Day 0868 - This is Hardcore

Pulp "This is Hardcore" (1998) - got it

Pulp's "Different Class" album had been a success, but the band were not revelling in their new-found fame.  Facing it instead with a mix of drugs, resignations and paranoia that blighted the euphoria.   The angst all comes out on this album, with opening track "the Fear" featuring lines like "the sound of loneliness turned up to 10" and "this is the sound of someone losing the plot, making out that they're okay when they're not".

The album moves away from the bouncy, perky britpop of 'Different Class ' and into a more brooding, reflective realm.   The band's theatrical side (musically and via Cocker's low murmur-to-impassioned yell vocals) remains.   The title track has a noirish, almost cinematic bent.  Single "Help the Aged" moves from an easy-listening groove to a huge anthemic chorus.

With their propulsive grooves and Cocker's deep croon, "Party Hard" and "Glory Days" seem to nod to late 70s/early 80s Bowie.   Album odd-duck "Seductive Barry" is an atmospheric, meditative track which feels again like it owes a debt to Bowie, specifically his Berlin albums.

Day 0867 - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” (1998)

For Williams’ fifth album, she ended her working relationship with producer Gurf Morlix and worked instead with alt-country star Steve Earle who described it as “the least amount of fun I’ve had working on a record”.  

Whatever the case behind the scenes, the album turned out alright.  It’s loosely classed under the ‘country’ label, but in practise is a mix of rootsy folky country, like on album closer “Jackson”; and melodic Southern-Rock with enough twang and other country affectations to keep it within that camp, such as album opener “Right in Time”.   Similar sound to Sheryl Crow, but (a) more country than that and (b) Lucinda had been releasing music since the 70s so predates Crow.

This didn’t blow my mind, but I found enough to enjoy in there that I’d happily listen to it again.

Day 0823 - Come Find Yourself

Fun Loving Criminals "Come Find Yourself" (1996)

The band had formed in 1993.  They were working at a club and when the scheduled act failed to show they would step in and play the gig.  During one of these shows they caught the notice of the right people and got signed.

Their album "Come Find Yourself" has a bit of a club vibe in it, but in the main it feels to me like someone cruising around the city (presumably the FLC's hometown of New York).   Opening track "Fun Loving Criminal" feels like a daytime cruise about.   The next track "Passive Aggressive" has an evening, loungey vibe with some laidback raps which suddenly erupts into horn-backed heavy rock riffs with a yell-along chorus.   The album settles back into its silky groove for the next couple of tracks, singles "the Grave and the Constant" and "Scooby Snacks" before busting out the rock again for "Bombin' the L".

The cover of Louis Armstrong track "We have all the time in the world" is a nice touch, but not a scratch on the original.   Love the almost Cream-esque vibe of the riff from "Crime and Punishment"

The album mixes rap, rock, soul, and loungey vibes in a way that works more often than it doesn't.

Day 0802 - Different Class

Pulp "Different Class" (1995) - got it

If Blur were drawing on the Kinks, and Oasis on the Beatles, Pulp is like some weird smash together of the Pet Shop Boys and Scott Walker (would later produce their final album "We Love Life").   There are some minimalist keyboardy pop tracks and then some more cinematic mixes of acoustic guitar backed with strings, occasional jabs of rock guitar.

These sounds back singer Jarvis Cocker's stories that reflect both his northern upbringing and his geeky outsider status.  He has a certain theatrical flair to his delivery, moving between sultry whispers and spoken word, from sleepy croons, through to impassioned howls.

Many of his stories are a little downbeat, while still not without a sense of humour and a shrug of the shoulders.  Whether it's his scathing yet amused take on rich twats glamourising working class life in "Common People":

"Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you
And the stupid things that you do
Because you think that poor is cool"

Or this line from album opener "Mis-shapes" which seems to sum up the band's self-image:

"We don't look the same as you
And we don't do the things you do
But we live around here, too"

As I've said a few times, I'm not really much of a lyric fan, but Jarvis has a way with words that I can get behind.   He does seem to be very sex-focussed, but in kind of an awkward, unconventional way.

Another pillar of Britpop/Cool Brittannia.

 

Day 0787 - Garbage

Garbage "Garbage" (1995)

 Garbage was formed by 3 producers who were doing remix work for artists like U2, NIN and others and wanted to turn that arrangement experience to a band context.  They initially started with drummer Butch Vig on vocals, but then decided that a female voice would be a better fit for their music.    They saw a music video for the band Anglefish and, after a couple of auditions, got that band's singer Shirley Manson on board.

The band combined a mix of loops, samples, live jam sessions and ad-libs to create their tracks.  Accordingly, the band's sound is a mix of alt-rock and electronic elements with Manson's voice ranging from dreamy murmur in "Milk" to cutting snarl in "Only Happy When it Rains" and everything between.

Garbage (a name taken from a somewhat unkind assessment of their early music) would follow this album up with the slightly more electronic "Version 2.0" and the gloriously poppy "Beautiful Garbage" showing that they were not just a one-trick pony.

Day 0765 - Brutal Youth

Elvis Costello "Brutal Youth" (1994)

The book mentions Costello having recorded albums of surf and classical music.... so in a way it's a pity that they haven't really looked at those, instead selecting this one which returns to his early sound of melodic, yet biting rock music.

Having said that, the album does seem to wrap in different sounds that Costello had been playing around with, from jazz and soul flavours, piano balladry, and Beatles/Wilson-esque vocal harmonies which helped to keep things interesting.

As with all his other albums here, I enjoyed this and would happily listen to it again.

Day 0760 - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Pavement "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" (1994)

I think I preferred this one to the previous Pavement album in the list.   I've seen it referred to as a more mainstream sound than the previous album, but I dunno.  It's still quite noisy and has some unconventional compositional directions.

Though the album has some nice hummable melodies, there's still a lot of noise.   A sparse piano part will appear out of a cloud of fuzzed guitar.  A rock song will suddenly give way for an extended, repeated clean guitar section.  There's a jazzy instrumental in 5/4 time "5-4 = Unity" which is a tribute to jazz pianist Dave Brubeck but it also has elements of rock and even rockabilly on show.

The 90s are obviously well underway by now with that idea of it being cool to not care.   Singer Stephen Malkmus is just so unimpressed, and so cynical, and takes the time to make fun of several other 90s rock acts in song "Range Life".

Day 0754 - Giant Steps

The Boo Radleys "Giant Steps" (1993)

Named after the excellent John Coltrane album of the same name this was the third album the Radleys released.  It was also on about the third record label they'd been signed to up to that point.

They had been on Rough Trade records, but when it collapsed they were picked up by Creation Records... yet to sign Oasis, but still with Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub on the roster.

Giant Steps is the Boo's second album for Creation and it lives up to its name with a huge range of styles covered across its 17 tracks.  There's dubby reggae covered in squalls of feedback, there's Beach Boys-esque chamber pop clashing with loud rock, psychedelic balladry with avant noise overlaid.

It's another case where I probably find the runtime a bit long for my tastes, but it's still a musically interesting and enjoyable album that I'd be happy to spin again.

Day 0748 - The Infotainment Scan

The Fall "The Infotainment Scan" (1993)

The Fall embrace electronic elements on top of the rock, noise, spoken word sound of their previous two entries in this list.

The Infotainment Scan did reasonably well, hitting no.9 in the UK charts, and it has some interesting sounds throughout, but for some reason it just didn't tickle my music-bone the way other two entries (Live at the Witch Trials and This Nation's Saving Grace) did.

Day 0745 - Rid of Me

 PJ Harvey "Rid of Me" (1993) 

 

Polly Jean and her eponymous trio had been touring hard on the back of their debut "Dry".  In the meantime, things weren't totally hunky dory for Harvey.  Her relationship had broken up and her place at a College of arts and design was no longer to be held for her.  PJ suffered a nervous breakdown.

That stress and angst comes out in these raw, howling tracks, mostly consisting solely of guitar, drums and vocals with occasional bass.   PJ chose punky, no-nonsense producer Steve Albini to helm the majority of the album.   Albini's unconventional placement of microphones created a drum sound that Harvey enthused sounded just like standing right in front of the drums.  

An odd duck on the album was "Man-sized (sextet)" with its discordant string arrangement.

PJ broke up the trio after this and moved onto recording as a solo artist.

Day 0739 - Gentlemen

Afghan Whigs "Gentlemen" (1993)

The Whigs evolved out of Greg Dulli's former band the Black Republicans, with the goal being that the music should be a meeting place between the Temptations, the Band, and Neil Young playing with Crazy Horse.   I would say that the latter 2 influences are much more to the forefront than the former, though "Faded" has hints of soul, and "I keep coming back" has a nice soul vibe to it too.  It's followed by an emotive instrumental backed with synthesized strings.

Much of the rest of the album though falls into that vibe of 90s alt-rock, a mix of yelling rock vocals and a gentle gravelly croon.  The music is rock but mixes funk, and shoegazey textures into its guitar cauldron.

I enjoyed it well enough, and do like Dulli's work with Mark Langean under the moniker the Gutter Twins.

Day 0733 - Dry

PJ Harvey "Dry" (1992)

Things that I learned doing this list - number... whatever:  PJ Harvey, like Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper, used to be the name of a band as well as its titular lead singer.

Polly Jean had been raised by parents who exposed her to different styles of music.  She'd played in the ensemble Bologne and the folk duo Polekats.  She contributed saxophone, guitar and backing vocals to the group Automatic Dlamini.   During that time she had been honing her own songwriting talents, until finally she was ready to start her own band, along with two members of Automatic Dlamini.

After two critically well-received singles, PJ Harvey released her/their first album.   The music is stripped-down, raw rock with PJ (the person) hissing, howling, wailing and growling over the top.  There's noisy guitar, there are parts that are just stripped down to bass and vocals, but it doesn't just sound like indie-rock, you get a feeling that some of PJ's other musical background in folk, pop and jazz are floating around just below the surface.

The album laid down the gauntlet that has seen PJ (MBE)(the person) take up and maintain 'musical icon' status.

Day 0724 - Dirty

Sonic Youth "Dirty" (1992)

Sonic Youth seem to be another of those bands whose discography is very heavily represented in this list, and I'm not entirely sure it's warranted.  That's not to say that any of their albums are bad, far from it.  There's just not enough variety between the albums to really set them above artists with more diverse catalogues who are less represented here.

The band chose Butch Vig to produce the album.  Vig was riding high on having produced Nirvana's punky-yet-polished "Nevermind", but this was apparently not why Sonic Youth chose him.   Certainly, while Vig sought to tighten the band's arrangements, their music was no more "consumer-friendly" as a result of the collaboration.

There are some great things done with hard-panning the guitars to either side to really make use of the stereophonic field, and with bassist Kim Gordon experimenting with a variety of vocal sounds.  Essentially this album sits in the same ranking as their others for me: good album, but kind of similar to its fellows (to my ears).

Day 0695 - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Mudhoney "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" (1991)

I'll be frank - Mudhoney don't really do it for me.  They have a lot of the hallmarks of other bands that I like from this era/movement; the loud guitars, the loud vocals.  It's just that, although there are moments on this album that I enjoyed well enough, none of it really stands out or sticks in my memory after 3 runs through.  There are moments where I think "oh that sounded kind of interesting" but no "oh wow!".

The album title comes from a memory device for teaching students the line notes on the treble clef (EGBDF... the gaps 'FACE' are easier to remember), though usually it's "Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit/Favour.

Day 0684 - Nowhere

Ride "Nowhere" (1990)

The band had released a few EPs before settling in to record this, their debut full-length. 

I'm not usually a huge fan of shoegazer stuff, but this one actually tickled my fancy.  The melodies didn't seem quite as obscured by the wash of guitars etc. as is usually the case.  I found the grooves to be hypnotic and engaging, instead of boring and forgettable.

Day 0683 - Goo

Sonic Youth "Goo" (1990)

Sonic Youth's major label debut, but it doesn't feel as though they're trying to court a mainstream audience any more than they have on previous albums.

The band started with noisy no-wave, brought in swirling psychedelic noise pop.  This album feels a lot punkier and more riff-heavy (not that their albums have ever been bereft of riffs).  The band were followed and filmed on tour for the documentary film "The Year Punk Broke" which included some bands from the burgeoning grunge scene.

I liked it, though less impressed with the track "Kool Thing" with Chuck D from Public Enemy.  Not really the best thing that either party has ever done, but kudos to both for being willing to try it.  Sonic Youth were willing to experiment with different styles, they worked with samples and drum machines on the album "The Whitey Album" released under moniker Ciccone Youth, a reference to Madonna.

Day 0668 - Shake Your Money Maker

The Black Crowes "Shake Your Money Maker" (1990)

 
To pull out the 'old reliable' again "I'd heard of the band by name, but wasn't familiar with any of their music".  Turns out that I had heard a couple of these tracks ("Too hard to handle" and "She talks to angels") but just wasn't aware that they were Black Crowes songs.

The band was maybe one of the earlier groups to start the fad of reviving the 1960s blues rock sound.  Channelling artists such as Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker ("Seeing things") and Tom Petty.  They deliver a set of tracks that dwell in the sleazy, greasy good-time aspect of rock n roll, while still delivering a slice of gravity in "She talks to angels" which deals with another rock n roll 'classic'... heroin addiction.

Day 0631 - Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth "Daydream Nation" (1988)

Sonic Youth's last release before moving across to a major label.   Friends of the band, including Henry Rollins had told them that their albums were great, but the long-form noise jam versions of the songs that would characterise their live shows had never really been captured on record.

The band took this on board, and when Thurston Moore brought in the songs for "Daydream Nation", instead of refining and condensing his ideas, the band sought to expand them out into a form more recognisable to fans of their live work.   The resulting album is viewed by many as Sonic Youth's creative peak.

Myself I probably preferred "EVOL" and "Sisters" as I enjoy that more concise approach.  However, this is still a worthwhile and interesting album.

Day 0617 - Superfuzz Bigmuff

Mudhoney "Superfuzz Bigmuff" (1988)

One of the earlier grunge albums, and featuring a decent cross section of the talent/incest involved in the Seattle scene.  The drummer was in Nirvana (for all of one song), the bass-player was in the Melvins, and the other two members were in bands with future Pearl Jam Members.

This EP is named after two guitar effects pedals favoured by the band: the Univox Super-Fuzz and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff.  The record was produced by Jack Endino, who also produced SubPop releases for bands such as Soundgarden, L7 and Nirvana.  Really just adds to the grunge pedigree of it.

The music was indicative of where some of those Seattle bands were heading at the time: Punk rock rawness and energy but with a touch more melody, embracing swirling walls of psychedelic noise guitar and with more than just a touch of Black Sabbath to the whole thing.

Day 0613 - Fisherman's Blues

The Waterboys "Fisherman's Blues" (1988)

I think that in my head I'd confused the Waterboys with the Newsboys and was expecting some "Take me to your leader" style pop-rock.   The Waterboys had produced some rock albums, then their new violinist Steve Wickham invited singer and songwriter Mike Scott over to Ireland to hang out.  Apparently it changed his life (or at the least his musical direction).

The band wrote and recorded screeds of material and ended up whittling it down to these 13 songs (though a less successful second volume of songs was later released from these sessions).  The songs have a definite Irish/Celtic flavour throughout, probably more in a Dexys Midnight Runners way than something like the in-your-face sound of the Pogues though.  There are hints of Bob Dylan and the Band too with folky flavours throughout.