A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
It shouldn’t be a surprise the largest expansion in my collection focuses on the late 1980s, i.e. my high school years. The Favorite 10 list from these years won’t see much change, as 1989 demonstrates, but the expanded lists risk becoming ridiculously long.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing
Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
Faith No More, The Real Thing
Steve Reich, Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
Fugazi, 13 Songs
Emmylou Harris, Bluebird
Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love
Madonna, Like a Prayer
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Other favorites from the year:
The Replacements, Don’t Tell a Soul
Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder
All About Eve, Scarlet and Other Stories
XTC, Oranges and Lemons
De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
Nirvana, Bleach
Pixies, Doolittle
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Bring Yr Camera
John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy
Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares, Vol. 2
Nakamori Akina, CRUISE
Depeche Mode, 101
Fugazi displaces The Replacements, who made a shot for the charts by cleaning up their sound.
I saw this ad in Pulse magazine and scoffed at it:
Today, I nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But it took 30 years before I had enough life experience to understand how breathtaking 3 Feet High and Rising is.
Nevermind introduced me to Nirvana like the rest of the world, but I prefer Bleach.
The events in Nakamori Akina’s life at the time CRUISE was released overshadowed the maturity of the album. It’s not ground-breaking the way Fushigi is, but it’s an album that could have only been recorded after it.
I saw Depeche Mode in concert in 2017, and 101 ruined my experience of it. I had been listening to 101 in the weeks leading up to the concert, and understandably, the band stacked the set list more toward recent work than “the hits”.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
We’ve actually revisited 1992 earlier in the year, and this list hasn’t changed, although I did tack on L7 and Helmet in the extended list.
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Miracle Mile
Máire Brennan, Máire
Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 3 (Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, London Sinfonietta)
k.d. lang, Ingenue
Sade, Love Deluxe
En Vogue, Funky Divas
Prince and the New Power Generation, 0(+> (Love Symbol Album)
Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, At the Ryman
Kronos Quartet, Pieces of Africa
Robin Holcomb, Rockabye
Other favorites from the year:
The Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
Faith No More, Angel Dust
Sonic Youth, Dirty
Helmet, Meantime
L7, Bricks Are Heavy
Helmet got caught up in the grunge craze of the early ’90s, even though they were clearly not grunge. Wikipedia says Helmet’s staccato riffage would influence Mastodon, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Korn and Linkin Park.
I’ll admit I picked up Meantime because of the grunge-adjacent marketing hype. I didn’t hold onto it, but like Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record, I couldn’t shake it. So I brought it back into my collection when it was reissued on vinyl earlier in the year.
Bricks Are Heavy also suffered a bit of guilt by association. Butch Vig had been doing miraculous work with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Surely, L7 would follow in that vein. I didn’t warm up to it. I’m not sure how 25 years turned around my perception of the album, but it did.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
Instead of providing an extended list for 1993, I rag on a number of critical favorites from the year. I’ve mellowed out about Björk’s Debut and U2’s Zooropa, but Siamese Dream and janet. are still overrated.
Duran Duran, The Wedding Album
Bill Frisell, Have a Little Faith
John Zorn / Naked City, Absinthe
Judy Dunaway and the Evan Gallagher Little Band, Judy Dunaway and the Evan Gallagher Little Band
Spiny Norman, Crust
The Love Gods, Hujja Hujja Fishla
Michael Nyman, The Piano
Wayne Horvitz / Pigpen, Halfrack
Clannad, Banba
Emerson Sting Quartet, American Originals: Ives / Barber String Quartets
Other favorites from the year:
Kate Bush, The Red Shoes
Emmylou Harris, Cowgirl’s Prayer
Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Cypress Hill, Black Sunday
Digable Planets, Reachin’
U2, Zooropa
Julee Cruise, The Voice of Love
Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales
This time, I’m providing an extended list, and it demonstrates where I was as a listener and where I am.
That Favorite 10 is stuffed to the gills with some really avant-garde titles, the kind put together by a young person trying to be more cosmopolitan than his peers.
The extended list includes music that would have been ignored by the person who compiled the Favorite 10.
My younger self would have scoffed at my older present self for deigning to include hip-hop, and my older self would tell my younger self to examine what social pressures may be coming to bear for his opposition.
Younger self would complain about how hip-hop culture is fetishized by his ethnic cohorts, which older self would acknowledge but caution against succumbing to the racial dynamics of the country.
Younger self would have no idea what older self would be talking about, since younger self hadn’t yet moved to he Mainland US to see these dynamics in action.
All that to say maybe I’ve been resistant to hip-hop because the music that most appeals to me is made predominantly by upper middle class white men.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
The original list from 1994 didn’t even include an extended list. That’s how austere the selections from the year were.
Talitha Mackenzie, Solas
Freedy Johnston, This Perfect World
Wayne Horvitz/Pigpen, V as in Victim
Harry Connick, Jr., She
Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
Everything But the Girl, Amplified Heart
Kronos Quartet, Night Prayers
Jayne Cortez and the Firespitters, Cheerful & Optimistic
John Zorn/Masada, Alef
Madonna, Bedtime Stories
Other favorites from the year:
Prince, The Black Album
Blur, Parklife
Pizzicato Five, Made in USA
Shudder to Think, Pony Express Record
Elliott Goldenthal, Interview with a Vampire
At the time of its limited release, I was actually very curious about The Black Album. Part of it was all the hype surrounding its initial aborted release, but I was still mostly ambivalent about Prince to pass on it. Its underdog status among Prince’s work makes me like it just a bit more.
A top 10 list I would have compiled in 1994 would have listed the Interview with a Vampire soundtrack. It’s actually a really good score. It’s too bad the movie sucked eggs. I watched twice — the first time to evaluate its faithfulness to the novel (somewhat), the second to evaluate it as a film (awful). The only thing that mars the soundtrack is the unfortunate cover of Sympathy for the Devil by Guns N’ Roses.
Back in 2008, I wrote a series of entries detailing my favorite albums from various decades. For the longest time, I held an incredibly dim view of 1992. Compared the years preceding and following, 1992 felt like a creative malaise had spread throughout the music industry.
Bands that used to be underground found themselves to be popular, and under this newfound, wide-scale scrutiny, some of them cracked.
Or so I thought.
I had only turned 20 years old, an age when the dopamine hit from discovering new music left a neophyte intoxicated. I wanted every album to matter, and the ones that didn’t received a harsh judgment.
Twenty-five years later, I’ve got more of an education on where 1992 fit in the larger scheme of things, and of course, I got it wrong. This old entry details all the ways I got it wrong. So let’s make it right.
Here’s a revised list of the Favorite Edition 1992.
Wayne Horvitz/The President, Miracle Mile
Máire Brennan, Máire
Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 3 (Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, London Sinfonietta)
k.d. lang, Ingenue
Sade, Love Deluxe
En Vogue, Funky Divas
Prince and the New Power Generation, 0(+> (Love Symbol Album)
Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, At the Ryman
Kronos Quartet, Pieces of Africa
Robin Holcomb, Rockabye
Honorable mention
The Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
Faith No More, Angel Dust
Sonic Youth, Dirty
The original list stopped at five items, with a longer list of albums accompanied by explanations for why they weren’t favorites. In some cases, I’ve completely changed my mind.
At the time, Love Deluxe was such a drastic turn for Sade that I thought something went wrong. It would take another 18 years for Love Deluxe to reveal itself as the start of a new creative era, one marked by extreme pauses between albums. This early ’90s album shares more with its successors in 2000 and 2010 than it did with 1988’s Stronger than Pride.
I also got a chance to revisit Ingenue after the entry was written, and it’s place on the favorite list is well anchored.
Other albums would not have appeared on the list at the time it was written. Prince was unexplored territory for me in 2008, so I wouldn’t have even thought to include the Love Symbol album. En Vogue wouldn’t have gotten past my raging rock snobbery.
The rest of the albums on the list could have only been included after much research. Dirty makes a lot more sense if a Sonic Youth novice also considers Sister and EVOL. At the Ryman would not make sense to someone who’s only exposure to Emmylou Harris was Wrecking Ball.
Concert reviews were always something I wanted to write for this site, but I never drummed up the gumption to jot down my thoughts about shows after I attend them. In reality, I didn’t want shows to become means to an end, in the same way album purchases had become source for reviews.
Still, I go to a lot of concerts, and it feels awkward not mentioning them at least once.
So I’m going to do a year-end overview of all the shows I’ve attended in the past year.
Something I didn’t anticipate when I moved from Austin to Seattle in 2012 was a classical music scene with an audience receptive to modern works.
Seattle Symphony Orchestra includes a number of commissions throughout its season, and a chamber series focusing on modern works turns the lobby of Benaroya Hall into an informal setting. I got to hear Steve Reich’s Different Trains as part of a chamber music festival, and Town Hall has brought in the likes of Alarm Will Sound, Roomful of Teeth and NOW Ensemble.
So the year-end Favorite Edition for 2014 reflects my rekindled interest in new music. It’s easier to indulge when even the record shops make it a point to separate modern music from the common era.
![[Wolf Hall - Tudor Music Soundtrack]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/VariousArtistsSoundtracks200510_f-300x300.jpg)
![[De La Soul - 3 Feet And and Rising]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/DeLaSoul3FeetHighandR68692_f-300x298.jpg)
![[I came in for U2. I came out with De La Soul]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/de-la-soul-ad.jpg)
![[Helmet - Meantime]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/HelmetMeantime1992167799_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/WuTangClanEntertheWuTa189076_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Soundtrack - Interview with a Vampire]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/VariousArtistsSoundtracks12739_f-300x299.jpg)
![[Sasagawa Miwa - Houjou]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BEST03182018197386LYUJ_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Wayne Horvtiz - The Snowghost Sessions]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WayneHorvitzTheSnowghost19605945SB_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Wayne Horvitz/The President - Miracle Mile]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WayneHorvitzThePresident14088_f-300x300.jpg)
![[Duran Duran, Washington State Fair, Sept. 23, 2015]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/20150923_213148_1032x774.jpg "[Duran Duran, Washington State Fair, Sept. 23, 2015]")
![[John Luther Adams - Become Ocean]](https://musicwhore.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/JohnLutherAdamsBecomeOce122056_f-300x300.jpg)