Top 50 of the Nineties Part 3 (30-21)

28. Built to Spill-Keep it Like a Secret (Warner Brothers, 1999)
This choice, Built to Spill’s only entry on this list, is sure to raise the hackles of quite a few purists, sure to say that Warner Bros. debut Perfect From Now On represents the band’s high point, and its relatively low placement on this list is the result of an immature appreciation of the group. To that voice in my head, I can only reply: “Yeah, but that album didn’t have ‘You Were Right,’ now did it?,” to which the voice replies, “Of course. How stupid of me. I’ll sulk back into the subconscious and play Zuma until awakened again.” For me, Secret is the perfect Built to Spill record, reining in the looooong-ness of Perfect to create a succinct, thick guitar album.

27. Cornershop-When I Was Born for the Seventh Time (Luaka Bop, 1997)
Let’s not dance around the obvious. Critics loved to praise Cornershop after the release of this record for myriad haughty reasons–the unique hybrid of Indian musics and British indie rock, the ballsy, Indian-language cover of “Norwegian Wood,” the possible emergence of a far-Eastern Beck–but, at the most basic level, When I Was Born for the Seventh Time was a great album to get high to. Yeah, especially warped cartoon theme “Butter Yr Soul.” Right on. Come on, Talvin Singh knew what George Harrison knew–sure, spritual transcendence and peace and the blah blah blah–how long has that raga been playing already? I need something to drink.

26. Ween-GodWeenSatan: The Oneness (Twin/Tone, 1990)
There are many reasons Ween is considered a “cult” band, and God Ween Satan has to be the ultimate. Two Scotch-Gard huffing miscreants from rural Pennsylvania learned to play guitar, gave themselves a common surname representing the sound of an escaped fart, entered a studio with Butthole Surfer Andrew Weiss, and created an offensive, catchy, juvenile outsider masterpiece that clocked in at 70 plus minutes. Yet for all of the lyrics relating to zits, ticks, guys named Fat Lenny and el Caminos, there are an equal number of surprisingly coherent songs (okay, not “Bumblebee”), including the tweaked and naive “Don’t Laugh, I Love You” and “Birthday Boy,” the cartoonishly bohemian “Never Squeal,” and the epic-length copyright infringement “L.M.L.Y.P. (Ween is in Big Trouble Dudes),” the full title of which would get me accidentally Googled hundreds of times. This is the auspicious beginning of one of the most bizarre success stories in the annals of popular music–their next record would be released on Elektra–one that deserves to be included in the chapter containing that of The Frogs, The Violent Femmes, and Daniel Johnston.

25. Beastie Boys-Hello Nasty (Grand Royal, 1998)
The Beastie Boys made their appearance in the hip-hop pantheon with their debut album, and secured their legacy with their followup–leaving them nothing to prove, and a hungry core of fans eagerly anticipating each new release. Ill Communication came out during my senior year of high school, and while it had its share of great moments (”Root Down,” “Flute Loop,” the stellar “Get it Together”) it was polluted by too many half-assed attempts at punk, which they’d alread failed at on the appropriately titled rarities collection Some Old Bullshit. And, for the record, my feelings for Check Your Head haven’t changed since it came out: “So Whatcha Want” and “Pass the Mic”–great. Everything else–sketchy and self-indulgent. I waited four years for the follow-up to Ill Communication, and when Hello Nasty was released in the summer of 1998, I quickly realized that I was in possession of a the Beastie Boys’ best work since 1989’s Paul’s Boutique. This was, for me, pure Beastie Boys–featuring an equal emphasis on continuity as innovation. Truth be told, MCA should never sing, ever, but slip-ups like that don’t come close to overshadowing the retro electro/analog hybrid funk issued forth–the first three tracks flow perfectly into one another, “Intergalactic” was a great first single, “Three MCs and One DJ,” if anything, doesn’t feature MixMaster Mike enough, and dual album highlights “The Grasshopper Unit” and “The Negotiation Limerick File” stand up with their best work. Indeed, a refreshing album.

24. Frank Black-Teenager of the Year (4AD, 1994)
An aural rummage sale, where the former Black Francis purged his considerable storehouse of ideas over the course of 22 songs in 62 minutes. Teenager is a boundless sideshow of distinct, quirky character odes, ranging from urban developers (”Ole Mulholland”) to fast-talking hucksters (”Superabound”) and old-timey actors (”Two Reelers”)–but didn’t preclude his ability to offer what is perhaps the most sincere work in his oeuvre, “Speedy Marie,” featuring the lyric “Wise is the tongue/ Wet of perfect thought/And softest neck where always do I/Lay my clumsy thoughts/She is that most lovely art/Happy is my mind, my soul and my heart.” Themes of wide-open spaces that began to populate Black’s songwriting circa Bossanova recur here, notably on “Calistan” and “Space is Gonna Do Me Good,” but his fascination with science fiction would be placed on hold until subsequently expunged on the disappointing follow-up The Cult of Ray, after which his muse would take him to blues and country, effectively rendering Teenager the last remnant of a brilliantly idiosyncratic songwriter.

23. Guided by Voices-Bee Thousand (Scat, 1994)
This is the album where Robert Pollard’s songwriting talents finally made themselves known as magnificent little individual moments instead of indistinguishable cogs of a hazy whole. The R.E.M. influence was all but gone, and replaced by a distinctly fractured nod to obscure 60’s psych rock and its mainstream representations, namely The Who. Bee Thousand was also where I first heard of GBV, leading to an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sneak into a Cincinnati show with a primitively forged ID. Later, after seeing the band numerous times, it’s impossible for me to distinguish between the recorded versions of songs and their transcendent, sweaty live renditions, especially concert staples “Tractor Rape Chain,” “Hot Freaks,” “I Am a Scientist” and the near-perfect “Echos Myron.” Pollard fervently refuted the claim that the band used low fidelity recording equipment as an aesthetic choice, and there’s absolutely no reason to think otherwise. His voice is reaching impossibly far beyond the bounds of their primitive four-track recorders, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have loved to have access to a high-end studio for these recordings. But it’s a moot point, and further, sad evidence that those who didn’t have a chance to see this band perform these wonderfully terse, gleefully melodic songs live has truly missed something.

22. 2Pac-Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (Jive, 1993)
2Pac never got better than this, but he did get a lot more famous. His ubiquity on MTV and high-profile run-ins with the law began to eclipse his unrivaled hip-hop artistry after this record, which still resonates with intense, righteous anger from open to close. This was the rallying cry to end all rallying cries, and, although I broke the primary rule of the album’s title by listening to it, I was bizarrely and unquestionably inspired. 2Pac was the first rapper I can remember to lash out at very specific and very visible public figures, with an unprecedented level of cockiness that could only be gained from a keen appreciation for its effect on society. His most notable beef was with stain on Indiana’s fine reputation Dan Quayle, who had deployed a track from 2Pacalypse Now to feign apoplexy at an epidemic of violence he had no real intention of attempting to solve. This example was but one color in a rhyme style that has never since been approached in its directness and open-chested heckling, as in “Point the Finga,” when he riffs on the line “1-2-3/Peace to my real G’s/Still me/Till these mother fuckers kill me,” stretching the word kill as if to taunt his opponents. “Souljah’s Revenge” reprises 2Pacalypse track “I Don’t Give A Fuck” with the profound lyric: “My attitude is shitty/Message to the censorship committee/Who’s the biggest gang of niggas in the city/The critics or the cops/The courts or the crooks/Don’t look so confused/Take a closer look” This is protest music at its finest, agit-prop offfered by one of pop music’s premeire revolutionaries.

21. Pavement-Slanted and Enchanted (Matador, 1992)
My first experience with this record (actually, via a dubbed tape from who-knows-where) was actually a bit disorienting. I was fourteen or fifteen, and used to having some sort of visual reference for my music as I listened to it. But for this, I had nothing. So, I was left listening to a song like “Conduit for Sale” on a Walkman without knowing the title or anything about the band except for the fact that they were impossibly cool. I unconsciously began searching for clues as to the album’s origin from within the lyrics, but it served as a fruitless endeavor, only obscuring the music even more. I couldn’t deny that it attracted me, though, perhaps by its overt primitiveness (especially the drumming), and definitely by its undeniable intellect, partially gleaned from Malkmus’ lyrics, and partially from their seeming disdain for traditional tunings and structure, as far as I knew at that age. I can clearly say, though, that at the time, it was unlike anything I had ever heard, and that fact alone made it seem, for lack of a better word, magical. The tape, as all tapes did, died a horrible death in that cheap Walkman the next summer, and my next moment of Pavement-related discovery occurred sometime in early-mid 1994, when I saw the group for the first time, in the high-gloss, god-awful video for “Cut Your Hair” on MTV’s 120 Minutes. Despite my horror, I ended up enjoying Crooked Rain quite a bit, as well as the rest of Pavement’s output, but I still find myself listening to Slanted to this day with that same trepidation and awe I had as an early teenager.