another strangely obsessive project

Posted on February 18th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Albums, 70s Survival.

It's probably obvious by now, but the Seventies Survival Project is dead. I've just found too many missing songs to continue in the spirit I originally intended. It's too bad, because it was fun.

But in the spirit of Pointless Obsession, I've decided -- don't ask why -- to really, really know 1990. To that end I am putting all my 1990 albums on my mp3 player, and investigating all the important ones I don't know, and even ones I dismissed at the time. I am using RateYourMusic's top albums of 1990 and esoteric albums of 1990 as my main references. This is especially useful in two ways: there's a lot of hiphop I don't know, and RateYourMusic is over-represented with metalheads. Of all the areas I have been largely ignorant of in recent years, those are the two I have been most interested in recently. Prog and folky stuff are also pretty well represented.

On the other hand, country hardly shows up there, and the annual Village Voice critics poll is unlikely to be much help there either. Anyone know a reliable source of best country albums by year? Modern jazz doesn't fare too well, either (though jazz dominates the RateYourMusic charts well into the 1960s).

I'm also deliberately trying to know as little as possible about the albums before I listen to them. Album titles and covers are often a giveaway, of course, but I'm not reading about albums before I listen to them.

Very preliminary listening reports:

Megadeth's Rust in Peace, despite the stupid title, is a fantastic album. I keep listening to it in headphones three times in a row, and none of it has palled. That one's a purchase.

Bathory's Hammerheart is not bad, but kinda silly. I mean, even for metal. Viking concept metal is just hard to take seriously, and much of it drags. Hugely influential, apparently.

Brand Nubian's One for All is very very groovy. I don't know why I'd never listened to it before, since I've known for a long time that I like most of the Native Tongues-related stuff. Another definite purchase.

Ice Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, despite the dumb title and the standard tiresome braggadocio, has monstrous beats. Probable purchase.

Mike Oldfield's Amarok sounds like a meandering mess.

6 comments.

ethan

Comment on February 24th, 2008.

1990? Hmm...I'm pretty sure that's one of the most under-represented years of all in my collection. I've lost the by-year catalog I made of my albums, which is annoying, but if I remember right 1990 was the most recent year I had no more than five albums from. In general, I think of it as a pretty squalid year for music (although there's . I'll be interested to see how you fare.

ethan

Comment on February 24th, 2008.

I have no idea where that aborted parenthetical came from. I'm pretty sure I didn't write it.

Richard

Comment on February 24th, 2008.

I have that Ice Cube cd... you can have it if you want it.

Scraps

Comment on February 24th, 2008.

Ethan, I was amused that as soon as I began this project, I read a post on Popdose talking about what an awful year 1990 was for music.

Richard, thanks. I'm going to buy it new, though, if it's in print. Since I can so easily listen to tons of stuff for free, if I like something and want to keep it and keep listening to it, I'm going to pay for it. This is also partly a way of making up for having acquired the vast majority of my music collection used. That made sense when I was doing it, and I'm certainly not apologizing for it, but since I can now hear often stuff before I buy, which takes the risk out of it, I'll be buying fewer and can afford to spend more doing it.

That was probably an unnecessarily long-winded response to your kind offer!

Richard

Comment on February 24th, 2008.

That's cool, I understand where you're coming from. For what it's worth, since I'm unloading cds, it's on the chopping block anyway (since I've already loaded into iTunes).

ethan

Comment on March 8th, 2008.

A bit late, but for 1990 there's Torch of the Mystics by the Sun City Girls, which I quite like.

Leave a comment

Comments can contain some xhtml. Names and emails are appreciated but not required (emails aren't displayed).

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-Spam Image