The sound that made nobody at all
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Grid of nine album covers, titled "The sound that made nobody at all". Albums are: "All Hands on the Bad One" by Sleater-Kinney, "My War" by Black Flag, "Hounds of Love" by Kate Bush, "The Sunset Tree" by The Mountain Goats, "Stankonia" by Outkast, "Murder Ballads" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "In the Airplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, "Frank's Wild Years" by Tom Waits, and "Discovery" by Daft Punk.
So far there have been roughly 359 acts (musical artists or bands) cited, plus 13 compilation albums/soundtracks. "Roughly" because for example do you count Elvis Costello and Elvis Costello & The Attractions as one act or two?
I aggregated the artists cited in everybody's My9Albums posts, because that's the way my mind works sometimes, and realized there were some interesting gaps -- artists people frequently consider influential or foundational (or just feel deeply, passionately about) but nobody here put 'em on their lists.
In addition to the pic above, some others that stood out in their absence: DJ Shadow, Big Black, Shellac, Tupac Shakur, Tortoise, Bright Eyes, Mogwai, Oasis, Sarah McLachlan, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mekons, The Orb, Kanye West, Buzzcocks, Elvis Presley, Blur, Gorillaz, Soul Coughing, Sufjan Stevens, Lou Reed, Orbital, The National, Negativland, Eric B & Rakim, Carole King, Willie Nelson...
Eazy-E got a mention but NWA and Dr. Dre didn't. The Breeders did, Belly didn't. Jefferson Airplane but not Jefferson Starship or Hot Tuna. Weather Report and Herbie Hancock but not Return to Forever or Stanley Clarke.
This post has a heavy Gen-X bias because that's me. I'm curious what artists millennials assumed somebody would've cited but nobody did.
I aggregated the artists cited in everybody's My9Albums posts, because that's the way my mind works sometimes, and realized there were some interesting gaps -- artists people frequently consider influential or foundational (or just feel deeply, passionately about) but nobody here put 'em on their lists.
In addition to the pic above, some others that stood out in their absence: DJ Shadow, Big Black, Shellac, Tupac Shakur, Tortoise, Bright Eyes, Mogwai, Oasis, Sarah McLachlan, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mekons, The Orb, Kanye West, Buzzcocks, Elvis Presley, Blur, Gorillaz, Soul Coughing, Sufjan Stevens, Lou Reed, Orbital, The National, Negativland, Eric B & Rakim, Carole King, Willie Nelson...
Eazy-E got a mention but NWA and Dr. Dre didn't. The Breeders did, Belly didn't. Jefferson Airplane but not Jefferson Starship or Hot Tuna. Weather Report and Herbie Hancock but not Return to Forever or Stanley Clarke.
This post has a heavy Gen-X bias because that's me. I'm curious what artists millennials assumed somebody would've cited but nobody did.
Soul Coughing and Belly (or at least 4AD bands in general) would have made my list if i confined it to the '90s, they were both in heavy rotation for me.
Nope. Was tempted to make a proper table with artist, label, MLTSHPpers who cited, and realized that was a hole I didn't want to fall into. So I limited myself to a list of artist names.
Somebody listed the "Lonely is an Eyesore" comp, which afaict is peak 4AD. So I think you're covered. 😉