I don’t know ambient music much beyond the 1970s, aside from a few 1990s albums I’ve encountered due to my podcast. But I do know that the vast majority of ambient music in existence has been created with synthesizers and other electronic instruments, keyboards hooked up to synthesizers and now computers, not rock band equipment. …
Tag: 1993
The Red Shoes (1993) by Kate Bush
The first time I listened to it I just couldn’t get over the productive, which sounds so ’80s like any number of early ’90s albums, made by artists or producers who hadn’t yet seen the writing on the wall – that the era of gated drums synthesizers approximating any instrument you could think of was …
Pussy Whipped (1993) by Bikini Kill
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1993) by Sarah McLachlan
This is the Sarah McLachlan I was too young for; the kids at my school weren’t into this music when it came out and I don’t think she was big enough in the States yet to make it on MTV when I got the chance to watch that at my cousins’. I say this because, …
Chaos A.D. (1993) by Sepultura
I don’t know whether or not it’s because I heard Roots first, a few years ago, or because I have heard so much about this record, but upon first listen to this, I was kind of thinking “What’s the big deal?” Sometimes it’s hard to cast your mind back to another time, especially when I …
Plantation Lullabies (1993) by Me’Shell NdegéOcello
It’s hard not be impressed by the ambition of this debut; NdegéOcello seems to want to do everything within the R&B spectrum and, at times, it feels like she might succeed. She’s like a female Terence Trend D’Arby with more of a jazz and hip hop influence and a better sense of rhythm but with …
Heartwork (1993) by Carcass
This is the birth of melodic death metal in Britain, or something like that.
Angst (1993) by KMFDM
Note: I spend this entire review comparing this record to a Ministry record which came out in 1998, but which I wrongly thought came out two days earlier. So this review can be ignored. I had an acquaintance in high school – a friend of a friend more than a friend – who used to …
Tindersticks (1993)
Throughout the history of pop rock I think it’s safe to say that debut albums have usually been not as good as albums by experienced bands. Don’t mistake the hype – there are certainly numerous debut albums which have been over-hyped over the years but, I think, on balance, most bands and artists do not …
Painful (1993) by Yo La Tengo
I have only ever heard one Yo La Tengo album, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and I suspect it has ruined me for their earlier career (or, perhaps, the entirety of the rest of their career). That record may or may not be their best – I wouldn’t know – but it …
Anodyne (1993) by Uncle Tupelo
I absolutely loved March 16-20, 1992 the first time I heard it. My review of it is pretty damn glowing and I’m kind of unsure I want to revisit formally because I’m pretty sure I won’t like it as much as I did the first time I encountered it. I don’t know what it was …
Gentlemen (1993) by The Afghan Whigs
Expectations are a terrible thing. I had none the first time I listened to this record. But, not really getting how it had made it on to my list of major album anniversaries for October 1993, I looked it up and started reading all the praise out there. So by the second time I listened …
Wolverine Blues (1993) by Entombed
As I feel like I write in every single metal review I write lately, the metal world is a bizarre place where esoteric fusions of niches and subgenres get all sorts of attention from fans and critics while much of the rest of the music world continues on without anyone being aware that something new …
The Black Rider (1993) by Tom Waits
I’m always willing to listen to any Tom Waits record, particularly any record since he changed his sound, but I also agree with the general consensus that work written (or assembled) for stage shows rarely meets the level of an artist’s best work, especially when that artist is a singer-songwriter (who, by their very nature, …
Return of the Boom Bap (1993) by KRS-One
It’s shocking, but the more I listen to hip hop the more I know what I like and don’t. (Imagine that.) And from the first time I heard this, I knew I liked it (well, the music) more than I liked most other hip hop I’ve heard to date.Something about the production here sounds more …
Houdini (1993) by Melvins
One of the great things about the early 1990s is the signing frenzy the major labels went on trying to find the next Nirvana; as my friend once put it, not trying to find the next Nirvana sound-alike, but the next band that would break an entire genre, which would be the centre of an …
Judgment Night Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1993)
I know this record was a big deal to fans of these bands at the time, but I had literally no idea about it until an anniversary of it maybe 5 years ago. I had low expectations, despite how many of these rock bands I like.
Cure for Pain (1993) by Morphine
The thing that makes Morphine so unique is, in some ways, the thing that keeps them from ever being a band that I will truly love. That’s not their fault, of course, but it does make them one of those bands who I like more or less depending upon the quality of their songs.
Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell (1993) by Meat Loaf
Full disclosure: I don’t like the original Bat Out of Hell. I know most of the words to the songs and probably even most of the words in the spoken word parts. But I hate what that record represents – nostalgia meets the Broadway musical meets arena rock – and the whole thing is so …
Focus (1993) by Cynic
Most of the time, when I encounter “progressive death metal” (which this sounds like to me, but which it isn’t categorized as on RYM), I think “this isn’t very progressive.” It usually sounds like more ambitious death metal, but it doesn’t sound very proggy. Well, not so here. If there is one thing this record …
August and Everything After (1993) by Counting Crows
I was talking to a guest of the podcast a few episodes ago and I described how my “alternative” junior high school had been just full of alternative rock, pardon the pun, even though I was firmly into “oldies.” I mentioned the grunge usual suspects, which I do remember hearing for the first time at …
Into the Labyrinth (1993) by Dead Can Dance
Though I have heard a lot about Dead Can Dance over the years, like so many bands it has taken me forever to hear them. And like so many bands that it has taken me forever to hear, I found myself surprised.
Post Historic Monsters (1993) by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
Though this band were a really big deal in the UK when I was young, I don’t know that they made much of an impact across the pond. I don’t remember anything about them except their name. And even then, I don’t really remember why I remember their name, just that I heard it somewhere.
Last Splash (1993) by The Breeders
This is a relatively diverse set of pretty catchy alternative rock songs, most of which manage to sound unique enough to stand out from the sheer number of records like this.
Giant Steps (1993) by The Boo Radleys
As neo-psychedelia goes, this is a pretty diverse and varied record. That’s good because it’s not all that psychedelic comparatively speaking – I’m thinking of Mercury Rev by way of comparison – and often has more in common with britpop.
Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements (1993) by Stereolab
I am familiar with what one might call “peak” Stereolab, the sound of the band in the mid 19990s. They are not a band I particularly enjoy but they are a band I respect, given their pretty much utterly unique fusion of styles. (They basically have their own genre, in many ways. And I wouldn’t …
Kerosene Hat (1993) by Cracker
I don’t know what I would have thought about this record had I not known that the lead singer of this band was in Camper Van Beethoven, but I suspect I would feel differently.
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.
Tuesday Night Music Club (1993) by Sheryl Crow
For me, Sheryl Crow seemed everywhere in the 1990s. Poppy enough for Top 40 but “rock” enough for some other stations – especially later – in my memory it feels like there was always a Sheryl Crow song playing on the radio when I was in high school. I didn’t pay much attention, mind you, …
Mezcal Head (1993) by Swervedriver
The thing I like about Swervedriver is their diversity; they are the rare shoegaze band that doesn’t seem determined to one thing and one thing only. (In fact, their diversity might call into question the shoegaze label.)