Best (music) Albums of the 1990's part 3

30.The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land -1997 -USA

Why: Probably the best album from The Prodigy.Heavy use of samples, which was innovate for the time, and at that time the band were the leaders in electronic/dance music. There's enough rock in it to appeal to a mass audience (of rock listeners) and that caused enough buying to send electronica mainstream.

Example Tracks: Breathe, Firestarter, Smack My Bitch Up

29. Weezer -Weezer(the blue album) -1994 -USA

Why: Geek rock. The only people singing about love songs that weren't thoroughly depressing in the grunge early 90's. Not that they didn't channel that heartbreak-emo vibe, they just didn't sound like they didn't. Because they had the melodic ideal.

Example Tracks: Buddy Holly,Say It Ain't So

28. Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible -1994 -Wales

Why: A bit of depression and anxiety, a bit of anti-right-wing totalitarianism and overall concern about the bleak state of the world. It's a work of genius which makes you realize that you're alive despite everything about the album pointing to the fact that it's a sad, cold world.

Example Tracks: Revol, The Intense Humming of Evil

27. Bob Dylan - Time out of Mind -1997- USA

Why: They say it's Dylan's comeback album, though he'd never been gone. Half of it is definitely back to the blues and the other half is the internal working inspections which characterize recent Dylan. The anguish of old age? Maybe not, but the age is sounding in Dylan's voice

Example Tracks: Make You Feel My love, Not Dark Yet

26.Ready to Die - The Notorious B.I.G. -1994 -USA

Why: The debut of Biggie. The revival of East Coast hip-hop. Easy to understand lyrics because of the mutli-level rhymes and superior flow. The portrait of a life that deals with drug dealing, crime and violence understandably carries a dark tone, which only adds realism to an already vivid portrayal.

Example Tracks: Things Done Changed, Big Poppa, Suicidal Thoughts

25. Metallica - Metallica (the black album) -1991 -USA

Why: Simplified for the mainstream. And it worked. Usually that's a bad thing. But not always. And this is one of those times. It was slower and less thrash metal, but heavier and deeper themes . It's the first Metallica album that's very easy to relate to in it's entirety.

Example Tracks: Enter Sandman,Nothing Else Matters,The Unforgiven

24. Lauryn Hill- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill -1998 - USA

why: The debut and only album Lauryn ever released. So far. But it's so good that you wish she'd get back to the studio. R&b, hip-hop,soul and reggae; topics such as love, God, motherhood and tensions in The Fugees. It's a powerful,souful album that moves between many different forms and topics seamlessly.

Example Tracks: Final Hour, Doo Wop (that Thing)

23. Radiohead- The Bends- England -1995

Why: The 90's and Radiohead only resulted in excellent albums. This was when they started the multi-level sounds and the lyrics that are extremely confusing. Singing high notes to lots of guitars playing started here and without this, there wouldn't be half the popular music of today.

Example tracks: Fake Plastic Trees, Street Spirit (Fade Out)

22. Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine -1992 -USA

Why: Very heavy and one of the first popular rap-metal albums, widely viewed as the album that made the genre noticeable. Very political (and critical) lyrics mixed with funk and metal guitar sounds make it fun to listen to as well as intellectual.

Example Tracks: Wake Up, Killing in The Name, Bullet in the Head

21. The Smashing Pumpkins -Siamese Dream -1993 -USA

Why: Too much genres merge into this album to be counted, which works because the music is very complex and detailed with lots of production effort to create. Intertwined with melodramatic and intensely emotional lyrics, its an excellent album.

Example Tracks: Cherub Rock, Geek U.S.A, Rocket

Oscar Predictions-Film Awards (i)

Best Director Most likely winner : Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. Leaving out Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino pretty much made this Spielberg's to lose. And doesn't reflect too well on the Academy either. Backup Pick : David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook. The production company of Weinstein have been campaigning hard for this and it's a good film with the acting performances set up well. The thing about best director is it's the easiest award to give to someone the academy likes because it's ambiguous and the academy doesn't really love Russell. Most deserving : Michel Haneke for Amour. Haneke has the most carefully crafted film here. All in all it is definitely his film in every scene. His presence is all around the film and it is an excellent film. If they give it for the greatest impact a director has on the film, this is it. Best Adapted Screenplay Most li...

(Short) Analysis of the (length of stay for) teams at World Cup 2014 - Groups A and B

I like World Cup, quite a lot, and think it's the best of all the tournaments that exist in football and very possibly in all of sport (at least for any tournament focused on one sport since the Olympics is amazing because of the variety). So I'll be trying to figure out how likely each team is to get out of the group stages and how far they'll probably go if they do. All the odds are from www.bet365.com which is the site I use most for trend spotting in sport (it's like my sport-Bloomberg). Group A Brazil- Automatically qualified as hosts and at 1/20 to qualify have the second best odds of any team to make it out of the group phase behind Argentina (who have probably the softest group). It's with good reason Brazil have such low odds and they're considered favourites. Winning or even coming second in Group A doesn't mean an easy run as it probably would result in a round of sixteen clash against either defending champions Spain or the ...

Best Films of the Decade - 2010s - Third Part

11. Get Out (2017)- Directed and written by Jordan Peele. Horror seems to be an excellent medium to describe racism and it's somewhat amazing how obvious it seems in hindsight. One of the best debuts of a director in recent times, with a script that amps up the tension marvelously and serves up a twist in the tale that was impossible to see coming. Normally horror movies are seen as niche, but this film was popular with the wide audience and also at the award ceremonies further proving everyone was able to be captured by the film's quality. There has been talk of the film fitting into horror-comedy, probably due to Peele's comedy background, but while it is never laughably funny but does serve as a clever satire on the state of racial affairs. 12. The Death of Stalin (2017) - Directed by Armando Iannuci. Written by Armando Iannuci, David Schneider and Ian Martin. Few topics are as ripe for satire as the workings of communist governments (provi...

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