Welcome back to the Q Albums of the 90s thread. If you weren’t here for 1990-92, this is a thread where we get the chance to review Q’s choices for the top albums from each year between 1990 and 1998 as published in the December 1999 edition of Q.
So, let’s see which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1993 (“The Year Was Still Grungey”):
The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps
Bjork – Debut
Dr. Dre – The Chronic
Pj Harvey – Rid of Me
Natural Born Killers – Music From and Inspired By
Orbital – Orbital (“The Brown Album”)
Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream
Suede – Suede
Paul Weller – Wild Wood
Nirvana – In Utero
What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1993 for you? What’s missing? And of course, how many have you got?
Links to the other threads in the series
1990: The Year of Hope
1991: The Year of Turbulence
1992: The Year was Pissed Off
Link to the scan (beware: contains photo of Bono as Mcphisto).
1993 was the year I moved to Singapore (for two years and still here 30 years later!) and being young, free and single, I had a reasonable disposable income which I recall a lot of which went on CDs…..
That said, I only have four in this years list (Smashing Pumpkins, Suede, Paul Weller and Nirvana). I would have put the Paul Weller as album of the year – its my favourite of his.
The major omissions from the list from my perspective….
Kate Bush / Red Shoes (not her best, but its still Kate Bush)
Jellyfish / Spilt Milk (still one of my favourite and regularly played albums)
Aimee Mann / Whatever (her first solo album. I was a fan of her ‘Til Tuesday stuff)
World Party / Bang (still played regularly)
Honourable mentions also to….
Cocteau Twins / Four Calendar Cafe (not quite as good as Heaven or Las Vegas but still great)
Sheryl Crow / Tuesday Night Music Club (not sure if it was released earlier here in Singapore, but I remember sending to a friend and it was completely unknown to him until a few months later….)
Penguin Cafe Orchestra / Union Cafe
Kirsty MacColl / Titanic Days
Where would you have bought your CDs from in Singapore in 1993 Chris? Tower Records or HMV? Funan?
I’ll be interested to see how many people make a case for The Red Shoes on this thread. I’m not as kindly disposed to it as you are!
My initial place to buy CDs was Chua Joo Huat in Far East Plaza (and sometimes Supreme). I got to know the manager at CJH and he often recommended various albums to me (and supplied me with albums that were ‘officially’ banned / not released – e.g the Prince Hits collection due to the use if “motherf**ker” in the lyrics).
Neither Tower or HMW were in Singapore when I first came – I think Tower opened in later 1993 (and of course became a regular hangout once it opened – I even shook BB Kings hand there at an appearance by him). I recall HMV opened around 1997 and I used to often “pop down for a look” at lunchtimes (it was only 10mins from work).
Agreed. For all my love of Kate, I couldn’t put The Red Shoes in such a list, though I definitely was listening to it that year.
No surprise to see Debut in there. Got three others also – PJ Harvey, Paul Weller and Smashing Pumpkins. I get the presence of the first two, but not sure that Siamese Dream was ever era-defining.
The three albums from that year that I do really still listen to are:
Ali Farka Toure – The Source
Mercury Rev – Boces / Stereopathic (whatever it’s called)
The Verve – Storm in Heaven
I will defend Siamese Dream here. A top 5 all time album for me, still listen to it multiple times a year.
I can readily accept that this is largely a function of age. I was 14 when I heard it for the first time, on a friend’s Discman on holiday somewhere in the wilds of Scotland.
It is, quite simply, one of the most teenage albums ever recorded. Guitars absolutely bloody everywhere, thunderous drumming that felt like it might disintegrate the headphones, two members of the band apparently serving little real purpose other than to look exotic and mysterious, those preposterous yowling vocals, zero subtlety etc.
It was Disarm that first won my heart. The sheer gravitas of those strings (chortle), the glorious opening line, the way it builds to the ultimate teenage complaint (“I used to be a little boy”). It spoke to me on levels I scarcely care to admit to.
But that was just the gateway drug.
The opening 30 seconds of Cherub Rock remain, to my mind, the greatest opening of any album by anyone ever. That military drumroll, the sound of distant rock approaching, that initial fuzzy buzzsaw riff and then, finally, the counter-riff. The whole thing feels like you’ve just crested the peak of the rollercoaster and are heading towards deep thrills.
Today is, obviously, Today. A tune so great that Levis simply could not leave it alone. A tune so great that even a cheap knock off version proved to be a massive hit.
Hummer, for me, is in many ways the first Post-Rock tune I ever heard. As with the rest of the album, it has the Pixies Quiet/Loud/Quiet dynamic going on, but the “Quiet” part of the equation is so heart-rendingly lovely that it doesn’t really belong on a Rock record at all. The “ask yourself a question/anyone but me/I’m free” sequence is just gorgeous – the first of several times on the album where we’re swiftly moved from thrashing Rock mayhem to swooning beauty. Years later when I first heard Mogwai Young Team, my immediate thought was that much of the record was simply Siamese Dream with the excesses toned down, far weaker drumming and the vocals removed.
Geek USA is one of my absolute favourite songs of all time. That out of control 18 wheeler of an opening riff, the way the tune shifts and morphs constantly, the absolute drumming masterclass throughout (Jesus, he was good), and the bit two minutes in where the whole song suddenly goes underwater for a bit, and then kicks back in with those imperious, spiraling guitars before the preposterous finale. It’s the Grunge Marquee Moon and I absolutely fucking love it. It’s only 5 minutes long but there are at least 4 different songs in there, all having a massive ruck.
I can think of very few albums that had the immediate, electrifying impact on me that Siamese Dream did. Fewer still that I have listened to so often with so little diminishment of joy. I love the way so many of the songs sound like you’re on a skate ramp, I love how unrestrained it is, I love the drums, I love how dramatic it is, I love all the excess and commitment to preposterous maximalism, and most of all I love the way it makes no concessions at all to taste, or maturity, or any sort of emotional restraint.
It sounds exactly the way I felt inside at 14, and the way I still do to this day, and I bloody love it for that.
Thanks Bingo. I definitely gave this a go at the time but it didn’t do it for me. I’ll clearly have to give it another go after your review! Top stuff.
Can’t click like on this reply, so please consider this reply a like. It’s a fantastic album.
If you were the barrister defending Siamese Dream in court, I would be cheering you from the viewing gallery at this point.
All that you said is what I love about Siamese Dream. It is great slabs of rock guitar cut through with a sinewy, sweet guitar playing. Hummer is a perfect example, starts quiet, gets loud and then, four and a half minutes in, starts to close out with tender, muted guitar playing. It’s a song started by Throbbing Gristle and closing out with Fleetwood Mac.
Today and Rocket are the kind of fantastic pop songs Corgan can write – see 1979 – but appears to choose not to want to. That three-song run on the album from Today, through Hummer and Rocket is a marvel of sequencing.
Disarm and Soma pace the album well before Geek USA kicks in.
Absolutely agree…Geek USA is the best track on the album. There’s at least five different songs packed in there. Highlights are the three firing-squad cracks by Chamberlin at 3:03-3:05 -lasts all but two seconds but sets up the way the song is heading – the descending riff/drums at 3:30 and, after the feedback, the planet-sized riff that closes out the song at 4:15. Just a great song.
Love the way the album closes out on two quiet songs – Sweet Sweet and Luna – and fades away.
Definitely the best album by Smashing Pumpkins. They’d never reach these heights again and, as much as Corgan was clearly writing almost all the material, the sacking of Chamberlin took away much of the band’s power while James Iha and Darcy seemed to bring a sweetness to the band that was lost as they were increasingly sidelined and whatever influence they had disappeared.
I stuck around for Mellon Collie… – Where Boys/Bodies is a great pairing at the start of Disc Two -but when Corgan started dressing like a Cenobite, I was out. Doesn’t take away from just how great Siamese Dream is.
Soma is my favourite
Agree with every syllable of this comment.
It’s funny you mention the three firing squad cracks on Geek USA, because I wanted to include them in my comment but couldn’t figure out a decent way to describe them (you nailed it). One of those moments where 2 seconds of music elevates a song completely.
Also agree that it’s a brilliantly sequenced record. One of very few that I would never listen to on shuffle.
I agree it’s an unbelievably good album, but I will resequence it so I listen to side 2 (Soma onwards) and then side one. Sorry. Ends then on Disarm which is such a closer. Billy Corgan is probably outside my house right now…
I can’t write like you can so won’t attempt to try, but dear God I could listen to Jimmy Chamberlin’s drums on their own. Absolutely incredible musician.
A total powerhouse. I think what makes the album work is that he and Corgan patently do not belong in the same band, and yet simultaneously do.
My daughter is turning out to be a pretty decent drummer. I’m not really one for foisting music on my kids, largely because I consider it more mutually satisfying to see what they listen to of their own accord and then steal theirs. However, there are precisely two old songs to which I’ve introduced her where she’s demanded an immediate replay so she could listen, open mouthed, to the drums.
One was Feels Like We Only Go Backwards by Tame Impala (the first 15 seconds, over and over again). The other was Geek USA.
Funny year this, as I can rattle off albums from ‘93 I love, but on closer examination most of them came to me in 94 or later (in the case of De La Soul’s Buhloone Mindstate – which I did have in my hands in the record store at the time – much later, urged to a purchase by Poppy Succeeds, formerly of this parish).
Most days, Dusk is my favourite by The The, but I did pick it up in the sales the following year. Giant Steps is the pick of The Boos, but again it took a ‘94 single release to get it in my record bag.
Standouts among those I did buy at the time were Suede (Breakdown is one of those songs I vividly recall hearing for the first time over the speakers in a shop, thus getting me over the hype hump to ownership), Very Pet Shop Boys – a formality, following the previous two corkers and A Horse Of A Different Colour, the debut by Dubliners The Revenants.
So, in 1993, I only owned one album on this list (although the Bjork LP was ubiquitous and you hardly needed to own it to hear it..)
Frank Zappa died in November 1993, and although not Q-friendly, I think the last album he released while alive, The Yellow Shark, is underrated. I also think the last track on the album, the Ensemble Modern’s arrangement of G Spot Tornado, is the best thing he did. They played it on Radio 3 the day after he died!
Agreed – Yellow Shark is seriously underrated.
There can’t be an act that most warrants an Uncut/RC/Mojo Special… all three preferably… the (only) one published in 2010 is already about 50 releases short of what has been subsequently released.
Another reminder – Frank was the subject of Radio 4’s Great Lives last month.
That R4 prog is worth a listen even if you don’t like FZ.
For me, this is where the decade started to get really excellent.
Enter the 36 Chambers – Wu Tang Clan. A record that blew my mind (albeit it didn’t come out until very late in the year).
In my memory, Q magazine was usually way way way off base with what was actually interesting, but the above isn’t a bad list.
Glad to see Siamese Dream is still one of my favourite albums of all time, absolutely love the drumming, the waves of guitar and the yelped vocals.
In Utero is my favourite Nirvana record (beyond the live ones, which is where you really feel the magic). The production is much more raw than Nevermind, the songs more brutal. That “you can’t fire me cos I quit” on Scentless Apprentice is both peak recorded Nirvana and the end of the first chapter of the 90s.
It came out very late in 1992, but I think Rage Against the Machine appeared on The Word in early 93, probably the single most exciting TV music event of my generation. Absolutely stunning. Spent the whole year absolutely blasting that record.
So, what’s missing?
Come on Feel The Lemonheads (brilliant record, still love it)
Doggystyle – Snoop Dog (how is this missing, was enormous)
Get a Grip – Aerosmith (three massive singles which dominated the year)
In on the Kill Taker – Fugazi
Midnight Marauders – Tribe Called Quest
VS – Pearl Jam
Buhloone Mindstate – De La Soul
93 Till Infinity – Souls of Mischief
The Red Shoes – Kate Bush
Houdini – The Melvins
Undertow – Tool
Exit in Guyville – Liz Phair
Janet – Janet Jackson
August and Everything After – Counting Crows (the most Q album of the decade, I’d have thought)
Dubnobasswithmyheadman – Underworld
A Storm in Heaven – The Verve
Strictly 4 – Tupac
Laid – James
An utterly brilliant year when you look at the range and quality of albums that came out. Super exciting music being produced in Hip Hop and Rock, I started to hear my first Drum n Bass records (shout out to Demons by LTJ Bukem), which would be a massive deal to me, and acts were starting to really blend the different genres. Plus! Bjork. Actual Bjork, what an exciting development she was.
I was starting to buy records in earnest, which is one of the reasons it was all so exciting (we all big up those teenage years for our music), but god it really did feel like fresh magic was happening on a weekly basis, and I still listen to so many of these records now. And 1994 was even better…
Dubnobassinmyheadman. Simply superb.
As usual, you’re ahead of the curve. Wu Tang Clan are coming next year.
This gives me the opportunity to point out that there is a sandwich place in Perth, WA called Toastface Grillah.
https://www.toastfacegrillah.com/
Lol at the Grillah – very good.
Q was clearly playing fast and loose with these release dates. It’s surely haram in an end of year playlist to include stuff from the year previous year. Akin to cheating to appear wise after the fact.
Can verify – we walked past it. My request for a photo in front of was denied by potential photographer. I was laughing my ass off.
Suede, Orbital and Harvey were played by me, others were certainly overheard (and incidentally, we really deserve a reissue/remaster of “Rid of Me”). Some additions:
Stereolab– Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements (Apparently, Tim Gane doesn’t rate this album but I still think it’s marvellous. On Yellow vinyl! )
Blur –Modern Life is Rubbish (better than Parklife, IMO)
Saint Etienne–So Tough (The Britpop that never was)
Sabres of Paradise –Sabresonic (Weatherall magic; this was also the year of the non-album Rez, by Underworld)
Plastikman–Sheet One (This was also the year I discovered Steve Reich, Lamonte Young and avant-garde minimalism, and this fitted right in).
And at least two important V/A comps that suggested how “dance” music wouldn’t require albums:
Trance Music Express (Ambient/Trance masterclass that even came in a book: one of the most important compilations of the decade?)
Apollo Compilation (This was the ambient offshoot of R&S records, including Model 500 and David Morley: Dreamy)
I’ve never heard Sabresonic. One of my favourite records of that period was Wilmot, which came out the following year.
I loved the Trance Music Express CD books and the first two in particular are exceptional, some of my favourite non-mixed compilations from the decade. The book though a nice idea in theory was more of a flick-through. Can’t say I read them cover to cover.
Of that top ten, Debut is easily my favourite. It still sounds so fresh and wild today. Natural Born Killers is a stunning soundtrack album. But, whatever happened to The Boo Radleys?
The two albums I played to death were David Bowie – The Buddha Of Suburbia and Terence Trent D’Arby – Symphony Or Damn (Exploring The Tension Inside The Sweetness). Both tremendous return “to form” challenging albums. I also love Nanci Griffith – Other Voices, Other Rooms. She made me feel like a grown up, as did Jeff Buckley on Live At Sin-é.
Some fabulous Jazz in 1993:
Cassandra Wilson – Blue Light ‘Til Dawn
Joshua Redman – Wish
Jan Garbarek Group – Twelve Moons
Plus, Ry Cooder & V.M.Batt – A Meeting By The River, all of which still get regular plays in my house.
Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys brought us real insight to SMiLE, Prince – The Hits/B Sides proved what a superstar he was and The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks was a goddess in action.
That Ry Cooder / Batt album is why these lists are so fun yet futile – more fun than futile to be fair but… this record is so remarkable, so beyond categories, so full of energy and soul that to put it on a list… the music on that album has nothing to do with pop music. I am in awe of it. Impressed, Tigger, that you know what year it was released. Completely timeless.
What I like about threads like this on the AW is that they broaden the palette out beyond the ‘official’ best albums to music that is far more varied and interesting. I like seeing the diversity of what was around each year, and what each AWer rates as their own favourites. which can be revealing and/or surprising. It’s good to be reminded of albums I had forgotten about or to be intrigued to discover afresh something I might have previously written off.
With you on the Bowie and D’Arby albums…both so underrated.
Star by Belly.
I’d been a fan of both Throwing Muses and Breeders from the off, and Tanya’s pop-hooky take on grunge was my fave of the year. They were fantastic live, too. Probably the band I saw most for a couple of years – they seemed to play somewhere local about once a month – and never a bad gig. I’m still a huge fan, 30 years on. I have Japanese promo EPs and everything… Even their RSD double album of B-sides is great.
Absolutely agree…Belly were great. I’ve said before that Throwing Muses were and still are my favourite band and Belly’s (and Tanya Donnelly’s) mix of fairy tales and indie pop were like nectar to me. One of those albums that were so full of joyous pop moments that I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more successful. They looked great, sounded great and there isn’t a bad song on the album. Belly still gets a regular playthrough several times a year, mostly summer as it’s a fizzing pop album.
Yes, Belly were indeed superb. What a great album the first one is, all hooky tunes, interesting tangents and odd tales. The reunion album from a handful of years back is a little gem too.
A great year. My choices:
Jellyfish – Spilt Milk
Cowboy Junkies – Pale Sun, Crescent Moon
Paul Westerberg – 14 Songs
Aimee Mann – Whatever
The Posies – Frosting on the Beater
Grant Lee Buffalo – Fuzzy
World Party – Bang!
Sheryl Crow – Tuesday Night Music Club (good, many better to come)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Greatest Hits (I know a best of doesn’t really count, but it was an amazing gateway drug that led to a very enjoyable, and expensive, TP addiction.)
I played Siamese Dream to death that year, but it hasn’t aged well – though I’ll still air drum to Geek USA…
Bloody hell – Some Fantastic Place by Squeeze this year as well! A very good year.
Cor, yes. Their best, in my book. Sadly the wheels came off again very quickly.
As ever, I seemed to be ploughing my own furrow.
Bargainville (Moxy Fruvous)
Titanic Days (Kirsty McColl)
Thirteen (Teenage Fanclub)
Cowgirl’s Prayer (Emmylou Harris)
Tuesday Night Music Club (Sheryl Crow)
Perfectly Good Guitar (John Hiatt)
August and Everything After (Counting Crows)
Cure for Pain (Morphine)
Thirteen! How could I have forgotten. Thanks, that would be on my list too. And Blur’s best album by far probably gets on, too.
Cure for Pain! Forgot about that one…
Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish.
Preceded by the Popscene single, it sounded like Leisure was a different band.
The two albums that defined 93 for me and I still listen regularly today:
Auteurs – New Wave
Tindersticks – Tindersticks (think it was MM album of the year)
They both seemed to arrive perfectly formed and were ideal for a 20 year old on an anti-grunge trip. Even 30 years later I still listen to any new music of theirs.
Favourite from 93 though has to be Thirteen -Teenage Fanclub. It was much mocked then so I didn’t listen til years later.
The Q list, for me, has 4 solid, lasting classics and six also-rans, most of which are from the rockist canon that was having a fallow year. It also has yawning chasms where several exemplary albums deserve to be.
The solid classics:
Wild Wood. – Weller does Traffic, and damn nearly trumps his inspirations.
Bjork. – emerging from the Sugarcubes’ Icelandic riot & instantly becoming The Quirk Queen.
Boo Radleys. – The joyous proper pop album to top the toppermost of that year.
The Brown album. – Blissed out dub prog dance to fill your head with dopamine.
The missed mentions:
Dubnobasswithmyheadman. – 93’s truest delivery of the spirit of progressive popular music.
August etc. – Sullivan Street, Round Here, Mr. Jones. Choons, such tunes, things to last.
The Cooder/Batt album and the Nanci Griffith that Tiggs mentions.
All four are enduring pleasures here at Foxy Towers.
I am not sure about the Underworld album–my Google search tells me it was a January 1994 release (a weird time for year polls) , or did some of you get earlier copies? “Rez” certainly broke through in 93.
My bad for including it upthread.
I could have sworn it was 93, but that’s probably due to the Rez ubiquity.
There was a lot going on around this time – I think I’ve flagged previously that there’s an 18 month period from late 92 to mid 94 where an ungodly quantity of great music emerged across multiple genres.
To me, that’s where the template for the 90s was largely set – you had Grunge coexisting with the first knockings of Britpop, some of the best Hip Hop albums of all time emerging, Electronic music escaping its early 90s crusty phase and spitting out wild new sounds with the promise of more to come, and acts starting to take influence from a much wider sonic palette. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, I started buying records. Seminal moment for music, that.
I was struggling to remember anything I really loved from 1993, but then I saw Bjork in that list. “Debut” is a great album and I really loved it at the time, although I haven’t listened to it for years. At the time I’d never heard anything else quite like it.
Among the Q list, I bought and enjoyed Paul Weller’s “Wild Wood”. I still think it’s his best solo album. The other 9 records on the list aren’t really my cup of tea.
My two favourite albums of 1993 were both African:
– Ayub Ogada – En Mana Kuoyo (fantastic nyatiti playing and vocals from Kenya)
– Bajourou – Big String Theory (one of the greatest West African acoustic albums of all time, featuring the incomparable Djelimady Tounkara. A scintillating record)
Closely behind them came the album that Tigger mentioned above: A Meeting by the River by Ry Cooder and Vishwan Mohan Bhatt. Great for late night listening.
Also a big thumbs-up for Nanci Griffith’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms” – an object lesson in how to do a covers album well.
I liked Jackson Browne’s “I’m Alive”, too. One of his best five albums.
Neil Hannon made a good first impression, with the Divine Comedy’s “Liberation”.
Altan released my favourite album of theirs, “Island Angel”
I liked Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet’s “The Juliet Letters” more than most people seem to. Hah!
Oh yes – and Keith Jarrett gave us one of his classical outings with “Georg Friedrich Händel: Suites for Keyboard” (ECM).
Altan’s Island Angel is, indeed, their best.
PJ Harvey:Dry is the only one I have any real fondness for from the Q top 10. Looking back, it wasn’t a great year for albums for me. Dance and dub mixes were more my thing in those years
Alongside the Bhatt/Cooder, Ayub Ogada, James: Laid, Cowboy Junkies (meh, but good meh), So Tough (for Hobart Paving – sigh), these would be the 10 I most enjoyed in the year:
System 7 – 777
good, but not as good as the debut
Pete Namlook & Mixmaster Morris – Dreamfish
I used to love these great slabs of trance ambience
Zion Train – Great Sporting Moments in Dub
there was a lot of good dub around at that time, I remember
Us3 – Hand on the Torch
A bit of a precursor to electroswing, a bit of a touch of Jive Bunny, but enjoyable
African Headcharge – In Pursuit of Shashamane Land
Another great dub collective
Dead Can Dance – Into the Labyrinth
Another excellent release from them
One Dove – Morning Dove White
First time I heard them on Peel, I was transfixed – 90s dance meets 80s pop
Barry Adamson – The Negro Inside Me
My gateway drug to Lounge Lizards, Gallon Drunk etc, cool, saturnine and sleazy
Michael Nyman – The Piano
A soundtrack to my life – an instant nostalgia trip when I hear its soaring and swooping sounds
Fluke – Six Wheels on My Wagon
This album makes me giddy and joyful, even now
Actually, not a bad crop, just not up there with other years for me.
Hand On The Torch is another one I instantly identify with 1993 but, given when it came out, I must have been digging in 1994. Next time I play it I’m going to have your “Jive Bunny” remark on my mind..
Like The Gotan Project and St Gemain, they seemed to have found a formula that makes almost too perfect a musical cocktail, such that it comes out almost preformed and slick – perfect for a tv commercial.
I’m looking forward to 1994 – lots and lots of great albums in THAT year!
My 93?
In Utero. Mezcal Head. Trains Boats and Planes (The Frank and Walters).
It was meant to be the last year of Uni, so basically I was head down, taking it seriously*
I was drinking, playing football, and carousing with the then love of my life.
Not much from ’93 in my collection. Wild Wood was listened to a lot, but now it’s just the (still beautiful) title track I listen to. The 1993 album I still listen to most is The Best of Steely Dan: Then And Now which is, as I’m sure all AWers will agree wholeheartedly, the only Dan one needs. Super Black Market Clash was a bit of a misnomer as the non-super Black Market Clash was much more super. I was in California that summer and Deep Forest’s debut seemed to get a lot of play there.
Not much of a musical year for me, but what a year for film! Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park, Groundhog Day, True Romance, Gilbert Grape, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Age of Innocence, The Remains of the Day, Falling Down, A Bronx Tale, In the Name of the Father, plus just a couple of weeks before the start of the year, Unforgiven and The Last of the Mohicans. Like, wow!
We need a movies equivalent for these threads. Brilliant decade for cinema, with fabulous peaks in 94 and 1999.
For 1993, my picks are Jurassic Park (what a moment that must have been for Hollywood), Hard Boiled, Army of Darkness, Menace II Society, and the magnificent True Romance.
93 was also the year of the little seen Emilio Estevez movie Judgement Night. Not an essential moment in celluloid history, by any means, but the soundtrack was an important inflection point in the decade’s musical direction; each track paired a contemporary Hip Hop act with a Rock equivalent (perhaps most eyebrow-raisingly Slayer with Ice T), thereby birthing all sorts of strange new sounds. Quite conceivably the primordial gloop from which Limp Bizkit would eventually emerge.
I was well used to the preposterous amount of swearing in hip hop at this stage but the bit by Onyx at the end of Judgement Night (with Biohazard) still took me by surprise.
Neither Sir Mixalot nor Mudhoney seemed to know what to do with each other, Sonic Youth/Cypress Hill disappointed and Andy Cairns saying, “I’m going to kill yew!” in a Belfast accent uncompensated for what was around him was a jarring moment. I’m from Northern Ireland but I don’t I want Belfast accents in hip hop.
Faith No More & Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.’s Another Body Murdered is probably the best song on the album but, inasmuch as I don’t like them elsewhere, Teenage Fanclub certainly don’t disgrace themselves.
I don’t mind the Living Colour/Run DMC collab. Otherwise, I largely leave the album alone these days.
The one I do go back to is the Spawn soundtrack from 1997 (we’ll get there), which I’m pretty sure was inspired by this, and which contains excellent efforts from Filter/The Crystal Method, Orbital/Kirk Hammett (a glorious run through Satan), The Prodigy/Tom Morello and the absolutely magnificent Atari Teenage Riot/Slayer meeting of minds on No Remorse (I Want To Die).
Think they took the concept and flipped it to Metal acts and EDM people. Works much better (albeit still hit and miss).
Maybe I’m unusual, but films, for me, have no strong association with their year of release, apart from those like Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting which have top hole accompanying soundtrack albums..
You’re right, the Living Colour/Run DMC one is good as well. I think it was the shock of the new that made Judgement Night OST stand out. Like you, I haven’t listened to it in years and only went back to it yesterday to quickly listen to it to pick out what worked and what didn’t.
7 again, keeping the average right at that number (8,6,7,7). I must have been an avid Q reader even though I couldn’t get it every month. I probably still bought the NME which arrived a week late in Zürich, I was probably buying Vox at this time which I could get every month
Probably loved Siamese Dream the most at the time, not so much now. Boo Radleys was great, Weller too. Think I worried for Kurt Cobain after hearing In Utero and doubt I will ever listen to it again. Another good year though, this list may make me revisit some of these albums.
New Order released one of their finest singles (Regret), played one of their finest ever gigs (Reading Festival), and released their – until then – worst album (Republic)
Part of me wishes they’d walked away from that Reading show and never reformed, but 1998’s gig was equally great.
If Paul Wad was here, he’d probably defend the album, but he’s not. He is OK, but Life is distracting him from the AW at the moment.
Republic > Movement
That’s a debate for another day! I can listen to Movement now, so maybe I’ll be able to tolerate Republic in another 12 years.
My way in to Movement was hearing Hooky’s band play those songs..
Re: Paul Wad – that’s good to know – thanks, Steve.
Regret was the very first New Order song I ever heard, and it’s still my favourite.
I was 13 years old at the time, and to me it sounded like someone stupendously old (like, maybe even 30) looking back over their recent mistakes, and arriving at some sort of acceptance.
I pictured bare feet on the wooden floors of a newly rented empty bachelor flat, boxes full of possessions and no energy to unpack them, life suddenly full of new possibilities but no impetus to seize them. Saturday morning and nowhere to go.
I absolutely love that “look at me/I’m not you” line.
Oh, and if they’d not reformed we wouldn’t have 2001’s excellent Crystal, and The Killers probably wouldn’t be called The Killers.
I have everything – I mean everything – they’ve released in some form or other (not all strictly 100% legal) and, yes, they’ve done some good stuff in the 25 years since 1998. But enough to justify the time? To be honest, I’d struggle to come up with a compilation album’s worth of post-1998 tracks.
Whereas I’d struggle to come up with a single compilation album’s worth of pre-1993 non-album tracks – it would be a double album, at the very least.
Regret was a fantastic return to form, but Republic had me sobbing into my pint.
I might have missed it, but no one has mentioned U2 i don’t think. I saw them on the Zooropa tour that year (PJ Harvey supporting) and it was excellent. And Zooropa was a kind of rushed, quick and dirty album but I think it was terrific: better in many ways than Achtung Baby.
Did he do the McPhisto routine when you saw them Arthur?
I have it in my mind that it was that tour that made a lot of long time fans think about not renewing their season tickets, but I may be wrong.
Zooropa tour was pretty amazing actually
Was that when he would phone someone live from the stage? Yes, although I had to google it there as I had no memory who it was he called and whether they picked up, so it can’t have been a memorable one. Ian Lang, apparently, a Scottish Baron? No idea who that it. This was the first of two nights in Glasgow – I see the second night he called John Major!
Yes, it was a very enjoyable concert. All the Zoo stuff had the right kind of buzz and hype about it, but the solid backbone was still all the old killer stadium anthems: Pride, Still Haven’t Found, Sunday Bloody Sunday… I’m as ambivalent about U2 on the whole as the next man, but you can’t deny their power to raise the (proverbial) roof with anthems like that. And at that time they were still in their prime as live performers.
PJ Harvey was really good as well. I was doubtful she could fill a stadium with her sound (at that time still just a three piece, bass drums guitar) but it worked very well.
I now remember (I think) Utah Saints supported as well, but we missed them.
After that I did lose interest in U2 a bit. I think Zooropa was the last album I really enjoyed.
Ian Lang would have been the Scottish Secretary at that time. I recall him as being the only Tory MP in Scotland.
Ah ok. I was back then (and probably continue to be for the most part) quite apolitical, so it would have been over my head!
It’s an all over the place album but tracks have worn well, particularly the title track, the Perfecto remix of Lemon and Stay which should be up there with One as their greatest lighters in the air track.
Just looked up the track listing to remind myself, and I also like Numb, Babyface and The First Time.
I actually really like those inbetween-y, rough and ready albums that seem effortless and thrown together at the peak of a band’s career (usually just before or just after a magnum opus). I love that feeling of a band running on a full tank of gas, with plenty to spare, and just having some fun and downtime. See also:
– Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles
– Exile on Main Street by the Stones
– Obscured by Clouds by PInk Floyd
– Pinups by Bowie
– Airbag/ How Am I Driving? by Radiohead
– No Protection by Massive Attack
– and another U2 one: Rattle and Hum
EDIT – Just thinking, Nirvana’s Unplugged album probably fits this description as well, even though I’m not really a fan.
Airbag/How Am I Driving? isn’t really a rough-and-ready album, just an EP of OK Computer-era b-sides chucked together by the US label, similar to the 1994 My Iron Lung mini-album (Bends-era non-album tracks). Radiohead were a great b-sides band.
I know. I started with a bold statement, then struggled to justify it with actual examples when I started to extrapolate it. (Many here have also been hoisted on this particular petard). No Protection is also not really an album on its own but a remix album.
And Exile… wasn’t really tossed off quickly, it was just shoddily recorded while the band were tax exiles and/or junkies. There was a reason why recording studios didn’t have the same acoustics as the cellar of a French chateau.
Well one can put a negative slant on things or see them as part of a difficult situation that produced a masterpiece. Depending on one’s view of the end result, as is often the case.
Current example would be Taylor Swift tossing our Evermore about six months after Folklore, and the awesome Sault who just casually put out just the five albums on one day six months after Air. Definitely artists at the top of their game with plenty to spare @arthur-cowslip
Seems to me to have been a time of plenty in music. Felt like there was a lot going on. A range of styles by acts all out to show off what they could do. I was happy to partake of it all.
Got these:
Bjork – Debut. It seemed to fit quite naturally into that period I thought. Not shock of the new really. She did that later.
Nirvana – In Utero. Their best I reckon. Some incredible performances. Some pretty catchy tunes like Pennyroyal Tea. Nothing unlistenable to my ears.
Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream. They had a feel for a tune as well. Today obviously. Cherub Rock – a fantastic opening, all guns blazing.
Paul Weller – Wildwood. It impressed at the time but now seems a little plodding and conservative. The standout title track still does it for me though.
Come On Feel The Lemonheads. They had a feel good vibe despite some more melancholy moments. Into My Arms is very agreeable.
Breeders – Last Splash. A more original take on the thrashy guitar rock from the US of that time. It’s sort of sweet and light hearted and then moody and gloomy by turn.
Suede – Suede. They are charismatic and exciting, the guitar is great. Catchy tunes. Pantomime Horse stands out but there are 4 fantastic singles there as well.
New Order – Republic. Regret clearly head and shoulders above the rest which borders on being almost middle of the road. Where they once were at the forefront they were now falling behind.
Teenage Fanclub – Thirteen. Not a good as the one before and the one after but much to like.
Dinosaur Jr. – Where You Been? Great artwork. I remember Start Choppin’ on The Word (channel 4). It was a rather thrilling noise. Out There is a more mellow track, but one of the best.
I guess I was really enjoying guitars at this stage and there were plenty to enjoy.
RE Bjork: I know she became more “shock of the new” as her career progressed, but I definitely remember Debut sounding like nothing I’d heard before. Her voice, for one thing (I only really knew that song Hit from the Sugarcubes), but the production and sound overall was just amazing. I was kind of passingly familiar with dance/dub stuff, but had never heard those kinds of sounds being used in that way.
If the rest of Gold Against the Soul had been as good as the first three tracks on it, that might have been in there too. Loses its way quite a bit after that opening salvo,
Remember listening to Giant Steps on a mate’s recommendation and not getting it. Think I need to give it another go with more grown up ears cos Lazarus, having heard it more since, is magnificent.
Suede I thought I hated at the time but swiftly changed my opinion on actually listening to the album. It’s magnificent – eclipsed in grandeur by Dog Man Star from 1994 (that’s going to be a hell of a thread) but winning out on the more immediate rock sensibilities. Sleeping Pills is absolutely sublime.
Gold Against The Soul – those first 3 tracks set a high bar.
I still prefer it to The Holy Bible though
(there … another sacred cow slaughtered)
La Tristessa Durera is close to being my favourite Manics track, however The Holy Bible is their masterpiece and one of the best albums released in the 90s for me. Follow up was pretty awesome too
The bjork album was huge in the clubs, and one of the early examples of the ‘maxi’ CD single in which there were endless remixes of the same track. The Shamen were on this too but it’s the Big Time Sensuality CD single with the Fluke and Justin Robertson remixes that I remember – setting the tone for the classic remix: a beatless intro with the vocals to enable easy mixing, then the actual tune and vocals taken apart and almost entirely rebuilt into something new.
Republic had endless maxi remixes – this one commonly agreed to be the pick of them @fentonsteve do disagree.
If I have to hear Ruined In A Day, that’s the best one. When I have 13 minutes to spare, I’m quite partial to Andrew Weatherall’s dubby “Sabres Slo ‘n’ Lo” mix of Regret cranked up really loud:
Five from this year – Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins (see above), Dr Dre, Suede and PJ Harvey.
1993 was definitely a year of change. I didn’t mind In Utero but the behind-the-scenes rumours of DGC and Nirvana not wanting to release the original Albini-recorded tracks suggested something unwell in the Nirvana camp. Who knows the truth of it but Heart Shaped Box is one of their best songs.
Suede were a band I fell in love with as soon as I heard them. Loved, loved, loved them from the very beginning. A band whose B-sides were as good as the A-sides and, even after those early singles, had an album full of great songs. I was 21/22 in 1993 but Suede had enough teenage melodrama in them to make me feel like I was 16 again, albeit singing about the kind of sex and drugs that were well out of my reach growing up outside a small village in the middle of Northern Ireland.
I remember hearing Animal Nitrate early one morning after an all-nighter and almost being in tears at how good it was. Same with their appear
But, hand in hand with Modern Life Is Rubbish, 1993 showed something was changing, with British indie making strides again. Both were confident, striding albums that were almost the flip side of one other. Blur being about the daytime British life – work, commuting, love – and Suede being drug abuse, night time taxi rides and seediness.
Loved both The Chronic and Black Sunday at the time but have gone off a little as I’ve gotten older. The Chronic has its moments but it starts badly – always skip the first track – and Dre has always been a terrible rapper, lumpen and leaden-footed. Black Sunday is better but while it overshadows Cypress Hill, their debut is, as the years go by, a much better album.
Otherwise, late in the year, the Wu Tang were coming but didn’t get into them until ’94 really. Was initially disappointed in The The’s Dusk but, unlike Dre, it’s gotten better as the years have passed. Exile In Guyville remains great. Frank Black was ok but Los Angeles was a great track one/side one on the album.
1993 was the year The Velvet Underground toured, wasn’t it. Should have been a huge event and, yet, wasn’t. Bill Hicks also seemed to be everywhere in the indie-adjacent circles I was in at the time.
Boces is the last of the really weird Mercury Rev era. Boys Peel Out is a great summer song.
Huggy Bear burned brightly for a time with a riotous appearance on the Word and got a cover story in the Melody Maker. Saw them in Belfast and had to be asked to move from the bar by the singer, kicking myself as I stepped aside that I was clearly emblematic of very patriarchy they were singing about.
I agree with you on Dre. The Chronic is a really important album and has some fabulous beats on it, but I never listen to it, because he’s horrendous on the mic.
At one point Snoop says, Dre, creep to the mix like a phantom. What we get is more Frankenstein’s monster than phantom.
Back in the early days of hip hop, a criticism was that anyone could do it. Not really singing. Dre is the proof that, no, not everyone can.
Re Velvets – sadly Lou appeared to be in an enormous huff throughout all the shows and determined to dick about with the songs as much as possible.
Well I enjoyed them. something I never thought I would do, go to a Velvet Underground concert. Show I was at I do believe I even saw Lou and John smile at each other …
I bought four of the Q-ten in 1993: Boo Radleys, Bjork, PJ Harvey and Paul Weller – I think they’ve all been binned off subsequently, except for the PJ Harvey.
My own list would include:
Sugar – Beaster
Cracker – Kerosene Hat
Tindersticks – Tindersticks
Zappa – Yellow Shark
Matthew Sweet – Altered Beast
My choice for album of the year hovers between Uncle Frank and Matthew Sweet.
Girlfriend and Altered Beast are two of the best “overlooked” albums of the 90s, IMHO…
Magisterial guitar from Quine & Lloyd…
Beaster is a good shout. Tilted is brilliant – it always feels like it’s going to go flying off the rails but never does. The indie rock version of playing Rainbow Road on Mario Cart, I guess.
Oh and Bob Mould got married the other day – there was a lovely pic doing the rounds on social media with a few I Du jokes.
I have two from the Q list, Suede and Nirvana.
My own list would read like this (in order from favourite to least favourite*):
(*of my top ten, that is, so they’re all favourites!)
Khaled – N’ssi N’ssi
The The – Dusk
De La Soul – Buhlone Mindstate
A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders
Popsicle – Lacquer (Swedish classic)
The Breeders – Last Splash
Kate Bush – The Red Shoes
Emmylou Harris – Cowgirl’s Prayer
Suede – Suede
Nirvana – In Utero
A little bit of everything…
Not a lot of great compilations that year, but at the time the Prince Hits + B-sides comp was listened to a lot, as was Devo’s Hot Potatoes comp.
Just a thought. Another useful list is of course the Mercurys which first got going around now. The second year was this year, won by Suede – fair enough. Nominees:
Apache Indian – No Reservations
The Auteurs – New Wave
Gavin Bryars – Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Dina Carroll – So Close
East 17 – Walthamstow
PJ Harvey – Rid of Me
New Order – Republic
Stereo MCs – Connected
Sting – Ten Summoner’s Tales
Stan Tracey – Portraits Plus
I think Q comes out of the comparison this year pretty well. Sting, Dina Carroll and East 17….timing of the Mercurys means its not exactly a calendar year but pretty much overlaps.
To be fair though, the Q List was compiled in 1999, so it would have been possible to let’s say, curate it, so that acts which were popular at the time but hadn’t aged well were absent.
I did wonder whether these lists where contemporary – kept thinking I didn’t recall this much enthusiasm for (to give but one example) The Chronic from Q back in the day.
If you zoom in on the scan, you can see that they have put “what we said then” and “what we say now” for each album. The WWST for the PJ Harvey suggests they weren’t too enthusiastic about it at the time.
Is that the Gavin Bryars album with the 74-minute version of “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”? I tried listening to that once. Had to bail out after about 20 minutes, as my poor old brain was just completely mangled.
I’m thinking here that if even Duco thought it was a bit out there, then it may not be a catchy toe-tapper.
Is that the version with Tom Waits doing some guest vocals? I have the original, but not that version…worth a listen, Duco?
Walthamstow might raise a wry smile but House of Love is a brilliant single, and Deep is pretty fine too.
Keep on and be strong
Avoid the wrong!
Cos in this life you walk alone through the danger zone
…until you get home
The only one on the list I own is Wild Wood, and it was certainly one of my most listened albums that year. Two others were Counting Crows’ August and Everything After, which I loved, unlike their follow-up Recovering the Satellites, and Crowded House’s Together Alone which I reckon is probabaly their best album.
The MTV Unplugged releases were now coming thick and fast after the massive commercial success Clapton had in 1992. Springsteen and Neil Young came up with releases, but my favourite, and one I played just the other day and which still sounds great, was 10,000 Maniacs.
And although hardly anyone bought it at the time (me included) Dylan’s World Gone Wrong was a really fine record of blues covers that, in retrospect, feels like a harbinger of the magnificent Time Out of Mind which came four years later.
I was going to add The People Tree by (Acid Jazzers) Mother Earth to the 1994 thread, as it was my most-played of ’94, but it was released in September 93. So here it is. Their masterwork.
I agree. People Tree is a wonderful album although I think it would have been ’94 when I really got my teeth into it. Should give it a spin this week.
Pulp’s Intro, even though it is a compilation of three 12″ EPs. The first time I conciously listened to Pulp and I loved it, and saw them live as much as possible for a couple of years.
It’s always albums that are featured. Probably because these are threads about albums but there are singles too, as you might be aware, and these can be overlooked and they don’t always appear on albums.
In 1993 Stereolab released French Disko, it eventually appeared on a compilation in 1995 as well. Not only is it their best song/track it is one of the best of the year, maybe even decade. Crazy talk but true.
Also Babies by Pulp. I bought the CD single but never anything else by them. It’s my favourite Pulp song. I heard other things but they never reached the heights of that single.
Ignore me, wrong thread
As per comments on the ’94 thread, the Babies EP was combined with those of O.U. and Razzmatazz into the fab compilation album Intro – The Gift Recordings. Any Pulp album where Babies wasn’t the best song must be pretty special.
Some days I prefer Intro to any ‘proper’ Pulp album, and Razzmatazz to Babies or to Common People.
I only have one album from the list.
The other 9 I consider to be not very good.
Otherwise I might have more than one.
4th guess:
Paul Weller
Mercury: American Music Club
I was going to add this excellent compilation to Dai’s 1993 NME thread, but he seems to have stopped at 1990.
NME singles of the week 1993:
https://www.discogs.com/master/678430-Various-New-Musical-Express-Singles-Of-The-Week-1993