Jamwise #37 - Best Albums of 1991

Featuring: Massive Attack, Nirvana, A Tribe Called Quest, U2, Pearl Jam, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primal Scream

Project BAE - Best Albums Ever - 1991

Continuing the series of listening through the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. This week’s focus is all albums from the list released in 1991, excluding compilations. And what a year it was!

Blue Lines - Massive Attack

Massive Attack has been one of the greatest discoveries of this project for me. Mezzanine was my introduction to the band, and I’m justifiably jacked up to listen to Blue Lines, their debut album that’s widely credited with kicking off the trip hop genre.

If anything I liked this album more than Mezzanine. It has a variety and “finding themselves” vibe that makes it feel unique in multiple ways. Repeated listens were even better, cementing this as a true favorite. The variety and consistent quality blew me away; this one’s going on the “need on vinyl” list immediately.

Jams

• “One Love”

• “Be Thankful For What You’ve Got”

• “Five Man Army”

• “Hymn Of The Big Wheel”

Nevermind - Nirvana

I used to have a weird mental block about Nirvana in my teenage years. I think it stemmed from the way I was introduced to them - through downloading “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on Limewire and playing it endlessly while I saved up the money to buy my first Nirvana album, which was MTV Unplugged. I’d heard how great Unplugged was, but as the extent of my Nirvana knowledge was the pure raging beauty of Teen Spirit, I was thrown off by the acoustic set and didn’t really enjoy it. I should also mention that I didn’t have high speed internet until college, so I had no way to research what I was getting into (for context, pirating a single song on my parents’ dial-up internet took like 7 minutes to download). So I decided based on that insurmountable evidence (and one of the best live albums of all time) that Nirvana was whiny and pouty and annoying, and despite using Teen Spirit as my baseball walkout song for years, I maintained I wasn’t a huge Nirvana fan.

Man, I was an idiot. Or maybe I was just uneducated, but that’s kind of the same thing.

Every song on Nevermind would be the crowning achievement of any lesser band. How many rock acts in the 90’s would have killed for a single song on the level of “Breed,” “In Bloom,” “Polly,” or “On a Plain”? And these are only a few of the all-time perfect pieces on this album. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is channeled from the essence of the universe, “Come As You Are” is so pure it freaking shines even with a foot-thick layer of grunge piled on top, and “Lithium” is half full-tilt angst and half effortlessly flawless. I can’t explain why so much angst and anger makes me so fricking happy to listen to, but it does.

This album defines a genre, a time period, and a legendary genius all at once. I think it should be the first thing we play for aliens whenever they land on Earth. This album is a 10/10 for me, without question.

Jams

• They’re all jams, goodness gracious

The Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest

I think RateYourMusic’s classification of this album as jazz rap is fascinating. I don’t get the impression that the jazz rap genre is overall populated, and the fact that this album draws from jazz samples and jazzy bass lines seems like a somewhat thin connection to jazz if you’re going to assign it a whole new genre. To me this is 90’s rap with smooth, effortless lo-fi style beats (that term might be wrong, but it fits in my mind) that sounds just as good with the volume turned up high or down low. It’s less angry, thanks to Q-Tip’s laid back voice, but it still seems to divide the internet with the love/hate for the lyrical choices. I had no huge issue with the lyrics even though I wasn’t overly impressed, although it’s hard to tell if the lyrics are simply from an older time, earlier in the development of hip-hop lyricism, or if they’re just not overly good. 

Overall the beats are my style, and so are the jazz samples (especially the bass lines), and the vocals are just kind of there.

Jams

• “Excursions”

Achtung Baby - U2

Ahh, U2 before they forced their music onto every iPhone in the world (as far as I know) and made themselves a little bit of a joke in the eyes of my generation. I’m also receiving reports that this album was produced by friend of the newsletter Brian Eno. Come on, Brian, make me love you like everyone else does!

“One” is U2’s ultimate distillation to me. It’s an attempt to be universal and huge in scope yet introspective, with a rattly over-processed Edge guitar part and epic strings. It’s like they were trying not to write a stadium rock song, trying to show their depth (as always), toning down the guitars and even adding some acoustic strumming, with the string section and the Edge’s ultra-delay-reverb guitar kind of ruining the “downsizing” effect. It’s a great song, but it feels so self-important that it’s a bit tainted. That’s U2’s legacy in my mind. 

This album is quite different from the pretentious undertones of Joshua Tree, which felt like an exercise in musical colonization more than anything else, but the same “I’m important” attitude seems to pervade every song. I struggle to call U2 rock at all, to be honest, although rock and pop are often a distinction without a difference. The main reason for that is that U2, although they might be underdogs, don’t act like they see themselves that way. They’re the ultimate corporate rock band, the “I know better than you and I’m doing this for your own good” activists. True, I’m sure they put their money where their mouth is when it comes to real-world activism, but speaking purely about the music, there’s an element of condescension that makes some of the songs hard to relate to as much as I should.

Now all that being said, I believe most of the above criticism is me projecting the band’s image onto the music of this album. That’s hard to avoid, and it’s a bit unfair, as many of the songs are superbly written and are well-worn classics for a reason. 

Jams

• “One”

• “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”

• “Mysterious Ways”

Ten - Pearl Jam

I had this entire album memorized as a young teen; lyrics, guitar solos, and all. It’s hard to believe this is the band’s debut. Although I’m too close to this album to write anything resembling an objective review, I think it’s somewhat well-established as a fantastic album. It’s certainly one of my favorites; the number of all-time songs on Ten is mind boggling. 

The 90’s aren’t exactly a decade of guitar gods, as far as I’m concerned, but I feel like Pearl Jam carried the torch of the air guitar rock band forward to a whole new generation without totally trying to recapture the sound of the 70’s. And not to mention it was one of the reasons I got into the guitar in the first place - this one is cemented in my personal hall of fame.

Jams

• “Once”

• “Even Flow”

• “Alive”

• “Why Go”

• “Release”

Metallica (The Black Album) - Metallica

I wrote about this album all the way back in the first issue of Jamwise, and it’s cool looking at how far I’ve come over 37 issues. The point of this project is to expose me to new music and to teach me to be a better and more open music fan, so it’s interesting to look back at this album and see how the context of my appreciation for it has changed.

There’s not much metal on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list, but Metallica is a pretty obvious choice to carry the flag for the genre. Musicianship and shredding skills are a wise combination - too much virtuoso showing off is a huge turn off for me, but Metallica makes the rapid fire hallmarks of metal sound like pieces in an orchestra rather than blunt instruments to smack you over the head with. 

Jams

• “Enter Sandman”

• “Holier Than Thou”

• “The Unforgiven”

• “Nothing Else Matters”

Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Chili Peppers could conceivably be blamed for a lot of pretty bad music that followed in their footsteps. I think that’s a large part of why they annoy a lot of people. That, and the stoner bro pseudo-wisdom of Kiedis’ lyrics, are a recipe for polarization. 

And yet I love the Chili Peppers. I think that’s because it feels like they are 1000% all-in on their personas, their music, their belief that they have something extremely deep and meaningful to express. True or not, that kind of gung-ho energy is energizing, even if you don’t care about the drug- and women-related experiences that have informed the majority of the band’s life philosophy. It’s like watching an ultramarathoner fight through an impossible race - sure, they’re objectively insane, but the fully committed effort of the spirit is still compelling to watch. Or like when my dog stares at a squirrel out the window; her entire mind and soul is fixated on it, and it’s cute to watch. The Chili Peppers’ energy falls somewhere between the wide range from cute barking dogs to inspiring overcomers of odds, in my opinion. There’s simply no hesitation or self-reflection to be found in the music, and that’s what makes it fun.

But in the end, you don’t have to buy into their lives, philosophies, or viewpoints to enjoy their music, and if you add a little funk to any genre I’m gonna love it. Add John Frusciante to the mix and you’ve got a Dave-certified classic.

Jams

• “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”

• “Under the Bridge”

• “Give It Away”

Screamadelica - Primal Scream

I’ve also reviewed this one before; the second time around, this album has a little more context in my head. It’s largely what I’m coming to know as the sound of 90’s early electronic music - a genre I either love or hate. The reasons for my reactions seem so random - I love Primal Scream’s “Inner Flight”, a loosely organized ambient-style track of the sort I normally can’t stand, because it has this comforting epic video game quest vibe that I love, not least because of the flute melody that carries the track. I’m also a sucker for a major key track, and for some reason the abstract elements of some tracks just appeal to me more when they’re not so broody. 

This is still my favorite 90’s electronic (or electronic-adjacent) album so far. 

Jams

• “Slip Inside This Hiuse”

• “Higher Than The Sun”

• “Inner Flight”