Tag: 1999

1999, Movies

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999, Michael Patrick Jann)

This is very dark, quirky mockumentary, a little like Christopher Guest with way more murder and no interviews. It’s super oddly paced, and it some of the humour hasn’t dated super well, but I kind of admire its mean spirit and how it stands apart from the Christopher Guest school.

1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, TV

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)

When I was younger and had recently fallen in love with serialized TV dramas, I had this idea that I was going to write a book about the antecedents of the Golden Age of Television. (At first this was going to be about the Golden Age of Television, but that book already exists.) This book …

1999, Music

Kaleidoscope (1999) by Kelis

I remember when I first heard “Caught Out There”. I didn’t swear at the time, but imagine it was the polite equivalent of “What the fuck?!?” And I’m sorry to say that was basically the last time I thought about Kelis (whose name I thought was pronounced “Kell Es”). And listening to this record, that …

1999, Music

Midnite Vultures (1999) by Beck

I really like Beck. You might say I love Beck, or at least Beck’s mainstream records from ’90s and early ’00s. (I have slowly become less of a fan, over the years.) And I’d like to think I also really enjoy listening to musicians I enjoy having a great time, though I don’t know if …

1999, Music

When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right (1999) by Fiona Apple

I could have sworn to you that I had heard this record before; I thought I had heard all of hers. But I went to check my old review and there was no review nor any rating. And that begs a question: did I listen to this and forget to review and or even rate …

1999, Music

There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999) by Foo Fighters

I have written on many occasions that post-grunge is one of the few genres I hate as a whole genre, which is nothing I normally do. (I generally believe there are no “bad genres” but there are a few ’90s genres which make me want to reconsider that.) The Foo Fighters are more “rock” than …

1999, Music

Rainbow (1999) by Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey might be the best female pop singer of all time, if we go by technical ability. (I say ‘female’ not to perpetuate gender divisions but only to distinguish her from the man I consider the greatest popular music vocalist in history, who is not female.) It’s this record that has brought me to …

1999, Music

Calculating Infinity (1999) by The Dillinger Escape Plan

I came into this fully expecting to say it’s the “birth of mathcore”. But a little bit of research suggests that many bands had been making music at least somewhat similar to this for a little while, perhaps even years. I don’t know any of those bands, basically, so I have no idea how many …

1999, Music

Fly (1999) by Dixie Chicks

This is my second Dixie Chicks album and I feel like I just basically feel the same way about it. That’s a frustrating experience for me because I feel like I should have some kind of new take. Moreover, given the general feelings of fans that this is (slightly?) inferior to Wide Open Spaces, I …

1999, Music

The Writing’s on the Wall (1999) by Destiny’s Child

I was born on the same day as Beyonce. She’s the celebrity I always go to when that social media game about sharing celebrity birthdays comes up. But I only bring it up in regard to this album because, though I generally do not believe in any conspiracy theories, the album cover for this record …

1999, Music

Significant Other (1999) by Limp Bizkit

What does it say about your band when a lounge parody medley of your songs is better than your original songs? I don’t care that the music was created by a keyboard, I will take Richard Cheese’s “Nookie / Break Stuff” over the originals every day; the music is better and it shows that Durst’s …

1999, Music

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 …

1999, Music

Supernatural (1999) by Santana

When this record came out I was just starting to get into the less popular ’60s bands. I was familiar with Santana’s biggest songs from that era, but no their albums. I would get their a few years later and listening to those albums would confirm my impression of this record’s hits: this was a …

1999, Music

Californication (1999) by Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Scar Tissue” was everywhere in the summer of 1999. The radio was always on at my work and so the song was always on. I fell in love with a girl at my work who loved “Scar Tissue.” And so I found myself torn between my love for this girl, who would sing along to …

1999, Music

Enema of the State (1999) by Blink-182

This record, or, rather, its videos, were everywhere in my final year of high school. Because at least one of them made fun of Boy Bands, I generally laughed along. (Also, I was 18!) I remember thinking they were a harmless jokey band, and at least they had a sense of humour and made fun …

1999, Music

Millennium (1999) by Backstreet Boys

I hated the Backstreet Boys as a teenager – they representative everything I thought was wrong with modern music because they didn’t write their own music, they didn’t play any instruments, they produced music that seemed like pablum, they were successful in part because of their looks, and they seemed to have no agency because …

1999, Music

Implode (1999) by Front Line Assembly

I just finished listening to KMFDM’s Adios, another band that operates on the spectrum between industrial music and electronica. (Though apparently these guys have existed longer, which is funny because I had never heard of them but had heard plenty about KMFDM.) As is often the case when I listen to two vaguely similar records …

1999, Music

The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999) by Ben Folds Five

For most of my adult life I’ve been only vaguely aware of Ben Folds and his band. I think he had a hit or two I heard of and many years ago I managed to listen to their reunion album but it apparently made no impression on me. Despite sort of bemoaning the death of …

1999, Music

Snuffbox Immanence (1999) by Ghost

I got made fun of so much for liking prog rock when I was in my late teens and early 20s, in part because, for the people I knew, prog rock was horribly old and uncool and, moreover, my friends didn’t actually know what they were talking about usually, mistaking “prog rock” for Styx and …

1999, Music

Mule Variations (1999) by Tom Waits

At this point, anyone who has followed Waits since his left-turn in the early 1980s knows what to expect from a Waits album. Aside from from production choices, most Waits albums of the last 35 years have sounded rather similar to each other, with everything in his own inimitable style, and the only major difference …