Ranking Pazz & Jop albums: 1996

With a number of albums that boast the syncretism married to big beats in which the decade specialized, 1996 is one of the decade’s strongest. Different Class, Walking Wounded, Endtroducing…, and Emperor Tomato Ketchup remain on heavy rotation, Odelay less so. Add queer classics (for me) like Imperial Teen’s debut, Ani DiFranco’s Dilate, and Sleater-Kinney’s Call the Doctor , nu-R&B touchstones like Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite and Peace Beyond Passion, and a crunchier, liberal kind of A/C in Sheryl Crow’s first self-produced album, and the results challenge notions about the decade; I’ll claim that 1996 exposed what the rest of the decade didn’t become.

And yet. Listening to a double album Richard Thompson album in 1996 doesn’t strike me as a judicious use of time. The Hague candidates are ugly things. Indifferent to the Elephant 6 ethos when Of Montreal and The Apples in Stereo aren’t applying it, I spent a productive hour this afternoon listening to The Olivia Tremor Control’s terrible debut. Neutral Milk Hotel inspires fear and trembling. Sublime’s decent tunecraft the band puts in the service of ska arrangements that don’t mitigate the casual sexism.

But let me return to Seasick. Imperial Teen dominated my listening that summer, which made sense: a series of short stories I wrote at last made text out of the queerness I had kept subtext for years. “He was a troubled teen/He read a magazine/The prince wants to be a queen” was one of several oh-hos on an album whose sugary crust hid melodies and lyrics to chew on for twenty years. Their collective DNA prizes fluidity.

The Hague

Sublime – Sublime
Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Now I Got Worry
The Olivia Tremor Control – Dusk at Cubist Castle

Meh

Patti Smith – Gone Again
Wilco – Being There
Cibo Matto – Viva! La Woman
Curtis Mayfield – New World Order
Screaming Trees – Dust
Rage Against the Machine – Evil Empire

Sound, Solid

Fugees – The Score
Prince – Emancipation
Pearl Jam – No Code
Tricky – Pre-Millennium Tension
Johnny Cash – Unchained
Soundgarden – Down on the Upside
Sebadoh – Harmacy
The Roots – Illadelph Halflife
Steve Earle – I Feel Alright
Nirvana – From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah
Los Lobos – Colossal Head
Gillian Welch: Revival

Good to Great

Imperial Teen – Seasick
Pulp – Different Class
Ani DiFranco – Dilate
Everything but the Girl – Walking Wounded
DJ Shadow – Endtroducing…
Maxwell – Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite
Stereolab – Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Beck – Odelay
Sleater-Kinney – Call the Doctor
Toni Tony Toné – House of Music
Nearly God – Nearly God
Amy Rigby – Diary of a Mod Housewife
Me’Shell NdegéOcello – Peace Beyond Passion
R.E.M. – New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Sheryl Crow – Sheryl Crow

The Jury’s Out

Richard Thompson – You? Me? Us?
Joe Henry – Trampoline