Never Mind the Ballots (the Pitchfork Songs and Albums of the 1990s Lists)

I contributed some entries to the Pitchfork Best Albums of the 1990s and Best Songs of the 1990s  - Oval Diskont 94 and Massive Attack Blue Lines in the long-players, My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow" in the short-players.

(I was taken aback really that the selectorate didn't go for "Soon" and "To Here Knows When" as the MBV Peaks of that decade. Or even "Loomer". Still, I'm hardly going to spurn an opportunity to hymn Loveless again, am I?)

Talking about selectorates (which was unusually large with this vote, I believe)...  the selection process is two-fold with these P-fork lists. 

First round, you pick your 50 Faves. If you don't see your fave in the list already, you can add it (thereby fractionally increasing the chance some other selector might pick it too). This stage of the voting is pretty close to one's very own absolute faves, although a low-key, by-default sort of tactical voting  tends to seep into the process, in so far as I didn't pick some of my actual faves because they just seemed not to have a snowflake's chance in hell of getting through. I mean, Sacred's "Do It Together" is not going to make the final cut, is it? Nor Goldseal Tribe "Living Lonely". Nor anything by the Mover, Miro or Reign. So there's a little bit of preliminary sifting that takes place here, I should imagine it's the same with the other voters participating.   

Second stage involves this huge mass of preferences getting boiled down by invisible hands into a sort of proto-consensus Long List - still a very large number of candidates - and it's out of this squad that you make another and final selection. (For some reason at this stage we were encouraged to select 100 singles rather than 50).  Here's where some serious tactical voting took place, at least on my part. (Why bother? I honestly can't tell you! I've yet to outgrow these impulses, is all I can say.) Funnily enough, though, some things that I never considered on the first round, thinking them too marginal, actually popped up in this narrowed selection of top tracks and tunes.  E.g. Double 99, "Ripgroove". So of course these got my vote on the second ballot 

Here is the first round ballot of mine for song/track (as you can see I actually overspilled the Fifty) 

1 Omni Trio: Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Mix)

2 Foul play: Open your mind (Foul Play Remix)

3 Apollo Two: Atlantis (I Need You) (LTJ Bukem Remix)

4 The House Crew: Euphoria (Nino's Dream)

5 Acen: Trip II the Moon (Pt. 1 and 2)

6 Boards of Canada: Roygbiv

 7 Orbital: Chime

 8 Nightmares on Wax: Aftermath

 9 Aaliyah: One in a Million

 10 Tricky: Aftermath

 11 Beltram: Energy Flash

 12 Blame: Music Takes You (2 Bad Mice Remix)

 13 My Bloody Valentine: To Here Knows When

 14 Prodigy: Firestarter

 15 Busta Rhymes featuring Janet: What's It Gonna Be?!

 16 My Bloody Valentine: Soon

17 New Radicals: You Get What You Give

 18 Urban Shakedown: Some Justice

 19 LFO: LFO

 20 Dem 2: Destiny (Sleepless)

 21 Seefeel: Time To Find Me

 22 Second Phase: Mentasm

 23 Human Resource: Dominator

 24 Aphex Twin: Analogue Bubblebath

 25 Björk: Human Behavior

 26 Goldie: Angel

 27 The Prodigy: Charly

 28 Aphex Twin: Alberto Balsam

 29 Slowdive: Catch the Breeze EP / specifically "Shine"

 30 Craig Mack: Flava in Ya Ear

 31 Aaliyah: Are You That Somebody

 32 Beenie Man: Who Am I: 

33 Future Sound of London Papua New Guinea

 34 Cypress Hill: How I Could Just Kill a Man

 35 Goldie: Inner City Life

 36 Missy Elliott: The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

 37 Cypress Hill: Latin Lingo

 38 World of Twist: Sons of the Stage

 39 The Chemical Brothers (ft. Noel Gallagher): Setting Sun

 40 Liz Phair: Fuck and Run

 41 Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain

 42 LL Cool J: Mama Said Knock You Out

 43 Primal Scream: Higher Than the Sun

 44 The Prodigy: Breathe

 45 Jane's Addiction: Stop!

 46 Saint Etienne: Avenue

 47 Jane's Addiction: Been Caught Stealing

 48 DJ Shadow: Midnight In a Perfect World

 49 TLC: Waterfalls

 50 Edwyn Collins: A Girl Like You

overspilling -  

51 Elastica: Connection

 52 Alice in Chains: Would?

 53 Deee: Lite - Groove Is in the Heart

 54 The Breeders: Cannonball

 55 Ice Cube: It Was a Good Day

 56 Busta Rhymes: Dangerous

57 Pulp: Common People

 58 Britney Spears: Baby One More Time

 59 Fatboy Slim: Praise You

 60 The Verve: Bitter Sweet Symphony

 61 Public Enemy: 911 Is a Joke

 62 Missy Elliott featuring Nas, Eve and Q-Tip: Hot Boyz

 63 Aphex Twin: Windowlicker

 64 Naughty by Nature: O.P.P.

 65 Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

 66 Wreckx-n-Effect: Rump Shaker

 67 My Bloody Valentine: Only Shallow

And here is the second round, winnowed-down selection of songs / tracks 

1 Omni Trio: Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Mix)

2 The House Crew: Euphoria (Nino's Dream)

3 Aaliyah: One in a Million

4 Boards of Canada: Roygbiv

5 New Radicals: You Get What You Give

6 Blame: Music Takes You (2 Bad Mice Remix)

7 Acen: Trip II the Moon (Pt. 1 and 2)

8 Tricky: Aftermath

9 Beltram: Energy Flash

10 Urban Shakedown: Some Justice

11 Orbital: Chime

12 My Bloody Valentine: Soon

13 Aaliyah: Are You That Somebody

14 Beenie Man: Who Am I

15 The Stone Roses: I Wanna be Adored

16 Prodigy: Firestarter

17 Liz Phair: Fuck and Run

18 Prefab Sprout: Wild Horses

19 Björk: Human Behavior

20 Craig Mack: Flava in Ya Ear

21 Missy Elliott: The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

22 LL Cool J: Mama Said Knock You Out

23 Liz Phair: Divorce Song

24 The Future Sound of London: Papua New Guinea

25 Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain

26 Pulp: Common People

27 Blackstreet ft. Dr. Dre: No Diggity

28 The Breeders: Cannonball

29 Juvenile ft. Mannie Fresh, Lil Wayne: Back That Azz Up

30 The Verve: Bitter Sweet Symphony

31 Double 99: Ripgroove

32 Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

33 Busta Rhymes: Put Ya Hands Where My Eyes Can See

34 Goldie: Inner City Life

35 Stardust: Music Sounds Better With You

36 Outkast: Elevators (Me & You)

37 Orbital: Halcyon On + On

38 Artful Dodger ft. Craig David: Re-Rewind

39 Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome

40 Green Velvet: Flash

41 TLC: Waterfalls

42 Primal Scream: Higher Than the Sun

43 The La's: There She Goes

44 Blur: Girls & Boys

45 Smashing Pumpkins: 1979

46 k.d. lang: Constant Craving

47 Destiny's Child: Bills, Bills, Bills

48 Björk: Army of Me

49 Naughty by Nature: O.P.P.

50 Ice Cube: It Was a Good Day 

51 Beck: Loser 

52 Destiny's Child: Say My Name 

53 Britney Spears: Baby One More Time 

54 Deee-Lite: Groove Is in the Heart 

55 Elastica: Connection 

56 DJ Zinc: Super Sharp Shooter 

57 DMX: Ruff Ryders Anthem 

58 Alice in Chains: Would? 

59 K.P. & Envyi: Swing My Way 

60 Missy Elliott ft, Nas, Eve and Q-Tip: Hot Boyz 

61 Busta Rhymes: Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check 

62 PJ Harvey: Rid of Me 

63 Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg: Still D.R.E. 

64 Crystal Waters: Gypsy Woman

65 Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg: Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang  

66 DJ Shadow: Midnight In a Perfect World  

67 Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy  

68 Warren G, Nate Dogg: Regulate 

69 Robin S.: Show Me Love 

70 Ginuwine: Pony 

71 Björk: Hyperballad  

72 Dr. Dre, Eminem: Forgot About Dre  

73 Weezer: Undone (The Sweater Song)  

74 Isolée: Beau Mot Plage

 75 My Bloody Valentine: When You Sleep

 76 Brandy, Monica: The Boy Is Mine

 77 Mazzy Star: Fade Into You

 78 Snap: I Got The Power

79 My Bloody Valentine: Only Shallow

 80 Nirvana: Heart Shaped Box

 81 Julee Cruise: Falling

 82 My Bloody Valentine: Sometimes

 83 Daft Punk: Around the World

 84 Aphex Twin: Windowlicker

 85 Cutty Ranks: Limb By Limb

 86 TLC: No Scrubs

 87 Le Tigre: Deceptacon

 88 Björk: Venus as a Boy

 89 P.M. Dawn: Set Adrift on Memory Bliss

 90 Ghost Town DJs: My Boo

 91 Portishead: Sour Times

 92 Björk: Jóga

 93 Utah Saints: Something Good

 94 The Sundays: Here's Where the Story Ends

 95 Korn: Freak On A Leash

 96 2Pac: Dear Mama

 97 Madonna: Vogue

 98 Harvey Danger: Flagpole Sitta

 99 Dawn Penn: You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)

 100 The KLF: 3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)

 101 Spice Girls: Wannabe

 102 SWV: Right Here 

103 The Notorious B.I.G.: Hypnotize 

104 The Offspring: Self Esteem 

105 Underworld: Born Slippy (Nuxx) 

106 SWV: Weak

Albums now - here is the first round ballot o' mine

1 Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

2 Tricky: Maxinquaye

3 Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II

4 LFO: Frequencies

5 Boards of Canada: Music Has The Right To Children

6 Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville

7 Ultramarine: Every Man and Woman Is A Star

8 Wagon Christ: Throbbing Pouch

9 Omni Trio: The Deepest Cut, Vol.1

10 Saint Etienne: Foxbase Alpha

11 Seefeel: Polyfusia

12 Insides: Euphoria

13 My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

14 Pulp: Different Class

15 Massive Attack: Blue Lines

16 World of Twist: Quality Street

17 Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott: Supa Dupa Fly

18 Björk: Debut

19 Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet

20 Roni Size/Reprazent: New Forms

21 Kraftwerk: The Mix

22 Goldie: Timeless

23 Saint Etienne: So Tough

24 Morrissey: Vauxhall and I

25 Oval: 94 Diskont

26 Portishead: Dummy

27 Seefeel: Quique

28 Pulp: His n Hers

29 Björk: Post

30 Prefab Sprout: Jordan: The Comeback

31 Stereolab: Mars Audiac Quintet

32 Herbert: Around the House

33 Pulp: This Is Hardcore

34 Cypress Hill: Black Sunday

35 Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup

36 The 6ths: Wasps' Nests

37 Radiohead: OK Computer

38 Stereolab: Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

39 PJ Harvey: Dry

40 Basement Jaxx: Remedy

41 Elastica: Elastica

42 Busta Rhymes: When Disaster Strikes

43 Björk: Homogenic

44 Kirstin Hersh: Hips and Makers

45 Destiny's Child: The Writing's on the Wall

46 Busta Rhymes: The Coming

47 Daft Punk: Homework

48 GZA: Liquid Swords

49 Busta Rhymes: Extinction Level Event

50 Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted

And the second and final votes for album, taken from the reduced-in-number consensus squad. Now here an interesting thing happens which is that I start running out of real faves (my own abfavs having been taken out of contention, you see). So I start drifting into "approve of" criteria, or have some other metric of solidarity or tangential reason to support (see if you can spot which artist is in there really only because a 4 Hero remix made me fall for that particular song and come to greatly appreciate the remixee's own skills of storytelling and delivery. But in truth the album from which said remixed track hails I only heard this year!).

Truthfully, from number 23 onwards in this second shorter shortlist, it's often the case that the singles off the album, perhaps even just one track on it, are the reason it's included (Aaliyah is for the title track obviously - and "If Your Girl Only Knew" which is decent). Other times there might be another album  (or albums) by the same artist that I much much prefer, but since the selectorate has gone for it, I've lent it the support. 

1 Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

2 Tricky: Tricky: Maxinquaye

3 Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville

4 Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children

5 Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Volume II

6 Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott: Supa Dupa Fly

7 Pulp: Different Class

8 Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet

9 Cypress Hill: Black Sunday

10 My Bloody Valentine: Loveless

11 Massive Attack: Blue Lines

12 Oval: 94 Diskont

13 Goldie: Timeless

14 Roni Size/Reprazent: New Forms

15 Björk: Post

16 Destiny's Child: The Writing's on the Wall

17 Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup

18 Prefab Sprout: Jordan: The Comeback

19 Dr. Dre: The Chronic

20 Elastica: Elastica

21 Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted

22 Radiohead: OK Computer

23 DMX: It's Dark and Hell Is Hot

24 Beck: Odelay

25 Portishead: Dummy

26 GZA: Liquid Swords

27 U2: Achtung Baby

28 Nirvana: Nevermind

29 PJ Harvey: Rid Of Me

30 Wu-Tang Clan: Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

31 DJ Shadow: Endtroducing

32 OutKast: ATLiens

33 Nirvana: In Utero

34 De La Soul: De La Soul Is Dead

35 Daft Punk: Homework

36 Aaliyah: One in a Million

37 Bone Thugs n-Harmony: E. 1999 Eternal

38 The KLF: Chill Out

39 Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

40 Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque

41 Primal Scream: Screamadelica

42 Aphex Twin: Richard D. James Album

43 Ice Cube: Death Certificate

44 The Beta Band: The 3 EPs

45 Juvenile: 400 Degreez

46 Scarface: The Diary

47 Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die

48 Le Tigre: Le Tigre

49 Slint: Spiderland

50 Main Source: Breaking Atoms

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Looking at these ballots again, some glaring and unaccountable omissions inevitably emerge - most notably the absence of A Guy Called Gerald's Black Secret Technology and several of the 12-inch releases on Juice Box.

ghost post - Mark Fisher's Best Albums of the Nineties

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.

blurbs for Spin's 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s

 full run-down here

7. Björk, Post (Elektra, 1995)

Björk’s career has been a series of test cases to determine just how much strangeness a song can contain and still work as pop. On Post, the Icelandic eccentric revelled in the possibilities opened up by the multiplatinum success of 1993’s Debut (her first solo album after quitting the Sugarcubes). Instead of playing it safe, Björk brought the weirdness—from jazz fusion’s edgy tonality to dance music’s rhythmic science. In retrospect, she’d felt that Debut had been too tame. “I had very safe pop songs…and I was sort of shy and humble toward the whole thing,” she said in 1995. “This time I felt more at ease.”

Shedding the boutiquey qualities that allowed some to dismiss her as a Sade for the ’90s, Björk hooked up with multiple collaborators to forge an eclectic tour de force that challenged the agility of her starburst voice. The orchestral grandeur of “Isobel,” the technoid seduction of “Possibly Maybe,” the industrial juggernaut of “Army of Me,” and the big-band retro romp of “It’s Oh So Quiet” each highlight a different facet of her fascinatingly mutable identity (magic-realist dreamer, cyber-diva, space-pixie, etc.). These personalities are further dramatized in a series of brilliantly inventive videos such as “Army of Me” and its Tank Girl tyke. A TV-friendly ambassador for all things avant, Björk offers electronica with a human face for those intrigued by new sounds but alienated by the genre’s anonymity.

“Post helped popularize the modern idea of an album as a delicatessen,” says Björk collaborator Graham Massey of techno outfit 808 State. The two tracks co-written and co-produced by Massey—”Army of Me” and “The Modern Things”—actually date from the Debut sessions. Recorded in just one day in 1991 at a Manchester home studio, the demo versions were deemed too harsh for Debut‘s lush sound-world, but the songs were reactivated for Post. The lyrical concept of “Army of Me”—Björk in tough-love mode telling a self-pitying friend to shape up—was suggested by the implacable, monolithic groove, not vice versa. “Most vocalists just sit in the corner and get tortured over the lyrics,” Massey says. “But being a formidable musician as well as a singer, Björk develops melody before words—the lyrics all start out as this wordless mumbo jumbo. That approach works brilliantly with electronica, ’cause you’re forming the music as you go along.”

The album is also very much a product of the creative turmoil of 1994-95 London, where Björk had relocated from Iceland. Jungle was exploding out of the underground, and strange hybrids such as trip-hop were percolating. “If Björk had moved somewhere else, like New York, it would have been a totally different album,” Massey says. Yet Post was actually recorded and mixed in the Bahamas at Nassau’s famous Compass Point Studios. According to DJ/U2 collaborator Howie B., who engineered Post, “Despite being in this Caribbean vacation paradise, we only had one day off in three weeks. And because the studios have no windows, we might as well have been in London.” Björk did record some of her vocals with her feet in the ocean, though, thanks to a long microphone cord.

The frigid climate of Iceland was the setting for two collaborations with Tricky—the sensuous “Headphones” and the shatteringly intense “Enjoy.” “They were like rough demos,” says Tricky, who later dated Björk. “I kept waiting for her to say, ‘Let’s take them to an expensive studio.’ But Björk had the courage to release the songs as they were, and that still shocks me. She ain’t scared of nothing.” Of their first meeting, Tricky says, “I thought she was mad cute but didn’t think anything would come of it—she was on a different planet than me, a superstar.”

But then, the cool thing about Björk is precisely the elegance with which she manages to straddle the murky underworld of marginal music and the overlit overground of MTV pop. Certified gold in the U.S., Post represents Björk’s balancing act at its high-wire pinnacle. 

14. Tricky, Maxinquaye (Island, 1996)  

Revealing former Massive Attack member Tricky as one of the most inventive producers and lyricists around, Maxinquaye also helped establish “trip-hop” as a genre (though Tricky himself fiercely rejected the term). The album was recorded almost entirely in London, but it has everything to do with Bristol, Tricky’s hometown. “In the ’80s, all the different ghettos were interbreeding,” says Tricky’s friend Mark Stewart, formerly of avant-funksters the Pop Group. “We’d all be checking out reggae ‘blues’ parties, industrial-punk events, and hip-hop jams.” You can hear this Bristol mix percolating in Maxinquaye‘s hybrid soundscapes that incorporate everything from Public Enemy’s righteous noise to garish art-rock weirdness and postpunk angst.

“Mark Stewart, he’s my chaos,” says Tricky of the mentor who acted as unofficial executive producer on the single “Aftermath,” Tricky’s first solo recording outside Massive Attack. It was Stewart who persuaded Tricky to scam funds from Massive’s management for studio time, and after blowing half the money on booze, the pair finally recorded a downtempo haze of “hip-hop blues.” Outside his house, Tricky met teenage student Martina Topley-Bird while she was waiting for a bus, and he invited her to sing. There may have been a fourth conspirator—Tricky believes the postapocalyptic lyrics were channeled from his mother, Maxine Quaye, who committed suicide when he was four.

Tricky offered “Aftermath” to Massive Attack but says Massive’s 3D told him, “It’s shit, you’ll never make it as a producer!” While “Aftermath” languished on cassette for three years, Tricky sank into depression, complete with marijuana-induced hallucinations of demons in his living room.

After a collaboration with engineer Howie B disintegrated because of management conflicts, Tricky and Topley-Bird went to work in a home studio. The massively acclaimed Maxinquaye works as both an autobiographical account of one man’s struggles and as a cryptic allegory. Capturing the orphaned drift of the mid-’90s, just as Sly Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On had crystallized the curdled idealism of the early ’70s, the album concerns the inability of Tricky’s generation to even imagine a utopia. “We’re all fucking lost!” Tricky declared in 1995. “I can’t see how things are gonna get better. I think we have to destroy everything and start again.” Yet despite its relentlessly bleak vision, Maxinquave‘s sheer aesthetic splendor makes it oddly life-affirming.

16. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless (Sire, 1991)

Almost as famous for the reclusive silence that followed its release as its swoon-inducing reinvention of rock guitar, Loveless was itself a long-delayed sequel to a critically acclaimed predecessor (1998’s Isn’t Anything). “Loveless cost £270,000 [now $430,000], and nine years ago that was a fortune,” says Alan McGee, head of the band’s U.K. label, Creation. “MBV were in the studio relentlessly—all-night sessions virtually every day for two and a half years. I could see my label slipping away. I’d even mortgaged my house! In the end, I had to emotionally blackmail [Valentine leader] Kevin Shields to get him to finish.”

MBV were daunted by acclaim, according to McGee, and their emotional confusion was complicated by their immersion in London’s dance scene. “We all went to house clubs three times a week, getting shitfaced and having these intense spiritual experiences,” McGee recalls. All that psychedelic excess fed the group’s creative process, pushing MBV to breakthroughs such as the Ecstasy-addled rave ‘n’ roll of “Soon” and the blissful blur of their trademark “glide guitar,” which was copied by a legion of “dreampop” bands (Lush, Ride, Slowdive, etc.). Eventually, McGee repaired his friendship with Shields, and sometime last year, Loveless even recouped the money spent on it. 

24. Massive Attack, Blue Lines (Virgin, 1991)

Massive Attack’s debut is a ferment of arty bohemia, dancehall dub-culture, and imported B-boy street beats, born in the laid-back coastal city of Bristol, England. The album’s torpid BPM rate was a break from the hyperkinetic norm of the time and was influenced by artists ranging from Isaac Hayes to PiL. From the latter, Massive also derived the idea of operating as a collective: the inner core was 3D, Mushroom, and Daddy G, but they drew on a range of satellite talent—soul chanteuse Shara Nelson, roots-reggae nightingale Horace Andy, producer Jonny Dollar, and a rapper then known as Tricky Kid.

The orchestral soul epics “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Safe From Harm,” sung by Nelson, were U.K. chart hits. But Blue Lines‘ most inventive tunes are “One Love,” a skank-tempo jazz-fusion ballad crooned by Horace Andy, and “Daydreaming,” a showcase for the low-key, British rhyme style launched by Tricky and 3D. “We knew we couldn’t be Rakim or Slick Rick, so we drew on the reggae sound-system vibe and came up with our own thing,” Tricky says. This meditational style fit the stream-of-semi-consciousness lyrics like a glove. “People associate it with smoking weed, a sort of Bristol-style detachment from real life,” 3D says.

Blue Lines‘ merger of British art-rock and American soul basically defined trip-hop. “That album inspired me to start a label,” says UNKLE chief and Mo’ Wax founder James Lavelle. “UNKLE wouldn’t have happened without Massive’s idea that you could be a collective rather than a band. Blue Lines is my favorite album of all time.” 

45. Basement Jaxx, Remedy (Astralwerks, 1999)

Reflecting the rarely acknowledged diversity of late-’90s house music even as it pushes that genre’s envelope to the bursting point, Basement Jaxx’s debut, Remedy, stands among the most inventive dance albums of the decade. Based in South London, the Jaxx—Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton—call their wildly impurist style “punk garage.” “What we admire in deep house and American garage is the music’s untouchable sexiness, which U.K. house has always lacked,” says Ratcliffe. “At the same time, we like to rough up that polished sound with some English punk attitude.”

It results in killer tunes like “Same Old Show,” based around a surprisingly eerie vocal loop from “On My Radio” by British ska revivalists the Selecter, and “Jump N’ Shout,” with its raucous dancehall reggae vocal and menacing gangsta-strut bass line. Remedy‘s every-which-way creativity also encompasses the Timbaland-style stutter beats of “U Can’t Stop Me” and funk fantasia of “Rendez-Vu” and “Yo-Yo.” “When we started out, we were just trying to be house producers,” says Ratcliffe. “Now that we’ve achieved that, we’re trying not to be house producers.” 

56. Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (R&S, 1992), Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Warp/Sire, 1994)

In terms of sheer sonic beauty, Aphex Twin’s debut, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, is simply the best pure electronic album of the ’90s, offering the most emotionally and texturally rich synth-musik since prime Kraftwerk. But what made creator Richard James that rare thing, the techno icon, wasn’t just his genius for exquisite melody but the slyly fabricated Aphex mythology, i.e., James as rural child prodigy, constructing his own synthesizers from scratch and sleeping two hours a night.

Many in the Aphex cult were thrown for a loop by Selected Ambient Works Volume II, a triple album of eerie, ultraminimal tonescapes mostly devoid of melody or beat. James claimed many tracks were “based on sounds I first heard while dreaming. When I wake up, I go straight into the studio and try to create what I’ve heard.” Volume II is an awe-inspiring feat of avant-techno texturology and mood-sculpture, but Aphex aficionados remain divided. “The first album is a pop album,” reasons James’s friend Mike “u-ziq” Paradinas. “Volume II takes a long time to learn to like, but it’s probably more rewarding.” 

60. The Prodigy, Music for the Jilted Generation (XL/Mute, 1994)

After “Firestarter,” the notion of Prodigy as a futuristic rock band doesn’t seem startling. But in 1994, Music for the Jilted Generation was a shocking reinvention, rocketing the group out of Britain’s rave culture and winning them an audience of alt-rockers. The grungy guitar on “Their Law” and “Voodoo People” helped convert many. But the album’s concept also got them taken seriously as spokesmen for youth: The Prodigy’s Generation J was Generation X with a U.K. spin—alienated kids whose weekend rave nirvana was being threatened by repressive policies. “There was never trouble at the outdoor raves we used to play,” says Maxim Reality, Prodigy’s MC. “It was just serious government paranoia about youth massing together.”

The album is perfectly poised between the E-beat roller coaster of the group’s 1992 debut, Experience, and the cyberpunk postures of 1997’s rocktronica breakthrough, The Fat of the Land. Jilted‘s stand-out is “Poison”—the first time the Prodigy used “real” rather than sampled vocals and down-shifted into hip-hop boombastics. “Poison” was “the stepping-stone toward ‘Firestarter,'” says Reality, who supplied the track’s fierce vocals.

Jilted begins with a voice-over: “I’ve decided to take my work back underground, to stop it falling into the wrong hands.” Despite beatmaster Liam Howlett’s obsession with street cred, Jilted showed that the Prodigy’s irrepressible populism had them locked on an unstoppable course for global stardom. All that remained was for vocalist Keith Flint to change his hairstyle.