The top album of the last 20 years is ...

AP ^ | June 20, 2005 | Staff Writer

[Millee]

Spin magazine named Radiohead's "OK Computer" the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive "even when its words are spoken by a robot."

The British band's album edged out Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a list in Spin's 20th anniversary issue, currently on newsstands.

"Between Thom Yorke's orange-alert worldview and the band's meld of epic guitar rock and electronic glitch, ('OK Computer') not only forecast a decade of music but uncannily predicted our global culture of communal distress," reads the editorial note on what separated the 1997 disc from the other 99 ranked albums.

Sandwiched between Radiohead's straight-ahead rock disc "The Bends" and the more experimental, electronic "Kid A," "OK Computer" was the album that propelled Radiohead to worldwide, stadium-sized popularity. Though it never went higher than No. 21 on the Billboard charts, it won critical raves and a Grammy for best alternative music performance.

Spin's Chuck Klosterman says the album "manages to sound how the future will feel. ... It's a mechanical album that always feels alive, even when its words are spoken by a robot."

Years earlier, Spin ranked Nirvana's "Nevermind" the greatest album of the nineties. In the time since, however, editor-in-chief Sia Michel and others simply found they were reaching for "OK Computer" more than the slightly less relevant "Nevermind."

"Whereas when Nirvana came out, everybody was talking about negation and slackers and everything like that -- seven years later, it was the dot-com boom and 22-year-olds were making $80,000 on Web sites," Michel recently told The Associated Press.

[Millee]

What??? No Spice Girls??????

[Petronski]

"OK Computer"





LOL. Right.

[dakine]

Right up your alley...

[dfwgator]

Further proof that musically, the 90s sucked.

[Millee]

Agreed. I can proudly state that I don't have any of the cd's mentioned. Nor have I heard of 1/2 of them! (Geeesh, now I'm sounding like a fogey!)

[dfwgator]

Frankly, Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters blows away Nirvana.

[Question Liberal Authority]

I guess this explains why I haven't bought an album in the last 20 years.

[pissant]

Bob Dylan's Love & Theft

[najida]

Oh boy,
I'm SO out of touch with 'good' music (happily so I guess).

[sharktrager]

I thought I was the only one that felt that way. I am blown away by Foo Fighters. I recognize the role Nirvana played in music, but given the choice, I'd listen to Foo Fighters.

Damned If I Know

[dfwgator]

Nirvana reminded me of early REM. Critics assumed if you couldn't understand what the singer was saying, it must have been pretty deep.

[softwarecreator]

Exactly.  If this is the BEST they can come up with, I guess I'll stick with my collection, which prety much quit growing after Van Halen's 5150 album.

[Millee]

You & me both, my friend! (As I sit here, listening to Marty Robbins.)

[ikka]

For Rap/Jazz-Rap , NOTHING beats the Dream Warriors' "And Now The Legacy Begins..." album.

[lugsoul]

OK Computer is a great album. But it is not "The Bends."

Best of the last 20 years?

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

[Pyro7480]

The Foo Fighters have been consistently good since day one. Dave Grohl pretty much recorded the first album by himself. I really like their new single "The Best of You," though the morons at Rolling Stone think it's "too shrill, too polished and too much like Nickelback and the other radio rockers that won't let grunge die a dignified deat." Also, their politics suck, but oh well, so does most of the music industry.

[caver]

Who???

What are these people smoking?

[ex-Texan]

Personally, if I am restricted to the last twenty years, I vote for "Bob Marley's Greatest Hits." The man was a roaring musical genius who was under-appreciated during his lifetime. That album rocks and has very wistful qualities. The best rendition of "I shot the Sheriff" ever recorded, in my humble opinion.

My all time favorite album is Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain," which is a magical tour de force featuring Gil Evan's orchestral arrangements. But this album was produced in 1959. It is still getting rave reviews from critics. It was just remastered and released again about four years ago.

[gregwest]

"Further proof that musically, the 90s sucked."

I just keep going farther and farther back looking for "new music" to enjoy. I went back to collecting vinyl albums a few years back. I've reached the 1930s now and love the music of that era. It's sad to discover that the best music America had to offer came 30 years before I was born. The music of that time was fun, witty, well-crafted, and wholesome. It amazes me how much patriotic music was popular in the 30's and 40's compared to now, where only a few country musicians and Ted Nugent stand up for America.

[stainlessbanner]

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