687. Crowded House - Woodface (1991)

















Track Listing

1. Chocolate Cake
2. It's Only Natural
3. Fall At Your Feet
4. Tall Trees
5. Weather With You
6. Whispers And Moans
7. Four Seasons In One Day
8. There Goes God
9. Fame Is
10. All I Ask
11. As Sure As I Am
12. Italian Plastic
13. She Goes On
14. How Will You Go

Review

Ah! New Zealand's best... and the best album by them. Really if you like Crowded House, or you liked Split Enz before them, this is the essential album to have. Crowded House is in that vein of smart pop/rock that brought us Lloyd Cole and a number of bands from Scotland.

I really like it, it is not that challenging or anything, but it is smart, witty and has a couple of pretty great tracks, catchy music with brains. This is a rare thing, a good pop album which has had thought put behind it.

It might at times sounds a bit like generic 90s music, but that is partly because they helped define it, with their slightly retro Beatles influence and literate lyrics. A really good album in general and a truly great album in its genre.

Track Highlights

1. Four Seasons In One Day
2. Weather With You
3. Fall At Your Feet
4. Chocolate Cake

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Chocolate Cake" was released as the first single, and it sealed the fate of the band in America. The song was a humorous comment on American excesses. It failed to make the US singles chart. The album's second single, "Fall At Your Feet" fared a little better, but with lost momentum for the band it only reached #75.

The album sold well internationally. The immense success of this album particularly in the UK prompted the Queen in June 1993 to bestow the OBE upon Tim and Neil for their contribution to the music of New Zealand.

If you wonder why Chocolate Cake wasn't a hit in the US listen to the lyrics:

686. Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)

















Track Listing

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Drain You
9. Lounge Act
10. Stay Away
11. On A Plain
12. Something In The Way

Review

Now we come to the year that Punk broke, and there is no more appropriate album to start the year off than what is probably the most famous and instantly recognisable album of that decade, let alone that year.

Nevermind by Nirvana is one of those albums whose influence and importance is universally recognised, that most people will like but that I don't think many people listen to frequently anymore. It hasn't aged as well as it's importance would demand, but then this is true of most grunge.

That said it is a revolutionary album, not necessarily because it sounds very different than what came before, but because it propelled alternative rock into the mainstream like a rocket. From this album on charts would NEVER be the same... well at least until the mid-90s.

Track Highlights

1. In Bloom
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit
3. Come As You Are
4. Polly

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Nevermind not only popularized the Seattle grunge movement, but brought alternative rock as a whole into the mainstream, establishing its commercial and cultural viability. Nevermind's success surprised Nirvana's contemporaries, who felt dwarfed by its impact. Fugazi's Guy Picciotto later commented: "It was like our record could have been a hobo pissing in the forest for the amount of impact it had. [...] It felt like we were playing ukuleles all of a sudden because of the disparity of the impact of what they did". In 1992, Jon Pareles of The New York Times described that in the aftermath of the album's breakthrough, "Suddenly, all bets are off. No one has the inside track on which of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ornery, obstreperous, unkempt bands might next appeal to the mall-walking millions". Record company executives offered large advances and record deals to bands, and previous strategies of building audiences for alternative rock bands had been replaced by the opportunity to achieve mainstream popularity quickly.

Michael Azerrad argued in his Nirvana biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana (1993) that Nevermind marked the emergence of a generation of music fans in their twenties in a climate dominated by the musical tastes of the baby boomer generation that preceded them. Azerrad wrote, "Nevermind came along at exactly the right time. This was music by, for, and about a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored, or condescended to." Rolling Stone wrote in its entry for Nevermind on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, "No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation -- a nation of teens suddenly turned punk -- and such a catastrophic effect on its main creator."

In Bloom:

685. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1990)

















Track Listing

1. Only Shallow
2. Loomer
3. Touched
4. To Here Knows When
5. When You Sleep
6. I Only Said
7. Come In Alone
8. Sometimes
9. Blown A Wish
10. What You Want
11. Soon

Review

Right after Nowhere by Ride, we get another classic of Shoegaze, Loveless by MBV. Honestly, Loveless is in my opinion the only true classic of the genre. Yes, I have gotten comments saying that I was too harsh on Ride, but the whole genre is something that doesn't click particularly with me. This album is different, however.

Beyond the normal influences that Shoegaze draws on, this album has a recognisable Cocteau Twins influence, this is particularly obvious in the lyrics, even if, and also because, they are often drowning in the huge sound of the guitars.

It is the way these guitars fill your whole scope of hearing that make it such a cool album as well. Talk about wall of sound! The whole thing sounds like it is underwater, like a huge engine revving under the sea. In that sense the comparison to some of Eno's ambient music are not out of place as well, things here remind of Another Green World. If you must listen to one Shoegaze album make it this one.

Track Highlights

1. Only Shallow
2. To Here Knows When
3. When You Sleep
4. Sometimes

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Loveless's influence has grown with time, and the album has impacted a wide variety of other artists. Music critic Jim DeRogatis wrote in Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock that "the forward-looking sounds of this unique disc have positioned the band as one of the most influential and inspiring bands since the Velvet Underground." Brian Eno has praised the album and said, regarding the song "Soon", that "[i]t set a new standard for pop. It's the vaguest music ever to have been a hit." Robert Smith of The Cure discovered Loveless after a period of almost exclusively listening to "disco, or Irish bands like the Dubliners" as a means of avoiding his contemporaries, and said, "[My Bloody Valentine] was the first band I heard who quite clearly pissed all over us, and their album Loveless is certainly one of my all-time three favourite records. It's the sound of someone [Shields] who is so driven that they're demented. And the fact that they spent so much time and money on it is so excellent." Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins told Spin, "It's rare in guitar-based music that somebody does something new [...] At the time, everybody was like, 'How the fuck are they doing this?' And, of course, it's way simpler than anybody would imagine." Corgan later recruited Alan Moulder to co-produce the Pumpkins' album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995). Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who praised the album's musical diversity and production, also worked with Moulder on the third Nine Inch Nails studio album, The Fragile. Trey Anastasio of jam band Phish believed that "Loveless [was] the best album recorded in the '90s", and wanted his band to cover the album in its entirety for a Halloween show. Robert Pollard of indie rock band Guided by Voices acknowledged the album as a source of inspiration, noting, "Sometimes when I want to write lyrics, I'll listen to Loveless. Because of the way the vocals are buried, you can almost listen to the songs as if they're instrumental pieces." Loveless has also been said to have made a considerable influence on the career of British band Radiohead, particularly influencing the band's textured guitar sound. Instrumental band Japancakes covered the album in its entirety on Loveless (2007), replacing vocals with steel guitar and distortion with a clean sound.

Only Shallow:

684. Ride - Nowhere (1990)


















Track Listing

1. Seagull
2. Kaleidoscope
3. In a different place
4. Polar bear
5. Dreams burn down
6. Decay
7. Paralysed
8. Vapour trail

Review

Well here we have some shoegaze, that kind of music that existed just before Grunge and Brit-pop kicked it into oblivion. Thing is I like it generally better than Brit-pop but slightly less than Grunge... So it had its place, as a kind of development of the whole post-punk scene.

Nowhere, by Ride is a more mellow album than the more famous Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, It is, however not as great. There is more of a Smiths/Cure/Byrds influence here, making it more "ballady" and less like the big sprawl of distorted guitars in most Shoegaze albums.

This originality contributes to the fact that Ride does have its own sound, and that's fine. It is not, however, amazingly impressive. Nice enough and all but meh. Yes, meh.

Track Highlights

1. Paralysed
2. Seagull
3. Dreams Burn Down
4. Polar Bear

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The band name and title, visible in the image of the album, were added for the re-release. Originally the album cover had the band name in raised text in the location of the visible text and a raised album title in the lower right corner.

The album has recently checked in at number 39 on NME's '100 greatest British albums of all-time' list in 2006.

Seagull live:

683. Sonic Youth - Goo (1990)






















Track Listing

1. Dirty Boots
2. Tunic (Song For Karen)
3. Mary-Christ
4. Kool Thing
5. Mote
6. My Friend Goo
7. Disappearer
8. Mildred Pierce
9. Cinderella's Big Score
10. Scooter And Jinx
11. Titanium Expose

Review

So Sonic Youth sign up to a big label and go slightly more commercial. You can tell, however, that they didn't really sell out here. The shorter length of the tracks does not sound imposed, it sounds like a progression.

This progression, is, however, not necessarily good. Gone are the long suite-like collections of songs from Daydream Nation, it isn't as noisy, but it is much more accessible.

Actually Goo is one of the best entry points into Sonic Youth. It is more accessible without compromising their distinct sound, it is pretty good, even if it isn't their best effort and it has some pretty catchy tunes that would certainty prick up the interest of people unfamiliar with them.

Track Highlights

1. Kool Thing
2. Tunic (Song for Karen)
3. Titanium Expose
4. Dirty Boots

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover is a Raymond Pettibon illustration based on a paparazzi photo of Maureen Hindley and her first husband David Smith, witnesses in the case of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, driving to the trial in 1966.

The handwritten text reads, "I stole my sister's boyfriend. It was all whirlwind, heat, and flash. Within a week we killed my parents and hit the road."

Kool Thing: