Recently, I was asked to compile a list of my top 40 albums of the 1990s for NoRipcord.com. An easy task, you might think, given that decade saw me go through just about all of my teenage years.
Alas, not, but I finally managed the task to find one band conspicuous by their absence. Want to guess? Oasis? Nah - they had two good songs (Live Forever and Slide Away), plenty of average rockers and a load of shite. No, it was Radiohead that failed to make my own Pick of the Pops (1990s edition).
Strange, in a way, as I love me a bit of what I will call "miserable bastard music": Joy Division, the Smiths, Depeche Mode and the Cure all provided a soundtrack that made my mother worry that I was bound to hurtle myself off St Bees Head one day. Radiohead were in there too - after all, isn't Creep the perfect adolescent boy song? At least, those of us who scored no luck whatsoever with whoever we fancied. Tough times. But Pablo Honey was an average album at best and somehow its famous song hasn't aged very well, especially when compared to something like Boys Don't Cry, which works perhaps due to a charming simplicity. The line "you're so fucking special" merely sounds derisory 17 years on from the first time I heard it.
The Bends was better and got a fair few playings, then there was OK Computer, which is widely praised to this day. Yet, something must have happened as I've not listened to either album in a decade. The latter has too much I find too self-indulgent, the latter I just seem to have grown out of.
Seems strange that I would do so, given all the other bands I mentioned still get a good blast on the MP3 player on a weekly basis.
Going back to my top 40, I expect very few of them to make the NoRipcord total, bar a few obvious exceptions. After that goes up, I may well print up my list for the sake of completion.
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