I just found this thread now. Thanks for taking my thunder and making it your own, IC. Seriously though, I'm glad you brought this here, because now I can prove my point all up and down the music section.
This discussion is brought to you by Jonny Glass's Facebook.
That's me
As so many misled children have already done in the past 20 years, Jonny has erroneously tagged Nirvana's grunge debut "Nevermind" as the greatest album of the 1990's. The 90's were a tumultuous decade for music, and the scene saw some of its biggest changes ever. The idea that Nevermind is the best album of the decade is silly to me, however, and I want to bring the debate in here.
As Nate said, I'm hardly a misled child. This is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 90s, let alone all time. And I don't think anything proves my point better than the most trusted name in music, Rolling Stone Magazine...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/l...-nineties-20110427/nirvana-nevermind-19691231
Nevermind was the anthem to kids of the 90s, tired of the crap music of the 80s that were all about drugs and partying and sex and general hedonism. It was the album of people who wanted to feel, they wanted something real, and that's what Nirvana gave them. This wasn't music that you blasted at a house party, this was music that appealed to both the ears and the soul.
As that Rolling Stone blurb said, Nevermind showed the world that rock and roll, a genre that was fast being replaced as the music of rebellion by hip hop and rap, could still fuck shit up.
Live: Throwing Copper. I take a LOT of flak for this, but fuck you, it's my pick. This album was as complete as it gets. There were NO throwaway tracks. There were several hits, such as I Alone, Selling the Drama, Lightning Crashes, Iris, All Over You, and White: Discussion. It was melodic without sacrificing a degree of heavy. It was also versatile. The topics ranged, and pulled no punches. The simpler stories like the one told in the sing "Waitress" to some of the bigger topics like "The Dam at Otter Creek." This album was as good as it gets in the 90's, and while it was no where NEAR as influential as Nevermind, it was musically, technically, and lyrically superior.
Lyrically superior my ass. "Our love is like water, pinned down and abused for being strange." What the fuck does that even mean? Please, tell me how water is A) Pinned down, B) Abused and C) strange.
Now take a look at the lyrics of Bloom, "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say"
They're both artistic and clear: he's singing about people who listen to the music and have kneejerk reactions, but don't dig into the music to find the deeper message. Smells like Teen Spirit was the anthem of teenage angst in the 90s, but most kids played that song as their, "This is my anthem hear me roar!" song. It was so much more than that though: it was about the people of Cobain's generation that didn't fit in with any sort of crowd, so they made their own.
So that takes care of
that myth.
There were no throwaway tracks on Nevermind either. Literally every single song is great.
The major thing that I think separates Nevermind from Live is that there were many different sounds on Nirvana. They had there scream at the top of your lungs songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit, melodic songs like Lithium, serene songs like Polly, and all of them have different messages.
As far as I know, every Live song is just the lead singer doing his moaning/singing thing over guitars.
Ozzy Osbourne: No More Tears. It's a well established fact that Ozzy was better solo than he was in Black Sabbath, and I personally felt that this was his best over all album. "Mr. Tinkertrain" was as creepy as a metal track got for mainstream, "No More Tears" was an epic, "Mama I'm Comin' Home" was an anthem of such pain and love, "Hellraiser" wound up being covered as a single by co-author Lemme Killmeister, and you still had "Time After Time", "The Road to Nowhere", and Grammy winning track "I Don't Wanna Change the World."
Ozzy Osbourne is not half the musician Cobain or Grohl is.
If my math is correct, JGlass would have been about three when Nevermind came out. Sorry bro, but this is one time that age and experience do mean something. When you spend your adolescent/teenage years in the 90's, experiencing the music when it came out, your perspective is far different then having heard the music at a later date.
NO! I'd be one year old, but I hardly see how that's relevant. Just because I didn't enjoy the music when it first came out doesn't mean that it's not great music. In fact, I think this is a testament to how great the album is: it's stood the test of time and can be enjoyed by anybody.
And let's get something straight: I didn't just throw this out there after listening through Nevermind once or twice. I've listened through Nevermind dozens of times, and tons of other 90s albums. Certainly, I've probably listened to more albums from the 90s all the way through than I have from any other decade. I took other albums into consideration, including Sublime's self-titled album, Pearl Jam's 10 (though I hate Pearl Jam, so I didn't strongly consider it), Metallica's Black Album, RHCP's Blood Sugar Sex Magic AND Californication, Green Day's Dookie, Smashing Pumpkin's Siamese Dream... you get the point, I took a lot into consideration here. But in the end, it has to be Nevermind. It's just a perfect musical experience from top to bottom, one that inspired a generation of teenagers and young adults, as well as a whole genre of musicians.
It doesn't make your opinion less valid, but it does preclude you from those "in the moment" experiences that shape your music palate with regards to a band or an album.
"In the moment" experiences are very overrated. Triple H vs. Undertaker at WrestleMania 27 seemed like a decent match "in the moment."
Call me callous here, but I believe the biggest reason Nevermind is given the label of best album of the 90's is because of Kurt Cobain's death. Was the band, and Nevermind in particular, instrumental in changing the face of music? Sure. But the mistake people make is confusing most influential for best. Is Nevermind a great album? Damn right, it is. But take Cobain's death out of the equation, and is it truly the best?
Yes, especially considering they released another top selling album two years after Nevermind was released: In Utero. Cobain offed himself after In Utero was released.
With regards to Nevermind, I liken it to the argument over what makes a PPv great. Do a few memorable matches mixed with some crap make for a better PPV where every match is very good to great? In my mind, Nevermind is very top heavy with great songs, with "Come as You Are", "In Bloom", "Something In The Way" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" being the obvious choices. "Lithium" and "Breed" are great complementary tracks as well, "On a Plain" is very good, and "Drain You" may be my favorite song of theirs due to Dave Grohl's phenomenal work behind the drum set. However "Polly", "Territorial Pissings", and "Stay Away" were and still are huge misses as songs for me, skippable and channel changing alike for this listener. Nevermind is a great album, perhaps the most influential album ever given it's impact in music history, but it's not the Holy Grail of 90's music it's made out to be.
Couldn't disagree more. I love all three of those songs, especially Polly and Stay Away, and I thoroughly enjoy Territorial Pissings' take on being kind for the sake kindness' sake. You may not like those songs, but they certainly register with other fans as solid works.
In a minute, for arguments sake, I'm going to pretend I'm not right here with you. But I'll be lying when I do so. Throwing Copper is absolutely the best damn album of the 90's, and Live was my favorite band for some time mainly due to this album. "Lightning Crashes" remains to this day the best song Ive ever heard live, and "Selling the Drama" remains one of my favorite songs of all time.
Look man, considering Live your favorite band is
your problem, not ours!
All kidding aside, I liken Live to Nickelback... except thoroughly more talented. They capitalized on somebody elses' style, and they made it safe for major mainstream consumption. Nevermind paved the way for albums like Throwing Copper to be successful. Folks didn't know what to expect from the rather unknown band from Seattle when they picked up the strange record with a naked baby on the cover, and the alternative rock scene was just that: alternative. By the time Live put out Throwing Copper, alternative rock was really nothing more than a formality, as alt. rock was not so very different from mainstream rock, and people were always looking for the hot new "alternative rock" record.
Throwing Copper had a loud, screw you attitude mixed with just the right amount of emotional vulnerability that still makes for a great front to back listening experience some 17 years later. I've always been of the opinion that a great album contains a plethora of songs that on any given day may be your favorite from it, and Throwing Copper fits that bill. There was a time I distinctly recall when "Pillar of Davidson" was my favorite track off the album. Even the hidden track, the very tongue-in-cheek "Horse", is a great song in its own right.
Nevermind was louder. Nevermind said screw you harsher. Nevermind was more emotional. Everything Throwing Copper was, Nevermind was more, and it was earlier as well.
An album like Throwing Copper would have never happened if it wasn't for Nevermind. Fact.
Radiohead: OK Computer. Another album that simply doesn't have a skippable song on it. "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police", "Lucky", "No Surprises" "Airbag" and "Exit Music" were all hits, and rightfully so. But it's the diversity within the album, both musically and lyrically, that puts OK Computer over the top. It was a politically and culturally driven album at times, and the band truly encapsulated the state-of-the-times better then any band in history has done. But songs such as Paranoid Android reminded you that the band wasn't simply politically motivated, as Thom Yorke was simply writing about a violent reaction he witnessed after a woman had a drink spilled on her at a bar. The album as a whole, specifically songs such as "Fitter Happier" and "Climbing Up the Walls", really checked the pulse of people's emotions, forcing them to go places they've never gone before. Intense and inspiring, it's a must-listen from start to finish.
As IC and I
will agree on, there shall be no Radiohead on our list.
A friend of mine actually suggested this album on my Facebook status (she was the first one to comment), and I immediately disagreed with her, to which IC gave that comment a like.
But really, Radiohead sucks.
Oasis- Definitely Maybe
One of the greatest debut albums of all time, and definitely the best of the 1990's, "Definitely Maybe" catapulted Oasis into the UK music scene and signalled the return of guitar based music to the charts, beginning an era that became known as Brit Pop. At the time it was the fastest selling debut release in UK music history, going platnium many times over, sold a million copies in the USA, and is still voted regularly as the greatest album of all time by UK music magazines.
From the opening track, you knew what Oasis were all about "Toniiiiiiiight....I'm a rock'n'roll staaaaar!", they signalled their intention to be the biggest band in the country, which was something they achieved pretty easily, and set the tone for the whole album.
When a debut album features all-time classics such as "Live Forever", "Supersonic" (my favourite song of all time), the iconic "Cigarettes and Alcohol", "Columbia" and "Slide Away", you know you have created something extremely special indeed. Those songs will live on for years and years, and are still as popular and relevant today as they were in 1994 when the Oasis juggernaught smashed onto the scene.
The nasal, aggressive but still tuneful vocals of a young Liam Gallagher, plus his swaggering image helped to create a buzz around the band that echoed that of Gallagher's idols The Beatles, and even today, after they have sadly disbanded, Oasis remain one of the most popular bands in the country. If they reunited tomorrow tickets for any stadium tour would be gone in minutes.
Just as bands such as The Stone Roses, The Beatles etc inspired Oasis, Oasis themselves are frequently brought up as the major influence to this era's guitar bands and "Definitely Maybe" is the album they always quite. It's influence lives on.
If you are looking for an album that will make you feel like you can achieve anything and take on the world, listen to "Definitely Maybe", there is nothing quite like it. I don't think I will ever find an album I love more.
I'm going to sound like the biggest music snob when all is said and done, but I think Oasis is among the worst bands ever. Their songs are all tremendously boring, drawn out, overplayed, and the members of the band have an ego that would make The Beatles look like the Grateful Dead (translation: They would make a group of extreme egotists look like a group of hippies that just wanted to play music and get high). I wouldn't touch this album with a 10 foot pole. Oh, and once again, this album would be buried under piles of party rock albums and hip hop records if it weren't for Nirvana revitalizing the alternative rock scene.
Sorry to insult your musical choices there Naitch, you know I dig you, and if it's any consolation, I also love Alice in Chains. Oasis just pisses me off.
I think I really said all there is to say in those rebuttals. You know it's a dark day when I'm on the same side as Dagger of all people, but the guy is dead on this time. It has nothing to do with Cobain's death, this album was a number one album well before his death, and the music was always considered top notch. This album has received critical acclaim for a few simple reasons...
1) The music is phenomenal. Not a bad track on here, and all the songs are both great listens and rich with meaning.
2) It spread like wildfire, the way albums are supposed to. It didn't debut at number 1 due to fanfare and hype, it debuted at 144, but because the music was so good it managed to work it's way up to number 1.
3) It made alt. rock relative. There was nobody else who could do this except for Nirvana. Say what you will about Ten and Pearl Jam, but they simply didn't have the grit that Nirvana had to bring alt. rock into the public spectrum.
Nevermind is my favourite album of Nirvana, and like Dagger pointed out, the songs in it are great. And me being someone who recently started listening to Nirvana, (It quickly became one of my favourite bands) I loved each and every one of the songs in the album Nevermind much more than the rest. And I certainly wasn't around back when Cobain passed away or when the album became a huge success because of it, like some say. Hell, I'll admit the fact that I've not been around as long as you all and nor do I have a varied taste or knowledge when it comes to music like you guys but I really don't see anything horrible about the album or the band the way some point out. But well, we've all got our opinions and I respect them. But in the end, I think it's a brilliant album with which I have no problem being called the Best of The 90's. 
