MUSIC
Best Records of the 90's (A Sample)
Pitchforkmedia.com
Tom Waits
Bone Machine
[Island; 1992]
When all the grandpaboys made their death-is-coming-to-get-me albums in the 1990s (Reed's Magic & Loss, Dylan's Time Out of Mind, et al) only one of them didn't go all selfish. Tom Waits told transcendent, cinematic stories set in barns, colosseums, nursing homes, bars and temperamental oceans from the viewpoints of religious alcoholics, hairy-chested ex-cons, embittered nonagenarians, jilted Ophelias and would-be suicides. Waits' wails were lizardly and warm throughout; Bone contains the finest showcase of his Frank-Oz-meets-Francisco-Goya pipes.
Although it's a mystic love song, "Earth Died Screaming" was scary enough to turn the staunchest global-warming skeptic into an environmentalist. No existential ballroom could clear its floor without Ralph Carney's mournful woodwinds accenting "Dirt in the Ground". The myths of Christ, Lucifer, Sleepy Hollow and Johnny Cash blend on the chiller "Black Wings", which suggested that saviors are born out of gossip. Joey Ramone would go on to cover "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", and Waits would go on to outlive the beautiful bastard. If you don't weep to the twilit sendoff "Who Are You", then I must ask who the hell you think you are; of course, the chorus' question could easily be turned on its consummate-actor source. Waits, Beck and Radiohead form the trifecta proving that the "Best Alternative" Grammy can get something right, but only Waits fisted every Yankee idiom into a stain-pocked opera gown.
Portishead
Dummy
[Go! Discs; 1994]
I put on Dummy recently, expecting it to have aged miserably. In fact, it almost seems fresher now than it did nearly a decade ago, when it defined trip-hop for the mainstream, merging the eerie darkness of Massive Attack with hard-edged, sludgy hip-hop beats. The album still vividly evokes gritty alleyways and urban black holes, Beth Gibbons' languid torch croon dripping like ether over warm, crackly vinyl and shadowy guitar. Her longing, sensual lyrics were ripe with forbidden sexuality, but the tightly mic'd, ominous instrumentation and close, whispered vocals oozed claustrophobia. In 1994, this album's seismic blast rippled across the globe from a Bristol epicenter, influencing a legion of leaders and followers to spin their own dark webs; that it's one of the few trip-hop statements that still shatters preconceptions today merely proves how forward thinking it really was.
Air
Moon Safari
[Astralwerks; 1998]
Air should be ashamed of themselves. Thanks to albums like Moon Safari, international stereotypes of Frenchmen as nothing more than muss-haired playboys stroking a woman with one hand and an analog synth with the other are forever reinforced. Oh sure, some will tell you that they're merely reflecting the society that birthed them, and that the hyping of the Frug Life is the only way off the hard streets of Nice or Cannes. It's possible to praise the album for its skillful positioning at the intersection of electronics and organics, gracefully balancing on the border of adult contemporary at moments and composing underwater Moog symphonies at others. You can probably even credit Air for bringing the vocoder back into style-- especially if you're Cher. But by creating an album infamous for being the best makeout album of the decade, Air has done a great disservice to their country, portraying all Frenchmen as nothing more than oversexed Champagne-swigging keyboard players. Va te faire!
R.E.M.
Automatic for the People
[Warner Bros; 1992]
Growing up in Atlanta, worshiping R.E.M. was a requisite. Naturally, as a supposed punk transplant preteen from New Jersey, I forced myself to hate them. Chemistry, 1991, the blonde girl in the front row turns around to get my vote in her Georgia Rock survey: "R.E.M. or Drivin' N' Cryin'?" Looking back, it's preposterous to even see the two bandnames together. The reason being Automatic for the People. Remove it from their discography, and R.E.M. would go from mixed-bag major label over-attempts to fumbled hard rock. In other words, they wouldn't even be around today, and "Losing My Religion" would track between "Fly Me Courageous" and "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" on Now That's What I Called the 80s XI: DiXIe & The Stone Mountain Laser Show. The dark "Drive" completely reframed the band in my Fugazi-tinted eyes as dark and troubled, and it was an sparse, acoustic ballad. This opener led what was the most mature, rich, and rococo record of the decade-- a work necessary for every cellar, waiting to be pulled up when the biased bullshit of adolescence has passed.
Magnetic Fields
69 Love Songs
[Merge; 1999]
Chuck D once claimed that love is a minimal subject, sex for profit. Thankfully, the cynical and oft-described misanthropic Magnetic Fields leader Stephen Merritt doesn't agree. What's more, "spineless" and "mindless" are a couple of adjectives that could hardly describe Merritt's audacious, ambitious pet project, the triple-disc 69 Love Songs. These songs, ranging from deft genre exercises to Merritt's expertly crafted takes on electropop and the classic American songbook, demonstrated a rich melange of wit, intellect, and craft rarely found in modern guitar pop. Some, such as the near perfect "Asleep and Dreaming", function as traditional love songs, but many of Merritt's tales aren't about sexual fulfillment or happy endings. (Hell, most love songs don't even have happy endings-- some of them just have endings, and still others never even had beginnings.) Merritt also realizes that love-- romantic or otherwise-- isn't only felt in extremes, and over the course of his magnum opus, he also frequently captures the absurdity, beauty, and pain of love in its more ephemeral and fleeting incarnations, a feat mirrored by the record's restlessness and eclecticism. So, sorry, Chuck: Not all love songs are selling sex for profit. Some are pitching passion, hope, lust, frustration, and redemption. These are 69 of them.
Beastie Boys
Check Your Head
[Grand Royal; 1992]
I have no problem admitting that when Check Your Head first came out, it was my favorite record ever. Well, times have changed but there's little doubt that it's one of a handful of albums from the 1990s almost everyone can agree is a classic. By the time Check Your Head was released, the Beasties had something of a reputation for radically changing their sound with each release, and this album didn't disappoint. Their fusion of blaxploitation funk, hardcore punk and old-school rap was almost unprecedented; songs like "Funky Boss", "Gratitude" and "So What'cha Want" couldn't have been made by anyone else. Co-producer Mario Caldato, Jr. wrapped the entire thing in vintage, analog haze as the Boys went off on any funky tangent that hit them. They enlisted Biz Markie to wax eloquently about themselves, and then obliterated him with a hardcore cover of Sly Stone's "Time for Livin'"; they got all retro with the Santana instrumentals, then let MCA deliver arguably their best rap in "Professor Booty". Check Your Head not only established The Beastie Boys as Gen-X ambassadors of cool, it also opened the door to a whole school of post-modern, hip-pop (Beck, anyone?). Furthermore, like all their best stuff, it sounds as fresh today as when it was made.
Wilco
Summerteeth
[Reprise; 1999]
After four years, it's difficult to believe that there are still people who pine for Wilco's early alt-country days. But sure enough, these people are out there, refusing to see the quiet, almost accidental genius of Summerteeth, the album that saw Jeff Tweedy cement himself as a master of poetic imagery and the band come into their own as craftsmen. The record unfolds like a series of epics in miniature-- the elegantly worded domestic drama of "She's a Jar", the dreamscape menace of "Via Chicago", the orchestral uncertainty of "Pieholden Suite"-- evoking an America full of people struggling, but always somehow clinging to hope. Tweedy's world of ashtrays, imperfect love and longing was uncomfortably inviting, and somehow, even the band's wrong notes sounded perfect on this unconsciously, unfailingly brilliant album.
Liz Phair
Exile in Guyville
[Matador; 1993]
Alright, so I'll just come right out and say it: It's been all downhill for Liz since this one. Nevertheless, I don't see her predilection for slickness and radio-courting as the true engine of her decline-- even if Exile's gauze-thin sound suits her better (remember that Brad Wood and Casey Rice were practically The Matrix of mid-90s alterna-rock). Rather, what seems to have faded is Phair's translational gift, giving the sausage party that is the indie scene a rare taste of estrogen, sugar-coated with mid-fi packaging. Beneath the overanalyzed potty-mouthed surface of songs like "Fuck and Run", "The Divorce Song" and "Flower" were relationship testimonials that offered a flipside to the woe-is-me posturing of indie's many passive-sensitive gents, while also impressively maintaining an audience balanced along gender lines. That she's moved on is hardly a crime, but Exile fortunately remains a feminine counterbalance to the current wave of tattooed acoustic self-loathers.
Björk
Homogenic
[Elektra; 1997]
Björk's evolution into starchild siren was pretty surprising given her predisposition for flighty, often jarring musical juxtapositions. Homogenic was arguably her first fully formed statement as a passionate, forward-thinking ambassador to electronic pop. I'm reminded of her spiritual godmother Kate Bush's 1985 release Hounds of Love, in the way Homogenic fuses state-of-the-art production techniques with its protagonist's idiosyncratic song forms and instantly distinctive alto call. The mysterious, punchy impressionism of "Hunter", spacey new age of "All Neon Like", and malleable, beatless wonder of "All Is Full of Love" are just a few examples of the album's compassionate, slightly off-center romanticism. LFO's Mark Bell produced many of the tracks and he gives Homogenic a futuristic tinge despite trading the florescence of Björk's previous efforts a wider pallet of pastels. Only on the experimental house of "Pluto" does she step out from her cocoon in a fit of rage, although even then an air of intrigue envelops the track. Homogenic, living up to its title, is one of the most perfectly formed records of any era, and it is entirely possible that Björk will never approach this level of consistently enrapturing beauty again.
Best Records of the 90's (A Sample)
Pitchforkmedia.com
Tom Waits
Bone Machine
[Island; 1992]
When all the grandpaboys made their death-is-coming-to-get-me albums in the 1990s (Reed's Magic & Loss, Dylan's Time Out of Mind, et al) only one of them didn't go all selfish. Tom Waits told transcendent, cinematic stories set in barns, colosseums, nursing homes, bars and temperamental oceans from the viewpoints of religious alcoholics, hairy-chested ex-cons, embittered nonagenarians, jilted Ophelias and would-be suicides. Waits' wails were lizardly and warm throughout; Bone contains the finest showcase of his Frank-Oz-meets-Francisco-Goya pipes.
Although it's a mystic love song, "Earth Died Screaming" was scary enough to turn the staunchest global-warming skeptic into an environmentalist. No existential ballroom could clear its floor without Ralph Carney's mournful woodwinds accenting "Dirt in the Ground". The myths of Christ, Lucifer, Sleepy Hollow and Johnny Cash blend on the chiller "Black Wings", which suggested that saviors are born out of gossip. Joey Ramone would go on to cover "I Don't Wanna Grow Up", and Waits would go on to outlive the beautiful bastard. If you don't weep to the twilit sendoff "Who Are You", then I must ask who the hell you think you are; of course, the chorus' question could easily be turned on its consummate-actor source. Waits, Beck and Radiohead form the trifecta proving that the "Best Alternative" Grammy can get something right, but only Waits fisted every Yankee idiom into a stain-pocked opera gown.
Portishead
Dummy
[Go! Discs; 1994]
I put on Dummy recently, expecting it to have aged miserably. In fact, it almost seems fresher now than it did nearly a decade ago, when it defined trip-hop for the mainstream, merging the eerie darkness of Massive Attack with hard-edged, sludgy hip-hop beats. The album still vividly evokes gritty alleyways and urban black holes, Beth Gibbons' languid torch croon dripping like ether over warm, crackly vinyl and shadowy guitar. Her longing, sensual lyrics were ripe with forbidden sexuality, but the tightly mic'd, ominous instrumentation and close, whispered vocals oozed claustrophobia. In 1994, this album's seismic blast rippled across the globe from a Bristol epicenter, influencing a legion of leaders and followers to spin their own dark webs; that it's one of the few trip-hop statements that still shatters preconceptions today merely proves how forward thinking it really was.
Air
Moon Safari
[Astralwerks; 1998]
Air should be ashamed of themselves. Thanks to albums like Moon Safari, international stereotypes of Frenchmen as nothing more than muss-haired playboys stroking a woman with one hand and an analog synth with the other are forever reinforced. Oh sure, some will tell you that they're merely reflecting the society that birthed them, and that the hyping of the Frug Life is the only way off the hard streets of Nice or Cannes. It's possible to praise the album for its skillful positioning at the intersection of electronics and organics, gracefully balancing on the border of adult contemporary at moments and composing underwater Moog symphonies at others. You can probably even credit Air for bringing the vocoder back into style-- especially if you're Cher. But by creating an album infamous for being the best makeout album of the decade, Air has done a great disservice to their country, portraying all Frenchmen as nothing more than oversexed Champagne-swigging keyboard players. Va te faire!
R.E.M.
Automatic for the People
[Warner Bros; 1992]
Growing up in Atlanta, worshiping R.E.M. was a requisite. Naturally, as a supposed punk transplant preteen from New Jersey, I forced myself to hate them. Chemistry, 1991, the blonde girl in the front row turns around to get my vote in her Georgia Rock survey: "R.E.M. or Drivin' N' Cryin'?" Looking back, it's preposterous to even see the two bandnames together. The reason being Automatic for the People. Remove it from their discography, and R.E.M. would go from mixed-bag major label over-attempts to fumbled hard rock. In other words, they wouldn't even be around today, and "Losing My Religion" would track between "Fly Me Courageous" and "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" on Now That's What I Called the 80s XI: DiXIe & The Stone Mountain Laser Show. The dark "Drive" completely reframed the band in my Fugazi-tinted eyes as dark and troubled, and it was an sparse, acoustic ballad. This opener led what was the most mature, rich, and rococo record of the decade-- a work necessary for every cellar, waiting to be pulled up when the biased bullshit of adolescence has passed.
Magnetic Fields
69 Love Songs
[Merge; 1999]
Chuck D once claimed that love is a minimal subject, sex for profit. Thankfully, the cynical and oft-described misanthropic Magnetic Fields leader Stephen Merritt doesn't agree. What's more, "spineless" and "mindless" are a couple of adjectives that could hardly describe Merritt's audacious, ambitious pet project, the triple-disc 69 Love Songs. These songs, ranging from deft genre exercises to Merritt's expertly crafted takes on electropop and the classic American songbook, demonstrated a rich melange of wit, intellect, and craft rarely found in modern guitar pop. Some, such as the near perfect "Asleep and Dreaming", function as traditional love songs, but many of Merritt's tales aren't about sexual fulfillment or happy endings. (Hell, most love songs don't even have happy endings-- some of them just have endings, and still others never even had beginnings.) Merritt also realizes that love-- romantic or otherwise-- isn't only felt in extremes, and over the course of his magnum opus, he also frequently captures the absurdity, beauty, and pain of love in its more ephemeral and fleeting incarnations, a feat mirrored by the record's restlessness and eclecticism. So, sorry, Chuck: Not all love songs are selling sex for profit. Some are pitching passion, hope, lust, frustration, and redemption. These are 69 of them.
Beastie Boys
Check Your Head
[Grand Royal; 1992]
I have no problem admitting that when Check Your Head first came out, it was my favorite record ever. Well, times have changed but there's little doubt that it's one of a handful of albums from the 1990s almost everyone can agree is a classic. By the time Check Your Head was released, the Beasties had something of a reputation for radically changing their sound with each release, and this album didn't disappoint. Their fusion of blaxploitation funk, hardcore punk and old-school rap was almost unprecedented; songs like "Funky Boss", "Gratitude" and "So What'cha Want" couldn't have been made by anyone else. Co-producer Mario Caldato, Jr. wrapped the entire thing in vintage, analog haze as the Boys went off on any funky tangent that hit them. They enlisted Biz Markie to wax eloquently about themselves, and then obliterated him with a hardcore cover of Sly Stone's "Time for Livin'"; they got all retro with the Santana instrumentals, then let MCA deliver arguably their best rap in "Professor Booty". Check Your Head not only established The Beastie Boys as Gen-X ambassadors of cool, it also opened the door to a whole school of post-modern, hip-pop (Beck, anyone?). Furthermore, like all their best stuff, it sounds as fresh today as when it was made.
Wilco
Summerteeth
[Reprise; 1999]
After four years, it's difficult to believe that there are still people who pine for Wilco's early alt-country days. But sure enough, these people are out there, refusing to see the quiet, almost accidental genius of Summerteeth, the album that saw Jeff Tweedy cement himself as a master of poetic imagery and the band come into their own as craftsmen. The record unfolds like a series of epics in miniature-- the elegantly worded domestic drama of "She's a Jar", the dreamscape menace of "Via Chicago", the orchestral uncertainty of "Pieholden Suite"-- evoking an America full of people struggling, but always somehow clinging to hope. Tweedy's world of ashtrays, imperfect love and longing was uncomfortably inviting, and somehow, even the band's wrong notes sounded perfect on this unconsciously, unfailingly brilliant album.
Liz Phair
Exile in Guyville
[Matador; 1993]
Alright, so I'll just come right out and say it: It's been all downhill for Liz since this one. Nevertheless, I don't see her predilection for slickness and radio-courting as the true engine of her decline-- even if Exile's gauze-thin sound suits her better (remember that Brad Wood and Casey Rice were practically The Matrix of mid-90s alterna-rock). Rather, what seems to have faded is Phair's translational gift, giving the sausage party that is the indie scene a rare taste of estrogen, sugar-coated with mid-fi packaging. Beneath the overanalyzed potty-mouthed surface of songs like "Fuck and Run", "The Divorce Song" and "Flower" were relationship testimonials that offered a flipside to the woe-is-me posturing of indie's many passive-sensitive gents, while also impressively maintaining an audience balanced along gender lines. That she's moved on is hardly a crime, but Exile fortunately remains a feminine counterbalance to the current wave of tattooed acoustic self-loathers.
Björk
Homogenic
[Elektra; 1997]
Björk's evolution into starchild siren was pretty surprising given her predisposition for flighty, often jarring musical juxtapositions. Homogenic was arguably her first fully formed statement as a passionate, forward-thinking ambassador to electronic pop. I'm reminded of her spiritual godmother Kate Bush's 1985 release Hounds of Love, in the way Homogenic fuses state-of-the-art production techniques with its protagonist's idiosyncratic song forms and instantly distinctive alto call. The mysterious, punchy impressionism of "Hunter", spacey new age of "All Neon Like", and malleable, beatless wonder of "All Is Full of Love" are just a few examples of the album's compassionate, slightly off-center romanticism. LFO's Mark Bell produced many of the tracks and he gives Homogenic a futuristic tinge despite trading the florescence of Björk's previous efforts a wider pallet of pastels. Only on the experimental house of "Pluto" does she step out from her cocoon in a fit of rage, although even then an air of intrigue envelops the track. Homogenic, living up to its title, is one of the most perfectly formed records of any era, and it is entirely possible that Björk will never approach this level of consistently enrapturing beauty again.
posted by D @ 7:03 AM
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