Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

The devil is in the detial, that's how the old saying goes, or more precisely in Belle & Sebastian's case God is in the detail. If you stick with If Your Feeling Sinister and delve beyond its warm and fuzzy and often fragile indie folk shell you'll find hidden depths that will last for an eternity. This is an album of deep introspection and superb storytelling. Murdoch tells narrow and detailed tales of characters who are normally outcasts fragile and gentle, they absorb themselves in books, they aren't popular they have deep repressed sexual desires. These are stories that you can follow and believe in, the sublime Seeing Other People is full of repressed sarcastic rage ("You Take Your Lover For A Dirty Weekend, That's Okay / But When Its Over / Your Looking At The Working Week Through The Eyes Of A Jigalo) and deep inner secrets ("We Lay On Your Bed Kissing Just For Practice). Behind the smart and affecting lyricism lies some seriously jaunty folk-pop laced with an 80s indie shine and some lovely arrangements. A creative triumph, an album which more than lived up to the hype.

It's a bizarre commentary on this album but the ultimate compliment that can be bestoed upon Homogenic is that it is incredibly conistant. Now you may be thinking, why on earth would this album be in the top 30 if it's best quality is consistancy? Well the simple answer to that question is because Bjork is brilliant. You know before listening to any Bjork album it's going to be superb and unparrelled in places. However you also know that your in for a total cluster fuck, normally shot guns and clusterbombs are more organised consistant and precise than Bjork. When it comes to Homogenic that is not the case, it is utterly superb from start to finish, it feels like a single peice, not a cobbled together collection of experimentation and rage. This is an outer spacial, huge futuristic epic. Hunter is a stunning start with its floating arrangment offset by the blasts of drum beat while Bjork coos and croons beautifully. Bjork contains her usual (at that point) rage only letting it slip on beddazled industrial of Pluto which in itself is a staggering track. This is an album that just sound gorgeous its threatening, different, creative yet incredibly accesible. The third of Bjork's stone cold classic 90s albums.

From something beautiful to something bombastic, agressive and most of all in your face! This album was inescapable, while it couldn't top the brilliance of It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back but then again what could, it certainly could send Public Enemy to the front and centre of the mainstream. Fight The Power! struck a chord with everyone, black or white, it was a message that everyone could get behind. Ironically it was probably the worst track on the album but it was the song that grabbed the world's attention. Public Enemy brought more of the same on Fear Of The Black Planet this was aggresive, angry music, Terminator X and the Bomb Squad were scratching the crap out of their decks with the absolute coolest samples and Chuck D lyricism was unparrelled. This was a band with a mission and a message. This was a band legitimately raging against the machine, race inequality, the police, the legal system, dumb white boys, repressive governments in fact any oppresion in general, Public Enemies fury knew no bounds. Best of all they combined the fury with the biggest beats and created as many club bangers as they did rage filled tirades. Take one listen to Welcome To The Terrordome and you'll be instantly reminded that there is only one Public Enemy, a true original, and when they stepped back rap lost it's voice and its still struggling to get it back.

From now until eternity Nine Inch Nails fans will debate which is the greatest of Trent's creations, while all will have their favorites there is only one correct answer The Downward Spiral. There's always that little grimace you make when you say or type that because you know its the obviously one, it doesn't feel cool, it's the one that everyone likes, even those people you wish didn't like the Nails (or you know don't) would say but ultimately it's so darn popular for a reason. The effect is worsened because creatively it was all down hill from here this was the peak, the pinnicle, Pretty Hate Machine was the perfect build and this was the all inclusive moment in the sun, what followed was not-so-creative-experimentation and a bad case of the hit and misseses. It also contains Trent's greatest depth take one look at the singles you have the rage of March Of The Pigs, the throwaway jazz-groove-wankery of Closer and the fragility of Hurt. In between are great tracks that equal and in many case blow the singles away from the visceral assualt of Mr. Self Destruct with it's killer chorus to big drums, uneasy buzz and huge Kraftwerk synths of the chameleonic Eraser. Downward Spiral was both Trent's most consistant work and had more bredth than the rest of his work combined, if you only want one industrial album (and let's face it most people do only want one) this my friends is it.

Tool have been and probably always will be able to craft these grand sweeping grooves(well except 10, 000 days (I'm promise I'll only type that once)), they swell and soar and morph, they have more time changes and guitar hooks in a single songs than most bands manage to create in an entire career. On top of that you have the take it or leave it operatics of Manyard when he's on form his vocals are a delight and remarkably tender contrasting the brooding crunching musical arrangements. So Tool have that on all their records, so what exactly makes Undertow different? Quite simply it's better. These songs are simply awesome. That's hardly critical insight but the songs on this record are more immediate and more powerful than anything else Tool have created. Intolerance, Sober, Undertow and the monster riffing Bottom are mamoth propositions, that rock, groove and grab you by the balls and demand you dance, cry, sulk, jump and punch seemingly all at once. Best of all is the sublime Prison Sex a wonderous concept, well I presume it's a concept, James Maynard wails and tells us the story of a guy whose stuck in prison seemingly going insane with his own inner neurosis creepily chanting "do on to others what has been done to you" and he finds his only salvation in raping/being raped by his fellow prisoners ("relief in sodimy") leading to the earth shattering final cuplet "I Have Found Some Kind Of Temporary Sanity / In This Shit, Blood and Cum on my hands". Unique and exceptional in equal measure Undertow holds nothing back, a challenging and beautiful record.

Wow this list keeps getting darker and darker and darker until we have reached the bottom of the abyss, total blackness. Trent Reznor and his Downward Spiral feels like the friggin pussy cat dolls next to this album. This is the last thoughts of a torn, clinically depressed, likely insane man who was just about to dissapear off the face of the earth. When Richie Edwards carved "4 Real" into his arm we all should have seen the signs, however while that could have been passed off as being rock and roll, after all Iggy Pop had often mutilated himself onstage, this album however could not be ingored this was as scary as it got. It's odd when talking about this album I was about to type my favorite is...but then favorite seems like a ridiculously term, this isn't an album you like, this is an album you admire, and the track that is the most remarkable is 4st 7lb its a frank and distressing step inside the mine of someone with anorexia sicken with their own self to the point of insanity. Then there was the nilhism of the angry visercal Archives Of Pain, however while this album at times feels more like the ultimate sociological study in empathy let us not forget that the Manics wouldn't be the Manics without the riffage and the huge singles and Faster and Of Walking Abortion don't disappoint. A fascinating and distressing all time classic, approach with caution.

Phew we certainly needed to lighten up, everything was getting a bit heavy and bit dark so thank god for the Beastie Boys! Nothing says fun like three white boys from New York laying down some insanely slick and ludicriously goofy rhymes. Of course this is the album that brought the world Sabotage the Beastie's set closer and the best single they've ever released not to mention the comic genius of the video. Single's wise they also grace us with Sure Shot which is about as straight up a Beastie's track as you'll ever get, a funky loop and the three way pass the mic fun you'd come to expect. Elsewhere the Beastie's are showing off boarden horizons we get MCA rocking the mic through an intercom on the excellent The Update and then giving us a lesson in Budhism on The Bodhisattva Vow. Elsewhere the Beastie's had reached their peak as a band and are feeling free to show of their many stylistic influences, whether it be the afore mentioned Budhism or the funk/jazz of Root Down which of course rides a suitably monster bassline. In fact most of the Ill Communication is one big show off session, with the Beasties conjuring these expansive grooves from a variety of jazz, funky, punk, blues, world and hip hop influences just take one listen to Futterman's Rule and you won't mistake them for three goofy MCs again. This was the Beasties at the height of thier powers as a musical unit.

Soundgarden were one of those bands that everyone used to rip on. When it came to the grunge movement of the early ninities, Nirvana had the heart and soul and when Kurt screamed you believed his anguish hell the guy did blow his head off, Pearl Jam were equally legit, they weren't corperate they shyed away from selling out, they wrote huge social epics describing troubled childhoods, but Soundgarden were never really credible. It didn't help that musically they hadn't had their answer to Nevermind or Ten but everyone saw through Soundgarden, they wanted to be Zeppelin, that much was obviously, they wore their influences on their sleeves. This band wanted to be big, there was no doubt about it. It didn't much help either that Chris Cornell like Matt Bellamy today was marmite lyrically, his apocalyptic whinings alienated many and left others unswayed. However all these questions, doubts and preconceptions where dismissed in unsion by the superb Superunkown it was tight, it rocked from start to finish, it was all killer no filler, it had big riffs and big choruses. So what if Soundgarden were shooting for the top and missing the earthy honest sentiment of Nirvana, this was big ballsy music that deserved to be as big and as loved as Nevermind or anything else.

Without this record I can't not imagine how the 21st century would have developed. Some of the most important, interesting and intriguing acts would probably have never come into existance were it not for Entroducing... this was an album of entirely sampled music, their was no rapping over the top, no big choruses to follow, this was putting the peices together. This wasn't about making club bangers however as in the past this was about creating beautiful music that you had to follow from one place to another, tracks were sprawling often starting with a single theme like a rolling sample that felt like walking forward and the track would develop, morph and evolve into something powerful, beautiful and truly remarkable. Having seen DJ Shadow live you can really apprecaite what he's trying to do when you see the visual element to his work and you are truly taken on a mind bending journey. While Organ Donor with its immediate hook and it's instant delight will be the popular favorite the true strenght of this album lay in its sprawling epics Long Stem/ Short Stem and the devine Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt. It's no hallow cliche to say music would never ever be the same again after Endtroducing...

If Modern Life Is Rubbish created the Brit Pop and The Great Escape was the final hurrah then Parklife was the definitive record, that defined the sound and the era as a whole. It said everything that need be said, it contained the highs and lows, had the biggest and best hits, but most importantly it simply was Brit pop this was the sound of an era and a generation. So what made this album so special first of there were five, yes five mamoth singles each better than the last. Parklife the title track is the euphoric sing along, 21st Century is the gritty honest voice of the people, This Is A Low is the moment of sombre brilliance, To The End was the floating sardonic romantic number and then there was Girls And Boys. Yes that song, the song with it's delicious dollops of irony encapsualted the lad/laddette lout drinking culture of 90s, it was a rare perfect song. Of course this was no mere collection of singles the sure fire aces were surrounded by gems Tracy Jacks, Bank Holiday, Clover Over Dover and of course Badhead. Not Blur's best but undoubatbly their most cultural significaint.