1995. 09. 'the great escape' - blur

so, so much has been written about this album over the years that there's probably very little i can add... i agree that it gets suburban life very, very right -- i used to live in a house, a very big house, in the 'country' for years before i got so fed up with the sameness of it all that i came to live in a house, a very small house, in the city... i've worried about the size of my behind, and all those age lines, and made peace with my ageing body and my humdrum life... and this album says it -- straightforwardly, snarlingly, snidely, sincerely... this albarn chap knows from whence he speaks...

at the time, i didn't appreciate the lyricism fully -- i was a long way from suburbia, living in urban manchester and sheffield where pulp and oasis were more the order of the day... this sounded like a dissatisfied millionaire sending up his own existence with more of that 'we're smarter down south' nonsense that i wanted to torch at every turn... and indeed, they were dissatisfied millionaires... but sometimes, when they were out gallivanting with banksy and keith allen and damien hirst, they weren't... and i was agitated that so much of this ripped off the kinks and the specials... but now i can live with that...

really, overall, this album is exactly what i read in an interview with damon albarn a few years back when blur were having a reunion do -- it's messy... 'modern life is rubbish' and 'parklife' were so spot on that, of the trilogy, this is the longest and most redundant to listen to... but it has gems -- besides the singles, 'top man' will have you thinking of every footballer you can think of, and 'mr robinson's quango' could be retitled 'mr robinson's super-PAC' for US listeners right now and still hold relevance... and the heartbreaking last song, 'yuko and hiro' can make you cry -- when you love someone, but you just have to say goodbye...

if you have time, listen... it was one of the most intriguing albums of 1995... but approach with caution -- it's kinda all over the place, a little fascinated with that power world that we all thought we were a part of (but later found out we weren't) when tony blair took office, and in some cases derivative... 'parklife' would still be the recommendation for the newbie...

1994. 09. 'music for the jilted generation' - the prodigy

really, really hadn't heard this album in 18 years... must say, i was pleasantly surprised... i enjoyed it -- i liked the menace in the music... it was there, clearly, without being so overt that you wanted to scream 'get over it' at the nearest wall... 'poison' is still probably my favorite of their songs -- i remember it being on some free sampler that either i had or my lord jce's brother had -- next to a song by therapy?, which makes me giggle -- so lots of memories of being out in england just enjoying the scene...

fewer vocals than 'fat of the land' -- no 'firestarter' keith flint screaming here -- but to me, more powerful... this is what breakbeat sounded like when it was still indie... by the time we were smacking all our bitches up, the lager boys in ted baker -- before they grew up and became chavs -- were already listening, and it wasn't fun anymore... put it on and dance, dance, dance...

1993. 09. 'become what you are' - juliana hatfield three

i'll give juliana hatfield this -- she can write a decent hook... she can also write a pretty crap lyric, but then, so can we all... but this album -- and it is the personification of dated, with an attempt at grungy guitars interwoven with all the precursors to that horribly derivative 'i'm just a girl' no doubt nonsense and the worst of the lilith fair cliches -- is just aimless... i'm sure it sounded all cool and trendy back in 1993, when you couldn't turn a corner without hearing 'my sister' anywhere, everywhere... but now?  well, the album is just saggy, of its time and not really irksome one way or another...

i see from the interwebs that she's still out there making music... good on her for doing what she apparently loves, but this, i'm afraid is just going to remain to me another average album from 1993.  between 'my sister', her maybe relationship with evan dando, and the early blake babies stuff she did, i've dug deep enough... no need to get any closer...

1992. 09. 'harvest moon' - neil young

i have to be in the mood for this record, and luckily, today, it was just what i needed... today, i found the personal lyrics soothing instead of maudlin... today, i found the instrumentation melodic instead of anodyne... and today, i truly appreciated the beauty of 'war of man' and 'natural beauty', which i always like regardless of which neil young mood i'm in... because sometimes, i want screaming anger -- 'ragged glory' or 'rust never sleeps' style... sometimes, i want storytelling, like 'after the gold rush'... sometimes, i want jadedness, like 'tonight's the night'... and this is why neil young is one of my favorite artists -- because over the years, he's never been afraid to try something different, to create what he believes at that time, at that point in his life, is the statement he needs to make to stay sane... i guess you'd call it not compromising -- i call it true artistry...

i saw neil young tour for his 'greendale' album a few years ago... i knew that he was performing the whole album with a stage show included, but i suppose a lot of the audience didn't... people yelled, people screamed, people left -- and lots more of the people who stayed were pissed as all get out when he came back on for a one 'greatest hits' song encore, played a decent version of 'like a hurricane', and we were done... he had a new album -- a concept album no less -- that he wanted to tour... that's his right... and that's why i respect him so much... it would be so damn easy to cash in, have everyone do a 'heart of gold' or 'down by the river' singalong, pretend like he was still in his 20s, and walk away with tons of cash and no artistic satisfaction... so long may he run -- because there are fewer and fewer artists with his integrity every day...

1991. 09. 'loveless' - my bloody valentine

i remember first hearing my bloody valentine on WMNF's old 'underground circus' show... they played a song off of the EP 'glider', so it must have been 1990 or 1991, before 'loveless' came out... i remember buying the cassette at turtles records in carrollwood... i listened to it a whole lot -- way back when, i was pretty heavy into shoegaze... my bloody valentine, ride, EARLY verve ('storm in heaven' and not 'urban hymns'), spiritualized and lush were probably my favourite pure shoegaze bands... and of all of those records and all of that music, there are really only three of those albums i still listen to regularly -- 'nowhere' by ride, 'lazer guided melodies' by spiritualized, and this album...

there's something i find incredibly beautiful and relaxing about the degree to which the music on 'loveless' is distorted -- it's warped and bent in a surreal way that makes you question just what a note or a chord can sound like... it's like the musical form of silly putty to me or like when you're tripping (sorry, yes, i did just admit to doing LSD as a teenager and 20something -- hope i never have to run for president) and objects seem to bend around the edges, or drip but not fall... i suppose to other people, this album would sound like noise or feedback or something so questioning of linear, clear notes that they wouldn't enjoy it... that to me, it's the pinnacle of so many albums i listened to at an odd intersection of my life, well, that makes it my own private treasure...

john, thanks for bearing with all of those mix tapes that may have included 'only shallow', 'when you sleep', and 'blown a wish' probably 1000 times over... i'd still put them on a mix tape for you today...

1990. 09. 'songs for drella' - lou reed/john cale

i hadn't listened to this record in many years -- a shame for me... but i'll make sure that i have a copy at all times in the future so that when someone asks me who andy warhol really was or why we care about him at all, i'll have an oral history account of just why warhol is still, to me, the quintessential definition of the 20th century american artist.  nothing defines post-war american culture to me better than crass, conspicuous consumerism -- and if warhol's art succeeds in nothing else at all, it's elevating, celebrating, and making part of the canon that very zeitgeist... what lou reed's songs on 'songs for drella' remind us is that andy may have been a dilettante, andy may have been fickle, andy may have been a bitch -- but he worked bloody hard, grafting and grafting, to encompass artistic forms from a core of painting through the outer rings of cinema, music and television... our higher culture nor our popular culture today would exist as they do without andy warhol -- maybe that's for good, maybe that's for bad, but in my mind, that's a fact... i always see the "celebrity andy" of the 70s and 80s as someone looking for a shell -- he'd given all he could give for his vision of art (whether you buy into the vision or not), was sucked by leeches and nearly killed doing it, and chose to find shelter in the most conspicuous of locations... he could hide there best...

this album reminds me what a great, cerebral musician john cale is... his words are poetry, and his arrangements are pitch perfect... a true musician, true artist -- and as always, a pitch perfect ice to lou reed's snotty, street smart fire... i understand completely why the two of them couldn't possibly work together again... the tension, when it's there (listen FOR GOD'S BLOODY SAKE if you never have to 'white light/white heat' by the velvet underground -- i love 'velvet underground and nico' for the fusion of the two, but there's so much more dynamism for me in 'white light/white heat') is something that just speaks to me on such a basic, primal level that when we lose these two, like we lost andy, a little piece of my definition, of my understanding, and of my faith that my 'vision' (for whatever it's worth) is not unique in the world, will evaporate...

masterful...

1989. 09. 'maria mckee' - maria mckee

wow, NME, this one was a total reach... don't get me wrong, i always kinda liked lone justice... not in that i'm going to go out and buy (or even download) one of their albums, but if one of their songs came on, i wouldn't change the channel... but this -- holy hell, if you want an idea of everything that can go wrong in country music production, go straight here... first of all, her voice is incredibly reedy on this LP -- nothing like the raspy, dusty voice that sang for lone justice... and what's the way we deal with a fragile voice that's really only being supported here by decent lyricism?  we give it this "down home here in the south with soft focus, filtered sunshine, traditional guitar tuning, a magnolia tree and brush drumming" nonsense production.  Oh so 1989.  i can already see the azaleas, mama, i can see 'em, dadgum, from up here in appalachia.

the NME could be pretty famous for trying to prove its more-knowing-than-thou reputation by tying its colours to the mast of some out there album that they could justify by being out of genre.  this, i'm certain, was their way of saying that they totally respected the americana rock credibility of lone justice (see also bodeans and jason and the scorchers), and they were totally down with country music because they *got* the american experience from their offices in deepest, murkiest london... this album is average at best -- something you wouldn't be surprised to hear in your local supermarket or dentist's waiting room (though my dentist, for some reason, has some misplaced penchant for sade)...

in a year that saw the release of k.d. lang's 'absolute torch and twang', dwight yoakam's 'just lookin' for a hit', and lyle lovett's 'lyle lovett and his large band', this might not have been #9 on my list of country or country-ish releases for 1989...

and PS -- i may not know a ton about country music, but i know a lot... quite a lot -- so now who's got the americana chops, NME?  ;-)

1989. 10. 'spike' - elvis costello

in the midst of listening to this album now, realising that indeed, i did miss 1989 from my pass through the #10s last week... i really didn't miss much -- i've been disappointed in this album for 23 years, frankly... not sure how this was the 10th best album of 1989 -- it wasn't the 10th best album that elvis costello recorded...

if you're unfamiliar with his work, listen to anything at all from 'my aim is true' to 'blood and chocolate' and skip this, because it's a shame that this would be anyone's first port of call for his work... there is absolutely zero focus on this album -- it's a bit like he went to a record store, decided to write down all the genres they stocked, and recorded a song from each... it's not that there aren't good songs on the album -- it's that as a unified, single musical statement, it fails... i'm not even sure he's that proud of it anymore -- i've seen him in concert a few times, and except for 'veronica', you don't hear much from 'spike' ever...

i've wandered out onto the interwebs to read positive reviews on this LP from back in the day -- and they think its being all over the place is what's good about it... i reckon that this praise was just a bunch of folks being pleased he was back on the scene after a few years of self-imposed silence... this IS an elvis costello album, after all, so there are darts, barbs and tripwires all over the place... i'm sure he'd been missed -- little could these critics have known how prolific and diverse he'd become (with MUCH more focus) after this...

1988. 09. 'daydream nation' - sonic youth

music really is a funny thing... i've spent the better part of 20+ years trying to figure out why all the cool kids LOVE sonic youth but, frankly, i don't... and today, forcing myself to sit down and listen to a whole one of their albums for the first time in jesus knows how many years, i figured it out.  i can't stand the way any of them sing.  that simple.  the songs start great for me -- i love dissonance, i think the white noise and angular guitar work is fabulous, and then they open their mouths.  and they're not lou reed or iggy pop or richard hell or tom verlaine.  and so, i just leave disappointed.

i get totally why this album is critically lauded, why it's important, and why it was SO different to the stuff going on around it at the time.  i also totally get why my husband, the inimitable JCE, would be so thrilled with them (he of the no-wave persuasion).  but with the exception of 'teenage riot' on this album -- and probably because it's the first song and i haven't lost my marbles yet screaming, 'thurston!  kim!  shut the fuck up!' -- i just can't listen to this... maybe there's an instrumental version wandering out there where my doppelgänger has decided just to dub out the vocals and enjoy what's fantastic about the sound of this album.

on a totally tangential note, we visited one of the pieces of the 'candle' series -- another piece in the series serves as the cover of this album -- at the art institute of chicago not long ago.  if you are unfamiliar with the work of gerhard richter, and you like minimalist and abstract work, you're missing out on perhaps one of our most important living artists.  enjoy his works.

1987. 09. 'the people who grinned themselves to death' - housemartins

my first skip -- i don't have a copy of this (my only housemartins album is the 'now that's what i call quite good' compilation) and spotify only has 'london 0 hull 4' (a great album in its own right) to stream.  i think it's still in print in the UK, so it is obtainable -- it will have to wait for my 'afters' list... in the meantime, if anyone has a copy they'd like to share with me, you can always find me at baby_lemonade@hotmail.com .  Hoping for better luck tomorrow...

And just realized the typo -- should say 1987, not 1986 :-)...

1996. 10. 'vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot' - sparklehorse

1996 kris was righteous.  and if she knew anything, she knew american culture was bereft.  bereft of whatever artistic spirit it might have had.  bereft of any understanding of what went on in the rest of the world.  and bereft of music.  it was all a bunch of nirvana wannabes who played muddy chords to cover up for the fact that they were shit musicians.  and that was because they came from america, land of bereft culture.  meanwhile, here in england, we were living it up on britpop and enjoying the after-effects of that e i took before the club.  we had culture.  we had music.  we were NOT going to be the 51st state of america.

2012 kris is not righteous.  she's thoughtful, she's a little bit quiet, and she really loves nothing more than a bit of quirky music while she takes in the uniqueness of the world around her.  i think it's what we colloquially refer to as growing up.  so whereas 1996 kris would have taken one look at 'vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot' and spat on it, 2012 kris is so glad she decided to do this crazy record review thing on a whim.  because this is what i was hoping for -- to discover something beautiful that i missed all of those years ago.

it's not that i had no clue about sparklehorse -- but by the time i heard one of their songs and actually connected the 'i like this song' sentiment to 'it's sparklehorse', it was 'dreamt for light years in the belly of the mountain' which, frankly, ended up being kind of patchy once i listened to the whole album and not just a few songs.  so i put it away, looked at it for a few minutes when i heard mark linkous had committed suicide, then heard shortly thereafter that vic chestnutt committed suicide, and went there instead of back to sparklehorse.  but i found it now.  16 years later, but i found it.  and the album made me smile.  made me feel that wistfulness i enjoy when i watch a grackle on a wire puff and sing to announce his presence to the other birds around him, or when i giggle at the green anole crawling furtively down the tree thinking no one is watching him when in fact there are 6 lanes of traffic he'll be oblivious to, or especially when i come home to my dogs and sit outside in the warm sun and ocean breeze thinking that, yes, it's going to be alright.  this album did that.  and i'm grateful.

if you like the eels, or drive by truckers, or bon iver, listen if you never have.  delighted to have found a wonderful, wonderful record on an otherwise average friday in march.

1995. 10. 'timeless' - goldie

so, it's 1995, and i'm living in a shared house with 7 other people in manchester (england)... if drum 'n' bass/jungle was the sound of 1995, surely one of the other people in the house would be listening to it.  well, no.  in fact, i don't know anyone who listened to drum 'n' bass regularly at all... maybe my friends weren't urban enough -- but when i tell you i lived in inner city manchester, i would not be exaggerating one iota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsight)... yet, i never heard drum 'n' bass when i was walking up the dickenson road or down the stockport road.  but in 1995, the nme decided we should be listening to jungle and drum 'n' bass... and so it shall be...

there's nothing wrong with this album per se... it's not my genre -- which is fine -- but it's just bloody repetitive... i'd be happy to put it on in the background, the way some people put classical or new age music in the background, but i'm not sure i could ever really actively listen to it... the 20 minute opening track 'timeless' really did start to bother me after a while -- the female vocalist sounded like a second rate jamiroquai if jay kay had been a woman... the rest of it, well, this might be shocking given the provenance and "street" quality of drum 'n' bass, but reader, it was harmless... obviously, the finer points of drum 'n' bass are, and were, lost on me... this was not the sound of my 1995 -- maybe it was the sound of yours?