ohtani's jacket

I finally finished 100 Bullets. The story isn't that great but the art is fabulous.

Despite being a huge X-Men fan growing up, I had never read God Loves, Man Kills. It's pretty good, but I guess Claremont went on to incorporate the core ideas into the monthly books because there was nothing revolutionary about it.

J. M. DeMatteis has been talking about Kraven's Last Hunt on Twitter during the past few days. I actually went back and read his run on Spectacular Spider-Man, and he gets heavily into the psychology of the characters. It's a bit angst ridden, but it makes more sense to me now why Peter was so edgy in the 200th issue. I swear he makes one joke during DeMatteis' run. Loved the art, especially those wordless pages. There's a great Vulture story in the run that's almost as good as the Goblin stuff.

The British writers could be far too verbose. I started reading Hellblazer recently and Delano was killing me towards the end of his run.

@Liam Congratulations. These '94 picks are a trip down memory lane. Reminds me of after school music TV.

I was curious about this and started reading some of the pre-Miller stuff. I was expecting it to be be hokey Silver Age shit at its worst, but there are some really good stories, and Colan's art is fantastic. I've only been reading selected issues, but they compare favorably to the other comics Marvel was putting out in the late 60s-early 70s.

@Curt McGirt Curt, I realized I haven't listened to much metal from '92, so I've been working on rectifying that. Got any recommendations? So far, I think I've liked Bolt Thrower and Darkthrone the best.

As for hip hop, T.R.O.Y. should have been in the book. I would have also put something from The Chronic over that movie soundtrack (although that track was supposed to be on the Chronic but was too controversial.) Why is there no Ice Cube in the book? Hip hop was amazingly great in 1992: A few more:

1992 These early 90s picks have been strange, to say the least. Almost like a bizarro world version of the music I grew up with. I can't figure out whether the authors are fond of early 90s music or think it's completely overrated. There were some positives, however. I liked that L7 song enough to listen to the record it came from. Plus, I hadn't heard Cesaria Evora before and definitely want to listen to some of her records. And the chorus to Motorcycle Emptiness is beautiful. The worst pick was that Was (Not Was) track for the simple fact that they were actually a pretty decent group, but the book makes them seem like a joke. I would have included Dreams because I think it's a beautiful song. I would have also included something from Tori Amos. I know they include her later, but 1992 was the year she burst on the scene like our generation's own Kate Bush. I thought it would have been interesting to some shoegaze era Verve as well: And I really like what Nick Cave was doing around this time: I was surprised they didn't include any of Tom Waits' stuff from Bone Machine. But the biggest omission seems to be Alice in Chains. I was never really into them as a teenager outside of watching their music videos on television, so I was surprised to discover how critically acclaimed they are. Some other songs: These guys actually dressed like Mummies. I went to a lot of live gigs in my teenage years. These were two of the best:

As for metal, Metallica went mainstream and Ozzy had his biggest solo album, which the list reflects. I have little interest in either of those. 1991 is the year metal returned to the underground with Death Metal records by Death, Dismember, Autopsy, Atheist, Carcass, Suffocation, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Immolation, Pestilence, and other bands with ridiculous/awesome sounding names. Here's one for the romantics:

For Hip Hop, they should've waited til '91 to drop some Tribe Called Quest. The best track of 1991? A few more favorites:

1991 It's impossible to overstate the impact of Smells Like Teen Spirit. We've listened to a lot of great artists up until and heard a lot of great songs, but few of them ahad the impact that Nirvana had. For my generation, Nirvana was our Elvis Presley or The Beatles. The book has gone to great lengths to show there was more to 90s music than grunge, but I think they could have included a few more songs to reflect how big it was. I suppose any generation that was on the ground floor of a music movement would feel the same. I may be overstating how important grunge was in the long run, but it was an important chapter in the history of rock music and should have been represented as such. One Pearl Jam song and it's Given to Fly? Before Smells Like Teen Spirit hit, it seemed like Shoegaze was going to be the next big thing. The three big acts were My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, but there were plenty of other groups making similar music. This time of music always struck me as the natural marriage of Dream Pop and Jangle Pop. Here is a bunch of other stuff from '91 -- some of it features on the list later on like Pavement and PJ Harvey. A lot of this stuff reminds me of listening to college radio for the first time. More indie pop and things: Last batch:

I read Spectacular Spider-Man #200 after reading about it in the Omnibus thread. Pretty good stuff, but if you haven't read a lot of Spidey you'd think Peter Parker was a real prick.

1990 feels like a fork in the road between thrash and extreme metal. There were some classic albums -- Rust in Peace, Painkiller, Seasons in the Abyss -- and excellent albums from the likes of Artillery, Entombed, Bathory, Morbid Saint, Kreator, Atheist, Obituary, and others. The book probably should have recognized Megadeth as one of the big metal acts. This might be my favorite metal track from 1990. That turtleneck is something else. Suicidal Tendencies deserve a mention too:

As far as hip hop goes, Mama Said Knock You Out would have been a great choice for the book, and definitely something from AmeriKKKas Most Wanted. Some more: I guess they didn't include anything from Black Box or C+C Music Factory because of the controversy. I thought they might have included Deee-Lite's Groove is in the Heart, but they seemed to go with more UK-centric dance stuff. But there's really only two tunes I care about from this year:

1990 1990 didn't represent any kind of sea change in music. It was more or less a continuation of the indie stuff that had become around '88 or so, but there was some nice pop music and plenty of good indie stuff. Of course, I was captivated by MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice at the time. They finally put The Cocteau Twins in the book, which makes sense given Heaven or Los Vegas was one of the biggest albums of the year. Violator was another big record that year, but I guess they already included enough Depeche Mode. I wouldn't have made those picks for Tribe Called Quest or Sonic Youth, but they they're not head scratchers. Here are some tracks I liked from 1990: Some more: The last batch: There was some really nice stuff coming out of my home country at this time. Flipper's Guitar were doing some great stuff in Japan as well: And who can forget the time Morrisey humped a rock?

I haven't read Spider-Man past the early 1990s. The Death of Jean DeWolff seems like the biggest omission. Maybe the iconic Spider Man No More as well. My top three would be If This Be My Destiny, How Green Was My Goblin and The Night Gwen Stacey Died.

@LiamSorry to be a pain, but the comments are missing from 744 and there's no 745.

@LiamThere is a problem with 744-750.

Why is that? It's a good issue and Wally Wood's art is gorgeous, but I don't see how it compares to the best Lee/Kirby issues of Fantastic Four or the best Lee/Ditko Spiderman stories. Are there no good Gene Colan issues? I really hate the digitalized, recolored versions of old comic books. I want to see the old printed copies. For that reason, it's a chore to even try and go back through the Colan issues.

I think the album that Richard Thompson song was on cemented him as Britain's greatest folk guitarist. Didn't they have another of his songs in the book? TIME Magazine chose 1952 Vincent Black Lightning in its all-time100 songs. Funnily enough, the entry after it is C.R.E.A.M. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the guitar work is exceptional.

There is absolutely nothing I want to share from funk, soul, r&b, etc. this year, which is tragic, so on to the metal. A lot of the big metal acts were between albums in 1989. Thrash metal had run its course and Death metal was on the rise. If you have the nerve then Morbid Angel and Obituary are must-listens. There's also this grindcore band:

I know they wanted to showcase alternative hip hop with the Digital Underground pick, but this is a better song: Or, if they wanted a novelty pick, why not Biz? I don't really expect any Ice T or D.O.C. when they had NWA on the list, but Dre did an awesome job on this album: Hip Hop fans will appreciate this one:

1989 So the 80s are over already, huh? I was going to complain about a fourth Cure song on the list until I remembered that Disintegration is from 1989 and that's generally their most acclaimed album. The other big albums from '89 are Doolittle and The Stone Roses. I thought they might have made a bigger deal out of the latter. The Stone Roses were the next big thing for a while. They were my best mate's favorite band in high school. I used to give him shit about them all the time, but they were a good band and it's a great album. Just don't tell him. 1989 wasn't a great year for music. Probably the worst year of the 80s. I can't really complain too much about the book's picks. The only song I disliked was that Mother Lover Bone track. Grunge/Pearl Jam was pretty much the soundtrack for my teenage years, but hat sounded like Sunset Strip Glam Metal. I didn't like Andrew Wood's vocals or lyrics at all. I do think they missed a few tricks, though. I thought they could have included something from Paul's Boutique to highlight the Beastie Boys' shift from frat rap to serious hip hop artists: Also, Fight The Power is too big a song to leave off the list. They tried to include some dance numbers, but they left off this monster: Or how about: Finally, how about a shut out to Neil? My picks for the year are mostly the same old artists:

One last post and I'm done. We've mentioned NWOBMH, thrash and extreme metal, but I think we ought to give a nod to US power metal.