Despite All My Rage...1995 Was A Kick Ass Year for Music

So, the last blog post was about re-working my favourite albums of 1994.  I had so much fun writing that one, I decided to re-visit 1995.  This time, I'm not bound by any list I created 31 years ago, so this is going to be a list of the albums from that year that have grown with me.  And there were a lot of amazing albums that came out 31 years ago.

First off, maybe you know this but Oasis' "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?" is my favourite album of all time, thus it is my favourite album of 1995.  So it gets the elevated pass.  It's like the CEO on the top of the org chart and, therefore, I'm not going to put it on this list.  Sweet, already breaking non-existent rules I've set for myself.  So, this is the best of the rest so they say, and maybe I'll expand the list to 15 just for shits and giggles.  But I really need a list of 30.  Hmm, okay, we will do this, but only because I've neglected the blog for so long and it's supposed to be a writing outlet.

1995 was the year I graduated from high school and started university.  A "transition" year if you will.  And all these albums helped with that transition.  And they still help today.  As an aside, the first album I bought at university was Lenny Kravitz's "Circus" and it did not make the list of 30...crazy but I recently found the cassette for $3, listened to it for the first time in 30 years, and gotta say it's an uneven album.  Lenny really leaned into irony on "Rock and Roll Is Dead", but did he need to make that track so dour and serious?  

Also, I think Candlebox's "Lucy" was the second or third CD I bought at university.  Their debut is super solid, one of my fave debut albums of all time.  Lead single "Simple Lessons" was also pretty awesome, despite the lack of a guitar solo.  So I was excited for "Lucy".  And unfortunately it did not meet my expectations.  So, it also did not make the list. 

Also x 2, lots of people like The Presidents Of The United States Of America (the band).  I am not one of these people.  The first time I heard the song "Lump" I was like no.  When I heard "Peaches" I was like hell no.  So, this one did not make the list either.  Anyway.

Remember my de-facto #1 is  "WTSMG" by Oasis (it is the CEO of my musical hierarchy) so this is why it is not on the list.  There is a whole blog post devoted to this album, it might be the second blog post I ever wrote, if you are so inclined.

Let's get on with the list!

30. "You'd Prefer An Astronaut" - Hum.  I like all the albums this band has released and I hate to be the person that calls out the hit single, but goddamn "Stars" nails the quiet/loud dynamic so well and still kicks so much ass.  

29. "Balance" - Van Halen.  This was the first VH album I ever bought and while some people dislike this one, I gotta say, it has a lot of killer tracks.  "Not Enough" is such an amazing power ballad, and you should listen to me as I'm a power ballad aficionado. 

28.  "A Boy Named Goo" - Goo Goo Dolls.  Again, lots of people like to pick on the GGD, but they have a lot of solid tracks, many from this album.  "Name" was the big track here.  In the 90's, every rock / alt rock band (unless your name is Rage Against The Machine or Tool) needed a ballad, preferably with acoustic guitars to appeal to like everyone.  Hey, every band likely wants one of their songs to be played in a grocery store.  That said, "Naked" is still my favourite track on this album and I feel it does not get enough love (it does not even appear on the GGD's Greatest Hits album, come on, GGD!).

27. "To Bring You My Love" - PJ Harvey.  How good is the song "Down By The Water"?  So good.  Yes, I'm calling out the hit single again.  This was my first taste of PJ Harvey and is still a great listen.

26. "The Woman In Me" - Shania Twain.  I fully credit my sisters for getting me into this one, and, come on, "No One Needs To Know" is on the "Twister" soundtrack and everyone loves that movie.  I think it was years later I realized that Shania's songs sounded like countrified Def Leppard, and that made me enjoy her music more.

25. "100% Fun" - Matthew Sweet.  Such great power pop.  I have been re-visiting this album a lot lately and the closing tune "Smog Moon" is a gem.  It is a ballad, yet nary an acoustic guitar can be found, which is likely why it wasn't huge and doesn't get played in the grocery store.  Still, get it on your playlists stat!

24. "Medusa" - Annie Lennox.  I love Annie Lennox.  Yes, this is a covers album, but Annie makes the tunes her own.  Also, "No More I Love You's" is such a super weird single but it works in all the best ways possible.  Ah, the 90's.

23. "One Hot Minute" - Red Hot Chili Peppers.  This was the first RHCP album I ever bought.  Have I ever told you I lived in the wilderness era and neglected music between the years 1989 and 1991?  I missed a lot of seminal albums, including "Blood Sugar Sex Magic".  This is their only album with Dave Navarro.  I like this, but to be honest, my fandom of RHCP has fallen off in recent years, so it's harder to connect with their material.  Still, this album has "My Friends", so that RHCP could also jump on that 90's ballad train. 

22. "Mirror Ball" - Neil Young.  Pearl Jam joins as Uncle Neil's backing band and the results are ramshackle and rocking.  I just picked up the vinyl reissue and I forgot how good this record is.

21. "Post" - Bjork.  "Hyper Ballad" is my favourite Bjork song of all time and the rest of this record also delivers.  "Enjoy" is such a jam.

20. "Grand Prix" - Teenage Fanclub.  This band was not on my radar in 1995.  But "About You" is the best song The Hollies never wrote.  Super solid jangle pop (my family still does not believe this is an actual genre of music).

19. "Alice In Chains" - Alice In Chains.  I like this album, but sometimes I find it difficult to listen to, which is why it is not higher on the list, even though the cover shot is quite memorable.

18. "The Great Escape" - Blur.  This is the second or third album I bought at university.  As mentioned in the previous blog post, hearing "The Universal" broke my hatred of Blur.  That said, this album is somewhat uneven, IMHO, but the highs soar above the clouds.

17. "Insomniac" - Green Day.  Is "Walking Contradiction" one of their most underrated singles?  I think it is.  I feel they made a conscious decision to be less commercial on this one, but it's a solid album which I spin more than "Dookie" but less than "Warning".  

16. "Collective Soul" - Collective Soul.  Did he really put Collective Soul ahead of the heavy hitters above?  Yes, he did.  This album is still so super solid.  And the band played homecoming at Guelph for our first year and I'll always respect them for that.  Also, Canada's Rusty opened and their album "Fluke" is an honorable mention for best of 1995.  This album doubles down on the acoustic ballads with two that were released as singles, including one that incorporates strings.  This is also CS' best selling album.  I rest my case.

Like Bon Jovi sang, we're halfway there.  If you aren't bored yet, I invite you to read on!

15. "On" - Echobelly.  I spin this album once a month.  "King Of The Kerb" is what dreams are made of, and if I still could make mixtapes, I'd put "Go Away" on all of them.

14. "Stanley Road" - Paul Weller.  Paul Weller was also not on my radar in 1995, besides being part of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" in some capacity and duetting with Noel Gallagher on "Talk Tonight" on some "White Room" performance from a free cassette I got from Q Magazine in 1995 (RIP Q Magazine).  But Paul Weller has been on my radar since 2008; he is now one of my favourite artists, and this album has aged like fine wine.

13. "Soup" - Blind Melon.  Such an unfairly maligned band...in no universe should they be "one hit wonders".  One, their debut is solid.  Two, "Walk" is so, so good and, three, "Galaxie" legit was on every mixtape I made in the 90's.  

12. "Foo Fighters" - Foo Fighters.  The start of a 30+ year career I don't think anyone saw coming.  I just saw FF in Toronto this summer and I forgot how many good songs they have.  This debut is so assured, even though it is a glorified demo.  "For All The Cows" rules.

11. "...And Out Come The Wolves" - Rancid.  Old people reading this: did you ever have a blank tape at the ready so you could stealth tape a song you liked off the radio?  "Ruby Soho" was that song for me in December 1995.  This album still kicks so much ass.

It's time to break into the Top 10!

10. "A Northern Soul" - The Verve.  Title track rules, as does "This Is Music" and "A New Decade".  And they sneak in an acoustic ballad ("On Your Own"), plus a symphonic acoustic ballad ("History") between extended jams.  Note, both these ballads were released as singles.

9. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" - Smashing Pumpkins (or is it The Smashing Pumpkins?).  This was a very fertile period in SP's career.  "The Aeroplane Flies High" boxset of b-sides is killer.  However, as with any 28 track double album, there is filler here, but like "The Great Escape" the highs SOAR.  Example:  "Bodies"?  Underrated and amazing.

8. "Jagged Little Pill" - Alanis Morissette.  Crashed towards the earth like the meteor in "Armageddon" and still gives a visceral thrill listening today, even if the examples of irony are questionable.  Wait, is that ironic?

7. "Above" - Mad Season.  Of the two AIC-related records released in 1995, this one has grown with me more.  Bluesy, dark, uplifting, a real showcase for Mike McCready's guitar and Layne Staley's lyrics.

6. "A Different Class" - Pulp.  If someone asked me to define Britpop by one song, I'd pick "Common People".  This is lightning in a bottle stuff.  And Jarvis Cocker is one of the coolest people on the planet.  While I'm glad I was 19 when this album came out, I finally saw Pulp last year live and I'm happy to report that hearing "Common People" live at age 49 with 16,000 others singing along still hits in the same way.

Before we hit the top 5, we will pause for some honorable mentions:

• Aforementioned "Fluke" by Rusty.  Just reissued on vinyl so I can re-visit it regularly!
• "Up" - Great Big Sea.  Great Canadian band that I had the pleasure of seeing multiple times in university.  This is true "feel good" music.
• "Return Of The Rentals" - The Rentals.  Matt Sharp from Weezer's side project that created some super catchy jams like "Friends Of P" (just put it on a playlist the other day)
• "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" - Bruce Springsteen.  I wasn't yet in my Springsteen immersion phase, that took another 5 years.  I respect this album even if I can't fully get into it.

Also, I don't love the entire albums but there are a few that produced amazing songs / singles:

• "Misery" & "Just Like Anyone" - Soul Asylum (from "Let Your Dim Light Shine").  "Frustrated Incorporated" from the former, genius wordplay and the latter had an awesome video featuring Claire Danes sprouting wings.
• "Fire In The Head", "The Bazaar", "Sister Awake" - The Tea Party (from "The Edges Of Twilight").  Great live band and IMHO a great singles band.  Can't really get into their albums except maybe "Transmission".  Still, these three tunes are very good.
• "Side Of The Road" - Blue Rodeo (from "Nowhere To Here").  One of my favourite Blue Rodeo songs, but following up "5 Days In July" would always be tough. 

Alright, on with the top 5!

5. "Infernal Love" - Therapy?  This is a dark masterpiece.  I have listened to this album consistently for 31 years and my least favourite songs are actually the singles, "Loose" and "Diane" (lead single "Stories" does rule and I would love to name my still not finished novel "Happy People Have No Stories".  Alas, I'm writing the blog instead of the book).  The rest...it's so weird in a great way, and a departure from "Troublegum" in almost every sense.  Except the dark lyrics.  "Me vs. You" is my dark horse favourite on this one - menacing and like "Stars" totally nails the quiet/loud dynamic. 

4. "Elastica" - Elastica.  So much fun.  I think it's 16 tracks in like 38 minutes.  This is a killer debut that they never properly followed-up on.  I mean, "The Menace" was not good.  But this album = pure gold.  Lightning in the bottle once again.  Did they rip off other artists?  As an Oasis fan, I don't really care if they did, as they painted everything with their own brush.

3. "Garbage" - Garbage.  Speaking of amazing debuts...Garbage has been one of my favourite bands for 30+ years because of this album.  Many years ago, there was an Instagram tag going around in the vinyl community where you had to post your 10 most influential albums without explanation.  This was one of mine, mostly because it introduced me to different genres of music...for an almost exclusive, guitar-music loving person like me, it was a real eye-opener.

2. "The Bends" - Radiohead.  Simply one of the best guitar rock albums ever made (after #3 on my list, is this ironic?).

1. "These Days" - Bon Jovi.  I have written two lengthy posts on Bon Jovi, explaining my "complicated" relationship with them.  Maybe I need to do a third now that I'm back in blogging mode.  In 1995, Bon Jovi were my favourite band and while Oasis has surpassed them and "WTSMG" did surpass this album in 1995, "These Days" is my favourite Bon Jovi record, in my top 10 of all-time, and is a musical path I wish they would have ventured down for the rest of their career.  While some of the songs still ooze with cheese, many are introspective, with great lyrics and amazing Richie Sambora guitar solos.  The CD singles from this era focus on spectacular live versions from the Bon Jovi catalogue.  1995-96 are their peak live years.  At any rate, this album is still great, and the title track is one of my all time favourite songs. 

So that is 1995.  Looking back, this may be one of my favourite music years.  This top 30 is stacked and I didn't even include albums by No Doubt, Hayden, Moby, The Cardigans, Supergrass or The Chemical Brothers.  Wow.  Also, you may note the lack of hip hop on this list.  In 1995, I was all about rock music, but you will see some different genres in future lists, I promise.

Can I do some random rambling about other awesome music stuff that came out in 1995?  It's my blog so of course I can.  One, I gotta talk about Def Leppard's first greatest hits album, "Vault 1980-1995" because the "new" song on the comp, "When Love And Hate Collide" is one of the best "new" songs on any greatest hits album, and also re-established their relevance in the mid-90's, which they threw away when they released "Slang" in 1996 (no shade from me, I really like this album).  "WLAHC" is a ballad, of course AND has some strings.  People, this is not a coincidence. 

The best "new" songs on greatest hits albums (as curated by Ted):

• "Mary Jane's Last Dance" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• "Always" & "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" - Bon Jovi
• "Not The Girl You Think You Are" - Crowded House
• "Again" - Lenny Kravitz  
• "Changes" - 2Pac
• "Electrical Storm" & "The Sweetest Thing" - U2
• "Murder Incorporated" - Bruce Springsteen

Also, the best soundtrack of 1995 is "Empire Records".  Just so many great songs by so many great bands.  Also, the movie is great.

The blog has been revitalized and I feel there will be a 1996 retrospective coming soon.

Until next time...

Tunes for Commuting Vol. 1 (w/o 2/22/16)

Happy new year all. Hope 2016 is working out well for everyone.

I drive about 2 hours a day to get to work, which is fine most days as it allows me to listen to music. I want to try to start posting more regularly and I'm thinking that posting my weekly commuting playlist might be a way to get my thoughts down in a more timely manner and also allow for some random ramblings!  So I'm going to give it a go.

Monday, February 22nd

I started off the week by spinning Collective Soul's 2015 effort "See What You Started By Continuing". I've always enjoyed Collective Soul and I knew they put out a new record late last year. I spun it a few times on Google Play and felt that I should pick it up, but I didn't until I was on vacation in Florida a few weeks ago and found the deluxe edition at Walmart, which includes a 10-track Greatest Hits. As an aside, I think Collective Soul is the only artist that I've purchased multiple albums from while being on vacation. I picked up their self-titled 1995 effort while on a cruise when we were in port in St. Thomas at a Tower Records. Congrats Collective Soul!

The 'greatest hits' are re-recorded hits but you wouldn't know it by listening to them as they sound exactly like the originals. The track list for the hits is a little weird, with 5 tracks coming from later era "Youth" and "Afterwords" records and the other 5 coming from the more well-known '90's records. It's not terrible but the title 'greatest hits' is a little misleading. Anyway, the actual album is likely their best and most consistent since 1999's "Dosage". These are not ground-breaking songs by any means but all are catchy and they seem to rock harder than anything the band has done in a while. Standout tracks include AYTA, Exposed, Confession and Contagious. This was their first album in 6 years, so hopefully they can keep the momentum going and not turn into Third Eye Blind (who ironically also released their last album prior to "Dopamine" in 2009, right around the time Collective Soul released their 2nd self-titled ("Rabbit") record).

I then moved onto Matthew Good's 2013 compilation "Old Fighters". I have a lot of time for Matt Good and picked this album up from amazon for like $7 CAD. I have all the songs on this album already, as well as his first best of compilation "In A Coma" but this comp contained some of the newer songs, some live recordings and apparently the tracks were hand-picked by Matt Good himself. If you've been with me so far, you know I'm a bit of a completist (understatement of the year). Matthew Good is incredibly consistent, which these tracks demonstrate. Never mind that 10 of the 14 songs are culled from "Beautiful Midnight" and "Avalanche", the 3 newer era songs included (Born Losers, Last Parade and Zero Orchestra) are gems, as are the albums that house these songs. I was mostly excited by the inclusion of the song Suburbia, from "Beautiful Midnight". When I bought that record in 1999, this was a standout track for me.

My fave Matthew Good song is either Tripoli or Anti-Pop, both from the underrated "Audio of Being" album. I think I read somewhere that this isn't Matt Good's favourite release, likely because it was recorded when the band was breaking up, but I'm hoping it gets a vinyl re-issue like some of his other records recently have. Neither of these songs are on "Old Fighters", but if you get the deluxe edition of "In A Coma" (highly recommended), an acoustic version of Tripoli is included and it's almost worth the price of admission. Plus you get a DVD of the music videos up to 2003 (I think) with Matt Good commentary.

Tuesday, February 23rd 

That brought me to Tuesday and I think I let the Sirius channel Lithium ('90's grunge and alternative) go for a while after the Matt Good album ended. On the way home, I drove by HMV at Laird and Eglinton and noticed that there were sale signs all over the place, so I decided to take a look. The signs indicated a lease expiring sale. Basically, this store is going under - a month after I discovered this location (which was on the way home!). So I went in and ended up grabbing two Deftone's CDs ("White Pony" and "Diamond Eyes") and Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts "Blaster". The latter was on my radar even before Weiland passed away, I just hadn't gotten around to purchasing it.

I threw on "White Pony" as admittedly, the only thing I really knew about the Deftones was the song Change (In The House of Flies) (included on "White Pony" as track 10). My friend Mark is high on these guys and I trust his musical judgement! This is an excellent album. Some songs I would classify as thrashers, heavy on riffs and screaming, but others are very restrained and melodic. There is a song called Passenger, which is a duet with Maynard from Tool. This and Change, are the best songs on the record for me. So this album was definitely worth $9.

Wednesday, February 25th

The Scott Weiland record started off Wednesday and it's a solid rock record (even meat and potatoes-esque), which is enjoyable to listen to from beginning to end. Being a big STP fan, Weiland's death hit me kind of hard. So, there's obviously been a lot written about this subject in the last little bit and no doubt there will be a lot more written about it. I just want to throw my hat in the ring as Weiland's music has been a part of my life for over 20 years and this is what the real purpose of the Commuting column will be - a springboard for wordy asides!

I wrote in one of my last blogs what an important album "Purple" was/is for me. I like "Core" don't get me wrong, but I think STP really made a big stride forward with their second record and this is when I really started sitting up and noticing. They started discovering their own "sound". Interstate Love Song, Big Empty, Still Remains, Vasoline, Unglued, Lounge Fly...I could list all 12 tunes as every song is great and only Meat Plow and maybe Silvergun Superman really sounds like anything else on "Core". STP was definitely a sum of all their parts, you don't want to diminish the talents of the DeLeo brothers and drummer Eric Kretz, but Weiland was the voice and primary lyricist. On "Purple", the lyrics deal a lot with "lies", struggling to maintain a sense of self through fame and addiction. I couldn't fully relate to the words in a personal sense but I could definitely relate to Weiland's delivery and passion on this record. The playing is muscular and STP was becoming one of my favourite bands. Just ask my parents...and the STP bumper sticker I stuck on their mini van.

Then "Tiny Music" dropped when I was in university, preceded by the single Big Bang Baby, which I was all over. Again, this was a different sound than "Core" and "Purple". Listening to it now, after fully discovering Bowie and glam rock, you can feel those fingerprints all over this offering, but STP makes it their own. So I picked the album up the day it came out and remembered being somewhat disappointed that it started off with a rather short instrumental. And then the one-two punch of Pop's Love Suicide and Tumble In The Rough. These were raw tunes and Weiland's voice sounded weathered and beaten. The lyrics were direct in addressing the addiction that he was struggling with. So at first, I wasn't fully down with this album but that quickly changed the more I listened to it. Unfortunately the band couldn't fully tour this record due to Weiland's issues and it would be another 3 years before they dropped another STP record. I fully believe that if things had gone according to plan, STP would have continued to evolve further away from the "Core" sound and who knows where they could have gone?

They went to "No. 4", which was more of a return to the harder rocking sound of "Core". Listening to it now again, this is okay by me. The tunes are solid, but the ballads on this album stand out - Glide, Sour Girl, Atlanta. People who saw STP in concert during this era also say this was their best tour. They are one of the artists I regret never seeing live (also Beastie Boys, now David Bowie and Rage Against the Machine). And then came "Shangra-Li-Da-Da", which I bought before the street date from the guys at Edward's Record World in Toronto (such a damn great store that place was, I lost a lot of money there). I'd been hearing Days Of The Week on the radio and I liked it well enough. But this record didn't really grab me upon first listen and only now have I revisited it. Like STP's other albums, it's solid and pretty different from the record before it, which shows how versatile Weiland and the band were. 2010's reunion album was okay in my books but I don't revisit it often. I did have tickets to their Toronto show in 2010, which I sold for some unknown reason. Which was a mistake in hindsight.

Weiland's first solo album, "12 Bar Blues" is daring but tuneful. I like a lot of this album and it was very risky to put this out after the success of the first three STP records. But he was battling demons and the band got together with another vocalist to form Talk Show (decent record). I don't think "12 Bar Blues" was a best seller by any means but working with Daniel Lanois, songs like Where's The Man, Divider and About Nothing are keepers that I still like to spin (maybe next week when commuting!). I did pick-up his second solo album "Happy in Galoshes" but I must admit I haven't listened to this one a lot. I do like Missing Cleveland and his cover of Bowie's Fame and might have to spin this one again soon.

Velvet Revolver I enjoyed well enough and I did see them in concert. Fall to Pieces is a great power ballad, only outdone by Loving the Alien on their debut. "Libertad" was a solid follow-up, but didn't get as much love (not sure why, as it has solid songs on it). But that brings us back to "Blaster", probably the most straight-forward record of Weiland's career; Youth Quake and Hotel Rio are standout tracks for me thus far. It's a fitting end to a very solid career that didn't get the critical kudos it deserved.

I did round out Wednesday by playing the Deftones' "Diamond Eyes" (solid tunes, requires a 2nd listen as it isn't as immediate as "White Pony", stunning album cover as well!) and a mix CD I made in November 2015. Ryan Adams' T-Swift Bad Blood cover leads it off and most of the rest of it is made up of songs from some of my fave albums of 2015 (see last blog).

Thursday, February 25th

So the whole faux Collective Soul "Greatest Hits" made me think I could likely make my own Collective Soul comp that would be kick-ass, so Wednesday night I did this. It contains 20 tracks, a mix from all their albums. So I spun that today after my November 2015 mix ended and it is enjoyable. Often I find myself making my own band compilations as often what I consider the band's best songs differ from their actual greatest hits. I've made about 3 Jimmy Eat World mixes, one after each of their last 3 albums (though they mostly contain songs from "Clarity", "Bleed American", "Futures" and the "Stay On My Side Tonight" EP, with a couple of new songs thrown in). It's probably time to get a new Third Eye Blind comp going, though their own comp "A Collection" is pretty comprehensive (besides not including Anything on it, which is clearly a mistake).

Friday, February 26th

I had to go to New York for business on Friday, but still had to drive to the airport! I spun my homemade Sloan best of compilation on the drive there and back . I like Sloan but found their actual greatest hits "A Sides Win" comp a bit thin. "Twice Removed", "One Chord To Another" and "Navy Blues" are all great albums where I like a lot of the songs. Even "The Double Cross" released a few years ago had some solid tunes on it. I made this compilation I think in 2013 or 2014, before their latest album "The Commonwealth" was released. It contains songs from every album except "Parallel Play", which I never bought or heard (I didn't like the first single Believe In Me, so didn't bother to check out the album). Sloan is a very consistent band as my 23 track mix demonstrates.

Okay, I'm going to shut it down for now, until next time.