| TOP 60 ALBUMS 1993-2003 | |
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50 Girls Against Boys |
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49 Jawbox For Your Own Special Sweetheart (Atlantic), 1994 Hey, someone from Seattle had to be the first to climb aboard the alternative-rock gravy train. Eventually, some über-indie Washington, D.C., act was going to make a similar leap. The purists cried foul when Jawbox bolted from Dischord to Atlantic, but the resulting album isn’t tainted in the least by major-label poison. Drummer Zachary Barocas moves the songs in rhythmic directions heretofore uncharted, as on the appropriately titled “Cruel Swing.” The guitars of J. Robbins and Bill Barbot weave sinuous paths through more melodic exploits “Savory” and “Green Glass.” An often-overlooked album from D.C.’s “overground” period. (Patrick Berkery) |
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48 Stereolab Mars Audiac Quintet (Elektra), 1994 Due to the early-‘90s major-label signing frenzy, peripheral artists were given the freedom and money to make duplicitous masterworks like Mars Audiac Quintet. Some songs on this record could’ve made a freakish intrusion into the top-40, but next to the beautiful, easy stuff was legitimate experimentation. In 1994, Neu!, Moogs and ‘60s baroque pop had yet to be exploited by the widespread hipster lexicon, and because of the talented cooks in the kitchen (who were/are serious record nerds), this album has aged with dignified grace compared to post-rock, illbient and other hot indie offshoots blooming at the time. (Andrew Earles) |
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47 Urge Overkill Saturation (Geffen), 1993 This sexy beast of a record is so crisp and ready-for-prime-time that some in the know dubbed Saturation Urge Overkill’s Monkees record—i.e., others might’ve had a significant hand in the album’s performances. (Listening to wobbly, death-knell follow-up Exit The Dragon supports the theory.) But so what? The Monkees made great records with outside help; who cares if Urge Overkill did, too? Saturation is the sound of Urge growing into its Nehru jackets and medallions on the major-label dime. Has there ever been a more poignant song about pussy than “Bottle Of Fur”? A better song about a communist hottie than “Sister Havana”? Never. (Patrick Berkery) |
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46 Idlewild 100 Broken Windows (Capitol), 2001 There comes a moment in every thinking man’s life when he starts paying attention to that nagging little voice in the back of his head telling him to stop being such a wanker and take a stand. To get off his ass and do something productive with all that anger bubbling through his blood. To let go of the fiction called “national identity” and embrace the notion we’re one human race that either perishes or perseveres together. That potential is for suckers and making something of your gifts (however meager) is the more noble pursuit. The sound of that moment is the roar you hear on 100 Broken Windows. (Corey duBrowa) |
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45 Afghan Whigs Gentlemen (Elektra), 1993 Greg Dulli might harbor some guilt about screwing your girlfriend behind the club, but that’s all part of his philandering prototype. Ryan Adams, for instance, is the PG-13 version of Dulli, thus suitable for mainstream consumption. Behind the elegant but metaphorically challenged themes of love/hate/sex, Gentlemen lays out hard rock and minimal bar ballads (the heavy-handed soul/R&B comparisons were mostly incorrect) that, despite the punch-in-the-nose catchiness, confused record labels and their marketing departments. Because of Dulli’s influence, 2003 might’ve embraced Gentlemen; 1993 had no idea what to do with it. (Andrew Earles) |
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44 Air The Virgin Suicides (Astralwerks), 2000 After Air released Moon Safari, a trés-cool cocktail of lunar lounge stylings and hipster-approved elevator music, the French duo turned away from Fender Rhodes scholarship and retro-kitsch exotica to explore much darker sonic territory: Pink Floydian prog, trippy ‘60s rock and ‘80s synth pop. Evoking both the sleazy sensuality of a dirty French novel and the gothic aura of a séance, this score’s dreamy mood maps the tragic story of the doomed, tender-aged beauties of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, refracting the autumnal, Sunday-afternoon sunlight of Sofia Coppola’s big-screen treatment. Not for nothing was it dubbed Dark Side Of The Moon Safari. (Jonathan Valania) |
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43 PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love (Island), 1995 Only Polly Harvey could make selfless devotion, panting desperation and looking dead on her album covers so undeniably powerful. She staked out new territory here with production help from Flood and John Parish, assuring she’d be our hell of choice for years to come. To Bring You My Love catapulted her from angry and mysterious to downright scary, a damning diva on par with the theatrical Nick Cave, a fake-eyelashed drama queen casting spells with deep bass, Biblical references and a growling, pleading voice. Operatic in its themes, this vulnerable, love-addled Tosca is far from insane or powerless—she’s superhuman. (Cyndi Elliott) |
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42 Unwound Repetition (Kill Rock Stars), 1996 Prior to Repetition, this Pacific Northwest outfit sounded just a little too much like its influences: Fugazi, Sonic Youth, the Amphetamine Reptile Records roster. All progressive power chords, layers of noise and start/stop tempos, Unwound was the ultimate band to listen to on headphones, but not one you’d put alongside its predecessors in terms of importance. With Repetition, the trio found its own voice—incorporating bits of free jazz, dub and funk, while adding a variety of keyboards to its dynamic, riff-heavy, rhythm-section-led wall of sound—and stumbled upon the perfect mixture of experimentation, melody and, of course, repetition. (Eric T. Miller) |
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41 Bright Eyes Letting Off The Happiness (Saddle Creek), 1998 The story was in the turmoil as some 17-year-old kid who dreamed of driving off a cliff raged away in America’s heartland, as if the girl of his dreams had just walked out the door with his afternoon meds. Letting Off The Happiness is Conor Oberst’s melodramatic masterpiece of gut-wrenching folk pop, and it’s probably not surprising he hasn’t made anything like it since ditching his fake ID. Even when Oberst screams, “It’s going to be all right,” he sounds positively wronged by love, filled with enough youthful hurt that he spent the years after Happiness setting a cast around a broken heart that never did seem to heal. Poor kid. (Trevor Kelley) |