Essential Studio Albums

[wease]

Hindu Love Gods

This is really a late ‘90 release, but I missed it and I thought it was worth visiting since this band, basically R.E.M. with Warren Zevon, fits nicely between a couple of their day job releases. This album mostly comprises blues and a few other covers, and reveals a band really thick in electric blues, exactly the kind of stuff I would never expect from the R.E.M. folks. It is also my understanding they were not pleased with this release. That said, there are some barn burners in here, including Mannish Boy and Wang Dang Doodle on the blues end and an ever further unexpected cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Wild and fun release for sure.

The Essential Track: Mannish Boy

Up Next: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

I’ve never even heard anything about this. Interesting.

[oasisfan35]

Hindu Love Gods

This is really a late ‘90 release, but I missed it and I thought it was worth visiting since this band, basically R.E.M. with Warren Zevon, fits nicely between a couple of their day job releases. This album mostly comprises blues and a few other covers, and reveals a band really thick in electric blues, exactly the kind of stuff I would never expect from the R.E.M. folks. It is also my understanding they were not pleased with this release. That said, there are some barn burners in here, including Mannish Boy and Wang Dang Doodle on the blues end and an ever further unexpected cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Wild and fun release for sure.

The Essential Track: Mannish Boy

Up Next: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

I’ve never even heard anything about this. Interesting.

Yeah, all parties involved were not particularly happy from what I recall. I am not a Prince guy but Raspberry Beret here is awesome.

[liebzz]

Live - Mental Jewelry

I had a very short period where I really liked Live, sometime after Throwing Copper, and Mental Jewelry was also swept up in that since they played parts of both albums in their Unplugged show. Eventually it would all crash down actually seeing them Live, which I was not enthused by the show in 1997 (they were the third show I saw live, after seeing Pearl Jam, and then Dave Matthews Band in the Fall of 1996). All that said, revisiting this album decades later was largely a treat. Really I forgot how much I enjoyed the drums on this album. Really the opening 5 tracks on this are quite solid, and the rest pretty good. I remember the Beauty of Gray being the track I was really into then as a 17 year old, we’re going with that.

The Essential Track: The Beauty of Gray

Up Next: R.E.M. - Out of Time

[liebzz]

Hindu Love Gods

This is really a late ‘90 release, but I missed it and I thought it was worth visiting since this band, basically R.E.M. with Warren Zevon, fits nicely between a couple of their day job releases. This album mostly comprises blues and a few other covers, and reveals a band really thick in electric blues, exactly the kind of stuff I would never expect from the R.E.M. folks. It is also my understanding they were not pleased with this release. That said, there are some barn burners in here, including Mannish Boy and Wang Dang Doodle on the blues end and an ever further unexpected cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Wild and fun release for sure.

The Essential Track: Mannish Boy

Up Next: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

I’ve never even heard anything about this. Interesting.

Yeah, all parties involved were not particularly happy from what I recall. I am not a Prince guy but Raspberry Beret here is awesome.

A very rock Raspberry Beret

[wease]

Hindu Love Gods

This is really a late ‘90 release, but I missed it and I thought it was worth visiting since this band, basically R.E.M. with Warren Zevon, fits nicely between a couple of their day job releases. This album mostly comprises blues and a few other covers, and reveals a band really thick in electric blues, exactly the kind of stuff I would never expect from the R.E.M. folks. It is also my understanding they were not pleased with this release. That said, there are some barn burners in here, including Mannish Boy and Wang Dang Doodle on the blues end and an ever further unexpected cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Wild and fun release for sure.

The Essential Track: Mannish Boy

Up Next: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

I’ve never even heard anything about this. Interesting.

Yeah, all parties involved were not particularly happy from what I recall. I am not a Prince guy but Raspberry Beret here is awesome.

If they weren’t happy, why’d they do it? It’s not like they didn’t have careers outside this venture.

[wease]

Live - Mental Jewelry

I had a very short period where I really liked Live, sometime after Throwing Copper, and Mental Jewelry was also swept up in that since they played parts of both albums in their Unplugged show. Eventually it would all crash down actually seeing them Live, which I was not enthused by the show in 1997 (they were the third show I saw live, after seeing Pearl Jam, and then Dave Matthews Band in the Fall of 1996). All that said, revisiting this album decades later was largely a treat. Really I forgot how much I enjoyed the drums on this album. Really the opening 5 tracks on this are quite solid, and the rest pretty good. I remember the Beauty of Gray being the track I was really into then as a 17 year old, we’re going with that.

The Essential Track: The Beauty of Gray

Up Next: R.E.M. - Out of Time

They were a fucking tight band. And I loved the drummer. Still love the this and Throwing Copper. The third one is where they started losing me. Some buds saw them around the same time you did and said they sucked live.

[LoathedVermin72]

Hindu Love Gods

This is really a late ‘90 release, but I missed it and I thought it was worth visiting since this band, basically R.E.M. with Warren Zevon, fits nicely between a couple of their day job releases. This album mostly comprises blues and a few other covers, and reveals a band really thick in electric blues, exactly the kind of stuff I would never expect from the R.E.M. folks. It is also my understanding they were not pleased with this release. That said, there are some barn burners in here, including Mannish Boy and Wang Dang Doodle on the blues end and an ever further unexpected cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret. Wild and fun release for sure.

The Essential Track: Mannish Boy

Up Next: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque

I’ve never even heard anything about this. Interesting.

Yeah, all parties involved were not particularly happy from what I recall. I am not a Prince guy but Raspberry Beret here is awesome.

If they weren’t happy, why’d they do it? It’s not like they didn’t have careers outside this venture.

From what I heard via R U Talkin’ R.E.M. RE: Me?, they all just did it for fun and it got released without their input. They didn’t intend for it to be an album.

[liebzz]

R.E.M. - Out of Time

This album has one of the most iconic moments in all of the 90s. The sudden arrival of those mandolin chords can immediately transport you to that time - a song so huge it was dug deep into the psyche for all time. And let’s face it, removed from being bombarded by the song for years, it’s a great song. Yet for all that hyperbole, Out of Time is my least favorite of the R.E.M. albums thus far, mostly because it plays like an album full of songs that are great but don’t always play together well (the second half really is exceptional). In fact, for me it’s almost too little too late that the groove of this album finally hits its stride at the Half a World Away > Texarkana > Country Feedback > Me in Honey run that closes the album spectacularly. It’s that moment that is the pay off for an uneven first half.

The Essential Track: Losing My Religion

Up Next: U2 - Achtung Baby

[Kalevi]

Live - Mental Jewelry

I had a very short period where I really liked Live, sometime after Throwing Copper, and Mental Jewelry was also swept up in that since they played parts of both albums in their Unplugged show. Eventually it would all crash down actually seeing them Live, which I was not enthused by the show in 1997 (they were the third show I saw live, after seeing Pearl Jam, and then Dave Matthews Band in the Fall of 1996). All that said, revisiting this album decades later was largely a treat. Really I forgot how much I enjoyed the drums on this album. Really the opening 5 tracks on this are quite solid, and the rest pretty good. I remember the Beauty of Gray being the track I was really into then as a 17 year old, we’re going with that.

The Essential Track: The Beauty of Gray

Up Next: R.E.M. - Out of Time

They were a fucking tight band. And I loved the drummer. Still love the this and Throwing Copper. The third one is where they started losing me. Some buds saw them around the same time you did and said they sucked live.

I thought the third one was pretty good. They lost me with the fourth one.

[liebzz]

U2 - Achtung Baby

This is the textbook on how to reinvent your sound without losing your identity as a band. Whereas my top line criticism of Rattle and Hum was that it showed a great band trying to be the greatest band in the world, and doing it by placing themselves forcefully on a pedestal with icons of the time, this album feels more like a great athlete naturally letting the game come to them - even where the atmosphere they’ve created it a leap from what they’d done before. Every song on here feels fresh and inspired, even 35 years later. The funk and groove of songs like The Fly, Mysterious Ways, and Even Better Than the Real Thing propel this sound. One and Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses bring timeless anthems. Acrobat, Until the End of the World, Ultra Violet…basically the list is endless here. Admittedly this band can be hard to root for, but when they hit it out of the park like this, few can compare.

The Essential Track: The Fly

Up Next: Richard Thompson - Rumor and Sigh

[VinylGuy]

Achtung Baby is a total masterpiece. What a fucking wild ride was U2 at that time, i love this moment of the band i guess from this to Pop they were unbeatable for me

[liebzz]

Richard Thompson - Rumor and Sigh

I almost felt bad that this followed Achtung Baby, as if almost any album would be a bit of a let down, but this one was not that at all. It comes out a bit on fire with Read About Love, Feel So Good, I Misunderstood, and Grey Walls - all really fantastic tracks. I might have been lulled for a bit, this is an hour long album after all, but was enthralled with Mothet Knows Best and Psycho Street to close this album. I liked the last one we went through also, and this one is just consistently very good, part of the reason maybe I was a bit lulled in that middle section. It certainly wasn’t for lack of quality.

The Essential Track: Mother Knows Best

Up Next: The Wedding Present - Seamonsters

[liebzz]

The Wedding Present - Seamonsters

I think I was reading on this that Steve Albini produced this album, which would explain the massive drums and the abrasive sound that falls on top of an almost pop rock (this will seem like familiar territory in time). On Daliance, the opener takes its time to get to that point, but once it does it seems the whole album is nestled in that spot, and while some of the songs are 5-6 minutes, it felt to me like the most effective use of this sound here were the shorter tracks. This album’s last third is particularly strong with Corduroy, Carolyn, and Heather really rockin’ out and bringing it all home with the most atmospheric Octopussy. Solid album that really ends great.

The Essential Track: Corduroy (no relation)

Up Next: Slint - Spiderland

[liebzz]

Slint - Spiderland

This second and final album from Slint appears to be a big departure on what I remember of their debut. While Breadcrumb Trail, Nosferatu Man, and the album closing Good Morning Captain have their moments, this album feels like a band that fell well too far down their own rabbit hole and lost themselves in the process. Granted, that might be the point and it certainly is hailed as a landmark album, though really not something that kept me engaged (hence how long it took for me to get through a 39 minute album. Some experiments I can get into, but this one was not for me.

The Essential Track: Nosferatu Man

Up Next: Siouxsie and the Banshees - Superstition

[liebzz]

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Superstition

There were really a lot of their albums I really liked in the 80s, so I was looking forward to listening to what I missed in the 90s as well. While this album has Kiss Them For Me, a song that is a hit, though not that huge a hit, and a few really solid tunes here, I felt like the album as a whole was sort of in the middle, and maybe my least favorite of this band’s albums thus far. Perhaps it is that the album on the whole feels synthetic, particularly with drums, but it’s also the case that only a few songs here stick out: the aforementioned single, Got to Get Up, and Silver Waterfalls for me.

The Essential Track: Kiss Them For Me

Up Next: Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

[liebzz]

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

This is probably the strangest relationship I have with a band’s music. I have heard nearly all of their catalogue over the years, and somehow I alternate between this being an impossibly great band and an impossible awful band without warning, and sometimes with the exact same material. It magnetizes and repels in equal measure. The last few times I listened to Gish, I was in the right frame of mind - the psychedelic guitars and drums all fit together for me and I could easily hail it among their early career highs. I can’t say I am abandoning that position on this listen, but for the more adequately paced songs on this album, I wasn’t in the right space for this today. But this is what Smashing Pumpkins always does to me. Today it was I Am One, Rhinoceros, Bury Me, and Crush that I was really into and enjoying. Even though I know Siva, Suffer, and Snail are great, they didn’t do it for me this time. There’s always next time.

The Essential Track: Rhinoceros

Up Next: Slowdive - Just For a Day

[liebzz]

Slowdive - Just For a Day

This album has some serious atmosphere going on. On The Sandman, you can hear the washing up beach, and there’s an opaqueness to the entire album that sort of begs this atmosphere into existence. Like other shoegaze albums, distant and washed out vocals couple with big swings in lush layers. Overall, I found this pretty enjoyable, even if this is not typically my cup of tea - at least over 45 minutes - but I do appreciate the more atmospheric tunes on many an album. The clear winner for me on this front was Catch the Breeze, though Spanish Air was also a great highlight.

The Essential Track: Catch the Breeze

Up Next: Swervedriver - Raise

[VinylGuy]

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

This is probably the strangest relationship I have with a band’s music. I have heard nearly all of their catalogue over the years, and somehow I alternate between this being an impossibly great band and an impossible awful band without warning, and sometimes with the exact same material. It magnetizes and repels in equal measure. The last few times I listened to Gish, I was in the right frame of mind - the psychedelic guitars and drums all fit together for me and I could easily hail it among their early career highs. I can’t say I am abandoning that position on this listen, but for the more adequately paced songs on this album, I wasn’t in the right space for this today. But this is what Smashing Pumpkins always does to me. Today it was I Am One, Rhinoceros, Bury Me, and Crush that I was really into and enjoying. Even though I know Siva, Suffer, and Snail are great, they didn’t do it for me this time. There’s always next time.

The Essential Track: Rhinoceros

Up Next: Slowdive - Just For a Day

As formulaic as Gish can be, its a hell of a debut and its already pointing on how good Corgan is as a songwriter and as a guitarist too.

[Ello Sailor]

Gonna have a heart attack over the Spiderland and Gish reviews. Both absolute masterpieces.

[LoathedVermin72]

Have to agree with liebzz about Spiderland. Never been my thing either. And Gish is definitely the worst of the original SP run. Can’t say I return to it much.