During the early 1990s, today’s college students were in middle school or early high school-the most disturbing, unsettling and formative years of our lives. Weaned on ‘Saved by the Bell’ and ‘My So Called Life,’ surrounded by the general malaise of a irreparable national deficit and the Gulf War, our impressionable generation latched onto music fitting of the national mood: Seattle grunge, angst-rock, riot grrrrl, and post-new wave alternative.
Was that first paragraph dramatic and serious enough for you, my fellow flannel children of the early 90s? In rereading it, I think it could easily be the searing lyrics of a Foo Fighters, Offspring or Primus song. Oh the angst! Oh the pain!
On a lighter note, most of the music invokes memories of middle school dances, of construction boots and ripped stonewashed jeans, of Airwalks and Converse, of a time when we thought we were so cool and so angry-operative word: thought. Whether you couldn’t get enough of Nine Inch Nails, you hated Courtney Love (she killed Kurt), or belted out ‘Peaches’ by the Presidents of the United States on-stage during an eighth grade assembly (right, like you never did that!), you were part of an unforgettable era, an era that continues to shape rock music and how we, the audience, perceive music.
So allow the MUSE staff to be self-indulgent for a few pages, as we reflect fondly on the favorite rockers and whiners, slackers and screamers of our adolescence. There is a higher purpose, we swear. ROCK!
ALICE IN CHAINS Unplugged (1990) Courtney Hollands
Recorded in the smoky, candle-laden MTV studios in 1996, Unplugged was a seminal album for the Seattle-based Alice in Chains. Due to the rumors and realities of drug addiction and the subsequent ailing health of vocalist Layne Staley, the band had not performed together since the end of 1993. Yet, even without touring to promote its albums, 1994’s Jar of Flies and 1995’s Alice in Chains, the band managed a cult following within the grunge and metal infused rock scene.
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell and Staley formed Alice in Chains in 1987 as a high school garage pastime. After securing a contract with Columbia Records in 1989, and with the addition of bassist Mike Starr and drummer Sean Kinney, Alice in Chains was ready to leave the fertile rock breeding grounds of Seattle and venture into the mainstream, riding the plaid shirttails of Nirvana and Soundgarden.
Though the band fit perfectly into the current rock movement, with its hard-edge guitar and dark vocals, internal drama and problems (abundant heroin, infighting, conflicting goals) were instantaneous and inevitable. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
That’s why Unplugged is so refreshing. It captures the pain of Alice and her Chains, of ‘Would?’ ‘Heaven Beside You,’ and ‘Down in a Hole,’ but with a shimmering patina of calm and reflection. Band staples such as ‘Got Me Wrong’ and ‘New Excuses’ are acoustic tears in their stripped, bare forms. Critics blast the record for its polished, soft feel, but they are missing the point. Different is good-especially since the band’s troubled, disturbing image was getting a little too old and depressing for diehard fans.
Sadly, the peaceful Alice in Chains of this album was not prophetic. Layne Staley died last spring of a drug overdose-which perhaps makes Unplugged that more relevant. Runners-up: Son Volt – Trace Pearl Jam – Vitalogy Radiohead – The Bends
SKINNY PUPPY Last Rights (1991) Dan Ciardi
Lists like this one are generally meaningless beyond their novelty value, but when it comes time for me to pick something like ‘my favorite album of the early-mid ’90s,’ I nonetheless tend to get way too into it. After brainstorming a few candidates for this list, for instance, I went back and listened to each of the albums to make sure I could at least back up my utterly random choice by saying I did my research. Ultimately, I chose to stay true to my roots; industrial was pretty much all I listened to in the years leading from middle school into high school, and this album is, in my estimation, about as good as it gets.
The typical response will be, ‘Huh?’ or ‘Shut up, you pretentious (insert creative expletive).’ But, a brief history lesson: Skinny Puppy were one of the first industrial bands of their kind and are, to this day, the standard by which all other bands in the genre are judged. Last Rights was their last great album: a dark, claustrophobic, yet strangely poignant howl of electronic noise. Pretty much everyone in the band was well into a heroin habit by this point, and the despair of addiction and the corresponding lost grip on reality was evident in the sound. When band member Dwayne Goettel died of an overdose five years later, it sadly wasn’t much of a surprise.
Before anyone calls ‘industrial’ the sound of Trent Reznor whining to programmed beats, he should listen to this album. It represents a time when the genre still had some life in it, just before old-school, Sturm-und-Drang aesthetics gave way to the unfortunate heyday of bald German guys writing cheesy-as-hell club songs about dead babies and nuclear war.
Runners-up: My Bloody Valentine – Loveless haujobb – freeze frame reality Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman
JEFF BUCKLEY Grace (1994) Chad Berndtson
No single artist or band got closer to the passionate, musical core of the angst-ridden ‘grunge movement’ in one album better than the tragic Jeff Buckley, whose only commercial release, Grace, was the era’s single best marriage of music, lyrics and mood, and, after Pearl Jam’s prolific Ten, the most hard-hitting.
Flawless musicianship dominates the album, but it is undoubtedly Buckley’s unique vocal abilities that push it the extra mile. He combines the meaty howl of Robert Plant and the tangy heft of Freddie Mercury with the moody whisper of Chet Baker. The fiery fusion of his voice, lyrics and music presupposed everything from Radiohead to, in the end, his own mortality.
Great albums not only contain great tracks, they also organize those tracks in such a way that the album flows from beginning to end and paints a musical portrait that makes the album more than the sum of its parts. Grace does just that: a blend of growling firestarters (the Zeppelin-esque ‘Mojo Pin’), meditative slow burns (the melodious ‘Lilac Wine’ and the desperate ‘So Real’) and poignant balladry (‘Eternal Life’ and the closing ‘Dream Brother’), all spun round the album’s knee-weakening centerpiece, a version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’
All apologies to Mr. Cobain, but not even Nirvana managed to make an album this musical, this passionate, or this painfully convincing.
Runners-Up: Propellerheads – Decksandrumsandrockandroll Temple of the Dog – Temple of the Dog Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine
SARAH MCLACHLAN Surfacing (1997) Eddie Lau
Despite the domination of grundge (early 90s) and the disgusting comeback of bubblegum pop (late 90s), there were a good deal of respectable female artists who didn’t overwhelm us with their sub-par talent and insubstantial outfits. Sarah Mclachlan got everyone’s attention with this breakthrough album after dazzling critics with Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Armed with a strong and seductive voice, Mclachlan proves she is every bit as great of a vocalists as she is a songwriter and composer – employing artful and personal lyrics layered by a flow of beautiful and haunting music.
Having been mixed up in the ‘man-hater’ mold of female folk artists, Mclachlan never narrows her music to fall one dimensional into the stereotypical cast of feminist rage – a subject which has consumed lesser female artists throughout the decade. Surfacing is an introspective album that includes a range of topics including love-lost, religion and suicide.
When comparing Surfacing and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, it was a hard choice to pick between the two – both great in their own respects – one raw and resourceful (e.g. the controversial stalker song ‘Possession’), the other polished and emotional. The choice came down to Surfacing because it simply becomes that much more difficult to develop artistically and creatively with each successful album – something that indicates the talent level of a musician.
Male artists still dominate the music scene and I admit that 80% of my CD collection is male, but female artists have come a long way, having especially made significant strides in the ’90s. Surfacing was one of the few, right steps taken to bring respectability to female musicians, but it seems credibility doesn’t last long when Spice Girls and Britney Spears are around the corner.
Runners Up… Guns ‘ Roses – Use Your Illusion II Fiona Apple – When the Pawn… Tupac – All Eyez on Me
PAVEMENT Slanted and Enchanted (1992) Justin Conforti
Is it 2002 or 1992? Compare the facts: music lovers across the nation grow bitter toward disposable, teeny bopping pop acts and anxiously await the make-or-break-it Next Big Thing; rap and hip-hop continue to rise from underground niche to mainstream powerhouse; and a little band by the name of Nirvana makes a titanic splash, demonstrating to a generation of soon-to-be die-hard fans their truly terrifying power, their potential to save music once and for all. All these core-shaking ghosts of a time gone by seem to haunt us these days, in an age of musical sterility. Back in the glorious summer of `92, though, when anything and everything seemed possible, an unknown indie band called Pavement released a record, entitled Slanted and Enchanted, that would become a cornerstone in indie music and have an almost unparalleled influence on alternative music for the rest of the decade.
Pavement was not afraid to rip-off hooks and melodies from their musical heroes – paging the Velvet Underground – and infuse decades-old punk conventions with relaxed goofball energy, wiseass lyrics, damaged folk rock roots, gorgeous harmonies, and enough sha-la-las to make Buddy Holly smile down from Rock `n’ Roll Heaven. This offbeat group of suburban guitar junkies acted as the logical bridge between the important but often-inaccessible guitar noise deconstruction of Sonic Youth and the entirety of modern alternative rock. And boy, did they have fun along the way.
Oh yeah, and Pavement is also the band that launched a thousand Weezers (including Weezer!) and a slew of indie bands (Death Cab for Cutie, anyone?). In these confusing days of musical leftovers from a time when Rock `n’ Roll turned into a blazing phoenix named Alternative, `92 seems a long way off – remember the days when a band named Pavement proved that music does everything you always knew it could? Sigh.
Runners-up: Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville Hole – Live Through This Sonic Youth – Goo
WEEZER (The Blue Album) (1994) Sharon Steel
It’s an anthem album, really. The classic pop-grunge and fuzzy melodies of the Blue Album have become the soundtrack for an entire generation of alternative, sad-eyed, music-obsessed, exorbitantly well-dressed young people who like to call things ‘rad.’ It’s no secret that the Weezer who put out the Blue Album remains the Weezer crazed fans still worship: visions of playing D’D in a garage covered with KISS posters, angst-ridden declarations of love, and the incredibly raw, honest lyrics of front-man Rivers Cuomo.
There’s no sense in discussing heated debates regarding Weezer’s two most recent albums (2001’s Green Album, and 2002’s Maladroit), released after the band’s rather extensive hibernation period. Instead, just sit back for a moment, and bask in the sweet, sweet oxymoron of the Blue Album for ten tracks and 39 minutes. Feel the insatiable, overwhelming satisfaction derived from listening to heartbreakingly awkward lyrics superimposed over delightfully upbeat rhythms. And keep the memory alive. Remember the Rivers who talked for hours to a wallet photograph and fantasized about taking a surfboard to work? He’s still there, somewhere. Because regardless of what huge ‘rock stars’ Weezer are today, their first record is undeniably old school in that nostalgic, personal manner that fans can tightly hold onto. Whoever preaches that the bands you grew up with are the bands you love the most was right. Blasting the opening riff of ‘My Name is Jonas,’ rocking out to the chorus of ‘Say it Ain’t So,’ and lip-synching the drunken conversations in ‘The Sweater Song’ can bring it all back-at least as for as long as the record lasts.
Runners-up: Smashing Pumpkins – Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes Portishead – Dummy
OFFSPRING Ignition (1993) Kyle Shideler
The 90s will probably go down in the history of music as the decade that murdered punk rock. Pop punk, in all its wretched incarnations continues to hold its bloody talons around the throat of truly rebellious music. With such dark clouds likely to remain on the horizon for a long time to come, one may forget that in the early 90s, punk had remained an influential force, with several bands coming onto the scene-bands which promised to hold strong against the flood of pop collectivization. One of the fighting rear guards was the aptly titled Offspring. With strong roots in the late 80s California punk scene, the Offspring seized the first three years of the 1990s. The band was ready for the opposition and released Ignition in March 1993, which reached a captive young audience, disillusioned by the last breaths of the grunge movement and itching for older, harder music.
While Ignition did not achieve instant success like its own offspring, Smash, released a year later, it had stronger punk roots, and voiced the feelings of the time to a tee. Starting out with three loud shouts of profanity, the album goes into ‘Session,’ a song of loveless relationship and pointless sex, and continues through 11 hard-hitting tracks. Ignition was a perfect album for an imperfect age. It invoked the spirit of the youth who listened.
Runners-up: Bad Religion – Grey Race Bad Religion – Stranger Than Fiction Social Distortion – Live At the Roxy
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