1993

Taking a night off was a wise choice.  I feel better and this year has been well absorbed.  It has  changed a lot in the last day.  This is not a bad year, but  back in high school when I did top 5s for the  same years up to that point (mid 2004) I could barely finish it.  I am more caught up now.  America is  really ruling at this point and it's pretty apparent  from the beginning.  A certain shithead producer whose best work was already behind him dominates.

10.  Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne
Apart from being a lovely hybrid of "alternative" rock and country Uncle Tupelo's last album could not be any more different from its first.  The band had expanded to a five-piece by now and apart from Jay Farrar's presence it is pretty much literally Wilco.  That's a good thing, they are a better band!  Still Farrar is a crucial part and as a musician he has only gotten better in the last three years...  But not as much as Jeff Tweedy who now equals his fellow vocalist/guitarist, largely by embracing a wider array of influences as he would in his subsequent career.  The rest of the band would follow him and in the case of bassist John Stirratt still remains at his side.  The addition of multi-instrumentalist Max johnston does the most to put the band further  into roots music,  but also to diversify the sound so much that it caused the eventual split.  The move to a major label upped that ambition and  while it may not have done much commercially, that place would prove to alter the course of American music in the long-run.

9.  Mercury Rev - Boces
Buffalo's greatest band made one of their best works with this swirling, orchestral set.  Their extended psychedelic pieces may have done more to influence the Flaming Lips than member Jonathan Donahue's presence in that band had.  The 90s were clearly not ready for the lysergic sounds of this album, especially with all its loose free-form qualities though "Bronx Cheer" is a sweet little pop tune.  The band is best remembered for being loud  for Lollapalooza that summer and for their controversial video for "Something For Joey."  It is apparently difficult for the band members too and these songs left  their set very quickly.  That's fine because the record is pretty ideal if you like dense and fearless psychedelia full of noise and surreal flair.

8.  Butthole Surfers - Independent Worm Saloon
Many of the old guard of the American Underground tried to make the leap into the mainstream in the wake of grunge, and controversially, I believe the Butthole Surfers did a better job than Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr.  This is natural as they were always a 70s hard rock band at heart and producer  John Paul Jones makes sure the riffs make this record, especially on the paranoid single "Who Was In My Room Last Night."  They even get soft and sensitive in their own twisted way, still influenced by the likes of Zeppelin and Sabbath on "The Wooden Song" and "Ballad of Naked Man."  There is still no shortage of weirdo punk ("Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales" and "Goofy's Concern") and for the potential new  fans the vulgarity is extra high on "Clean It Up" and the self-referential and prescient "Chewin' George Lucas' Chocolate" which presumably implies that the  "film-maker"'s work is dog shit.  Underrated.

7.  Beck - Mellow Gold
Silver Lake's swingin' Scientologist from Kansas makes his debut and somehow his lo-fi acoustic hip-hop rode  the Generation X bandwagon to a successful career.  This is a dark and twisted album, even more than "Loser" implied, but all the humor on that track is as  evident on the others.  It's the modern white blues with little to no previous reference point.  Lo-fi had never been so funky, folk so fun, or punk so free.  It is an observant and sincere album  from a twisted and intelligent mind who clearly had a lot more great work ahead of him.  A tribute to the kind of frightening reality of Los Angeles that people really don't like to talk about, something Beck captures quite well.  Things are gonna change, you can feel it.

6.  The Flaming Lips - Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
Oddly the Flaming Lipsmake a break into the mainstream, even scoring a minor hit later referenced on the Simpsons (season 8's "Lisa's Date With Density").  It is still one of their best albums, with their cleanest, catchiest pop tunes on a smaller scale than they would ever do again.  This is the first album with Steven Drozd and the addition of superfan-turned crucial member may be a part of the great development here.  It is a Lips album in a category of its own, far removed from both the psychedelic noise that precedes it and the gigantic walls of cosmic sound that would soon follow.  The  perfect alternative  guitar pop record for 1993.

5.  PJ Harvey - Rid of  Me
Like one of their  biggest  fans, the band goes into the studio with Steve Albini, making this year's one non-American album fit right in.  This is even heavier than their last effort and Polly is not only even angrier she is violently oozing "sex and blood."  So much sex and so much blood it can be hard to read the titles, but what they add to the sound is a whole lot of building tension not heard in the group's previous attack.  In the usual Albini "style" the bass is way too low, but the rhythm section is even tighter than before with drummer Rob Ellis precise and furious it reminds one of Bill Bruford on King Crimson's darkest and heaviest work.  Harvey's voice has grown a lot in the last year too growing from angry-but-talented young woman to a howling demon with a range rivaled by few.  This album is frightening and off-putting - crucial to establishing Polly Harvey as the force she is.  "Missed" is my favorite and it ends with "Ecstasy" - the kind few can handle.  Also contains one of the only covers of her  career - "Highway 61 Revisted" for her parents.

4.  Nirvana - In Utero
Albini's other noteworthy production of the year is not too different.  One of the most explicitly un-commercial albums ever made by a famous group, Cobain intentionally avoids his rare talent for pop, with a few exceptions, all of which are balanced out with disturbing lyrics.  Rather, the album is dominated by the trio's unified dynamic which justifies the sometimes perplexing fact that the band shares its royalties.  Tracks like "Scentless Apprentice" and "Very Ape" sound like the come from the jamming of an unusually cohesive band than the mind of a dictating composer.  All three members  are playing the best of their careers and Albini excels in putting the sounds of only three musicians into something very dense only the greatest power trios can achieve.  Perhaps it is the broadening of the band's influences that make  this album even more interesting than the last, such as the beginning of Cobain's tragically brief  obsession with the cello.  This being a major hit is the true sign of the 90s.

3.  Yo La Tengo - Painful
After years of quite good albums, Hoboken's baby sibling group truly comes into themself on the second  album with the classic lineup featuring James McNew.  The trio's tight, yet laid back sound comes together from years of emulating some of the greatest bands I could tell you all about and the closeness this band has is the rare quality that places the group in the upper echelon of 90s artists.  They have some of the prettiest harmonies in rock history and their often minimalist accompaniment shows a patience and understanding of music seldom found in bands with such catchy songs.  Yo La Tengo excels in their ability to balance both loud and soft tendencies with "Nowhere Near" on the former and "From A Motel 6" and "Double Dare" being the greatest  examples of  the latter sound.  how do they do it?  By jamming of course and "I Heard You Looking" is one of many examples of  the trio showing off  their single-minded improvisation skill at  the end of the album.

2.  Built To Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers
I am probably the only person who will ever tell you that Built to Spill's first album is their best.  Now I will explain why:  Greg Martsch intended BtS to be a solo project with a revolving door of side men and this is the one time that happened.  All of the band's talents are thrown in at once, unlike later albums which would be too devoted to pop songs like "Lie For A Lie" and "Three Years Ago Today" or long proggy jams like "Shameful Dread."  The constant you can always count on, layers and layers of mind-bending guitar from Martsch and usual collaborator, seldom band member Brett Netson is there too especially on the wailing "Revolution."  Also, songs are both loud and fast.  The Idaho group also is at  their  most lo-fi here, not just in recording quality, but their  use use of odd noises and samples all over the place, such as Nelson Muntz and the use of belches in the rhythm.  Needless to say, this is by far the funniest Built to Spill album, as  the cover and title would imply.  Often overlooked in their discography this is a lost masterpiece of classic 90s home-made lo-fi, sitting comfortably with early Pavement and...

1.  Guided by Voices - Vampire on Titus
"Bob, will you and Living Praise Choir lead us into 'God Be The Glory'?"  Propeller manages to do all its title promised and when Scat records called Robert Pollard to ask for more he sadly informed them the band was no more.  Before he hung up he  changed his mind and promised to put something together.  Immediately he, Jimmy and Toby were back in the basement and quickly threw together this masterpiece.  It is the sparsest and most experimental of all GbV albums and really grows on you.  Just today I realized it is even better than the one that preceded it, so there.  What it may lack in a (competent) rhythm section it more than makes up with some of Pollard and  Sprout's most  beautiful pop songs like "Gleemer (The Deeds of Fertile Jim)," "Jar of Cardinals," and "Wondering Boy Poet."  Though production and arrangements are small this manages to be one  of the  band's biggest albums in the way of material having a truly titanic size, with the tip-off being opener "Wished I Was a Giant."  Songs like the evil father nightmare "#2 In The Model Home Series" and the Dutch military theme "Marchers in Orange" have moving and unsettling effects, carrying the emotional weight that this band would bring forth more and more after taking this huge step into self-realization.  It is a challenging and confusing album, just as Guided by Voices' ascent into rock and roll heaven was with each song being another mental roller-coaster ride, to be cliché.  Ending with "Non-Absorbing" it does not answer any of these questions.  That would be for the future for this godly group.  "This is not reality, this is just formality.  he cup is only being filled for the chance to have it spilled.  Flowing just like the days,  sailing just like the days..."

Stay tuned.  There's something really cool about 1994...