A Love Letter to... the Mid-'90s: 1994, pt. 1

So I'm back in N.Ireland and I've so many stories to tell. But instead of doing that, I'd rather write more about '90s music. I was initially thinking that I'd write about important albums in a chronological order. Then I thought that I'd do it alphabetical by bands... I've decided that I'm gonna do some mix of the two. Mostly I want to communicate albums that are timeless to me and examples of how awesome I think the mid-'90s were.

Obviously everyone's got their own classic albums and their own tastes. On the whole I fucking hate music journalism, so this is just a personal account. Plus I can't speak for albums I haven't heard, so I would never purport to write about albums on a whole. I'm much more comfortable writing a field guide for albums that have been important to me and that I think sound of their time while being timeless.

Like I said before, I draw a circle around 1994-1997 - between Kurt Cobain's death and the release of Radiohead's OK Computer is the sweet spot. There are albums building up before '94 and echoes afterward, but there is something distinct about those four years. Genres were merging and shifting and, most importantly, exploring.

Let's start with 1994. It was the year that OJ Simpson led reporters on a chase after killing his wife and Ron Goldman. Meanwhile, figure-skating competitor and Portland-home-town-hero Tanya Harding and her husband had rival Nancy Kerrigan's knee bashed in. And, of course, after putting on REM's seminal album, Automatic For the People, Kurt Cobain blew his head off in his Washington home with a shotgun.

This was after Nirvana's appearance on MTV's Unplugged (a show that could not exist anymore), but before the album came out. Though they'd just released an album produced by Big Black's Steve Albini in an attempt to counter the perceived commercialism of Butch Vig's treatment on Nevermind and return their sound to sludginess, the Unplugged in New York episode and album helped convert the hesitant to accepting Cobain as the (unwilling) voice of his generation. Perhaps the most powerful moments in the concert are the band's covers of some of Cobain's heroes - David Bowie, Leadbelly and the Meat Puppets (who show up on stage to help out):




Meanwhile, fellow grunge-elite Alice in Chains had also stripped away the distortion to create their quietest, most heroin-soaked album Jar of Flies. As with Unplugged, the less harsh sound lent the album an understated power that was subtly effective in ways the band had not been before (not coincidentally, Alice in Chains had their own episode of Unplugged, which is pretty good, too). It was also a daring move for a group whose fan base consisted of more hesher, metal-heads than most of their grunge contemporaries.

(There's a great music video of "No Excuses" out there, but the embedding is disabled so I'm posting this video of someone's vacation pics instead)




And while Kurt was busy bearing the burden of everyone liking him, his wife, Courtney Love's - at that time just as respectable, if more-unknown - star was on the rise. It was shortly after her husband's death that Love's band, Hole, released it's breakthrough (and best) album, Live Through This. In the years since Cobain's death that Love's star has dropped tragically and drug itself around through the mud (with plenty of help). It's a shame that her tattered personal life has completely overshadowed the fact that, at her best, Courtney Love was an amazing, charismatic singer and songwriter in a genre that was (and still is) too much of a boys' club.




Back in the boys' club, the Stone Temple Pilots were putting out their second album. Emerging on the scene a couple of years earlier, STP was still a couple of years too late to be taken seriously. Though successful commercially, the band was derided by critics as being nothing but a Pearl Jam knock-off.
Indeed, if everything they put out had continued sounding like their debut, Core, then this derision would be founded, yet the follow-up, Purple, was it's own beast; a more mature, layered record. In part because the guitar/bass duo of the DeLeo brothers had the jazz chops to lead the group into more intricate places and in part because Scott Weiland, presumably tired of being called a poseur, was conked out of his gourd on heroin, Purple is deeper and more interesting than anything Core hinted at, with tracks like "Big Empty" touching on sadness more profound than the . The album begins with the rolling "Meat Plow" (I remember asking my dad what a meat plow was, thinking it was some sort of farm equipment - he told me it was a penis. In the context of the song, neither makes sense) and ending with a hidden track of Weiland crooning smooth jazz.
Famous, of course, for "Interstate Love Song," and lesser hits "Big Empty" and "Vaseline," there are so many indelible songs on this album, though, that it's a shame that STP remains more of a punch-line than a respected band.




And while Stone Temple Pilots were being compared unfavorably to Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder's band had critics scratching their heads. Upon releasing their monumental debut, Ten, Pearl Jam were saddled with so much critical acclaim it seemed to feel the need to buck it at once. The more people wanted them to be "grunge as it should be," the more Eddie and co. tried to be something else.
Their third album, Vitalogy, was one of many "fuck-you, take-me-as-I-am" records Pearl Jam gave to a head-scratching public that eventually diminished to a cult. Part of the message was Vedder's unhappiness with the still-new CD technology compared to vinyl. In response, Vitalogy was released on vinyl two weeks before CD and sported the unfortunately-named song "Spin the Black Circle." Other parts of the message were off-putting tracks like the accordian-accompanied rant, "Bugs" the bizarre "Satan's Bed," and the bizarre-r "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me." At this point in their career, though, Pearl Jam were still magic men and the public ate up anything they did. The fact that the album sported strong tracks like "Better Man" and "Tremor Christ" didn't hurt either.




Meanwhile, a band truly deserving of the accusations laid on Stone Temple Pilots, Live, put out their breakthrough album, Throwing Copper. One can draw a line through famous Eddie Vedder impersonators with diminishing returns: Scott Weiland -> Eddie Kowalczyk of Live -> Scott Stapp of Creed -> Nickelback. While I consider STP to be a greatly overlooked band, Live not so much (though I think their name is pretty clever).
This album, though, features some really good songs. And it was produced by Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, as if to single-handedly give it cred. Among those songs is "Selling The Drama," which hints un-rock-like to Kowalczyk's Christian leanings, and perrenial adult-contemporary favorite "Lightning Crashes," perhaps the only top-40 song to ever contain the word "placenta." For my money, though, the best song is the riveting starter, "The Dam at Otter Creek." In my favorite Vedder-impersonation to impersonate, you can hear Kowalczyk get fired up as he sings the lyrics, as if he can't wait to let loose in a Vedder-like howl: "took a dead man to the riivvvveerrrr...." The album hits it's silliest moment in the overwrought silliness of "Waitress," Kowalczyk's plea for tipping, due, inpart, to the fact that the waitress in question, though a bitch, "wore a funky dread in her hair." "Leave some change behind... some fucking chaayy-yee-ayyeeeyange!"




And lastly for this entry, Soundgarden put out Superunknown, a sprawling album that completely sums up the ambition and excitement of this period. It's hard to write with any objectivity about this album; when I got it for $6.00 in middle school it absolutely did my head in. Everything I try to write about it is just gushing - just to warn you.
Let me first state my problems with Soundgarden: Chris Cornell is one of those vocalists who has an amazing range, yet uses it on every song, thus eliminating subtlety and surprise. Likewise, Soundgarden could sound sludgier and heavier than almost any mainstream band, a fact they employed almost too often, making their music drag somewhat.
But, both of these facts are offset on Superunknown by the amazing versatility of the writing and the virtuosity of the playing. Unlike prog bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer or metal bands like Metallica, Soundgarden could play intricate, complicated songs without seeming to break a sweat. Charting time signatures while listening to this album is a real treat for me, nerd that I am. I love that even on singles like "My Wave" or "Spoonman" they make liberal use of 5/4 or 7/8 while making it sound natural and easy: almost unheard of elsewhere. I'm gushing again.
For Superunknown, Soundgarden's sound had also transformed into something new. Ben Shepherd's songs like "Half" and "Head Down" are almost unclassifiable, as are "4th of July," "Like Suicide" and "Black Hole Sun," though the latter's freshness has been dampened by years of radio overexposure.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to sound like an infomercial. I'll just end this entry by saying that any album with "Black Hole Sun," "Spoonman," "The Day I Tried to Live," "Fell On Black Days," and "My Wave" on it would be bound to be a classic. However, on Superunknown these singles are part of a much deeper portrait that, as this writing attests, is very personal to me. I love this album - it is a perfect example of the promise that grew out of grunge's death of something bigger and stranger.




Wow! It's really fun to write about albums that I like. Is it any fun to read about them? Is anyone reading about them? Did you find anything here that you liked? Hated? Leave me a comment, friends.
Next time - More '94, less "post-grunge" more "alternative."