Music – Page 6 – Haunted Jukebox

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

June 30, 2024June 26, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

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

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

Halfway Through 2024: Music

June 27, 2024June 26, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

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

June 23, 2024June 21, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

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

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

1996: One Was Magenta, The Other Was Blue

June 16, 2024June 14, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

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

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

1995: Feeling Good (For Now)

June 9, 2024June 6, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

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 20^th 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)

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

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

June 2, 2024May 30, 2024Chris 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

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

1993: Something Hidden, Something Free

May 26, 2024May 23, 2024Chris 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

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

1992: You Were The Chosen One

May 19, 2024May 23, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

I can’t help but look back on 1992 with nostalgic lenses. I was 17, and R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People came out at exactly the right time to make a major impact on how I approached and consumed music. In addition to its gorgeous, gliding Andy Kaufman tribute, other songs here that I actually knew and loved in ’92 include Deee-Lite’s ultra catchy ode to escapism, a great Kate Pierson showcase from The B-52’s somewhat maligned Good Stuff, perhaps my current favorite single by The Cure (not as overplayed as “Friday I’m In Love” or “Just Like Heaven”) and definitely INXS’ best, most underrated single.

As with those gems, many of the other selections here happen to have been hits, but they’re good hits, from Shakespears Sister’s power-ballad with its dramatic, bonkers shift in the middle and L7’s surprisingly catchy Go-Go’s-from-Hell feminist anthem to the comforting faux-R.E.M. of Toad The Wet Sprocket and the second single from Madonna’s Erotica, a Latin-disco epic that has aged pretty well, audacious-lyrical-callback-to-“Vogue”-and-all. Lesser known are a track from Soho’s second album Thug, a big flop but far more ambitious than Goddess (which gave the world their only hit, “Hippychick”), Los Lobos’ slinky, exotica-friendly mood piece, the suitably prescient title track from Leonard Cohen’s The Future (nearly 25 years after his debut) and a gently undulating Sade album track that deservedly made it onto their greatest hits album two years later. Also, the shimmering opener on 10,000 Maniacs’ final album with Natalie Merchant is arguably the best thing she ever did with or without them.

Despite a few catchy novelties here (ravers Utah Saints gleefully sampling Kate Bush, Meryn Cadell essaying a postmodern take on a monologue inspired by 1950s educational films) and a few spirited pastiches there (Vanessa Paradis redoing classic Motown, Lindsey Buckingham cosplaying as Brian Wilson), this is a foundational year for introducing such soon-to-be-icons as Tori Amos and especially PJ Harvey—her “Sheela-Na-Gig” predicts where much of the rest of the decade will go, particularly for alternative female singer-songwriters. Thankfully, Annie Lennox, k.d. lang, and Suzanne Vega all adapt to the times (each in their own ways) as does ex-Hüsker Dü-er Bob Mould (via his short-lived trio Sugar), his pioneering melodic crunch providing inspiration for younger bands such as Ride and Catherine Wheel, whose exquisite shoegaze epic “Black Metallic” has somehow become one of my most-played tracks of the past five years.

1992: You Were The Chosen One

Annie Lennox, “Little Bird”
Utah Saints, “Something Good”
Deee-Lite, “Runaway”
The Cure, “High”
Suzanne Vega, “In Liverpool”
Toad the Wet Sprocket, “All I Want”
PJ Harvey, “Sheela-Na-Gig”
Soho, “Into the Void”
L7, “Pretend We’re Dead”
Ride, “Twisterella”
k.d. lang, “Constant Craving”
They Might Be Giants, “I Palindrome I”
Tori Amos, “Crucify”
Madonna, “Deeper and Deeper”
The B-52’s, “Revolution Earth”
R.E.M., “Man On The Moon”
Los Lobos, “Kiko and the Lavender Moon”
10,000 Maniacs, “Noah’s Dove”
Sugar, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
Meryn Cadell, “The Sweater”
Steve Wynn, “Tuesday”
Morrissey, “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful”
Vanessa Paradis, “Be My Baby”
Catherine Wheel, “Black Metallic”
Sade, “Like A Tattoo”
XTC, “Then She Appeared”
Concrete Blonde, “Someday?”
Shakespears Sister, “Stay”
The Darling Buds, “Please Yourself”
INXS, “Not Enough Time”
Leonard Cohen, “The Future”
Lindsey Buckingham, “Countdown”
George Michael, “Too Funky”

1991: All Bound For Mu Mu Land

May 12, 2024May 9, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

If it seems conspicuous that the only 1991 entry in my 100 Albums series was a singles comp (represented below via a mind-melting medley covering U2 and Frankie Valli), note that at times I seriously considered including the following: R.E.M.’s first number one album (which also had their highest-charting single), Seal’s first eponymous release (believe it or not, he was actually interesting pre-Grammys/Steve Miller cover/Heidi Klum), Sam Phillips’ second secular album (I’d write plenty about her third), even PM Dawn’s dreamy, near-unclassifiable debut. In the end, none compelled me enough to want to write about at length, but I’ve made sure to represent tracks from each of them here.

Historically, people love to sum up 1991 as The Year of Nirvana and Nevermind; I respected Cobain and co. but was never much of a fan, preferring my rock and roll to be Anglophilic and danceable. Looking over this curious selection, one might almost get an impression of ’91 as a last breath of optimism/utopianism before grunge and alt-rock’s irony/cynicism took over. Saint Etienne’s landmark early single (still easily one of the five best songs they ever did) sets the tone, and fellow Brits The Orb, The Shamen, Jesus Jones, James, Primal Scream and even Seal all sustain it, although only “Right Here Right Now” really broke through over here. Kirsty MacColl’s vivacious Latin bauble carries the same spirit although musically it has precious little in common with the others.

As with last year’s playlist, this combines top 40 (Roxette, Prince, Londonbeat) with modern rock (Billy Bragg, Electronic, Violent Femmes, Matthew Sweet) and the occasional crossover from the latter to the former (Divinyls, Siouxsie and the Banshees.) The mighty “Unfinished Sympathy” sounds absolutely undiminished, “Love… Thy Will Be Done” is a terrific, long forgotten top ten hit ripe for reappraisal and “Funeral” and “It Won’t Be Long” are obscurities everyone should know. I was giddy with joy when many songs by the KLF resurfaced on streaming in the past few years. A techno-pop hymn about the band’s own “mythology” and their ice-cream van, sung by none other than country-western legend Tammy Wynette(!), “Justified & Ancient” is the most bonkers hit of its time (and perhaps the entire decade.) Thirty-plus years on, I still can’t believe how big it was. Watch the video above and ask yourself, “Did this really happen, and could something so delightfully weird and far out of left field ever become a hit again?”

1991: All Bound For Mu Mu Land

Saint Etienne, “Nothing Can Stop Us”
The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette, “Justified & Ancient”
PM Dawn, “Paper Doll”
Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Kiss Them For Me”
Crowded House, “Fall At Your Feet”
Sam Phillips, “Cruel Inventions”
Alison Moyet, “It Won’t Be Long”
Roxette, “Fading Like a Flower”
R.E.M., “Near Wild Heaven”
Divinyls, “I Touch Myself”
Mekons, “Funeral”
The Orb, “Little Fluffy Clouds”
The Shamen, “Move Any Mountain”
Massive Attack, “Unfinished Sympathy”
Billy Bragg, “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood”
Seal, “Future Love Paradise”
Dream Warriors, “My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style”
Londonbeat, “I’ve Been Thinking About You”
Matthew Sweet, “I’ve Been Waiting”
Electronic, “Get the Message”
Morrissey, “My Love Life”
James, “Sit Down”
Prince & the New Power Generation, “Diamonds and Pearls”
Joni Mitchell, “Come In From the Cold”
Erasure, “Breath of Life”
Kirsty MacColl, “My Affair”
Kylie Minogue, “Shocked”
Martika, “Love… Thy Will Be Done”
Simply Red, “Something Got Me Started”
Lisa Stansfield, “It’s Got To Be Real”
Queen, “I’m Going Slightly Mad”
U2, “Until The End of The World”
Jesus Jones, “Right Here Right Now”
Pet Shop Boys, “Where The Streets Have No Name/Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”
Primal Scream, “Movin’ On Up”
Violent Femmes, “American Music”

1990: What A Swell Party This Is

May 5, 2024May 19, 2024Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

A brand-new decade, even though many paint this as a liminal period, a bridge between 1980s flash and what we would come to know as 1990s bellwethers (grunge, alternative rock, gangsta rap, etc.) Roughly two-thirds of these songs were favorites at the time (mostly anything here that made the top 40); I became familiar with the rest over the ensuing decade, the tellingly named “Obscurity Knocks” being of the few exceptions (my husband introduced it to me not long after we first met.) You can already detect the budding Anglophile within, as more than half of these tracks are from UK-based artists; the Americans run the gamut from superstars (Madonna) to, at the time, super-obscure (Yo La Tengo long before MTV ever played ’em).

You wouldn’t expect Iggy Pop, of all people, to secure two slots on a 1990 playlist, but here he is with “Candy”, his sole top 40 hit/duet with The B-52’s Kate Pierson, and “Well Did You Evah!”, a gleefully irreverent Cole Porter cover with perfectly acidic support from Debbie Harry which appeared on the wonderful Red Hot + Blue tribute album (an early candidate for my 100 Albums list that missed the final cut). I could’ve ended and started the mix with Iggy but instead chose Deee-Lite’s immortal “Groove Is In The Heart” for an opener (it arguably sounds fresher today than anything else on this list) and The La’s deathless “There She Goes” to go out on—like Squeeze’s “Tempted” in ’81, can you believe it never made the American Top 40?

In addition to finding room for good artists who never made what I’d consider a great, timeless album (INXS, Sinead O’Connor (both of whom came close)) and quirky one-hit wonders such as Soho, who scored with a genius-dumb lament built upon a Smiths sample, this format gives me an excuse to spotlight weird one-offs that don’t fit anywhere else: Was (Not Was)’s hilariously cruel and cold character sketch (it’d be unimaginable post 9/11), Prefab Sprout’s beguiling bossa nova/samba/end-of-the-world party anthem, DNA’s infamous/genius surprise hit remix of a three-year-old a cappella Suzanne Vega album track, Urban Dance Squad’s leftfield Beck-anticipating earworm.

As with most of these mixes, I posted a putative version long ago that stopped at 25 songs; upon reappraisal, I had difficulty limiting it to 11 more. Among the most notable additions: George Michael’s career-torching but supremely catchy manifesto, Living Colour delving into Afrobeat as if making their own Graceland, Information Society’s inspired, sample-heavy nonsense, and proof that as late as 1990, Brian Eno and John Cale could join forces to produce perfect pop that should’ve topped the charts instead of all those drippy ballads that did from the likes of Michael Bolton, Taylor Dayne and Mariah Carey.

1990: What A Swell Party This Is