1992 – What a crazy year. Grunge was still in full swing,
alternative music was officially mainstream, hair metal was barely hanging on
by its glitter painted fingernails, new school R&B was flooding the charts and
country music had established itself as the most popular genre in the, er,
country.
In my world, a field day was being had by artists who had
spent the previous decade teetering on the brink between obscure poverty and
rock star glory, as gawky, awkward “freaks” were now on big time magazine
covers, mentioned on the news and even brought up by my parents (my dad, “You
like this Stipe character?”). Meanwhile, I was having my own personal identity
crisis over it, because the music that had been “mine” (shared of course with a
few “knowing” others) was now out there for everyone to fondle, abuse and then
throw back onto the rubbish pile.
I still haven’t quite recovered.
Also, this was a big year for me because I graduated high
school, moved from Florida to Nashville/started college and never looked back.
Twenty years later I’m back from Nashville, I’ve lived a lifetime of ups and
downs, and tons of the music I took with me at the time has stayed with me,
including many albums that I’m not naming here because JT and I agreed to only
five. But look up a list of albums of 1992 and you’ll see the best of the best,
the biggest of the best and the best of the biggest. Something like that…
Here are JT's thoughts on the year that was 1992...
Disclaimer-
1991/92 were the years when I first REALLY started listening to music. I had
always been a fan and went through many phases (New Edition or Hair Metal,
anyone?), but if I had to lock down one period when I came into my own musically,
this would be the time...so having said that, my initial list of from 1992 was
nearly twenty albums long, so what I decided to do was list the albums that I
still listen to on a regular basis...no disrespect to so many albums that meant
so much to me (and still do), but we set this up as a list of five albums and I’m
sticking with that theme...so here goes nothing....
~THE
LIST~
Lemonheads- It’s A Shame About Ray
As
previously stated, I am a fan of pop music and this album is one of the, if not the,
best pop albums ever recorded. Coming in under 30 minutes, there isn’t a wasted
second anywhere to be found as Evan Dando and company tear through 12 songs (13
if you were unlucky enough to have a copy that included their boring cover of
Mrs. Robinson) of frantic, beautiful and perfect pop songs.
Morrissey- Your Arsenal
Thanks
to the brilliance of some of Morrissey’s wittiest lyrics and the fantastic Alain
Whyte composed music, what sounds like a complete trainwreck (Morrissey +
Rockabilly Band) turned out to be one of the finest moments of Morrissey’s post-Smiths career.
Dr. Dre- The Chronic
Even
the brilliance of Dre’s work with NWA couldn’t have prepared anyone for the
onslaught that was The Chronic. This album changed the direction of rap music
from the likes of Kris Kross & Vanilla Ice and helped pave the way for
gangsta rap to break into the mainstream. Mother-effer, he’s Dre...and after
this album no one would forget it.
The Judybats- Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite
Dishes Grow
Southern
boys doing British inspired pop music...what’s not to love? (See previous blog
post on the Judybats entire catalog for more information:
http://guesswhatimlisteningto.blogspot.com/2011/05/judybatin-with-jt.html)
Tori Amos- Little Earthquakes
In
1992 I was listening to a lot of punk music...the Sex Pistols, Minor Threat,
Buzzcocks, The Ramones...and while on the surface a ‘pretty’ piano based album
seems super far removed from that, Little Earthquakes is lyrically one of the
best punk albums to come out in the 1990s. Tori was pissed and wasn’t afraid to
tell us all about it. Opening with the beautiful “Crucify,” Tori tells us,
”Every finger in the room is pointing at me I wanna spit in their faces,” and
doesn’t let up until she’s ‘laughing in the faces of kings...never afraid to
burn” on the album closer “Little Earthquakes.” How’s that for punk?
And now for my five picks, again, so many to choose from, but there can only be five in the end...
Ride – Going Blank Again: While Nowhere may be their
“greatest” album and the “second greatest” of the shoegaze genre, for me Going
Blank Again is the money. It’s meatier, edgier and rougher than Nowhere,
ultimately completely different, replacing fragile beauty with a brash,
open-faced swagger that still manages to evoke an exact tenderness, especially
on tunes like Time Machine and the sweeping Cool Your Boots. And then there are
the rockers, virtually every other song, that kick and punch with an angsty
exuberance, though not with intent of violence or mayhem, simply calling
attention to a thought or a situation, which gives the fragmented, sometimes
misplaced sounding lyrics more weight. This makes Going Blank Again an
immediate and fun listen, an excellent background sing-a-long and toe-tapper,
and has been a road companion of mine for over fifteen years. This album was
largely overlooked in the States, and I didn’t chance upon it until about 3 or
4 years later, but catching up on lost time has been well worth the (non)
effort.
Judybats – Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes
Grow: Well, JT and I both covered this album awhile back, but I again can’t
express enough the importance of this band and album on my late teen life, from
connecting with fellow J-Bat fans-becoming-friends to the fantastic music
itself. Here the JBs toned down the overt British leanings of Native Son,
leaving just enough to give their more fully embraced Americana jangle a little
extra slink and groove. The melodies are infectious, the performances are exciting
and the lyrics flat out brilliant – tender, sarcastic and sometimes so clever
they’re borderline stand up comedy. Certainly the highpoint of their catalog, I
still can’t help but wonder if this was the best that the Judybats could offer or, if label circumstances hadn’t pushed them into an adult contemporary
quandary, merely the hint at something better yet to come. I like
to think the latter, even if that frustrates and depresses me, and yet Down in
the Shacks remains a stellar release from an underrated band coming from an unlikely and overlooked source…the heart of Tennessee.
Sonic Youth – Dirty: Though not their “big time” debut,
Dirty is a deserved breakthrough record. Since EVOL or so they had already been
cultivating their scattered noise into something more pop melodic, if not
straightforward accessible, and this is the payoff – a blend of feedback, song
craft and “proper studio” clarity that brings all the best things about SY to
the fore. We get menace (Swimsuit Issue), demented fun (100%) and eerie beauty
(Wish Fulfillment) all in the first half of the record, and those ideas repeat
throughout, making Dirty a very cohesive and focused listen. While not as
maligned as Goo (which is ridiculous, because there are loads of classics to be
found on that one), Dirty still has its set of detractors, but I maintain that
if you listen to just about anything else that came out in 1992, you’ll be hard
pressed to find anything at all like Dirty, and those albums that do (I’m not naming
names) were already reading from the Sonic Youth notebook. Raucously-slick,
chaotically-controlled, punky-pop, all these polar reactions mesh well together
and give Sonic Youth a real classic, one that I prefer over any and every other
SY album, which is probably 25% nostalgia, but the rest is good, wholesome
rock, the way Uncle Thurston and Mama Kim (and cousins Lee and Steve) intended
it.
Morrissey – Your Arsenal: This album (along with Sonic
Youth’s Dirty and Shudder to Think’s Get Your Goat) defines the summer of 1992,
my summer between high school and college, spending every second I could with
friends before heading off to TN. We listened to this album daily. Constantly.
The irony? While I was a rabid Smiths fan, I detested Morrissey solo. And there’s
a whole saga in there between myself and JT, but now is not the time to delve
into that. At any rate, the fact that this album was able to rise above my
disdain and be “the one I like” when I would listen to no other, I guess shows
a bit of merit. And truly, this is a fantastic set of songs, some of Moz’s best
melodies and lyrics, tackling all the social, political and relationship topics
that he was known and adored for with both wit and wisdom – even if some of it
was over our US-oriented heads (National Front Disco). This is Morrissey’s
first album with longtime writing partner Alain Whyte, and the
first to have a truly “modern” sound in the sense that all the telling 80s
production was fully stripped away by producer Mick Ronson, whose barebones
rock’n’roll approach incorporates folkly balladry, glam stomp and a bit of
rockabilly flare; something not completely unheard of in his Smiths days, but
lacking in his initial solo output. But while the music provides a certain
urgency, Morrissey is extremely comfortable, leading the rampage with relaxed
finesse, spewing his venom with grace and style and not an ounce of spittle,
letting the melodies and words and his excellent voice do the work in a smooth,
effortless flow that, when pulsing through the speakers, is positively
breathtaking.
10,000 Maniacs – Our Time in Eden: Once upon a time I loved
a girl named Natalie… I think I’ve said here before that I’m over Natalie
Merchant, which is partly a personal “grudge” and partly I’m just not digging
her vibe these days. However, a good album is a good album, and when that album
is Our Time in Eden, that means a great and nearly flawless album. All the potential
that was evident on releases like In My Tribe and Blind Man’s Zoo, and songs
like Eat for Two and Like the Weather, came to fruition here. This album was
produced and primed to break 10KM into the heavens, and it pretty much did…if only
the lower reaches. Honestly, it should have shot them into the stratosphere
alongside Automatic for the People, Achtung Baby and other huge alt-albums of
that time, because note for note and lyric for lyric, this is a fantastic set
of moody, vibrant, heartfelt songs, delivered as only Natalie Merchant could
(note, not can), with mumbled
elegance, with modest grace and with a purposed aloofness that, surrounded in
the swirling, dancing blur that was her stage persona, was the ultimate in
early 90s alternative chic. And even if the radio-ready production is a bit
glossy, and some of the arrangements a bit predictable and stiff (the Unplugged
version of Jezebel blows the album’s verse-rock-verse set up out of the water),
the songs themselves not only shine in spite, but as a result of this
production, and track after track of undeniable winners make some of the more
“telling” aspects of the times, plus a couple of weaker numbers (oh Circle
Dream, why do you exist?), as forgivable as they are forgettable. Our Time in
Eden was a perfect launching pad for Merchant’s solo career, and easily the
high point of the band, which would have been likely even had she stayed on as
lead vocalist, because lightning rarely strikes twice with this kind of precision.
If you only purchase one 10,000 Maniacs album, make it Our Time in Eden; and if
you purchase two, make the other the Campfire Songs compilation to get an idea
of what brought them to their fullest potential.
These are simply our thoughts and opinions, so if you've got some faves or 92, shout 'em out!
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