WFNX

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

Chris 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

  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”

1997: He Won’t Be Home Tonight

Chris 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

  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”