786. Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters (1995)

Track Listing

1. This Is A Call
2. I'll Stick Around
3. Big Me
4. Alone + Easy Target
5. Good Grief
6. Floaty
7. Weenie Beenie
8. Oh, George
9. For All The Cows
10. X-Static
11. Wattershed
12. Exhausted

Review

So Cobain is dead, and bucking the cliché that drummers are terrible musicians Dave Grohl publishes an album where everything is done by him. He writes, composes and plays every fucking instrument in this album in what is a pretty impressive display of talent.

And it is an impressive display because the album is actually really good, and it isn't just using the Nirvana formula, although there is an obvious influence. The album veers closer to a pop sensibility,Grohl is a cheerier sort of fellow, and that is actually pretty good.

Avoiding the maudlin content of Nirvana, Grohl gives us a varied collection of music, from the great pop of Big Me to the harder than Nirvana I'll Stick Around to the noise of Wattershed, and all the tracks work great. Nifty!

Track Highlights

1. Big Me
2. This Is a Call
3. Exhausted
4. For All the Cows

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Nearly all of the album's instrumental parts are performed by Dave Grohl. (The lone exception is a guitar part on "X-Static" provided by Afghan Whigs member Greg Dulli, with whom Grohl had performed as part of an all-star band on the 1994 Backbeat soundtrack.)

The gun featured on the cover is the "XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol," which was originally released in 1935 as a tie-in toy for the Buck Rogers comic strip and radio show. The guns were originally manufactured by Daisy, best known for their line of youth BB guns, and today remain sought-after collector's items.

The cover was shot by Grohl's then-wife, photographer Jennifer Youngblood, and, like the name of his band, reflects his interest in science fiction.

Big Me:

785. Green Day - Dookie (1994)

Track Listing

1. Burnout
2. Having A Blast
3. Chump
4. Longview
5. Welcome To Paradise
6. Pulling Teeth
7. Basket Case
8. She
9. Sassafras Roots
10. When I Come Around
11. Coming Clean
12. Emenius Sleepus
13. In The End
14. FOD

Review

Well, this is another enjoyable new-punk album. Just like Offspring's Smash! it is a bit of fun more than anything, what punk has lost in terms of meaningful message it has won in sheer attractiveness to a mainstream audience.

You could of course say that this is a betrayal of punk principles, and you might be right, although if you identify punk with the Sex Pistols you should also be aware that they were no more than a glorified boy band.

So I enjoy this, I enjoy it because it brings back memories, because it is unpretentious, even if there is a bit of a put on British accent to it, and I enjoy it because it shows that this new-punk didn't start off as completely shit, which it then became. They are clearly being influenced by the Buzzcocks here, but hey the Buzzcocks were the punk band with the catchiest songs, so it is only natural that in this punk-pop it would be a major influence.

Track Highlights

1. When I Come Around
2. Basket Case
3. Long View
4. Burnout

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was well received by some critics, with Allmusic describing Dookie as "a stellar piece of modern punk that many tried to emulate but nobody bettered". In 1994, Time claimed Dookie as the third best album of the year, but the best rock album of 1994. The New York Times, in early 1995, described the sound of Dookie as, "Punk turns into pop in fast, funny, catchy, high-powered songs about whining and channel-surfing; apathy has rarely sounded so passionate."

However, many other music critics, and even some other mainstream bands, claimed the band had sold out for signing to a major label, and called them "watered down punk imposters". The New York Times, while complementary on the album's overall quality, noted that Dookie's pop sound only remotely resembled punk music. The band did not respond initially to these comments, but later claimed that they were "just trying to be themselves" and that "it's our band, we can do whatever we want". Dirnt claimed that the follow up album, Insomniac, one of the band's hardest albums lyrically and musically, was the band releasing their anger at all the criticism from critics and former fans.

When I Come around:

784. The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation (1994)

Track Listing

1. Intro
2. Break And Enter
3. Their Law
4. Full Throttle
5. Voodoo People
6. Speedway
7. Heat (The Energy)
8. Poison
9. No Good (Start The Dance)
10. One Love
11. 3 Kilos
12. Skylined
13. Claustrophobic Sting


Review

Ahhh, The Prodigy, many memories. If you compare this to other popular electronic groups around at the time there is an immediate difference, this is much more hard driving music.

There are good and bad things about this album. Let's get the good first, it is nearly perfect dance music, the rhythm is so accurate that even if consciously dislike the music it is hard to keep your head from rocking to it while you listen, in this sense it is exciting music.

The bad things about it are that is is definitely too long, not only as an album, but some of the tracks are long to the degree of distraction, this makes the album something good to have on at your apocalyptic rave party, as you don't have to change it, but it is not something to listen to at home, really. Then at moments it is very dated, to the point that you are almost embarrassed that you are listening to it, all this makes the album sound very tacky at moments.



Track Highlights

1. Poison
2. Voodoo People
3. Break and Enter
4. Their Law

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover of the inner artwork of the record was analysed in an article published in 2008 in the techno underground Magazine Datacide. The author compares the picture with a persiflage which was published in 2003 on the Kid606 album Kill sound before sound kills you. The article not only describes the representation of Raves in graphic artwork but also describes the marketing strategy of the band with the album and criticises it from a marxian point of view:

'With the picture The Prodigy are taking a stance in the conflict of ravers versus the police in those days. At the same time this statement is used to market a rebellious attitude. The picture is part of the artwork of a record - which is of course a commodity. The teenage (and male) consumer ought to identify himself with the presented rebellion. With the help of the artwork a certain image of The Prodigy is established: They should be seen as anti-stars, who define themselves through refusal and opposition(...)'

Poison:

783. Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral (1994)

Track Listing

1. Mr Self Destruct
2. Piggy
3. Heresy
4. March Of The Pigs
5. Closer
6. Ruiner
7. Becoming
8. I Do Not Want This
9. Big Man With A Gun
10. Warm Place
11. Eraser
12. Reptile
13. Downward Spiral
14. Hurt

Review

This album is interesting, it marries the industrial noise of Einstruzende Neubaten with pop sensibilities to bridge the gap between industrial and mainstream music. It is actually pretty successful in that attempt, some might say too successful.

I would agree that it is almost too successful in bridging that gap, because really it is not a gap that really needs bridging. The album ends up, therefore, sounding like it is afraid to commit to an unpopular music style in order to appeal to a larger audience. This is also known as the "sell-out".

So what I am saying here is that this isn't hard enough! Or soft-enough, it's there in the middle somewhere. You will often be excited at the noise only to be bombarded with a slow musical moment or you'll be enjoying the melody just to be blitzed by noise. Some track present a better mix than others, Closer is a great track, but the video for it is better. So yes, it is interesting, but not that amazing.

Track Highlights

1. Closer
2. Hurt
3. Piggy
4. The Downward Spiral

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Reznor made a statement about working in the Tate house during a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone:

While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: 'Are you exploiting my sister's death by living in her house?' For the first time, the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, 'No, it's just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I'm in this place where a weird part of history occurred.' I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don't want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, 'What if it was my sister?' I thought, 'Fuck Charlie Manson.' I went home and cried that night. It made me see there's another side to things, you know?

Closer video, NSFW:

782. Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)

Track Listing

1. About A Girl
2. Come As You Are
3. Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam
4. The Man Who Sold The World
5. Pennyroyal Tea
6. Dumb
7. Polly
8. On A Plain
9. Something In The Way
10. Plateau
11. Oh Me
12. Lake Of Fire
13. All Apologies
14. Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Review

One can only imagine how pissed off MTV was that Nirvana's Unplugged included only one hit in Come as You Are and 6 covers of bands not particularly attractive to its audience. An early David Bowie track, one from the almost unknown to the mainstream Vaselines, three from the equally unknown Meat Puppets and another one from blues legend Leadbelly.

Well, if they were miffed fuck them. This is heads and shoulders above any other Nirvana album, and this is not only for its mythical status as a posthumous album, a last will and testament of Cobain, but because all the tracks in it are consummate live performances.

It always raises the spectre of what Nirvana with Cobain could have become, the direction seems to be clear not only from the covers but also from the twist given to their own tracks. The album never flags, Cobain shows a depth of feeling in his performance unlike anything he did before. A great live album.

Track Highlights

1. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
2. Man Who Sold The World
3. Plateau
4. Lake of Fire

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:


The band dedicated two days to rehearsals. The rehearsal sessions were tense and difficult, with the band running into problems performing various songs. During the sessions, Cobain disagreed with MTV as to how the performance should be presented. Producer Alex Coletti recollected that the network was unhappy with the band's choice of the Meat Puppets as guests ("They wanted to hear the 'right' names-Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos or God knows who", Coletti recalled) and the dearth of hit Nirvana songs on the setlist. Upset, the day before filming was set to take place Cobain refused to play. However, he appeared at the studio the following afternoon. Cobain was suffering from drug withdrawal and nervousness at the time; one observer said, "There was no joking, no smiles, no fun coming from him . . . Therefore, everyone was more than a little worried about his performance."

Where Did You Sleep Last Night? :