Respect the Classics: 1991 Edition

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At least a few big reissues are coming out this year, so I thought it's a good opportunity to discuss the music of 20 years ago. If it works out, maybe I'll even make a thread for '92 in '12, '93 in '13 etc. So, post your thoughts on "the big albums", talk about some recently uncovered gems, flame war, whatever. Should be fun!

Some suggestions (taken from RYM Top 25), presented in order* without comment:
Loveless, My Bloody Valentine
Nevermind, Nirvana
Achtung Baby, U2
Screamadelica, Primal Scream
Blue Lines, Massive Attack
The Low-End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest
Ten, Pearl Jam
Out of Time, R.E.M.
Use Your Illusion I & II, Guns N' Roses
Still Feel Gone, Uncle Tupelo
Trompe Le Monde, Pixies
Mama Said, Lenny Kravitz
Badmotorfinger, Soundgarden
Luck of the Draw, Bonnie Raitt
Fear, Toad the Wet Sprocket
Gish, The Smashing Pumpkins
Metallica, Metallica
Seal, Seal
Rumour and Sigh, Richard Thompson
No More Tears, Ozzy Osborne
Into the Great Wide Open, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Leisure, Blur
Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet

Mentioned here, missed the Top 25:
Spiderland, Slint
White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, Swans
Laughing Stock, Talk Talk
Out of the Grey, Out of the Grey
Bandwagonesque, Teenage Fanclub
Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers

*sort of. I combined the two Use Your Illusion albums.

It could also be fun to discuss these in a more structured way, one at a time, each over 5 days or so, too. I'm surprised to see a few I haven't heard.

[Aaron]

oh Toad The Wet Sprocket! those were the days.  Did you know that the drummer, Randy Guss, is a dwarf? I didn't know that til recently. 

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Did you know that's one of the albums I haven't heard?   Really cool fact, though.

(It shall be remedied)

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I should add that I wasn't cool enough in 1991 to be listening to the vast majority of these albums (I remember my sister had the Metallica album, though . . . and Nelson), but here are the ones I haven't heard in their entirety:

Mama Said, Lenny Kravitz
Luck of the Draw, Bonnie Raitt
Fear, Toad the Wet Sprocket (listening now)
Rumour and Sigh, Richard Thompson
No More Tears, Ozzy Osborne
Into the Great Wide Open, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet

And, no, I wasn't even listening to much CCM at the time. Of course, feel free to talk Amy Grant or whatever. I think she's enjoyable enough, but I'd definitely put the album a few pegs below any of the albums already listed that I've already listened to.

A really good album that is missing: Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub.

[Aaron]

ahh yes, back when Lenny Kravitz was good.  That album and the Matthew Sweet albums are so good.  MS is so underappreciated. 


Low-End Theory is arguably the best hip-hop album of all time.  It definitely is better than 98% of what is out nowadays.

[RedcoatJones]

Great thread idea. I turned 13 in 1991, and in many ways, this is the year I really began branching out and building my current music tastes (though I did listen to stuff I would be ashamed to admit to today, of course).

It was in 1991 and 1992 that I transitioned away from top 40 and pop-rap (I admit that Vanilla Ice was one of the first CDs I bought). But by the end of 1991, I was completely in thrall to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Faith No More (I didn't pick up Smashing Pumpkins until Siamese Dream).

Albums I've heard all the way through (with * for the ones I listened to at the time):
Nevermind, Nirvana*
Achtung Baby, U2*
The Low-End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest
Ten, Pearl Jam*
Out of Time, R.E.M.*
Use Your Illusion I & II, Guns N' Roses*
Still Feel Gone, Uncle Tupelo
Trompe Le Monde, Pixies
Mama Said, Lenny Kravitz
Badmotorfinger, Soundgarden*
Fear, Toad the Wet Sprocket*
Gish, The Smashing Pumpkins
Metallica, Metallica*
Seal, Seal
No More Tears, Ozzy Osborne
Into the Great Wide Open, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers*
Leisure, Blur*
Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet*

Also, AV Club did a retrospective on the '90's a while back. The entry for 1991, on the turning point in rock from GnR to Nirvana is probably the best essay in the series.

Part 2: 1991: “What’s so civil about war anyway?”

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I wish I was so cool as you in '91. I would have been 14, but my passion was definitely video games, not music.

Yeah, I read through the AV Club series a while back, and the entire series was a really interesting read, but '91 is a particularly good one. The way he draws similarities between Nirvana and GnR fascinated me, in particular, since we typically think of them as polar forces.

Low-End Theory is arguably the best hip-hop album of all time.

It may well be, yes.

[bloop]

While it's true that my focus was not on music at this time, I hear you about Vanilla Ice. I remember the first popular current recording I ever owned was "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em". Before that, I had a few things for my record player, but they were hardly current (hey hey, we're the Monkeys, a Top Gun single, the McDonald's song).

[RedcoatJones]

Well, I was cool in my own mind 

Looking back, it was probably 1992 before I really started listening to a lot of those, though only being a year behind the critics as a 13-year-old is probably not too shabby. In Atlanta, 1992 was a great year for radio. One of the local top 40 stations made a sudden conversion to alternative, and they were probably one of the best alternative stations for a few years before corporate radio testing took the spontaneity and experimentation out of the station. The story of how it came about is actually pretty interesting:

99X History:

In early September 1992, Will Pendarvis was brought in to host an all-alternative program on weeknights called "Power 99 On the Edge". After receiving a solid amount of positive feedback, station management decided to re-brand Power 99 and tweak its format to include more alternative songs. Just prior to its planned debut, Sean Demery, Leslie Fram, and station PD/MD Rick Stacy agreed that the approved format was not drastic enough a change from what Power 99 was playing. Without knowledge of management, they rebuilt the playlist, focusing more on alternative music.

On Monday, October 26, 1992, at noon, 99X made its debut with "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles being the first song. Station management expressed their disapproval that the trio had recrafted the station without their permission. However, the positive response from listeners and ad buyers encouraged them to allow the station to move forward.

During the first couple of years of the format, 99X maintained a surprisingly wide playlist, including songs from the previous fifteen years of modern rock radio, almost in the style of college radio. They also opted to play album tracks that were not necessarily singles, often to the dismay of the major labels and standard marketing strategies. Despite the initial positive response, the station earned modest ratings in its initial books. As a response, the station moved to tighten the playlist and act as more of a "Top Alternative" station. However, the station did not call itself an alternative station, instead adopting the slogan "New Rock 99X".

And don't forget, while the music critics (and history) remember 1991 and 1992 for the sea changes that came in rock and rap (1992 launched the gangsta rap phenomena worldwide), pop culture was always behind. Here's what topped Billboard's Hot 100 for '91:

1    Bryan Adams    (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
2    Color Me Badd    I Wanna Sex You Up
3    C+C Music Factory    Gonna Make You Sweat
4    Paula Abdul    Rush Rush
5    Timmy T    One More Try
6    EMF    Unbelievable
7    Extreme    More Than Words
8    Hi-Five    I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)
9    Surface    The First Time
10    Amy Grant    Baby, Baby

I hated that Bryan Adams song then and still do now. I will admit to spending some middle school dances yelling, "Everybody Dance Now"

REM's Losing My Religion comes in #33. A lot of these albums didn't really begin getting attention from the mainstream until 1992. Smells Like Teen Spirit was #32 in 1992's year-end chart, November Rain #17 and Under the Bridge (RHCP) #8.

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You make a good point about the strange dichotomy between what was popular with audiences as opposed to what was popular with critics at the time, and the time lag thing. I got my wife a "Top 250 Hits of the 90s" set, and a lot of it is quite good, but I was taken aback by how obnoxious much of it is.

I hated that Bryan Adams song then and still do now.

That movie was bad ass to my 14 y.o. self. Alan Rickman is, of course, still the man.

EMF    Unbelievable

Come on now, though. This song still slays. 

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btw, I have 5 Spotify invites right now, and most of these things we're talking about can be heard there, so if you'd like one, just pm me the email address to send it to.

[RedcoatJones]

That movie was bad ass to my 14 y.o. self. Alan Rickman is, of course, still the man.

Come on now, though. This song still slays. 

Oh I loved the movie, just hated the song.

And I can still jam to EMF. *opens Spotify. Shuts office door. Jams.*

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I wasn't yet of the mind to hate songs then, but right now, I'm thinking the Timmy T song is a bit more embarrassing than that one.

[murlough23]

Out of Time is solid, but I just got into that one earlier this year.

Beyond that, Amy Grant, and some overtly CCM-ey stuff (Out of the Grey's debut is a personal classic for me), I got nothin' for this year.

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I know you've listened to Ten and Achtung Baby, too, but if you find the time catch up with any others, join us. I think we all have significant "holes" in this year. There's nothing saying we can't discuss the overtly CCM-ey stuff, too - we haven't had a lot of discussion about it so far (I only briefly mentioned the Amy Grant album).

It's going well so far, I think, so I'm hopeful for a "Respect the Classics: 1992 Edition". Seems a pretty focused way to catch up to me.

[NinjaRob17]

Loveless, My Bloody Valentine
Nevermind, Nirvana
Achtung Baby, U2
The Low-End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest
Ten, Pearl Jam
Use Your Illusion I & II, Guns N' Roses
Trompe Le Monde, Pixies
Metallica, Metallica

These are the ones I've listened to. Seems like I have some catching up to do. I was, however, 4 years old in 1991 so I have an excuse.

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Noticed Laughing Stock by Talk Talk isn't there, either.

[NinjaRob17]

I was thinking about that one. Also, Spiderland by Slint and White Light from the Mouth of Infinity by Swans.

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I edited the original post with some other things we've mentioned. Which ones would make your 25, and what would you bump?

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A different sort of article about 90s nostalgia.

Now I feel the need to justify my thread. 

[murlough23]

I know you've listened to Ten and Achtung Baby, too

I don't know why I failed to notice/mention those. That's what I get for checking Email while half-paying attention during a vacation.

[plvarona]

In Atlanta, 1992 was a great year for radio. One of the local top 40 stations made a sudden conversion to alternative, and they were probably one of the best alternative stations for a few years before corporate radio testing took the spontaneity and experimentation out of the station. The story of how it came about is actually pretty interesting:

I remember when that station (Power 99) made the change.  I'll admit my musical taste was still clearly entrenched in top 40/pop radio then, so I didn't really care for the change at the time.  In fact, I switched over to Star 94 roughly a month or two after Power 99 became 99X.  My tastes didn't really start drifting into modern rock/alternative until a few years later, and even then I was more of a pop listener with a taste for some alternative.

As for the albums mentioned in this thread, I had both Pearl Jam's Ten and U2's Achtung Baby in cassette format, and they're both albums I still appreciate to this day.  My brother had Metallica's self-titled CD.  His musical taste was definitely a lot harder than mine back then, although ironically mine is harder now.  (That probably says more about him than me.) 

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The PJ 20 retrospective is out now, and Nirvana's big Nevermind deluxe is due this Tuesday. bloop <3's 1991

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The Nevermind remaster is a little disappointing, sonically. The CD I already have sounds better. I like the last couple discs of bonus material, though.

20 Other 1991 Albums that Can Be Thought-Pieced to Death Before the Year Ends

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Allmusic Loves 1991 (now with Spotify playlists!)

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I rather like the job they did on the Pumpkins remasters. Since this is a 1991 thread:

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish (Deluxe) (Spotify link)

(couldn't find a grooveshark link)

Siamese Dream is the classic (we, or at least I, will certainly be talking about it in the 2013 "RTC: 1993 Ed." thread), but there's something really charming and more understated with this album.