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.
Tag: Alternative Rock
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 …
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.
Ruby Vroom (1994) by Soul Coughing
Beginning sometime in the mid to late ’80s, there was a curious trend in the UK where a bunch of white guys began to appropriate much of the music of hip hop to make music that was, mostly, decidedly not hip hop. This music has very little rap in it (sometimes absolutely none) and had …
Definitely Maybe (1994) by Oasis
Loud electric guitars had been missing from British radio for a long, long time by the early 1990s. With the exception of U2 and the Smiths and a few other bands, there hadn’t been much popular guitar-based music for much of the previous decade. And when guitar-based music appeared, it often had synthesizers, gated drums …
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 …
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 …
Meat Puppets II (1984)
I have not heard the Meat Puppets’ debut album, but I am led to understand that it is much more conventional hardcore punk, which is probably why it’s been deemed essential, where this record is considered a much bigger deal.
Troublegum (1994) by Therapy?
When I first heard “Knives” I thought “YES!” and figured I had just found a new favourite band. But that track turns out to be the album’s most immediate track – it’s a smart thing to lead off with in some respects but a bad idea in others.
14:59 (1999) by Sugar Ray
I hated Sugar ray. I hate “Fly.” I hate “Every Morning.” I hate Mark McGrath’s flat singing and his fame-whoring. I hated their super poppy “fusion” thing which seemed like some weird kind of experiment of what would happen if a generic “alternative” pop rock band tried to incorporate hip hop like it was nu …
Supposed Form Infatuation Junkie (1998) by Alanis Morissette
My biggest problem with Jagged Little Pill is its faux grunge (what we would now call post grunge) production; there’s this veneer of trying to make Alanis fit in with alternative rock bands, but it’s clearly the work of someone who was never in an alternative rock band and is just trying to create a …
1965 (1998) by The Afghan Whigs
I did not particularly enjoy the critically acclaimed Gentlemen and I think so much of that has to do with when I heard it, in my late 30s. I suspect had I heard it when I was, say, 22, I might have really liked it a lot. It’s still a fine record but, as a …
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 …
Ultramage OK (1988) by Soundgarden
Chris Cornell apparently didn’t like the production of their debut and I must say that, as someone who is really familiar with their ’90s efforts, this doesn’t sound like Soundgarden to me. Even Cornell himself doesn’t quite sound like himself. I’m not sure how much that can be blamed on the production, how much it …
El Oso (1998) by Soul Coughing
Members of Soul Coughing are quoted in The Secret History of Rock, the pre-internet guide to weird and rarely heard rock music which was my bible for a long time. I made it my mission to listen to all the bands that were featured in that book, but I also made it my mission to …
Is This Desire? (1998) by PJ Harvey
If you spend too much time reading music magazines – do people still do that? – or you spend too much time on the internet, it’s tempting to see Is This Desire? as the flip side of The Boatman’s Call, or a direct response to it or some combination of the two. The easiest thing …
Celebrity Skin (1998) by Hole
In 2011 I heard Live Through This and generally hated it. I don’t remember the record at all, but my review at the time suggests I thought it was overproduced for what it was. Five years later I heard Pretty on the Inside and loved it.