Refutation to points 1. and 2.
Up is probably the best album REM released in the 90s. It's the masterpiece of sad bastard rock that everyone keeps trying to convince me that Automatic for the People is. It's got some of Stipe's best lyrics - "Hope" anyone? It doesn't sound like an REM album but that becomes its…

I think it wound up airing on the Canadian Family Channel well after it was finished airing on Nick…I want to say 1999 but I might be a bit late/early. I know it was after Sabrina had been on for a year or so.

I think Black Saint is one of the best albums of all time precisely because it's so composed and layered. Essentially, every time I listen to it even after almost 10 years of having it on my radar I find new shit to focus on, which keeps me coming back to it over his other stuff, good as it all is.

SPOOOOOOILEEEEEEEEEER

I knew it was coming and still gasped when it happened…just a damn good episode all around but that moment put it over top for me.

I don't think that it's a big enough hit yet to spawn a legion of imitators, but even if it is I would welcome that over the country-pop that's indistinguishable from pop-pop* that Carrie Underwood et al are peddling.

Man, if there was ever a show that I wish I'd had access to in my youth it would be Pete and Pete. Damned Canadian upbringing, miss out on all the good shit.

Rocko's Modern Life > all.

@Prig: Agreed, though I think it was called something else in my copy ("The Man Who Loved Flowers" maybe?)

OK, last book of The Gunslinger I agree with (although the ending-ending is about as perfect as you can ask for) but I think Song of Susannah was the best of the final three books, and maybe his best/most concise (the two are interlinked) since the 80s.

I remember the ending to Insomnia disappointing me greatly when I read it, mostly because the build up was so low key and insidiously creepy compared to how rambling most of the other stuff from around that time was.

It would be so much easier to defend them if "One week" didn't exist. Outside of that they're pretty much They Might Be Giants: Northern Edition.

S. Jerusalem - Not named Ryan, never saw them live (living in Northern Canada severely limits my access to live concerts that are not country or Nickelback) but I was the only one of my like-minded friends who was enamored of them back then, so I get what you're saying.

Also released in 1998:
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come

Yeah, for the most part Korn's singles still work for me on some level - horrible production and lyrics aside. Limp Bizkit fare significantly less well in hindsight, but neither can compare to the worst album I owned - yes, as in willingly paid money for - from this movement: Methods of Mayhem, aka Tommy Lee does…

I too voted for "We're Desperate", mostly because I've never been too enamored of either The Clash or Sex Pistols, so the choice between it and "New Rose" was an easy one.

Same here…

You really think that no one would pick ICP over Vanilla Ice (provided it was a song besides "Ice Ice Baby")?

I forget, was "You Got Lucky" an option in the Petty one? If it was then it's a shame it didn't win…

"Do It Again" didn't stand a chance, alas.