Tag: Retro

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #21 New Model Army “Bad old world”

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New Model Army is yet another group to whom my friend Tim introduced me, but as opposed to the group who last appeared in this list, this meeting was more immediately successful. He put one of their tracks, “51st state”, on a mixed tape he made for me and its angry folk-punk and intelligent but subversive messaging appealed to my teenaged sensibilities. Then, seeing my interest piqued, he loaned me a CD copy of their 1992 singles compilation, “History”. From there, I was completely sold on the songwriting of Justin Sullivan and the dark and angry workings of his bandmates.

Indeed, it was almost as if it were all part of Tim’s ‘evil’ plotting because in the early part of the summer of 1993, the group was touring North America, complete with a stop in Toronto, and yours truly was a ready-made concert buddy. Nevertheless, it was to be my first ever concert* and to say I was excited was an understatement. I purchased a copy of their latest CD, “The love of hopeless causes”, in preparation and it quickly fell into heavy rotation.

“Bad old world” is the final track on that album, a real rocker to close things off, but what really makes the song notable is the lyrics and the way Sullivan sings them with such conviction. I’ve read that it was written as a sort of sequel to “Green and grey”, one of my favourite tunes off the band’s 1989 album “Thunder and consolation”. And I’m willing to bet that there’s something to this theory and it’s not just because New Model Army played the two songs back to back at that show back in 1993. It’s like the missing piece of the original song we didn’t know we needed but now that we’ve heard it, both songs are just more perfect.

“Green and grey” addresses a missing friend or brother, someone who left the protagonist behind to continue the fight alone. He sings of the brightness and optimism of youth and how nothing has changed where they grew up and there’s a sense of a feeling of betrayal and a lack of understanding for the departure. All this comes out in the form of a letter for which no reply was expected but yet “Bad old world” is that reply, nonetheless.

“Dear Justin, I know it’s been a long time
Remember all those nights we spent sitting up talking in your front room
About leaving this worn out world and starting again far away in a better place
Well that’s where I am now – but still thinking about you”

Where “Green and grey” is as wistful as its fiddle and as bitter as its foreshadowing storm, “Bad old world” is nostalgic in its delivery but also full of hope. The correspondent admits that he got out, leaving the bad old world behind, but he bears no shame and in fact, wants to share this sense of peace with his friend.

“I used to think it was me who’d somehow sold out
Or given in on some almighty cause,
But what difference would it make? It feels good to be out here.”

It truly is a wonderful counterpoint, a comparison of two lives that started at the same point but were then lived very differently.

*This is a story I’ve already regaled as part of my post on their 1990 track, “Vagabonds”, when it appeared at #9 on my best tunes list for that year.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: EDGE 102.1’s top 1002 of all time (1999 version)

Happy Friday!

If you’re looking for something to soundtrack your post-work activities this evening, I’ve got just thing. It’s something a little a different for these pages: a playlist that I didn’t make, but was instead put together by one of my friends.

It’s a playlist that I’ve been slowly making my way through since mid-December. I got into it because I was making a few solo trips in the car and I needed some good long playlists to keep me company. I somehow remembered that my friend Tim had put this one together a few years ago on Spotify so I slipped it on and it perfectly fit the bill.

The playlist is based on a feature that Toronto-based alternative rock radio station, EDGE 102.1, did back in December 1999, counting down what they called the “Top 1002 songs of all-time”. They had done a similar one eight years prior, in 1991, back when the station was still going by its original call letters, CFNY, and they were still truly alternative radio. However, at that time, I didn’t know a lot of the music, was just getting into alternative and indie, and so I didn’t appreciate it as much. By 1999, though, I was completely immersed in pretty much all of alternative rock but unfortunately, EDGE 102 had gotten a lot more commercial. Truthfully, I only listened to it because there were no other options.

Even though I may not have necessarily agreed with all the rankings, I still remember this Top 1002 feature fondly and vividly. We always had the radio at my work tuned to this station and those three or four days at the end of December 1999 were the best few days of commercial radio in memory. They were playing songs that would not normally get airtime on the station but definitely should have done. And listening to this mix of alternative rock from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, heavily weighted, of course, to the latter two decades, brings back so many memories from that time and the years prior.

When I mentioned to Tim that I was listening to the playlist and thanked him for taking the time (and it must’ve taken a very long time) to create it, he mentioned that he also did the 1991 list, which he preferred because it didn’t have all the grunge and post-grunge 90s alt-rock. And while I agree, there are some tunes in this playlist that I find myself skipping, there are also a lot of great 90s tunes that are missing in the 1991 version.

Yes, I’m still making my way through the playlist over a month and a half later but plan to forge ahead through to the end. Even though not all 1002 tunes were available on Spotify when he made the playlist, it’s still over 68 hours of classic alternative rock, some of which I’m very familiar with and some of which I’m still just discovering.

If you’re curious as to what was on the 1991 and 1999 lists, both are available on the “Spirit of radio”* fansite for your perusal, here and here. But if you just want to join me on this long road of a playlist, I’ve embedded it below for your listening pleasure.

I’ll thank my friend Tim for you. Enjoy.

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

*”Spirt of radio” was the slogan of CFNY in its early days and this inspired the 1980 Rush song of the same name.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #22 Slowdive “Alison”

<< #23    |    #21 >>

My friend Tim was always a bigger fan of Slowdive than I was, and I suspect that his appreciation of the group was influenced greatly by his crush on one of the principal vocalists of the group, Rachel Goswell. He tried to get me into them and I did my best to give them a shot. I tape-recorded a copy of the “Souvlaki” CD he loaned me. Unfortunately, I would never get very far with it, rarely more than a few songs past the opening track (but more on that in a bit).

Much like the rest of the music world, critics and writers who never appreciated Slowdive until they were gone, I didn’t get into the Reading-based five-piece until much later. I’ve already documented* on these pages that it was long after they had lost a couple members, changed musical directions, and rebranded that I caught up with them again, just after they had released their third album as Mojave 3. When I listen to “Souvlaki” now, though, I can’t help but wonder: “What were we all thinking?”

The album is lush and ambient, the sadness and hurt palpable in every wash and echo. More deliberate and difficult than its predecessor, it is a sophomore album multiplied by a hundred, informed equally by the knowledge that anything they produced would be panned and by the internal strife in the band created by the romantic split of Neil Halstead and the aforementioned Goswell. If it weren’t for the rise of Grunge and Britpop, it may have been just as hailed at the time as it is now. Hands down, it was one of the greatest shoegaze albums ever recorded.

“Alison” is the one track that I can honestly say that I’ve always loved from the album. As an opener, it was a hard one to move past and I rarely did. The guitars jangle and waver, a shimmering of light highlighting millions of tiny specks of dust, lifted and disrupted ever so gently by a passing breeze, the same that caused flutters in the gossamer curtains of sound. Drums are far off in the distance and deep down in the mix, like a harrowing memory. The reverb is like a third person in the room, pushing together the lilting voices of Halstead and Goswell, even as it as ripping them apart. “Alison” could be anyone who’s ever broken your heart, a smoker’s cough and an ashtray overflowing with butts, a hangover and a dozen empty merlot bottles.

“Alison, I’m lost
Alison, I’ll drink your wine
And wear your clothes when we’re both high
Alison, I said we’re sinking
But she laughs and tells me it’s just fine
I guess she’s out there somewhere”

Sigh.

*And likely will do so again…

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.