http://www.cnn.com/2005/S...index.html

The top album of the last 20 years is ...
Spin magazine puts Radiohead above Nirvana, Public Enemy

Monday, June 20, 2005; Posted: 11:33 a.m. EDT (15:33 GMT)


Radiohead's 1997 album topped Spin's picks.
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SPIN'S TOP 10
1. "OK Computer," Radiohead
2. "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back," Public Enemy
3. "Nevermind," Nirvana
4. "Slanted and Enchanted," Pavement
5. "The Queen Is Dead," Smiths
6. "Surfer Rosa," PIxies
7. "3 Feet High and Rising," De La Soul
8. "Sign 'O' the Times," Prince
9. "Rid of Me," PJ Harvey
10. "Straight Outta Compton," N.W.A YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Dr. Dre
PJ Harvey
Thom Yorke
or Create Your Own
Manage Alerts | What Is This? NEW YORK (AP) -- Spin magazine named Radiohead's "OK Computer" the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive "even when its words are spoken by a robot."

The British band's album edged out Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a list in Spin's 20th anniversary issue, currently on newsstands.

"Between Thom Yorke's orange-alert worldview and the band's meld of epic guitar rock and electronic glitch, ('OK Computer') not only forecast a decade of music but uncannily predicted our global culture of communal distress," reads the editorial note on what separated the 1997 disc from the other 99 ranked albums.

Sandwiched between Radiohead's straight-ahead rock disc "The Bends" and the more experimental, electronic "Kid A," "OK Computer" was the album that propelled Radiohead to worldwide, stadium-sized popularity. Though it never went higher than No. 21 on the Billboard charts, it won critical raves and a Grammy for best alternative music performance.

Spin's Chuck Klosterman says the album "manages to sound how the future will feel. ... It's a mechanical album that always feels alive, even when its words are spoken by a robot."

Years earlier, Spin ranked Nirvana's "Nevermind" the greatest album of the nineties. In the time since, however, editor-in-chief Sia Michel and others simply found they were reaching for "OK Computer" more than the slightly less relevant "Nevermind."

"Whereas when Nirvana came out, everybody was talking about negation and slackers and everything like that -- seven years later, it was the dot-com boom and 22-year-olds were making $80,000 on Web sites," Michel recently told The Associated Press.

Also in the top 10, in order, are Pavement's "Slanted and Enchanted," The Smiths' "The Queen is Dead," Pixies' "Surfer Rosa," De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising," Prince's "Sign 'O' the Times," PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me" and N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton."

The entire list of 100 is just as eclectic; a photograph of an atypical trio of Dr. Dre, Bono and Beck dons the issue's cover.

The amount of hip-hop on the list may surprise some (25 albums in all -- 26 if you count Rage Against the Machine), given that Spin is predominantly a rock magazine. Michel, however, points out that Spin started several years before hip-hop mag Source was founded: "We put hip-hop on the cover before anyone else did."

"Because we started this list in 1985, we pretty much hit hip-hop in its golden age," she says. "There were so many important, groundbreaking albums coming out right about that time."

After gathering suggestions from everyone at the magazine, a tribunal of Michel and editors Jon Dolan and Charles Aaron sorted out the ultimate records of "the Spin era." Their criteria, Michel says, was the basic brilliance of the record, its innovation and its overall relevance.

"Relevance doesn't have to mean it sold 10 million copies," she says. "Someone like the Pixies never really sold records, but Nirvana has said it wouldn't exist without the Pixies."

Both the approach and content stands in stark contrast to fellow rock magazine Rolling Stone's 2003 issue on the top 500 albums of all time. Topping that collection was the more hallowed (and less surprising) like of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

Some of the most recent entries to Spin's list are 2004's "College Dropout" by Kanye West, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 2003 "Fever to Tell" and Wilco's 2002 "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."

Of course, judgments of these kind are always subject to debate.

"The art department was just railing against us all the time and campaigning against things," says Michel. The lack of inclusion of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, she says, pushed them to the brink: "That was a band that the art department was like, 'You guys are crazy! Don't even talk to us!' "

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Fuck spin, they are so full of shit...
They had "nevermind" as the best album of the 90's and then got bored of it cause it really was'nt THAT good... of course OK COmputer is a better album and possibly the best of the last 20 years.. but these lists are just there own taste at the moment..
janes addictions 'nothings shocking' is a much better and far more influencial alternative rock album than most of that crap.

SDL beat ya http://www.prince.org/msg/8/150377

that's a great list but who really pays attention to lists? and that list kind of depends on how old you are too, doesn't it?

pkidwell said:

"that kind of list"... I would guess it helps if you are younger?

Spin does Prince justice.
He was in the 5 year and 10 year anniversaries as the one of the greatest influences on music .

As a child of the 80's I trip off Nevermind being hailed as a great rock album. It had only one song and it sounded like shit.

Two records that I do not see should be Janet Jackson's Control.

muleFunk said:

Mule, I agree with you on Spin. They have been consistent in their praise of Prince throughout the years.

I disagree with you about Nevermind. The first half of the album is sheer genius. It kinda dissolves after that.

Where is Musicology in there?

Ballard of Dorothy Parker is like a poor man's What Do U Want Me 2 Do?

NoodleSoup said:

too funny....

murph said:

I like when Prince does a little laugh at the end of a song. It shows he has a good sense of humour. Micheal Jackson never laughs like Prince does. On Wedding Feast you can hear him laugh and U know he isn't serious but its still a good song like something from Henry VIII.

This list really is just the opinion of a small group of people. I'm sure that the folks at SPIN are very hip, but I don't really care about their lists. For that matter I could care less about any of these lists that music magazines put out. Although , the fact that they recognized Prince does give them some validity.

Who cares about SOTT being in the top 10 when "refinance rates hit record lows!"

Whooo hooo!

PicassoFace said:

PicassoFace said:

First laugh of the day!

tarracollins said:

Youre dea don - thanks for the words of clarity. The lists would mean more if they were compiled from opinion polls and not a small groups of mostly white and mostly male psuedo hipster nerds that write for these magazines. Besides, any list that places De La Soul ahead of Prince on any level is bogus. INfact, no rap record is better than SOTT or any other Prince album for that matter - and I say that wit the firm belief that PE's It Takes a Nation... is the greatest rap album of all time.

Can anyone post the 100 for me? Spin's links only take me to 100-90.

namepeace said:

hi, namepeace! come back home to http://www.prince.org/msg/8/150377 - we're having more of a discussion there.

GCS4ever said:

Okay...can we stop the hip-hop bashing???? Please....it's one thing to say that hip-hop nowadays is not living up to its past roots, but to say that It Takes A Nation or hip-hop albums in general doesn't match up to any Prince album is laughable, snobbish and just plain out of touch....As I've said in a previous post, the only thing that was more exciting, revolutionary and groundbreaking than Prince was hip-hop....And that says a lot that it took a whole genre to compete with one artist....The thing is, Nation was an incredible, musical, lyrical and political statement across the board...It basically is the reason why a lot of kids fell in love with hip-hop in the first place...and as much i love Sign O The Times (It's still his best album...) don't you think those Spin critics would have picked Purple Rain higher if the list was extended to 25 years? (For all of our love for Sign, Purple Rain is still his statement album for the masses)....'80s hip-hop was just as important as any Prince album or single...I got the same excitement as a 12 year-old listening to 1999 or Purple Rain as I did listening to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," Run DMC's King of Rock," "Criminal Minded" Eric B and Rakim's Paid In Full and De la Soul's 3 Feet High.....
[Edited 6/21/05 14:02pm]

Radiohead - I just DO NOT fucking get it. The ultimate chin stroking band

Hi Chris

I happen to like them
btw , what do you mean with 'chin stroking band' ?
[Edited 6/21/05 16:20pm]

Dewrede said:

Hey mate!

chin stroking band - as in pretentious. The darling of musical snobs. Most people like them cause its cool to like them and talk about there complex musical output

Nearly everyone of my mates loves them. I WANT to love them. Seen them 3 times. But I don't.

I don't think they're pretentious , maybe some fans are 'music snobs' , tho'
I like them , although it requires a certain mood to play them ,
it's not really what one would call partying music
[Edited 6/21/05 16:43pm]

Dewrede said:

I hear you mate. I get abuse all the time because I slag them, but I just don't get them. Oh well.

did you ever check out any rick james?

sermwanderer said:

I like their songs, but alot of their fans are wankers.

I will
(replying to sermwanderer)
[Edited 6/21/05 16:46pm]

CinisterCee said:

Dewrede said:

Cool


Speak to you soon mate!

ok

1999 should have been ranked number one.....it is the best double album of all time with Dirty Mind comming in at a close second....
Whatever happened to the good stuff like that huh?

Ah... the lists!

Let me ask you something. Do you think that in Van Gogh's time, or when Hemingway or The Beatles first made a splash, mags were having lists like 100 Best Paintings, Novels or Singles of All Time? The fact the media has developed an urge to create an endless supply of lists of this and that means the intelligentsia (or hipsters as a whole) is busy looking back, not embracing something that is truly hip. I've got nothing against reflecting on our cultural treasures, but when it seems half of what we do is list the great things of the past, it may be that we're not really hip nowadays... that we are truly BORING and BORED. That's that not news to me, but at least I'm not at Spin pretending I'm some kind of keeper of the flame of hip.