Sigur Rós "Ágætis byrjun" (1999)
Iceland continuing to punch above its weight musically.
Sigur Rós were signed to the Sugarcubes' Bad Taste label and released
their first album "Von". It sold a small number of copies in Iceland
but went overlooked most everywhere else. That did not happen with
this, their second album. The album did have humble beginnings, with the
band themselves manually putting together the first run of CDs/booklets.
The album topped the charts in Iceland, then the rest of the world started
to notice and take an interest. I can kind of see why too. The
ethereal soundscapes that are still bursting with melody even as they
engulf you. There are guitars bowed like violins, and Jón Þór
Birgisson's high, pretty vocals. There is variety within that sound
too with "Viðrar vel til loftárása" being a beautiful piano piece with
some slide guitar, or "Starálfur"
with its lush explosion of strings. It's music that you can sink into
and float around in like a warm urine-free pool. This may sound like a
bit of an 'airy fairy' description, but with music this magical it's hard
to be too dry in your assessment of it.
Welp, that wraps up the 90s.
For me, the 90s and the 60s were the
most influential decades on my formative musical development. The 90s saw the revival, ascendancy and decline (again) of rock, the
revival of punk via grunge and and pop-punk, and the rise of 'alt-rock'. It saw the
popularisation of the mashing of rap and metal (for better or worse). The dance and
hiphop genres finding their feet to bust out some of their best, classic
albums.
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