Even if 1995 didn’t coincide with my high school years, it would still stack up as a pretty great year for music. If you are my age, it is beyond great…
Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960. Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover. While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before. Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish? Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before. Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time. Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments. So without further ado, here is #35 in the series. My random number generator tells me that our next year to explore is 1964.
Check out my previous entries here.
The Greatest Albums of 1995
Nostalgia can be such a potent thing. Much of the music that I am writing about for this installment of Found or Forgotten is music that I encountered in real time as a high school upperclassman, or in the subsequent few years before I graduated college. Despite the fact that I have dedicated an inordinate amount of time at the current stage of my life chronicling my personal greatest albums, music has never been more important to me than it was during those teenage years. The result of that concentrated nostalgia is that my lists covering this time period are almost exclusively populated by material that I have been intimately familiar with for a quarter of a century or more. My 1995 list contains precisely one album that doesn’t fit that description. That means we will be talking about a lot of heavy metal and, especially, hip hop in this post, although a couple of other types of music snuck in there as well. My interest in rock and roll had waned significantly following the recent demise of grunge music, but looking back now I can recognize some really great work happening in the genre. If my teenage proclivities had been slightly different, we could well be discussing Oasis or the Foo Fighters today, but my new-found interest in those acts is not strong enough to unseat the many albums that I’ve held in reverence for such a long time. I’ve mentioned before that I consider this era of hip hop as the artform’s pinnacle, and while I touch on the uniformly recognized classics in my top ten, I do wish I had the opportunity to champion the audacious and surprisingly thoughtful nihilism of Bushwick Bill’s Phantom of the Rapra, or Occupation Hazardous, which offers gangster bars and sweet harmonies in equal measure, courtesy of the Samoan rap group, Boo-Ya Tribe. Best not spend too much more time on the intro, however, because I have 25 years of opinions to spill out over this crop of remarkable albums that are incredibly important to me.
Liquid Swords – GZA
You know the phrase “Gun to my head…”? It’s a dumb phrase. Basically, the person using it is saying that they couldn’t possibly make a particular choice without the threat of mortal violence, then voluntarily discloses that very same choice despite not actually having a Jigsaw-like figure holding a literal gun to their head. Like I said, dumb. Then again, I suppose most rhetorical devices don’t hold up to any sort of literal interpretation. Anyway, flying guillotine around my neck, I would have to choose hip hop as my favorite musical genre, the mid-90’s as my favorite era of hip hop, and Liquid Swords as my favorite hip hop album of the mid-90’s, possibly ever. It is an album that holds a particular spot of reverence among my group of friends, at least the ones that I’ve known since then, and from what I can tell that is not an uncommon sentiment for people my age. The reasons for that reverence are myriad, but ultimately boil down to this: It has a clear concept that informs every choice on the album, and that concept is executed to perfection. The central idea is simply the metaphor of high caliber lyricism as kung fu technique. That concept permeates every song, whether it is explicitly about being an ill lyricist, which it often is, or if it’s about life on the Staten Island streets, or the record industry, or even the dichotomy between organized religion and personal spirituality. The concept is present in the samples used, the album cover, the album title itself. That clarity of focus lends the whole affair momentum and allows you to settle in and immerse yourself in the sonic world that unfolds.
The GZA, a.k.a. the Genius, is the perfect artist to make an album like this. By my estimation (all due respect to Nas), GZA was the era’s most accomplished technician when it came to rapping. He doesn’t flex off-the-wall flows or flash high wattage charisma like Biggie Smalls or Method Man, but if you’re talking pure bars, I’ll take GZA all day. It’s interesting how the culture has evolved in that respect. On one hand, you have emcees who came in subsequent decades (MF Doom, Lupe Fiasco, JID) who are lyrically proficient in ways that GZA probably never even conceptualized, effectively advancing the art in the same way that he and his contemporaries pushed the ball forward from Rakim and KRS-One and the other premier 80’s rappers. Yet, on the other hand, lyricism in hip hop has seemingly never been less valued on a macro scale. If you listen to drill music, or even its more culturally inescapable older brother, trap music, you are not signing on for an experience that puts lyrics in the forefront. Often, lyricism isn’t even treated as an ancillary concern, and the rapping serves as just another rhythmic element. When Ice T railed at Soulja Boy’s gleeful eschewing of substantive rhyming back in 2008, he was reacting to what seemed at the time to be a highly lucrative aberration. What Ice probably saw coming that I couldn’t, was the door opening for that aberration to become the new normal. And why not? Once it became clear you could make all the money without all the talent or all the hard work, it was a wrap. Liquid Swords is so powerful to me, even more so now than it was in the late nineties when it was already my favorite rap album, because it is a celebration of the art of rap lyricism. It represents the… I’m hesitating to say the pinnacle, but if not the pinnacle then at least the most unadulterated form of rhyming that demands to be poured over, to be examined and returned to again and again. GZA, a master of his craft, spits bars packed with indelible imagery: “Picture bloodbaths and elevator shafts”; “Unbalanced like elephants and ants on see-saws”. He coins perfectly evocative similes: “I flow like the blood on a murder scene”; “I’m low-key like seashells”. He uses double entendres to name check nearly forty record labels in his anti-record label screed. He boasts and tells stories and commands the mic with an inimitable presence. And when he lets his friends in on the act, they raise their game to keep up with him.
For all of that concentrated lyrical brilliance, though, an equally critical component to this album’s artistic success is the production effort by GZA’s similarly-monikered cousin. By my estimation (all due respect to Dr. Dre), RZA was the era’s most accomplished technician when it came to crafting beats. He established a grimy, off-kilter sound on his first three efforts (Enter the 36 Chambers, Tical, and Return to the 36 Chambers), but his next pair of releases expanded on that foundation considerably. For Liquid Swords, he polished some of the rough edges and added sophisticated sonic flourishes, but paradoxically created his most sinister and cold-blooded production to date. It is a miracle how completely the music embodies the mystical, kung fu elements of Wu Tang’s ethos, while also serving the grim, reality-based rhymes of tracks like “Cold World” or “Investigative Reports”. Finally, when other Clan members, still in their hungry, world conquering phase, show up in support of the vision, you end up with all-time classics like “4th Chamber”, “Shadowboxin’” and “Duel of the Iron Mics”. All of which makes Liquid Swords the greatest example of what the Wu Tang Clan was capable of when they brought all of their considerable super powers to bear on their way to world domination.
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The Bends – Radiohead
Radiohead is an act that prides themselves on never staying still. From album to album, there are massive leaps in sound and approach (OK Computer to Kid A for example) or at least significant progression that would represent massive leaps for most artists (say, Hail to the Thief to In Rainbows). Even with that reputation for evolution, however, The Bends remains their most singular album. I think that’s because the gulf between the band’s debut and their third album is so massive that The Bends manages to bridge it without sounding much like either one. There are moments of connection – “My Iron Lung” has punctuations of guitar crunch that are reminiscent of their breakout single “Creep”; “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” hints at the melancholy drama that permeates OK Computer – but barring Thom Yorke’s unmistakable voice, you could confuse those first three records as the work of three different bands. The hallmark of Radiohead’s sophomore effort is a blend of beauty and dynamism within a relatively straight-forward rock structure. In some ways that makes The Bends the spiritual successor to Jeff Buckley’s Grace more so than a companion to the rest of their discography. Every track stands alone on the strength of the song-writing and performance, but they also flow seamlessly into one another, leading to an enrapturing experience. It is so consistent in its approach and quality, in fact, that it is difficult to pick out a handful of examples to illustrate what makes it special. You don’t pay me to back down from a challenge, however, so let me give it a shot.* Listen to the last minute of the title track, where Johnny Greenwood’s brief, stabbing guitar solo combines with Thom’s manic pleas until they decelerate into a blissfully gentle landing as the song wraps up. Or how about an even smaller section of “Bulletproof…Wish I Was” in the song’s denouement where Yorke vocalizes “Oooooo” in one channel while he faintly sings the chorus in another, and the rest of the band plays an intensely sweet melody, seemingly from inside a wind tunnel. Or what about a single note from Fake Plastic Trees, still arguably the band’s best ballad, when during the slow build Thom brings the pitch up on the second syllable of the word “crumbles” and it makes you feel like a tiny little concussion grenade has gone off in the center of your heart. These are all memorable and affecting moments, but they are equally as arbitrarily chosen amongst a vast ocean of moments that affect and stick with you. The band’s command of building and releasing intensity is masterful, and it’s something that would serve them throughout the rest of their career, but perhaps never as well as it did here. So while their muse would pull them further and further from their contemporaries in mainstream rock music, very successfully I might add, I am always a little sad when I listen back to The Bends and realize what it is that they left behind.
* You don’t pay me at all, actually, which is why this project won’t be finished until you and I are both senior citizens.
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Adrenaline – Deftones
Sometimes I have a very specific memory tied to a song or an album, a moment that is frozen in amber in my mind. With Adrenaline, I can’t recall a particular instance so much as a general sense of time and place. Listening to any track seems to immediately conjure the feeling of riding around in one of the 17 Nissan Altimas or 240SXs that my friends drove, on the way to school, or to 7-11, or to someone’s house to make videos or play N64 Goldeneye or engage in some less-focused form of dicking around. It is a remarkably comforting experience, one rooted in a time in my life with infinitely less responsibility but also unmarred by melancholy because I still hang out with most of those former Nissan-owning ne’er-do-wells. It also makes it kind of hard to describe the Deftones’ debut. Is comforting the right descriptor for this amalgamation of rap rock, post-punk and proto-nu metal? Adrenaline was most likely designed to be abrasive and, yes, adrenaline-raising, and I get all that on the surface, but deep down it just instills a soothing wave of nostalgia. Surely, no one else can relate to zoning out to this music and letting the serotonin fill up their brain like a drip coffee maker, right? Well, I’m not so sure that nostalgia is the only factor at play here. In a flash of serendipity that only Found or Forgotten could facilitate, Adrenaline actually has a lot in common with The Bends once you set aside all the things that they very much don’t have in common, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that they elicit a similar emotional response. Both albums have a unique, but very self-contained sound. Meaning that the music is not generic when you consider their respective genres as a whole, but it is very consistent from track to track on each project. Similarly, the quality of the songs does not fluctuate hardly at all. No filler tracks, no weird experiments, no half-formed ideas or left-overs from different eras. Everything on Adrenaline has the same hallmarks: Stephen Carpenter’s down-tuned, choppy riffs; the loose, sludgy rhythm section; Chino’s dynamic vocals (put a pin in that one). And each track, mostly clocking in between three and a half and four and a half minutes, displays those hallmarks with a uniformly high level of execution. So when you listen to it, after your ears adjust, it isn’t hard to fall into a bit of a trance despite the aggressive nature of the genre. When the material does differentiate itself a little bit, it does so late in the album. There is the extra long “Fireal”, which extends the established template across a more expansive run time. More importantly, the band buries the two most obvious bangers, “7 Words” and “Engine No. 9” on the second half. Even the label seemed to agree in part, releasing “7 Words” as the lead single. Why the unconventional sequencing when albums historically cram all their potential singles at the front of the record? Unclear, except perhaps for the band having a real hard line on song title/track number synchronicity. Back to Chino – he’s a really unusual and evocative singer for a band like this. His sultry, crooning side is half Maynard Keenan and half Sade, even if he is purposely off-key more on any given song than either of those singers ever were in their entire careers. His more aggressive, rap-adjacent, almost screechy side predicts SOD’s Serj Tankian, and provides the music much of its unpredictable energy. So look, I don’t know if you will appreciate Adrenaline in precisely the way that I do, but if this era of of metal suits you at all, I can guarantee you will appreciate it in some way regardless.
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Only Built 4 Cuban Linx – Raekwon
RZA solidifies his case for 1995 musical MVP with his second top five production effort of the year, and that’s not even considering the deliriously fun but not quite top-10 worthy Return to the 36 Chambers. That one deserves a moment of consideration, though. While ODB was a huge raw talent, he was so erratic that creating an album around him was a task only even attempted by the most elite producers in the world, i.e. RZA and the Neptunes. Raekwon proved to be a much more amenable and focused collaborator. His vision for a mafioso-inspired project was novel at the time, and RZA was tasked with honoring that idea without straying too far from the already-established Wu Tang style. His approach involves an opulent, cinematic sound, approximating a film score at times while still delivering simple, rock-solid beats that bang. He incorporates skits and movie snippets in equal measure, this time swapping out the standard kung-fu flicks for John Woo’s The Killer, and the whole thing gives the illusion of a fleshed-out story even if what’s on offer is really just a broad outline of one. To be honest, all Wu lyrics are dense with double and triple meanings and hyper-specific slang, but that is doubly true of Rae and frequent collaborator Ghostface Killah, so I can’t claim a firm grasp on what is being conveyed from song to song despite a nearly thirty year history with the record. Regardless of how well you can follow the plot, however, Rae is never better at delivering potent bursts of lyricism with a calm swagger. He doesn’t always have the most impactful or thought-provoking bars out of the Clan, but his verbal dexterity is unparalleled within the collective. Ghost was still finding his voice in this era, but the maturity he showed in just the couple of short years between this and Enter the 36 Chambers is remarkable. Of course you also get the all star support that you expect from a Wu record, including a hell of a Nas verse on album highlight “Verbal Intercourse”. Still, this is truly the Rae and Ghost show and all the guest emcees bend their contributions to serve the mafioso concept (except when it is abandoned altogether, like the hugely popular but never-going-to-be-my-kind-of-thing “Ice Cream”). The album was so successful that it kicked off a whole mafia movement in hip hop that not only had its share of pale imitators, but also inspired established, hall of fame talent as well. After Raekwon crafted pop-culture inspired names for his Wu compatriots’ criminal alter egos, you had Nas adopting the “Escobar” moniker and Biggie Smalls parading around as “Frank White” all of a sudden. I don’t think it would be fair to say that Jay Z owes his career to Cuban Linx, but I have no idea what Reasonable Doubt would have been conceptually if not for the so-called Purple Tape dropping the summer before. When I discovered in real time that the Wu Tang Clan was releasing all of these solo albums which highlighted individual members while staying true to their core philosophies and building upon their already heady mythology, I felt intoxicated by the possibilities. You couldn’t ask for anything cooler to a kid who grew up absorbing increasingly complicated comic book continuity and reading short stories inspired by one-scene Star Wars characters. Thus the reason that Wu Tang took over the world in the late nineties – their approach proved irresistible to nerdy white kids and world famous rap artists alike.
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The Infamous – Mobb Deep
The paradigm shift that Raekwon initiated for crime rap, switching the perspective to the kingpins from the street level, is still in place today. Current artists like Freddie Gibbs, Pusha T, and Bennie the Butcher all rhyme from the perspective of heading highly successful criminal empires. One thing that is missing from their bars, or has at least been deprioritized, are lyrics that highlight the flip side of the game. Raekwon knew that any good mafia movie needed conflict, loss, and regret to balance out the obscene wealth and power. Mobb Deep were friends and collaborators with Rae over the years, but in ‘95 they had not yet been swept up in the mafioso fantasy. The Infamous is as street level as it gets, bringing you eye to eye with the low level crooks and gang bangers that populated the average Queens street corner. It also has a lack of balance, but in this case it is the positive side of the coin that is largely ignored by the duo. Paranoia seems to be their greatest motivator, and while they are self-assured in their abilities and those of their crew, there is a sense of inevitable tragedy that permeates even their most boastful moments. Driving a Lexus and sporting diamond jewelry are signifiers that they are competent at their criminal enterprises, but neither Prodigy or Havoc can muster the slightest bit of enthusiasm for their accomplishments. Instead of popping champagne in celebration of their successes, they frequently describe their alcoholism, another hollow attempt to avoid the emptiness of the lifestyle they were born into. It is grim stuff, and the fact that the emcees are so matter-of-fact about all of it makes it feel even grimmer. Raekwon, and even GZA to some degree, lean into the dramatization and story-telling aspects of the worlds they craft, but Mobb Deep approaches the subject with a journalistic detachment. The gauntlet of nihilism they describe may not be verifiable in the specifics, may or may not describe the life they live or have lived themselves, but it is far too palpable and lived in to not describe somebody’s actual life, and that is what gives The Infamous its terrible, uneasy power.
Holy shit, how’s that as an advertisement for this album? Let me spend a little time at least exploring why someone might want to listen to this, much less return to it repeatedly across several decades. The darkness of the subject matter is mirrored in the production, but the beats are still uniformly great. They aren’t typically aggressive, but languid and wistful at times, frequently conjuring the oppressive heat of a project tenement without air conditioning or sizzling asphalt in the summer. Lyrically, that heat is metaphorical, coming from the non-stop barrage of police, rival crews and duplicitous allies. I’ve always understood Havoc to be the driving force behind the group’s production, but Prodigy is the rapper who edges out his partner, ever-so-slightly, when it comes to rhymes. They have very similar styles, but Prodigy is just a hair more emphatic, exhibits a touch more agility, cuts a little more deep when he spits. Both emcees deliver excellent bars across The Infamous’ hour-plus run time, however, and that is never more true than on the album’s stand out single, “Shook Ones, Part II”. Unequivocally one of the greatest hip hop tracks of all time, Havoc hooks up an anxiety inducing beat over top of a funky but ominous walking bass line, and Prodigy leads off with a world class heater of a verse. It’s his cadence and wordplay, sure, but it’s also just the coldness of his delivery, the hint of a snarl behind his dispassionate rhymes. It is the perfect encapsulation of the album as a whole. The Infamous is alternately scary and heartbreaking, capable of lulling you into a trance or exploding with violent intent. I fear I haven’t done a good job of explaining the album’s appeal, and maybe that’s because I am unsure why it resonates so strongly with me. For hip hop fans, it has the goods from a lyrical and production standpoint for sure. Beyond that, I wouldn’t call it a fun listen, but it definitely crawls under your skin and takes root. More so than most rap music of a similar vein, it makes me feel something, even as the album’s protagonists strive so hard to feel nothing at all as their only defense against the world that they live in.
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To Bring You My Love – PJ Harvey
As I’m sure I’ve made clear so far, I have a long-standing relationship with nearly all of the music in this top ten list. There is one exception, however: To Bring You My Love. Prior to preparing for this post, I was aware of PJ Harvey’s existence as a musician of some description, but that was the extent of my familiarity with her work. Thankfully, that mild flicker of recognition was enough to throw this album in the mix when I started my 1995 discovery queue. I don’t know what odd array of coincidences have conspired to keep it off of my radar for so many years, but this feels like an album that I would have took notice of immediately had some blogger/journalist/college dorm mate hipped me to it at some point in the past couple of decades. It is a recording that seeks to tap into that same raw power of very early blues artists like Robert Johnson, but filtered through a prism of Lucinda Williams and The Stooges and Captain Beefheart*. Harvey is a powerful and unmannered singer. She doesn’t seem to worry about bending her voice towards commercial viability, and there are moments, like on “I Think I’m a Mother”, where she is purposely adopting some affectation in service of the material that completely precludes more mainstream acceptance. The song cycle is one of deep yearning, using religious imagery to convey the profound intensity of her feelings for the subject of her focus. On the title track, which opens the album, Harvey sings of the extraordinary efforts she undertaken to deliver her love, including a pact with the devil himself. Later, on the mirror-image “Send His Love to Me”, she prays earnestly to Jesus Christ for her love to be reciprocated. It is intense, and guttural, and my mind wants to return to “primordial” even though I don’t know how to articulate precisely how that word applies. In addition to blues tradition mythology and religious symbolism, Harvey taps into American Gothic drama to create an immersive treatise on all-encompassing desire. The musicianship on the album is immediate but deceptively complex. It is guitar-forward, crunchy and droning at times, but incorporates additional string instruments and organ and a variety of percussion to add depth and variety to the sound. Yet, all of those instruments really serve the emotional thrust of the album, which I would classify as a bit of a grower. Not only do I enjoy it more and more each time I spin it, but it gradually picks up momentum even in a single sitting. I usually get chills around the second half of “C’mon Billy”, and the album doesn’t let up from there. Of all the previously unexplored music I have come across through Found or Forgotten, the category of rock and roll created by women is probably the one that has expanded the most. I’m looking forward to discovering the rest of Harvey’s catalog and continuing that expansion throughout the rest of the project.
* The Beefheart connection is Wikipedia’s, not mine. Apparently there are several nods to the Captain’s work across the album, but I wouldn’t know because I kind of can’t stand Captain Beefheart’s sanctimonious take on music. Damn you PJ Harvey, you’re going to make me pay attention to him again the next time I do a year from the sixties, aren’t you?
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Demanufacture – Fear Factory
This is another nostalgia bomb for me, a real “high school Nissan standard” if you will. I’m not always keen on industrial elements in my metal, but I do love a good concept album, and Fear Factory expertly uses the former to really sell the latter on Demanufacture. The concept boils down to man vs machine, and while I can’t claim that the band achieves the level of nuance and ennui that Radiohead would achieve in 1997 on their similarly-themed album, Ok Computer, they do present a more coherent package than other well-regarded metal albums like Seventh Son of a Seventh Son or Painkiller. Truthfully, the song titles do a better job of selling the concept than the lyrics, which are not largely distinguishable from other 90’s metal. They are memorable, though, and singer Burton Bell smartly deploys repetition to make the album an easy singalong favorite, particularly if you listened to it a thousand times in your formative years. “I’ve got – no more – goddamn – regrets!” and “Drag your feet through hollow streets” and “I am so numb” and “Where’s your savior now?” and pretty much all of “Replica” are instantly recognizable and iconic. More than what Bell sings, it is how he sings that helps Demanufacture stand out in the crowded metal scene of the 90’s. The combination of metal growl and cleaner, more melodic vocals is so prevalent now that it is almost passe, but back in ‘95 it was a novel amalgamation that made Fear Factory instantly more interesting than many of their peers. Bell’s melodic side also has a bit of a flat affect, which doesn’t necessarily sell his singing chops but does add to the duality of humanity and mechanical that is central to the album’s themes. Even more so, the drumming of Raymon Herrerra blurs that line, although I suspect there’s some drum machine assisting with that, particularly at the start of the title track. Still, the fact that you can’t really tell for sure illustrates Herrera’s piston-like speed and precision. When you layer in the bludgeoning guitar and bass work and the industrial facets I mentioned previously, Demanufacture is an impressive realization of the artists’ intent.
* Against all odds, this may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever professed online – When I was younger, I had a dream of replacing the score of The Transformers: The Movie with music entirely from Demanufacture and Fear Is the Mind Killer. You can’t tell me that the apocalyptic strains of “A Therapy for Pain” wouldn’t make the ultimate backdrop for Unicron consuming Cybertron while Rodimus Prime attempts to unlock the Matrix. Ironically, now that we live in an age where such tremendously nerdy pursuits are not so openly mocked, and the technology to achieve such a thing is at my fingertips, I am far too busy with work and raising children and writing a billion words on horror movies and old music to squeeze it in my schedule. Consider this my attempt to manifest it into the universe – anyone who is reading, feel free to take a crack at it and link me in the comments of an upcoming post.
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Post – Bjork
I am a sketch comedy fan, and a comedy podcast fan, and there are no shortage of celebrity impressions on offer in both of those mediums. Bjork – bizarre, uncompromising, inscrutable to casual music fans – is an easy target for such shenanigans. Unfortunately, those impressions, regardless of whether they come from such venerable institutions as Comedy Bang Bang or Saturday Night Live, inevitably miss the mark. They invariably present the Icelandic singer/songwriter as both capricious and twee, the height of randomness for randomness’ sake. I don’t profess to “get” Bjork more than the average music fan, but I get her well enough to know that the idea that her music is random or capricious is insultingly misguided. Is she operating on a different frequency than the typical radio-friendly artist? Of course. Is her music challenging and opaque at times? Absolutely. Is it somehow the result of unfocused and unconnected flights of fancy? I don’t know how you could listen to one of her records and harbor that opinion. You and I may not connect with an idea of Bjork’s as quickly or as easily as another artist, but that does not mean that it is a less fully formed or articulated idea. In her later albums like Homogenic or Vespertine, she would plunge us into an alien soundscape and keep us there, allowing us to acclimate over time and familiarize ourselves with the terrain. On Post, her second album and essentially her coming out party, she doesn’t veer quite so far off of the well-worn path of recognizable pop music, but she also doesn’t stick to a particular style for more than one song. The result is a dizzying array of creative ideas, executed with an abundance of pluck and skill. “Army of Me” kicks off the album in menacing fashion with a dose of spacey and heavy electric rock. Bjork explores trip hop on tracks like “Enjoy” and “Possibly Maybe”, while musical theater is the inspiration for the memorably charming single “It’s Oh So Quiet”. House music, worldbeat, dance pop and folk music pop up elsewhere on Post, making it one of the least predictable listening experiences of the nineties. In a weird way, there are multiple moments on this project that foreshadow Radiohead’s OK Computer far more specifically than The Bends does. I’m not capable of connecting to Bjork’s emotional center the way I am with Thom Yorke’s, but that challenge offers yet another fascinating layer to this complex and ambitious work of art.
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Funkcronomicon – Axiom Funk
I probably abuse the metaphor of stating that a particular album sounds like it is being beamed in from an alternate dimension. What can I say, its tough to write 600 album reviews without repeating yourself. With Funkcronomicon, though, I promise, it really, really seems like that. Axiom Funk is a collective of all star musicians helmed by Bill Laswell and released on his Axiom label. Are you a funk enthusiast? If so, imagine the universe in which these geniuses recorded a project together: George Clinton, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Hazel, Buckethead, Maceo Parker, Bernie Worrell, Fred Wesley, Bobby Byrd and Sly motherfucking Stone. Then stop imagining, because you live in that universe… sort of. It’s not technically true that Laswell recruited this insane supergroup to engage in the creative process of developing a coherent project from scratch. These songs come from different recording sessions with different permutations of performers over a number of years (Hazel had passed away in 1992, in fact), and to be honest it kind of shows in the wild tonal shifts across the double album. You know what, though? If you don’t focus too hard on the practical realities of how Funkcronimicon came to exist, you can imagine that alternate reality where anything is possible. A topsy-turvy world where Flavor Flav is sampled on a George Clinton song and not the other way around. Where “Sex Machine” was actually recorded as the Maceo Parker showcase, “Sax Machine”, a track which does not feature James Brown but delights in poking fun at him with the assistance of his long-time right hand man. Where Bootsy Collins didn’t just make a career for himself out of a Jimi Hendrix impression, but actually performed “If 6 Was 9”. Where Sly Stone… well, even in this fictional world, unfortunately, Sly is completely fried by the nineties and his contribution is a novelty at best. None of which even accounts for the wild drum and bass excursions or the recreation of Funkadelic’s classic “Cosmic Slop” that is even more sumptuous and moving than the original or “Hideous Mutant Freekz”, a track that doubles as both the theme song for a low-budget Alex Winters vehicle and perhaps the most underappreciated funk anthem of all time. I will admit that my musical proclivities may make me the listener who is most inclined to enjoy this album besides Laswell himself, and even I rarely make it through the full 90 minutes without a couple of skips. Even still, there is so much great stuff in this collection of off-kilter funk and electronica that practically no one has ever heard, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t take the opportunity to spread the word.
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Friday: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Various Artists
It took thirty-five posts before we landed a soundtrack in the top ten. Humor me while I spend a few moments laying out the rules I have applied to the inclusion of soundtracks. First, I am not considering film scores for this series. I simply don’t have the time to sort through a whole swath of additional music for these posts, and honestly I’ve never been the type to listen to scores outside of the context of the film they are attached to. I’m also not listening to cast recordings of Broadway shows, a different but related genre. Second, I am only considering soundtracks of at least 75% new music. Often, that takes the form of individual artists crafting full albums in support of a film, so we will definitely be seeing the likes of Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly soundtrack and Purple Rain by Prince in future posts. Sometimes, though, you have a traditional soundtrack with various artists contributing new songs like we have here. So, while I absolutely adore the expertly curated Dead Presidents soundtracks, they are not qualified to compete because they primarily contain previously released music. Friday, on the other hand, offers a wealth of mostly new material from West coast hip hop artists and soul/funk luminaries. The film in question is a cultural touchstone for my generation, an impossibly charming slice-of-life comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker that is truly one of the funniest and most successful independent films in cinema history. Its soundtrack made an equally large impact crater. I vividly recall, as a college freshman, frequently hearing the music echoing down dormitory hallways and emanating from passing cars, not to mention my own dorm room and car stereo. It opens, as it naturally would, with a lead single by the film’s star, and quickly follows with two world-renowned heavy hitters in Dr. Dre and Scarface. It’s a trifecta of really good tracks that stack up well with anything in each artist’s catalogue. The rest of the album is loaded with more hip hop from recognizable hit-makers (Cypress Hill, Mack 10) as well as lesser known artists (Threat, E-A-Ski), and represents a versatile yet harmonious lineup of songs that may not all make the top of your playlist, but also don’t invite the use of the skip button. What really sets the whole thing off, however, is the sprinkling of funky R&B, both previously released (“I Wanna Get Next to You” by Rose Royce; “Mary Jane” by Rick James) and new (“You Got Me Wide Open” by P-Funk’s Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell). These tracks lighten the mood and help sell the bright, summer-time vibes that are key to the film and album both. With more and more music to listen to and less and less time to do it as I get older, this is a record that I have neglected for far too long. I can’t wait to bust it out again in a few months when it is a more seasonably appropriate listen, and hopefully keep it in rotation any time I’m entertaining in those summer months. It’s bound to hit for anyone from my generation.
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Honorable Mentions
Hip Hop: Me Against the World – 2Pac; Do You Want More?!!!??! – The Roots; Goodfellas – Showbiz & AG; Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version – Ol’ Dirty Bastard; The Show: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Various Artists; The Mixtape, Volume 1: 60 Minutes of Funk – Funkmaster Flex; Occupation Hazardous – Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.; Phantom of the Rapra – Bushwick Bill
Rock/Metal: Alice in Chains – Alice in Chains; A.M. – Wilco; Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters; Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – Smashing Pumpkins; NOLA – Down; Orchid – Opeth; Trace – Son Volt
Soul/Jazz/Global: Brown Sugar – D’Angelo; Cesaria – Cesaria Evora; Negropolitaines Vol. 2 – Manu Dibango; Music of Lekan Animashaun – Lekan Animashaun; Time Warp – Chick Corea
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