734. Suede - Suede (1993)

Track Listing

1. So Young
2. Animal Nitrate
3. She's Not Dead
4. Moving
5. Pantomine Horse
6. Drowners
7. Sleeping Pills
8. Breakdown
9. Metal Mickey
10. Animal Lover
11. Next Life

Review

There is one word for this album... derivative. From both David Bowie (the piano on the first track is an almost direct lift from Aladdin Sane) and Morrissey (the modulations in the singing are almost identical in Moving for example). In the end it is never more than the sum of its parts... and because those parts are not original it becomes less that it's influences.

This is not to say that the album is not perfectly inoffensive, because it is. It's fine to listen to, quite catchy, quite fun... all of that, but it is also supremely unoriginal.

Of course this lack of originality would lead to the development of a lot of the Brit-pop movement and because of that it has also not aged particularly well. It is perfectly nice, but a bit uninspired and unoriginal... meh.

Track Highlights

1. Metal Mickey
2. The Next Life
3. Animal Nitrate
4. Pantomime Horse

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album's gender-ambiguous cover art provoked some controversy in the press, prompting Suede frontman Brett Anderson to comment, "I'm not really interested in being controversial. If we wanted to be controversial we'd have called the album I Fuck Dogs."

Metal Mickey at TOTP:

733. P.J. Harvey - Dry (1992)

Track Listing

1. Oh My Lover
2. O Stella
3. Dress
4. Victory
5. Happy and Bleeding
6. Sheela-Na-Gig
7. Hair
8. Joe
9. Plants and Rags
10. Fountain
11. Water

Review

Ms. Harvey has always been a cool lady, this album is no exception. She is a part of the great triumvirate of early 90s female singer-songwriters together with Tori Amos and Bjork. Fortunately and interestingly none of these are copies of each other or even in the same musical medium.

Harvey is very much in a rock idiom, but in a laid back, sultry but quite aggressive rock, which manages to be all these things at the same time. There is a feeling of repressed emotion just waiting to explode in all of the tracks in this album, this makes it actually pretty effective.

Unlike many albums of this time, including those by other female singer-songwriters, Harvey has aged like a good vintage, it does not sound out of place or badly aged in 2008, it sounds just right. If there is one word to actually define this album it is "cool", Harvey keeps the whole thing simmering just below boiling point in a way that really gets into you. At first it might even seem quite strange, but after repeated listening you'll want to add this to your library.

Track Highlights

1. Sheela-Na-Gig
2. O Stella
3. Plants And Rags
4. Dress

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Speaking to Filter magazine in 2004, Harvey said of her debut album: "Dry is the first chance I ever had to make a record and I thought it would be my last. So, I put everything I had into it. It was a very extreme record. It was a great joy for me to be able to make it. I never thought I'd have that opportunity, so I felt like I had to get everything on it as well as I possibly could, because it was probably my only chance. It felt very extreme for that reason."

Sheela-Na-Gig:

732. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Devotional Songs (1992)

Track Listings

1. Allah Hoo Allah Hoo
2. Yaad E Nabi Gulshan Mehka
3. Haq Ali Ali Haq
4. Ali Maula Ali Maula Ali Dam Dam
5. Mast Nazroon Se Allah Bachhae
6. Ni Main Jogi De Naal

Review

I have heard plenty of Qawwali, in fact my third year dissertation at university was on the Qawwali songs of the Nizamuddin Auliya in Pakistan. That leads me to two conclusions when listening to this album, firstly it is quite pleasant and all nice music, secondly it is a terrible adulteration of what Qawwali is all about.

Qawwali is a distinctly Sufi music style that is meant to lead the worshipper to an almost spiritual ecstasy in remembrance of God, it is usually performed with drums (table or dholak) and harmoniums. What the fuck is the little flamenco guitar doing here? It simply does not belong. Also why is Nusrat's voice so prominent, Qawwali usually has a much more even distribution of vocal parts, but here star power matters.

This has led me to a conclusion about much of the "World Music" included on this list. It's an imperialist music list, the only "World Music" deemed acceptable is that which has been appropriately westernised. It seems to hard to accept other musical cultures for what they are: foreign, demanding of some effort by the listener to approach them, some understanding. The list simply opts for what meets the Western listener midway. The thing is, in this case, the Qawwali is ruined, there is none of the religious fervour of the original, none of the excitement and spontaneous joy that you get if you ever saw Qawwali live. This is a studio album, Qawwali is not studio music, it is performance music. I would recommend you get some authentic field recordings of Qawwali. In fact I would recommend this instead.

This is still good, but it is so adulterated it annoys the shit out of me.

Track Highlights

1. Allah Hoo Allah Hoo

2. Haq Ali Ali Haq

3. Ali Maula Ali Maula Ali Dam Dam

4. Ni Main Jogi De Naal

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Nusrat reached out to Western audiences through his collaborations with Canadian musician, Michael Brook and his work with Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder in 1995 on the soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. He went on to gain popularity in the West through his contributions to the soundtracks of The Last Temptation of Christ and Natural Born Killers, together with his friendship with Peter Gabriel. Nusrat was unhappy with the use of his vocals on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, stating that the nature of the film was contrary to the beliefs and the ideals conveyed in his work.

As you see here Nusrat could do it properly as well, takes around 20 minutes to play a song, uses harmoniums, no guitar and only kicks in at 6 minutes 30:

Allah hoo, part 1:



Part 2:

731. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Henry's Dream (1992)

Track Listing

1. Papa Won't Leave You Henry
2. I Had A Dream Joe
3. Straight To You
4. Brother My Cup Is Empty
5. Christina The Astonishing
6. When I First Came To Town
7. John Finns' Wife
8. Loom Of The Land
9. Jack The Ripper

Review

Now, there are some four Nick Cave albums on the list, if you are not counting the Birthday Party album. This means that he is woefully under-represented, unlike Morrissey for example. I am the school that claims that his whole discography, with the possible exception of Nocturama should be here. I am particularly vexed with the absence of Let Love In or Tender Prey from the list.

All that said this is a fucking great album, not only are the songs great but the whole thing is extremely cohesive, there is a guiding line through the whole thing, even if the songs are about different things Cave just manages to imbue them with a sense of retro-nightmare that makes them unarguably part of the same work.

Nick Cave is quite brilliant at creating these albums which while not being quite concept-albums feel like musical numbers in a longer story, here the feel is a bit dust-bowl, early thirties America, without actually explicitly making any musical or lyrical references to it, it just feels it. So yeah, the man is a genius, most of his albums are damn near perfect and he still keeps putting out outstanding work, not only with the Bad Seeds but also with Grinderman. Plus he is a great screenwriter and novelist, And The Ass Saw The Angel is the best work of fiction to come out of Australia since... well... ever! I am a Nick Cave fanboy and proud of it... although he scares me a bit.

Track Highlights

1. Christina the Astonishing
2. Straight To You
3. Papa Won't Leave You Henry
4. John Finn's Wife

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

There are possible references to John Berryman's series of poems The Dream Songs, which logs the dreams of the protagonist Henry. This album remains a big favourite amongst Bad Seeds fans, although Nick Cave himself was reportedly unhappy with the production by David Briggs. Briggs preferred a "live-in-the-studio" method he had used with Neil Young. This led to Cave and Harvey re-mixing the album, and ultimately to the Live Seeds recordings, as Cave wanted the songs "done justice". It was the first album to feature long-standing members Martyn P. Casey (bass) and Conway Savage (piano, organ), both Australian. The latter is a singer-songwriter in his own right and has contributed distinctive backing vocals to a handful of Bad Seeds songs; here he and Cave deliver a rousing duet in the chorus of 'When I First Came To Town'. The album is considered by some to have a vague "concept", i.e. song narratives overlapping and/or sharing characters.

Straight To You:

730. Alice In Chains - Dirt (1992)

Track Listing

1. Them Bones
2. Dam That River
3. Rain When I Die
4. Sick Man
5. Rooster
6. Junkhead
7. Dirt
8. God Smack
9. Hate To Feel
10. Angry Chair
11. Down In A Hole
12. Would

Review

I could write this review in one line: like Pearl Jam but more metally. But that would be cheating my lovely subscribers off their well earned subscription money. What's that? You don't pay anything? What is this? A charity?

Like Pearl Jam but more metally. (see Pearl Jam - Ten review)

Track Highlights

1. Them Bones
2. Would
3. Junkhead
4. Rooster

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Dirt was the band's breakout album. Upon its release in September 1992, Dirt peaked at number 6 on the Billboard's Top 200 album chart. Dirt was released the same day as Stone Temple Pilots' debut album Core, another successful grunge album. The album granted Alice in Chains international recognition. Dirt was certified 4x Platinum status in the United States and platinum status in Canada and Gold status in the UK.

Them Bones: