1991 is probably best remembered for the Gulf War, the collapse of the USSR, Mike Tyson's rape arrest and Arsenal winning the League title.
What 1991 should also be remembered for is probably the year music peaked.
I'm not one for placing my CD collection in order, they usually end up in a jumble beside the CD player, but a comment about how 90s dominated my side of the CD cabinet had me commandeering the dining table and sorting through them.
While it is true my collection is very much 90s heavy, the greatest number of CDs were from 1991 and what a stonkingly great year that was for music.
REM were in that brief period when they great with 'Out of time', Tom Petty's 'Into the great wide open', 'Ten' by Pearl Jam, the magnificent Guns N Roses double bill 'Use your illusion 1 and 2, Nirvana 'Nevermind', the Red Hot Chilli Peppers had not yet cleaned up their act and turned bland with 'Blood sugar sex magik', Prince was at his pervy best 'Diamonds and Pearls' and Metallica had yet to annoy all their fans with views on MP3 downloading with 'The Black Album'.
The singles that came from those albums to fill the 1991 charts were classics as well as songs such as 'summertime' by the Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, 'Two Princes' Spin Doctors, 'Weather with you' Crowded House, The Waterboys 'Whole of the moon' and 'Sit Down' by James.
Green Day were cutting their pop punk teeth with 1039 Smoothed out slappy hours and the very underrated Carter USM were just moving on to the radar with '30 Something'.
When you throw in re-releases of the Clash's 'Should i stay or should i go' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' i declare that 1991 was the best year for music. Ever.
4 comments:
I was unaware (or had forgotten) that The Whole of the Moon was re-released in 1991... I always associate that song with the brilliant 'This is the Sea' album (1985).
Anyway, great topic! I'm going for 1994. It was just as acid house was morphing into more banging big-beat house music; 'Leftism' & 'Exit Planet Dust' hadn't (quite) been released yet, but these ones were:
'Connected' by Stereo MCs
'Music for the Jilted Generation' by The Prodigy
'Dummy' by Portishead
'Snivilisation' by Orbital
'Dubnobasswithmyheadman' by Underworld
Elsewhere, 1994 also saw career-best albums by Blur (‘Parklife’), Oasis (‘Definitely Maybe’ – it was all downhill after that!), Manic Street Preachers (‘The Holy Bible’), Suede ('Dog Man Star') and St.Etienne (‘Tiger Bay’)... Not to mention 'Mellow Gold' by Beck, the 'MTV Unplugged' album by Nirvana, 'Crooked Rain' by Pavement, 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley, and 'Let Love In' by Nick Cave. Great year for music...
'Meanwhile, at the top of the charts', there was Take That, Mariah Carey and East 17... Doh!
I didn't realise it was 1994 but i do remember wanting East 17 to be the Xmas number 1 just because it had jingle bells in it.
That Oasis album was their high water mark and Blur never really got going after a great start so i agree, 1994 was both their best times.
I don't know how old you are Lucy and Cheezy but i put forward 1967 as the best year for music. Ever.
Albums were The Doors, Beatles Sgt Pepper, Hendrix Are you experienced. Elvis, Beatles, Hendrix, The Who, Van Morrison, The Stones, Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin. You won't find a better
line up of artists, singles and albums than that.
That does sound alright too. I think I'd have liked to have been in my 20s back then... living in either London or San Francisco... before Charles Manson/Maggie Thatcher/Rupert Murdoch/Simon Cowell took all the magic out of existence and ruined it all :-p
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