1996

This is an exciting year!  I could write about it in my sleep, I have listened to these albums so much.  What is  extra special about it, though is that it is when I really became aware  of music as it happened, rather than with a slight delay, so from here on out it gets even more personal.  There  is  one major problem with this year and that is a lack of diversity, but it could have been a lot worse...

10.  The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Take it From The Man!
The late 90s was full of great great music from the BJM and for a while they rivaled GbV in terms of output.  At this time, their quality and time control had left a bit to be desired, so this is the only one of the three great albums they put out this year to make it.  It is some of their rawest and most aggressive material of all and opener "Vacuum Boots" kicks it off with their signature multiple-guitar attack.  Though the psychedelia/shoegaze is a little lower than usual this is perhaps the definitive  BJM record in that it is probably the one that Jones himself would enjoy the most with all its punk-blues swagger.  It also has some of Matt Hollywood's best leads like "Who?" and "B.S.A." and plenty of explicit credit given to the band's influence.  One of many great records from one of the 90s' best bands and certainly the most tambourine you'll get.

9.  Guided by Voices - Tonics and Twisted Chasers
...and here it begins.  This fanclub-only LP (later released as a limited edition CD the next year) is now accepted the the regular GbV cannon, though recorded and written almost  entirely by Bob and Toby it is more of an Airport 5 project.  It is pretty stripped down with few  drums and lots of acoustic guitars, but the songs are some of their best and most  sentimental, including major standout "Dayton, Ohio - 19 something and 5."  Short folk songs like "Is She Ever?" and "The Key Losers" are the greatest, but the loose environment also allows some of the stranger  diversions into psych, prog, and the strange language of lo-fi - my favorite being "Ha Ha Man."  Bob and  Toby may sing together here more than ever, enough of a reason not to skip this one.  The CD tracks include more of the band, best with the acid punk of "Girl From the Sun."  GbV at their peak and their last all lo-fi album.

8.  Butthole Surfers - Electric Larryland
Some people hate this album, but what do they know about love?  This album is pretty true to what the Surfers were about the whole time, just a bit more mature and polished. Where the last three, or even four albums had been too much of one thing this one  is truly eclectic ranging from the heavy speed of "Ulcer Breakout" to the more gentle "The Jingle of a Dog's Collar" and the Spacemen 3 nod "Space," in addition to the studio creations "My Brother's Wife" and "Let's Talk About Cars."  Their experiments with programmed beats proved to be the most successful in scoring the hit "Pepper" with its JFK assassination-themed video being straight out of their original vision.  The even more psychedelic "The Lord Is A Monkey" may use the hip-hop influence even better, and "T.V. Star" is their boldest foray into country.  In truth, all the songs are great if you don't mind your Buttholes a little cleaner.  They're still the same band, maybe more than ever.

7.  Tobin Sprout - Carnival Boy
Both Toby and Bob put out their first solo album this year and generally this one gets a little more credit, as the cover would indicate, it is "POP."  Sprout would distinguish himself further up the road, but this one is like a set of his GbV songs, though in most cases, most evidently on this version of "It's Like Soul Man," less lo-fi.    The most memorable songs on the record are some of the best to come out of the Dayton, Ohio camp such as "Gas Daaddy Gas," "To My Beloved Martha," and the gigantic closer "The Last Man Well Known To Kingpin," in which his lyrics out-abstract Pollard's yet fulfill every rock and roll fantasy even more directly.  Though it is full of short, lo-fi instrumentals this is less experimental than the band's project's and is one of the best pop records of its time.  Like most of of  Sprout's albums it is as essential as proper GbV releases for any official iron man.

6.  Stereolab - Emporer Tomato Ketchup
Many consider this Sterolab's best work, but for a band who has taken on so many sounds, that would be a bit trite.  It is maybe their most distinct, and  certainly better than a few.  It has a smooth and clean sound despite all the experimentation, owing more of a debt to Serge Gainsbourg than usual.  It makes the album perfect for a lounge setting even at its krautiest thanks to the Laetitia Sadier's voice and some slow-paced, but tright song writing like on the title track.  While it may not have the immediate energy of their early work, the catchy songs with the lyrics not being the only thing distinctly French like "Cybele's Reverie" make up for it.  The band lives up to its name more than ever in combining styles like exotica, krautrock, and chanson so flawlessly and making it all sound like it's still from the future, albeit the more tasteful one envisioned decades before by the likes of Esquivel and Gene Roddenberry.

5.  Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
In trying to keep my true beliefs about these albums by not altering the ranking order this is hard to write about, but that's my cross  to bear.  After Belle and Sebastian blew up they quickly put this second album together which Stuart Murdoch still considers his best set of songs.  That is respectable,  especially since the other members move din a bit afterward, but there is nothing new to be desired from another ten flawless pieces  of folky chamber pop.  B&S shows them to be one of the most tasteful bands with their arrangements having such a subtle dynamic, with each letting the other fill their perfect space, much like Speed the Plough.  While usually regarded as soft and old-fashioned the band has always been fearless in throwing a surprising new sound here and there, only fitting for a voice like Murdoch's.  His lyrics hit the hardest here being a little more perplexing than before and mastering the dark lyrics-happy melody dichotomy with cinematic  references in "Like Dylan in the Movies."

4.  Beck - Odelay
I was jumping around on the trampoline in the foyer with MTV playing in the family room when they announced  the premier of Beck's new video.  I did not know who he was by name, but I felt compelled to watch and as the hot California sun rose to that Fender Rhodes my mind was blown.  The next few minutes contained nods to and samples of the Fogs, Gary Wilson,  Captain Beefheart,  William Shatner, and too many others to name.  This was of course, "Where It's At," and luckily the mainstream media agreed for once and this album was riding high for the next  year with hits like "The New Pollution, " "Jack-Ass," and of course "Devil's Haircut."  This Dust Brother's collaboration was and still is one of the coolest things ever created and made the 90s a lot more interesting than grunge, gangsta rap, and mainstream crossover of industrial music (wtf) combined.  It's something else and came to define Beck, perhaps for the worst, but it's all there and it's all good, good, good...

3.  Belle  and Sebastian - Tigermilk
Legend has it that Stuart Murdoch and bassist Stuart  David formed the band with the first five musicians they found.  If that's true it is nothing short of a miracle.  What may be even more miraculous is how it turned out, not just in the quality of the music and its overnight success, but in the establishment of the group's distinct identity.  The  cover, the sound, the impossibly disturbed and relatable stories with that old-world charm, it is a marvel.  Somehow it also turned out to be the best thing they made with Stuart's greatest songs with such timelessly beautiful songs as "We Rule the School" and closing track "Mary Jo" presenting a kind  of song far removed from what was going on on both sides of that Atlantic and rightfully creating swarms of imitators.  From the very opening of "The State I Am In," all questions about the band's importance are thrown out and these modern symphonic folk tales take on their full power to move and affect.  Truly the dawning of something new and great.

2.  Guided by Voices - Under the Bushes Under the Stars
Initially intended as a  concept album (in Uncle Bob's words, "our The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway") entitled The Power of Suck, this album had a long history involving the return to real  studios and using real producers like Steve Albini and Kim Deal which may have destroyed the classic lineup.  The most notable survivor was "Don't Stop Now," with its string arrangements and excellent production making it one of the band's most epic songs and being the story of the band's classic lineup, which was already augmented by new addition Jim Greer.  Someof the band's greatest songs are here such as opener "Man Called Aerodynamics," the cautionary crescendo of "Cut Out Witch" and the heavenly guitars of "Drag Days."  Even as his home-life falls apart Pollard pays tribute to his daughter one "Your Name Is Wild," one of his best love songs, even if it is about  a different kind of love, and Sprout is on top of his game too with "Atom Eyes" and the more rocking lo-fi version of "It's Like Soul Man."  As trying as this transition proved to for the band the ending result was yet another amazing album.  Don't be fooled by  the fact that it didn't make the top spot still waiting to be rediscovered and hailed as another one of the group's many masterpieces.

1.  The Olivia Tremor Control - Music From the Unrealized  Film Script:  Dusk At Cubist Castle
GbV being at #2 says more about the outstanding quality of this  album rather than any flaws in the other.  Elephant 6's greatest band finally gets to make their big statement around their complicated, if even coherent "California Demise" concept.  The plot involving two girls - Jacqueline and Olivia, around the turn of the century attaining knowledge of the devastating West Coast earthquake is completely incidental to the  dense psychedelic pop found on this  double LP.  This is what the Beatles would  have sounded like in 1972  had they continued down the strawberry fields and not broken up.  The band does it all - constructing long, complicated suites, experimenting with Robert Schneider's  complicated lo-fi  superstudio, and using both antiquated and futuristic technology to successfully revive the best sounds of the 60s.  They can appear as though music has not changed in 30 years on "Define a Transparent Dream" even after beginning with punk overture "The Opera House."  Folk rockers like "Courtyard" fit in as well as experimental tracks like "Tropical  Bells" and "Dusk at Cubist Castle" while side three forces it all together with "Green Typewriters" unpredictably moving from pop to avant-garde, long to short, and pleasant to abrasive.  Proving their skills beyond mere "indie pop" on more complicated arrangements like "No Growing (Exegesis)" and "Holiday Surprise 1, 2, 3" they are at their best on the moments of pure beauty "Marking Time" and closer "NYC-25."  It may not get  any better than this, OTC  had it all going for them, but they wanted even more and would do it soon enough...

You can expect 1997 Friday.