Jul 5, 2023Liked by Mitch Blum, CJ Kaplan, Ken Warshaw
Glad to see this album successfully pitched! There were some fantastic albums in 1994 (Superunknown, Illmatic, Weezer, Jar of Flies, Protection, No Need to Argue) but for me the album of the year has to be Portishead’s Dummy, an instant and enduring classic. Just my $0.02
Jul 5, 2023Liked by Mitch Blum, CJ Kaplan, Ken Warshaw
Making Vs. an "official" pick would've been good for mustering all of us pedants to our keyboards to share our many thoughts & opinions on the record. Spoiler alert: It rules.
I think you could make a plausible argument for Snoop Dawg's "Doggystyle" as well. Not exactly on-brand for Newbury Street, but it's hard to argue against how much it changed the music landscape.
My actual vote from the top 20 that you haven't already covered would by August & Everything After. Yeah, Adam Duritz seemed insufferable, but for coming up on 30, it sounds surprisingly good. I'm listening to "Murder of One" as I type this. You know, for research.
Just a quick reminder that "grunge" was not a tag these musicians chose, or even wanted; it was a media "hook" invented by Sub Pop Records that bigger labels and big magazines ran with.
Not sure where the slam on PJ's other musicians came from; it's kinda like dogging Humble Pie for having Steve Marriott. A good singer matters, a great singer matters more; that's just how folks perceive these things. The PJ guys lifted a fairly average singer (but stellar front performer), the late Andrew Wood, in a band called Mother Love Bone to the big-label minors before Wood's death in 1991. That's not nothin'. Nobody wanted instrumental virtuosity in the 90s anyway, we'd had our fill of Yngwies and Sheehans in the late 80s.
Anyway, I'll throw an album into the hopper for consideration: Kyuss' 1994 album "Welcome To Sky Valley".
Living in Seattle during their heyday it was semi-mandatory to appreciate Pearl Jam. I’ve seen them in concert enough times to disagree with the diss of the guitar and bass talent. I agree on the difficulty following their lyrics, but when I last saw them at Ohana Festival in Dana Point last year I seemed to be the only audience member who didn’t know every word to every song.
PS Ohana is the best old guy festival ever. Two stages side by side so one act is setting up while another plays. Audience doesn’t need to decide which act to forego to walk miles between a headliner and a more obscure act on a side stage, or to move at all except for pee breaks and concessions.
1994. I got married (for the first time) and moved from Japan to Australia. I was here about two weeks when I realised I'd made a colossal error. I'm trying to remember what I was listening to as I pondered the fact that I was now living in a place that called sandwiches 'sangas' with someone who seemed to find my every utterance annoying. This wasn't a top twenty album but the Canadian band Blue Rodeo released an album called Five Days In July in that year. I remember feeling very homesick, listening to it on my walkman, as I rode the 'tram' to work everyday. Still a great record. I'd spent some time in Seattle in 1990-1 and seen The Screaming Trees, Mudhoney and, yes, Nirvana. I had a fabulous Sub Pop sampler that I dragged around for awhile so I was open to the music but lost interest once it became mainstream - I'm so cool. I'm not really but the later stuff didn't grab me. I was getting close to 30! Will listen to both this week. Postscript: Australia got better, marriage didn't last.
I’m not really a big STP or grunge fan but Purple and Tiny Gift Shop are solid albums
Glad to see this album successfully pitched! There were some fantastic albums in 1994 (Superunknown, Illmatic, Weezer, Jar of Flies, Protection, No Need to Argue) but for me the album of the year has to be Portishead’s Dummy, an instant and enduring classic. Just my $0.02
Making Vs. an "official" pick would've been good for mustering all of us pedants to our keyboards to share our many thoughts & opinions on the record. Spoiler alert: It rules.
I think you could make a plausible argument for Snoop Dawg's "Doggystyle" as well. Not exactly on-brand for Newbury Street, but it's hard to argue against how much it changed the music landscape.
My actual vote from the top 20 that you haven't already covered would by August & Everything After. Yeah, Adam Duritz seemed insufferable, but for coming up on 30, it sounds surprisingly good. I'm listening to "Murder of One" as I type this. You know, for research.
Just a quick reminder that "grunge" was not a tag these musicians chose, or even wanted; it was a media "hook" invented by Sub Pop Records that bigger labels and big magazines ran with.
Not sure where the slam on PJ's other musicians came from; it's kinda like dogging Humble Pie for having Steve Marriott. A good singer matters, a great singer matters more; that's just how folks perceive these things. The PJ guys lifted a fairly average singer (but stellar front performer), the late Andrew Wood, in a band called Mother Love Bone to the big-label minors before Wood's death in 1991. That's not nothin'. Nobody wanted instrumental virtuosity in the 90s anyway, we'd had our fill of Yngwies and Sheehans in the late 80s.
Anyway, I'll throw an album into the hopper for consideration: Kyuss' 1994 album "Welcome To Sky Valley".
Living in Seattle during their heyday it was semi-mandatory to appreciate Pearl Jam. I’ve seen them in concert enough times to disagree with the diss of the guitar and bass talent. I agree on the difficulty following their lyrics, but when I last saw them at Ohana Festival in Dana Point last year I seemed to be the only audience member who didn’t know every word to every song.
PS Ohana is the best old guy festival ever. Two stages side by side so one act is setting up while another plays. Audience doesn’t need to decide which act to forego to walk miles between a headliner and a more obscure act on a side stage, or to move at all except for pee breaks and concessions.
1994. I got married (for the first time) and moved from Japan to Australia. I was here about two weeks when I realised I'd made a colossal error. I'm trying to remember what I was listening to as I pondered the fact that I was now living in a place that called sandwiches 'sangas' with someone who seemed to find my every utterance annoying. This wasn't a top twenty album but the Canadian band Blue Rodeo released an album called Five Days In July in that year. I remember feeling very homesick, listening to it on my walkman, as I rode the 'tram' to work everyday. Still a great record. I'd spent some time in Seattle in 1990-1 and seen The Screaming Trees, Mudhoney and, yes, Nirvana. I had a fabulous Sub Pop sampler that I dragged around for awhile so I was open to the music but lost interest once it became mainstream - I'm so cool. I'm not really but the later stuff didn't grab me. I was getting close to 30! Will listen to both this week. Postscript: Australia got better, marriage didn't last.