Author: jprobichaud

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: 75 tunes from 1991

Here’s a good long Apple Music playlist that could get you through an afternoon of chores, painting, or cooking. Perhaps a road trip from Toronto to Montreal. Or keep you company on a flight from North America to Europe.

I’ve done a few playlists over the years on this blog but never any that focused on the music of a particular year in the past. I’ve chosen to start with 1991 because it was particularly pivotal year for me in terms of musical discovery. It was the year that I started to dip my toes into alternative rock, a brave new world for me, a wave of music that included a huge variety of styles, very little of which sounded like the music of my parents. So even though I wasn’t listening to all of these songs at the time, I’d say that the majority are old friends, intimate acquaintances.

There’s seventy-five great tracks, representative of how I saw 1991. It’s not a ‘best of’. I’ve already done the list of my top thirty favourite tracks on this blog here. Some of the songs in that list appear on this playlist but there’s plenty others here and some that are much deeper cuts. I know that there are those of you out there who might catch some obvious omissions. Some of these might have been because they were not to my tastes but there are others, like My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” or The Real People’s “Open up your mind (let me in)”, that were not available to be added due to music rights and Apple Music or whatever. Still, there’s so many other gems that show the wide range of music that was coming out in those years just before Grunge exploded and changed everything for alternative rock.

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist, with links to YouTube videos for each song:

  1. Primal Scream “Loaded”
  2. Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff “Dizzy”
  3. Blur “Sing”
  4. Teenage Fanclub “Star Sign”
  5. Lowest of the Low “Subversives”
  6. Electronic “Getting Away With It”
  7. Throwing Muses “Not Too Soon”
  8. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”
  9. James “Sit Down”
  10. Chapterhouse “Mesmerise”
  11. R.E.M. “Belong”
  12. Spacemen 3 “I Love You”
  13. Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians “So You Think You’re In Love”
  14. EMF “Unbelievable”
  15. Crash Test Dummies “Androgynous”
  16. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Where’d You Go”
  17. Pixies “Alec Eiffel”
  18. Levellers “Liberty Song”
  19. Big Audio Dynamite II “The Globe”
  20. Spin Doctors “Two Princes”
  21. Depeche Mode “Death’s Door”
  22. Slowdive “Catch The Breeze”
  23. Rheostatics “Record Body Count”
  24. Siouxsie & The Banshees “Kiss Them For Me”
  25. Jesus Jones “Right Here, Right Now”
  26. Northside “My Rising Star”
  27. Primus “Tommy the Cat”
  28. Morrissey “Sing Your Life”
  29. Pearl Jam “Jeremy”
  30. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Grey Cell Green”
  31. Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
  32. Ministry “Jesus Built My Hotrod”
  33. Paris Angels “Perfume (Loved Up)”
  34. Barenaked Ladies “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”
  35. Saint Etienne “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”
  36. Primal Scream “Come Together”
  37. Teenage Fanclub “The Concept”
  38. Billy Bragg “Everywhere”
  39. The Farm “All Together Now”
  40. Crash Test Dummies “The Ghosts That Haunt Me”
  41. Inspiral Carpets “Caravan”
  42. Morrissey “Mute Witness”
  43. The Tragically Hip “Little Bones”
  44. R.E.M. “Me In Honey”
  45. Meat Puppets “Sam”
  46. The Wonder Stuff “Welcome To The Cheap Seats”
  47. U2 “One”
  48. The Charlatans “Over Rising”
  49. Erasure “Chorus”
  50. Lowest of the Low “Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes”
  51. Violent Femmes “American Music”
  52. Spirit of the West “D For Democracy”
  53. Blur “She’s So High”
  54. Spirea X “Chlorine Dream”
  55. Chapterhouse “Pearl”
  56. The Grapes Of Wrath “You May Be Right”
  57. The Dylans “Godlike”
  58. Lenny Kravitz “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”
  59. Levellers “One Way”
  60. Revolver “Heaven Sent an Angel”
  61. Barenaked Ladies “If I Had $1,000,000”
  62. Swervedriver “Rave Down”
  63. Rheostatics “Aliens (Christmas 1988)”
  64. Billy Bragg “Accident Waiting To Happen”
  65. The Farm “Hearts & Minds”
  66. Spirit Of The West “Far Too Canadian”
  67. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Kill Your Television”
  68. Odds “Love Is The Subject”
  69. R.E.M. “Losing My Religion”
  70. Pixies “Head On”
  71. Northside “Take Five”
  72. U2 “Until the End of the World”
  73. Blur “There’s No Other Way”
  74. Lowest of the Low “Rosy and Grey”
  75. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist. I hope you enjoy.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Clientele “Music for the age of miracles”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Clientele
Album Title: Music for the age of miracles
Year released: 2017
Details: standard black vinyl

The skinny: Returning back to my series, spinning all of The Clientele’s long players from my collection, I thought it pertinent to quote part of the post (with some updates) I wrote when I shared the band’s sixth studio album as my favourite from 2017. “When I purchased [this standard black copy of the album] from my local record store Compact Music, Tyler, my favourite vinyl pusher*, noted the album with a grin and said it was a good one. He used all the usual adjectives dragged out when describing their music, but assured me that when that “hazy, epic tune backing a spoken word monologue” (“The museum of fog”) came on, he said to himself, “oh yeah… these guys”. And he nodded slowly in a way that suggested he was hearing the song again in his head at that very moment. When I put on “Music for the age of miracles” for my own first listen, it didn’t disappoint at all. It was like returning home and sitting in your favourite comfy chair and watching the greatest movie you’ve never seen before but with all your favourite actors and characters. Familiar yet mind blowing and new.”

Standout track: “Lunar days”

*Compact Music used to have two locations Ottawa. The location I purchased this record at in 2017 was on Bank street, sadly, now closed down and Trevor has moved on to other pursuits.

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Preoccupations [2016]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Preoccupations performing at Ottawa Bluesfest July 9, 2016

Artist: Preoccupations
When: July 9th, 2016
Where: Black Sheep stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: We’re only halfway through the first month of 2026 and I’m already itching to see some live music. I feel that with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and then my health problems last year that I’ve got a lot concert attending to catch up on. Call it a resolution or whatever. It’s what I plan to do. I’ve already got a ticket for one show and my eye on a handful of others. Until then, here’s some pics from a fantastic show I caught 10 years ago (!) at Ottawa Bluesfest and I’ve included some words that I wrote about it at the time for my old blog Music Insanity!

“…The final band of the night for me were headlining the tiny Black Sheep stage and went by the name of Preoccupations. The Calgary-based, post-punk four-piece were formerly named “Viet Cong” but changed it after facing accusations of racism due to their choice in moniker. I was really excited to see them live because I was curious how they would match the insanity on their incredible debut long player. I got my answer when the lead guitarist broke a string within minutes of starting into the first song. The band employed plenty of effects and electronics in changing the sounds of their instruments and their voices but the energy was all theirs. Like their records, it was all angular guitars, rapid fire drumming, surprising time changes, loud booming bass, and yes, extremely dark. The drummer was particularly incredible, employing a mixture of electronic and traditional drums in his kit, and hitting them like he was a machine possessed by a poltergeist. The crowd was relatively small in size but didn’t lack for enthusiasm. Plenty of times, those closest to the stage erupted into violent, tribal dance, much like a mosh pit. I didn’t join in the fun but did often find myself lost in the waves of music. Their set was loud and dense and consisted of many (if not all) of the tracks off their debut album (including personal favourite, “Continental shelf”), as well as a preview of new material. […] All in all, an amazing set, well worth stamping around in the rain for.”
Point of reference song: “Anxiety”

Matt Flegel at the mic
Mike Wallace at the kit
Daniel Christiansen close up
Scott Munro concentrating on the synths
Mike Wallace loses his shirt
Daniel Christiansen rocking out like no one is watching
Scott Munro’s death stare
Matt Flegel singing in the rain
Preoccupations under the cover of darkness