Best Wire Record of the Year 1994-2009 Poll

Tortoise

92 was Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life of...
93 was Bjork - Debut

according to rocklist.net

a "!?" list

Maxinquaye > Comicopera >>> A Thousand Leaves

albert ayler's sort of a ringer in there. without him, i'd go for tricky i guess.

It's a weird list of #1s (except for Dummy, Maxinquaye and Burial).

i've only one heard song off of any of those albums!

Broadcast album is really an odd duck for a #1. It's a good record, but it's kind of slight. . . Although I guess you can make that same claim about a couple of these.

xp I am guessing you are pretty young cuz it was very hard to miss Portishead or Tricky when those records came out.

yeah what a weird list

I really like The Books, but that's still my least-favorite Books album

not sure what I'd vote for here

also not my favorite Tortoise, Sonic Youth, or Mouse on Mars records

fuck it, I'll just go with Ayler

Torn between Tricky, Tortoise and The Books. Not my favorite tortoise album either but I do think Lost and Safe is the best thing the Books ever released and it's one of my favorite albums of the past decade.

i probably listen to the Antipop Consortium album more than any of the other records on this list

ok, DEFINITELY

@AlexinSF: I'm 29. the song I'd heard was Portishead. I know of Tricky, but neither album ever made its way into my playlist mostly cuz at the time I was listening to awful shit like The Crow: City of angels soundtrack (which oddly Tricky does appear on!)

can i just

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8oAh6hdIwA#t=0m50s

:50

Yeah its a weird mix, which is why I thought it would be a fun poll. I probably listen to Burial more than any, but need to check out more than a few of the others.

Vespertine's an easy choice here. Bjork's best album.

would love to pick up that ayler box on the cheap one day

Have probably listened to Dummy more than any of these but the Tortoise album was pretty important to my life as a corny indie fuck, and while the Mouse on Mars is my least favourite of their 90s output I was completely obsessed with them when it came out, so, one of them I guess

What Am I? is so awesome!

Think I'll plump for Dummy, one of those records I kind of grew up with but only recently realised how amazing it is. Intro of Strangers man. Whoa.

1994 Portishead - Dummy I really loved this when it came out, but it's hard not to feel like it got overplayed. I def listen to the Live album or Third more these days.
1995 Tricky - Maxinquaye Same problem but this was probably a better record. I don't listen to any other Tricky records though and I do pull this out on occasion.
1996 Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die A good record that felt overrated from the moment it came out.
1998 Sonic Youth - A Thousand Leaves A generic Sonic Youth record.
1999 Mouse On Mars - Niun Niggung I thought this was just okay when it came out. I should probably look for it cheap and give it another chance since I'd probably love it now.
2000 Anti-Pop Consortium - Tragic Epilogue The perfect Wire hip-hop record, I guess. It's overlong, but I still listen to it although I generally pull out the shorter and better Warp EP that followed.
2001 Bjørk - Vespertine I forgot they loved this record so much. It probably is her best, but it still feels kind of like generic Bjørk record.
2002 Sonic Youth - Murray Street Still better generic Bjørk than generic Sonic Youth.
2004 Albert Ayler - Holy Ghost: Rare & Unreleased Recordings So this is obv amazing, but frankly unfair like I don't know Heart of the Congos getting best record 1998 or something.
2006 Burial - Burial A wildly uneven record (same as the follow up). Hard not to feel like something better came out that year and like the Tortoise one that this just overrated.
2008 The Bug - London Zoo This feels like the perfect Wire record for its time. London, dancehall, grime, dubstep, continuum. Again a good record, but I don't listen to it much.
2009 Broadcast & The Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age I may have listened to the "Be Colony" more than any single track on any of these albums--well except for something off Maxinquaye--and this is good EP overall. And I guess given the recent Hauntological bent of the Wire no surprise that they are all over it. Still as I said above it feels kind of slight.

Never heard any of the Wyatt records or the books.

I'm voting Murray Street over Dummy and not really considering Ayler b/c it's weird to compare a box set of unreleased late 60s/early 70s free jazz with what are basically "contemporary" pop albums. I listened through Holy Ghost late last year---it's a hard slog! I think it would take a bunch of listens to really "get" it and I don't have that kind of endurance or fandom. I'll stick with Live in Greenwich Village.

xpost
You should definitely hear Comicopera and Rock Bottom, if not Soft Machine's 2 and 3.

Always a bit perplexed that many people think Burial and Untrue were some of the best records of the decade - Some great songs on both but they start to sound quite homogenic to my ears to stand well as a full album. He always uses the same filtered old rave kick and some samples that sort of sound like wooden blocks and sharpening knives. It's very appealing and he does know how to create raw emotion from the simplest tricks but it gets increasingly predictable as you keep on listening.

tempted by vespertine, which i've found myself returning to over the years far more than i thought i would at the time. "hidden place" is one of her all-time classics imo.

adored dummy and maxinquaye at the time...think portishead's second album is their masterpiece though. london zoo is a strong contender. one day i'll get round to hearing robert wyatt.

i don't dislike burial but there are so many better examples of dubstep that move me so much more

Hey Whiney, I'd say £35 is cheap for the Ayler (it's considerably less than I paid for it at the time!):

http://www.spincds.com/product.asp?id=9017270

man how the hell can they seriously say that robert wyatt made the best record of the year THREE TIMES between 94 and 09? and i LIKE robert wyatt!

I'm voting Robert Wyatt, but not sure which album. I guess it's between Shleep and Comicopera. Also really like Dummy and Burial.

Björk

For me this boils down to Vespertine vs Shleep vs Maxinquaye

Tending towards Shleep at the moment, if only cos I've not totally played it to death.

of these i only own the Ayler and Burial. Going with Ayler. Dislike/don't care about most of the stuff on the list.

I picked Dummy. Not that I play it nowadays. It's just, at the time, this was one of my alltime fave records.

I'm gonna have hella indierap guilt if I'm the only vote for APC

Maxinquaye is my close second tho

It's Ayler for me, no question. Closest runner-up would be Vespertine. I like the Portishead and the Tricky, but prefer the follow-ups in both cases; have never heard the APC though I liked Arrhythmia at the time; was bored surly by Burial; and think London Zoo is the weakest Bug effort - I very much prefer Pressure or the Razor X Productions singles collected on Killing Sound. The rest aren't even worth discussing.

And ESPdisk.com is selling the Ayler box for $59 at present; a week ago they had it on sale for $50, but that window closed.

Voted for "Murray Street," but what an odd list. Plenty of good stuff, but why would most of these be the best thing made all year?

Vespertine it is. Maxinquaye a close 2nd. Burial 3rd.

In the end, I voted Dummy.

Still haven't heard Shleep, Cuckooland, Anti-Pop Consortium, or the Ayler though.

I had it in my head that they used to list an unordered top 50 rather than a clear winner, but I assume I'm rong. Anyway, prob Portishead from that list

It's funny how for the first two years they pick pretty big records, and then do not.

voted murray st, which is far from being a 'generic' SY alb whatever that means, tho of course the ayler box is a beautiful monument and tombstone (and the ayler-cecil taylor-sonny murray session therein has to be some of the most important and exciting 'previously unreleased' music ever)

For sure they most recent lists have been ranked. I assumed the older ones were too since the lists aren't alphabetical. xxpost

can say i really "get" robert wyatt

or the books for that matter.

It's funny how for the first two years they pick pretty big records, and then do not.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, 1 March 2010 15:37 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

See what struck me for pretty much all of it aside from the Ayler box was that their top picks are squarely in that area that encompasses the most populist music press as well as the Wire... like even Antipop and Mouse On Mars would tend to get positive, if not big, reviews in the NME or whoever. (Plus Portishead and Tricky were MM and NME number ones respectively as well)

Always love that one reads the Wire and gets the impression from the reviews and most of the features that the staffers listen solely to white noise or amelodic skronk, but when you check the playlists and end-of-years lists, it's not a million miles from Pitchfork ...

I guess the reviewers all like different amelodic skronk albums but the same popular-conventional ones. (is this where I should write "xpost"? asketh the newbie)

Anyway, I went for A Thousand Leaves, as it's my favourite SY album. I'm not excited by much on the list; I haven't heard the Ayler box though I do have a couple of other albums and played the hell out of the Greenwich Village set one summer, so I expect I would like it.

I voted for Murray Street, which is probably my favorite SY album since, I don't know, Goo. Runner-up would be Shleep.

voted for A Thousand Leaves, it's the album that made Sonic Youth my favorite band (It should probably be noted that I'd only heard Dirty and Experimental Jet Set before this).

Shleep

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I guess the reviewers all like different amelodic skronk albums but the same popular-conventional ones.

Hard to overstate the effect of this phenomenon on... well, All Polls Ever.

I think Yeats wrote a poem about it...

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

Most surprising thing about this poll is how many people voted in it.

Biggest surprises are the lack of Robert Wyatt love (5 combined votes for 4 albums -- really?!!!??!) and the predominance of love for trip-hop, all these years later. Portishead I get, kinda, but hasn't Tricky come and gone... and then gone, and gone, and gone again?

5 votes for 3 albums *

I voted Tricky. He may have come and gone but that's still my favourite record of the 90s.

No Maxinquaye is still great, and the best thing on this list I think. Though I love Robert Wyatt.

I was surprised by how many of the winners were either (a) trip hop and its descendants (let's face it, Burial is basically pirate radio trip hop) or (b) Robert Wyatt.

don't get what's surprising about the love for trip-hop. it was critically fêted at the time, and if anything time has strengthened it - certainly a bunch of widely praised current genres are fairly obvious descendants of it.

hasn't Tricky come and gone... and then gone, and gone, and gone again?

and this has what, precisely, to do w/maxinquaye's quality?

i love robert wyatt too but this list looks a bit much. would have voted murray street i think.

and this has what, precisely, to do w/maxinquaye's quality?

Nothing, other than that I expected the apparent love (read: votes) for his first record would be affected by the mostly middling work he's released since. Look at the Streets in another recent poll, the same thing happened to Original Pirate Material. Maybe that record just needs another 10 years and it'll be back into the ILM canon?

The diff is that The Streets getting worse has turned many things that were great about his first record into liabilities - with Tricky the poor later work doesn't retroactively infect the great early work.

I still love OPM to death but I can see why people take that line.