Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s

Below, some snippets & selections I took from Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s.

On “Moon Safari” by AIR: Air should be ashamed of themselves. Thanks to albums like Moon Safari , international stereotypes of Frenchmen as nothing more than muss-haired playboys stroking a woman with one hand and an analog synth with the other are forever reinforced.

Also on “Moon Safari” by AIR: But by creating an album infamous for being the best makeout album of the decade, Air has done a great disservice to their country, portraying all Frenchmen as nothing more than oversexed Champagne-swigging keyboard players. Va te faire!

On “Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space” by SPIRITUALIZED : Jason Spaceman (neé Pierce) left the planet a long, long before this, but the realization doesn't truly hit until Ladies and Gentlemen : If you go high enough, you might make it to outer space, but you'll never find your way to Heaven. There must be a bittersweet charm that comes with the knowledge that you've pushed as close to the boundaries of the aether as anyone ever has, though. Close enough to hear echoes of the angelic gospels from the other side; close enough to imagine the ultimate peace available there; close enough to feel the sting of never truly reaching it. All the loss, pain, and regret of the life left behind is exorcised forever with the blues and the redemptive power of rock 'n' roll, and drugs (lots of them) fill in the rest. Up there in his space capsule, Pierce finds out what Major Tom already knew: drugs may expand the consciousness, but knowing God is larger than anyone can comprehend. That, however, didn't stop Pierce from trying, and amen.

On “Pinkerton” by WEEZER : (...) songs like "Why Bother?" and "Falling for You" are sing-along catharsis that should be prescribed to people with social anxiety disorder, and "The Good Life" is a beerglass-swinger for the indie set.

On “Grace” by JEFF BUCKLEY: (the title track is) at once perfect pop and an otherworldly declaration of freedom from the constraints of the material world.

On “Mars Audiac Quintet” by STEREOLAB : Check the subversive "Ping Pong", which contrasts sunny-day musicality with anti-war economic theory. <-- OMG YAY THAT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS EVER

On “Homework” by DAFT PUNK: This is the kind of homework kids used to get in Paris, way back in 1997: French disco-breaks, dance-funk, and baguettes (a dietary staple from the "pretentious" food group). The latter is part of a balanced breakfast; the former two would be combined by Daft Punk to create the instantly accessible, so-simple-they're-unstoppable electro-fusion beats of Homework , the surprise success of which single-handedly brought French progressive house to worldwide prominence. Dmitri from Paris didn't show his work, and Air were just looking off Daft Punk's paper anyway; "Da Funk" is the original, with a sleazy, distorted vibe that sounds like 1970 imagining music in 1997, and still absolutely slays on the floor. Homework is a testament to elegance through simplicity, brilliant in its form. But Daft Punk never let that distract the listener; they would rather you just kept right on dancing.

On “Post” by BJÖRK: (in the music videos from this album) you can see in her eyes that she couldn't be more comfortable in her own skin. This record is packed solid with ambition, yet lacks any misplaced self-awareness. She may come off as otherworldly, but as she showed on tracks like "Possibly Maybe" and "You've Been Flirting Again", she's more grounded than any of us.

On “Odelay” by BECK: Hell, it won the man a Grammy-- but more importantly, it won everyone that listened some cool. And for that we will be forever indebted.

On “Nevermind” by NIRVANA: Sure, there will always be those who insist that Nevermind was more of cultural import than musical, but they will also be full of shit: Nirvana are, a decade later, still regarded as the greatest and most legendary band of the 1990s. This band proved to a whole new generation that technical prowess has no bearing on quality, inspired their fans to seek out the music that slipped beneath the commercial radar, and then had the balls to be ridiculously, unthinkably fucking brilliant. Anyone who hates this record today is just trying to be cool, and needs to be trying harder.