This to me is one of those true templates for how to assemble a b-sides album - a collection of high quality recordings that are at least a step above demos, but also show the band messing around with their sound and experimenting with their formula. Odds N’ Sods might be the best example, but this isn’t far behind. Dive, Sliver, their cover of The Vaselines’ Son of a Gun, and epic closer Aneurysm are all essential Nirvana tracks here, and from there it’s playing in sludge Big Long Now, an almost big rock sound of Aero Zeppelin, gettin’ weird on Hairspray Queen and Mexican Seafood, and punk rave ups on Molly’s Lips (also a cover), New Wave Polly, and Been a Son. Yet all these disparate sounds come together and make for a fun and curious listen every time. Nirvana at its wildest and most unhinged.
The Essential Track: Aneurysm (Dive and Sliver are damn close)
This feels like an early 90s album by the book. Mark Lanegan seems to really hit a stride here, with one excellent track after another balancing hard classic rock with big guitars and big choruses. It’s just a really solid sounding album front to back. The fully known quantity here is Nearly Lost You, which is pretty fantastic to my ears, but The Secret Kind, More or Less, Dollar Bill, Shadow of the Season, and No One Knows really highlighting this album. Once Julie Paradise really kicks in, it also joins that list. I was really impressed with this one.
The Essential Track: Nearly Lost You
Up Next: Nirvana - Incesticide
We saw them at the same Lollapalooza show in ‘96 with Rage, Metallica and Soundgarden. I liked them but other than Nearly Lost You, didn’t/don’t know anything else. I may need to rectify that. Lost You is one of my top early-90s “grunge” tunes so I’d probably like a lot of their stuff.
Pretty much the whole album is at or close to Nearly Lost You. Excellent album really.
Sad to say that as a teenager, my big beef with this album was that it was mixed in such a way that the CD played at lower volumes than my other discs. The remaster here fixes that, and I feel like I am finally giving this album a fair shake. While it doesn’t feel like it has all that much connective tissue, with the untitled interludes kind of shaking things up, there’s a ton of great tracks here, highlighted at the top by No End in Sight, Suck You Dry, Blinding Sun, I’m Spun, and Acetone. The rest, outside of the interludes, are great as well…a band that could just bang out a collection of great tracks without a definitive arc and still create an excellent album all the same.
Sonic Youth is on a bit of a roll here. With Goo, they had an album that I think could be really easily digestible - at least compared to some of their more art noise albums. This one starts to split the difference, and any time that happens with Sonic Youth, you get a monster of a great album and this is no exception. 100% opens and is the most recognizable track here, but this one goes real deep on great tracks - Theresa’s Sound-World builds into a massive rock song, Drunken Butterfly, Sugar Kane, Youth Against Fascism, Chapel Hill, and Purr are all great songs that show off a tighter and engaging band as they’ve ever been, but have their moments where sideways is just around the corner. Just on that edge that for me is Sonic Youth at their best.
The Breeders are one helluva band. This might be a real quick shot in the arm, but hell if it isn’t all great stuff here. Do You Love Me Now has that great opening track vibe that both sets the stage but keeps you wondering what comes next, Don’t Call Home and Safari are just two great rock tracks, and this is quickly finished off with a great cover of The Who’s So Sad About Us. Perfect quick blast.
This is a band you hear more about as a myth than in reality - a band that was set to take over the world until their lead singer, Mia Zapata, was raped and murdered on the eve of their first big tour. That casts a shadow over the whole thing, but when it comes to actually sitting down and listening to this, it is immediately evident that as punk rock bands go, this one was special. The band seems firmly in control, and Mia Zapata’s vocals are on another level - aggressive yet controlled and expressive. Absynthe and Second Skin to me are the class of this album, but there are a lot of really good songs here: It All Dies Anyway, Cut My Skin It Makes Me Human, and Insecurities are the others that really jumped out at first listen.
Between Husker Du’s last album, the 2 Bob Mould solo albums, and this, Mould is quickly flying up my list of artists I really am glad I found out about here. This album is consistently great top to bottom - The Act We Act sets the table perfectly, and Changes is also really good at the front end, while the album really feels like it opens up in the run of Hoover Dam, The Slim, and If I Can’t Change Your Mind (one of the heavier stripped down songs). Fortune Teller and Man on the Moon finish this off in real good form. This feels like the definition of “alternative rock” in the early 90s. Down the line near perfectly executed.
Sonic Youth is on a bit of a roll here. With Goo, they had an album that I think could be really easily digestible - at least compared to some of their more art noise albums. This one starts to split the difference, and any time that happens with Sonic Youth, you get a monster of a great album and this is no exception. 100% opens and is the most recognizable track here, but this one goes real deep on great tracks - Theresa’s Sound-World builds into a massive rock song, Drunken Butterfly, Sugar Kane, Youth Against Fascism, Chapel Hill, and Purr are all great songs that show off a tighter and engaging band as they’ve ever been, but have their moments where sideways is just around the corner. Just on that edge that for me is Sonic Youth at their best.
The Essential Track: Chapel Hill
Up Next: The Breeders - Safari (EP)
Huge fan of this one, maybe because it was my first? not sure. Sounds awesome, another amazing work by the legendary Butch Vig. The band was really into something here, bringing their noise to a more mature and maybe poppy sound?
Sonic Youth is on a bit of a roll here. With Goo, they had an album that I think could be really easily digestible - at least compared to some of their more art noise albums. This one starts to split the difference, and any time that happens with Sonic Youth, you get a monster of a great album and this is no exception. 100% opens and is the most recognizable track here, but this one goes real deep on great tracks - Theresa’s Sound-World builds into a massive rock song, Drunken Butterfly, Sugar Kane, Youth Against Fascism, Chapel Hill, and Purr are all great songs that show off a tighter and engaging band as they’ve ever been, but have their moments where sideways is just around the corner. Just on that edge that for me is Sonic Youth at their best.
The Essential Track: Chapel Hill
Up Next: The Breeders - Safari (EP)
Huge fan of this one, maybe because it was my first? not sure. Sounds awesome, another amazing work by the legendary Butch Vig. The band was really into something here, bringing their noise to a more mature and maybe poppy sound?
Yeah, I think this is about as accessible as they sounded in this era, which I am arbitrarily starting with Daydream Nation through at least this one. Maybe Goo, but Goo doesn’t quite get to this level for me. I really liked this one also.
This album starts to shift us in a different heavy direction. The usual modus operandi for bands is to have instrumental tracks as sort of filler, or a way to transition into, or more often into a different side or phase of an album. Here, it seems like the instrumental passages are the point, and vocals almost filler for the groove they were putting down with their instruments. I look no further than the winner on this album for me, Freedom Run, which has some filler vocals but is most an epic track of the band just playing off each other. I am sure if you asked I would tell you I prefer the somewhat successor band, Queens of the Stone Age, down the road - but this is good stuff in any event.
This EP is much closer to what I remember NIN sounding like than Pretty Hate Machine. Granted I’d take the latter, but there’s still plenty of good stuff here, from the single Wish, to Last, Happiness in Slavery, and the two covers Physical and Suck. This is not something I typically reach for, but could easily see myself in this space needing this.
Kyuss rules. I came late to the party, because i listened to them around the second QOTSA album probably but those riffs are huge...I recommend an argentinian band called Natas if you are in for that type of vibe.
Broken is one of those NIN releases i dont quite listen much, even if Wish is a live staple, i feel i should listen to that one a bit more.
My recollection was that these songs kind of came later in the decade, but I am wrong there. This album begins with three tracks I think are well known: Somebody to Shove, Black Gold, and the impossible to miss at the time Runaway Train whose video I think is even more memorable than the song. I never owned this album but remember I liked Runaway Train but then couldn’t bare it once it was so played to death. I think that entire experience of thinking it was good then kind of souring by the end of the song encapsulates my experience with the song in 4 minutes what I felt over the course of a year. I also think it’s a microcosm for the album that starts out pretty good but ultimately seems like a forgettable also-ran in the era. The songs simply didn’t stick for me outside the singles - good enough but not something where you’d run about and get the CD.
Well, this was one of the most confounding albums of this thread thus far. I wouldn’t say this album lurches from one sound to the next as it simply incorporates it all into what feels like a free-flowing mind-altering musical adventure. It’s as if Mike Patton and Co. simply recreated the experience of being so stoned the mind is untethered. It’s dramatic and loud, but you never get comfortable due to its shape shifting. Land of Sunshine, Caffeine, Midlife Crisis, A Small Victory, and Crack Hitler really stuck out for me, as did the instrumental theme Midnight Cowboy. I mean, this is a brilliant album, but one that might take years to properly digest. The bonus track here, Easy, is placed in such a way to ensure you feel like you went completely insane listening to this thing.
This is a short EP of covers from the mighty Primus. Some of this is rather strange in how they approached the songs, like Sinister Exaggerator, but Intruder (Peter Gabriel), Making Plans For Nigel (XTC), and Have a Cigar (Pink Floyd) are all top notch. Plus, you never go wrong listening to Les Claypool play bass, even if for 18 minutes.
Well, this was one of the most confounding albums of this thread thus far. I wouldn’t say this album lurches from one sound to the next as it simply incorporates it all into what feels like a free-flowing mind-altering musical adventure. It’s as if Mike Patton and Co. simply recreated the experience of being so stoned the mind is untethered. It’s dramatic and loud, but you never get comfortable due to its shape shifting. Land of Sunshine, Caffeine, Midlife Crisis, A Small Victory, and Crack Hitler really stuck out for me, as did the instrumental theme Midnight Cowboy. I mean, this is a brilliant album, but one that might take years to properly digest. The bonus track here, Easy, is placed in such a way to ensure you feel like you went completely insane listening to this thing.
The Essential Track: Land of Sunshine
Up Next: Primus - Miscellaneous Debris
Easy? The Commodores tune?
Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing!
- C. Montgomery Burns
Man, I hated this album. Now, Buckethead is an incredibly talented guitarist, and I wouldn’t take that away from him - hell, I own Buckethead albums, but this maniacal concept doesn’t didn’t stick with me. It came off as random and disjointed, sort of like some wild stream of consciousness that is impossible to follow. I can only go with the song with excellent guitar and bass.
