“List your favorite record from every year you’ve been alive.”
While catching up on my blog reading after the uneventful holiday weekend (lots of sleeping happened, if you’re curious), I happened to come across an interesting list-making idea on a couple of blogs. Typically, you would see this kind of thing on someone’s livejournal or something like that, but as i’m sitting here at 2:30 a.m. with nothing better to do – sure, why the hell not? A few things i’d like to point out as I was putting this together:
- 1996,1998, 1999 and 2003 proved to be quite difficult. I still consider 2003 as one of my favourite years in music, period.
- I honestly can’t remember the first albums I had ever purchased, though, i’m pretty sure they were incredibly embarrassing. I remember buying a lot of singles, because I couldn’t afford to buy albums. I would rather beg my parents to buy me video games instead of music, sorry to say.
- This list doesn’t properly represent the many phases I went through with music from my teens up until now. From the beginning with my initial discovery of all things electronic, to Britpop, to Post-Rock and whatever i’m listening to now in the present.
This was actually a lot of fun, as putting together a list pre-1995 would’ve been difficult without the help of culling through numerous Wikipedia pages. Plus, I honestly didn’t develop a decent taste in music until the mid-90s. I based everything before that period on the type of music I currently listen to now, as everything from that point onwards is pretty much spot on, I think. Have a crack at it for yourselves, and feel free to post your lists in the comments.
1983 – New Order :: Power, Corruption & Lies
1984 – Cocteau Twins :: Treasure
1985 – The Jesus and Mary Chain :: Psychocandy
1986 – The Smiths :: The Queen Is Dead
1987 – The Pastels :: Up for a Bit with the Pastels
1988 – R.E.M. :: Green
1989 – Pixies – Doolittle
1990 – The Sundays :: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic
1991 – My Bloody Valentine :: Loveless
1992 – Pavement :: Slanted and Enchanted
1993 – PJ Harvey :: Rid Of Me
1994 – Jeff Buckley :: Grace
1995 – Oasis :: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
1996 - Belle & Sebastian :: If You’re Feeling Sinister | Stereolab – Emperor Tomato Ketchup | DJ Shadow :: Endtroducing (this was tough)
1997 – Radiohead :: OK Computer
1998 – Air :: Moon Safari | Pulp :: This Is Hardcore | Neutral Milk Hotel :: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (same.)
1999 – The Magnetic Fields :: 69 Love Songs | Travis – The Man Who
2000 – Sigur Rós :: Ágætis byrjun
2001 – Daft Punk :: Discovery
2002 – Doves :: The Last Broadcast
2003 – Rufus Wainwright :: Want One
2004 – Of Montreal :: Satanic Panic In The Attic
2005 – Andrew Bird :: Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
2006 – Grizzly Bear :: Yellow House
2007 – Radiohead :: In Rainbows
2008 – uh…not even going to touch this right now.
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Nice list dude,
I found 1998 to be a very fertile year indeed.
Another crazy year is 2000… I mean, we got Kid A, Agaetis Byrjun, The Moon and Antarctica, Since I Left You, The Sophtware Slump, Deltron 3030, Nia, etc… But also the fact that that was the year I REALLY got into music might have something to do with it!
Anyway, great list!
Wow. Pastels- I love that album. First time I’ve seen a reference to them in years!
As usual, your choices are spot on, but I’d argue that Daft Punk’s Homework (their debut) from 1997 is way better than Discovery.
Chris, you can argue that… but I’m backing PJ on this one! 2 against 1… bring it!
ah yes… the Sundays were amazing. The song “here’s where the story ends” about sums up my entire youth. Nice list.
your list is great. imagine mine would be quite similar. i have shared this post on my stupid blog and myspace. thanks for the killing about 3 hours of my life. will post my list once completed. cheers