Music

2001: We Can Start Over Again

Chris Kriofske1 Comment

This year was unquestionably transformative regarding world events: on 9/11, after biking home from work, I cocooned myself in my living room, seeking solace in Bjork’s recently released Vespertine. Even before that date, the music I gravitated towards was in flux. After my brief rediscovery of Top 40 and a somewhat shallow dive into club music, by 2001, indie rock (and pop) had become my mainstays. I listened to WERS extensively, which is where I first heard Emm Gryner, Pernice Brothers and The Soundtrack of Our Lives; I also upped my music journalism intake, mostly via The Village Voice, which is where I first read about The Moldy Peaches, Basement Jaxx and Ted Leo (though for the latter, not until 2003’s Hearts of Oak came out.)

A good chunk of this playlist comprises songs by artists I was already familiar with: Ben Folds’ solo debut (still his best solo track, ever), Depeche Mode’s second-last great single (at least until recently), Gillian Welch’s disarming narrative that did more to humanize Elvis than any number of tributes have before or since, a lovely, essential Belle and Sebastian B-side, an expansive gem plucked from a sprawling Ani DiFranco double LP and the happiest, breeziest song Rufus Wainwright will likely ever write.

The 90s as we knew them were definitively over, but with the internet increasingly dominant, nothing tangible had yet surfaced to completely replace them. Some artists explicitly drew from the past (The Shins’ 1960s-derived garage pop, Ladytron’s 1980s-influenced synthpop) while others both referenced and contemporized it: Daft Punk splicing disco with modern breakbeats, Spoon perhaps the first band to combine edgy post-punk with Fleetwood Mac-derived shadings, Kings of Convenience making like Simon and Garfunkel as if they had been influenced by Belle and Sebastian. Occasionally, something truly original would emerge, like Life Without Buildings’ talky vocalist Sue Tompkins, whom I didn’t even hear until the Spotify age.

Very occasionally, something unexpected would threaten to cross over such as Res’ now-all-but-forgotten hypnotic rock/R&B hybrid, or Cousteau’s loving Bacharach pastiche, which I probably heard on a car commercial before it ever played WERS. But even beyond my own particular, often peculiar tastes (a ten-minute Spiritualized come-down extravaganza? Sure, why not?), you had outfits like The Strokes and The White Stripes breaking out of the indie-rock ghetto. Suddenly, you felt the potential for hundreds of other bands to aspire to the same, and it didn’t yet feel played out. Despite plenty of sociopolitical turmoil by world’s end, there was also an unusual sense of possibility in the air. Ivy’s best-known song (and on some days, best ever single) exuded this promise of renewal. I was ready for it.

2001: We Can Start Over Again

  1. Ben Folds, “Annie Waits”
  2. Pernice Brothers, “7:30”
  3. Res, “They-Say Vision”
  4. Daft Punk, “Digital Love”
  5. Spoon, “Believing is Art”
  6. The Soundtrack of Our Lives, “Sister Surround”
  7. Royal City, “Bad Luck”
  8. Ladytron, “Playgirl”
  9. The Moldy Peaches, “Steak For Chicken”
  10. Super Furry Animals, “It’s Not the End of the World?”
  11. Steve Wynn, “Morningside Heights”
  12. Cousteau, “Last Good Day of the Year”
  13. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, “Under the Hedge”
  14. Depeche Mode, “Dream On”
  15. Basement Jaxx, “Jus 1 Kiss”
  16. Guided By Voices, “Glad Girls”
  17. The Shins, “Know Your Onion!”
  18. Yann Tiersen, “Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi”
  19. Bjork, “Pagan Poetry”
  20. The Dirtbombs, “Chains of Love”
  21. Life Without Buildings, “The Leanover”
  22. Ani DiFranco, “Rock Paper Scissors”
  23. Emm Gryner, “Straight to Hell”
  24. Gillian Welch, “Elvis Presley Blues”
  25. Kings of Convenience, “Summer On The Westhill”
  26. New Order, “Close Range”
  27. Belle and Sebastian, “Marx and Engels”
  28. Sam Phillips, “How To Dream”
  29. Rufus Wainwright, “California”
  30. R.E.M., “Imitation of Life”
  31. Roxette, “Real Sugar”
  32. Ivy, “Edge of the Ocean”
  33. Spiritualized, “Won’t Get to Heaven (The State I’m In)”

2000: Tighten Your Buttocks, Pour Juice On Your Chin

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What an odd era for pop music. Y2K having come and gone with barely a whimper, the last traces of the monoculture collectively shrugged. Teens (and more likely preteens) bought into boy bands by the bushelful, boomers made Carlos Santana into a bigger star than he had ever been before and somehow, the dregs of Creed, Lonestar and Vertical Horizon all topped the Hot 100 (as did to be fair Destiny’s Child, Aaliyah, and for the last time, Madonna.) Few exceptional new talents seemed to emerge—just look at Shelby Lynne’s Grammy win for Best New Artist a full six albums into her career, pop-crossover or not.

I kicked off the year 2000 by falling madly in love with another person for the first time, so titles like “I’m Outta Love” and “Leavin’” feel somewhat ironic now (or perhaps just a then-dormant harbinger of what was to come in 2001-2002.) I’ve left out most of the top 40 hits I strongly associate with this time since I no longer go out of my way to listen to many of them; apart from the flop Madonna single (one of her most underrated), very little of this got any radio airplay, at least in the US—“The Time is Now” hit number two in the UK, “Bohemian Like You” was also huge there thanks to its inclusion in a mobile phone ad, while “Tell Me Why” is still Saint Etienne’s (even as a featured artist) only top ten hit in their homeland (their own insanely ambitious single “How We Used To Live”, also from the same year, did not trouble the charts.)

As usual, in a perfect world so many of these songs would’ve been smashes—The New Pornographers’ clarion call (greatly assisted by the incomparable Neko Case), Sleater-Kinney’s peppy, hipster-bashing anthem, PJ Harvey’s irresistible primal stomp, even weirdo duo Ween’s straightest pop song ever. Speaking of weirdos, they’re well represented here too: Bjork’s Dancer in the Dark duet with the lead singer of Radiohead (who themselves that year released possibly the strangest album-to-date to debut at number one), Yo La Tengo’s stoned-and-slowed down cover of an early song co-written by Henry “KC” Casey, and most of all, The Avalanches’ sui generis cut-and-paste extravaganza which I’d argue no one has since surpassed in terms of pure invention and wit.

It’s worth noting that in 2000, I spent a lot more time clubbing than I have before or since, hence the inclusion of an epic Toni Braxton remix with its unusual but masterful extended flamenco breakdown. This exact version instantly brings back many a Saturday night spent dancing at the old Man Ray in Cambridge’s Central Square, sipping sugary cocktails and shamelessly making out on the dancefloor. Oh, I was so young and innocent back then…

2000: Tighten Your Buttocks, Pour Juice On Your Chin

  1. The Dandy Warhols, “Bohemian Like You”
  2. Anastacia, “I’m Outta Love”
  3. Shelby Lynne, “Leavin’”
  4. Aimee Mann, “Satellite”
  5. Moloko, “The Time is Now”
  6. Sleater-Kinney, “You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun”
  7. Paul van Dyk with Saint Etienne, “Tell Me Why (The Riddle)”
  8. Bjork and Thom Yorke, “I’ve Seen It All”
  9. Ween, “Even If You Don’t”
  10. Madonna, “What It Feels Like For a Girl”
  11. Toni Braxton, “Spanish Guitar (HQ2 Club Mix)”
  12. Blur, “Music is My Radar”
  13. Yo La Tengo, “You Can Have It All”
  14. Belle and Sebastian, “Don’t Leave the Light On Baby”
  15. Bebel Gilberto, “August Day Song”
  16. Nelly Furtado, “Party”
  17. PJ Harvey, “This is Love”
  18. Badly Drawn Boy, “Bewilderbeast”
  19. The Avalanches, “Frontier Psychiatrist”
  20. Stew, “Cavity”
  21. The Weakerthans, “My Favourite Chords”
  22. Calexico, “Service and Repair”
  23. Air, “Playground Love”
  24. Sade, “By Your Side”
  25. k.d. lang, “When We Collide”
  26. The 6ths feat. Katharine Whalen, “You You You You You”
  27. Saint Etienne, “How We Used to Live”
  28. Patti Smith, “Glitter In Their Eyes”
  29. Morcheeba, “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day”
  30. The New Pornographers, “Letter From an Occupant”
  31. Jill Sobule, “Rock Me to Sleep”

1999: When It Costs Too Much To Love

Chris Kriofske3 Comments

I kicked off 1999 not with that Prince song (the Chicago bar I attended that New Year’s Eve played the intro before its patrons verbally demanded a cease-and-desist) but by falling deep into 1996’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, a premonition. This was one of the more disjointed and new music-deficient years of my life. Between stumbling across the finish line of grad school and desperately seeking steady employment, I took a four month long mental health break from doing much of anything (“A Summer Wasting”, if you will), leaving me with no money to spend on music. I adapted accordingly, raiding a plethora of suburban libraries to acquire previously unheard (i.e.—old) stuff ripe for discovery (Nina Simone, Serge Gainsbourg, Os Mutantes, etc.) Still, even if I had had the cash, it’s not like I’d have been rushing out to buy any of the year’s best-sellers.

What endures from this transitional period is something of a grab bag. We have tracks from both long-beloved artists—a sweet sigh from Everything But The Girl’s last album (until 2023!), Aimee Mann’s Magnolia soundtrack triumph, another indelibly-titled Pet Shop Boys single—and good stuff I didn’t hear until much later: Le Tigre’s unstoppable party anthem (not fully appreciated by me until its inclusion in the 2006 film Reprise), Super Furry Animals’ Tropicalia-by-way-of-Wales, The Negro Problem essaying a heavenly ballad leader Stew would include in his Tony-winning musical nearly a decade later. And yet, I recognize selections I knew and loved at the time, like the lead-off track to Beth Orton’s mostly forgotten second album, Ben Folds Five’s flop follow-up to “Brick” (how did their label think that could be a hit in the mook-rock era?!), Blondie’s underrated (in the US, anyway) reunion single and an Indigo Girls tune that didn’t trouble the pop charts but received heavy rotation on Boston’s WBOS (then a decent Triple-A station).

Of course, I was never going to hear The Magnetic Fields or Sleater-Kinney without actively seeking them out. Same goes for Jason Falkner, whose second LP Can You Still Feel was a lucky library find not long after its release. As for Fiona Apple’s impossibly-titled second album (which I picked up in early 2000), today it less resembles 1999 than an ongoing future/past/present, even on such heavily indebted-to-the-past (in this case, the Beatles and the Great American Songbook) three-minute masterworks like “Paper Bag”.

1999: When It Costs Too Much To Love

  1. Le Tigre, “Deceptacon”
  2. Beth Orton, “Stolen Car”
  3. Jason Falkner, “The Plan”
  4. Everything But The Girl, “No Difference”
  5. Supergrass, “Moving”
  6. Fiona Apple, “Paper Bag”
  7. Pet Shop Boys, “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk”
  8. Tom Waits, “Hold On”
  9. Tori Amos, “Bliss”
  10. Aimee Mann, “Save Me”
  11. Steve Wynn, “Cats and Dogs”
  12. Ben Folds Five, “Army”
  13. The Magnetic Fields, “All My Little Words”
  14. Hedwig and the Angry Inch, “Wicked Little Town”
  15. Blur, “Coffee and TV”
  16. Indigo Girls, “Peace Tonight”
  17. Fountains of Wayne, “Red Dragon Tattoo”
  18. Meshell Ndegeocello, “Bitter”
  19. Moby, “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?”
  20. Sleater-Kinney, “Don’t Talk Like”
  21. Blondie, “Maria”
  22. Super Furry Animals, “Northern Lites”
  23. Guster, “Fa Fa”
  24. Ani DiFranco, “Everest”
  25. Roxette, “Wish I Could Fly”
  26. Delirium feat. Sarah McLachlan, “Silence”
  27. Cibo Matto, “Spoon”
  28. Emm Gryner, “Disco Lights”
  29. Dido, “Here With Me”
  30. The Negro Problem, “Come Down Now”
  31. Madonna, “Beautiful Stranger”
  32. The Chemical Brothers, “Let Forever Be”
  33. R.E.M., “The Great Beyond”

1998: I Am Not Jesus, Though I Have The Same Initials

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Pulp’s This is Hardcore was a hangover of a follow-up to their celebrated LP Different Class from two years before, and it’s emblematic of the time when it came out. Although never a single, “Dishes” instantly impressed me, and not just for its indelible opening lyric quoted above (only Jarvis Cocker would dare to make such a comparison.) Later, he sings, “A man once told me, beware of 33 / He said, ‘It was a not an easy time for me.’” I was 23 in 1998, but I could still relate—it was my first full year in Boston and I spent all of it in the graduate student interzone, with my life almost entirely focused on academia. Apart from my classes, I was alone most of the time.

As a film studies student, movies admittedly supplanted music as an art form to obsess over, although the latter barely diminished as a presence in my life. Not having cable/MTV and deliberately avoiding the top 40, I relied on Boston’s WFNX (by far the more diverse of the city’s two alt-rock stations) to discover some new music—I first heard “History Repeating”, “Lights are Changing” and “Slimcea Girl” there (and would likely never know the last one otherwise.) And with that, I was off on my own, feverishly awaiting new recordings from artists I already adored (Saint Etienne, PJ Harvey, Morcheeba, Tori Amos) and looking beyond commercial radio for new-to-me sounds from the past in the guise of college radio stations like WERS (an entirely different animal from what it is today) and WMBR.

Looking over this list now, I can’t find any rhyme or reason to it. I’ve gone on about alt-rock entering a rapid decline in the late ’90s, but this might be one of the last great years for top 40 pop as well: REM, Seal, Madonna and Sheryl Crow, as well as endearing electronica (remember that term?) novelties (Fatboy Slim, Stardust.) Note all the great one-offs too, from Komeda’s Stereolab-gone-pop to Billy Bragg and Wilco’s historic Woody Guthrie collab. I can even spot a few first-timers that will heavily figure into these playlists over the next decade and beyond: Canadian singer-songwriter Emm Gryner with an anthem from her only major label album; fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright making quite the splash on his attention-getting debut; Calexico’s mariachi-inflected noir solidifying on a highlight from their second full-length.

Finally, one day I will write a longer essay on Massive Attack’s Mezzanine as I currently listen to it more than any other album from this year except for Good Humor. 

1998: I Am Not Jesus, Though I Have The Same Initials

  1. Propellerheads feat. Miss Shirley Bassey, “History Repeating”
  2. Emm Gryner, “Summerlong”
  3. Rufus Wainwright, “April Fools”
  4. Pernice Brothers, “Clear Spot”
  5. Mary Lou Lord, “Lights are Changing”
  6. Saint Etienne, “Sylvie”
  7. Pulp, “Dishes”
  8. Calexico, “Stray”
  9. Lucinda Williams, “Right in Time”
  10. PJ Harvey, “A Perfect Day Elise”
  11. Depeche Mode, “Only When I Lose Myself”
  12. Billy Bragg and Wilco, “California Stars”
  13. Air, “You Make It Easy”
  14. Morcheeba, “Part of the Process”
  15. Komeda, “It’s Alright, Baby”
  16. Black Box Recorder, “Child Psychology”
  17. Tori Amos, “Black-Dove (January)”
  18. Massive Attack, “Dissolved Girl”
  19. Madonna, “Ray of Light”
  20. Liz Phair, “Polyester Bride”
  21. Amy Rigby, “All I Want”
  22. Stardust, “Music Sounds Better With You”
  23. Soul Coughing, “St. Louise Is Listening”
  24. Mono, “Slimcea Girl”
  25. Bonnie Raitt, “Spit of Love”
  26. The Divine Comedy, “The Certainty of Chance”
  27. Ani DiFranco, “Little Plastic Castle”
  28. P.M. Dawn, “Art Deco Halos”
  29. Garbage, “I Think I’m Paranoid”
  30. Fatboy Slim, “Praise You”
  31. Belle & Sebastian, “Slow Graffiti”
  32. Seal, “Lost My Faith”
  33. New Radicals, “Gotta Stay High”
  34. R.E.M., “At My Most Beautiful”
  35. Sheryl Crow, “My Favorite Mistake”

Halfway Through 2024: Music

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Still making an effort to absorb new albums in 2024, though admittedly my listening as of late defaults to playlists, particularly the annual ones I’ve been posting on a weekly basis all year long. Nonetheless, I can easily name ten albums I will try to keep in rotation throughout the summer and fall. Few of these come close to Black Rainbows, Weather Alive or Queens of the Summer Hotel; then again, none of those came out in the first halves of their respective years, either.

ALBUMS (in alphabetical order by artist):

  • Andrew Bird, Sunday Morning Put-On
  • Another Sky, Beach Day
  • Beth Gibbons, Lives Outgrown
  • Gruff Rhys, Sadness Sets Me Free
  • High Llamas, Hey Panda
  • Hurray For The Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive
  • Jessica Pratt, Here In The Pitch
  • Julia Holter, Something In The Room She Moves
  • Katie Pruitt, Mantras
  • Maggie Rogers, Don’t Forget Me

TRACKS (not from above albums):

  • Alison Moyet, “Such Small Ale”
  • Beabadoobee, “Take A Bite”
  • Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather”
  • Camera Obscura, “Big Love”
  • Cassandra Jenkins, “Only One”
  • Crowded House, “Teenage Summer”
  • Gossip, “Real Power”
  • Kacey Musgraves, “Cardinal”
  • The Last Dinner Party, “The Feminine Urge”
  • Orville Peck/Kylie Minogue/Diplo, “Midnight Ride”
  • Pernice Brothers, “Who Will You Believe”
  • Pet Shop Boys, “Dancing Star”
  • Real Estate, “Flowers”
  • Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso”
  • Vampire Weekend, “Prep-School Gangsters”

1997: He Won’t Be Home Tonight

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The Great Transitional Year where I upended my life and moved to Boston. Before I did, I heard a lot of Top 40 radio while working a summer retail job (actually, it was an “Adult Top 40” station, which translated as Mostly White Without Rocking Too Hard). I must have listened to Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch”, OMC’s “How Bizarre” and The Wallflowers “One Headlight” (among many others) at least one hundred times each over a three-month period. I’d like to say it soured me off mainstream radio for good, but even without such overexposure, I’m positive those songs still would not have aged well enough to make my playlist below (though I’ve recently come around on the OMC, a harmless novelty when not played to death.)

At this time, I almost entirely stopped putting stock into commercial radio (even mainstream modern rock channels!). Of these 35 songs, the only ones I ever heard on the radio that year were White Town’s brilliant, genderfucked surprise hit, Sarah McLachlan’s last single resembling anything remotely “edgy” and maybe the Cornershop song (the latter probably only on Boston’s then-great indie-rock station WFNX). A few, like “Da Funk”, “Try”, “Stereo” and “She Cries Your Name”, probably came from 120 Minutes. “Smoke” was an exceptional album track from an LP I bought the first week of release, as was Blur’s great “Beetlebum” (number one in the UK but overshadowed in the US by their own surprise novelty hit).

Regardless, I didn’t hear at least one-third of these until post-’97. I’ve already gone on about discovering Ivy four years later; Super Furry Animals, Sleater-Kinney and Teenage Fanclub would also become known to me in that rough period. “Lazy Line Painter Jane” had the most seismic impact in the summer of 2000 when it finally became commercially available in the US, eighteen months after I fell for If You’re Feeling Sinister. ’97 was still mostly pre-internet regarding hearing new music. I can only imagine how different this list might now be if I had YouTube or Spotify at my disposal back then.

On that note, streaming and re-releases are chiefly responsible for bringing the moodier sounds of Luna, Primal Scream, Morphine and Sneaker Pimps back into personal heavy rotation, while current TV series The Bear breathed new life into a standout from Radiohead’s venerated (if not by me at the time) OK Computer. As for former shoegazers Catherine Wheel, their sprightly, sparkling “Satellite” (from their mostly forgotten LP Adam and Eve) wasn’t even a single—not that it would’ve taken airplay away from Third Eye Blind, though one can dream.

1997: He Won’t Be Home Tonight

  1. Cornershop, “Brimful of Asha”
  2. Teenage Fanclub, “Ain’t That Enough”
  3. Jen Trynin, “Getaway (February)”
  4. Blur, “Beetlebum”
  5. Daft Punk, “Da Funk”
  6. Bjork, “Joga”
  7. Ivy, “The Best Thing”
  8. White Town, “Your Woman”
  9. Mansun, “Wide Open Space”
  10. Pavement, “Stereo”
  11. Jill Sobule, “Happy Town”
  12. Sleater-Kinney, “Turn It On”
  13. Super Furry Animals, “Hermann Loves Pauline”
  14. Ben Folds Five, “Smoke”
  15. Steve Wynn, “How’s My Little Girl”
  16. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Into My Arms”
  17. Depeche Mode, “Home”
  18. Catherine Wheel, “Satellite”
  19. Stereolab, “Miss Modular”
  20. Sarah McLachlan, “Sweet Surrender”
  21. Beth Orton, “She Cries Your Name”
  22. Supergrass, “Late in the Day”
  23. Matthew Sweet, “Behind the Smile”
  24. Indigo Girls, “Get Out The Map”
  25. Ween, “Ocean Man”
  26. Michael Penn, “Try”
  27. Primal Scream, “Kowalski”
  28. Luna, “Pup Tent”
  29. Morphine, “Like Swimming”
  30. Portishead, “All Mine”
  31. Sneaker Pimps, “6 Underground”
  32. Radiohead, “Let Down”
  33. k.d. lang, “Till The Heart Caves In”
  34. Yo La Tengo, “Autumn Sweater”
  35. Belle and Sebastian, “Lazy Line Painter Jane”

1996: One Was Magenta, The Other Was Blue

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By this year, music permeated my life more than it ever had before. Between regular used record store visits (including dollar vinyl bin dives), library CDs dubbed onto blank cassettes and “Ten Albums for the Price of One” record clubs (Columbia House, BMG, CD-HQ—I did ‘em all), I amassed a collection of more product than I could ever absorb. I stopped at a record store that September after a few weeks of deliberately avoiding them to save up some cash, about to burst at the seams with joy upon seeing all the new records I wanted to buy. I selected six of that year’s releases for my 100 Albums project and just as easily could’ve picked at least four more (Diary of A Mod Housewife, Viva! La Woman, Endtroducing… and Nine Objects of Desire, for starters) if I didn’t feel weird about including ten for a single year.

As with 1995, my age obviously factored into this. Everything at 21 still felt so new and limitless to me where music was concerned. While the alt-rock bubble had burst, it had not yet fully soured into the dubious mutations (nu-metal, mook rock and Smashmouth) that overtook it in the late ‘90s. Like any other year, this one had its share of pedestrian (311), overplayed (oh, I don’t know, “Macarena”?) and just plain godawful (hello, Bush!) hits. But look at Primitive Radio Gods topping the modern rock airplay chart for six weeks! Or agreeable novelty hits from Fountains of Wayne, Beck and Geggy Tah! Not to mention all the wonderful stuff not on your radio, from Sloan’s Chicago (the band)-gone-indie-pop gem to an improbable but divine duet between Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue!

The relative lack of real obscurities here (even Cibo Matto got on MTV) suggests indie’s infiltration of the mainstream was at one of its intermittent peaks though I suspect many listeners have never heard “Percolator”, “Power World” or even “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”. I myself did not hear DJ Shadow’s expansive, sample-built mood collage or Belle and Sebastian’s version of indie-pop more informed by Vince Guaraldi than Tom Verlaine until later (though in the latter’s case, not too much later) but both influenced particular musical genre strands that remain in heavy rotation through this day, even if I don’t care too much about recent work by either artist.

1996: One Was Magenta, The Other Was Blue

  1. Beck, “Devil’s Haircut”
  2. Aimee Mann, “Choice In The Matter”
  3. Belle and Sebastian, “Seeing Other People”
  4. Fountains of Wayne, “Radiation Vibe”
  5. Super Furry Animals, “Something 4 The Weekend”
  6. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with Kylie Minogue, “Where The Wild Roses Grow”
  7. Pet Shop Boys, “Se a Vida E (That’s The Way Life Is)”
  8. Cowboy Junkies, “Something More Besides You”
  9. Morcheeba, “Small Town”
  10. Jason Falkner, “I Live”
  11. Suzanne Vega, “World Before Columbus”
  12. Sam Phillips, “Power World”
  13. Amy Rigby, “20 Questions”
  14. Fiona Apple, “Sleep To Dream”
  15. Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Put A Lid On It”
  16. Gillian Welch, “Pass You By”
  17. Cibo Matto, “Know Your Chicken”
  18. Patti Smith, “Summer Cannibals”
  19. Sloan, “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”
  20. R.E.M., “Binky the Doormat”
  21. Luscious Jackson, “Naked Eye”
  22. The Divine Comedy, “Becoming More Like Alfie”
  23. DJ Shadow, “Stem/Long Stem”
  24. Stereolab, “Percolator”
  25. Sheryl Crow, “Home”
  26. Ani DiFranco, “Adam and Eve”
  27. Tori Amos, “Hey Jupiter”
  28. Pulp, “Mile End”
  29. Suede, “Trash”
  30. Sleater-Kinney, “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”
  31. Geggy Tah, “Whoever You Are”
  32. Steve Wynn, “Shelly’s Blues (Pt. 2)”
  33. Tom Petty, “Walls (Circus)”
  34. Primitive Radio Gods, “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand”
  35. Everything But The Girl, “Mirrorball”
  36. Soul Coughing, “Super Bon Bon”

1995: Feeling Good (For Now)

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By 1995, “Alternative” was the mainstream. I spent that Memorial Day at a music festival sponsored by WLUM, Milwaukee’s corporate modern rock radio station. Violent Femmes were the hometown headliners, but their most recent album, Rock! would never get an official domestic release (and is still not streaming anywhere); in fact, none of the bands I saw are on this mix. Next to the Femmes, the highlight was seeing the Ramones on the second stage on one of their last tours. They ran through 30 songs in 40 minutes, and more than made up for having to sit through the Flaming Lips (whom I’ve never cottoned to) and Thank You-era Duran Duran (yes, they played their versions of “911 Is A Joke” and “White Lines” from this misbegotten covers album).

However, I don’t mean to reduce an entire year to a single event, even if this particular one points to how alt-rock, after having built up considerable goodwill in the decade’s first half instantly began to curdle. Fortunately, a superb left-field hit would occasionally emerge amongst all the Live, Sponge and Alanis: “Connection”, “Down By the Water”, “Better Than Nothing”, “A Girl Like You”, “Queer”, “Judy Staring At The Sun” and “1979” are all tracks I first heard via rotation on WLUM, and all of them sound good today. Other tunes, like “Downtown Venus”, “Happy Sad” and “Somebody’s Crying” might not have fit that radio format, but they were present elsewhere—on other stations, in people’s cars or perhaps (gasp) even on MTV! Plus, Britpop was at its peak (if Oasis/Blur/Pulp aren’t your thing, try Echobelly), trip-hop was close to getting there (Tricky representing) and even a band as wacky as Southern Culture on the Skids was on a major label.

That summer, I occasionally worked a graveyard shift as a desk receptionist at the Biltmore, an early 20th century hotel converted into a graduate and non-traditional student residence at Marquette. I was living at my parents’ south side home and it was a thrill to drive downtown late at night, secure street parking and sit behind the front desk in the building’s cavernous lobby until 3 AM (sometimes later), listening to music on the old boombox I donated to the post. I might have heard a few of these selections on the radio (incidentally, I still recall hearing WMSE airing Oscar the Grouch’s “I Love Trash” late one night there), although most of what I played came from dubbed cassettes (it’s where I absorbed stuff like Blue, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and The Best of Blondie.) I mention it here because this experience felt parallel to the new music I was discovering elsewhere at the time—a sense of infinite possibility that naturally permeates the air when you’re twenty and in academic limbo between childhood and becoming a responsible adult. Stuff like folkie Eddi Reader’s ethereal, unusually electronic Batman Forever soundtrack cut, the Cardigans’ slightly loopy lounge pop, That Dog’s sophisticated take on indie-rock, Morphine’s lightness-cloaked-in-darkness—all were on the margins but undeniably in the air, exuding stimulation and promise the following years would often struggle to replicate.

1995: Feeling Good (For Now)

  1. Elastica, “Connection”
  2. P.M. Dawn, “Downtown Venus”
  3. Jill Sobule, “Good Person Inside”
  4. Jen Trynin, “Better Than Nothing”
  5. That Dog, “He’s Kissing Christian”
  6. PJ Harvey, “Down By The Water”
  7. Ben Folds Five, “Best Imitation of Myself”
  8. Teenage Fanclub, “Sparky’s Dream”
  9. Chris Isaak, “Somebody’s Crying”
  10. Autour de Lucie, “L’Accord Parfait”
  11. The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979”
  12. Saint Etienne, “He’s On The Phone”
  13. Edwyn Collins, “A Girl Like You”
  14. Kirsty MacColl, “Caroline”
  15. Southern Culture on the Skids, “Camel Walk”
  16. Garbage, “Queer”
  17. kd lang, “Acquiesce”
  18. Tricky, “Aftermath”
  19. Morphine, “All Your Way”
  20. Bjork, “I Miss You”
  21. Eric Matthews, “Fanfare”
  22. Pulp, “Something Changed”
  23. Luna, “23 Minutes In Brussels”
  24. Blur, “The Universal”
  25. Pretty & Twisted, “Ride!”
  26. Eddi Reader, “Nobody Lives Without Love”
  27. The Cardigans, “Daddy’s Car”
  28. Alison Moyet, “Solid Wood”
  29. Towa Tei, “Luv Connection”
  30. Echobelly, “King of the Kerb”
  31. Erasure, “Fingers and Thumbs (Cold Summer’s Day)”
  32. Grant McLennan, “Horsebreaker Star”
  33. Pizzicato Five, “Happy Sad”
  34. Suddenly, Tammy!, “Beautiful Dream”
  35. Catherine Wheel & Tanya Donelly, “Judy Staring At The Sun”
  36. Oasis, “Champagne Supernova”

1994: Nobody’s Going To Tell Me Who To Love

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

As 1964 was for British Invasion Pop and 1977 for Punk, 1994 now emerges as the year for Alternative Rock. The early ’90s may have produced more innovative stuff, but 1995-on saw a sliding off of sorts as quantity overtook quality. It’s inevitable now that a genre clearly defined by name as to exist outside the mainstream would implode once it achieved a certain level of popularity.

I spent the year in transition from a commuting college freshman to a sophomore living in a dorm. I was at the obvious age and in the ideal environment to take to alt-rock; shortly after moving on campus (and about six months after the demise of WARP-AM), Milwaukee got its first commercial radio station in the genre (then called “New Rock 102ONE”), exposing us all to new sounds we mostly hadn’t heard before. That is, until a few months on when they became painfully familiar due to the sort of repetition you’d find on any Top 40 station, of course.

This is a long way of justifying why my 1994 mix is heavily alt-rock, although I’ve sidestepped the era’s most heavily saturated artists (like the bands mentioned in Pavement’s sardonic and lovely “Range Life”) in favor of definitive but less overplayed (and in some cases, near-forgotten) selections (Tori Amos, Morrissey, Indigo Girls, Liz Phair.)  I’ve also included some longtime personal faves/non-hits by Milla (dropping the “Jovovich” for her brief music career), Sam Phillips, Luscious Jackson and Soul Coughing and a few token pop hits outside the alt-rock spectrum (Erasure’s fluke late hit, M-People’s retro-house crossover).

Of course, Britpop theoretically overlapped with alt-rock, even if little beyond Oasis’ best single crossed over here. Blur’s arguably best album track, The Auteurs’ more cerebral take on the sound and Echobelly’s distaff Smiths notwithstanding, one could stretch the definition of the term. After all, what is a terrific Alison Moyet single (why it never became a drag lip-synch standard is puzzling), an electro-folk epic from Saint Etienne or a sun-kissed but still salty almost-hit from Scots The Jesus and Mary Chain (with Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval) great British pop? Aussies (the proto-Belle and Sebastian twee sweetness from Frente!) and Canadians (Sloan, Nova Scotia’s finest) also showed Britpop could scan as an attitude that didn’t even necessarily need to be from the UK.

Tracey Thorn is easily the year’s MVP, both for an artistic comeback with her own duo Everything But The Girl (their big hit from the same LP would not hit big until the following year) and her indelible collaboration with Massive Attack, whose trip-hop (also repped here by Portishead and the perpetually trend-spotting Madonna) resonated more deeply with me than alt-rock ever did. I haven’t even addressed the lithe fragility of Jeff Buckley, the underrated omnipresence of Michael Stipe (both with his band and as a guest on a Kristin Hersh song) or Sinead O’Connor stripping down newly deceased Kurt Cobain to his essential core. But “Bad Reputation” still sounds remarkably fresh today–hearing it always reminds me that I should explore Freedy Johnston’s back catalogue a little further.

1994: Nobody’s Going To Tell Me Who To Love

  1. Tori Amos, “God”
  2. Luscious Jackson, “Deep Shag”
  3. Jeff Buckley, “Grace”
  4. Sloan, “Coax Me”
  5. Milla, “Gentleman Who Fell”
  6. Freedy Johnston, “Bad Reputation”
  7. Everything But The Girl, “Rollercoaster”
  8. Ani DiFranco, “Overlap”
  9. Kristin Hersh, “Your Ghost”
  10. Sam Phillips, “I Need Love”
  11. Echobelly, “Insomniac”
  12. Erasure, “Always”
  13. Alison Moyet, “Whispering Your Name”
  14. The Auteurs, “Chinese Bakery”
  15. M People, “Moving On Up”
  16. Soul Coughing, “Casiotone Nation”
  17. Indigo Girls, “Least Complicated”
  18. Saint Etienne, “Like A Motorway”
  19. Massive Attack, “Protection”
  20. Madonna, “Bedtime Story”
  21. Sugar, “Your Favorite Thing”
  22. Frente!, “Accidentally Kelly Street”
  23. Steve Wynn, “Wedding Bells”
  24. Liz Phair, “Whip-Smart”
  25. Pavement, “Range Life”
  26. Ween, “What Deaner Was Talking About”
  27. Roxette, “Sleeping In Your Car”
  28. Sinead O’Connor, “All Apologies”
  29. Portishead, “Glory Box”
  30. The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Sometimes Always”
  31. Oasis, “Live Forever”
  32. Blur, “This Is a Low”
  33. Morrissey, “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get”
  34. Seal, “Newborn Friend”
  35. R.E.M., “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”

1993: Something Hidden, Something Free

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

A transitional year. Just as I graduated from high school and began my first semester at Marquette, for me, new music felt stuck between 1992’s discoveries and, as we’ll see, 1994’s eventual, inevitable mainstreaming of modern rock. Truthfully, I spent more time in ’93 listening to classic rock and jazz, cultivating an appreciation for older music than actively seeking out new stuff; thus, many of the selections here are obscurities I stumbled upon: Mekons’ irony-drenched, Sally Timms-sung ode to sugar daddies, Teenage Fanclub’s drone-pop with its genius dumb outro repeating the same four measures sixteen times, Terence Trent D’Arby’s unclassifiable stab at Beatles-esque psych pop, Gutterball’s jaunty little comic noir. I first heard that last one via a friend who also introduced me to “Ugly On The Outside”, perhaps the most ebullient, non-sappy, queer-leaning (!) love song of its era–it should have been as big as “Linger” (which itself holds up rather nicely, by the way.)

My hometown’s first “alternative” radio station appeared this year, the automated (i.e. no-DJ) WARP-AM. It would be defunct not even midway through ’94, but it was a lifeline among the more idiosyncratic offerings left of the dial (including the freeform WMSE, still on the air today!) In addition to the Teenage Fanclub song referenced above, it’s also where I first heard songs below by The Posies, Juliana Hatfield, Deacon Blue, Concrete Blonde, Matthew Sweet and Crowded House—all stuff that might’ve aired on MTV’s 120 Minutes but not in rotation anytime else on that channel (WARP was also where I first (!) heard The Smiths’ nearly decade-old “How Soon Is Now”.) The Cranberries, The Breeders and Belly were notable crossover exceptions at the time.

Elsewhere, a mix of the usual suspects (latest singles by Kate Bush and Pet Shop Boys), 80s artists reinventing themselves (Aimee Mann’s look-back-in-wonder gem from her solo debut; Nick Heyward older/wiser/years-removed from Haircut 100) and clarion calls from what would become some of my favorite artists of the decade (Saint Etienne, Bjork, Liz Phair.) Combing over this playlist now, one never knows then what will endure decades later. Still fresh today: Mazzy Star’s pillow-soft shoegaze (and prom-friendly) balladry, James’ eccentric-but-catchy jangle pop, and an eerie, rich-in-texture track from Sarah McLachlan’s breakthrough album that shows she possessed a considerable edge pre-Lilith Fair.

1993: Something Hidden, Something Free

  1. Belly, “Feed The Tree”
  2. The Juliana Hatfield Three, “My Sister”
  3. The Posies, “Dream All Day”
  4. Nick Heyward, “Kite”
  5. Mazzy Star, “Fade Into You”
  6. Digable Planets, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”
  7. Chris Isaak, “Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me)”
  8. Jellyfish, “The Glutton of Sympathy”
  9. The Breeders, “Cannonball”
  10. Aimee Mann, “I’ve Had It”
  11. Kate Bush, “Moments of Pleasure”
  12. Mekons, “Millionaire”
  13. Saint Etienne, “Mario’s Cafe”
  14. Depeche Mode, “Walking In My Shoes”
  15. Teenage Fanclub, “Hang On”
  16. Gutterball, “One By One”
  17. New Order, “Regret”
  18. Liz Phair, “Divorce Song”
  19. Terence Trent D’Arby, “Penelope Please”
  20. Lenny Kravitz, “Heaven Help”
  21. The Judybats, “Ugly On The Outside”
  22. Suede, “Metal Mickey”
  23. Urge Overkill, “Positive Bleeding”
  24. Pet Shop Boys, “Can You Forgive Her”
  25. Bjork, “Big Time Sensuality”
  26. Concrete Blonde, “Heal It Up”
  27. Deacon Blue, “Your Town”
  28. The Cranberries, “Linger”
  29. James, “Laid”
  30. Morphine, “Cure For Pain”
  31. Crowded House, “Locked Out”
  32. Tasmin Archer, “Lords Of The New Church”
  33. Blur, “For Tomorrow”
  34. P.M. Dawn, “I’d Die Without You”
  35. Sarah McLachlan, “Fear”
  36. Matthew Sweet, “Time Capsule”