After that sunk in, we both thought for a moment and decided to challenge ourselves by coming up with ten records from the nineties that were not only good, but at least mostly main stream and relevant to the growth of popular music. Basically, "Was it a record that most people were familiar with?" and "Did the record leave its thumbprint on the years to follow by shaping a new genre or at least inventing something that was picked up and used with any frequency by subsequent artists?" These are the records I could come up with. I'll intersperse one of these in between every couple of "mystery cd" posts, in no particular order, to keep things interesting.
1. "Grace" by Jeff Buckley.
Quite possibly the best record of the decade. Make no mistake though, this album is a two man show. Polished to an understated sheen by the masterful ear of Andy Wallace, Jeff's compositional skill could never have been so perfectly realized without him. That fact is clearly evidenced by the pothumous release "Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk". Listen to both back to back and the differences are glaringly obvious. Jeff was a wildly talented individual, but he needed Andy's guiding to reach the perfection that is Grace. The songs seem to flow organically from some distant idea, rather than from a person, and Mr. Wallace knows exactly how to not only capture that mood, but to focus and direct it for the listener. For a certainty, this is one for the ages.
3 comments:
You really got me thinking with this post. Hmm. Grunge = redneck music for people who hate country? I don't know. I can't say I'd ever thought of it that way.
As for 90's music that fits your criteria, I feel that's also difficult to measure without delving into subjectivity. Is Sonic Youth's Goo better than Stereolab's Dots and Loops, or vice versa? Is Bjork great, or just good? Musically, I have trouble boxing up the 90s. If I went through my iTunes collection by year, I'm sure I could find at least twenty albums that I think are great. I don't know. I think this is an interesting project. I just didn't know about your strong opinions on grunge. Which bands, specifically? Is Helmet grunge? That one album from 1992 (I think) has some pretty good songs. Anyway, I'd like to hear more about why you think grunge is redneck music for people who don't like country.
Also, nice review on the Jeff Buckley. I really enjoy reading your blog and hope some of my readers will click on your link from my blog roll.
It's like this: Grunge was the polar opposite of anything precise, or musical. That was mainly the point. Much like Punk being a direct retort to disco. The musical climate just before grunge consisted pretty much of acts like Motley Crue, or Skid Row. Nirvana wanted be able to just bash out some songs without all the pomp and circumstance. The generalization I'm making is about the target audience of something "dumbed down". What kind of people would actually like something like that? Not quite Rednecks, but the average white suburban equivalent. Why do you think Grunge exploded out of the Northwest? We aren't cowboys out here, but we sure wanted our own down-home, dirty music genre.
As for the criteria of the 10 I've selected, they have to be well produced, well performed and have had a significant impact on subsequent music. Grunge was a fad. There are no more Grunge records being made, immediately disqualifying it from my list. Also, I'm only picking 10 that I like particularly well. These are not what I consider to be the "10 Best Nineties Records Ever", that would be a tough list, and sadly, it would have to include Radiohead's "OK Computer" against my better judgement.
As for Helmet, no, they are not grunge. Page Hamilton has a vast chord vocabulary, and what appears to be a natural ear for composition. In essense, the point of Helmet was tight, explosive song writing. Quite the opposite of what the whole Grunge movement was all about. Sadly, though, Helmet won't make it onto my list. They were post-Tool (who are on my list), and it shows in a big way, meaning that they were influenced after the fact by a Nineties band who started something new. Disqualified! A great band nonetheless. Thanks for the constructive input, and good (really good) call on Bjork, by the way.
Enjoyed reading your comment. To me, it underscores what I often think is a "truth" about music from any era--namely, that the musical output from any year or decade is going to defy categorization once you get to a certain level. What is meant when one says "'90s music"? The more I think about it, the more I realize that what came out in the 90s, like any era, really, is much too diverse to pigeonhole. Look at the bands/artists we've mentioned so far in our comments: Radiohead, Helmet, Tool, Bjork, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Stereolab. All made music in the 90s, and it's all really different. Reading your analysis, I realize how temporal grunge really was. I hear more substance in Nirvana than you appear to, mostly melodically because I think Kurt Cobain wrote good melodies. To me, one measure of a good song is if you can rework it and use it in another genre. For me, that's jazz. The Bad Plus already proved that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" works in as piano trio, and even Herbie Hancock covered "All Apologies" from In Utero (their best record, in my opinion).
As for OK Computer, though I've soured on its depressing vibe over the years, there's still some great songwriting on it, melodically and harmonically, and several jazz musicians have covered numerous tunes from it. Not that that's a litmus test or anything, but I think it's an indication of its musicality. I mean, do you think "Paranoid Android" is good songwriting or not? I do.
Enjoying talking with you about this stuff.
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