of their subculture."

6fs were great, but not a guitar band!

"Never really understood why people cared after Neurotica."

and after neurotica you could just listen to urge overkill instead. until they sucked.

don't mind me. i'm just bored before work. these little old lady threads kinda agitate me sometimes. i'll leave you guys to it. love you all!

see, I like Phaseshifter and Saturation.

I guess I suck.

OK, Yo La Tengo? "Underappreciated"? This reeks.

I can maybe get behind Walt Mink in the above list, as they theoretically could have become the American Rush (and their lead guy had guitar chops to impress pretty much anyone anywhere). Everyone else seems to have gotten about the level of appreciation they deserved (and I like a lot of these bands).

I can sort of imagine an alternate universe where the Grifters ditched almost everything that made them interesting and became stars, but thankfully that didn't happen. That one Springsteen-sounding track on the Eureka EP kind of points the way to a commercial breakthrough that never materialized.

And Urge Overkill really could probably have made it if they hadn't screwed up.

And aren't Sloan like on Canadian currency or something. I mean, I'm sure there are lots of US hitmakers who are obscure in Sri Lanka.

Nah, Sloan are marginally and perenially popular here but nothing like the Tragically Hip's massive stature. There's only one song of theirs that gets played on the radio and it's from 10 years ago.

I think Red Red Meat's high point is Bunny Gets Paid. What a perfect collision of post-Crazy Horse, indie, lo-fi fuckery, industrial fuzz, and straight up Stones.

Never really understood why people cared after Neurotica.

You've said this on ILM before, I think on the Redd Kross thread. I'm surprised you can't at least understand the love for Phaseshifter and Third Eye - Phaseshifter in particular is a brilliant, hard-driving rock album that's really difficult not to love. Give it another spin one of these days and maybe you'll see. It's not power-pop at all in my book.

Showworld however is disapointing, except for "My Secret Life".

What a bunch of cranky responses! I thought this would get more feedback like, "oh, I haven't thought about them in years, I should dig 'em out." Why are the Americans on this thread working today? Go relax, have a long island iced tea and blow up some cherry bombs. Not necessarily in that order...

I'm trying to think of how I'd redo that list, but just as an example, I think I'd probably put Fastball on it. Got huge temporarily, based on one song, but really faded away and most of their fans probably never appreciated quite how good they were. They were still slogging on a few years ago, with a pretty damn decent album that had no good reason for not being a minor hit.

Anyway, when I think of "criminally underappreciated" I think of bands that should (realistically) have been huge and stayed huge. Not most of the groups listed who (again, realistically) were never going to have mass appeal.

Not working: waiting for the coals to settle down. Also, it *is* kind of rainy.

I might have voted for Boo Radleys, but other than the underrated "Wake Up" album, and possibly "Kingsize", the rest of their output was overrated rather than underrated.

Besides Dodgy and Ocean Colour Scene, Supernaturals, Kula Shaker, Gene and (at least for a while) The Bluetones were also underrated though.

Ok. Voted for Teenage Fanclub, even though their best album ("Songs From Northern Britan) isn't listed.

Same problem about Ride as about Boo Radleys. "Twisterella" was great, the "Going Blank Again" album was generally good, but what they usually did was not.

polvo, but only because royal trux and the jesus lizard are REALLY well-appreciated around here

Swervedriver gets my vote - all their albums are great and I still listen to them a lot. They were definitely underappreciated - they had a real hard time getting their last couple records released in the US, truly criminal!

I might have voted for Urge Overkill if they were on the list - Saturation and Exit The Dragon were both classics and Exit The Dragon definitely qualifies as underappreciated.

Stereolab is my favorite band, and yes, their music has lots of guitar, but I have a hard time thinking of them as a "guitar band". I've never thought of the guitar as the main focus of their music, it just adds another layer to the overall drone. Plus, they are hardly underappreciated.

Yeah, where's UO?

i voted screaming trees. some great bands on that list, but the distance between trees' greatness, and the 'success' they enjoyed, is so poignant they have to be my choice.

Did they eventually get good?

The handful of up-thread mentions, together with the glaring omission, of Archers of Loaf might just make them the winner of this poll. (I mean, is their any better indication of the criminality of their unappreciated-ness than their omission?)

Although one may concede that "Icky Mettle" mightn't have been the Loaf's best album (although a much needed/long overdue remaster might turn a few more heads), few, if any, 1990's bands made guitar interplay more dynamic or more rocking - during the 1990's.

For those that didn't make it past "Icky Mettle" because it sounded like an "uninteresting" hybrid of Superchunk and Pavement (Pavement!?!? I love Pavement, but Pavement!?!?) - I suggest giving both their EP "Vs. The Greatest of All-Time" and second full-length, "Vee Vee" a whirl. Archers of Loaf may just surprise you in just how "good" and consequently, criminally underappreciated, they got (and/or were).

Compulsion's first album was OK. 2nd album was generic rubbish.

China Drum were also pretty generic.

I must respectfully disagree. Both first albums by Compulsion and China Drum were solid pop-punk affairs in the Buzzcocks tradition (China Drum's debut had a great cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights") but their second albums really took a quantum leap in terms of songwriting and balancing the punk attack with great melodies.

I think the bulk of Jazz Butcher's best work was in the 80s.

True, but the 90s started with a gem in _Cult Of The Basement_ while the next 3 proper studio albums all had great stuff on them but it was almost like a different band as his songwriting style moved away from the goofy party style to something more, er, mature.

This is a good thread for getting ideas of things to reexamine.

http://janilanemusic.com/images/front_image6.jpg

just kidding

Another vote for Walt Mink, largely because due to parallel evolution, they got wrongfully tarred with the Smashing-Pumpkins-ripoff brush and never really recovered.

archers got v. good - greatest of all time and vee vee are way excellent and better/more interesting than icky mettle, which i do like as well

not the winner but a case for Swervedriver:

this band might have peaked too early. they did some great things but their first three ep's, with a total of 12 songs, are their best. only the Boo Radleys have a better first three.

Risewas an amazing debut with it helping me to form an opinion, at the time, that 'shoegaze' music was the best music ever.

then came Mezcal Head with everything falling into place perfectly. a tour that was remarkable with only bigger things to come. they were so good that you wondered why the rest of the nation wasn't being exposed. Soundgarden took them on their tour and everything stated falling apart.

Ejector Seat Reservaton was held hostage by Creation Records (who were actually Sony at this time) so Geffen was never able to release it. though fans like to think of this as their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but unlike that great record, this one really does fall flat. it does have some really good songs but compared to anything above it doesn't stack up. also saw this tour, disappointing in Los Angeles with no encore...surreal.

99th Dream was financed by Geffen but they didn't release it because of their merger with a different major label. by far the weakest thing they did but a reunion tour in about seven years might be perfect.

*forgive me Swervedriver fans if i have some of the time-line wrong as it has been a few years.

i voted for six finger satellite.

I went with Unwound, albeit under "Where's the Loaf!?!" protest.

Write-in votes tally:

Archers Of Loaf 4
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 3
Urge Overkill 3
Redd Kross 2
Moose 2
Scrawl 2

I didn't mention the many that received one vote. Some were hard to discern whether it was an actual vote (that it's actually a band they favored above all listed in this poll) or just looking for holes in the list. I'm surprised about Urge Overkill. During their one decent album, they were really popular, on the radio, on MTV, playing large venues. But I always thought they mostly sucked.

I haven't been able to find any Archers albums new or used. Time to go to Amazon I guess.

The new Buffalo Tom album got good reviews, but I'm not feelin it. I liked Birdbrain for its passion and potential, and their truly transcendent show at 7th Street Entry in 1990, but they always seemed to be missing something, so they remained a tier 2 favorite.

i think the absence of Archers of Loaf on the list proves a point

QED. Lock poll.

I haven't been able to find any Archers albums new or used. Time to go to Amazon I guess.

Or Half or eBay or Other Music's newish digital store - there's plenty to of Archers to be had at very reasonable prices.

Btw, just 'cuz four (or now five) people have "wrote-in" Loaf votes doesn't mean they wouldn't have garnered more votes from those that abstained from adding a comment regarding their absence.

(I know, kinda nitpicky...thanks for the tally! I'm curious to see the poll's results [which is my backhanded, complimentary way of saying the idea of this poll was a good one!].)

one very boring vote for catherine wheel here

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Urge Overkill had two decent albums and a great EP. Supersonic Storybook (which I actually pulled out not that long ago) is pretty good, though not as good as Saturation. The Hot Chocolate cover stands up pretty well. Stull is actually their classic, despite Pulp Fiction. Title track, Stitches In My Head and Barclords are all classics.

xpost

dude, Urge suck, okay?

Nope. Are you from Chicago or something.

Urge Overkill underappreciated? WTF?! They were EVERYWHERE for the couple months that Pulp Fiction was around and when Chrissie Hynde, etc. wouldn't shut up about them.

Then Exit The Dragon was released directly to the used bins of record stores nationwide.

I'd be willing to bet that 99% of the people who know the song from Pulp Fiction couldn't identify the name of the band or a single other track by them. Agree that Dragon met the fate it deserved.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

-- ILX System, Saturday, 14 July 2007 23:01 (Yesterday) Link

It's about motherfucking time.

Agree that Dragon met the fate it deserved.

You are wrong. In some ways Exit the Dragon is better than Saturation. Less camp + more hooks = Better in my book. Don't know what you're smoking.

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

Run off between Boo Radleys and Screaming Trees. I vote Screaming Trees.

Other than that, I'm not sure what else this poll tells us. There was just too many choices.

Screaming Trees! Afghan Whigs!

Listening to Dust right now. "Sworn and Broken" is such a fucking good song.

Dust and Sweet Oblivion are 2 of my favourite 90s albums easily.

Oh noes! After all the kvetchin' about leaving out this and that, in the end there were just too. Many. Choices.

Even if I doubled the Archers of Loaf tally they'd only have tied for 4th. I was pleased that at least three people mentioned Walt Mink, a great band I got to see all the time in college, but only one of them actually voted for 'em.

Screaming Trees were great. Does anyone know the story about an album they recorded prior to Dust that never got released due to label bs?

I recently bought Boo Rad's Everything Alright Forever but am not impressed. Downloaded Giant Steps, which is more interesting, but still haven't gotten into it. I'm enjoying Ride and Catherine Wheel more.

the boo fucking radleys? u mad.

turns out a bunch of underappreciated 90s guitar bands are also being underappreciated in this poll - go figure

more like BOOOOOOOOOOO RADLEYS

Other than that, I'm not sure what else this poll tells us
Fuck you, Rock en Espanol!

Back in my own college days of yore I owned (and will have to check the basement/back-up storage if I still own) Boo Radley's Giant Steps; aside from a few tracks, I think it might've been ahead of me at the time (i.e., I remember them being too eclectic, or...). Time for a re-eval?

"turns out a bunch of underappreciated 90s guitar bands are also being underappreciated in this poll - go figure"

It's almost as if the results of the poll are indicating that the underappreciated bands that we appreciate most, are also simultaneously the underappreciated bands that are actually the least underappreciated.....

I must admit that I did expect The Wedding Present to be less underappreciated than they apparently are 'though.

i realized tonight...that Th' Faith Healers were the missing band on this poll.

Yeah, Th' Faith Healers were definitely underappreciated. Anytime I introduce them to someone who has never heard them before, they are an instant hit. Maybe they broke up too early?

Local H are so underappreciated that they weren't even included in this poll.

I should have also mentioned Quicksand.

Why aren't The Rolling Stones in this poll?

I like some of the above bands, but I don't think any of them will be troubling posterity much, tbh.

Just thought I'd mention that I saw Swervedriver Saturday night and it was mostly excellent. They played a few too many later period songs that were a bit sluggish early in the set, but overall it was great. Friends not as familiar with them were duly impressed.

Make a wish on ILM and it comes true! Will have to test this ILM fairy-dust theory on someone else. How about Screaming Blue Messiahs...

Fastnbulbous - it was a great show on Sat! ... AND I will make a wish for Screaming Blue Messiahs too! Has anyone seen the Polvo reunions? I missed the local one here in Chicago ...

The Reader says Polvo July 25 at Subterranean.

played w/ swervedriver last week when they came thru and thought they were super boring. the soundsystem at that place was really great too. ah well

I would've voted for Material Issue (a teenage fave).

(if they were evenoffered as an option)

Along with Chrome, I finally got a copy of Giant Steps. There's some great songs, but not totally sinking in yet. Will listen more.