We'll go by the general order in which I discovered things. Which means we'll start out with ska/punk. Battle Hymns by Suicide Machines was my first "punk" album when I actually knew what punk was (meaning not counting The Offspring or Green Day). I went from skapunk to wanting to get some "pure punk" and even though there is ska on Battle Hymns it seemed close enough at the time. The longest track on the album is 2:19. Just an album full of short bursts of energy. Politics and punk and a tiny bit of ska but not as much as their previous album. I remember seeing them on the Fourth of July 1998. It was high energy show and the singer handed me his Gatorade to pass around. Then we took the bus to City Park to watch fireworks. Good year, that.
The very first time I went to a record store the day an album came out was for Less Than Jake's Hello Rockview. I probably took the bus because there was a bus stop right by Rocks Off Records. Or maybe it was when Tribal Rites had a record store. That was on the same block. But buses were free for minors like myself so I loved taking that bus downtown. On a Tuesday I showed up after school. I had to ask about it because it wasn't on the shelf. The guy said they just got these boxes in. He opened one up and there it was! I was probably the first person in Fort Collins to buy Hello Rockview! Buying albums the day they came out became quite a hobby for me over the years that I still follow pretty regularly (the last year or two I've slowed down on that just because this project means I can't really listen to it for a week or two anyway). However, I remember the music being fairly disappointing. I liked the energy but the production just seemed like overkill to me. The horns seemed almost synthesized. I know I'm in the minority about this album and it's a fan favorite but it was really the beginning of the end for me and skapunk. It's funny that most of my favorite ska/punk albums are from the years leading up to me listening to it, and then when I was into it most of the stuff that came out was inferior to the glorious 1994-1996 stuff.
One major exception to this was Slow Gherkin. Shed Some Skin may have been the last great skapunk album. Not that that genre fits it particularly well. More like a mix of two-tone ska and Weezer-esque rock. Whatever you call it, I loved it and I still love it; it's much more consistent than their debut. They figured out their sound here and put so much passion into it. Later I wanted to use the title track as my "personal" high school graduation song because the class' song was something stupid. In retrospect, it'd serve better as a high school reunion song because it's about going away and growing up and coming back. Anyway, this album was also the general timeline of the most unbelievable memory of any show I've ever been to. I was at this one with my friends this time, and we spent some time haggling with the band on the price of the CDs at the show (which in retrospect was kind of mean of us, sure we could get them cheaper from Asian Man but the band needs help on the road NOW!) and then while they were playing the craziest thing EVER EVER EVER happened to me. It seems like a dream. We were on the right side of the stage, front row, right in front of the valve trombonist. I think his name was Matt. During an instrumental break he actually HANDED THE TROMBONE TO ME. I picked it up and I PLAYED WITH SLOW GHERKIN! I HAD A SOLO! WHAT?!?!?!?! Thinking back, I kind of wonder if that was on purpose or he was just putting it down and I took it from him. But how would I assume he was handing it to me unless he was being obvious about it? He had to have been. I don't remember if I'd talked to him about trombone before the show, but how else did this happen? How else would he know I kind of knew how to play? Was it a dream? I believe it really actually happened.
And back to punk rock. I know I'm not being fair but that first Dropkick Murphys album Do or Die holds a special place in my heart more than anything they've done since. I didn't even drink back then and I loved these drinking anthems! The deep appreciation to the hard working union man, fighting against oppression and incorrect assumptions, and just being rowdy. Here is my favorite drinking song.
The Dropkick Murphys "Barroom Hero"
Refused put out their final statement in The Shape of Punk to Come and lived up to the audacious title. The use of electronic beats, jazz, and a whole lot of other things serves well to further intensify the hardcore punk that screams out of the speakers from behind every corner. It's like a good horror movie where the moments of calm are there to build tension and make the jump scenes that much more effective. And the whole thing turns on a dime, shifting rhythms and hitting harder than anything.
Refused "The Deadly Rhythm"
Oh, what's that? My favorite album or at least nearly my favorite album of all time? Broken Star by The Broadways. No question about it. Now. How do I explain this? The Broadways took highly political subject matter and made it highly personal. Three distinctive voices with three perspectives, different styles of lyrics, brought together in such a cohesive, infectious way. The music itself was deep, complex, comforting, and aggravating all at the same time. Brendan's overtly political listen-to-what-I-just-read-about style, Dan's lamenting of a world that has gone the way of commercialism, and Chris' personal struggles to deal with such a place. It's an unspoken narrative. It's three overlapping parts that tell an overall story of this world and how we deal with it and where it's been and where it's going. Without trying. It's a bunch of punk rock songs. But it's bigger, so much bigger than all this...here's the one song that combines each vocalist/lyricist to hopefully kind of demonstrate what I'm talking about. But to really get it, you need to listen to this record. Over and over again.
The Broadways "I Hear Things Are Just as Bad Down in Lake Erie"
I admit that I didn't get Alkaline Trio's debut LP Goddamnit in 1998 when it came out. This was a time when mailorder from Asian Man Records was one of my favorite things in the world but the curse word in the title made it hard to navigate sneaking it by my parents. The funny thing now is that when the 10 year anniversary remaster came out they got it for me for my birthday without me even mentioning wanting it. But here's my history with Alkaline Trio way back then. They were on a tour with MU330 and stopped by Fort Collins. Even back then I was going to shows by myself because I didn't have any friends there and while I was waiting for the show to start some dudes invited me to play pool with them. I was pretty terrible but what do they expect, asking some kid? But it was fun. I ended up losing by scratching on an 8 ball shot. Anyway, while all that was going on apparently Alkaline Trio was playing and I totally missed it. I would soon regret that (but I was there to see MU330 anyway). When their second album came out I got that and then came back around to Goddamnit. And then that became one of my favorite albums ever. Heart-on-your-sleeve punk rock got me through some tough times and I go back every once in a while. I really love this early Alkaline Trio stuff for its insane drum fills, clever lyrics, repeating motifs, and extended codas. It's a good formula that served them well.
Alkaline Trio "San Francisco"
Jets to Brazil's debut album Orange Rhyming Dictionary kind of cleaned the slate of any sour impressions people had of the last Jawbreaker album because while it had some similarities (particularly Blake's cleaned up vocals), the passionate lyrics and just plain beautiful songs opened up a whole new world of possibilities. This is not Jawbreaker. This is nothing like Jawbreaker. This is a new project and it has pretty songs.
I think I discovered Neutral Milk Hotel in college when I pretty much discovered every indie rock band. Because of music downloading sites. I forget what the one was called that I used, but one night I just went through the first 20 pages or so of most popular "indie" bands and downloaded a song by each of them. "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" became a favorite. It took me a while to actually acquire the album (also called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) but it was easy to listen to that one on repeat. Kind of a precursor to some other now very successful indie bands, particularly The Decemberists. Literary, passionate, easy, catchy.
I have no segue to switch over to hip hop.
I shamefully haven't listened to Aquemini by Outkast nearly enough to say much about it, but it is quite an incredible album. They pretty much could do no wrong. Moment of Truth is another great Gang Starr album and includes my introduction to them, "You Know My Steez." Thanks to my friend with a very extensive hip hop knowledge I discovered one of my favorite MCs. I remember Hello Nasty by The Beastie Boys had some fun videos and got a lot of praise. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time but it is yet another great one by them. One girl that liked the same ska bands as me insisted that Lauryn Hill was better than I was giving hip hop credit for. But I just would not listen, even though I think it contradicted every argument I had about hip hop being bad. But ok, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a pretty great album, I'll give you that finally after all these years.
And one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time, probably my favorite hip hop album of the 90s, came out in 1998. It took me a while to come around to these guys but everything about Black Star is amazing. Hi-Tek's (and others') beats, Talib Kweli's and Mos Def's next-next-next-level flows and wordplay, the energy and the love, it all comes together in such a ridiculously good way.
Black Star "Definition"
Other things:
- Mutations by Beck was another good one by Beck.
- Massive Attack, Fatboy Slim, and Air were pretty good there too.
- The two songs I have off Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev are fantastic and I wish I had the full album!
- It's a bit rough listening to a full 25 song album by Wesley Willis but I made it through! The highlight of course was "Cut The Mullet."
- Remember that video for "Rabbit In Your Headlights" by UNKLE featuring Thom Yorke?
- The soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine is pretty golden. Awesome throwback to the glam era featuring Shudder to Think and Thom Yorke and others!
- Empty Bottles Broken Hearts by Murder City Devils is very great, but maybe not quite up there with their self-titled album from '97.
- Featuring "Birds" by Quasi was on my radar to check out for a long time, and then I finally got it and have only listened to it a few times. Turns out I'm not as into them as I thought. Still good though.
- Jay-Z Vol. 2 ... Hard Knock Life.
- I used to think End Hits was the last Fugazi album and they had broken up. Or some sort of collection of songs from the end of their tenure and they had broken up. How exciting it was when they put out another album a couple years later! But that seems to have been it.
- Electro-Shock Blues may be Eels' best album. Very personal. I love that song "Climbing to the Moon."
- The Ex - Starters Alternators. Still pushing forward 20 years into their career (and this was 16 years ago!)
- Interesting to hear feuding tracks between Hepcat and Skinnerbox...
- The Boy With The Arab Strap is another great Belle & Sebastian album guys.
- Elliott Smith was still good. xo was very good.
- Early Calexico effort The Black Light has "Trigger" on it so you know they started strong.
- Pulp. This is Hardcore. I remember the album cover from way before I ever heard the album. Provocative! The album itself? Also provocative! I like Pitchfork's description of it as a "hangover" album after their last one.
Next Time:
We close out the 20th century so let's party! Sigur Ros, Alkaline Trio's amazing EP, Beck goes funky, Built to Spill's maybe best, Dr. Dooom, Slim Shady, The Soft Bulletin, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Hank III, 69 Love Songs, Mos Def solo, The Decline, Out Hud/!!!, Pavement bows out, The Roots, and another classic from "Weird Al" Yankovic.
