25 albums I know from the 90's rateyourmusic chart

Inspired by Drew's (BrufordFreak) "PA's Top Albums of the 1990s", I thought that I might do a general music one based on the rateyourmusic charts for the 90s. But I decided to only mention ones that I know or have known well going from the top rated down -- I haven't heard that Smashing Pumpkins in many years, but most of these I have returned to much more recently, and some were fairly recent discoveries. Note that many of my favourites are not in the list, and while there are many albums I love in this list, these are not my 25 faves from the 90s overall -- I moved down the chart picking ones I have known well and liked. Some of these, like that Cocteau Twins album I only heard quite recently in full. And I decided to only include the first album by a band or artist on RYM's list that I know even if I would like to mention more by the band/artist. Here is the chart https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1990s/. If you wish to look at the chart and mention any others on it that you would have chosen, please do (please mention how it ranks in the list too then, please). Multiple votes are enabled, so feel free to vote for as many of these as you like.

Radiohead - OK Computer
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Slint - Spiderland
Fishmans - Long Season
Portishead - Dummy
Godspeed You Black Emperor! - F♯A♯∞
Björk - Homogenic
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Nirvana - In utero
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Let Love In
Stereolab - Dots and Loops
Fiona Apple - When the Pawn
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Pulp - Different Class
PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun

Again, multiple votes enabled, vote for as many or as few that you like as you want to, and/or feel free to mention others you see in the RYM charts. I, like Drew, might make a part two.

I went as far as the first 250 on the RYM list before I became bored.

Yeah, I had a LOT of albums on my own list that A) aren't in PA's Top 50 and B) aren't even in the PA database.

Gave votes to about half of these, but I’ll single out the Yo La Tengo album for special mention, as it’s in the running for my favorite album of the 90s album overall

^ Thanks, love your choices, and since you voted for both Massive Attack and Portishead, I had been wanting to share here what I think is a great mash-up of two fantastic songs with two terrific singers: Massive Attacks' Teardop from Mezzanine with Elizabeth Fraser and Portishead's Roads from Dummy with Beth Gibbons.

"Teardrops on Roads":

Taste can seem ineffable. While one will find commonalities amongst many people who enjoy Spiderland, each listener has a unique experience, and it depends on personality, life experiences, associations, when in their journey they discovered something, and the general circumstances when they heard it. I often find that reading reviews, especially the ones that really seem to come from the heart often, can help. Having a sense of empathy and imagination does help, and just having an open-mind and humility. I tend to find it stranger that someone wonders, or more like they would be surprised that people could like something they don't than that people appreciate and connect to things that I don't. Different strokes for different folks. It is to be expected that people appreciate different things, and often appreciate the same things for rather or very different reasons. Spiderland is not a favourite album of mine, but I immediately liked the opening track, asd I can appreciate it. It's the kind of album that I would have to be in the right mood to enjoy. Sigur Ros is not a favourite act of mine, but I find music they make lovely. And I often like ambient music and dreamy music, and before I was really into Progressive Rock, I was into things like New Age music. I have been told that I like elevator music due to some of the old Exotica/ Tropica that I like.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of it is systematic pretence, people looking to conform, and that may lead to some people genuinely liking things that conform to certain others tastes. The herd instinct can be strong. We often are tribalistic. I often get into music through association. If I discover one thing I like, I often look for more like it, and that takes me down rabbit holes. Many RYM users often do seem to share similar tastes to mine, but it wasn't about me trying to conform to what they like (and I am not a member of that site), it was that I noticed that a lot of what I discovered I had heard and really appealed was rate highly there. I have discovered various albums through using the site, but more because I use the custom filters than the general charts. I once said something about music reminding me of something else at this forum, and someone responded by saying that I had only said that because that is the idea that various others have expressed, and I'm just conforming/ parroting that erroneous idea. Well, I was in fact new to that music and hadn't read others opinions about it. Often people really do just think the same things and are being genuine, which does lend credence to there being truth and sincerity to the opinions being expressed.

I find that the Prog Archives charts commonly don't reflect my tastes well as this does tend towards the Prog conservative who favours symphonic prog and Symph related, classic styles of Prog, and more "melodic rock" and melodic metal (AOR-related as a genre) music commonly. I almost feel like I can draw wobbly lines with much of my tastes from first hearing Gary Numan with the Tubeway Army's Replicas as a young child, which resonated deeply with me immediately.

Incidentally, I really got into much of the 90s music, and this has really affected my current tastes, when I started listening to a quite surreal and very dark comedy 90s radio show that combines sketch and dark comedy with music called Blue Jam (from Chris Morris) a few years ago. From there I really got into favourites of mine such as Stereolab and Portishead. That had a huge effect on my interests.

Edited by Logan - July 21 2022 at 12:00

^ As said, my list would have been quite different had I not listed the first album I had heard and appreciated in the general music RYM charts, and just the first album listed that I knew by an artist even if I preferred others. Just mentioning it even though you are not questioning that. Of course you've expressed your dissatisfaction with the charts there before -- mostly I have used it to discover albums through custom charts there as it has far more labels than PA and you can use multiple labels and descriptors to search for albums (a better research tool of discovery for my wants). I find it often aligns surprisingly well with my interests. That list above of 25, which only includes one album per act, only covered the top 101 albums in the chart. Looking at the PA top 101, I actually wouldn't fare as well for meaningful albums to me for the 90s, although there are favourites of mine in the all Prog categories PA chart there not represented in the general music top 250 at RYM chart of course.

On your list, the only one I have been really into for that period is Tortoise, which as I mentioned in an earlier post had its highest ranked album at 321 at RYM in the general music charts. I would have a Tortoise in my top 25, and I might have expected it to be ranked rather higher even on general music list like that which covers far more territory than PA. Interestingly at PA's general Prog chart, Tortoise does not make the top 250 for the decade. I don't know where the top ranked Tortoise album fits there.

CLICK for PA chart

I wonder how many of your favourite albums from the 90s are in that PA chart, Lorenzo?

EDIT: Despite being a member of a Prog site and no other music sites, that 25 list of the top 101 albums for the 90s at a general music site is much more meaningful to me than the top 101 all Prog categories at PA. And I am a, sometimes-fun fan of Radiohead myself, even if I am not a paid member of the club. Not sure what's wrong with liking Radiohead. People might say much the same of so many people liking Yes and Genesis here. I would sooner listen to most Radiohead than most Yes and Genesis. Or for a more modern band, it can seem like this site is a Porcupine Tree/ Steven Wilson fanclub. And I have heard a Radiohead influence in SW/PT.

Edited by Logan - July 22 2022 at 22:42