Name a band you like and it’s likely that they wouldn’t be around without Velvet Underground or Lou Reed.

R.I.P.

Let England Shake over To Bring You My Love? Stories From The City? Fucking RID OF ME?

RID.

OF.

ME!?!!?!?!?!

GET RID OF THIS GARBAGE LIST.

More polls!

i hugged wayne coyne one time in milwaukee dressed as a giant chicken. win butler never hugged me in milwaukee when i was dressed as a giant chicken. just saying.

2013 albums that made the cut:

497. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
478. The National – Trouble Will Find Me
449. Arctic Monkeys – AM
335. Queens Of The Stone Age – …Like Clockwork

Does this mean QOTSA is NME’s #1 album of the year?

Still not understanding Stereogum’s intense annoyance with the album rollout, other than maybe the explanation that it’s harder to write about mysterious teaser videos and goofy band alter egos than it is to write about an mp3 plopped in your inbox by a record label.

I’ve gotta say that, while these lists are almost per se meaningless, I always appreciate the fact that groups put them out there. I was a teenager when Rolling Stone put out their first version of their 500 greatest albums of all time, and it made me excited to find all the random stuff on there that I’d not heard. As a result, I discovered the joy of Richard and Linda Thompson, dove head first into 50s rockabilly, gained my first appreciation for jazz and realized that Rolling Stone was very conservative in their musical choices. Of course this stuff isn’t consensus and represents a bunch of pale nerds cloistered in their flats listening obsessively to brit pop, but if it inspires some goofy kid to go listen to Frank Sinatra and Dexy’s Midnight Runners, good on them.

Never forget.

This is a good album.

Opossum out.

Yeezus isn’t number one. This list is invalid.

Boobs.

Yup. If this album is a hit, it will be because titties.

DISAGREE that music / art should be so relentlessly and consistently ranked and ordered.

Oh please! Anyone who down voted this needs to grow up. She is using sex to sell her album. She’s cutting through all the BS and showering herself nude. (Metaphor for the music?)

The Arctics’ debut is probably a bit better than any Radiohead, just barely ahead of Kid A.

Hi Michael –

Thanks for the thoughtful reappraisal of No Alternative, 20 years on. I forgot that the anniversary was right around now. We released a limited edition double vinyl on Record Store Day in April….(which apparently sold out in the first 10 minutes).

No Alternative was a fun album to make. It was my first for Red Hot (or anyone for that matter). It’s rewarding that people bought it when it came out – and that they still remember it today.

Many of the songs were not only specifically recorded for No Alternative – they were written specifically for the album. Of course some of the choices were a bit quixotic, like the Goo Goo Dolls, but, that was part of the roller coaster ride of making it. At the time the Nirvana track was only ever called and referred to as “Verse Chorus Verse”.

And – yeah – in regard to the exclusion of any mention of Red Hot’s AIDS Benefit work and mission – well, thanks to Ohyoko for bringing it up. We gave away over $1 million dollars from the proceeds of No Alternative, some of that went to worthy charities that were suggested by the artists themselves. That may seem like an amount from another (pre-internet) era, when records actually sold in larger quantities, but we managed to top that with the proceeds from Dark Was The Night. Red Hot’s model may be a bit of a 90s throwback, but it can still work!!

Thanks for taking the time to give it a look after 20 years!!

Paul
http://www.redhot.org