Albums of the Year- By Decade: The 90's edition part I (1990 & 1991)

If there's one thing thousands and thousands of years of human interaction has taught us, it is that people, in general, tend to disagree about things. We disagree about racial equality, we disagree about religious beliefs, politics, proper diet, the best places to live, the best places to visit, the best and worst movies, music, television, etcetera... One thing however, that even the Israelis and Palestinians can agree on is that The Grammys suck.

So there's a SCIENCE to picking the wrong albums?

As a greater society of human beings by and large, we should channel that warm and fuzzy sense of camaraderie into something far greater. I mean, if we can all agree, regardless of socio-economic, political, or religious differences that Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt was not ACTUALLY the best album released in 1990, than think of the other things we could potentially agree on. I don't mean to imply a false sense of importance on this, a silly blog post, but it's very possible that this could be the single most important thing you EVER read... More likely it's just a slightly about nauseating way to kill 10 minutes or so

With this, I shall defiantly spit directly into a headwind, and proclaim my OWN best albums of the year, with a small write up as to why they should be considered for the award. By rights, I could do a full length treatise on any of these albums, but I find it's far more fulfilling to devote an entire post to an album that at least partially sucks... Things that are purely enjoyable on a non-ironic level tend to also be boring to satirize... Hence why Mystery Science Theater 3000 never devoted an episode to Citizen Kane, and why there is more than one Internet write up of Deadly Friend.

Heads Up!

OK, we've got a lot to cover, so without further ado, the list...

1990: A Great Year for music, a despicable year for awards…
Grammy Winner- Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt,
Grammy Deserver- Violator-Depeche Mode

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I am the first to admit it, but that had nothing to do with why Violator wasn't even a nominee for the 1990 Grammy for album of the year. It took little to no foresight to see that this record was far superior both in style, substance, and overall enjoyment than not only Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time, but than any or the albums even nominated for the category. This is one of the top 10 albums ever, in the history of recorded human voice, so the fact that it was left off the nominees list in addition to receiving the award is as laughable as it is heart breaking... This is a perfect example of why people do not hold Grammy viewing parties the way they do for the Oscars...

In my opinion, which for the purposes of this blog, are the only opinions that matter, the merits of Violator are not debatable. Tracks include DM classics Enjoy the Silence, Personal Jesus, Policy of Truth, World in My Eyes, and one of the greatest album tracks ever recorded anywhere, Halo. Rolling Stone ranked Violator the 342nd greatest album of all time on their top 500 list. Good for them by at least recognizing the album’s existence, but it should be far higher on the list… about 300 spots higher.

Honorable mention: Flood-They Might Be Giants; Gold Afternoon Fix-The Church; Bloodletting-Concrete Blonde; Goo-Sonic Youth; Heaven or Las Vegas- Cocteau Twins; X-INXS; Too Dark Park-Skinny Puppy; Bossanova- The Pixies. None of these albums were nominees for the Grammy. One album that WAS nominated, and should have won (from the group to chose from) was Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever… Raitt’s NoT didn’t include a SINGLE song about zombies, and Petty’s did… ‘Nuff said…

Which way to the zoo?

1991: #2 year of the decade behind 1993, and the birth of grunge
Grammy Winner: Back on the Block by Quincy Jones
Grammy Deserver: Nevermind by Nirvana

I am not the world’s biggest Nirvana fan by any stretch of the imagination, but there is only one phrase that sums up this decision… ‘Are you fucking KIDDING me?’ The Quincy Jones pick was obviously based on a body of work as opposed to this specific album. Hey Grammys! That’s why they have Lifetime Achievement Awards. The word travesty is bandied about far too often, especially when disagreeing with award picks, but this pick was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a travesty…

As far as a write up of Nevermind, there are better write ups out there. All I can say is the album was influential, and highly revolutionized music as we know it. Instead, I’ll write up MY favorite album of the year, U2’s Achtung Baby. This is easily one of my top 25 albums and is nothing but great from track 1 to track 12. The album spawned 5 releases in the US from October of 1991 through August of 1992, and launched one of the most interactive big-venue rock shows in history, the Zoo TV tour. Rolling Stone dropped it into the 62nd spot on their top 500, and part of me wants to go up and change this writeup to dismiss Nevermind entirely… However, I am above my own personal eccentricities, and recognize that Nevermind remains if not one of the best, certainly one of the most IMPORTANT albums of all time… Rolling Stone says it’s number 17, and the highest rated album released in the 90’s… Suffice it to say no Quincy Jones release was one of the 16 above it…

Honorable Mention: Blood Sugar Sex Magik-Red Hot Chili Peppers; The Soul Cages-Sting; Kill Uncle- Morrissey; Out of Time- REM; Joyride-Roxette (Don’t laugh, this album RULES); Why Do Birds sing?-Violent Femmes; Mighty Like a Rose-Elvis Costello; The Globe- Big Audio Dynamite II; 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours-Green Day; God Fodder-Ned’s Atomic Dust Bin; Metallica (Black)-Metallica; Pocket Full Of Kryptonite-Spin Doctors; Ten-Pearl Jam; Solace- Sarah McLaughlin; Use Your Illusion I and II- Guns N’ Roses; Badmotorfinger-Soundgarden; Chorus-Erasure; Girlfriend-Matthew Sweet; We Can’t Dance-Genesis; Achtung Baby- U2 . Like I said, this was a great year for music…

Don't blame me, I voted for Nevermind

We'll pick this up on a later post. 1991 has fried my brain...