There are people, usually older people, who will tell you that Gish is actually the Pumpkins’ best album, or their only good album, or something like that. I suspect these people are either just old or they are being deliberately contrarian/curmudgeonish, or they are trying to be hipsters (“I liked the Pumpkins before they were …
Tag: Alternative Rock
Seamonsters (1991) by The Wedding Present
We all have musical sweet spots, things we like so much that we just eat up anything that fits into those sweet spots. This album, the first I have ever heard by The Wedding Present, hits me in a few of mine. And I left wondering, not for the first time, why it took me …
To the Faithful Departed (1996) by The Cranberries
I know this is not “the big one” but I was actually surprised how many of the singles from this record which I remembered, dare I say almost fondly. (I guess this means I’m getting old enough to just be happy to hear the music of my teens, even when I didn’t like it at …
Gorillaz (2001)
I just read a brief review I wrote of Demon Days that I don’t even recognize, not just because I have no memory of that album but because the person who wrote it has changed so much in the interim. I wrote it 10 years ago almost to the day and it’s safe to say …
Candy Apple Grey (1986) by Husker Du
This is the last of the classic (i.e. everything but their debut) Husker Du albums I’ve listened to. And, not coincidentally, it seems to be the least well regarded. (I regularly start with bands’ best regarded albums.)
Tonic Immobility (2021) by Tomahawk
I possibly anticipated this record too much, despite being sort of underwhelmed initially by Oddfellows. (And I’d say I’ve come to like it, as I did on my first listens, but I haven’t listened to it in forever.) There are things about this record that just aren’t completely working for me right now – it …
Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000) by PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey is one of the great songwriters of her generation, and this album is another fine example of her abilities. but the record marks a bit of a change in aesthetic for her (as far as I know) that I don’t exactly love.
Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000) by Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit are so monumentally dumb that, while I’m listening to a Limp Bizkit record, I have trouble imagining there are dumber bands. Now, I know there are plenty of dumb bands, but the scale of the Bizkit’s dumbness is so immense that, during the album, you just sort of forget that there could be …
Nowhere (1990) by Ride
I’ve never gotten shoegaze, it’s just not anything that appeals to me on a fundamental level. Some of this comes from the nature of the genre – pop music drowning in distortion is still pop music – and part of it I’m pretty sure comes from not seeing it live at the time it was …
Flip Your Wig (1985) by Hüsker Dü
Time can really change perception, especially when it comes to cultural artifacts. I have read online abbout how this is one of Hüsker’s great albums, perhaps even their best. But I don’t hear it. I don’t know if that’s because I haven’t sat down and listened to New Day Rising recently or whether it’s because …
Garbage (1995)
As I have said way too many times, I do not like post grunge. Usually, post grunge takes something I like and basically ruins it. However, Garbage avoid many of the most irritating aspects of post grunge, if you can even classify Garbage as post grunge. (In fact, that false categorization may explain why I …
Facelift (1990) by Alice In Chains
Alice in Chains are, to me, the least immediately appealing of the big Seattle grunge bands. I think that’s because they have the least catchy songs – though Cantrell is a good songwriter he is not necessarily a writer of particularly catchy songs. Though I do wonder how much of my experience of this band …
The Head on the Door (1985) by The Cure
My general appreciation of The Cure keeps running into problems. The problem is that I had their singles collections for years and listened to them fairly regularly but didn’t get around to their albums until recently. And now I listen to them haphazardly: one from the early ’80s here, one from the mid ’80s there, …
Goo (1990) by Sonic Youth
Sometime between their earliest albums and Daydream Nation Sonic Youth learned how to write melodies and, as importantly, learned how to swing. (Obviously this happened gradually.) And that development is perhaps nowhere more apparent than on Goo, their most accessible album to date.Sure, calling a Sonic Youth album ‘accessible’ is a relative thing, but it’s …
A Catholic Education (1990) by Teenage Fanclub
I’ve heard so much about Teenage Fanclub the power pop/jangle pop band that I really, really wasn’t ready for this. And because I really wasn’t ready for this I might have overrated it a tad. Such is life.
Sparkle and Fade (1995) by Everclear
I’m familiar with Everclear from their softer, later hits but I’d always heard “they used to be louder”. Well, I can confirm, that is indeed true.
Pod (1990) by The Breeders
I can’ really decide what to do with this one. The songs are okay but I like the aesthetic. But I don’t like the production. I keep going back and forth.
The Good Son (1990) by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
I love Tender Prey. For me, it’s the culmination of the Seeds through their first era, a powerful combination of punk-influenced music and songwriting well beyond the quality of most punk albums.
Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches (1990) by Happy Mondays
I’ve listened to a few madchester/baggy albums at this point and it’s safe to say that I just don’t get the genre. Now, I get very few dance-rock hybrids outside of Talking Heads’ version of that kind of thing, but this one I find particularly perplexing.
Up on the Sun (1985) by Meat Puppets
The more that I listen to the Meat Puppets the more it feels like they are one of the foundational bands of American alternative rock, setting the template for what was acceptable. When I was young and first encountering alternative, it felt like the diversity was baked in but original. The more I listen to …
Gigaton (2020) by Pearl Jam
So this is now the third Pearl Jam album in a row that fails to excite me. Is it them? Is it me? Is the truth somewhere in between?
Ball-Hog or Tugboat? (1995) by Mike Watt
What do I do with this sprawling, all-star record? It’s as if Watt wanted to make a new Minuteman record with 17 different bands. The results are, uneven, to say the least.
Meat is Murder (1985) by The Smiths
One of two things is happening: either I am slowly – slowly – getting so inured to The Smiths that I no longer hate their guts – or I have listened to enough of the British music of the 1980s to finally understand why people thought they were such a big deal. I still don’t …
Razorblade Romance (2000) by HIM
To the extent the I know HIM I hate HIM. In 2011 I listened to Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights and Love Metal, panning both of them and giving the former a rare 3/10. (Music has to be bad for me to go that low.) The ensuing years seem to have mellowed me somewhat or …
The Great Annihilator (1995) by Swans
I am still far from a Swans expert – though I have seen them in concert! – but I feel compelled to echo the comments of others about how this record feels either like “more accessible Swans” or some kind of hybrid of their ’80s sound with a more traditional approach to songwriting (at least …
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 …
The Rapture (1995) by Siouxsie and the Banshees
This is my first ’90s Banshees album and I must say I was a little reticent to give it a listen, for two reasons. For one thing, though I feel like their ’80s records have dated rather well for ’80s music, I must say I was worried that this record would sound pretty damn ’80s. …
Flood (1990) by They Might Be Giants
I was pretty overwhelmed by Lincoln and not necessarily in a good way. I had heard so much about the band but didn’t really know anything. On Lincoln they came across to me as a sort of poor mans’ Camper Van Beethoven, which probably not fair for many reasons. But I feel very differently about …
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 …
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 …