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An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 2, 1982 -

Started by jamiefairlie, January 20, 2021, 05:43:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic
Screaming Trees - Sworn and Broken



https://youtu.be/JMNfTrLG380

Having achieved a modest amount of commercial success in the early 90s when the grunge scene was at its height, Screaming Trees, beset with addiction and personal problems, took years to come up with a follow-up before releasing the mighty Dust in 1996, melding hard rock, folk and psychedelia with a grunge sound. Sworn and Broken, featuring a surprise baroque keyboard solo by Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers, was released as a single, reaching no. 76 in the UK.

Screaming Trees were formed in 1984 in Ellensburg, Washington by Mark Lanegan, brothers Gary And Van Conner, and drummer Mark Pickerel (replaced by this time by Barrett Martin). Since the band split in 2000, their rather enigmatic and menacing singer Lanegan has since popped up all over the place, collaborating with Greg Dulli and Isobel Campbell, as well as releasing several solo albums.

famethrowa

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on June 15, 2021, 11:16:23 PM
Screaming Trees - Sworn and Broken

Don't know much about the band, but something that's always in my mind was a story about the band in Q magazine or similar, and the headline was "Call the Copse" which I thought was pretty fun.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Elliott Smith - Divison Day



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPD8Fs6_788

A standalone single released between his first two albums. Despite its catchy, commercial indie-pop appeal, it did not trouble the charts.

QuoteElliott Smith was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His primary instrument was the guitar, though he also played piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica. Smith had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and often used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies.

Smith rose to mainstream prominence when his song Miss Misery - included on the soundtrack for the film Good Will Hunting - was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category in 1998.

Smith was a heavy drinker and drug user at times throughout his life, and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression. His struggles with drugs and mental illness affected his life and work, and often appeared in his lyrics. In 2003, aged 34, he died in Los Angeles, California, from two stab wounds to the chest. The autopsy evidence was inconclusive as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted or the result of homicide.

Global Communication- The Deep




Much celebrated for their ambient masterpiece album 76.14, this deep house 12" from 1996 is probably my favorite thing they ever did.

QuoteGlobal Communication's first LP, 76:14, is an acclaimed album from the ambient and 1990s electronic music genres. Beyond their work as Global Communication, they have also recorded as Jedi Knights, Secret Ingredients, The Chameleon, Link & E621, and Reload; have done remixes for various artists under each of their aliases, including a 1993 Reload remix of "On" by Aphex Twin and a 1997 Jedi Knights remix of "Home" by Depeche Mode. Their song 5:23 from their album 76:14 features on the Grand Theft Auto 4 radio station The Journey. They founded the Evolution Records and Universal Language Productions labels.

Brundle-Fly

London Is A Country - Wagon Christ     Released on Electro Bunker Cologne in 1996.





"London is a country coming down from its trip. We are 91 days from the end of this decade and there's going to be a lot of refugees". - Withnail & ! (1986)

Wagon Christ AKA Luke Vibert is a British electronic music composer and producer, born 26 January 1973 in Cornwall, UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwOgXi_UDQ4&t

daf

The Moog Cookbook ‎– Are You Gonna Go My Way?



Featured on the album 'The Moog Cookbook' - released in May 1996

QuoteThe Moog Cookbook were formed by Roger Manning and Brian Kehew [bless you!] shortly after the demise of Manning's band Jellyfish. It was conceived as both a parody of and tribute to the novelty Moog records of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which featured cover versions of popular songs using the then-new Moog synthesizer.

Roger Manning : "When Brian and I finally met, we knew we had to do this, because we knew we could do it right, and we knew we had the resources — before someone else did it, and did it wrong."

Their first album, 'The Moog Cookbook', featured instrumental cover versions of contemporary alternative/modern rock songs by bands such as Soundgarden, Green Day, and Weezer.

Roger Manning : "We wanted to concentrate on bastardizing alternative hits. We couldn't wait to sink our teeth into songs we wanted to destroy and make really gross."



The band's name was derived from a 1978 cookbook, Moog's Musical Eatery, written by Shirleigh Moog, the first wife of synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog. On stage, as 'Meco Eno' (Manning) and 'Uli Nomi' (Kehew), they donned space-suit disguises that were similar to outfits worn by another emerging electronic duo, Daft Punk.



Brian Kehew : "The look of Moog Cookbook can be traced back to those kinds novelty bands like the Spotnicks and French disco band, Space, who had a hit with "Magic Fly" in 1977 and wore astronaut helmets and plastic jumpsuits. I know Daft Punk were into them too."

Following a second album,'Ye Olde Space Bande' released in 1997, the band disbanded in 1998.



Roger Manning : "As creatively fulfilling as it was, Moog Cookbook was not financially viable. We weren't coming out of rave culture and house music like Daft Punk. Not writing original songs, we didn't see a future in continuing to make what were essentially comedy records.""

Brundle-Fly

Fantastique No.5 - Plastic Fantastic .   Released on Mercury in 1996.





Romo. Yeah, roight!  But fuck me, this is knockout, Pricey!

Plastic Fantastic were an alternative Rock/Synth-pop project, active in the 90s. Part of the Romo movement. Included singer Stuart Miller who was before and after part of the band Supercharger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVvw0nva_yE&t

Brundle-Fly

Closet Romantic - Damon Albarn.   Released on EMI in 1996.





Nobody has ever evoked the longing of The Specials better than this usual target.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz7ZGeGqCQw

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Minders - Paper Plane



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E807Ho1mv6k

Not a Status Quo cover.

QuoteThe Minders are an American band closely associated with the Elephant 6 collective. Although there are many different genres explored by bands in the collective, there is a shared interest in psychedelic pop of the 1960s, with particular influence from bands such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Zombies. Recorded music will sometimes feature intentionally low fidelity production and experimental recording techniques.

Greg Torso

Guv'ner - Lucky Ladybug



A swingin' little jitterbuggy song for those hot summer nights when you're out with your main squeeze watching the fireflies explode in't air.
Charles Gansa and Pumpkin Wentzel formed Guv'ner in 1993 in NYC. Pumpkin Wentzel was a childhood friend of Pussy Galore's Julia Cafritz, who passed their demo tape on to Thurston Moore, who then put out their first album on his label Ecstatic Peace.
"Lucky Ladybug" was the B-side to the single "She's Evil", taken from Guv'ner's second album "The Hunt", by which time they had been joined by Danny Tunic on drums.




Brundle-Fly

Spiral Dub - DJ Food    Released on Ninja Tune in 1996.





This dude knows his onions.

DJ Food is an electronic music project currently headed by Kevin Foakes (also known as "Strictly Kev"). Originally conceived by the members of Coldcut on the Ninja Tune independent record label, the project started in 1990 on the premise of providing metaphorical "food for DJs".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8FsLNuDzS0&t

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Greg Torso on June 17, 2021, 09:29:48 AM
Guv'ner - Lucky Ladybug



A swingin' little jitterbuggy song for those hot summer nights when you're out with your main squeeze watching the fireflies explode in't air.
Charles Gansa and Pumpkin Wentzel formed Guv'ner in 1993 in NYC. Pumpkin Wentzel was a childhood friend of Pussy Galore's Julia Cafritz, who passed their demo tape on to Thurston Moore, who then put out their first album on his label Ecstatic Peace.
"Lucky Ladybug" was the B-side to the single "She's Evil", taken from Guv'ner's second album "The Hunt", by which time they had been joined by Danny Tunic on drums.

nutz! Fanx

jamiefairlie

OK, time to close out 1996, 1997 will open later in Friday.


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

dEUS - Little Arithmetics



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEZGW5Tlfm0

Hold me now!

dEUS are a Belgian band. They're good. Where's my slot on 6 Music? Piece of piss this 'introducing records' lark.

Aphex Twin- 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8YGRvnvENU


On his "Richard D James" LP, Aphex Twin moved towards a new style, writing music using computers, (and I'm guessing improvising a bit less). The result of this is that there are more melodic and rhythmic ideas going on on this LP per second than on most of his other stuff.
In 1997 I went round to visit a 75 year old friend who wanted to know what people were listening these days. Though he was polite, he couldn't really hide his opinion that most of what I played him was rubbish, with Primal Scream's "Kowalski" being a particular target of scorn. But this track, "4", he thought was top notch.

De La Soul- Stakes Is High
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SBGLqq5VUw


Though they're best known for their sunny and endlessly creative debut Three Feet High and Rising, De La Soul kept getting better as rappers, and this anti-gangsta rap tirade, produced by J.Dilla, is a high point of their later work.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on June 18, 2021, 07:57:28 AM
Aphex Twin- 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8YGRvnvENU

On his "Richard D James" LP, Aphex Twin moved towards a new style, writing music using computers, (and I'm guessing improvising a bit less). The result of this is that there are more melodic and rhythmic ideas going on on this LP per second than on most of his other stuff.
In 1997 I went round to visit a 75 year old friend who wanted to know what people were listening these days. Though he was polite, he couldn't really hide his opinion that most of what I played him was rubbish, with Primal Scream's "Kowalski" being a particular target of scorn. But this track, "4", he thought was top notch.

Yeah, that's my favourite track off that album. Makes my teeth vibrate but in a good way.


Heather B featuring M.O.P.- My Kinda Ni**a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOHJ_2_bipI


Heather B was a New York rapper associated with Boogie Down Productions- this LP was produced by BDP's Kenny Parker. On this track she collaborates with the hard-hitting Mash Out Posse duo of Billy Danze and Lil' Fame aka Fizzy Womack who would later have some Top Ten UK hits with "Ante Up" and "Cold As Ice".

#2181
Stereolab- Tomorrow is Already Here (Peel Session Version)
https://youtu.be/TgpQd00nREY?t=1020

Agonising over one last Stereolab inclusion for this year, I am torn between the jazzy experiments of Speedy Car and You Used to Call me Sadness or this Peel Session version of an Emperor Tomato Ketchup track, which was a stunning highlight of their gig in Bradford in 1996 (featuring Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 on keys). I love the clean, futuristic sound of ETK in general, but somehow I think the slightly grubbier, indier take on this song works a bit better.

Dr Octagon- Blue Flowers (Remix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpYNRGQ0P5g


Dr Octagon was a collaboration between Ultramagnetic MC Kool Keith and producer Dan The Automator- this "remix" of the LP highlight Blue Flowers features new music and new verses and so is more of a Pt.2 than a remix... Though the LP is heavy on bad-taste skits and grotesque humour, the verses here give us a bit more of Kool Keith's psychedelic side

Ras Kaas- Soul On Ice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DpeJABMKM

Brilliantly atmospheric rap by an LA MC who has protested time and time again that his career was ruined by record-company skullduggery. The chorus seems to owe a bit to Mobb Deep's Shook Ones pt 2.

DJ Shadow- Building Steam with a Grain of Salt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgbFavd9s5E

I've said this before on this forum, but I've got a real soft spot for the original source of the main piano riff and wordless aah-ahh-ahh female vocals on Building Steam with a Grain of Salt, Jeremy Storch's I Feel A New Shadow (1970).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgUN_7si84M

I like the relationship between the original and Shadow's track: Shadow's"Building Steam" is cool, slick, controlled, the work of a master of their craft but also, it's kind of second order-music, music that's about music, meta-music. All those speech samples about production and drums, wrapped up in that sleeve depicting a record shop, there's a detatchment about it, a shying away from using music to talk about emotions, relationships, politics, experience. I loved it when I was a teenager because I probably did love records more than people at that time, I'm not so sure now.
By contrast "I Hear a New Shadow" isn't masterful at all- the vocals are amateurish, it's uncomfortably anguished and intense in a way that would make some people class it as outsider art, as a musician he's obvious less talent than DJ Shadow but: it's about facing death, God, hope of an afterlife, more vital or serious human concerns.

Something else I like thinking about: there is an eeriness in the way that thoughts of the afterlife in "I hear a New Shadow" prefigure the song's 'afterlife' in "Builidng Steam'. And in Building Steam the speech sample "the music's coming through me", has a suggestion of songs being received mediumistically from beyond the grave- that speaker is 'recieving' the dying man from "i hear a new shadow"'s voice.

Brundle-Fly

I'm leaving this for you daf as Jamie takes us out of the EZ stylings of '96..

Spaceman - The Nice 'N' Easy Experience. Released on Eternal in 1996.



I'm not even going to bother Googling these chancers.  Although, I will say they pre-empted Nouvelle Vague's schtick by some years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekr5pdDwlhE&t

I feel that one slightly misses the opportunity for maximum absurd fun by omitting the "Intergalactic Christ!" backing vocal line of the original.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on June 19, 2021, 12:39:11 AM
I feel that one slightly misses the opportunity for maximum absurd fun by omitting the "Intergalactic Christ!" backing vocal line of the original.

Given, but "Intergalactic Christ" is notoriously litigious.




daf

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 19, 2021, 12:34:27 AM
I'm leaving this for you daf as Jamie takes us out of the EZ stylings of '96..

Spaceman - The Nice 'N' Easy Experience. Released on Eternal in 1996.

Ta! That rings a Radio Tip Top bell actually . . . 


daf

. . . and here it is!

Blinder - Spaceman



Released in 1996 as the third track on the CD single of 'Pop Muzic' by Tip Top - did not chart

QuoteRadio Tip Top was a BBC Radio One comedy programme broadcast from 1995 to 1996. The show was a retro take on 1960s broadcasting, presented by The Ginger Prince (Nigel Proktor) and Kid Tempo (Eli Hourd). Prior to BBC Radio One it was a pirate radio station broadcasting on a Wednesday night to the London area. This started broadcasting in 1993 up until it was closed down and moved to the BBC.

Voted the "best loved radio station" by readers of Corsair magazine, one of the regular features of the show was a live performance from the Starlight Rooms hosted by The Ginger Prince, often featuring a band called Blinder who performed various covers of songs around at the time.

As Tip Top, they released a cover of M's "Pop Muzik" as a single, backed by "Bikini Power", and a humorous take on Babylon Zoo's Spaceman, performed by Blinder, with lead singer Knocker on helium.



Also featured on the show were : Peter Lorenzo and the Guys Now Dancers, The Radio Tip Top Big Break Talent of Tomorrow featuring Ken Goodwin, The Radio Tip Top Cabaret Cavalcade with Ken Dodd "who always insists we pay him in cash", and Postman Patois - a reggae loving mailman who ended his segments with the advice: "Don't, don't don't....forget your postcode."



The program encouraged listener interaction and offered free membership to Club Tip Top, which also sold numerous items of merchandise. The tag line to the show was "If it ain't tip-top, then it ain't Tip Top!".



The show raised money for a guide dog from listeners' contributions. It was named Technotronic, and a party was held in London which listeners could attend. According to the presenters, the station's transmission was powered by "Lunewyre technology in total Spectrasound!!". In later episodes this was upgraded to "Lunewyre technology Plus—with lasers, for improved total Spectrasound!!".