It’s time again to revisit mid-90’s alt-rock in all it’s glory with a review of Alternative Releases: July 1994. This is my favorite collection so far.
You can find March, May, and Summer 1994 here and July after the jump.
>Frente! - “bizarre love triangle” from marvin the album (Mammoth/Atlantic)
New Order’s original is a jukebox favorite of mine and one of my top 80’s songs. That alone does not predisposition me to hating this song; I quite like covers, particularly gender-opposite ones, sometimes. It’s not the gender-bending that’s bothering me, it’s the genre-bending. This is a vocal-heavy, acoustic version sung by a cutesy-voiced Australian woman and I don’t think it’s possible for any person to like both versions of this song. This doesn’t sit well with me. Also, this is nothing like you would expect a band called Frente! to sound like. I’m not hearing any punctuation there…
>Live - “selling the drama“ from throwing copper (Radioactive)
I’m not at all a fan of this band, so for me to say that this is my favorite song of theirs isn’t saying much at all. But there, I’ve said it. They’re young in this video. Lead singer has long grunge-hair and his crazy eyes are already hinting that soon he’ll be bald (possibly with a rat tail) talking crazy mystic talk. Hey, Live, thanks for Matchbox20.
>Tripping Daisy - “blown away“ from bill (Island/Red Label)
Claymation is cool. Remember Green Jello(y)? Anyway…I’m not even going to try to analyze what’s going on in this video but it’s a good song. Tripping Daisy had a sound that was so perfectly nineties neo-psych-grunge or something equally trite. Lead singer went on to form a band near and dear to Superstarcastic, The Polyphonic Spree.
>Tori Amos - “cornflake girl“ from under the pink (Atlantic)
This is the second Tori video in this series. No rat kissing or snake handling in this one. I got into Tori Amos about three years after this album was released so the only CD I ever actually owned was Tales from the Choirgirl Hotel, but I did always like this older stuff and I’m starting to think I ought to revisit it. On another note…is she wearing Ugg boots? This video is kind of campy but also kind of sexy for a song about female circumcision - there’s a Thelma and Louise vibe to it.
>Collective Soul - “shine” from hints, allegations…. (Atlantic)
Flannel. Mixed black and white shots. Bare trees. Long hair. Just like 65% of all 90’s rock videos. I muted this halfway through but the song is still going to be stuck in my head for days. I’m really a lot less interested in the songs I already knew, as a 10 year-old, when they came out…especially if the video is blah.
>The Charlatans - “can’t get out of bed“ from up to our hips (Beggars Banquet/Atlantic)
Can’t go wrong with 90’s britpop (unless we’re talking Oasis. sorry.) This video was made on the cheap and that’s okay. It gets the point across: This is our band. We’re singing our song. Sometimes we like to hang out around a fish-eye lens or kaleidoscope. If they weren’t British they would sound a lot like Beulah, don’t you think?
>The London Suede - “stay together“ from stay together (Nude/Colombia)
Heehee. This guy takes himself way too seriously. Too much Morrissey and Depeche Mode. He reminds me of Darren Hayes from Savage Garden, and he turned out to be gay. Just sayin’….Overall I like the look of this video but all the little touches make it into one big joke to my millennial sense of irony.
>Mazzy Star - “fade into you“ from so tonight that I might see (Capitol)
Confession: this is one of my favorite songs of all time. I’ve never seen the video! It’s been used by so many music supervisors for so many shows and movies that it’s really weird to see the actual visuals the song was intended to go with. It’s beautiful.
>Pavement - “cut your hair“ from crooked rain, crooked rain (Matador)
Like any good rock snob, I know of Pavement and the other bands they have spawned and inspired. I know their place in indie-rock history but I’ve hardly listened to them. When this video started I realized I had some vague memories of liking this song. The youtube link for this video has it all squashed and I’m sorry for that because it’s pretty awesome and I’m betting that a lot of you reading this have fond memories of it.
>Dig - “unlikely friend” from dig (Radioactive)
Dig had a song on the first one of these I did. I found it to be pretty mediocre rock with a forgettable video. Whatchugotnow, Dig? A little better this time. Too crunchy guitarwise but sonically not bad. I can’t tell what’s supposed to be happening in the video with there is no link for but I like the kitschy set direction, even if it’s been done before.
3 Comments »
man, i used to love that frente album. ‘marvin the album’ it was called, which i still think is one of the best names for an album ever.
and i could tell you some stories about tripping daisy shows back in the day. but they all involved drugs and i don’t want to lead the children astray - you know how it goes.
That Green Jelly video was on mtv when I was in the 3rd grade (when my favorite song was ‘Informer’ by Snow..). All I really know about it is that when if debuted they were called Green Jello but it soon changed to Jelly because the pudding people finally noticed. That, and the video is awesome in totally different ways as a grown-up and Rambo is still the best part.
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Comment by Borch — May 7, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Nice list, but the link to Green Jelly (aka Gwar Lite) really brought me back. Won’t you please say a word on them?