An Ear For An Era: 1993

When I was little I was good friends with my next door neighbor Ryan. When we were little we used to brag about arbitrary things. One of these things was how old our siblings were. When I asked how old his older brother was he held up all of his fingers. Ten! That's so old! And then in 1993 I turned ten.

This entry feels like it marks a turning point where it's mostly going to be about memories of music because apparently the music released in 1993 had a lot of influence on pivotal moments in my life over the 10 years or so following.

Technically my first CD was Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and I really don't know why. I didn't pick it out. I don't have it anymore. I think my parents got it for me but I don't know why they picked it. Not that I was easy. I kept saying I wanted a CD player but all I listened to was Weird Al so they'd ask me what music I would get if I got a CD player and I had no idea. At the time all I wanted was to have the technology. I think part of my now-obsessive relationship with music is to make up for that and prove that I was right, that I really needed that CD player. I think I got it for Christmas 1993? Based on the Meat Loaf release date and the not-sureness of my Alapalooza format (see below) that makes sense that I would have gotten it at the end of the year.

It's a bit fuzzy but I think Alapalooza is the first Weird Al album I got on CD (now I can't remember if I actually had it on tape instead) and it was definitely the first one I got when it was new. It opens up with "Jurassic Park." That movie made me a Michael Crichton fan and I remember going to see it with my mom even though it was PG-13 and I was 10. It was scary!  Let's see, what else about this album? In music class we had an activity where you click PVC pipes together while someone jumps over them to a beat (I'm not sure how to describe it without taking another whole paragraph so deal with it). The teacher said we could bring in music from home to do that to. We brought Alapalooza wanting to do "Jurassic Park" or "Bedrock Anthem" or something but the teacher said they didn't have enough of a beat (or in the latter case, probably too fast of a beat) but said "Traffic Jam" would work. I think we said no deal to that. I liked "Achy Breaky Song" because I agreed that "Achy Breaky Heart" was terrible. I'm going to pretend I think that Pitchfork got its name from this song's line "I'd rather have a pitchfork in my brain." "Bohemian Polka" took some guts but it was pretty fantastic. In addition to the CD, I got a VHS tape called Alapalooza: The Videos and I dug this claymation music video, particularly what happens to Barney:

"Weird Al" Yankovic "Jurassic Park"

A year later was 1994 and I know I got a World Cup '94 soundtrack album. Why am I not talking about this next time? Because all I was going to say was there was a silly song by James called "Goal Goal Goal" that I quite enjoyed at the time. A few years ago I acquired quite a bit of the James catalog and discovered it was a rework of the song "Low, Low, Low" from Laid. "Laid" is a pretty great indie pop rock whatever song too by the way. but "Low, Low, Low" now makes me laugh because I remember "Goal Goal Goal" and its cheesy lines like "He was never ever ever offside." Maybe if I remember (I don't have the World Cup album in my collection anymore so it won't naturally come up here) I'll post the video in the 1994 entry. It's another World Cup year, you know.

I listened to a lot of early 90s ska/punk in the late 90s. My super cool brother got the contemporary popular  albums like Let's Face It by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones so I naturally got the punker back catalog stuff like Don't Know How to Party. I remember thinking the trombonist was super cool (because he was super cool and also because I played trombone). And the hardcore moments they did were (at the time) the hardest music I listened to. But I preferred the ska side of the ska-core. I also had their EP Ska-Core, The Devil, And More which consisted mostly of covers but I still preferred the original song "Someday I Suppose." and the Bob Marley cover "Simmer Down" featuring a vocal turn by said super cool trombonist. The hardcore covers were my unwitting intro to Minor Threat though, which made me appreciate that more when I got it, since I already knew that song.

The other big ska albums that came up were Marbles by King Apparatus (I like King Apparatus because it reminds me of a ska version of Elvis Costello...take that as you will. I think the songwriting style is similar in a way I can't put my finger on) and Big Daddy Multitude by Mustard Plug. Mustard Plug was a band that I grew up with musically, and while Big Daddy Multitude wasn't the one that got me into them, it was the soundtrack to many fun days in high school. Including the song "Mr. Smiley" which we (very loosely) based a movie on back when my friend Bryden and I would make movies on dance nights. It was our tradition as dateless wonders, you see.

Do you have that one album that, for better or worse, takes you back to a very specific person in your past, a very specific location and time? Of course. There are many of those. But the one that hits so hard and so personally that you can't really listen to it? I used to have that with Pablo Honey by Radiohead. Used to? That sounds anti-nostalgia or something. But that one used to hurt and I didn't even rip it onto my computer (that I've had since 2005) until recently when I figured I should put myself through it for the sake of this project. In 2000, the album brought me immense joy to hear. In 2002, it helped me through some lonely times and then became my go-to moping album. Tears were shed over it. In 2004 I couldn't listen to it anymore. And I didn't for about 10 years. Today it turns out I can listen to it pretty objectively as long as I'm occupying myself with something else while it plays. Other than a few songs. Mostly the good songs are the ones that persist. "You." "Stop Whispering." "Thinking About You." "Anyone Can Play Guitar." Etc. About half of the album is pretty forgettable in my opinion and in my experience. But the good-to-great songs are some of the better grungy songs of the day. Still just a small hint of what they would do one day.

It turns out I listened to a good amount of 1993 music in 2003. Another go-to mopey album was Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate. When I got it my other point of reference for emo was Bivouac by Jawbreaker, and I was a little disappointed that Diary wasn't heavier. But now it sounds just perfect to me. I hadn't listened to it in several years but it turns out it stuck with me pretty damn well. Another album I listened to in 2003 when I wasn't moping was Get Fired by The Smoking Popes. I like this one because they hadn't sanded off their rougher edges and it has such a cynical feel throughout. And the original version of this song was empowering to me getting over a breakup and stuff...

The Smoking Popes "Can't Find It"

It was probably around this same time that my future wife was listening to Archers of Loaf. I happened to have "Web in Front" from a random download spree from college and it happened to come on once when she was there and she was very excited because she remembered that song and liked Archers of Loaf quite a bit. Eventually because of this I would get a few Archers of Loaf albums, the first of which was Icky Mettle. I like the whole album for different reasons than "Web in Front," mostly how hard it rocks. But still. This song.

Archers of Loaf "Web in Front"

There was also stuff happening that I don't particularly have memories of. Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins is a pretty good middle ground between Sunny Day Real Estate and My Bloody Valentine. Not that I need to attempt to describe their sound because everyone knows what they sound like. But I made that correlation the other day listening to this so I thought I'd share. I have some stories about The Smashing Pumpkins but they are more related to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness so I'll share those in the 1995 entry.

Vs by Pearl Jam was one I got for my birthday one year, which must have been around this time (probably my 1994 birthday though). It was cool because it was the first time I got music from a friend. So I knew it had to be what I should be listening to as a young person growing up. But it turned out I didn't particularly enjoy it. I liked "Daughter." And "Leash" was amusing because it sure didn't sound like he was saying "Get out of my lucky face." But I just couldn't get into it when there was so much Weird Al to listen to, you know?

I was barely aware of the existence of Nirvana in 1993 but I do remember seeing them on Saturday Night Live playing "Heart Shaped Box." I remember distinctly how Krist Novoselic jumped around for the performance. Looking at wikipedia, that was the same episode Charles Barkley was on. That one cracked me up.

Nirvana "Heart Shaped Box"

I remember this cool guy in my class named Chris liked Nirvana. I just wasn't cool enough to like that kind of music yet. But in retrospect, In Utero is a pretty awesomely bold album. It's dirty and messy enough as it turned out, but I really want to hear the "unlistenable" version Steve Albini came up with. But at the moment all I have is the commercial version. After In Utero comes MTV Unplugged in New York, which seems like the perfect cap on the band's short run.

After the break-up of the Pixies, we got Frank Black's debut solo album Frank Black. I like Frank Black solo stuff for what seems like a completely different reason than why I love the Pixies. It's good in its own way. Let's just say that. But it ain't the Pixies. And their recent reunion album sounds more like Frank Black than the Pixies. Whatever similarities people draw between this and the last Pixies album seem trivial. What they did is over. Last Splash by The Breeders, on the other hand, feels a little bit more magic to me (but still for different reasons than the Pixies). It's the instrumental aspect, I'm more interested in clever sounds than lyrics. The Breeders have more clever sounds than Frank Black I think. Fair enough?

Math rock, the natural progression of crazy instrumentation and hardcore, was coming along nicely, as I have a few Don Caballero singles that rock me very hard and happily, and Polvo's album Today's Active Lifestyles. That one's pure math rock perfection right there. But when it comes to screwing around with the formula for hardcore, Brainiac got it just right in my mind. They would go on to go even crazier, but Smack Bunny Baby is a great jumping off point.

Brainiac "Draag"

Was hip hop the best music being made in the early 90s? It's hard for me to say because I'm a rock kid at my core and these albums listed above are pretty great. But the hip hop continues to just be phenomenal from these days. Obviously De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest continued to kill it. But No Need For Alarm was my original exposure to Del the Funky Homosapien (not counting "Clint Eastwood" of course, when I didn't know who he was) and one of the first hip hop albums I ever bought. I was highly impressed by the lyrical gymnastics and bouncy sound of his vocals. I still am, particularly on this album. He's a good early MC to listen to when getting into hip hop for the first time with how playful/ridiculous the whole thing sounds and it holds up now that I've been exposed to much more hip hop.

The fantastic fusion of hip hop and jazz on Guru's Jazzmatazz, (featuring live jazz musicians!) as well as Digable Planets' Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space). I first heard Digable Planets when I asked my then-girlfriend to tell me what hip hop to listen to as I tried to open my mind to it. I enjoyed and then got sick of "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" and kind of stopped thinking about them until Shabazz Palaces came along a couple years ago and blew my mind. That's when I knew I had to give Butterfly's earlier project another go. I can dig the Digable now, although the amount of positivity is almost too much for me sometimes.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, KRS-One was going hard and solo on Return of the Boom Bap, and of course Wu-Tang Clan's debut album Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers remains one of the most raw, energized, solid-from-front-to-back albums of all time. I tried to have it come on during my 10k the other day but my ipod messed up and it didn't happen. I kind of feel like I would have done better if I had Wu-Tang soundtracking the thing.

Wu-Tang Clan "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'"

I think that's the best place to end things.

Other Stuff:

• The first track to come up was "Shoop" by Salt-n-Pepa. Is there a better way to say "Are you ready for 1993?" than that song? I doubt it.
• Those early Rivers Cuomo recordings from that Alone album are pretty sweet previews of the Weezer to come. Including an early, slower version of "Buddy Holly!"
• The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack! Very enjoyable. My friend in high school was obsessed with Tim Burton (I know he didn't direct this but still) and we very un-ironically loved this movie. But now that makes us seem like Hot Topic kids or something because don't they still love this movie? I assure you, this was before Hot Topic was a thing.
• Another Saturday Night Live performance I kind of remember is Billy Joel playing "River of Dreams."
• Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville is great btw
• Flaming Lips' Transmissions From The Satellite Heart has that big hit song about doing stuff your own unique way "She Don't Use Jelly."
• Mercury Rev is still pretty Flaming Lips like in 1993, maybe with a smattering of Yo La Tengo...but not quite as great as those two bands. Good thing I know how much better they get!
• Fugazi's In On The Kill Taker is another great one from the band that really didn't make anything non-great.
• Mekons' I Love Mekons includes one of my favorite Mekons songs, "I Love Apple." It's a good album that has a few songs with that great 70s punk energy.
• The morning of the evening I wrote this, I listened to some Simpsons stuff from 1993 including the "Monorail" song. And the day of the evening I wrote this was the anniversary of the day that Phil Hartman passed away. That made me sad.
• People born the same year as all this music can now legally drink. Let that one sink in, grandpa/grandma!

Next Time...

You thought I had a lot to say about 1993? There were only 551 tracks for 1993. 1994 has 803. I'm going to have to start editing better! Lots of stuff turns 20 this year.

Ill Communication. Beck. Blur. Built to Spill. An album called Dookie. Jawbox. Jeff Buckley. Big Johnny Cash comeback. Two classic Magnetic Fields records. Wu-Tang solo stuff begins. Lots more skapunk. Nas debuts. The Downward Spiral. A pretty darn good NOFX album. The Notorious B.I.G. Oasis. Outkast. Rodan. Rancid. Weezer. And a classic non-album track by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

And a ton more that I didn't bother typing. This will take a while.

An Ear For An Era: 1992

I think I remember watching the olympics in 1992. Not sure what else happened. The gulf war happened. And growing up and whatnot. Lots of music came out. Eventually, I would discover lots of it. And here I am, rediscovering or whatever. But again, let's start with "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Off The Deep End represents a transition to me. 1992 must have been around the time I was really getting into Weird Al because most of his music was pre-existing when I did so. But then my friend Bryden had his brand new album. I think it took me a while to get this one personally. Just listened to it at his house. I think it was the first Weird Album I got on CD too as opposed to tape. So what of the content? Well, the famous "Smells Like Nirvana" was my first exposure to Nirvana. Which is a fine way to be introduced to them I think. "Trigger Happy" was a song I listened to a lot last time the gun control debate got all fired up. "I Can't Watch This" tells me that MC Hammer must have been popular around this time, which gives me some context for the less cool hip hop of the time. Overall though it's kind of an average Weird Al CD. With some great standouts.

Another quick hip hop rundown!
Beastie Boys Check Your Head. I guess this had them playing their own instruments for the first time since the early days so that was the big deal there. There's no insano production on this, a few showy instrumental tracks, and a lot of fun attitude. Like they are known for. Yep. Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde may have been my favorite hip hop album of 1992 because it's so gleefully weird. Like...bizarre! Is it wack? Is that was Del was rapping about when he rapped about wack MCs? Whatever, I dig it a lot.

The Pharcyde "Officer"

Gang Starr's Daily Operation had one of the greatest DJs ever in Premier. So did Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Mecca & The Soul Brother. My buddy raves about this album and for good reason. The beats are pretty amazing and overall it just kind of reminds me of the natural progression from Paid in Full. Speaking of them, I hit another Eric B & Rakim album Don't Sweat The Technique. Rakim hits a little harder this time and got political. Like on "Casualties of War" about PTSD. There was a war going on, wasn't there? A little one called Desert Storm. The several tracks across different genres addressing this reminds me of that war. As a pre-political 9-year-old I didn't know much about it and today it seems quaint compared to the more recent Iraq war, but it sucked for many people.

So that takes us to punk rock, which also had a lot to say about Desert Storm. Fifteen's album Swain's First Bike Ride feels like the new hippie movement or something to me. Tons of songs about loving your neighbor, nonviolent revolution, etc. Very idealistic. Bikini Kill's first record (I have it in the format of "The C.D. Version Of The First Two Records" but this was the self-titled EP) had a lot to say in the era of malls and whatever else stereotypical girls were doing in this time, making "Double Dare Ya" that much more poignant. Back to Desert Storm, Skankin' Pickle was still the goofiest band around and had "The Hussein Skank" on Skankin' Pickle Fever. Not a very political take on the war. They had a few political songs but continue to be remembered for the goofy stuff like "Pseudo Punk," "Whatever Happened," and of course "I Missed The Bus," which is a way better song about missing the bus than Kris Kross.

And Green Day! Those guys. I got Kerplunk after Insomniac was popular. I think I had a gift card to Best Buy so I got that one. I remember getting it because it was a Green Day album my brother didn't already have. In retrospect I can say that it is proof that they've always done catchy punk pop songs and people couldn't justifiably call them sellouts for Dookie. At the time though I mostly just got amused by the joke song "Dominated Love Slave" and liked the cover of "My Generation."

Plays Pretty For Baby by Nation of Ulysses is a very strong, hard album that seems like the midpoint in the path from Gang of Four to Refused. Maybe closer to the side of Refused. Anarchy, hardcore, post stuff, passion. I can't find "Last Train To Cool" on youtube but seek it out. Seek out this whole album. I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I put Plays Pretty For Baby over 13 Point Program in my NoU rankings.

Enough serious punk rock, NOFX were (are still?) the kings of jackass punk rock. White Trash, Two Heebs & A Bean takes me right back to high school. There are some decent straight up punk rock tracks (but Punk in Drublic is better for that purpose) but mostly this album is memorable for its jackass tracks. "Bob" about a guy going straight because his liver is shot, set to a ska beat. A Louis Armstrong style cover of "Straight Edge" by Minor Threat (so dripping with irony). Etc. Etc. And this song, which is probably the snarkiest thing they did.

NOFX "Please Play This Song On The Radio"

What about the super serious punk rockers? Or emo rockers? Bivouac was always my go-to Jawbreaker CD. I never got 24 Hour Revenge Therapy so Bivouac was mine. Very solid, some feel good tracks and some feel bad tracks. I also got it in the midst of a breakup. So kind of my go-to emo album as well.

OK how about Pavement? They made their big debut here. Slanted & Enchanted is a brilliant indie rock album that is so 90s indie rock. My brother got me into them soon after he went to college. Full of great mixtape fodder like this one.

Pavement "Here"

I think diRty is one of my favorite Sonic Youth albums as far as catchy noise goes. It's a catchy one, that's for sure. Were they getting popular around this time? Asking for a friend.

Pulp was really starting to get to be a great band around this time. That is a baseless accusation about their earlier work. I did enjoy the earlier songs I have. But here's where "Death Comes To Town" (and remix "Death Goes To The Disco") come in. A song I was told to put on a dance mix back in '04 or so and have been obsessed with ever since. Separations is the album. Those are bonus tracks though. Separations is great too though.

Pulp "Death Goes To The Disco"

What about those veterans? I've already written so much about them but they had to go and keep putting out solid stuff!

Neil Young's Harvest Moon is one of his best, maybe his best of the 90s. I need to give it more spins. But opening track "Unknown Legend" holds a special place in my heart because Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio sang it in the movie Rachel Getting Married and my wife is from a small town too.

Tom Waits' Bone Machine. My one thing about this album is that it shares its name with a Pixies track. Not sure if that's a coincidence or what. But the album! So great! I can't even figure out how to write about it! But for someone who has put out so much gold, this one manages to stand out as one of his best.

Sorry about all the super short paragraphs about brilliant albums. It's getting late.

Other Stuff:

• Friday I'm in Love. Apparently The Cure were still at it, making giant hits and stuff.
• R.E.M. continued to push boring 90s rock forward. "Everybody Hurts" is so ridiculously sad it's almost funny though.
• A sound clip from Army of Darkness came up. Crazy that that was 1992. I didn't get into it until around '97 but one of my all time favorite movies!
• Thanks to Going Simpsonic With The Simpsons, I know that the softball episode aired in 1992. A long time favorite.
• There's Rage Against The Machine, doing their thing being pissed off about war as well.
• I have some Don Caballero material from 1992 thanks to the Singles Breaking Up collection but I don't yet have much to say about it. Quintessential math rock.
• "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta" speaks to me as a white collar white male working in a corporate environment. Thanks, Office Space!
• Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell was my first Social Distortion studio album back in the day. It confused me because I thought it'd be more punk rock. Still enjoyable to this day though.
• My first instance of the Flaming Lips! Good spacey indie rock that would be developed and developed more and more.

Next Time...

I might be a minute. I just got some more new stuff that I need to listen to at least a couple times to fully appreciate. Tune-Yards, Cloud Nothings, Lykke Li, The People Under The Stairs...artists that will eventually come up in this thing but it'll be a while still. Here's what's 1993 though:

Indie: My wife got me into Archers of Loaf. Thanks, Wife! Brainiac rules too. Mercury Rev is great. Polvo. Smoking Popes actual album! 

What do you mean "alternative?": An iconic Breeders album. The Flaming Lips break out!Nirvana bows out. Some band called Radiohead debuts (I might have a thing or two to say about this album on a personal level). Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, whatever. Frank Black goes solo! 

Punk?: Fugazi is still amazing. Man or Astroman? I do love Mekons. Mighty Mighty BossTones! And Mustard Plug (ska punk is really rolling!). Emo is extra emo with Sunny Day Real Estate. 

Hip Hop Still Golden: De La Soul continues. So does Del. Digable Planets debut! Did you know A Tribe Called Quest released a landmark album on the same day as Wu-Tang Clan?? Guru is already going jazz? I didn't realize he did that so early in his career! KRS One goes solo. 

Speaking of solo: Liz Phair

And you know the rest: Weird Al.