Music: Best Albums of the Year Series: 1993

[Saturated Fats]

@Pranzo Oltranzista where do you find John Zorn's stuff? Virtually none of it is on streaming services, and I'm not brave enough to drop $40+ on an LP at a shop without at least having heard something.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

@Pranzo Oltranzista where do you find John Zorn's stuff? Virtually none of it is on streaming services, and I'm not brave enough to drop $40+ on an LP at a shop without at least having heard something.

I have like 40 CDs of his that I bought over the years. The other stuff I got not so legally. You're looking for something in particular?

 

[plank]

1. Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo
2. Kerosene Hat - Cracker
3. August and Everything After - Counting Crows
4. Vs. - Pearl Jam
5. Human Wheels - John Mellencamp
6. s/t - Frank Black
7. In Utero - Nirvana
8. Saturation - Urge Overkill
9. Thirteen Years - Alejandro Escovedo
10. Remember Two Things - The Dave Matthews Band
11. Jericho - The Band
12. Other Voices Other Rooms - Nanci Griffith
13. s/t - Bottle Rockets
14. Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We? - The Cranberries
15. Exile in Guyville - Liz Phair
16. Guit With It - Junior Brown
17. Star - Belly
18. Cowgirl's Prayer - Emmylou Harris
19. Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins
20. Last Splash - The Breeders

 

[Cas]

1993 is kind of a weak year for me:

Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror
Count Raven - High on Infinity
Cynic - Focus
Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
Death - Individual Thought Patterns
Isengard - Vandreen
Mercyful Fate - In the Shadows
My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans
Vader - The Ultimate Incantation

I'm going to go with Under a Funeral Moon here.

 

[member 157595]

American Idiot is Green Day’s best album. That’s right I said it. I ain’t afraid of you motherf***ers.

Boooo!

 

[Langdon Alger]

Boooo!

I don’t get why people don’t like it. There’s not a bad song on there, and it clearly better than anything they did before that.

 

[member 157595]

I don’t get why people don’t like it. There’s not a bad song on there, and it clearly better than anything they did before that.

I would never say it's bad, it's just too overproduced for an admittedly biased guy like myself (I tend to like my punk music raw, sloppy and disgusting ).

To each their own.

 

[Langdon Alger]

I would never say it's bad, it's just too overproduced for an admittedly biased guy like myself (I tend to like my punk music raw, sloppy and disgusting ).

To each their own.

Yeah, that’s totally fair. Kurt Cobain felt Nevermind was overproduced, although most people love it. Most Green Day fans would prefer Dookie to American Idiot, I’m sure. I just felt American Idiot was better front to back. Just my opinion.

 

[member 157595]

Yeah, that’s totally fair. Kurt Cobain felt Nevermind was overproduced, although most people love it. Most Green Day fans would prefer Dookie to American Idiot, I’m sure. I just felt American Idiot was better front to back. Just my opinion.

No problem. That's the great thing about music, you can always find different opinions.

I'm glad you brought up Nirvana. I was a huge fan of theirs during my angsty long-hair mid-90's phase, and my school had a freaking vigil when Cobain died (which may be the whitesuburb-est thing that that has ever happened) but I cannot stomach their music today except for Bleach which I still kind of like. On the other hand, Pearl Jam's Ten album still shines as brightly today as it did almost 30 years ago IMO, and so does some of Alice In Chains' work from the 90's as well.

A band that was an influence on Green Day, NOFX, has some of my favorite albums ever. S&M Airlines, Ribbed and White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean are three of my all-time loves. However, after that they got progressively more poppy and I don't think they can pull off that type of polished/produced sound as well as Green Day can (they can't get anywhere near Dookie in the pop-punk genre, for example.) For that reason, I think their later albums suffered as a result and I consider most of them rather forgettable.

 

[kihei]

Bjork: Debut
New Order: Republic
Buddy Guy: Feels Like Rain
Slowdive: Outside Your Room
Morphine: Cure for Pain
Brian Ferry: Taxi
The Cranberries: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
Crowded House: Together Alone
U2: Zooropa
Afghan Wigs: Gentlemen

 

[Saturated Fats]

No problem. That's the great thing about music, you can always find different opinions.

I'm glad you brought up Nirvana. I was a huge fan of theirs during my angsty long-hair mid-90's phase, and my school had a freaking vigil when Cobain died (which may be the whitesuburb-est thing that that has ever happened) but I cannot stomach their music today except for Bleach which I still kind of like. On the other hand, Pearl Jam's Ten album still shines as brightly today as it did almost 30 years ago IMO, and so does some of Alice In Chains' work from the 90's as well.

I wonder how much of that has to do with the aforementioned cringey relationship you and your ilk had with them, though. I ask because I had the exact same relationship. I haven't listened to Nirvana with a critical ear since... probably forever. I'm not sure anyone can at this point.

But for the sake of this poll, I listened to In Utero with as close to a clear head as I could. It was really good. I appreciate the experimentation and misanthropy of it all. It's a smart record, unsurprisingly produced with just the right amount of care and carelessness that befit the genre. Songs like Frances Farmer and Scentless Apprentice are just really, really good tunes. Heart Shaped Box, too - even if how overplayed it has kind of separated it from any kind of objective assessment. But it's hard to say - in the exact same way that I have a hard time assessing Zeppelin IV or Rumours with the same kind of objectivity that I try to with everything else. It's just too ubiquitous.

 

[Langdon Alger]

I wonder how much of that has to do with the aforementioned cringey relationship you and your ilk had with them, though. I ask because I had the exact same relationship. I haven't listened to Nirvana with a critical ear since... probably forever. I'm not sure anyone can at this point.

But for the sake of this poll, I listened to In Utero with as close to a clear head as I could. It was really good. I appreciate the experimentation and misanthropy of it all. It's a smart record, unsurprisingly produced with just the right amount of care and carelessness that befit the genre. Songs like Frances Farmer and Scentless Apprentice are just really, really good tunes. Heart Shaped Box, too - even if how overplayed it has kind of separated it from any kind of objective assessment. But it's hard to say - in the exact same way that I have a hard time assessing Zeppelin IV or Rumours with the same kind of objectivity that I try to with everything else. It's just too ubiquitous.

Can we also acknowledge how great the drums sound on In Utero?

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Eyehategod - Take As Needed For Pain
Darkthrone - Under A Funeral Moon

 

[reckoning]

Top 5 Albums
1) In Utero - Nirvana
2) Exile In Guyville - Liz Phair
3) Rid Of Me - PJ Harvey
4) Whatever - Aimee Mann
5) August And Everything After - Counting Crows

While Nevermind was a great album, I thought In Utero was much better. A huge step forward for the band, which makes it all the more sadder that we never got to hear what the next album might have sounded like.

Top 5 Songs
1) "Heart Shaped Box" - Nirvana
2) "Yuri-G" - PJ Harvey
3) "Positive Bleeding" - Urge Overkill
4) "Cannonball" - Breeders
5) "I Should've Known" - Aimee Mann

 

[Roo Returns]

Quicksand-Slip
Dropdead-s/t

Just two bands I wanted to give some love to.

In Utero might be the best "ugly" record of all time. I hope that makes sense. Great album but something has always been a little off about it to me. I can't quite explain. Even Spiderland by Slint is warmer.

To me it comes down to Midnight Marauders vs. In Utero. I realize Nirvana will probably win because they're Nirvana, but I give the slight edge to Tribe based on my prior paragraph, there's a little humor and their album is warmer.

This was a great year. I've talked about it in other threads how 91-95 is one era to me. A lot of the bands like AIC, STP, and MCs like De La Soul and Snoop Dogg who had stuff going on in 92 took the momentum into 1993.

 

[HansonBro]

The thread disappeared from HF!

I can't even find the new one

 

[member 157595]

I wonder how much of that has to do with the aforementioned cringey relationship you and your ilk had with them, though. I ask because I had the exact same relationship. I haven't listened to Nirvana with a critical ear since... probably forever. I'm not sure anyone can at this point.

But for the sake of this poll, I listened to In Utero with as close to a clear head as I could. It was really good. I appreciate the experimentation and misanthropy of it all. It's a smart record, unsurprisingly produced with just the right amount of care and carelessness that befit the genre. Songs like Frances Farmer and Scentless Apprentice are just really, really good tunes. Heart Shaped Box, too - even if how overplayed it has kind of separated it from any kind of objective assessment. But it's hard to say - in the exact same way that I have a hard time assessing Zeppelin IV or Rumours with the same kind of objectivity that I try to with everything else. It's just too ubiquitous.

Perhaps, I fully admit your proposal is a possibility. Maybe I'll give Heart Shaped Box another listen.

 

[beowulf]

Pearl Jam Vs.
Tool Undertow
Nirvana In Eutero

all great albums and hard to pick one over the others.

Another album, or double album, from 1993 I really like is Joe Satriani's Time Machine. One disk was live songs recorded between 88 and 92 but the other had extra songs from the Extremist sessions and more importantly it had 4 of the 5 songs from the virtually impossible to get 1984 Satriani EP. Sadly it didn't have the 5th song from the album because the master tape was supposedly damaged.