Magnet Magazine's Top 60 Albums, 1993-2003

Also The Beginning Stages of The Polyphonic Spree, that’s one of my absolute favourites of the early 00s, it’s still the album I listen to more than any other in late spring/early summer!
 
Skeletonframes said:
All of my friends were Guided By Voices kids and I just never got into them. It's one of those things where something gets shoved down your throat so much you just automatically start to reject it. I'm having a great time as an adult going back and "discovering" those bands without the stubbornness of youth clouding my judgment. I think GbV will be next on my list to look at.
Click to expand...

You’ve summed up very well here why this has been a fun exercise — to look back at the bands and albums of this era within this loosely defined genre collection free from whatever biases each of us were influenced by at the time. I’ve made a lot of fresh discoveries as I’ve listened to some of the albums I haven’t listened to in a long time.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I have enjoyed this, reminded me of a few artists that I forgot about. Also reminded me how much Indie Rock is a bros club.

Funny, I get the dislike of B&S as being twee flag bearer (hard to lift that flag with those skinny little wrists). But I also find a lot of indie rock/pop of the last 10-15 years to be too twee and fey for my liking.
Click to expand...

And a white bros club! I tried to think about regional or environment connections to the genre but couldn’t really find a commonality.

Lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven, bro!
 
Thackeraye said:
Same with NMH. It's fine, but definitely not the best album of that period. I don't know if you had to be into them at the time to get the whole cultural impact of it.

Overall, it's a pretty good list of albums of the time. There's loads of gaps (I'd add Spiritualized into there, Teenage Fanclub, and that's just off the top of my head. Was Sleater-Kinney in the list?), but it'll be a good playlist to jump into every now and then.

Really enjoyed doing this actually, it's been great fun. Anyone got any more we can do?
Click to expand...

Once we get through the list I’ll look forward to hearing everyone’s omissions—I’ll build a nice addendum to MM’s list for us.

There are also a couple of bonus lists from the magazine article that I’ll post.
 
Thanks to @dropsonde for doing this, and for @Matt M for doing the Spotify playlist. Will have a think about my omissions. My timings for albums is pretty poor, so I may have to do some research.

I may edit this post as I go, but I'll add these to the mix:

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix
Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
 
Some glaring omissions from my personal music taste:

Superchunk - Here's Where the Strings Come In
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West
Karate - The Bed Is In The Ocean
Sloan - One Chord to Another
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (If we can only have one album per band, replace Summerteeth with this in my list)
Cursive - Domestica
 
Skeletonframes said:
Some glaring omissions from my personal music taste:

Superchunk - Here's Where the Strings Come In
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West
Karate - The Bed Is In The Ocean
Sloan - One Chord to Another
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (If we can only have one album per band, replace Summerteeth with this in my list)
Cursive - Domestica
Click to expand...
Loved Karate. Totally underrated, but he had one of those voices you either got or didn’t, I think.
 
Thackeraye said:
Thanks to @dropsonde for doing this, and for @Matt M for doing the Spotify playlist. Will have a think about my omissions. My timings for albums is pretty poor, so I may have to do some research.

I may edit this post as I go, but I'll add these to the mix:

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix
Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
Click to expand...

Sorry @Teeeee but I don’t really know Sleater-Kinney, that whole being a bit UK, rather than US, centric in my listening during that period. Completely agree with the other 3, can’t believe that Spiritualized isn’t in the top 5, never mind not in it at all. I’ll re-emphasise that Elastica’s debut should be in the list high and that PJ Harvey not having an album in the top 10 is a compete disgrace. Also, the Verve’s second best album as the highest ranking “britpop” album, pull the other one!
 
Last edited:
This is a weird list. It's a mix of overrated albums and bands with a bunch of unforgivable omissions. No Massive Attack? No Portishead? No Blur? No Lauryn Hill? No Alanis Morissette? No Manic Street Preachers? No Björk?

In retrospective, I feel that music journalism in the 90s and the 00s had a disgusting tendency to underestimate female musicians. Some interviews from that time feel like the male journalist is treating the girl like "oh, you did well, you made a nice album, good for you! Here's a treat. Now let the boys do the job, they know what they're doing".
 
Waitressboy said:
This is a weird list. It's a mix of overrated albums and bands with a bunch of unforgivable omissions. No Massive Attack? No Portishead? No Blur? No Lauryn Hill? No Alanis Morissette? No Manic Street Preachers? No Björk?

In retrospective, I feel that music journalism in the 90s and the 00s had a disgusting tendency to underestimate female musicians. Some interviews from that time feel like the male journalist is treating the girl like "oh, you did well, you made a nice album, good for you! Here's a treat. Now let the boys do the job, they know what they're doing".
Click to expand...

Agree 100%, it was either that condescension or if they were a front person in a band they attempted to push them as a sex symbol and ignored the music and the other band members.
 
Joe Mac said:
Agree 100%, it was either that condescension or if they were a front person in a band they attempted to push them as a sex symbol and ignored the music and the other band members.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that wasn't left in the early aughts. I've read interviews with Chvrches where they explain that everyone contacts them and just wants to do photoshoots with the singer and how they had to make it a point early on that it's a "whole band". One of the guys even said something along the lines of "if we put Lauren on the cover of every album we'd sell double the copies, but that's not what the band is all about".
 
Skeletonframes said:
Unfortunately, that wasn't left in the early aughts. I've read interviews with Chvrches where they explain that everyone contacts them and just wants to do photoshoots with the singer and how they had to make it a point early on that it's a "whole band". One of the guys even said something along the lines of "if we put Lauren on the cover of every album we'd sell double the copies, but that's not what the band is all about".
Click to expand...

I read that interview with their singer too. She really impressed me with the way she comports herself. That’s not even the early 00s, that would have been well into the middle of the last decade with CHVRCHES!
 
Waitressboy said:
This is a weird list. It's a mix of overrated albums and bands with a bunch of unforgivable omissions. No Massive Attack? No Portishead? No Blur? No Lauryn Hill? No Alanis Morissette? No Manic Street Preachers? No Björk?

In retrospective, I feel that music journalism in the 90s and the 00s had a disgusting tendency to underestimate female musicians. Some interviews from that time feel like the male journalist is treating the girl like "oh, you did well, you made a nice album, good for you! Here's a treat. Now let the boys do the job, they know what they're doing".
Click to expand...
I think in this instance you have to remember that Magnet Magazine ran heavily to Guided By Voices as their grail. Things like Beach Boys, Elephant 6 Collective, etc. were their touchstones. It's a bit like if the Power Pop genre were to come out with a magazine, it would lean toward what that was and have some huge holes in their best of lists. I'll take this what it is, and it's been a great look back and got me to check out some bands I may have missed the first time.

And yes, would love to go through another one of these if anyone has an idea.

I'll get the playlist updated in a sec.

Thanks everyone!
 
Joe Mac said:
I read that interview with their singer too. She really impressed me with the way she comports herself. That’s not even the early 00s, that would have been well into the middle of the last decade with CHVRCHES!
Click to expand...
Lauren walks the walk. Pre-Chvrches she was involved in the main listings magazine here in Glasgow, and co-formed one of the main feminist collectives (TYCI) here.
 
Forum favorite Fiona didn't even make the list. And PJ Harvey most definitely should have been top 10. I'd have Liz Phair on there but probably in the 40s/50s. Same with Dig Me Out for Sleater Kinney. Ok Computer and NMH might be my #1 and 2 though.
 
Waitressboy said:
In retrospective, I feel that music journalism in the 90s and the 00s had a disgusting tendency to underestimate female musicians. Some interviews from that time feel like the male journalist is treating the girl like "oh, you did well, you made a nice album, good for you! Here's a treat. Now let the boys do the job, they know what they're doing".
Click to expand...

This is a challenging generalization. I can think of many female solo artists female-fronted bands popular in this era that were taken as seriously as their male counterparts.

To name a few, certainly The Breeders, Tonya Donelly/Belly, Hole, Sleater-Kinney, Liz Phair, 50-Foot Wave, Elastica, Veruca Salt, Juliana Hatfield, Magnapop, PJ Harvey, L7, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Donnas...I could keep going.

I guess I would like to see examples of journalists who wrote about bands like these condescendingly with respect to gender.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top