Tag: 1990s

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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
Tunes

100 best covers: #32 Black Box Recorder “Seasons in the sun”

<< #33    |    #31 >>

Well, I learned something new when writing this post. Before sitting down to draft it and indeed, when putting together this list, many moons ago, I was thinking that Terry Jacks was the originator of this song and I had an idea that the flavour of this post would be highly nostalgic, given that his version was one of my father’s faves. However, as I was tracking down the videos below for this post and doing a bit of fact checking, I realized that the origins of “Seasons in the sun” were just a tad more complicated.

Originating as a French language song titled “Le moribund” (“The dying man”), it was recorded and released back in 1961 by Belgian chanteur Jacques Brel for his fifth album, “Marieke”. I was quite surprised listening to it for the first time that though the pacing and melody was similar to the version I knew, it sounded quite different, was much darker, and it wasn’t just the language either. It had a staccato rhythm, amped by strings and horns, and the voice of Jacques Brel hovering heavenly above it all, weaving the persona of a dying man addressing from his deathbed a number of acquaintances, including a good friend, a priest, and… his wife’s lover.

“Le moribund” was translated and rewritten by California poet and singer/songwriter Rod McKuen in 1963* and he gave his version the title with which I was more familiar. And though his version was substantially different in terms of the title and word choices, it was still quite similar thematically.

Canadian singer/songwriter Terry Jacks then took McKuen’s words and used them as a springboard in the early 70s, taking the narrative even further away from the original, rewriting nearly half the words, and entirely removing the element of the cheating wife, leaving the impression of a life unfinished, no closure, just unhappiness at the passing. His version of the song was originally intended for The Beach Boys** but he ended up recording his own rendition in 1974 and it became a world wide sensation.

Despite the heartbreak of the content, his “Seasons in the Sun” was very much in the vein of the Beach Boys sound, focusing intently on the sunshine of the title, and of course, it had that unforgettable dreamy guitar riff at the beginning of each verse. And yeah, I know the song has been critically derided over the years and has been called out as one of the worst songs ever recorded, but it appealed to my sappy teenaged self, one of the songs that I adopted from my parents’ car playlists before I struck out on my own musically.

Fast forward twenty five years or so and I was just getting into the latest Luke Haines project, Black Box Recorder, at the recommendation of my good friend Tim, who also got me into The Auteurs. They recorded a cover of “Seasons in the sun” based on the Terry Jacks version*** during the sessions for their debut, 1998’s “England made me”. Theirs is a heavy and heavenly bass line, juxtaposed against Sara Nixey’s soft as cotton touch on vocals and the odd synth flourish, and yeah, they included a nod to that instantly recognizable riff. By the end, Luke Haines has joined the mix, singing backup and adding raunchy guitars and feedback, ripping the band aid off of some of the innocence of the Terry Jacks version, bringing the angst and darkness back, as if channeling Jacques Brel.

As much as the original appeals, as does what Brel does with his words, and as much as I loved the Terry Jacks version as a teen, I’m going to go with Black Box Recorder here.

Cover:

Original (in French):

Terry Jacks version:

*Part of his translation project to bring Brel’s work to the English speaking masses.

**They recorded a version in 1971 but weren’t happy with it. The recording eventually saw the light on one of the many box sets that were released many years later.

***They adjusted the first person narrative lyrics to a female voice to account for the fact that Sara was singing.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #25 Frank Black “Headache”

<< #26   |   #24 >>

Back in the early 90s, Toronto alternative radio station CFNY collaborated with music retailer extraordinaire HMV on a series of alternative music compilations. Fittingly titled “Free at last”, the radio station would hand them out as promotional items at events and the store would give them out free with purchases of music by at least one of the artists appearing on the compilation. There were five of them made (that I know of) from 1991 to 1995 and I’m pretty sure they were available both on cassette tape and compact disc, though the art work differed between the two.

I must have had friends that had a few of the volumes because I still have a couple of copies dubbed to cassette packed away in the basement. I also have stowed with them a legit one that I got myself from HMV: Volume 4, from 1994. Looking at the track listing, I figure I probably got a copy with Lush’s second album “Split”. Other artists that appeared on this volume included The Breeders, The Charlatans, Meat Puppets, The Tindersticks, and yes, you guessed it, Frank Black. The very track of focus today, the only single off his sophomore solo long player.

I had only just gotten into his band, the Pixies, a year or two before they announced their break up in 1993 and almost immediately, the frontman* appeared with his debut solo album. In truth, Black had been working on solo material for some time, recording some covers for a planned album as early as during the sessions for Pixies 1991 long player, “Trompe le monde”. The eventual self-titled debut only ended up with one cover on it** when it came out but had a banger of a single on it called “Los Angeles”, whose video I recorded one night from CityLimits and watched and rewatched and rewatched. The sophomore release, “Teenager of the year”, appeared the following year, including twenty two tracks, mostly of typical Pixie length, in and around the two to two and a half minute mark. I never really got into that album as a whole but man, did I love “Headache”, and this was mostly due to the compilation I spoke about above.

“This wrinkle in time, I can’t give it no credit
I thought about my space and I really got me down
Got me so down, I got me a headache
My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound”

Economical as ever, Black packs it all into three minutes. There’s no running start here, going from zero to a hundred, right from the get-go. Crashing drums and slacker guitars, feeling so free and loose. But it’s Black’s vocals and melody that are the star. There ain’t no time to sit and ponder one’s place in the universe and in history. You just gotta go for it. Live it and sing along with Frank. Back him up, screaming all the way. You’ll never be sorry.

*Adjusting his assumed moniker slightly from Black Francis to Frank Black.

**Which I loved.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.