Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

Okay before I get to my two respective champions, lets have a run down of the top ten, the albums are up first so here we go.

So yes the greatest album of the 90s is not OK Computer actually it probably is but on my list and for today the greatest album is the one and only The Soft Bulletin. So why is this album number one, it's less influencial than OK Computer, it's slightly less important, and many would argue it's not quite as good (but let's face it that's just splitting hairs. The reasons that The Soft Bulletin is number one is that it's a joyous celebration of sound and music itself. While this album if far from all smiles, even the album artworkd is ominous and depressing you can't help but feel uplifted. Not nessicarily by the message because the themes are often maccabre and down beat but by the beautitful arrangements and the richness of the sound. It's simply devine. The Soft Bulletin was the run away winner of the 1999 album of the year polls, according to Wikipedia it won over sixty such polls. Everyone was swept away with it and almost taken completely by surprise by this albums genius and won over instantly.

The Soft Bulletin marked a shift for the Flaming Lips not just in sheer commercial and critical acclaim but it marked the second half of their careers, a new awakening. After years of hit and miss pysch rocking they'd somehow ended up this Generation's Pink Floyd. Except they weren't from this generation. They were old, Wayne Coyne gets his disticntive look from his whispy gray hair, this was a bunch of old guys who had spent most of their lives off their faces on drugs, behaving badly and singing these glorious rich super songs, and we couldn't help but smile. Honestly could you imagine Thom Yorke on stage with dancing cuddly toys and then running accross the entire crowd in a plastic bubble? You can't can you because ultra credible bands aren't supposed to do silly stuff like that, that's for Mika not for Radiohead. And cool bands aren't supposed do it either, let alone write huge epics with science fiction themes, getting bitten by a spider or about putting the groceries in the cabinet. Yet when it's three middle aged men you can't help but smile, and there's that word again, smile, you just can't help it, hell I can't help it.

The Soft Bulletin is litered with so many joyous moments; the glorious chorus to the sublime Spark That Bled where Coyne in near falsetto belts out "I stood up and I said, yeah / I stood up and I said hell yeah" it's such a raptuous feeling. The album is just full of those almost indefinible feelings it's seen again at the devine conclusion of A Spoonful Weighs A Ton "Yelling as hard as they can the doubters all were stunned / sounding louder than a gun / The sound they made was love". Or the moment when the big sweeping euphoric instrumental arrangement kicks in at the end of Race For The Prize it's beautiful. However even though you some how end with a smile on your face this is far from a happy album after the aforementioned high in The Spark That Bled Coyne goes into this glorious sequence of cuplets but it all goes wrong (in story terms) as all those feelings are flipped on their head with sombre revelation "In reality there was no reaction...I accidently touched my head / And noticed I had been bleeding / For how long I didn't know". It's not a comedown it's just the dip on the rollercoaster and a fascinating end to an epic a self contained story.

If I had to boil the brilliance of this album down to just two factors, and that's a tough task I can assure you, the first is the arrangements. I strong recommend listening to this album through headphones because there are so many beautiful little florishes that contribute to the whole that would be missed otherwise, a charming horn arrangement, a quick florish of violin or a crafty squelsh oober bass. The album continually suprises and excites and it's not a cliche to say no two tracks sound alike, these are incredibly complex and subtly crafted epics. The second factor is a remarkable turn of phrase that Wayne Coyne has discovered, he comes up with this remarkable punch lines (for a lack of a better expression) that are incredibly thought provoking, and isn't that what psychedellia is really all about? Incredible imagery. That rises up above everything else and occupy your mind "A Spoonful weighs a Ton", "What kinds of weapons have they got? / The softest bullet ever shot" and hell every single line in Waiting For A Superman a moment of staggering song writting genius.

So The Soft Bulletin is never going to be a big as OK Computer or as cool as Loveless or as culturally relevant as Different Class yet while the world music would be unrecognizable without those three albums, without The Soft Bulletin the world would be a less beautiful place. The Soft Bulletin is self contained genius, it doesn't insisted upon you, it won't be a reference point for bands for the next twenty years, it will never be played on documentaries, it probably won't be on any of those annoying channel four lists but that's okay. The Soft Bulletin that is simply there to be discovered, an album that hopefully everyone at one time or another will stumble accross, and it will enrich their lives, alter their moods, and make them think hard and smile at the same time, and what could be more important than that?

Okay so on with the show: Let's remind ourselves of the top ten singles shall we.

"Oh Baby Baby" I did just name ...Baby One More Time by Britney Spears the greatest single of the 1990s, and just incase you were wondering this is not a joke, I'm 100% deadly serious. But more importanly I'm absolutely stunned! Shocked! I feel like my entire world has been turned on it's head. Until approximately thirty seconds ago I had absolutely no idea this song was called ...Baby One More Time seriously? Dot, dot, dot, One More Time? My entire life I thought this song was called Hit Me Baby One More Time I don't know what to believe in anymore. Well no wonder I could never find it in itunes.

So I'm sure somebody reading this much be scratching their heads thinking how on earth is this ahead of Paranoid Android that can't be right can it? Well it can and if you are thinking that you are dead wrong. When it comes to ninities singles, this song is bigger than life, when it comes to music throughout history this song is as big and as good as anything else, and yes I'm serious. I garentee you every single band that you love whether it be Radiohead or Arctic Monkeys or even *shudder* Travis have at one time or another goofed off and messed around playing this song. What's more I reckon everyone reading this has at one time or another has sung this song out loud, most likely in public, and I bet you put on a silly voice for the "Still believe" bit. You did, didn't you? It's inescapible, it's totally irresistable it's absolutely everything a pop song should be.

...Baby One More Time toes that perfect line for a pop song between being just cheesey enough and just brilliant enough, and remarkably in this case it leans towards the later more than the former. Every part of this song, the way it is crafted is perfect. Every part is spot on, and the undoubted highlights are the cleverly thrown in high parts ("What Becuase", "And I", "Still Believe") there completely irresistable, they are perfectly designed to force your brain to sing along it's so fucking subversive. Not forgeting the "Oh Baby Baby"s Britney's cadence is perfect, it's so innane, I'm still not sure to this day if that silly tone in her voice is actually her singing tone or whether it's one of the most remarkable brilliant bits of subversive production ever. The way she sings is just daring you to hate it, it's playing to the macaroons who are going to start ranting about the evils of pre produced pop music, yet it's sung in such a tongue in cheek/goofy arsed way you'll never know if they joke is on you or not.

So it was the eighth biggest selling single of the 90s in this country and the only single in the top 10 that wasn't total arse or a shameless cover. Complete and utter genius, the best song of the decade hands down, there really was no competition this was the one and only plausible choice (yes and this time I actually went with the obvious choice, hooray for me).