The 22nd P&J Albums (and EPs) Poll!

Live Through This.

Between Jeff Buckley, Pavement,Nirvana,Sugar,NIN,Pearl jam,Sebadoh,Portishead,GBV for me. I'll vote later.

Ditto, probably, though I can't remember the last time I was really in the mood for it. Better album than Mellow Gold, no doubt (the only other album I here I know all the way through), but I'm more often in the mood for Beck's slow-pretty-blues numbers.

oops--meant "ditto" to Hole, not Buckley et al.

I wonder why I initially thought this would be one of the decade's better years for albums? It really seems just about average now that I take a closer look at the poll results--not all that better than '93, actually, and possibly even worse. Of course, that's not to say that there weren't more interesting albums released in '94 that simply didn't make the cut for whatever reason--hip-hop, in particular, being woefully underrepresented (Ready to Die, anyone?).

Anyhow, Latin Playboys for me, thanks (with Live Through This and Mellow Gold possibly placing 2nd and 3rd).

Neil Young! I even like the long ones. Though I foresee Hole running off with this thing.

Portishead, Dummy. Though I also love that Mavericks record, with a terrific cover of Springsteen's "All That Heaven Will Allow" and lots more too.

Martinis and Bikinis for me, easily. (My favourite record of the whole goddam decade, possibly.)

Warren G.'s Regulate... G. Funk Era and Stereolab's Mars Audiac Quintet really sound to me like 1994, along with the Madonna singles.

Best VMAs ever that year, Pulp Fiction, MST3K, the Hang Ups' Comin' Through, and Live Through This, but also the year Kurt Cobain and Kristen Pfaff died. When I moved to New Orleans, Ready to Die was everywhere, which fit. I didn't hear Latin Playboys, Illmatic, Bee Thousand, and Dark City Sisters and Flying Jazz Queens until a couple years later... but my vote: Illmatic.

I was also a latecomer to Blur's Parklife.

I voted for Soundgarden and I'd do it again.

No Twice Removed...so Pavement it is...

voted Portishead, Dummy

sorely missing from the poll, all of which make 1994 a lot more tolerable for me:

Nick Cave - Let Love In
Low - I Could Live in Hope
Pulp - His 'n' Hers
Slowdive - Souvlaki

I sort of want to vote for Soul Coughing. I remember listening to Ruby Vroom and Dummy a lot in early 1995 while reading Billy Budd and The Scarlet Letter for 11th-grade English class. I didn't hear Crooked Rain Crooked Rain until late 1995, though that's the album that made me fall in love with Pavement.

Ready to Die deserved to win this in a walk. In it's (unaccountable) absence, it's probably down to CR, CR vs. Bee Thousand vs. Charm of the Highway Strip.

I am a longtime advocate of This Perfect World, but it ain't getting my vote (or anyone's, I'd wager).

*its

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I went with Pavement. At the time I thought it was a weak year, which is the kind of thing you get wrong when you're 19.

'07 me sez Warren G or maybe even Vitalic, but I went with '94 me, who says Bakesale, easy.

Soul Coughing. I think. Maybe Portishead.

This may be the most pivotal year of the nineties, in the same way that 1984 was for the eighties, for better or worse, in that this list represents the decade's excesses and strengths more than the other years.

It might simply be the mathmatical median of the 1990s in the same way that 1984 was for the 1980s.

Voted for Hole.

I like Green Day's' album though it's been years since I had any urge to put it on; like Beck's album in theory (at least way more than all his other albums) though I don't actually own a copy; might like the Mavericks if I ever actually heard it. Maybe Archers of Loaf, too; who knows. Maybe a couple others.

Mostly, though, I really hate this list.

Also, have no idea who Sara Nelson. Have almost no idea who K. McCarty is. (Didn't she cover a Daniel Johnston song once or something?) Still get Grant Lee Buffalo confused with Buffalo Tom.

And don't even get me started on Jeff Buckley.

But oh yeah, the Nirvana acoustic record does have some pretty songs.

Plus, um, how could I miss this one: Pretty good Elastica EP!

Iris DeMent absolutely! But my fave album of the year is still M People: Elegant Slumming. My 1994 self would've went for Latin Playboys. I still love that album. But I wish it were 100% instrumental. The poetry is forced and the voice (David Hidalgo's, right?) never feels at home in the skewed mise-en-scene. DeMent is with me for the long haul. Who has time to cry?

(Long, sad pause) Well, actually, I just listened to the Nirvana probably for the first time in the Aughties. Not a pleasant experience. The more fitting tribute is Gus Van Sant's Last Days which found a way to stare right at Kurt without consuming him. Would that we all learned how to do this while the man was alive. Still, as a consumable object, Unplugged is about as fervid as albums ever get.

Love this year. The apotheosis of alternative which would start plummeting next year with the success of Alanis and Hootie, no?

My problem with Last Days is that it's never as corrosive, witty, and -- very important -- fast-paced as a Nirvana song.

I prefer Alanis and Hootie's big albums to almost everything on this Pazz and Jop list, including Iris, actually (not that that's saying very much.)

Here are some 1994 albums I actually like, fwiw; I'm including Garth and Fab Cadillacs because they're mostly '90s music, Laughner because most of the songs had never previously seen the light of day):

Kix - $how BuSine$$ (CMC)
Peter Laughner and Friends - Take the Guitar Player for a Ride (Tim/Kerr reissue)
Gillette – On The Attack (Zoo/SOS)
Garth Brooks – The Hits (Liberty reissue)
Indochine – Un Jour Dans Notre Vie (BMG France)
Um Pah Pah - Bordell (BMG Spain)
Mano Negra - Casa Babylon (Virgin France)
Santa Sabina - Simbolos (RCA Latin)
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs – Vasos Vacios (Sony Discos reissue)
Cinderella – Still Climbing (Mercury)
Sergio Arau La Venganza De Moctezuma – Mi Frida Sufrida (SDI)
La H. H. Botellita De Jerez – Forjandro Patria (BMG U.S. Latin)
Babylon Dance Band – Four On One (Matador)
Lucky 7 – One Way Track (Deluge)
Lighter Shade Of Brown – Layin’ In The Cut (Mercury)
Cleve Francis – You’ve Got Me Now (Liberty)

Pretty good year for rock in romance languages!

fast-paced as a Nirvana song.

Didn't they do way more slow songs than fast ones??

I went for P5.

Oops, left out this (among other ones, I'm sure):

Shampoo - We Are Shampoo (IRS)

So does anyone remember my favorite lost album of 1994 - Sensation: Burger Habit (550 Music/Epic/One Little Indian)? Kinda like a hetero Pet Shop Boys. Two twenty-something Brit boys have their first real jobs and are trying to decide if that means adult possibility is before them or their adolescent dreams are forever lost. "I could be losing everything," lead boy Johnny Male whines. But he's poised to gain everything too.

The album moves by briskly on light dance beats, foreshortened cimaxes, quick segues, mild acid house sound effects, cheesy horns, whacka-whacka guitar. All very modest and rather matter-of-fact. Not much happens in the verses - people get in and out of taxis, some girl problems. But the choruses are gushy and billowing, probably to help the protagonists out of bed each morning. He listens to Coltrane and writes hate songs. You like Stephen Duffy and work in advertising. Will he be able to maintain this integrity and not sell out like you did?

Unfortunately, the question was answered for Male later in the decade with his new band Republica whose "Ready To Go" is my vote for one of the most characterless singles of the 1990s.

Apparently, Sensation began as Soul Family Sensation who had an album in 1991 called New Wave. I've never heard it. But I should mention that The Auteurs had a 1993 album with the same name which shares the same spirit (thought not sound) of Burger Habit.

So...anyone remember?

does anyone remember my favorite lost album of 1994 - Sensation: Burger Habit

I actually have this (still on my shelf -- just pulled it down), and love it! Best songs, maybe: "Tell Your Parents I Hate Their Guts" and "High On the Grass" (both of which I used to include on mix tapes, back when mix tapes meant homemade cassettes.)

So yeah, another '94 album that's probably better than anything on the Pazz & Jop list.

Oh good! I thought I was the only person on earth who owend this thing. It's in my top five for the year. "High On The Grass" is easily the melodic highppoint. Great cover too.

Some quick notes:

Wow! The ILM Brits REALLY hated M People. They won the "worst Mercury Prize winner" poll a while back. Some vicious tossers, them Brits.

I'm surprised The Magnetic Fields were getting so much love this early on.

I'm equally surprised Sonic Youth's terrific 1994 album was a no-show.

1993 album that I love but didn't hear until 1994 - Army of Lovers: The Gods of Earth and Heaven. Was there a gayer band in the history of recorded popular music? "Passion pour moi! Poison pour toi!"

Gillette – On The Attack (Zoo/SOS)
Garth Brooks – The Hits (Liberty reissue)

Love these too.

My problem with Last Days is that it's never as corrosive, witty, and -- very important -- fast-paced as a Nirvana song.

But that wouldn't be very fitting. It would just make us want to consume him more. Van Sant's camera appropriately looks at Kurt while simultaneously looking away from him. None of which would have been necessary if Kurt studied his New Order records more carefully (and I'm not being flippant here).

Not to derail the thread, but Van Sant's ethos these days is to capture boredom with as little mediation as possible. That's all I'll say.

Gus Van Sant's Last Days which found a way to stare right at Kurt without consuming him. Would that we all learned how to do this while the man was alive.

Oh, gawd, come off it--what, I had something to do with Cobain's death now? (By the way, I absolutely loathed that movie--possibly the most dismal movie I've sat through this decade.)

None of which would have been necessary if Kurt studied his New Order records more carefully (and I'm not being flippant here).

And if Van Sant had listened to New Order records he might have emulated 24 Hour Party People.

Illmatic by a project mile.

Strange - I pretty much loved Last Days and couldn't stand 24 Hour Party People (not that I gave it much of a chance the one time I sat through it). Maybe I'm just obsessed with boredom, though. Alternatively, maybe overtly cliquey Brit hipster scenes turn me off. Still, I can certainly understand how someone could hate Last Days, i.e. it sure ain't for everybody (quite the contrary probably).

Also, fwiw, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star would have probably been my choice for album of the year, had that been an option.

I'm going with Ted Hawkins.

when they do the double-dutch, that's them dancing

Oh, gawd, come off it--what, I had something to do with Cobain's death now? (By the way, I absolutely loathed that movie--possibly the most dismal movie I've sat through this decade.)

To the extent that you've chosen to live in a exchange economy, you did. We all did, Kurt included. HE chose a life in the spotlight and he was probably the four billionth person who should have done so. It's thrilling, maybe even inspiring, to witness Madonna, say, ride the waves of commerce. But part of what made the music of Nirvana (and, by, extension, alternative) such a challenge was precisely this doomed dance between art and commerce, between a desire to be in the spotlight and a fear of being consumed by it. It forced us to examine our own acts of endless consumption.

Foolishly or not, that's probably why I haven't been able to listen to Nirvana much since 1994. And it's definitely why I so adore Last Days. So what would have made a better tribute? A movie with a nice linear narrative that gave his life a perfectly consumable story arc? Why?

This is not to slight 24 Hour Party People (which I dug fine) or narrative film in general. But sometimes, a tight three-act structure (talk about boring and dismal!) is not the most useful way of going about a biopic (or any other kind for that matter).

It forced us to examine our own acts of endless consumption.

I'm not sure who "us" is here, but I promise that it forced me to do no such thing. (Personally, I've examined my own acts of endless consumption more after I've regretted buying Belgian fries with parmesan-peppercorn sauce after too many beers.)

Haven't seen either movie myself, by the way. No real desire to. (And my Netflix queue is long enough already.)

No offense, Kevin, I enjoy your posts in here on various dance musics and such, but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

But part of what made the music of Nirvana (and, by, extension, alternative) such a challenge was precisely this doomed dance between art and commerce, between a desire to be in the spotlight and a fear of being consumed by it. It forced us to examine our own acts of endless consumption.

You know, even though I'm pretty sure I get what you're saying there, Kevin, I'm also fairly certain that there's no simple way of saying it so that it doesn's sound like utter horseshit. I mean, who be us, anyway?

As far as I'm concerned, Kurt was just some sad (albeit immensely talented) kid who did what he felt he had to do at the time--just like any of us regular slobs. And whatever reasons he had for doing what he did were certainly buried with him, I'm sure.

Ok I'll put it all on me. But first, I think we can all agree that Kurt had some serious problems navigating the waters between art and commerce. You can see it with his "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" (or whatever it said) on his t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone. And unquestionably, his failure to navigate these waters was PART of why he offed himself. HE got what he wished for and couldn't handle the sustained attention millions of people were paying him (and yeah, they paid him lost of $ too but clearly that didn't help).

So I stopped paying attention to him after he died. Part of the reason was because I was so embarrassed that one of my main cultural heroes went out that way (and so soon). Part of it was because the records were just too excruciating FOR ME to listen to. But another crucial part was because Kurt's wrestle with these demons of commerce (again, not his only demons) made ME look at MY OWN place in commerce, MY OWN acts of consumption. What does it mean to listen to CDs all day long? What does it mean to speak authoritatively on a artist's life? What does it mean to consume artists and their music so utterly? Where's the outside to it? Is it all just bytes of info that I stockpile away? What does it mean to "understand" something/one? Is this what Lester Bangs, of all people, was getting at when he inserted that "Please don't understand me too quickly" quote in his Metal Box review?

But regardless of whether or not YOU asked these same questions, Kurt obviously couldn't handle the way he was being consumed, the way his I's became we's, to use Eric Weisbard's words. So TO ME, the most appropriate tribute to Kurt would be one that deflected attention away from him. And that's exactly what happens in Last Days. Being essentially an avant-garde film, it works by the principles of what Linda Williams calls "body genres" - those genres which elicit bodily reactions. Her examples are horror (screams, hiding your face, jumping out of your seat), melodrama (tears), and porn (ejaculate, horniness). Similarly, many avant-garde films bring us back to ourselves. We get bored. We shift in our seats. We look at our watches. We become painfully aware of time. We turn away from the screen, look around the space we're in. Sometimes we get mad and maybe even violent (check out Patricia Mellencamp's book Indiscretions for her account of what happened at a screening of Michael Snow's La Région Centrale). Last Days elicits those kinds of reactions.The focus is thus not on the screen/Kurt so much as it is on us. And really, what's there to focus on? And ultimately, what's there to consume?

Now I'd NEVER claim that Last Days somehow exists outside of commerce or acts of consumption. But at the very least, I do think the film, in a way similar to how Elephant works (I love that one even more), is trying not to understand Kurt too quickly. Or too neatly which is part of the reason why Van Sant resists the temptation to do a 24 Hour Party People-style biopic where C follows B follows A in a nice, concise, eminently consumable package.

And right about here I should add that this is not my only mode of receiving films/music. One of the things I love about a Madonna is how she's been able to, um, survive for as long as she has. Her zeitgeist has gone but nowhere near as utterly as, oh, Debbie Gibson's. And part of me hates the kind of indie crybabyism outlined above. I hear that some microindie label owners actually get upset when their releases sell. And it's not just in the indie world that one encounters this ethos. I recall getting very angry learning that Christopher Small rejected Xgau's offer to play some CDs, one of which was The Music in my Head no less, while at Small's home (recounted here). On one level, these people are twits. But on another, they're just trying to find an outside to commerce. A doomed project, to be sure. But it's fueled some of the finest works of art: Jandek's album covers, New Order's oeuvre, Chris Wilcha's devastating The Target Shoots First. And Nirvana.

Fair enough, but I'm wary of the notion that anyone is consumed. You make your own choices.

Illmatic over NIN. I would love to hear that Warren G record, but I always seem to pass over it in the used racks. There's not much I care about here, though.

And unquestionably, his failure to navigate these waters was PART of why he offed himself. HE got what he wished for and couldn't handle the sustained attention millions of people were paying him (and yeah, they paid him lost of $ too but clearly that didn't help).

See, that's the part that I really don't agree with. I mean, there's obviously no way to know what would have happened to Kurt had he never had to face anything even remotely on the level of stardom as he eventually encountered it. Still, we're talking about a person who supposedly bragged about having "suicide genes," right. My guess is that Kurt would have been miserable no matter what. Fame sure didn't help, but I think that it's somewhat weak for anyone to use that as an excuse for not being able to take responsibility for one’s own life and actions.

Otherwise, what Alfred said.

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

"Songs mean a lot, when songs are bought, and so are you"

Well, at least this time a few people said they'd vote for Dummy.

Freedy Johnston: This Perfect World (Elektra) 1

:-) Not me!