I was recently disturbed to discover that in my May 2014 post that I continually update about my favorite albums of each year, my choice for 1999 is the album 13 by Blur. Now, this is not at all a bad album - I enjoy it, especially the tracks Tender and Coffee & TV. But it is certainly not one of Blur's best albums, so then how pessimistic is it to have it as my favorite album of 1999? So, I looked through my entire cd collection looking for other albums that came out in 1999. And guess what I found? Several other "decent" albums by artists I like that also fall easily into the category of not being close to their best work: Pet Shop Boys - Nightlife, The Lightning Seeds - Tilt, XTC - Apple Venus Volume 1, Suede - Head Music, and Bernard Butler - Friends & Lovers.
So, now I am on somewhat of a quest: Surely the best music album made by someone in 1999 cannot be some lesser work by an artist who I mainly like because of earlier albums. Was nothing new and exciting happening musically in 1999?
One possibility I did find in my cd collection (no point searching vinyl for the year 1999 in the middle of the lull in vinyl popularity) is The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips. While I do like their next album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots from 2002 better, The Soft Bulletin was definitely a their breakthrough album that brought the band a lot of new popularity, and was ranked as the number one album of the year by the NME. For some reason (probably because I've always been more attached to Yoshimi), I have not actually played this cd much in the last 23 years, so I will give it another chance.
But I'm also still looking for other possibilities so if you have a favorite album of 1999, please mention it in the comments. One avenue I am seriously considering is the indie pop scene that was being championed by very small independent labels during this period, including the American labels March Records and Shelflife records. I remember that I used to be into a lot of that music at the time, though for some reason I don't seem to have much of it left in my collection so I will have to try finding it on Apple Music and see what I can find and if anything I remember from then still stands out.
I've listened again to The Soft Bulletin - it is a pretty good album with a few really standout tracks (Racing For The Prize, Waiting For A Superman, perhaps The Spark That Bled), but also several fairly boring tracks, and overall I see why I like their next album better. I see why some (such as NME writers) would choose this album as their favorite of 1999, but I don't think I could ever love it enough to do so.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently exploring the following lesser known albums from 1999:
ReplyDeleteSimon Basic by Barcelona
Transportation + Communication = Love by Figurine
You Will Have Your Revenge by Baxendale
These are 3 of the artists I remember enjoying the most at the time. It is interesting because these three artists were each obviously heavily 80's influenced, but then, at least as far as I know, had no influence at all on the heavily 80's indebted post-punk revival scene that began in New York and England a couple of years later.
Well, I've been listening to Simon Basic and I like it, but it is definitely not better than other albums of 1999. I may have to accept that Blur 13 is my favorite, but I'll keep looking more.
ReplyDelete