Hello and welcome to the final post of the Q Albums of the 90s thread! If you weren’t here for 1990-97, 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. As there wasn’t a list for 1999, we’re going to end the decade (or at least this thread) in 1998, which of course is now 25 years ago.
So, let’s have a look at which 10 albums Q thought were the pick of 1998 (“The Year of Mud-Slinging”):
Air – Moon Safari
Catatonia – International Velvet
Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With the Arab Strap
Gomez – Bring it On
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of
Madonna – Ray Of Light
Massive Attack – Mezzanine
Mercury Rev – Deserter’s Songs
The Beta Band – The Three EPs (Album of the Year)
What do you think of the list? Does it represent 1998 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
1993: The Year was Still Grungey
1994: The Year of Transition
1995: The Year of Britpop
1996: The Year of “Britpop”
1997: The Year of Extremes
And the link to the scan:
In my memory, 1999 was the special year, but this top ten is excellent. It’s Madonna’s and Massive Attack’s best albums. Lauren Hill’s is very special and Mercury Rev’s still sounds great today. The Beta Band number one?
Albums I listened to a lot at the time:
Marc Ribot Y Los Cubanos Postizos
Mark Hollis
Tori Amos – From The Choirgirl Hotel
The Handsome Family – Through The Trees
Brad Mehldau – The Art Of The Trio Vol. 3
Eva Cassidy – Songbird
Tricky – Angels With Dirty Faces
Also, a bumper year for archival material:
Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Volume 4: Live 1966 The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert
Miles Davis – The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions
Elvis Presley – Memories: The ’68 Comeback Special
Prince – Crystal Ball
Bruce Springsteen – Tracks
Thelonius Monk – Solo Monk: The Complete Columbia Solo Studio Recordings 1962-68
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Independant Intravenshan: The Island Anthology
And our very own Kid Dynamite released his first LP. 😉
I just had a look at 1999 – that’s a real return to form – easily enough for 10 from me (No Angel from Dido, just for one).
Maybe there can be a post-Q thread…?
Air (not from 1997 as I had thought), Lauryn Hill, Massive Attack and Madonna made my playlists that year. Only Mezzanine is something I still enjoy – didn’t the Lauryn Hill album have lots of breaks between the songs with playground noise? Also, from Tigger’s list, the Eva Cassidy album was unavoidable that year. Maybe I never listened carefully enough, but several of those Q albums I found really dull – Catatonia, Gomez, Belle & Sebastian, even Mercury Rev, and certainly the Beta Band which sounds/ed overhyped and overrated.
Again, only 5 albums from the year for me. Really keeping my finger on the pulse. …not!
Terry Edwards & The Scapegoats – Birth of the Scapegoats
I’d heard Terry Edwards, often as part of Gallon Drunk, on the Peel show, but this CD, which I picked up in Borders in Charing Cross Road was the first proper introduction for me to his music and the sort of jazz punk which I have grown to love (Gallon Drunk, Lounge Lizards, Jim Jones, etc). The Marc Ribot album I can’t claim to have discovered at the time, but now is something I really enjoy in that genre.
Manu Chao – Clandestino
Far more than just Bongo Bong, though that was quite ubiquitous, I really liked the melange of languages and musical styles.
Saint Etienne – Good Humor
Nothing extraordinary or memorable, but an enjoyable album to have on in the background – damning with faint praise.
New Radicals – Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too
This seemed to be everywhere, but when I listened I was surprised how much I liked everything on this album from what seemed to be a Duracell bunny.
Hal Willner – Whoops I’m An Indian
Very uneasy listening – the antithesis of the Saint Etienne album – bought because I love Stay Awake, and I like the idea of it much more than the endurance test of listening to it.
I have a total of 6 – Air, Fatboy Slim, Gomez, Lauryn Hill.. Madonna and Massive Attack. As mentioned above, the Madonna and Massive Attack their best albums. Strangely, I have a complete blind spot with The Beta Band – especially as I have a number of Steve Mason solo albums….
Overall, I would put Moon Safari as the album of the year.
Missing from the list from my perspective…
Mark Hollis / Mark Hollis
Blondie / No Exit (Maria is a cracking single)
Manson / Six (not as good as Grey Lantern, but still a good album)
Natalie Merchant / Ophelia
and an honourable mention to the best Oasis album – The Masterplan.
Wouldn’t entirely agree on Moon Safari being the album of the year but it’s very close. Moon Safari instilled in me a love of all things French and laid-back. The future would also bring Sebastian Tellier (first album 2001) and La Femme (2013) but Moon Safari is the most consistent of any of these. Yes it is – as is mentioned below – all a bit dinner-party but I like to think of it as sophisticated space pop that gets by just as well away from the pineapple, cheese cubes and Mateus Rose as it does with it.
Moon Safari makes the perfect soundtrack to driving a RV through the almost luna landscapes of Death Valley, should you ever find yourself there.
I did with Mrs F on our honeymoon. Breakfast in Vegas, lunch in DV, dinner in Yosemite.
Spent a night in Furnace Creek doing same trip (around this time). Can’t remember if I even had a CD player in the rental car, recall I could only pull in 1 or 2 FM stations.
This series has been an entertaining ride. From that year, I think I enjoyed everything on that list except Gomez: still like the Beta Band (who at that time seemed remarkably promising), Air, and Massive Attack. This was also the year for hearing stuff like Morcheeba’s “The Sea.” Additional Albums:
Third Eye Foundation–You Guys Kill me (Bristol shoegaze turned occult drum n’bass)
Add N to (X)–On the Wires of Our Nerves (Analogue electronica that predates electroclash and has aged well)
God Speed You Black Emperor (Canadian post-rock which seemed important at the time but I can’t say I remember it well now)
Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO (Japanese acid rock –they played Brighton the year after, I think)
Boredoms –Super AE (Japanese hardcore band goes full-on ritual psychedelic)
Boredoms! Love that record.
In Italy, 1998 was very much dominated by Manu Chao’s Clandestino. On the singles front, Would You Go To Bed With Me by Touch and Go was a big hit.
I was in Los Angeles that summer and was rather astounded by how many complete strangers would start chatting to me everywhere I went. Even just stopping at a pedestrian crossing and waiting for the lights to change someone would start up a conversation. One such conversation was in a record shop where a lad persuaded me that I had to buy Perennial Favourites by Squirrel Nut Zippers. It’s not an album I’ve ever really taken to, but there are a couple of tracks I like and the title of one, The Suits Are Picking Up The Bill, is a phrase I’ve often used whenever “straights/proper grown ups” are paying for my dinner. It’s a great tune.
Clandestino was great, although I found it a lot less bonkers than Mano Negra. Which reminds me, Casa Babylon belongs on the 1994 thread.
It was still a big deal in Italy when I arrived in 1999. It really was huge.
I was living in Spain in 1998. Words cannot describe just how big Ricky Martin was in Spain in 1998.
Oddly enough I was persuaded to buy that Squirrel Nut Zippers album by someone I met in a bar in New York the same year. I played the hell out of it for about a week after I got back to London, then never played it again.
I’ll just leave this here:
Good Morning Spider
PS: regarding the Q top 10 – I owned/own none of them.
I had the recalled impression that 90s music was pretty barren for me (obviously not a view shared by many others). This series of threads has reinforced that view – I’ve had to hunt around my collection and the internet to remind me of the odd nuggets that I’ve found and posted (consisting mainly of Sparklehorse and Throwing Muses). Hey-ho – takes all sorts, etc.
A magnifcent album.
For me, rightly or wrongly, Sparklehorse were the number one band of the nineties and everything else came a distant second.
The Beta Band is a deserving best choice – although I didn’t get it until 2 years later or so (admittedly of the back of the High Fidelity film).
Got Catatonia and Fatboy Slim at the time. Of the 10 I also later got Air and Belle & Sebastian.
Any shout for In the Neutral Milk Hotel – Aeroplane Over the Sea
(was it Q that were always banging on about that album?)
My choice would be one that probably doesn’t make the lower reached of the 10:
David Gray – White Ladder
White Ladder was 1999, unless you bought the original iHt release from him directly (out of a suitcase on the edge of the stage at Dingwalls, supporting Maria McKee) like wot I dun.
So it was … my database needs updating (fool that I am).
I my defence, domestic strife and other failings means 1998 to 2001 pales into one. Lot’s going on, most of sh*t …
2 on the Q list – Mercury Rev, Belle & Sebastian.
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel road was released that year and is probably been listened to more than anything else.
Others worthy of mention for me
Ian McNabb – A Party Political Broadcast…
Golden Smog – Weird Tales
Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knoll
Wasn’t Blue Bell Knoll released in 1988?
Yes, it was. I played it a lot in my first year at university (it was released a week before I went), and I left in 1991!
Sorry! I knew I lost 10 years of my life around that time!
I own all of these but only the Belle & Sebastian one is still regularly listened to, although it was not purchased until a few years later as it passed me by at the time. (i’m not one for having my finger on the pulse). All others were bought on or very near release.
I particularly loved the Catatonia one at the time, now & then I listen to Strange Glue but it’s not an album that has aged brilliantly..
Albums that I was also listening to in 98
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue – There was a great BBC doc about the making of this album & as a newly converted Dylan obsessive, I lapped up all of the learnings about Woody Guthrie & still love this album today.
Desireless by Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight was a great song on an otherwise poor album. His second effort was a lot better.
Celebrity Skin by Hole – I will put this one on today I think. It has been a while
Gran Turismo by The Cardigans – Erase/Rewind still holds up today
My Love Is Your Love by Whitney Houston – I shamelessly loved this at the time & used to get laughed at for it. I stand by it, the titular track is fantastic.
Special shout out to a few compilations;
The Best Of by James – The best ‘best of’ there is in my opinion. 18 songs & it’s hit after hit. This was also the first year I saw them live & they were incredible.
The Masterplan by Oasis – Already mentioned above & IMHO, the best Oasis album
The Singles 86-98 by Depeche Mode – The obsession began
Gran Turismo is a wonderful album and one that I still play regularly so good shout there. It’s very much an album that, like Dog Man Star and This Is Hardcore isn’t so much the hangover but the hours when everyone has left the party but the hangover is yet to kick in. It’s a thoroughly miserable album and has the greatest about turn of the three because The Cardigans, if they had moments of misery, wrapped them up in such gleaming pop tunes that the sentiment was lost. On Gran Turismo, it’s all there. Its sound has hardly aged at all.
Also a good shout for the Depeche Mode album(s). The Singles 81-85 was reissued this year alongside The Singles 86-98 and the two played in sequence told a fascinating story. I’m not sure there’s any other best-of(s) that do such a good job of explaining a band simply by putting the songs in chronological order. Much as I love that album The Very Best of Baccara doesn’t have the same impact as The Singles 81-85 and 86-98.
Your description above has prompted me to seek out Gran Turismo…
3 or 4 only. Not sure if I have Mezzanine or not. Otherwise Madonna (one of her best), Air (love it), Gomez (hmmm interesting).Otherwise Mermaid Avenue was the start of a long love affair with Wilco who I hadn’t heard of before I bought the album.
Oops I have Mercury Rev too, guess it didn’t make too much of an impression on me
Air DEFINITELY still holds up. It still sounds very special and quite unlike anything else. I was looking for background music for a dinner party at Chez Cowslip just the other week and this was the perfect choice. I play it quite often and it hasn’t dated.
The Beta Band is a funny one: I don’t think of it as an “album” at all because it was just a collection of their EPs up to that point. It’s great though, although I think as a band they burned brightly and never regained these heights again. I also think their true strength was in their live performances and not their recorded output.
Fatboy Slim – I forgot about him. When was his debut album, Better Living Through Chemistry? Was that 1997? I must have missed that. I think that was better than You’ve Come A Long Way Baby.
The Dylan Albert Hall 1966 album was a big one for me that year, a fantastic release.
Another album I loved that year was Psyence Fiction by UNKLE – anyone else know that one? It was a bit of a strange one as it was DJ Shadow’s main follow up after the mighty Endtroducing (even though it was done under the “UNKLE” banner and had loads of collaborators). My expectations were very high and it ALMOST met them. I would say it was 50/50; some fantastic tracks, some not so great. I don’t think DJ Shadow has reached the same heights since, although I kind of respect the fact he deliberately has done other things and never really tried to revisit the Endtroducing/trip-hop vibe that brought him acclaim in the first place.
That’s more like it! After a fallow 1997 I have most of these, can imagine enjoying the rest and still regularly play Mezzanine and Moon Safari. I’ll join others in adding Mermaid Avenue to my recommendations. And The Bones of All Men is wonderful record, though it is based on the playing of Phil Picket, since disgraced and imprisoned for serious sexual crimes.
Mezzanine, Moon Safari plus Deserters’ Songs were purchased and all have proved to be worth getting. There was this idea of music that had a certain mellow, chilled feel, even when containing a degree of paranoia and angst. It seems to have proven very successful and appealing. Something that wasn’t too shouty or lively. A welcome break from the likes of grunge and britpop who were now history. Perhaps. Teardrop sounds today even more impressive then it did then. A stunning track. Such a slow burning power, an aural orgasm. The Air album lent itself to dinner parties even if La Femme D’Argent has a certain porno vibe, but ideal if we are all going to put our keys in a bowl and mix it up a bit later on? Deserters’ Songs is a great listen. Particularly Goddess On A Highway. I think the follow up All Is Dream is even better. Bit more guitar driven. Less wibbly sounding.
I have the Catatonia too. It is a likeable, engaging collection of tunes. Better than most Oasis at least. Speaking of which, The Masterplan. Got that too. At the time it seemed like Acquiesce was a revelation. It’s one of their better efforts but like much of this era’s music, no longer quite so thrilling as it seemed. The hyped-up mood and transient perspective of the time having dissipated. In fact much of this collection seems plodding and unremarkable in the same way as the Weller records of then, along with some pretty clunking lyrics of Noel. Fade Away I have time for though.
REM Up. I hopped off at this point, more or less. The grit is gone.
Ian Brown’s album I enjoyed. The opening track My Star is decent. He had quite an interesting solo career for a while. A bit more in the realm of dance music.
Beastie Boys single Intergalactic stands out too.
For me, Hello Nasty is the one I have that I think should be there. I think it’s their best album. Paul’s Boutique and Ill Communication tend to be more loved these days, but I think HN is better. Brilliant cover too.
Addendum: All Saints, Morcheeba, Drugstore – El Presidente feat. Thom Yorke.
Have 5 of these. I still like Mezzanine, occasionally listen to the Beta Band and am glad to have been reminded of Air which is a good sign so will dig it out and give it a first listen in 20 years or so.
Pulp’s This is Hardcore was my album of the year at the time. Listened a lot. Less so now though I think A Little Soul is their best song and is on many a playlist of mine.
Album of the year now would be Mark Hollis though I didn’t hear it until years later.
Overall these threads have confirmed that for me the 90s were the decade of ‘I liked it at the time.’
I have only one from that list, ‘Deserter’s Songs’ – Mercury Rev. I have several more albums from 1998.
I brought seven of those albums at the time (Air, Massive, Gomez, Beta Band, Mercury Rev, Fatboy, B&S) along with a few others- 98 was a big year for music. Gomez was probably the big one that summer and I remember playing it pretty much all of the time. I think that the Mercury Rev album came out in October and I was really surprised by how good it was, assuming that they were a spent force after ‘see you on the other side.’ We took a trip down to Aberdeen to see them on that tour (in April ’99 I think) and they were somewhat blown away by the Flaming Lips who were supporting them.
It was my first year at university, so I spent most of my time noodling away to these-
Arab Strap- Philophobia
Lo-Fidelity Allstars- How to operate with a blown mind
Beastie Boys- Hello Nasty
UNKLE- Psyence Fiction
Spiritualized- Royal Albert Hall
David Holmes- Essential Mix
Scott 4- Recorded in state LP
Unsurprisingly I couldn’t find anyone at uni who shared my taste (or lack of) in music and so had to hang around with people who thought a varied taste in music was liking Oasis AND Robbie Williams (maybe that’s no less varied than my taste was at the time, dunno). I was grateful in my Christmas break to get to see Massive Attack on their Mezzanine album (with David Holmes DJ-ing).
David Holmes Essential Mix is a great shout, as is Lo Fidelity All Stars – I wonder what happened to them.
No 1999?!!! Worra swizz!!!!
Actually, I’m pretty sure my two favourite ‘98 records – Elliott Smith’s XO and The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill – were bought after the turn of the year.
I didn’t buy anything else from the Q list, but most of them were in the house. Air gave me a headache and made me think of prog (their next album even more so), the Belle and Sebastian had its moments and I bought Tigermilk when it became available to regular plebs subsequently.
I will also defend The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize (just me? Thought so) and Mutations is my favourite Beck.
One other thing: when the Manics got to number one with If You Tolerate This.. it still seemed to matter. When did I stop caring about number one? I mean it’s nice that Crazy by Gnarls Barkley was number one, but even before then (quick google: 2006) I’d already ceased to care what was at the top spot..
Kingsize has got some pretty good songs on it, but I remember feeling a bit let down by it at the time. In my head it came out on the same day as the Mercury Rev album, so maybe I got a bit side tracked.
Mutations is my favourite Beck too – in fact it’s the only album of his I’ve ever listened to more than once.
Can I applauded the formatting which has given us Baby Belle and Sebastian.
They sound a bit cheesy
Not a bad list. I would, however, find room for Eels’ Electro-shock Blues
Full house there for me. Probably listened to the Belle album significantly less than most of the others, and Lucinda’s unlisted Car Wheels have since been spun far more times than any of the rest.
Here are their 1999 choices:
Album of the Year:
The Chemical Brothers – Surrender
The Rest In Alphabetical Order…
• Basement Jaxx – Remedy
• Beck – Midnight Vultures
• Ben & Jerry – Emoticons
• The Beta Band – The Beta Band
• The Black Crows – By Your Side
• Mary J Blige – Mary
• Blur – 13
• David Bowie – …Hours
• Catatonia – Equally Cursed And Blessed
• The Charlatans – Us And Us Only
• Death In Vegas – The Contino Sessions
• Missy Elliott – Da Real World
• Eminem – The Slim Shady Lp
• The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
• Gomez – Liqued Skin
• Macy Gray – On How Life Is
• Groove Armada – Vertigo
• James – Millionaires
• Jamiroquai – Synkronized
• Lightning Seeds – Tilt
• Shelby Lynne – I Am Shelby Lynne
• Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate – Kulanjan
• Moby – Play
• New Radicals – Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too
• Orbital – The Middle Of Nowhere
• Pavement – Terror Twilight
• Pet Shop Boys – Nightlife
• Re Hot Chilli Peppers – Californication
• Linda Ronstat & Emmylou Harris – Western Wall/The Tucson Sessions
• The Roots – Things Fall Apart
• Kate Rusby – Sleepless
• Scritti Politti – Anomie & Bonhomie
• Shack – Hms Fable
• Stereophonics – Performance & Cocktails
• Sting – Brand New Day
• Suede – Head Music
• Supergrass – Supergrass
• Texas – The Hush
• TLC – Fanmail
• Travis – The Man Who
• Tom Waits – Mule Variations
• Wilco – Summerteeth
• Casandra Wilson – Travelling Miles
• Witness – Before The Calm
Re Issues..
• Air – Premiers Symptoms
• The Clash – From Here To Eternity
• Dean Martin – The Very Best Of.. The Capitol Years/Reprise Years
• Bruce Springsteen – Tracks
• Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense
There is one massive omission from a very Afterword-friendly band in there, which does surprise me. But I’ll hold my breath to see whether we end up with a 1999 thread.
Y’know if you hold your breath long enough, you can achieve a state called ecstasy (XTC)..
A great shame that this series is drawing to a close. It’s been a fun trip down memory lane – I vote we do 1999 just for the sake of including all that Nu Metal.
1998 might well have been a peak music listening year for me. First year of uni, heading into second, not many lectures and none of the grades really counted. Knew I needed to get a job over the Summer and anticipated several long weeks toiling in the local B&Q or similar, but lucked into a fantastic, and at the time very novel, role at a dotcom, which required me to summarise reams of Hansard for corporate clients. Discovered the work could be done quickly and remotely, so carried it on into term time. Consequently, I was (in student terms) minted that year, and could buy all the records, books and video games I wanted. Time and money – rare combination.
As a consequence of the above, my listening began to wander further afield. The period from 94-97 had been a rolling circus of new sounds and sensations, and I wanted and expected to continue in a similar vein. Unfortunately, 1998 was a little more conservative a year (as evidenced by the Q list), so I had to work a bit harder to find new things. It was also the last year before Napster, the last year in which I bought all my music physically, so it was most certainly the year I spent most time in record shops.
Of the Q list:
Lauryn Hill remains an absolutely classic record. She was 21 when she recorded it, and such a preposterous talent.
Gomez I considered a hugely disappointing Mercury winner after Roni Size. Seemed so backwards looking and dull.
Air – it’s interesting that a few people above have already mentioned dinner parties, because that’s my prejudice against this album. It all felt a bit tasteful and bloodless – musical wallpaper.
The Madonna record is good, but it sounds dated now (all that William Orbit production – so 1998), and I never got the thing where it was finally OK to like her. Her 80s records were levels above this.
Mercury Rev and the Beta Band I still very much enjoy. The rest weren’t massively on the radar – the Fatboy Slim album is great, but I think his On The Floor At The Social mix album came out around the same time, and that’s where my attention went.
The year felt like it had fewer massive monolithic records than previous, but there was still lots of good stuff to be heard in the margins.
It was a comparatively quiet year for Hip Hop and EDM, which was a bit of a disappointment after what had gone before. Mos Def and Talib Kweli released the magnificent Blackstar, Outkast dropped Aquemini, and I thought the Killah Priest album was greatly underrated, but it says it all that two of my favourite records of the year in that genre were the Jurassic 5 record (Concrete Schoolyard is a banger, but they were really a retro thrill), and Public Enemy’s He Got Game soundtrack. He Got Game was a huge deal to me – still my favourite Spike Lee movie, still my favourite Denzel performance, and that album was one of the sounds of the Summer. I keep meaning to write something about that movie, and particularly this beautiful scene. The Jesus of the playgrounds – I like that.
Fortunately, someone managed to lay hands on some early versions of the tracks that eventually became Roots Manuva’s Brand New Second Hand. That was a 99 release, but we spent a lot of Summer 98 with Movements, Juggle Tings Proper and Strange Behaviour. I had never heard anything like it – music just as inventive and vibrant as the stuff coming out of the states, but still profoundly of these Isles. Quite possibly the first truly great British Hip Hop record.
On the dance music side of things, Drum n Bass began to run out of steam. The Roni Size Mercury thing probably cost it a bit of momentum, but there’s only so far a scene can continue to buzz when its sound is being bitten for Touch n Fresh adverts.
I honestly believe that David Bowie’s Earthling in Feb 1997 was a bit of a killer moment; Bowie’s stock was low at that point, and his attempt to jump the bandwagon sucked a lot of energy out of things. It felt like it was probably coming to a close. I still like Earthling, because it’s such an utterly mental lunge for credibility, and because Little Wonder is, objectively, very funny, but even so – yeesh. Talvin Singh’s OK (which would go on to win the Mercury in 1999) was a lovely record, but also demonstrated some of the entropy weighing on things – as the music sucked in more and more influences and became increasingly chin-stroking so much of the initial impetus was being lost, and that club energy that had powered the scene was drifting away. It didn’t help that Goldie came back with Saturnz Return, his bloated opus that felt like an attempt to crossover all the way into classical music. Fundaments were rapidly being disappeared up.
Even so, there were still a few outstanding releases in the genre in 98 – Grooverider released Mysteries of Funk, and the Moving Shadow label put out a series of absolutely classic 99p label sampler albums, one of which contained the Origin Unknown Remix of Tough At The Top:
Those swarming synths just before the four minute mark felt fresh and new, but they also weren’t really a true Drum n Bass sound. They belonged to Speed Garage, or Dubstep, or one of the scene’s various eventual successors. On which note, 1998 was the year my two younger brothers introduced me to Garage for the first time – one of my abiding memories of the year is hearing this emanating from a bedroom and having to ask what it was…
1998 was also the year of peak Beastie Boys. I’m not convinced that Hello Nasty is their best record, but it was a very good one. More importantly, they hit their cultural zenith – it was the era of Grand Royal, the era where they could give Money Mark a career and put Lee Scratch Perry on the main stage at Reading. Fun times.
As mentioned in the 97 thread, the Royal Albert Hall Bootleg was a huge deal for me, and I’m sure many others. I listened to it endlessly as it soundtracked many a deadline night essay writing session, and for a spell it sent me back to listen to a lot more old music, much of which was brilliant. I prefer the acoustic side, personally – what a ridiculous collection of songs.
At the other end of things, I have to confess to being completely obsessed with Field Manual by Bomb 20, an obscure (even by their standards) release on Digital Hardcore which I had to beg the local HMV to import for me. Songs were constructed of endless samples from little known movies, coupled with crushingly industrial beats. I loved every noisy second of it and spent years after identifying those samples.
There were rumblings from the R&B sector. Brandy & Monica owned the year with The Boy Is Mine, Aaliyah released the immortal Are You That Somebody (and what a career she would have gone on to have, had she lived – so tragic), the first Destiny’s Child singles emerged, immediately sounding like the future, and D’Angelo released Devil’s Pie. What a song Devil’s Pie is – that absolute filthy J Dilla beat, that glorious vocal. It pulled off the always unlikely magic trick of sounding simultaneously cutting edge and like a lost classic.
The song which seemed to be everywhere, all year, and which has subsequently been largely forgotten is Who Am I by Beenie Man. None more 98.
Elsewhere, Pulp released their best album (what a song This Is Hardcore is – a Bond theme for perverts), my favourite ever Sonic Youth album came out, Asian Dub Foundation seemed like a really good idea for about 5 minutes, Whitney Houston had a very welcome Indian Summer (great record), Sketches for My Sweetheart The Drunk gave tantalising hints of where Jeff Buckley might have gone next had he lived, I saw the Lo Fidelity Allstars live three times (Disco Machine Gun is still a bop though), and I became obsessed with Idlewild, whose debut album was a gloriously punky romp and who were an absolutely devastating live act at that stage.
There were also the first faint flickerings of Nu Metal proper – I heard System of a Down for the first time that year (still a great band) and Korn peaked with Follow The Leader, which contained the legitimately excellent Freak On A Leash, possessor of one of the greatest guitar drops in music history. Wait for it.
Smashing Pumpkins came back with Adore. Not only did they still not sound like Siamese Dream, but Billy Corgan had become a sort of Cure-worshipping Nosferatu. Sub-optimal. I didn’t get on with the record at first, but it revealed its charms over time; Blank Page is a beautiful song, and I have a proper core memory of sitting in the window of my room of halls on a gorgeous Summer evening looking out across the campus as smoke rose from a dozen BBQs and thinking life really wasn’t so bad. That moment was soundtracked by To Sheila, and I still think it’s lovely and full of warmth.
Psyence Fiction was the year’s big disappointment, for me. Having spent years listening to anything that came out of Mo Wax, and having loved early DJ Shadow I thought this would be the point where the latter would get back on track after the dull worthiness of Endtroducing. Sadly not – all the songs were or felt 8 minutes long, the constant parade of Lavelle-booked guest stars was tiresome, and the production was nothing that hadn’t been done 2 or 3 years earlier. It felt a lot like listening to one of those Ninja Tune compilations from back in 1995, only instead of each cut being a couple of minutes it now went on forever and had Thom Yorke wailing all over it. Not what I wanted.
Oh, and obviously the Beta Band. But I have to admit that I never listen to it these days.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Lauryn Hill
Hope Is Important – Idlewild
Aquemini – Outkast
Hello Nasty – Beastie Boys
My Love Is Your Love – Whitney
Music Has The Right To Children – Boards of Canada
Royal Albert Hall Bootleg – Dylan
Field Manual – Bomb 20
This Is Hardcore – Pulp
Black Star – Mos Def & Talib Kweli
Adore – Smashing Pumpkins
Deserter’s Songs – Mercury Rev
Jurassic 5 – Jurassic 5
A Thousand Leaves – Sonic Youth
Super AE – Boredoms
How To Operate With a Blown Mind – Lo Fidelity Allstars
Sketches for My Sweetheart The Drunk – Jeff Buckley
Live at the Albert Hall – Spiritualized
Mermaid Avenue – Wilco
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
1965 – The Afghan Whigs
Follow The Leader – Korn
System of a Down – System of a Down
Moment of Truth – Gang Starr
End Hits – Fugazi
XO – Elliott Smith
Is This Desire – PJ Harvey
The Shape of Punk To Come – The Refused
Moon Pix – Cat Power
Lyricist Lounge, Volume 1
The Love Movement – A Tribe Called Quest
Celebrity Skin – Hole
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road – Lucinda Williams
It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot – DMX
Raffi’s Revenge – Asian Dub Foundation
He Got Game – Public Enemy
3 Eps – The Beta Band
The Masterplan – Oasis
I See A Darkness – Bonnie Prince Billy
Heavy Mental – Killah Priest
Bobby Digital in Stereo – RZA
That would be “Royal Albert Hall” bootleg (actually Manchester)
See above for 1999
And I thought you might have forgotten the RZA album. Possibly the most surprising album of 1998, even with competition from Adore.
👌
This Is Hardcore is much overlooked. The title song is, as you rightly say, Bond for perverts but it sounds glorious. That trumpet riff alone is dark, deviant and unsettling and all that comes before Jarvis starts to sing.
Also: one of the greatest karaoke songs of all. So long as you’re not in a Primary School.
Asian Dub Foundation- completely forgot about them!
Hey hey, hey hey hey hey hey hey – Asian Dub Foundation….
They were a lot of fun.
Yeah, great live experience.
The Mercury Rev album still gets played in Elsinore Towers – I think it’s a really strong album. The follow-up seemed to collapse into whimsy, and they lost me at that point.
I saw them live in Manchester in January, 1999, for a ticket price of £7. This would probably buy you half a tap water in central Manchester today.
Interesting that you should say that. I’ve banged on about the changing nature of Mercury Rev in these threads but I was listening to Stillness Breathes this morning and their later music disappears into sweetness and – you’re right – whimsy so completely as to almost not to exist at all. Habit kept me listening to them after a point rather than any deep desire to hear their music.
Album of the year for me was the Lucinda Williams – a stone cold classic and the introduction for me of someone who has joined my personal pantheon of true greats and musical companions for life.
The only one on the list I bnought was the Gomez, and, unlike many others here, I loved it. I remember seeing them on Later and going right out the next day and buying the album. Definitely a soundtack of that year in our household, as was Manu Chao’s Clandestino.
Thanks @hawkfall – this has been a thoroughly enjoyable set of trips down memory lane.
You’re welcome BB. I’ve enjoyed reading people celebrating music they love from that period. And I’m sure like others, I’ve got a list of acts I want to explore a bit further. A Tribe Called Quest, Julian Cope, Sparklehorse and the Wu Tang members are on mine.
I still think Post is better than Homogenic mind.
I am imagining a similar exercise with the 70s and I am thinking what an embarrassment of riches that would be, in such a range of styles. No offence to the 90s but it just would be. Nevermind prog and punk, the simplistic analysis, there’s all the rest.
Dude, some of us aren’t old enough to have bought albums in the seventies! The eighties on the other hand…
(Also: you may be overestimating your fellow posters. As the boy Bingo demonstrated, there was a full sweet shop of styles available in the 90s but Ver AW Kids just couldn’t release their grip on the comfy blanket with its familiar Stereophonics and O***s checked pattern..)
I wasn’t old enough either for the most part. I came into the picture in the late 70s.
1. Some of us are…
2. Stereophonics and Oasis? Pshaw! You pop kids and your music and your shirts…
The sweet shop analogy is about right, or at least that’s how it felt at the time.
I think something happened circa 1994 – Cobain died, and with him went the belief in “authenticity” (for a lot of us anyway).
For the 90s kids, pop culture wasn’t a museum, it was a playground. You listened to everything; new music and old, and you were largely spoiled for choice. Bands mined the iconography of the 60s, but there was no real reverence – everything was layered in irony, and the sense that you might disavow tomorrow what you’d proclaimed today.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter if a band had real gravitas, or could be connected up to some grand tradition of rock scholarship. You listened to Supergrass and you really didn’t give a shit whether Gaz had ever really been caught by the fuzz, in the same way it didn’t actually matter that one of Elastica’s songs sounded like Wire.
Gangster’s Paradise is a great example of this – from a songwriting perspective, it’s Pastime Paradise, just as much as Bittersweet Symphony is The Last Time. But Gangster’s Paradise perpetrated the theft so cleverly and comprehensively that it became the definitive article. The act of musical larceny didn’t matter, all that mattered was that it sounded great and added to the gaiety of nations.
I think that’s a cultural faultline you can still regularly witness in evidence on the Afterword itself – for a lot of posters here, the fundamental question when it comes to music remains “is this good”. But the younger cohort (and yeesh, that’s a relative term in this crowd) are more likely to simply ask “am I enjoying this”. That’s a legacy of the 90s. I’m not offering a judgement that one approach is better than the other. I’m just observing that the two distinct approaches exist, and sometimes rub up against each other.
The generation of the 60s and 70s understand irony, but I don’t think they grew up surrounded by it, in the same way that Gen X and the early Millennials understand the Internet, but are not truly native to it. And that changes how culture is consumed. If you were to run a series of 70s threads I think it would become clear fairly quickly that the value ascribed to the music of that time is often weighed differently, along the lines described above.
And that’s what lead to all that glorious fucking about, from the mid 90s onwards. That refusal to take it all too seriously, and to instead go in search of communal experience (the great legacy of the country’s rave culture), to play around with history, and to seek out heroes who were unlikely, or even outright incongruous.
It’s the impulse that lead to one of the single greatest moments of the 90s, one which I think we all managed to overlook in the 1995 thread. Pulp doing Common People at Glastonbury. One of THE great UK pop moments, and one which arguably could not have occurred in any other decade.
Thanks to Hawkfall for starting these excellent threads, even if he refuses to acquiesce to my Bjorkviews.
“I’m not offering a judgement that one approach is better than the other.”
I’m sure it wasn’t your intention – but your whole post reads like a de facto judgement, even if you haven’t expressed it explicitly.
Well, I definitely have a preference for one approach over the other. I think the ship’s probably sailed on hiding that little secret.
But my point is that I can recognise that preference as being largely a consequence of my age, and what I grew up with.
It runs slightly counter to your theory – but I’ve found (as I get older) that I am less inclined to worry about whether something is thought of as “good” and just to consider whether I like it or not. Mind you, I always ignored the Taste Police in the NME!
It’s like the “guilty pleasures” idea – if you enjoy listening to something, why is it a guilty pleasure? That only works if you have a hierarchy of good and less good – or acceptable and less acceptable. Bollocks to that – I’d rather exponentially widen my musical horizons than the other thing.
That doesn’t stop me still being an old prog-head, of course…🙃
Age-dependent homogeneity in attitudes to music is a thing though. Scientists and the like have said so.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797547/
I quote:
“A mixed model analysis of variance was conducted on the mean score of the Emotional Intensity Felt with Age Group (younger adults, older adults) as the between-subjects factor and Intended Emotions (happiness, peacefulness, sadness, fear) as the within-subjects factor.
As illustrated in Figure1, we found a significant Age Group by Intended Emotion interaction, F(3, 102) = 3.75, p < 0.05, η2G = 0.066. In order to test our hypothesis, we computed a planned comparison between the emotion intensity felt by young adults and that felt by older adults when listening to happy music."
Worth repeating: F(3, 102) = 3.75, p < 0.05, η2G = 0.066.
That’s an awfy lot of statistical analysis on a subject group of only 36 individuals…so I’m not convinced that it WAS worth repeating.
Sorry – what was your point again?
F(3, 102) = 3.75, p < 0.05, η2G = 0.066
That’s a lot of statistical analysis on a subject group of only 36 individuals…so I’m still not convinced that it WAS worth repeating.
Where do you get the “36 individuals” bit from? Does it say that somewhere in the article?
While looking for the number 36, this bit just caught my eye on account of it being right near the start:
Compared to younger adults, older adults (a) reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b) showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c) were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d) showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity.
This is proper science stuff, not pompous gobbledygook!
Yep. Gary, I’m shocked and stunned – you mean you quoted bits of it without reading all of it??
“In the present study, eighteen older (60–84 years) and eighteen younger (19–24 years) listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts”
They need the fancy stats cos the sample size is so small!
Well! I haven’t checked your math properly, but I already find myself in complete agreement with whatever it was you said. 36 indeed! I have more friends than that on Facebook! (43. Seven more.) I certainly shan’t be looking at long, boring articles to mansplain to me what’s what anymore!
I have no Facebook friends – I’m not sure if I’m prepared to sign up in order to get some…
Nothing wrong with being a Prog-head.
As with all such generalisations, the way I’m characterising the generations above is trite, and there are counter examples on both sides.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the concept of the great Rock pantheon, or of fixed ideas of good taste, began to lose a little traction in the 90s, for the reasons expressed above.
Fair enough. I’ve never been a Hepworthian, “Great Rock Pantheon” kinda guy, myself.
This sounds like a Hepworth theory inverted. There’s always been a sweetshop to partake of if you knew where to find it and were willing to try new varieties and there’s always been the carefree, daft side of music and the more self important side, although they mix with each other and can be equally good. I think there’s continued to be those who take it too seriously. But now the music press is weak. In the 90s it was still strong and influential. Authenticity was never really worth caring about. Many of us were lying in the gutter thinking of the stars but some of us were caring too much about the wrong kind, i.e. how many there were in the review.
Odd, I seem to recall some sage describing Pulp’s emergency Glastonbury substitution as “the high water mark of Britpop” or some such nonsense – must have been over on the Alterword™️ site..
Bingo, ever considered writing for a living? Perhaps you do? Anyhoo, I enjoy your posts.
That’s far too kind of you!
The interesting comparison would be to what was considered good at the time to those albums whose reputation continues to grow.
The NME Critics End of Year Poll would be close to the Q list on a year by year basis and, in 1974, we have It’s Only Rock’n’roll (2) by the Stones and On The Border by the Eagles (17) over Grievous Angel (22), Big Star’s Radio City (23) and I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (28).
Even Keith Richards would have said Grievous Angel was the better album in ‘74.
If It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll was number 2, Diamond Dogs must have been number one. Much better album and a much better cover. 😉
Not even on the list!
Must have been Hergest Ridge then. Obvious. 😂
E.g.
It is interesting to see that original list. Maybe doing the 70s would show there wasn’t such a deluge of classic albums after all.
I suspect we’d find that there WAS a deluge of classic albums…but not necessarily recognised as such at the time, ie not wildly dissimilar to the 90s thread.
Well yes. There were a fair number of acts who had a great run of albums back then. Like no other time maybe. Perception is a funny thing though as those who watch TOTP reruns find, or OGWT. Was there really this much shit?
I note your comment further up that you “came into the picture in the late 70s” – so in what way has your perception changed when you watch re-runs? Or is it first viewing for you – and you just find it shit?
I mean I began buying records in the late 70s in earnest. TOTP was for me, as for many, a treat. You looked forward to a favourite tune coming on. It seemed like there were plenty of them, looking back. The reruns show there were endless swathes of mediocrity in reality. The great moments were rare, as we know. Schools Out and Silver Machine were on the same show. What a night! That was unusual.
Two things come to mind:
1. Triumph of hope over experience – we knew it was 80% rubbish while we were watching it – but we still watched again next week, in the hope that they’d play something good.
2. Some of the stuff that seemed rubbish at the time has stuck in my head, nearly 50 years later – maybe they were better than I realised at the time.
Mouldy Old Dough!
Not that! How about Baby Come Back by Player? Softrock gem.
Actually I liked allsorts in 1977. It was only later I learned hipdom and got things wrong.
I did state “some” of the stuff, Tiggs…
I remember Baby Come Back really well. Brilliant song.
Three from this year – Massive Attack, Air and Mercury Rev. Air I wrote about up above. Massive Attack were astonishingly good at that time. Even in Teardrop alone, there’s joy, tension, melancholy and sweetness. Not unappreciated in their time but I would say their reputation will still only increase over time.
Deserter’s Songs is a lovely album and an updating of the more delicate moments from Music From Big Pink and The Band, though not just as good. But – and this is a particular hangup of mine – yet a further step away from the psychedelic, stoner rock of the Baker era of the band. Truly, we would never see their like again.
Otherwise, the American wing of 4AD came up trumps with Pixies at the BBC while Kristin Hersh released Strange Angels and Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight. Loved them both.
And Liz Phair released whitechocolatespaceegg. ’twas that difficult third album, singing about motherhood rather than messy relationships. Some filler but Polyester Bride and Ride and good, while What Makes You Happy is one of her best, sung from the point of view of a young woman and her mother and it’s just the most uplifting song about parenthood out there.
I own two from the list. Three of the names listed in the OP are bands that I’ve never knowingly heard at all…Gomez, Catatonia and Mercury Rev. No idea what genre they belong to even!
Here’s mine:
1. Freakwater – Springtime
2. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of…
3. Everlast – Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
4. Rufus Wainwright – Rufus Wainwright
5. QOTSA – Queens of the Stone Age
6. The Beta Band – The Three EPs
7. Manu Chao – Clandestino
Compilations:
Depeche Mode – The Singles 81>85 + 86>98
The Wannadies – Skellefteå (if only because their sound – which I didn’t like much – is the perfect representation of the 90s in Sweden…)
One that seems to have totally dropped off the radar is More You Becomes You by Plush.
Only 28 minutes long. Just piano and voice. In fact I think it might have been demos that were then released as a album when the money ran out.
If you’re into Laura Nyro/Todd Rundgren/Surfs Up era Beach Boys then this definitely will be your thing
Fantastic series, of blogs, Hawkfall. Thank you for running with it, and bringing 90s reminiscence pleasure to the blog. A lovely exercise in nostalgia that we really don’t see much of on this site.
Seconded, many thanks for these great posts @Hawkfall
I have been eagerly awaiting each instalment & (re)discovered some great music because of them. Top stuff & why i visit the site. Thank you
You’re very welcome gents. As I mention above I’ve been inspired by so many of the comments to follow-up on different acts as well.
1998, a classic year? Well maybe, maybe not. Feels like a hell of a long time ago though. None of Q’s top 10 troubled my ears, but all of the following were on fairly heavy rotation chez moi.
Grant Lee Buffalo – Jubilee
Josh Rouse – Dressed Up Like Nebraska
Sheryl Crow – The Globe Sessions
Gillian Welch – Hell Among the Yearlings
Patty Griffin – Flaming Red
Natalie Merchant – Ophelia
John Mellencamp – John Mellencamp
Cracker – Gentlemen’s Blues
Cowboy Junkies – Miles From Our Home
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Bingo. I have all the top ten and regular play many of them. Particular love for Air, Belle and Sebastian and Massive Attack. Also Boards of Canada, Sparklehorse, PJ Harvey and even UP by REM still seem very recent to me.
1998 was the year I put my first marriage behind me and headed, crazily towards my wonderful second marriage. I had money and was madly in love, so bought CDs by the truckload. It was a second-wind for my youthfulness.
Also never sure why Gomez became so uncool. I really liked their swamp blues via Southport schtick. I saw them live in Sydney and thought they were great.
I’m arriving at this thread rather late, as I’ve been on holiday. But here we go.
Of the original Q list, I bought one album (the Mercury Rev) and borrowed/burnt three others (the Beta Band, Air, and Massive Attack). I don’t play any of them nowadays.
My favourite album of the year, by a comfortable margin, was Elliott Smith fabulous “XO”. Songwriting perfection from start to finish.
My three runners-up were:
– Eliza Carthy: “Red Rice”. (I’m amazed that I’m the first person to mention this album)
– Lucinda Williams: “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” (Great sleeve photo, too)
– R.E.M.: “Up” (a very strangely sequenced album. The first 3 or 4 tracks are ponderous and disappointing. The rest is great.)
Mentioned in dispatches:
Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach – Painted from Memory (strange that no one else has mentioned this. Perhaps it’s not a well-loved album among Afterworders?)
Natalie Merchant – Ophelia
Kate Rusby – Sleepless (another good ‘un from the Barnsley Nightingale)
Van Morrison – the Philosopher’s Stone
Gillian Welch – Hell Among the Yearlings
Lyle Lovett – Step Inside This House (great album of cover versions of Texas songwriters)
Vic Chesnutt – The Salesman and Bernadette
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue
Jackie Leven – Night Lillies
Best compilation: the mindblowing “Ethiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974” by Mulatu Astatké. This opened up the entire world of ethio-jazz to me
Oh yeah, Red Rice was great, and Sleepless a big improvement over her debut.
I honestly thought folk was going to be the new pop for a couple of years. Eddi Reader’s manager jumped ship to Jim Moray, who released his first EP in 2001. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen.
Can I just squeeze in a mention of Terry Callier’s comeback album “Timepeace” here at the end? Marvellous.
XO is my favourite Elliot Smith album
Red Rice not mentioned? Only ’cause I have been at a folk festival all weekend! Actually, it’s probably not one of my favourites of hers. For some reason, I only have the ‘Red’ bit of it. Another folkie favourite for me was Kathryn Tickell’s The Northumberland Collection.
Otherwise, I have two of the list, and the two that seem to be getting mentioned most – The Beta Band and Mercury Rev, both of which I still enjoy. I’m also another shouter for Mutations, but I fear there may be some perversity there, in that the critics didn’t like the direction it took from Odelay as I recall; some called it self-indulgent; I have absolutely no idea what that meant in the context.
My surprise is that no-one has mentioned Walking into Clarksdale. It may not be groundbreaking or influential or of its time, so was never going to get in the Q list, but it’s still very enjoyable.
As ever I seem to be a bit out of step. The ones I still listen to from this year, apart from Beck’s Mutations mentioned above, are:
Trampoline by The Mavericks (if only for Dance the Night Away)
Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg/Wilco
Wide Swing Tremolo by Son Volt
Out of Tune by Mojave 3
Electroshock Blues by Eels
Dig My Mood – Nick Lowe
Rufus Wainwright by Rufus Wainwright
Didn’t buy any singles in the entire decade. I checked.