It was weird but cool year that felt more like it was part of the '80s than the decade to come. (I guess the first year of a decade never really fits anywhere, and let's hope that includes 2020.) Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure brought quirk and whimsy to the mainstream. Ghost made potter cool...and sexy. Fashion was pretty terrible. But music was great! Musically, the world was still a year away from when "punk broke," but some of those groups were already making great music. Hip hop was getting very interesting thanks to sampling. As was dance music. Across the pond, shoegaze and rave culture were exploding and often bleeding into one another. Bands who had been around since the early '80s (or before) were still making interesting music, too.
When I went to make a list of potential records for this list, it was shockingly long and my list grew from 20 to 30, and then I had a bunch of runner-ups, too. This list isn't meant to be a definitive list of the best albums of 1990, though it probably is closer to that than what my Year 2000 list was and is pretty typical of what you might have found on college radio that year.
This list includes three appearances by Kim Deal, and two groups who had full-time dancers as members. If that doesn't pique your interest I don't know what will, so without further ado...
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INDIE BASEMENT: TOP 30 ALBUMS OF 1990
30. The Jazz Butcher - Cult of the Basement (Creation / Rough Trade)
While indie label Creation Records were getting a taste of the big time with Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream, they were still putting out records by some of the more eccentric acts that had been the label's bread and butter just years before. The Jazz Butcher, aka Pat Fish, was the most eccentric of the lot and known for wacky singles, but he got serious for Cult of the Basement, an album that showed he didn't have to rely on jokes. The dark undercurrent was also a nice foil to frontman Pat Fish's absurdist sense of humor. Basement features some of his best songs, including "Mr Odd," "Pineapple Tuesday," and "Girl Go," all of which had a strong shoegaze influence that would be hard to avoid when being labelmates with Kevin Shields (and friends with Sonic Boom). For those who did come for the jokes, there's "Panic in Room 109" and "My Zeppelin."
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29. Buffalo Tom - Birdbrain (Beggars Banquet)
With a raging, fuzzy and deafeningly loud guitar attack, Boston band Buffalo Tom gained the affectionate nickname Dinosaur Jr Jr in the late '80s. That may also have happened because J. Mascis produced Buffalo Tom's first two albums: 1988's self-titled (released on SST) and this, their 1990 college radio smash Birdbrain, which was their first for Beggars Banquet. While there was a definite sonic similarity to Dino Jr's ragged squall, Buffalo Tom also hit from the heart, with frontman Bill Janovitz writing deeply affecting songs like "Skeleton Key," "Fortune Teller" and "Enemy."
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28. Pixies - Bossanova (4AD/Elektra)
After the flat-out brilliance of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, Pixies' third album was seen as somewhat of a disappointment, but Bossanova has gotten better with age. Made in Los Angeles, and written mostly in the studio, you can feel the West Coast pull on the band who mellow just a little as Black Francis and co. further explore their sci-fi surf rock tendencies. They may have been penned on the fly but "Velouria," "Allison," Dig for Fire," "All Over the World," "Is She Weird" and "Hang Wire" possess riptide energy. Don't diss Bossanova!
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27. The Breeders - Pod (4AD/Rough Trade)
Before they became alt-rock superstars thanks to Last Splash and "Cannonball," The Breeders began as a 4AD side-player supergroup featuring two songwriters who didn't get the spotlight very often: the Pixies' Kim Deal and Throwing Muses' Tanya Donelly. Add in The Perfect Disaster's Josephine Wiggs and drummer Shannon Doughton (actually Slint's Britt Walford) and the original lineup of The Breeders were born. They were a much gnarlier group than they'd become a couple years later. Working with Surfer Rosa "producer" Steve Albini, the songs on Pod are sinister, spare and punky, with Deal and Donnelly dueling on guitars, set against Wiggs' flinty bass and Walford's hard-hitting drumming. Only the sweet "Fortunately Gone" hints at where they'd soon go. For those wishing Pixies' Bossanova had more kick, Deal had her Doc Martens on here. For those hoping for some Donnelly songs, they'd have to wait for Belly.
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26. Teenage Fanclub - A Catholic Education (Matador / Paperhouse)
Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton, The Replacements sang in 1987, and apparently a lot of those children went on to form indie rock bands in the late-'80s and early'-90s. The beginning of the decade seemed especially thick with Big Star worship, be it Matthew Sweet or The Posies (whose Dear 23 was released in 1990). Among the most blatant worshipers were Glasgow's Teenage Fanclub who have made a career out of cribbing from Chilton's descending chord melody style with good humor and charm. On their debut album, though, they were disguising their theft with rivers of sludgy distortion that put them sonically somewhere between Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine. With classic songs like "Everything Flows," "Critical Mass," and wickedly sarcastic "Everybody's a Fool," that warm and fuzzy middle ground was a nice place to be.
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25. They Might Be Giants - Flood (Elektra)
Following two albums on Hoboken indie label Bar/None, snarky, absurdist college radio darlings -- and original Williamsburg, Brooklyn band -- They Might Be Giants signed with Elektra Records and made Flood, their first album with a major label budget. For the most part, it was business as usual for John Flansburgh and John Linnell, whose quirky sensibilities and accordion-and-drum machine fueled sound remained intact but now had a richer sound. Most of the budget went to hiring UK producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, known for working with Madness and Elvis Costello, to work on four of Flood's 19 songs, including alt-rock hits "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)." Flood's charms run deep, though, from eccentric pop ("Twisting," "Lucky Ball & Chain") to arch jokes ("Minimum Wage"), to the wonderfully weird numbers that could only come from TMBG ("Particle Man," anyone?).
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24. The Trash Can Sinatras - Cake (Go! Discs / London)
When The Smiths broke up, the world was in need of a new literate, melodic and jangly pop band to fill Morrissey & Marr's big shoes and indie fans' hearts. That crown ultimately, briefly, went a couple years later to Suede, but one of the best contenders was Scotland's Trashcan Sinatras who continue to have a knack for putting gorgeous melodies to tongue-twisting, heart-on-sleeve love songs. They arrived fully formed on their debut, Cake, which is full of wonderful songwriting that mixes chest-beating anthemicism with subtle moments and sparkling production that took the best of the '80s UK indie and remodeled it for a new decade.
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23. Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly (Rough Trade)
David Roback -- who 2020 tragically took from us -- seemed destined just be a part of an endless series of cultishly loved, Velvet Underground-inspired groups that never got big, having led Rain Parade, Clay Allsion and then Opal. But when the latter's singer, Kendra Smith, quit the group in 1987, Roback brought in Hope Sandoval. She possessed a smoky voice that was mysterious and alluring -- qualities all Roback's groups' had -- but she was also capable of really belting it out. Opal became Mazzy Star and the cult grew. Before "Fade Into You" made them more of a household name a couple years later, Mazzy Star released their haunting debut album that mixed a variety of late-'60s influences (VU, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane) into a sultry, swirling psychedelic hang. A breath of fresh, if patchouli-scented, air in the overproduced 1990 landscape, it sounds even better now.
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22. The La's - The La's (Go! Discs / London)
Lee Mavers, frontman of Liverpool band The La's, was touted in the late '80s as the latest great songwriter of his generation and a worthy heir to The Fab Four thanks to single "There She Goes." It was an opinion Mavers shared. The band ran through a number of producers who tried to make a La's album that Mavers was happy with, including John Leckie (Stone Roses, Radiohead), John Porter (The Smiths) and Steve Lillywhite (U2, The Pogues). It was the latter's sessions that became The La's only album, which was released by their label without Mavers' approval. It got most everyone else's approval, though, with Mavers' undeniable songwriting gifts, steeped in '60s merseybeat, front and center. There's a good case to be made that Britpop started here.
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21. The Charlatans - Some Friendly (Situation Two / Beggars Banquet)
The Stone Roses launched a whole new wave of British pop, and labels seemed to be signing any group they could find in Manchester with baggy clothes and bowl haircuts who could hold their instruments. Most of them were forgettable but The Charlatans came armed with a unique, Farfisa organ spin on the Madchester sound, and a whole bunch of great songs. "The Only One I Know," which nicked more from Deep Purple than it did the Roses, was their breakthrough but Some Friendly is packed with hits, including "White Shirt," "Then," "Sproston Green," and "You're Not Very Well." While some at the time considered them also-rans, Some Friendly has stood the test of time, as have The Charlatans -- 30 years later they're still going and making great albums. Which of their 1990 peers can say the same?
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20. Ultra Vivid Scene - Joy 1967-1990 (4AD/Columbia)
A bit forgotten about in 4AD lore, not to mention alt-rock history (a problem for a lot of groups who were popular in the years before The Year Punk Broke), Ultra Vivid Scene was the pseudonym for NYC musician and producer Kurt Ralske whose work managed to be both wildly psychedelic and hermetically sealed. His second album, Joy 1967-1990, which was released in the U.S. via Columbia Records, also featured a whole bunch of great pop songs amid all the trippiness, including "Staring at the Sun," "Beauty No. 2" and "Special One" which was a duet with Kim Deal (who seemed to be everywhere in 1990). The psych stuff is fantastic too, especially the dubby, blissed out "Grey Turns While" and slinky jam "Guilty Pleasure" which sounds like it invented The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
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19. The KLF - Chill Out (KLF Communications / Wax Trax!)
Known equally for gonzo dance singles like "What Time is Love?" and "Justified and Ancient" and for their high-concept, arty publicity stunts (like burning a million pounds), The KLF were also influential in the rave-era ambient world thanks to their third album which tracks an imagined overnight train trek across America's Gulf Coast from Texas through Louisiana. (KLF are credited with coining the term "chill out," too, originating from an area called "The White Room" at the Heaven nightclub in London.) Mixing original music (lots of pedal steel), samples from Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, 808 State and others, plus field recordings of sheep and Tuvan throat singers, Chill Out plays as one 44-minute track. Inspiring countless "Late Night Tales" and other similar albums, Chill Out remains a comedown classic.
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18. Sonic Youth - Goo (DGC)
The pressure was on for Sonic Youth, having recently released their universally loved masterpiece Daydream Nation and then even more recently signing to major label Geffen's DGC Records imprint -- a big deal in the indie world, at a time when "sellout" still stung. They reportedly spent $150k recording it (five times the cost of Daydream Nation), and brought in veteran producer Ron St. Germain to help finish it. Listening to it now, however, Goo is still a pretty wild record, major label or no, full of the kind of wonderfully dissonant rock they'd been making for the last five years. It was a major step up for Kim Gordon, who is on fire throughout and delivers the best songs on the album -- "Tunic (Song for Karen)" and first single "Kool Thing" featuring Chuck D -- though Thurston's "Dirty Boots" isn't far behind. (Lee Renaldo's "Mote" is great, too.) Goo also works as a doorway to what the '90s would bring, with punk, grunge, slackers, and pop culture references all to come.
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17. The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger (Ensign)
For fans of guitars -- chiming, jangly, soaring guitars -- Bristol UK band The Blue Aeroplanes offered lots of them. They had three full-time guitarists, with a couple in the wings, making for a glorious, ringing racket. The Blue Aeroplanes were distinctive in a lot of ways, though. Gerard Langley had a highly poetic, spoken-sung style that owed a little to Lou Reed, and the group also featured dancer Wojtek Dmochowski whose impressionist movements made the band's shows one of a kind. (The Blue Aeroplanes were an early influence on another group with three guitarists, Radiohead.) Swagger is a well-named album, with the band absolutely beaming with confidence, making some of their hookiest music yet, thanks in no small part to the addition of singer-songwriter Rodney Allen to the lineup, and muscular production by Pixies/Bunnymen knob-twidder Gil Norton. Oh, and Michael Stipe is on the album, singing some lovely "ahhhs" on "What It Is," but even his alt-rock starpower can't really compete with all the dazzling guitars.
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16. The Flaming Lips - In a Priest Driven Ambulance (Restless)
Having spent their first five years in existence being known more for crazy stage antics than songs (which also kinda sounds like their 2010s output), The Flaming Lips turned a big corner with their fourth album. Jonathan Donahoe, who would go on to lead Mercury Rev, joined the band and brought the novel idea of hooks and choruses to the band. In a Priest Driven Ambulance is also The Flaming Lips' first album with producer Dave Fridmann who really helped bring their technicolor fireball vision to widescreen life. Finally, all that wild psychedelic noise and imagery took a form that people who weren't totally on Wayne Coyne's wavelength could grab onto and it's a wild, wonderful ride.
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15. The Fall - Extricate (Cog Sinister / Fontana)
A new decade for The Fall brought with it big changes: Extricate! was the band's first album following after frontman Mark E. Smith and guitarist/wife Brix's divorce (who left to form her own group, Adult Net) and their first album for major label Fontana. Tumult always served Mark E Smith well, though, and Extricate! is another great Fall album, featuring dabblings in dance music ("Telephone Thing," produced by Coldcut), flute-filled tributes to Frank Zappa ("I'm Frank"), a fantastic cover of The Monks' "I Hate You" that may have been directed at Brix, and a rare moment of sincerity and emotion ("Bill is Dead"). Another record that fits John Peel's description of "always different, always the same."
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14. Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback (Kitchenware / CBS)
All respect to Prefab Sprout's amazing Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good, but Jordan: The Comeback is frontman and songwriter Paddy McAloon's crowning achievement, a sprawling double album that has four mini concepts within it: a side of straight-up pop; a suite of songs about Elvis Presley; a medley a la Side 2 of Abbey Road; and a treatise on aging. Almost all of it works, and the highs are very high, including some of McAloon's best-ever songs: "Looking for Atlantis," "We Let the Stars Go," "Machine Gun Ibiza," gorgeous, countrified ballad "One of the Broken," and the whole "Jesse James" medley. It's also got "Wild Horses," an R&Bish ballad that sounds a good 15 years ahead of its time (and influential lately, just ask Hot Chip). Like almost all double albums, fat could be trimmed here, but that fat just adds flavor to Jordan: The Comeback's many perfect bites.
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13. The House of Love - The House of Love (The Butterfly Album) (Fontana)
After a string of acclaimed singles and a 1988 debut album for hip UK indie label Creation Records, The House of Love signed to major label Fontana and proceeded to burn through four producers, two years and £1 million on its follow-up. That also exhausted much of the credibility House of Love had with fans and the music press, and the ordeal of making the album caused guitarist Terry Bickers to quit the band shortly after it came out. And yet The Butterfly Album, as fans nicknamed it, is fantastic. There is no denying Guy Chadwick's songs ("I Don't Know Why I Love You," "Beatles & The Stones," "Shine On," "Never"), which are dark, psychedelic earworms, or his presence as a frontman. At least some of the money they blew can be heard in the production which soars but doesn't flaunt, and Bickers' atmospheric guitarwork is irreplaceable. Thirty years later, the stories fade but these songs shine on.
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12. Robert Forster - Danger in the Past (Beggars Banquet)
When The Go-Betweens broke up following 1989's fantastic 16 Lovers Lane, fans wondered what frontmen Robert Forster (erudite Lou Reed/Bob Dylan lover) and Grant McLennan (writer of warm, romantic pop songs) would do without each other to balance their opposing styles. The answer would be, a decade later, to reunite but actually they both did just fine on their own in the '90s, especially Forster who was first out of the gate with what is one of his finest collection of songs ever -- including a few originally earmarked for The Go-Betweens -- and production by Mick Harvey (Bad Seeds, Birthday Party) that wasn't trying to make Forsters' literary, classic style more "radio friendly." Danger in the Past showed Forster's solo future was bright.
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11. Yo La Tengo - Fakebook (Bar/None)
Yo La Tengo are indie rock royalty at this point but back in 1990 they were the little Hoboken band that could, owing much of their sound to The Velvet Underground, both the calm and the storm. But Ira Kaplan, a former rock critic, had a deep knowledge of pop history and put that front and center on the band's charming fourth album. Taking its title from a simplified book of musical charts of popular songs, Fakebook is almost entirely covers, though chances are that the songs were all new to many of the people who heard the record, whether it was deep cuts by Ray Davies, John Cale, and Gene Clark, songs from contemporaries, or excavating nuggets from history (The Escorts, The Tremeloes). Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" has been covered to death now, but Yo La Tengo did it first, here. With a laid-back,'60s folk rock treatment, Fakebook has an evergreen aura that makes it one of the most enduring albums of their deep catalog.
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10. The Sneetches - Slow (Alias)
San Francisco's The Sneetches were a band lost in time, making records steeped in baroque psych,'70s power-pop and bubblegum, and nary a hint that it was made while George Bush Sr was president. This all may have made them misunderstood in 1990 when they released their second album, Slow, but it has worked in their favor since. The timeless production, energetic performances, and soaring melodies and harmonies haven't dated at all. It's the best record The Turtles, The Zombies and The Left Banke never made.
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9. Eno/Cale - Wrong Way Up (Opal / Warner Brothers)
Brian Eno and John Cale had worked together a few times on each other's solo records, but they had never collaborated like this -- the poppiest album either have ever made. And one of the best. The two apparently didn't get along very well while making the album, but perhaps that was an oblique strategy of its own -- friction produces heat. Wrong Way Up sounds utterly like 1990, positively gleaming with synthesizers, while steeped in pop from the previous four decades, from doo-wop and country to Ghana highlife. What a truly wonderful peanut butter cup of a record this is one that only Eno and Cale could've made together and truly takes flight when their voices join.
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8. The Sundays - Reading, Writing & Arithmetic (Rough Trade / DGC)
The Sundays were a '80s UK indie guitar band fan's dream, like a magical gene-splicing of The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins, and they had the songs to support such a comparison. Harriet Wheeler had the pipes and guitarist David Gavurin had the tunes, and they both brought a literature major's poetic style to their songs. Their debut album, Reading, Writing & Arithmetic, is just as precious and mopey as you want it to be: "England, my country, the home of the free; such miserable weather" Wheeler sings on the gorgeous, delicate "Can't Be Sure," just one of the many standout cuts. A perfect soundtrack to a rainy autumn afternoon.
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7. Blake Babies - Sunburn (Mammoth)
Boston trio Blake Babies were only together for five years but managed to crank out four albums between 1986 and 1990, and went out with a bang on the terrific Sunburn. One of the best indie rock records of the year, it's a real showcase for Juliana Hatfield as a songwriter and frontperson, though the band's sound couldn't really be pulled apart -- guitarist John Strohm's unique style and vocals were an invaluable counterpoint to Hatfield's, and drummer Freda Love provided the group's strong backbone. Sunburn is just wonderful song after wonderful song, whether it's ringing indie rock like "Out There," "Kiss and Make Up," and "Look Away" or affecting anthems like "Train" and "A Million Years." It's no wonder that Juliana Hatfield went solo after this, but she never delivered a better batch of songs than these.
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6. Ride - Nowhere (Creation/Sire)
While Ride's debut album is a verified shoegaze classic, when you listen now, underneath the wall of guitars and murky production, what really stands out is how good a band and songwriters they were, owing as much to The Byrds as My Bloody Valentine. Opening with the ripping "Seagull," Nowhere takes us through chiming pop ("Kaleidoscope," "Taste"), melancholy psych dreams ("Polar Bear," "Paralyzed"), noisy blasts ("Nowhere") and their best-ever song, "Vapour Trail." On Nowhere, Ride have the ability to take your breath away while leaving your ears ringing.
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5. Happy Mondays - Pills n' Thrills n' Bellyaches (Factory/Elektra)
A party record that feels like it was also a party to make, Happy Mondays' Pills n' Thrills n' Bellyaches came out at the height of Madchester mania, with finger-on-the-pulse production from Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osbourne that doesn't attempt to turn them into an acid house act but does up the bongos and rhythm section. Shaun Ryder, who Factory Records head Tony Wilson often compared to WB Yeats, is at the top of his witty, brilliant, filthy (and even poignant) game on tracks like "Kinky Afro," "Grandbags Funeral," baggy anthem "Loose Fit" and "Bob's Yr Uncle." The album also has their hit cover of John Kongos' "Step On." Maybe you had to be there, but PT&B is so good, it can make you wish you were.
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4. Pale Saints - The Comforts of Madness (4AD)
Few bands mixed noise, beauty and melody with a welcome sense of weird like Pale Saints. Guitars slash and chime, basslines often carry the melody, and Cooper's drumming is nuanced and crisp. The first album of the '90s for legendary UK label 4AD, Pale Saints' debut is at times like a fusion of the label's best bands, fusing the ethereal beauty of Cocteau Twins with the loud-quiet-loud roar of the Pixies and the off-kilter charms of Throwing Muses. And the songs, well they're just fantastic, from bright indiepop numbers like "You Tear the World In Two," "The Language of Flowers" and "Insubstantial" to dreamy numbers like "A Deep Sleep for Steven" and "Sea of Sound." There's also what is probably Pale Saints' most famous song, the hypnotic "Sight of You" that's been covered by everyone from Ride to Dum Dum Girls. A brilliant record.
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3. The Chills - Submarine Bells (Flying Nun/Slash)
New Zealand cult band The Chills' first album for a major label is a flat-out triumph even if few in America noticed. Made in London with producer Gary Smith (Blake Babies, Throwing Muses), The Chills came with Phillipps' best batch of songs to date and a stable, talented lineup of the band. Smith's production style worked great with The Chills, avoiding au-courant studio techniques, but giving Phillipps' songs the fidelity they deserved. A #1 album in New Zealand, Submarine Bells has shimmer and bite, hooks and oddball charm, and still sounds great today.
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2. A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm (Jive / RCA)
The New York Native Tongues scene that included De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Jungle Brothers, and ATCQ was a breath of fresh air in the late-'80s, bringing a mellow, jazzy, inclusive, hippy-ish vibe and the kind of wildly creative records that could only be possible after sampling technology became more affordable but before sampling copyright lawsuits became the norm. Those anything-goes samples -- and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's beats -- are a big part of what makes A Tribe Called Called Quest's debut album such a joy, from the "Walk on the Wild Side" bass line on "Can I Kick It?," the Stevie Wonder and Donald Byrd drops on "Footprints," and Roy Ayers' "Running Away" groove on "Description of a Fool." But it's Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Jarobi's casual flow, rhymes and interplay that truly bring People's Instinctive Travels to life.
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1. Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas (4AD/Capitol)
A perfect album that has only gotten better with age, Heaven or Las Vegas is Cocteau Twins' and 1990's finest moment, a shimmering jewel that pairs Elizabeth Fraser's otherworldly vocals with some of Robin Guthrie's most transportive melodies and guitarwork. (Simon Raymonde's piano work here is also quite lovely.) Amazingly, a record this beautiful was made under extreme, often fraught emotional conditions: Fraser and Guthrie had just had their first child, Lucy Belle, but Guthrie's cocaine addiction was at an all time high as was his paranoia. Yet Heaven or Las Vegas transcended all hurdles. ("[The album] was made despite the drugs," Guthrie said in Facing the Other Way: The story of 4AD.) It's pop music, but as only Cocteau Twins could make. You can even understand a little of what Fraser is singing, which brings her an inch closer to earth but still well out of reach of us mere mortals. Pure bliss.
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Here's a playlist featuring a song from every album in the Indie Basement Top 30 (apart from The KLF's Chill Out which you're gonna have to go to YouTube for):