1989: the first shortlist for the incredibly pointless 999 albums project

Posted on March 11th, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Albums, Lists.

I am slowly, in my copious free time, compiling a list of my favorite 999 albums from 1951 to the present, playing by the same rules as the 99 albums list (no best-of compilations, etc). I'm doing this a year at a time. This is my 1989 top forty (the first twenty to twenty-five will probably make the final list):

1989

  1. The Pixies, Doolittle
    Pixies - Doolittle

  2. Volcano Suns, Thing of Beauty
    Volcano Suns - Thing Of Beauty

  3. De La Soul, Three Feet High and Rising
    De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising

  4. NoMeansNo, Wrong
    NoMeansNo - Wrong

  5. XTC, Oranges and Lemons
    XTC - Oranges & Lemons

  6. Kirsty MacColl, Kite
    Kirsty MacColl - Kite

  7. Dave Holland Quartet, Extensions
    Dave Holland - Extensions

  8. Peter Blegvad, Downtime
    Peter Blegvad - Downtime

  9. Joe Jackson, Blaze of Glory
    Joe Jackson - Blaze of Glory

  10. My Dad Is Dead, The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get
    My Dad Is Dead - The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get

  11. Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Tangle
    Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - Tangle

  12. Bob Mould, Workbook
    Bob Mould - Workbook

  13. The Momes, Spiralling
    The Momes - Spiralling

  14. Lou Reed, New York
    Lou Reed - New York

  15. Television Personalities, Privilege
    Television Personalities - Privilege

  16. Jane Siberry, Bound by the Beauty
    Jane Siberry - Bound by the Beauty

  17. Steve Lacy, The Door
    Steve Lacy - The Door

  18. Elvis Costello, Spike
    Elvis Costello - Spike

  19. Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band
    Lyle Lovett - Lyle Lovett and his Large Band

  20. Glass Eye, Hello Young Lovers
    Glass Eye - Hello Young Lovers

  21. Bob Stewart's First Line Band, Goin' Home

  22. 3 Mustaphas 3, Heart of Uncle
    3 Mustaphas 3 - Heart of Uncle

  23. Lounge Lizards, Voice of Chunk
    The Lounge Lizards - Voice of Chunk

  24. Thinking Plague, In This Life
    Thinking Plague - In This Life

  25. 10,000 Maniacs, Blind Man's Zoo
    10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo

  26. Pere Ubu, Cloudland
    Pere Ubu - Cloudland

  27. Bel Canto, Birds of Passage
    Bel Canto - Birds of Passage

  28. Shrimp Boat, Speckly
    Shrimp Boat - Speckly

  29. The Frogs, It's Only Right and Natural
    The Frogs - It's Only Right and Natural

  30. Neneh Cherry, Raw Like Sushi
    Neneh Cherry - Raw Like Sushi

  31. The Ex, Joggers & Smoggers
    The Ex - Joggers & Smoggers

  32. Michael Penn, March
    Michael Penn - March

  33. Marilyn Crispell, Live in Zurich
    Marilyn Crispell - Live In Zurich

  34. Jack Walrath, Neohippus

  35. Ut, Griller
    UT - Griller

  36. Muhal Richard Abrams, The Hearinga Suite
    Muhal Richard Abrams - The Hearinga Suite

  37. A Confederacy of Dunces, Tsk, Tsk, Tsk

  38. The Wedding Present, Bizarro
    The Wedding Present - Bizarro

  39. K.D. Lang, Absolute Torch and Twang
    k.d. lang - Absolute Torch and Twang

  40. Boiled in Lead, From the Ladle to the Grave
    Boiled in Lead - From the Ladle to the Grave

    15 comments.

ethan

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

I know embarrassingly few of these. Even so, I think Absolute Torch and Twang should be higher. It's inarguably better than Spike, for example. (That's right, inarguably. I'm right and you're wrong. It's obvious. Completely just kidding.)

I've been thinking of doing something like this, but the mechanics of it have been driving me crazy. Where do I start? Do I write little bits about each/some of the albums? Do I just do every album I own from a particular year, or do I specify a number? If I specify a number, and don't have that many albums from a given year, do I squeeze it together with another year, neglect that year, or just do however many I have?

smokingguncafe

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

While I realize that you've put these together in a format that best suits your journal here, please have a little consideration for people's Friend Pages and put them under a cut on your LJ. It would make things more digestible.

RJ Johnson

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

Dude, what smokingguncafe suggested. I've got a fast connection and even my load was slow.

Scraps

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

I strongly dislike lj cuts, in my journal or anyone else's. I am on dialup myself; rather than telling other people they should have "a little consideration" for how things load on my friend list, I have mine set up to not load images or videos unless I choose to.

The offending post now has an lj-cut.

Scraps

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

Spike has some bad songs, but it has some great songs. Blind Man's Zoo and New York fall into that category, too. It's hard for me to measure albums like that against an album like Absolute Torch and Twang, which is at least pleasant all the way through, but whose peaks don't come close to the peaks of Spike, IMO. (Shadowland and Ingenue are a different story; each of those is likely to be in my top ten for its year.)

ethan

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

I can see that reasoning, though I would disagree about Absolute Torch and Twang's peaks--there are a couple songs on it that are up there in the "of all time" category in my mind.

Then again, that's in my mind, not in your blorgk.

Jordan

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

I appreciate this list, and I'm stoked to see the others you name. A few of these bands/artists jump out at me (that Pere Ubu album is wonderful), but the rest is a blur of names I've never yet heard and really need to.

smokingguncafe

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

There was no need to cop such an attitude about this, Scraps. I was asking politely because this is a shit-ton of albums for even my fast connection to process. If you want to act like you're so superior because you set your connection one way and everybody else can just go to hell, fine. And by the way, your post doesn't have an LJ cut. It's still a gigantic mess that makes everything sluggish and hideous.

Scraps

Comment on March 11th, 2007.

Melissa, it does in fact have an lj-cut. You could readily confirm this with someone on your Friend list that you're actually Friendly with, if you chose. Or you could View Source -- that's what I would have done, personally, before telling someone they hadn't done what they'd just said they'd done. (Did you imagine I hadn't checked my own post? For future reference, once you have viewed a post in its entirety on LJ, it tends to come up in its entirety for you every time thereafter, if you're logged in.)

At any rate, no matter what you felt, you did not ask politely: You invited me to show "a little consideration." If you find that you have it within you to turn off your defensiveness for a second and exercise a bit of empathy -- that is, to imagine how you would feel if the same words were said to you -- I'll bet you would discover that you would be a little irritated yourself. (It is of course possible that you would not be, in which case we have essentially different ways of interpreting strings of words like this, which is its own kind of useful knowledge.)

I didn't ask you to read my journal at any point that I recall, after all. I never tell anyone else how to format their journals that I choose to read. I'd suggest to you word choices that would have actually been polite, but I suspect that would be further evidence of an "attitude".

I don't feel "superior" to you: I feel annoyed. Go ahead and stop reading me*, but stop lecturing me. Thanks.

*Ah, I see you already have. Very good.

Andrew

Comment on March 12th, 2007.

That works out not too misleadingly as virtually a favourite album per week over 57 years. I find this mind-boggling. Have you worked as a dj or just a huge music love?

Scraps

Comment on March 12th, 2007.

I was a DJ, though not for long.

I listen to music just about whenever I possibly can; constantly when alone, pretty much.

Richard

Comment on March 12th, 2007.

Like Ethan, I know so few of these albums it's sort of embarrassing. I mean, I have a lot of music! Nice to see Shrimp Boat (who I only started listening to in the last couple of years and love) and the Ex represented, though. Looking forward to finding some of these. Also looking forward to the reissue of Cloudland, the only Ubu album I've never heard.

Scraps

Comment on March 12th, 2007.

I think if you guys made lists like this, there'd be just as many I don't know. I don't know most of the albums in Rate Your Music's top 100 for 1989, and some of them I've never heard of.

cleek

Comment on March 13th, 2007.

999 ?

good lord. i've agonized for literally weeks over a mere Top-100 Evar list. (ex)

this should be interesting, whatever format you post it in.

cleek » 999

Pingback on March 13th, 2007.

[...] Top 100 lists are for poseurs, now that Scraps at Parlando has kicked it up an order of magnitude with his incredibly pointless 999 albums project. Filed under: Uncategorized — cleek @ 4:57 pm [...]

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