I love I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One. I didn’t initially but, over the years, I’ve come to really, really enjoy it and also come to regard it as one of the great indie rock albums of the era. One of the things I love about it is its relative diversity something that …
Tag: Indie Rock
Throwing Muses: University (1995)
There is so much alternative rock. I guess is true of any genre that was counted among the most popular in the world at a given time, but it feels like this is especially true of alternative. It’s as if, after Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden showed it was viable, every single alternative rock …
Emergency & I (1999) by The Dismemberment Plan
Now this is right up my alley: indie rock that veers into post hardcore on occasion and also gets mathy.
Worst Case Scenario (1994) by dEUS
dEUS’s debut album is the kind of crazy alternative rock record I wish I had discovered when I was in my teens or 20s. It’s crazy to me that it isn’t better known, given how fun and interesting it is.
Bakesale (1994) by Sebadoh
Harmacy is the only Sebdaoh record I’ve heard more than a few times and so it is the one I also think of when I listen to other records of theirs. It’s also particularly catchy compared to their earlier records, at least as far as I know, which can make it a little bit harder …
The Beta Band (1999)
Sometimes you encounter something you don’t know at all and it just stuns you with something special about itself. In this case, it’s the irreverence and the extremely healthy disrespect for genres (which I’m a sucker for) of something like the lead-off track, “The Beta Band Rap”, which I just can’t get over. It takes …
The Hot Rock (1999) by Sleater-Kinney
For a band such as Sleater-Kinney, I guess this record is a pretty radical departure form their previous sound. I mean, normally you do not expect bands like this to change their sound much record to record.
Keep It Like a Secret (1999) by Built to Spill
I think I am predisposed to like every Built to Spill record. There’s something about a good guitar solo or jam that goes straight to my heart. Martsch is such a compelling player that he long ago overcame whatever aversion I would have to his voice, a voice which is not the kind I normally …
American Water (1998) by Silver Jews
Pavement were such a big deal – or seemed like they were such a big deal – that I think it’s really easy to understand why they inevitably come up with this band, even though, according to some sources, this band existed prior to Pavement, and certainly in some iteration or other. But even if …
Moon Pix (1998) by Cat Power
I liked but didn’t love What Would the Community Think?. That was my first Cat Power album. I don’t remember it much now. But my impressions of this one seem very different if I’m to go by the review I wrote for its predecessor.
How It Feels to Be Something On (1998) by Sunny Day Real Estate
Apparently these guys were one of the original Midwest Emo bands. I did not know that; really I knew nothing at all about them before listening to this record.
Electro-Shock Blues (1998) by Eels
I had long heard of Eels but was actually completely unaware I had heard him, as I had never made the connection between “Last Stop: This Town,” which I vaguely remember from High School, and Eels the band name. So all this time I thought Eels was something else but I had actually heard what …
Lincoln (1988) by They Might Be Giants
I have heard so much about They Might Be Giants over the years that I was bound to be disappointed by what they sound like. So count me disappointed by this record.
Something About Airplanes (1998) by Death Cab for Cutie
Much of what the world knows as “alternative” is actually post grunge, a subgenre of alternative if we’ve being generous, that has a little in common with alternative and a lot more in common with mainstream rock music. Much of what people now seem to dislike about alternative rock music and its brief dominance of …
Perfect Teeth (1993) by Unrest
Imagine if Television were really an indie pop band with an occasional female lead singer and maybe you get some idea of what Unrest sound like on this record. Not really, actually, as that’s a pretty poor comparison for many of the songs here, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.
Waves (2016)
I have been going to the Wolfe Island Music Festival for years now, even though I don’t love most of the music. (That’s not to say I dislike most of the music.) It’s a festival that I attend more for the vibe and the size than the actual music played. But every so often – …
Good Morning Spider (1998) by Sparklehorse
This is one of the innumerable indie records of the 1990s wherein a guy poses as a band, and he records a lot himself and has the odd person fill in. Like many of those records, it is stylistically all over the place.
Exile in Guyville (1993) by Liz Phair
Many years ago, after hearing way too many times that Exile in Guyville is a song-by-song response to Exile on Main St. I listened to this right around the time I was obsessed with that Stones album. I listened to this once, didn’t hear a song-by-song response, and decided it was one of the most …
Shrink (1998) by The Notwist
I don’t know anything about this band but my understanding is that it’s a left turn from previous albums. That’s likely a good thing but, because I’ve never heard those previous albums, I’ve left with just this.
Frank Black (1993)
At first, it might be tempting to write-off Frank Black’s debut album as ” softer Pixies plus keyboards” and I can sort of see that. But I think that such a view obscures what’s really going on, and that is the rather huge growth of Black’s songwriting.
Today’s Active Lifestyles (1993) by Polvo
Imagine if Sonic Youth played Pavement-style indie rock (albeit longer songs), but more of a post-hardcore version of Pavement without their idiosyncrasies, you may get some vague idea of what Polvo sounds like. RYM lists them as a Math Rock band and frankly that mystifies me, even in the context of the early 1990s, but …
Today (1988) by Galaxie 500
I don’t really know the history of dream pop, but from what little I know of it I’m willing to guess this is a fairly seminal record.
Viva Hate (1988) by Morrissey
One of my reasons for my antipathy towards Morrissey (and the Smiths) is the music, and I must say the music here is much artier and weirder than I was expecting. (I think we can thank Vini Reilly for that. He’s a musically interesting guy in ways that Street and Morrissey normally are not.)
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) by Neutral Milk Hotel
Does knowing the supposed concept make this record more problematic? I think so.
Fuzzy (1993) by Grant Lee Buffalo
I decided to talk about this record, rather than any number of other records from 1988 and 1993, in part because Michael Stipe once claimed it was the best album of 1993. Now, I don’t necessarily share musical states with the lead singer of REM, but I do feel like he had an important role, …
On the Mouth (1993) by Superchunk
By reputation, I always thought No Pocky for Kitty was the Superchunk album to listen to. Then I listened to it and, though I appreciated why people like it, I didn’t love. I see the RYM rating is higher for this one. I think I know why. I mean, maybe I know why.
Black Inscription (2018) by Rabbit Rabbit
One of the things I love about this band is that I never know what their next record is going to sound like. They normally release one track a month but I always wait until the full album comes out, making the whole thing more of a surprise.
When I Was Born for the 7th Time (1997) by Cornershop
I really appreciate the genre-bending of this record. Even though mixing Indian music with western popular music was a thing a full thirty years before this record came out, it feels like that part of psychedelia was the least popular (or accessible) to all the bands that were influenced by the genre. For the most …
Down Colorful Hill (1992) by Red House Painters
I do not know the history of slowcore, as I am only familiar with a few bands (5 or so tops) that would be considered slowcore and who existed in 1992. So I find myself unable to assess whether or not this is an important record in the development of the genre, given that lack …
Strangeways, Here We Come
To say I dislike The Smiths would be an understatement. I don’t hate them so much as I hate the aura around them and this idea that they somehow saved British music from itself (and synthesizers! don’t forget the synthesizers), almost like a younger, hipper Bruce Springsteen (because Springsteen saved rock music from disco, don’t …