An Album For Every Year
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Artist:
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Album:
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Track:
So I just ran across this list thing (yes, another fucking list) on The A.V. Club and it sounded pretty cool. It's been floating around the blogosphere for quite some time so I might as well drop in my two cents. All you do is pick a favorite album for each year you've been alive. You can define favorite however you see fit, whether it be your favorite during that year, your favorite looking back, guilty pleasure, whatever.
After spending two days constructing my list, it looks like my most fruitful years were 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2007, with 1996, 1999, and 2003 granting me less options but top notch records creating a rock and a hard place sitch. And I discovered I have a musical dead zone for anything pre-1994 (save early- to mid-century jazz and blues and Motown), so when you see choices like Madonna or Nirvana, just know I was only trying to pick the least offensive album I could find. Though I don't think there are any explicit rules against it, but I am not including EPs, soundtracks, compilations, etc.
Go here , here, and here to check out some bloggers's lists. While normally Wikipedia factoids veer more into wikiality than reality, their lists of music released by year is fairly decent. Better yet is Robert Christgau's site, which included essays, a critics poll, and his own list of the best/most popular music by year. And, of course, allmusic is awesome in its own right.
1983: Violent Femmes - "Violent Femmes"
1984: The Smiths - "The Smiths"
1985: Dead or Alive - "Youthquake"
1986: Madonna - "True Blue"
1987: Michael Jackson - "Bad"
1988: Pixies - "Surfer Rosa"
1989: Eric Clapton - "Journeyman"
1990: Social Distortion - "Social Distortion"
1991: Nirvana - "Nevermind"
1992: Sublime - "40 Oz. To Freedom"
1993: Radiohead - "Pablo Honey"
1994: Nine Inch Nails - "Downard Spiral"
(runners-up: Portishead - "Dummy"; Weezer - "The Blue Album"; TLC - "CrazySexyCool")
1995: No Doubt - "Tragic Kingdom"
(runners up: Jewel - "Pieces Of Me"; Alanis Morissette - "Jagged Little Pill")
1996: Weezer - "Pinkerton"
(runners up: The Wallflowers - "Bringing Down The Horse"; Duncan Sheik - "Duncan Sheik")
1997: Fiona Apple - "Tidal"
(runners up: Death Cab For Cutie - "You Can Play These Songs With Chords"; Portishead - "Portishead"; Erykah Badu - "Baduizm")
1998: Rufus Wainwright - "Rufus Wainwright"
(runners up: Garbage - "Version 2.0"; Lauryn Hill - "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill")
1999: Nine Inch Nails - "The Fragile"
(runners up: Death Cab For Cutie - "Something About Airplanes"; Smog - "Knock Knock"; The White Stripes - "The White Stripes")
2000: The Wallfowers - "Breach"
(runners up: Death Cab For Cutie - "We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes"; Hanson - "This Time Around"; The White Stripes - "De Stilj")
2001: Death Cab For Cutie - "The Photo Album"
(runners up: The White Stripes - "White Blood Cells"; Rufus Wainwright - "Poses"; Pete Yorn - "musicforthemorningafter"; Rilo Kiley - "Take Offs And Landings"; Duncan Sheik - "Phantom Moon"; The Shins - "Oh, Inverted World")
2002: Rilo Kiley - "The Execution Of All Things"
2003: Damien rice - "O"
(runners up: Death Cab For Cutie - "Transatlanticism"; The Postal service - "Give Up")
2004: Sufjan Stevens - "Seven Swans"
(runners up: The Elected - "Me First"; Modest Mouse - "Good News For People Who Love Bad News"; Arcade Fire - "Funeral"; Rilo Kiley - "More Adventurous; My Chemical Romance - "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge"; Le Tigre - "This Island"; Iron & Wine - "Our Endless Numbered Days"; The Dresden Dolls - "The Dresden Dolls")
2005: Death Cab For Cutie - "Plans"
(runners up: Nine Inch Nails - "With Teeth"; Louis XIV - "The Best Little Secrets Are Kept"; The National - "Alligator"; Stars - "Set Yourself On Fire")
2006: The Elected - "Sun, Sun, Sun"
(runner up: My Chemical Romance - "The Black Parade")
2007: The National - "Boxer"
(runners up: Nine Inch Nails - "Year Zero"; Matt Pond PA - "Last Light"; Rufus Wainwright - "Release The Stars"; Modest Mouse - "We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank"; The White Stripes - "Icky Thump")
2008: Death Cab For Cutie - "Narrow Stairs"
Comments (13)
very cool - will look into this one tomorrow - love the post though darlin !!!
I like this list idea. I think I'll give it a go in the next couple of days.
Gotta hand it to you...that's quite a list...you had me at Social Distortion...
Have to admit that it's tough to do one of those lists. It can change every day depending on mood.
:=)
Yeah, this was a fun list to put together. Heath (watchbatteries) posted about it last week.
Here's my list, from that same post:
1969 - The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
1970 - The Stooges - Fun House
1971 - Neu! - Neu!
1972 - Big Star - #1 Record
1973 - The Stooges - Raw Power
1974 - Kraftwerk - Autobahn
1975 - Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
1976 - The Ramones - The Ramones
1977 - Wire - Pink Flag
1978 - Siouxsie and the Banshees - The Scream
1979 - Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
1980 - Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box/Second Edition
1981 - Cabaret Voltaire - Red Mecca
1982 - Killing Joke - Revelations
1983 - New Order - Power Corruption & Lies
1984 - Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward
1985 - The Cure - The Head On The Door
1986 - Sonic Youth - EVOL
1987 - The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
1988 - Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
1989 - The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
1990 - Ride - Nowhere
1991 - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
1992 - Catherine Wheel - Ferment
1993 - Swervedriver - Mezcal Head
1994 - Lush - Split
1995 - Elastica - Elastica
1996 - Ash - 1977
1997 - Primal Scream - Vanishing Point
1998 - Curve - Come Clean
1999 - Death In Vegas - The Contino Sessions
2000 - Radiohead - Kid A
2001 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - BRMC
2002 - Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
2003 - The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love
2004 - The Radio Dept. - Lesser Matters
2005 - Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
2006 - She Wants Revenge - She Wants Revenge
2007 - Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
2008 - Blackstrap - Steal My Horses And Run
hahaha! dale, every once in a while you surprise me with your naughty side. do your elders know about the dark sex monkey lurking in your shadows?
@ time machine - i worked on this over 2 days and you should've seen how many times i kept adding, subtracting, and changing my best ofs. the original list was almost 3 times as long.
How so? Was it SWR, or Elastica, or VU?
And no, only Melissa knows, heheheheheh. :)
you dirty little mormon you!
god, i could make so many velvet underground jokes right now...
And my elders' minds pop faintly when I tell them I like the Pixies, even though they have no idea of their music. What would happen if I mentioned VU? Maybe I should ... ;)
I love the fact that I could now start disagreeing with Dale almost 40 years ago, but I'd have to look it up.
Hey Dale, I agree with your 1973 without looking but...
1975 has to be Born To Run, 1977 has to be The Clash.
Um, Metal Box came out in 79, did the US release delay that long? But they toured in 1980, I just found this on Wiki: "Their appearance at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles was fraught with hostile exchanges between Lydon and the audience." This amuses the hell out of me because I was at that show and this is total bullshit. Johnny had that crowd wrapped around any finger he extended. And I grew up watching wrestling at the Olympic on tv, channel 5 then channel 13, whoa nelly Dick Lane was the announcer and the phone number, memorized from watching weekly way back then, was RI9-5171. It was bizarre as hell to see this totally great band playing in a fucking wrestling arena; as a music geek deluxe I went in total glitter gear cuz I knew that's what this was, and Johnny wore a Bowie-esque trenchcoat.
Oh, I may have drifted, but I think Holden would have approved and that's my real audience, fictional characters. Cheers and snafu all.
This is one of those posts where if I answer it, I'l just make everybody feel old...
don't worry, jox. i already feel old. besides, i'd love to hear your choices for fave album for each of your few years of existence ;)
I finally finished my list. It took a while, but it's on my mog now. Thanks for the inspiration!