I was doing some spring cleaning over the weekend and one of the things I came across was Q No. 159, dated December 1999. It has Liam Gallagher on the cover, with the tag “Voice of the ’90s”, which is probably a threadstarter in itself, but I was drawn more to the fact that it claims to have “The 90 Best Albums of the 1990s” listed inside.
I thought that, almost a quarter of a century on, we might want to review what Q thought were the best 10 albums from each year from 1990-98 (there’s no list for 1999). If there’s enough interest we can do a thread for each year over the next couple of weeks or so.
We can start with 1990: “The Year of Hope”
Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual
The La’s – The La’s
George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Sinead O’Connor – I Do not Want What I Have not Got
Pet Shop Boys – Behaviour
Pixies – Bossanova
Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet
Paul Simon – The Rhythm of the Saints
World Party – Goodbye Jumbo
Happy Mondays – Pills ‘n’ Thrills & Bellyaches (Album of the Year)
At first glance, a pretty Afterword-friendly list, with probably only the Sinead O’Connor being the one that may have made the trip to the charity shop.
So, in the best Album of the Year traditions, what do you think? What did they miss? And of course, how many have you got?
I have 8 of those. 90s was my peak CD buying period. Decent year I suppose
I only had 3 of those.
I now have 2.
I consider both to be very good.
Very gnomic. I am going to guess your choices
Paul Simon and World Party, with Sinead O’Connor as the discarded one.
Repeater by Fugazi is the one that immediately jumps out as missing. Great record.
1990 is right before my time though, so can’t speak to what was popular on the ground. Will look forward to future editions of this thread; 1992-94 should see some tough competition.
I only have three: Public Enemy, PSB and Happy Mondays. I have to say that despite the competition, Pills , Thrills & Bellyaches is a perfectly respectable choice for album of the year. It’s a really good album.
I think Kerrang’s Album Of The Year was Faith No More – The Real Thing.
Pills … has had more listens chez Digit in recent years.
Well I’m biased but they’ve got Behaviour by the PSB there which I’d say is their best album and therefore easily one of the best of 1990
I bet there’s very few people who listen to the Mondays album anymore. Although having read Hawkfalls comment above I might dig it out…
Wheres Violator by Depeche Mode?
Jordan the comeback?
And my favourite Fall Album came out this year, although not surprising they didn’t make the Q cut
Fav Fall album? I’m thinking 1990 would have been Extricate? Possibly mine too.
Yes Extricate. Pity Bramah couldn’t have stayed a bit longer, musically sounds great still
And of course, as with anything to do with the early 90s, there’s always a couple that you could have sworn were from the late 80s. I thought the La’s album came out before the Stones Roses one.
and in the other direction I was about to throw my toys out of the pram because Blue Lines wasn’t there. Turns out it was released in April 1991.
Patience, Kid. As you will see in the next installment, your toys are to remain very much in the pram.
ooh, in another check I’ve just seen that it was released in the same month as Peggy Suicide – that’s got to be another shoo-in for the list, right?
Will be for me.
and me. Safesurfer – what a song!
The 1991 list is going to be quit a bit stronger, isn’t it?
Forgot about that one!
Great idea for a series!
Reckon Ritual De Lo Habitual and Fear Of A Black Planet would bother my own top ten. Pixies were a great band, but Bossanova is a long way off their best. Some others I’d throw into the mix, as well as seconding the calls for Violator and Repeater:
Cocteau Twins – Heaven Or Las Vegas
A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels…
Sonic Youth – Goo
Dead Can Dance – Lion
Nick Cave – The Good Son (one of my very favourites of his)
Galaxie 500 – This Is Our Music
Neil Young – Ragged Glory (my absolute favourite of his)
Levellers – A Weapon Called The Word (my absolute favourite of theirs)
Interesting that there aren’t any dance / electronic albums I can think of. In a couple of years that’s going to look very different.
I think The Good Son is his best album. I bought that, as well as Flood mentioned down the thread.
I was thinking that A Tribe Called Quest would be the one that didn’t make the list then but probably would now.
I have The Good Son in my collection, along with Thrills ‘n’ Pills & Bellyaches and The Rhythm of the Saints. All acquired several years after the year of release. In the early ’90s I was more interested in playing around with computers than listening to music. Except for my Frank Zappa obsession, which was just gaining momentum and also loving one of Stan Getz’s last albums before his death, Apasionado.That one hasn’t aged very well. While Stan’s playing was still distinctive and superb, it’s overproduced, as a lot of music was in those times.
Ritual De Lo Habitual is an outstanding album. Perhaps overlooked given the band’s breakup soon after and their
Ritual De Lo Habitual is an outstanding album. Perhaps overlooked given the band’s breakup soon after and it being overshadowed by Nirvana a year later.
Agreed with Bossanova. The placing of it here is akin to the lifetime achievement Oscar. A recognition that work that had more significance was overlooked and so a consolation prize is awarded.
As for Fear…great album but I was always disappointed with its production.
Ritual has one of the most exciting opening tracks of any album I can think of. 0-60 super quick.
Side two in old money, Three Days onwards, is one of the finest half hours of music ever put together
Very different sides to Ritual. First side suggests moments where the band could drift away from funk/rock into psychedelia but its side two where that comes to the fore. It’s meant to be a series of songs in tribute to Xiola Blue but, as ever with Perry Farrell, how much is genuine and how much is invented to suit the narrative at the time…
At the time of my 50th, and cos I is a bloke, I made a list of the best albums for each year of my existence.
1990s was They Might Be Giants – Flood
Also mentioned in dispatches (which maybe only me would shout for):
Quireboys – A Bit Of What You Fancy (stuffed by the production, but still a good album)
Almighty – Blood, Fire & Love
Inspiral Carpets – Life
Carter USM – 101 Damnations
Fish – Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors
Great idea for a thread.
I have 5. The ones from that list that I think really lasted (i.e. I might play them) are Pixies, Public Enemy and Paul Simon.
But missing are some of my favourites
Cocteau’s Heaven or Las Vegas
Lou Reed/John Cale – Songs for Drella (probably my favourite Lou album – Rainy Season for John)
Eno/Cale – Wrong way up
TMBG – Flood
That Petrol Emotion – Chemicrazy
Sonic Youth – Goo
Ride – Smile
Gil Scott-Heron – Tales of (only because that is when I first got to see him)
The Cure – Entreat (possibly my favourite ever live album, though Concert is up there too. Oddly I prefer the Cure live to on record)
The Fall – Extracate
Ragged Glory is not bad either
No takers for Bona Drag then?
Sounds like it was a good year. I was definitely in CD buying mood then. Job, single, upwardly mobile, living in Stockton… ok it wasnt all good.
Did they do singles? The year of Groove is in the Heart…
Goodbye Jumbo was the one I played the crap out of that year, but I’m not convinced it’s dated so well. It sounds a bit goache, trad and tryhard these days, when it was quite refreshing at the time. Much as I love Ragged Glory, that’s also a bit of a deliberately retro crowdpleaser (although I’d have been happy if Crazy Horse made more records like that). So, without giving it too much thought, I’d have to place my vote for Swagger by the Blue Aeroplanes, which I still listen to to this day.
Oh isn’t Swagger just brilliant. I still listen to it too. Rodney Allen was a great addition to the band at that time.
Thirded. Recently reissued by Last Night From Glasgow as 3 sides of a double LP for added wallop (it was a long album for vinyl), with side 4 taken up by the Loved EP & b-sides.
Another vote for Swagger. And Goodbye Jumbo. And I do not want what etc
Nigel Grainge at Ensign Records really did have ears of gold. Those three plus The Waterboys – what a roster. Into Paradise were the only ones not to hit (fairly) big.
More locals! That post-U2 “there must gold in them there Dublin hills” rush yielded quite a list of guitar picking Stars of 7/11.
It’s hard to fault the gambler’s logic employed, though. It does seem to defy sense that Joe and Josie Public, presented with a cornucopia of potential treats, will decide that every single house must have two copies of Be Here Now but no houses whatsoever require a copy of Songs From Northern Britain..
It surprised me to find World Party were not as big as I thought (they were huge in my house). Apparently because the manager insisted on another album (something to do with a connection to Prince) instead of touring the US with Goodbye Jumbo.
Swagger by the Blue Aeroplanes is indeed a brilliant album. So brilliant I have somehow deliberately not listened to any other albums by the band lest it somehow diminish Swagger which still regularly gets played.
Enough time has passed since 1990 to give another Blue Aeroplanes album a go, but which one?
Beatsongs, which was the follow-up, very good but not quite as great. And EP/b-sides/odds’n’sods collection Friendloverplane 2 (Up in a Down World).
The Ensign years were their best years.
I’ll give Beatsongs a go and will delve into the Ensign years, thanks! It’s heartening to see so many on here really rate Swagger. It was an album that a lot of people likely didn’t hear in 1990 but those that did found an all-time favourite.
I’ve just checked and, if you prefer, the 2CD editions of Swagger (2006) & Beatsongs (2013) on Cherry Red contain everything but 4 tracks on Friendloverplane 2.
I disagree with your assessment of the Sinead album… it’s brilliant.
Also up for contention…
Reed & Cale – Songs For Drella
Julee Cruise – Floating
The Sundays – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
Mazzy Star – She Hangs Brightly
Van Morrison – Enlightenment
Prince – Graffiti Bridge (dodgy film, great soundtrack).
Yes, Sinead brilliant album. Shame that was pretty much it for her though
It is a shame because the one after her next (the standards/covers album), Universal Mother, was probably her best, but nobody was listening by then.
Well I like her reggae one and the Irish trad ones. Very much.
Me too, especially the reggae one. There’s quite a bit of reggae on Universal Mother, too, albeit produced by the Bomb The Bass man, not Sly & Robbie.
I’m not sure how many others were listening by then, though.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Mustt Mustt
Cowboy Junkies – The Caution Horses
A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths Of Rhythm
Deeee-Lite – World Clique
Ali Farka Touré – The River
The Sundays – Reading, Writing & Arithmatic
The Soundtrack From Twin Peaks
The one I didn’t take to at the time but love now, John Zorn – Naked City.
The album I listened to the most, Madonna – The Immaculate Collection.
The only one of that top ten I don’t ‘isn’t is World Party. Extricate and Songs For Drella are the most egregious absences. I listen to Fear Of A Black Planet, Behaviour and Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches still. And I think you are being harsh on Sinead. 😄
The height of baggy. So to the Mondays have to add the charlatans Some Friendly and James Gold Mother – both of which with the Mondays got played the hell out of that year. 808 State snuck under the wire as ‘90’ was released in Dec 89
Oh yes for Gold Mother. Though to be fair James probably topped the Q t-shirt of the year chart.
Looking on my iTunes I see my most played (and, coincidentally, favourite) albums from 1990 are The Games Up by Sniff ‘n’ the Tears and the soundtrack to The Hot Spot with Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker and Taj Mahal. Neither gets much attention here on the AW.
The Hot Spot is brilliant. The movie is awful and best forgotten.
I returned home from a round the world trip in the middle of 1990, so there was very little album-purchasing for me. The only album I associate with that year was The Sensual World, which I asked a mate to record for me before coming out to meet me in Thailand. But that came out the previous year.
It took me nearly thirty years to hear my album of the year, but Blowzabella’s Vanilla was unlikely to trouble Q’s list.
To add (now that I find it came out earlier than I expected), I am unusually fond of Mike Oldfield’s Amarok – the last of his albums before he wallowed in new age nonsense and rehashes.
Definitely agree with those who favourably mentioned Sinead, Dead Can Dance: Aion, Cowboy Junkies: The Caution Horses – possibly my favourites of theirs. Also still fond of Ragged Glory and Galaxie 500
Looking at my list for 1990, this would be my top 10 of those not mentioned yet:
The KLF: Chill Out
The Hypnotics: Come Down Heavy
The Grid: Electric Head
Hoodlum Priest: Heart of Darkness
Third Ear Band: Magic Music
A Certain Ratio: MCR
Mouth Music
Bongwater: The Power of Pussy
Sonic Boom: Spectrum
Levellers 5: Springtime
2nd year at uni, there was a lot of music going around the shared student house – I still love all of these.
For me I would add Gold Mother – James, Nowhere – Ride and Reading, Writing and Arithmetic- The Sundays. Goodbye Jumbo is my pick of the ones on the list – anything that has Message In A Box on it is worthy.
Pedant speaks on Ride, one of my very favourite bands and one of the few times I have ever been on the guest list for their big Oxford gig around the time of…. Smile is actually a later compilation of the EPs (which now go for silly money on vinyl). The album was Nowhere. Possibly looking back on all these lists actually the album of the year.
Recall in 1990 being initially disappointed in the Nowhere album by Ride in the wake of the magnificent early EPs, but then soon realised it continued the EPs’ run of top form. Nowhere and the next album Going Blank Again have truly stood the test of time as regular listening pleasures even now.
Tim Buckley: “Dream Letter – Live in London 1968”
Finally released in 1990.
One of the five greatest live albums ever made.
The Complete Robert Johnson was also released in 1990.
(Cross thread pollination)
Regarding the list in the OP: I had none of those. I don’t remember the 90s agreeing with my musical constitution – but a quick check with Google proved me wrong! I had the following in 1990:
The Cramps – Stay Sick!
The Chills – Submarine Bells (one of the best albums, that year or any year)
Cowboy Junkies – The Caution Horses
The Bad Seeds – The Good Son (The Ship Song would be my all-time karaoke choice)
Wire – Manscape
Eno/Cale – Wrong Way Up
John Martyn – The Apprentice
Thin White Rope – Sack Full of Silver
Perhaps predictably, I did The Ship Song at karaoke three weeks ago. It’s absolutely brilliant, even when I’m singing it.
@fitterstoke
Submarine Bells is just ace. Such a tuneful album. I’m gutted they’re finally playing Manchester, when I’ve booked a holiday…grrr
That’s unfortunate timing…but, yes: Submarine Bells is just a perfect album, if such exists.
I think you are onto something there @fitterstoke, it may well be perfect. Certainly not a duff track on it. I’m going to listen to it tonight when I make tea.
Great idea for a thread series and looking forward to going through the decade! My tastes were still a bit out of sync with fashion in 1990, so I won’t have much to comment on until it gets to about ’94.
The only album I bought at the time from that list was Paul Simon, which was a terrific album. Probably his last truly great album.
And prominent by its absence (as I’m sure you will all heartily agree😁) is Amarok by Mike Oldfield. Like Paul Simon, probably also HIS last truly great album.
I don’t remember much else musically from that year. I was too busy discovering 60s and 70s music for the first time. Although I note Tigger flagged the Twin Peaks soundtrack: that was a good one I remember.
1991 might start to get more interesting.
I’ll second World Party – Goodbye Jumbo from the original list and Eno/Cale – Wrong Way Up which I was yet to discover as albums that I still play from that year.
1990 was the year I lived in the ill-fated Grenfell Tower and had no decent stereo so everything was on tape. I remember Van Morrison and the Go-Betweens complilations that came out that year on heavy rotation.
The only one I’d like to add to the list would be Jonathan Goes Country by Jonathan Richman. It’s probably his best produced album and has lots of great tracks on it, some covers, some remakes and some great originals. I’d regard it as one of the best non-compilation albums of his and an ideal introduction to his work.
Re: “Jonathan Goes Country”
“Well her jeans they get like a wet saddle blanket
And her boots are like you’d figure
And her car is full of hay
Horses, humans: if she had to rank it
You’d bet on they that canter
And them that need fly spray”
Brilliant!
Used to play that in a band. Great song.
My number one would of course be Marc Almond’s masterpiece Enchanted, and another great one not yet mentioned is Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression, although I didn’t hear it until a few years later. A Tribe Called Quest should always be on every list ever.
Love Sinéad, and will still buy anything by her, but I’m not a huge fan of “I Do Not Want…”, my favourites came later.
I would absolutely put Morrissey’s Bona Drag on my list, it’s one of his best IMO.
And why not throw in LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out at the tail end of my list as well; it’s uneven but the highs are very high.
I forgot about Enchanted, that might be my favourite from the year.
Couple of votes for Bona Drag, but it’s a compilation really. Most imof the songs are from 1987-89.
1991 is regarded as an annus mirabilis chez nous, so it’s hardly surprising I can’t see beyond Behaviour as being solid gold five star material.
There’s a part of me that’s still not got over Fear Of A Black Planet not being the masterpiece we expected.
I looked up local lads A House’s I Want Too Much on Wiki and the entry, in its entirety goes
“ I Want Too Much sold poorly. A House was dropped from its label.[3]”.
They, like so many others, had a much better 1991..
And yet I Want Too Much is probably the better album. More of the non-singing than was on their debut – some decidedly and hugely out of tune singing, in fact – but they definitely had a better 1991.
The Beloved- Happiness !!!
In 1990 I was in the second year of my vet degree, and spooling up into peak music acquisition, a phase that would last until the early 2000s. My gaze was firmly focused on the 60s and 70s with the 80s still a no-go zone. I have a bunch of these albums but bought very few of them at the time of release.
A few notable ones for me:
– Heaven or Las Vegas – acquired mid 90s
– Ride- Nowhere – again, bought in mid 90s. Nice, but forgettable
– La’s
– Ritual de lo Habitual – One of the few I listened to at the time of release
– Pills ‘n Thrills – Bought at the time. Could never quite see what the fuss was about.
– Black Crows – Shake Your Moneymaker: Heavy rotation at the time
– Eno and Cale – Wrong Way Up – Only purchased this year!
– Robert Johnson – Had it and pretended to listen to it, like everyone else
– Uncle Tupelo -No Depression – Bought in the 2000s
– Vai – Passion and Warfare – Impressive but indulgent. Haven’t listened in years
– Concrete Blond – Bloodletting – Great Album.
– Goodbye Jumbo – Loved it at the time. Need to give another listen
– Living Colour – Time’s Up – Enjoyed at the time, but not heard in decades
And about 50 others that I haven’t really got any memory of.
I feel I need to explain my Sinead comment.
A few years back I started a thread where I asked people to name the records in their collection that they never played any more. Someone (I think it was Jim Cain) posted the comment “I Do Not Play I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got”. Great comment. It just made an impression I guess.
So really, I’m only guilty of extrapolating from one data point to make a broad claim that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. If this were The Times, they’d give me a weekly Opinion column.
In addition to PE, Happy Mondays, The Fall (Extricate), The Sundays (Reading Writing and Arithmetic) and Galaxie 500 (This Is Our Music), I was also listening to (and still like):
The Pale Saints – The Comforts of Madness
Ultra Vivid Scene – Joy (1967-1990) [reissue anyone?]
Jimmy Cauty/KLF – Space
Also on rotation but since parted ways:
New Fast Automatic Daffodils -Pigeonhole
Consolidated – The Myth of Rock
MC 900 Ft. Jesus with DJ Zero – Hell with the Lid Off
Most disappointing: House of Love, Sonic Youth, and The Pixies
Should have listened to: KLF – Chill Out
I’ve got six of those. An important year for me, when I left school and came to London to study, the city I’ve lived in ever since. My additions:
Cowboy Junkies – The Caution Horses
Jellyfish – Bellybutton
The Replacements – All Shook Down
Is it possible to collate results for all these? I think my three for 1990 would have to be Swagger, Goodbye Jumbo, and Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.
So far (on the basis of 1 point per favourable mention):
6 points
Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet
5 points
Happy Mondays – Pills ‘n’ Thrills & Bellyaches
Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual
Sinead O’Connor – I Do not Want What I Have not Got
The Fall – Extricate
The Sundays – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
World Party – Goodbye Jumbo
4 points
A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
Cowboy Junkies – The Caution Horses
Eno/Cale – Wrong way up
The Blue Aeroplanes – Swagger
3 points
Cocteau Twins – Heaven Or Las Vegas
Galaxie 500 – This Is Our Music
James – Gold Mother
Jonathan Richman – Jonathan Goes Country
Lou Reed/John Cale – Songs for Drella
Neil Young – Ragged Glory
Nick Cave – The Good Son
Paul Simon – The Rhythm of the Saints
Pet Shop Boys – Behaviour
Ride – Nowhere
They Might Be Giants – Flood
2 points
Dead Can Dance – Aion
Depeche Mode – Violator
Fugazi – Repeater
Marc Almond – Enchanted
Morrissey – Bona Drag
Pixies – Bossanova
Sonic Youth – Goo
Soundtrack – Twin Peaks
Soundtrack – The Hot Spot
The Cramps – Stay Sick!
The La’s – The La’s
Uncle Tupelo – No Depression
As the AW has done for the past however many years, you’ve failed to mention Sniff ‘n’ the Tears’ 1990 album The Game’s Up. It deserves its one point. At least! More! It’s a great album, really well produced with no duff tracks. It has a little bit of a Dire Straits-y vibe. The lead singer of Sniff ‘n’ the Tears, Paul Roberts is an artist. It’s his painting on the front cover. He used to exhibit and hang around at Nicholas Treadwell’s gallery just outside of Canterbury, where I met him once. Talented chap who never made it big but achieved a degree of success with the song Driver’s Seat (not on The Game’s Up album). It’s long been one of my favourite listens and one of the few albums that I never skip any of the tracks if they come up on my iPod’s shuffle.
Don’t worry, Gary, it’s on the list. When the thread ebbs to a natural conclusion, I will sweep up all the single-mentioned albums (including all of mine – such an outlier) and spew them forth at the bottom of the page.
One glaring omission from the above so far is the second album I ever bought with my own money: Betty Boo’s Boomania. In so many ways, set the scene for much of what was to follow, both in terms of my own tastes and the shape of the wider culture. Seminal.
I will also add a shout for Enlightenment by Van Morrison. Got played a lot in my house in 1990 (albeit not by me), and brings back a lot of happy memories. Nowhere near his best but it’s one I go back to a fair bit.
As I say, I wasn’t really “there” for it (I was 11), but when I look at the various lists above 1990 strikes me as a bit of an in between year. There’s still quite a bit of 80sness happening, but the new decade hasn’t truly yet begun. Plus, everyone was in shell-suits. A liminal period, if ever there were one.
Great call on Betty Boo. Where are you Baby? Is fantastic. I particularly like the fact that she turns up her accent so much that she’s able to rhyme “window” with “handle”.
No one’s mentioned Pod by The Breeders which I like. I liked the Pixies album too but this was more interesting really. Sort of both playful and intense. A pretty good cover of Happiness Is A Warm Gun, a song that suited their style.
Heaven Or Las Vegas I rate as being a Cocteau Twins album where they really were able to come up with great tunes along with the atmosphere and textures.
Ragged Glory seems to not be appreciated in this thread as much as other things that don’t interest me but I feel like he really delivered here. It’s up there with the best of Neil with Crazy Horse, it all gels and the guitars let rip but you can sing along and just have a great time. There’s no softer songs to balance things out this time. It’s just full on.
As @bingo-little says, this feels like the end of the eighties. For me the last year when ‘indie’ was the indie set out in the post-punk template of a decade before, with the indie charts and the endless indie Top 20 compilations. I was at Reading in 1990 and headliners were The Pixies, Cramps and Inspiral Carpets, along with many of the bands featured here on the bill. No dance tent, or anything like that.
Or you could say the 90s had already begun in the late 80s with Pixies, Stone Roses, Sonic Youth, REM becoming more stadium rock with albums like Green. A return to some kind of form among the old guard, the legends, like Neil. Guitars more than synths. It’s a theory, which I’m not promoting especially much.
That is also a good observation – whats happening now is that ‘indie’ bands becoming mainstream rock so I stand by my theory that it’s the end of ‘classic indie’- the process of gentrification of the indie scene was well under way. The Field Mice, Gaye Bykers on Acid and Guana Batz would sadly miss out.
Right, a quick list from me…The La’s “The La’s” Pixies “Bossanova” The Blue Aeroplanes “Swagger” Inspiral Carpets “Life” James “Gold Mother” The Fall “Extricate”. House Of Love “Fontana” (and oh what an album that could have been before it had a lot of the life mixed out of it.) Struggling a bit after that. Bit indiecentric isn’t it? A lot of the pre-Britpop indie type outfits discovered the EP in a bid to look slightly more interesting. Sometimes it even worked.
From the point of view of late 80s indie this was where quite a few bands tried to make some money by getting in remixers and better producers. Most struggled as their early ramshackle appeal just didn’t translate.
Has anyone mentioned “Room to Roam” by the Waterboys, yet?
No?
OK – I will then:
“Room to Roam” by the Waterboys.
It’s great!
(and an honorable mention to “Set” by Youssou N’Dour as well).
Ritual De Lo Habitual would still be my album of that year but, everything else I was buying was, looking back, a classic case of an 18-19 year old indie fan dabbling in hip hop and dance with a toe left dangling in the pop of my teenage years.
So as well as Ritual… my cassette/CD buying included:
Fear of a Black Planet – Public Enemy
Violator – Depeche Mode
AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted – Ice Cube
Behaviour – Pet Shop Boys
Goo – Sonic Youth
Bossanova – Pixies
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic – Sundays
Repeater – Fugazi
Songs for Drella – Lou Reed and John Cale (very much a hangover from a love of VU)
Pod – Breeders
Graffiti Bridge – Prince (not great but Joy in Repetition is good)
Goodbye Jumbo – World Party
Vol. II – A New Decade – Soul II Soul
Happiness – The Beloved
The Comforts Of Madness – Pale Saints
Swagger – The Blue Aeroplanes
Joy 1967-1990 – Ultra Vivid Scene
I Want Too Much – A House
Chemicrazy – That Petrol Emotion
Of those, Swagger, Pod, Goo, Bossanova, Joy 1967-1990 and Repeater would be what I would return to most. But I put Happiness on recently and had a Proustian rush after hearing Hello, The Sun Rising and Your Love Takes Me Higher.
I still don’t understand how That Petrol Emotion were not huge after Chemicrazy as it’s an album stuffed full of pop songs with a fantastic Scott Litt production.
The Caution Horses by The Cowboy Junkies is still their best album.
Albums that I only got into much later in life when I finally saw sense were:
Heaven or Las Vegas – Cocteau Twins
Chill Out – The KLF
Submarine Bells – The Chills
But it’s Electribal Memories by Electribe 101 that remains one of the albums of 1990 that still gets played regularly. Talking With Myself (reissued) was one of the singles of the year. That is a great album with the release of its follow up thirty two years later being a huge surprise.
Argh, how could I forget Chemicrazy? As you say, great songs which all sounded well put together and shiny. Superb singles too and a great remix in Abandon. I do wonder though if they were a bit of a busted flush by 1990. Although their first two albums were excellent, and they could be a great singles band (Genius Move is one of the great lost singles of the late eighties) the one from 1988 “End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues” is a bit patchy and maybe people had just given up on them a bit after that. A shame.
Chemicrazy was fab, but even better live. The production suffered from Scott Litt’s insistence on programming the drums. There’s only one track with real drums on the whole album.
1990 was my first full year of work (I had started in Sept 89 after Uni) and so with the student overdraft paid off and new riches from working, I was buying a lot of CDs.
I have 8 of the ones on the OP (missing the Jane’s Addiction and Public Enemy). Looking at my iTunes library the standouts for 1990 were (many mentioned above)….
Blue Aeroplanes / Swagger
Cocteau Twins / Heaven or Las Vegas
Hindu Love Gods / Hindu Love Gods
James / Gold Mother (I was in Manchester, so this was a compulsory purchase – plus a friend of a friend did the catering for them)
Jellyfish / Bellybutton
Gary Moore / Still Got The Blues
Prefab Sprout / Jordan The Comeback
River City People / Say Something Good
World Party / Goodbye Jumbo
Honourable mentions to the NME complilation “Last Temptation of Elvis” and the Kate Bush box set “This Woman’s Work” (for all the b-sides etc). Someone mentioned “The Sensual World”, but I thought that was 1989……
…and if I had to pick only now album as the best of 1990, it would be “Jordan The Comeback” (with “Bellybutton” a very very close second”)
Quick shout for Lloyd Cole’s first solo album which has loads of Robert Quine on guitar
Isn’t Fear of a Black Planet the best album Public Enemy made? It is in my house
I think it’s generally considered to be their peak, but for me It Takes A Nation Of Millions is the one. So many absolute classics.
Cue Moose to advocate for Y!BRTS. Moose? ……Moose?!!
“Hey, fella – have you seen the Moose?”
“I ain’t seen the Moose!”
“Where’s that confounded Moose?!”
I thought It Takes a Nation of Millions is generally regarded as the peak.
I’m going to complicated things and say that I think they peaked with Rebel Without a Pause, which was released between the first and second albums, even though it ended up on the second.
Of course, “Acts who peaked between albums” is a thread by itself. I would nominate Suede, who I think peaked with the Stay Together EP, between their 1st and 2nd albums.
I’m posting a link to the original article via Imgur below. Microsoft Office Lens permitting, I’ll try to do this for each of the years that we’ll be discussing.
I played Ritual de lo Habitual last night, for the first time in decades. What a great album, and even better than I remember – at the time, part of the ‘fun’ was second-guessing when Jane’s Addiction would self-destruct. I was at the Reading Festival when Perry Farrell (ahem) ‘lost his voice’.
It could do with a modern remaster on a double LP for extra wallop – another long album squeezed onto two sides of vinyl – side B is over 31 minutes long.
31 minutes! God almighty I thought only K-Tel were able to do that.
Side 3 of the Tim Buckley Live album “Dream Letter – Live in London” comes in at an incredible 34 minutes, 29 seconds. You wouldn’t have thought it was possible…
Reading Whores, the book about Jane’s Addiction, it’s clear that they were on the cusp of breaking up all the way through the recording of Ritual. Money, drugs, relationships and publishing were all part of the breakup…every cliche of band breakups is in there.
Having been at the 1990 Reading Festival, I sniggered when the announcement came over the PA that JA had to pull out because Perry had “lost his voice”. Rumours spread of OD in the Ramada hotel.
Jumping foward, I found myself with a backstage pass for 1993’s festival.
I wondered into the backstage bar, and it came as real shock to find the only other customer was (a very clean and healthy) Perry Farrell, with a big grin on his face. “My girl’s just given birth to a daughter. Will you wet the baby’s head with me?” And so, I let Perry buy me a pint.
A few albums that I liked back in 1990 that I don’t think have been mentioned (but haven’t listened to since)-
Cure- Mixed up
Carter USM- 101 Damnations
Love/Hate- Blackout in the red room
PFX- Pernicious nonsense
I remember hearing the Pixies, House of Love and Sonic Youth album and really liking them all, but I hadn’t heard anything else by these bands at the time (I’d have been 15). Most new music in those days came to me via my older brother or my friend’s older brothers/sisters. An album like Ritual de la habitual or Nowhere didn’t cross my path until 1991. I don’t think I listened to the La’s album until 1996.