Heartache With Hard Work

High – Feeder

One of the least complicated songs you’re ever likely to hear. The message is pretty clear: “I’m going out for a while, so I can get high with my friends.” And there you go.  Though I suppose there’s an undercurrent of nostalgia and the deep bonds of friendship.

This song has always struck me as being part of the cottage industry of Bends-knockoffs that sprung up just as Radiohead themselves were radically altering their sound. And while I’m slowly starting to come around on post-Bends Radiohead, I still can’t help but think that songs like this show just how much room still remained in this kind of grandiose soft/loud waves-of-guitar rock.

It was also featured in Can’t Hardly Wait, which was a veritable Who’s Who of 90’s alt-rock bands. I haven’t seen the film in over a decade—and I’m sure it doesn’t hold up all that well (as most John Hughes knock-offs from the 90’s don’t)—but I can still remember the music from it quite clearly.

Awful – Hole

Hole was, of course, Courtney Love’s band. They got a lot of snide comments about only being famous thanks to her marriage with Kurt Cobain. But for those who actually listened to their music, that case was pretty hard to make.

Their first batch of songs veered toward a sort of gritty, acoustic variant on grunge and punk. In fact, the famous Nirvana Unplugged show reminds me quite a bit of Hole’s music, suggesting that Cobain may have picked up as much from her as she ever did from him.

Then, in 1998 they came out with Celebrity Skin, and a whole new round of condemnation began. It had a pop sheen that seemed to make it more of a kind with, say, Matchbox 20 than with Nirvana. But again, the haters were wrong. Sure, the sound had changed. But times had changed, too. Grunge had already faded into the past, and Hole took the opportunity to turn out one of the better guitar-pop records of the late-90’s.

This song in particular seems to be a comment on the shift. It’s both self-critical (ironically describing the commercialization that turns punk rock into radio-friendly pop) and stridently committed to the principle that in spite of those problems, there’s something magical and transformative about such music. She’s totally honest about the brighter, shinier future and the horrors lurking underneath but takes a leap of faith regardless.

Molly – Sponge

My experience with this song could not possibly be replicated today. I saw maybe the final 45 seconds of its video on MTV and then didn’t hear it again for probably a month. But it had made such an impression that I searched through the singles rack the next time we went to the mall and finally found a copy of the single. On tape, no less.

I took it home, stuck it in the tape player, listened through, flipped it over and listened to the b-side (which was terrible), and then listened again. It was another year or two before I even heard another song from the band – but in that time I listened to “Molly” at least 100 times.

The thing that still kills me about this song is the guitar, which sounds like it’s been refracted through a crystal. And there’s the little cascading bit during the chorus, which long-time readers will know is a sure way into my heart.

Good – Better Than Ezra

Back in high school, one of my good friends was in a band. They had a few original songs and lots of covers. But there was one song they played far more than any other. It got to the point where it became a running joke, that they weren’t simply a Better Than Ezra cover band, but instead were simply a “Good” cover band. They’d noodle around with one of their own songs, get fed up, look at each other, shrug, and then break into the opening riff of this song.

It makes sense: this song is almost quintessential mid-90s pop-friendly alternative rock, marking almost the epitome of rock’s post-grunge return to its roots in the 60s.  It’s big, fun, and not all that complicated.

Kevin Drum links to a Gallup poll about the moral acceptability of various behaviors or practices.  He comments that there are only four things on the list he finds unacceptable.  Is he just a relativist?  Here’s the list and percentages:

The things I consider morally wrong are: fur, animal testing, the death penalty, and affairs.  But that’s a bit of a strange way to think about it, actually.  Because ‘morally wrong’ doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a strong interest in regulating them.  Affairs are immoral, but millions of people have them and, of course, they shouldn’t be illegal.  Animal testing is immoral, in my opinion, but there’s also obviously a strong moral argument FOR it.  So even though I think it’s immoral, I think there are certainly cases where it’s justifiable.  Fur is pretty indefensible in my mind (at least when it’s purely a matter of fashion), but again is not something that I expect the state to regulate anytime soon.  The death penalty is really the only unequivocal ‘no’ on there.

For the yeses, there are plenty of things that I think deserve serious regulation.  Which means ‘morally acceptable’ need not correspond all that closely to ‘socially advantageous.’  Things like gambling, porn, cloning, and polygamy all have issues.  But they’re not immoral on face.  They may be a serious problem in certain contexts but may be a social good in others.  And then there’s abortion, where the act in a vacuum might be morally difficult, but having ACCESS to abortion is a clear moral necessity.

The lesson I draw from this is that ‘morality’ is a weird concept.  It meshes somewhat with law, concepts of the social good, beliefs about a virtuous life, and squeamishness. Basically, trying to use the information from this poll to draw conclusions about culture and politics is a sketchy proposition at best.  How people answer probably reveals more about their conception of the concept ‘morality’ than anything else.

Girl Right Next To Me – Goo Goo Dolls

If the only thing you know about the Goo Goo Dolls is “Name” and “Iris,” and that they have a terrible name, then you’re seriously missing out.  I’m not saying those two songs are bad (in fact, I love them both!), but they suggest a band occupied solely with bombastic, sappy, acoustic balladeering. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Goo Goo Dolls, up until they struck gold with “Name,” they were a garage-rock band, deeply influenced by The Replacements and the more poppy side of late 80’s punk.  This track is from their 1993 record Superstar Car Wash.  It’s full of midwestern mid-90’s rock goodness: big, jangly guitars, a nice heavy bass line pushed up front, and far less polish than their later stuff.

For some other fantastic stuff of their’s check out “Slide,” “Ain’t That Unusual,” and “Stop the World.”

Sadly, in the last decade the band has turned into the previously-incorrect caricature, releasing records that steadily amped up the compression, producing punchy songs with absolutely no heart.

Orestes – A Perfect Circle

I’m not going to lie – I had a bit of a Tool fascination when I was younger.  Late high school / early college…those are prime years for boys to get into Tool and I was no exception.  I still maintain that Aenima is a great album, and even their later stuff (which has grown ever more bloated and prog-rocky) still has a lot to offer.  In fact, I may yet still do a Tool-specific post.

But for today, the subject is actually their spin-off band: A Perfect Circle–with songs written by their sometimes guitarist and sung by Maynard James Keenan.  Their debut record Mer De Noms had some of the same feel as Tool, but featured shorter, more tightly constructed songs, and a more straightforward rock dynamic.

I can’t say that it’s aged tremendously well.  Some of the best 90s music is absolutely timeless, and that’s not the case here.  You can almost hear the underlying screams of desperation: “it’s 1999 and the decade is slipping away from us.”  The alternative rock boom was already on the way out, as emo-kids and straightforward pop-angst were filtering in to replace the more deep (if not necessarily more genuine) tropes of post-Nirvana suicide-rock, and Mer De Noms was right there to mark the moment.

But that gives it a strange poignancy.  And never more than on this track.

The Freshmen – The Verve Pipe

This song is an almost perfect litmus test. For those of a particular age, it hit like a ton of bricks, capturing the complexity and pain of growing up. But for those who weren’t precisely situated, it’s over-the-top garbage.

I was just a year past being a freshman myself, and it came out right in the midst of the most tumultuous few months of my entire life—marked by some pretty extreme trauma (in the form of a car accident that almost killed one friend, seriously hurt several others, and probably would have killed me if I hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt), and the sort of relationships that can only emerge out of such shared pain and terror.

Almost a decade ago I wrote down some of my reflections about that night. I went back and read them today, and the following line really captures why this song matters so much to me: “For the first time in my life, I discovered what it means to have a friend, because before that night, I had never really needed anyone to love me.”

Just because it’s melodramatic doesn’t mean it’s not true.

This song is about that kind of feeling, which can only be provoked the dawning realization that out of nowhere you’ve become old enough to face genuinely adult problems.

So I rarely listen to it these days, because my better (more ironically distant and critically-aware) self understands how ridiculous a song it actually is. But when I do listen, I toss all that aside and embrace the moment. Basically, I still want to be the sort of person who is capable of feeling this song in my gut.

I think we’ve all got a song or two we feel that way about.

Be Mine – R.E.M.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi is, without a doubt, the last great R.E.M. album.  In fact, apart from Automatic for the People, it might actually be their best.

Their career progression was a bit odd. They went from mumbly-vocals and jangly guitars to massive, international superstars.  In that process, many bands would have taken a more ‘pop’ turn, churned out some ballads, and produced songs more easily digestible by the masses. For R.E.M., though, this was their most productive and brilliant period. Their sound certainly changed, but growing craftsmanship is very different from reduced quality.

Sure, there’s a few missteps along the way (the ‘rap’ on “Radio Song” – yikes. And “Everybody Hurts” is certainly a pretty song but it’s also lowest-common-denominator pablum). But the run of albums that includes Document, Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi is just stunning. I’m not even a big fan of Monster, but it’s a got a couple great tracks.  And the rest are all huge.

What marks the division between this record and the ones that came after? One possible answer is the departure of Bill Berry. I don’t know exactly how much of a role he played in writing and constructing their songs, but he certainly might be the X factor.

It also might simply be that the musical milieu was starting to break apart. By this reading, R.E.M. might have collapsed into their post-1996 form (a mediocre band with the occasional great song) far earlier if they weren’t riding the crest of a massive wave of musical creativity.   Spurred on by a cultural explosion of rock music back onto the mainstream, and a ton of bands releasing great records, they upped their game to compete.  This is the sort of argument that says Revolver was only possible because the Beatles were challenged by Pet Sounds to do something stunning.

Whatever the cause, the distinction is clear in the sound. Hi-Fi is full of jagged edges and brilliant turns. It’s long, extremely varied, and takes plenty of risks. It was also recorded basically live – the versions on the album were recorded from sound checks on a tour – which is a gimmick that doesn’t normally appeal to me that much, but works wonderfully here.  “Be Mine” is my favorite track–mostly for the glorious wall of sound in the final minute and a half–but you could just as easily go with the incredibly atmospheric “E-Bow the Letter,” the straightforward punch of “Bittersweet Me” or “So Fast, So Numb,” the wistful elegance of “Electrolite” or the pitch-perfect piano fills of “How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us.”  They’re all great.

Medicine – Orbit (from Libido Speedway)

The theme is ‘forgotten songs of the 90s’ but (of course) what counts as forgotten is all a matter of perspective. What some have forgotten may remain vital for others. And, many great songs may simply never have hit the radar at all for most people. Today I’m going to explore that angle, and delve into the bin of ‘forgotten almost at the moment of release.’

This track just about screams mid-90s. It’s got a bass-driven line that reminds me of Harvey Danger, a drum fill that could easily have come from Weezer’s blue album, and the loud/soft dynamic that was reborn in the wake of Nevermind. Bands like Orbit strike me as the logical ancestors of 21st century acts like The Strokes. “Medicine” can’t give you the raucous energy of the Pixies, but it hasn’t completely given up the ghost yet.

Whether the backbenchers of the 90s are preferable to their counterparts these days is obviously a subjective question. But for my money there is a lot more room for something evocative here than you’ll get from a bunch of Strokes knock-offs.