On Deaf Ears

I’ve been drafting my end-of-year post (or maybe posts) on the best of 2008, and I have to confess, I’m finding the experience rather depressing.  While some good stuff has been released this year, on the whole I don’t think 2008 has been a very good year for music.

This was driven home by reading All Music Guide’s retrospective on 1993.  The album covers at the top of the entry make quite a statement–I own five of the eight (three of which I love), there are two I’ve never heard, and only one I dislike (Björk).

Here are my picks from 1993.  These are in tiers, but in no particular order within the tiers.  (I can’t possibly remember everything about the year, so this post may go through several iterations.):

Classic or Near-classic:

Suede – Suede

Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville

Nirvana – In Utero

Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Pet Shop Boys – Very

Pearl Jam – Vs.

Uncle Tupelo – Anodyne

The Afghan Whigs – Gentlemen

Snoop Doggy Dogg – Doggystyle

Counting Crows – August and Everything After

My goodness!  What a list!  Most of these acts would go quickly downhill, but boy did they have it that year.

Pretty Damned Great:

Dinosaur Jr. – Where You Been

Teenage Fanclub – Thirteen

P.M. Dawn – The Bliss Album…?

Urge Overkill – Saturation

The Flaming Lips – Transmissions From the Satellite Heart

Morphine – Cure for Pain

Tom Waits – The Black Rider

Midnight Oil – Earth and Sun and Moon

U2 – Zooropa

Chris Isaak – San Francisco Days

I could have easily bumped a couple of these up to the top tier but felt like ten was enough.  The least of these is still better than most of what I’ll have on my Best of 2008 list.

Honorable Mention:

Adam Schmitt – Illiterature

Paul Westerberg – 14 Songs

Frank Black – Frank Black

John Hiatt – Perfectly Good Guitar

The Pooh Sticks – Million Seller

Terence Trent D’arby – Symphony or Damn

I need to revisit all of these–a couple may need to be bumped up a tier.

Albums I Really Liked at the Time but Haven’t Listened to in Ages and Need to Revisit:

Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream

PJ Harvey – Rid of Me

The Breeders – Last Splash

A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders

Some Songs I Like That Do Not Appear on the Above Albums:

Gin Blossoms – “Hey Jealousy”

Dwight Yoakum – “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere”

Belly – “Slow Dog” and “Feed the Tree”

James – “Laid”

Cracker – “Low”

New Order – “Regret”

Jungle Brothers – “40 Below Trooper”

Radiohead – “Creep”

Snow – “Informer”

Janet Jackson – “If”

Catherine Wheel – “Crank”

Mick Jagger – “Sweet Thing” and “Don’t Tear Me Up”

Dick Dale – “Nitro”

Mazzy Star – “Fade Into You”

Lenny Kravitz – “Are You Gonna Go My Way”

Duran Duran – “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone”

Wendy James – “London’s Brilliant”

Dramarama – “Work for Food”

Bad Religion – “American Jesus”

I bet I add a whole bunch to this category over the next few weeks as I think of more.

There are probably some terrific albums from 1993 that I still haven’t heard.   I don’t think I recognized how much great music was coming out at the time.  Man, sometimes you just don’t know how good you have it.

I may have to break this one up into a series of posts.  There is too much great stuff here for just a list with nothing to listen to.