Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #202
OK lets go back to 1990 and Profane Existence Number 3 where I got to pick my top ten LP's of the previous decade. They were:

1. Discharge-Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
2. Rudimentary Peni-Death Church
3. Napalm Death-Scum
4. Crucifix-Dehumanization
5. Proletariat-Soma Holiday
6. Subhumans-The Day the Country Died
7. Conflict-Increase the Pressure
8. Disorder-Singles LP
9. Carcass-Reek of Putrefaction
10. Amebix-Arise

In retrospect I think this list is loaded a little heavily with English bands and writing from the perspective of ten years later I think I'd drop Conflict, Carcass and Disorder and add DRI and Minor Threat and Black Flag. Remember that in 1989-90 UK HC/Crust/Grind was the shit and US hardcore was at an all time low so most of us were looking to the UK at the time. Ten years of experience has shown that crusty grind didn't stand the test of time so well as good old 80's US Hardcore but what the hell is a top ten list anyway. For this issues top ten of the 90's I had a hard time finding any records that measured up to the top ten of the last decade. In 1989 I was struggling to narrow down a list of forty or so records to ten. Now I'm struggling to come up with ten records that I really would take to a desert island with me from the 90's. As much as I've enjoyed and supported the great bands of this decade the fact is the 80's punk and HC packed a much greater whallop. Perhaps if I was ten years younger I'd have a whole different perspective on this issue but for what its worth there were some great bands and records in the 90's. But, the 90's was not a period for "definative" lp's. Rather there was a number of great bands releasing material all over the place and playing live gigs that added up made them top bands of the 90's.

Here are Felix Von's top 15 bands of the 90's:

Los Crudos
Nausea
Gauze
Vorhees
Aus Rotten
Capitalist Casualties
State of Fear
Totalitar
Resist
Disrupt
Antischism
Defiance
His Hero Is Gone
The Pist
Assuck
Drop Dead

Note that this time around its mostly American bands, this list would be from my American viewpoint. I'm certain that a fan of punk and hardcore music writing in Japan or Sweden or Germany would have a totally different list. But as I said, what's in a top ten list anyway.

I celebrated the turn of the century with about as much zest as when the odometer in my truck turns over to 200,000 miles. Big fucking deal. It's hard for me to be positive about the 20th century. I'm sick of talking heads in the media talking about what a great century/decade/era/millenium its been. All I see is the horror of mans inhumanity to man. Peering through the misty veils of time we see genocide, war, disease, famine, religious and ethnic hatred. These curses are still upon us today. We don't deserve all our high tech toys and our so called progress as we can't get it together to live side by side with each other. As one who has spent much of my time studying history I'm shocked by the general lack of knowledge of past events. The horror of war and genocide in the industrial age pops up again and again like a recurring disease. The century that brought us automobiles, airplanes, computers, triumph over disease etc. has also given us pollution, waste, corruption, new diseases, war and genocide. I fail to see how it balances out the progress of technology and science versus the horror of its application at Verdun, Stalingrad, Auschwitz, and Hiroshima. I keep reading over and over again Siegfried Sassoon's poem "Aftermath" and asking myself "is it all going to happen again?"

The one good thing about the 20th century was the music. Some consolation, but at least it gives us one thing to live for.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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