This is meant to be a repository for my own end-of-year lists, ballots, decade-summations, etc - but I thought I'd have a guest post, or in this case, a ghost post - K-Punk's Albums of the 1990s, followed by a few thoughts stirred by same...
To absent friends, eh?
K-PUNK BEST ALBUMS OF THE 1990s
187 Lockdown – 187 Lockdown
Tricky – Pre Millennium Tension
Goldie – Saturnz Return
Massive Attack – Protection
Breakdown Presents: Drum & Bass Selection 3
Suburban Base and Moving Shadow Present The Joint LP
Various – Techsteppin’
The Dark Side: Hardcore Drum and Bass Style (React)
Marvellous Cain – Gun Talk
World of Twist – Quality Street
Tricky – Maxinquaye
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works
Basement Jaxx – Remedy
MBV – Loveless
Barry Adamson – Soul Murder
Altern 8 – Full on Mask Hysteria
Renegade Soundwave – Soundclash
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That is so characteristically and endearingly Mark, to have the full-lengths by 187 Lockdown, Marvelous Cain, and Altern 8 in his Best British 90s list!
(Also Renegade Soundwave, an absolutely forgotten band but I wouldn't be surprised if an influence on Mark and friends's own group D-Generation)
Mind you, for all I know, the 187 Lockdown album is fantastic, an all-the-way through great listen. Seems pretty unlikely though.
My critique of Mark's way of approaching Nuum (Kodwo too) is that they never really fully embrace the scenius concept - their default response is to auteurize, focus on the singular artist and these Grand Works
Whereas nothing could be a less effective metric of the contribution of jungle than judging it by the number of great single-artist albums it produced
(Rave actually probably produced more enjoyable single-artist albums - see this post in response to another bloggers post on Rave LPs )
Tricky - with trip hop, the scenius (such as it is) is the shitstuff. Trip hop is really only redeemed as a genre - as a Concept - by Maxinquaye and the first album (maybe bits of the second too) by Massive Attack
Auteurism works there, in part because its audience isn't really a scene I don't think - I guess there must have been trip hop or downtempo clubs - but trip hop pirates?
The trip hop artists would tour, do concerts like rock bands - or rap artists.
