1990, The Year in Review, P2

More great albums from 1990.  Here they are….

Six More Albums, for
My Top 12 Albums of 1990

As always, you can jump to the playlist at the bottom of each post to listen while you read.

Within each tier (Top 6, Next 6, etc.), all albums are listed roughly chronologically (all release dates from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted).

The Sundays
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Released 1990/01/05

The Sundays’ Reading, Writing and Arithmetic is damned near the perfect ‘90s pop album, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not entirely sure how I happened to pick it up—seems like I heard it in a CD store, on one of those stands with recommended discs and headphones for listening.

I know I got it around the time of its release, but don’t remember anyone else listening to it who might have recommended it to me. I thought of it as something of a guilty pleasure at the time, as music that was way too pop for me, but with a few songs that I simply loved, which I just found irresistible.

Now I like it even better. It has a great jangle-pop guitar sound reminiscent of early R.E.M. or the Smiths—or if you go back to the source, The Byrds—and a nice crisp beat, which together perfectly compliment the beautiful singing voice of Harriet Wheeler, who seems transplanted from the more eerie, ethereal musical shores of some 4AD release.

The songs here are terrific, most notably “I Kicked a Boy”—about the time, well, when Wheeler kicked a boy. Never has meanness sounded so sweet.

Sun City Girls
Torch of the Mystics

Released 1990/01 (Source, Discogs.com)

On Torch of the Mystics, the psychedelic, experimental outfit Sun City Girls unleashes a smorgasbord of guitar fanfares, discordant vocal arrangements, unsettling drones, eerie Eastern-sounding singing, Bolivian folk song covers, the clucking of chickens, and more.

The Sun City Girls seem plenty well-versed in world music, as well as early ‘70s Euro-art/prog acts like Amon Düül II, Faust, and Gong. Yet they are not averse to actual melody, and there are guitar hooks a-plenty. Guitar masterworks lead off the action with “Blue Mambo,” “Esoterica of Abyssynia,” and the epic “Space Prophet Dogon.” Then things get weird, first with a tribute to a Peruvian terrorist group, then the eerie vocal drones of “The Flower” and cries of “Café Batik.” “Papa Legba” comes off like a deranged, squirrelly, voodoo-blues incantation.

I remember seeing something about the Sun City Girls in the SPIN alternative record guide back in the day, but I had never checked them out until now. Great stuff. Eclectic, off the beaten path, and immensely enjoyable.

Lush
Mad Love EP

Released 1990/02/26
Included in the Gala compilation album (released 1990/11/13), along with the Sweetness and Light EP (released 1990/10/15), a mini-LP from 1989, and two extra tracks

For a brief two or three years, there was a huge wave of shoegaze bands coming out of the UK. In a general sense, the shoegaze genre fused the swirling, wall-of-sound guitar distortion of Sonic Youth with the ethereal vocal style of Cocteau Twins. The guitarists would apparently spend the bulk of their live performances concentrated on their effects pedals, barely even acknowledging the audience. Hence, the derogatory moniker, given by the snarky British press.

And these bands were typically egalitarian, with most of the significant shoegaze acts featuring a female lead singer or co-lead singer, and sometimes women playing guitar and bass, too. And that was a good thing, not just for equal rights, but for the music’s sound, as well. To my ears, male shoegaze voices tend to sound disinterested and bored within the mix—but the higher-pitched female voices contrast nicely with the guitar fuzz, creating a unique sort of aural beauty. And Lush—with lead singer Miki Berenyi accompanied on vocals and guitar by Emma Anderson—in many ways epitomized that dynamic of harshness and light.

Most notable for the ultra-catchy tracks “De-Luxe” and “Thoughtforms,” Lush’s Mad Love EP (most frequently known as tracks 4-7 of the Gala compilation) delivers four tracks of pure shoegaze bliss. The raging, wall of guitar noise that opens “Leaves Me Cold” hits you like a ton of bricks; then the sweet vocals come in, an odd juxtaposition, a study in contrasts. By the time the melodic refrain comes in, you’re hooked.

I didn’t really know Lush’s music well at the time. I seem to remember my sister playing some for me (this Gala compilation, I believe), and me dismissing it initially as being too warm and fuzzy. But she was right. 

Public Enemy
Fear of a Black Planet

Released 1990/04/10

My big Public Enemy-listening phase was in 1987-1988, when I first saw their debut album recommended and simply devoured it, only to be blown away even further by It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. When Fear of a Black Planet came around, I listened to it plenty, but it hasn’t left its mark on me the way the earlier ones did. That doesn’t mean it isn’t just about as good, though.

Hard-hitting political raps like “Burn Hollywood Burn,” “Welcome to the Terrordome,” and “Revolutionary Generation” rock with hard beats, hard lyrics and vocals, and samples that kick you in the ears. And they do it with a purposeful message, whether speaking out against clichéd portrayals of African Americans in films or opposing sexism and misogyny in the black community and rap industry. Throughout, provocative snippets and humorous skits amplify and focus the message.

On tracks like those above, Chuck D brings Public Enemy’s serious side to the forefront; Flavor Flav plays the role of court jester in the mix, and on his own songs, as well.   Perhaps the most famous song from Fear of a Black Planet (and probably from Flavor Flav’s entire career) is the excellent “911 Is a Joke” but I prefer “Can’t Do Nuttin’ for Ya Man” which contains the one line from this album that seems to have popped into my head every now and then with some regularity throughout the thirty-plus years since I first heard it: “You jumped out of a jelly into a jam.”

The album also includes phenomenal “Fight the Power” single, originally from Spike Lee’s film masterpiece Do the Right Thing. (“Fight the Power” will be featured on the 1989 singles playlist—I associate it more with the film than with this album.)

Jane’s Addiction
Ritual De Lo Habitual

Released 1990/08/21

My biggest Jane’s Addiction-listening time came in the late ‘80s, first with Nothing’s Shocking and then an earlier, eponymous live album, which showed a raw early version of the group. Ritual de lo Habitual was a nice addition to those two, but other than a few tracks, it never grabbed me the way the previous two albums had. I liked it and listened to it quite a bit, but Jane’s Addiction’s newness had already struck me with their previous releases.

Still, it’s quite worthy, a good exploration of the seedy underbelly of life. I must say that Perry Farrell seems obsessed with amorality. If the views professed in his songs are genuinely his own, he’s quite possibly a psychopath; but I suspect he’s simply fascinated by criminality and callousness, whether he’s bragging about shoplifting, claiming that there is no wrong or right, “only pleasure and pain,” or making more complex (some might say convoluted) pronouncements as “One must eat the other / Who runs free before him / Put them right into his mouth / While fantasizing the beauty of his movements / A sensation not unlike / Slapping yourself in the face.”

I feel if he truly were a genuine psychopath, he’d be crafty enough to keep these feelings to himself and simply work the system and play others to his advantage. But maybe that’s what he did, in his own alt-metal-rock way.

I normally pick the three best songs to represent each album, but in this case, the three best songs—“Been Caught Stealing,” obviously, “Of Course,” and the epic “Three Days”—would have clocked in at almost 22 minutes. So I replaced the epic with a shorter track.

Tall Dwarfs
Weeville

Released 1990/09/01

I picked up Tall Dwarfs’ Weeville sometime mid-‘90s, when the alt-rock craze was in full swing, and I immediately loved its masterful cornucopia of lo-fi indie/alternative rock sounds. It seemed a clear precursor to the greatness of bands like Pavement and Guided by Voices that had been captivating me.

I found it incredibly difficult to choose three tracks to represent Weeville—there are no obvious standouts, yet all the tracks are very good, and they cover a wide range of sensibilities. “Breath” features piercing vocals buoyed by warbling guitar fuzz in the background; “Pirouette” adds clattering percussion to a similar sound. The acoustic strumming and bloopy percussion of “Sign the Dotted Line” propel the insistent, anthemic melody. (It sounds quite a bit like Neutral Milk Hotel would later in the decade.) “Bodies” clatters, crawls, and whirrs like a mechanized slug.

The critics’ early lo-fi favorite, Sebadoh III, is to my ears not nearly as good as Weeville. (That said, I always compare Sebadoh III to the poppier, more accessible, Bakesale, which I feel is Sebadoh’s finest moment—and which I also knew first.) I suspect that if Tall Dwarfs had been from Boston or Austin or Seattle, rather than down under in New Zealand, their stature would be much higher. They deserve more attention than they get. Check this album out.

Here’s the 1990: The Year in Review playlist for you—three tracks per album.

The playlist is sequenced chronologically according to release date (with a few concessions to playability), with the exception of the Sonic Youth album which opens the playlist and the KLF album which should close it (not currently available in Spotify).

Enjoy!

Playlist Notes:

• I was not able to find the KLF’s Chill Out album on Spotify.
• Neil Young’s discography is currently unavailable in Spotify, including Ragged Glory (1990).

More 1990, The Year in Review

More Years in Review of the 1990s…

Cover Art Citations:

• Reading, Writing and Arithmetic: By May be found at the following website: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000003TA0.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4406570
• Torch of the Mystics: By Derived from a scan of the album cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party). Copyright held by the record company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20306778
• Mad Love EP: By The cover art can or could be obtained from 4AD., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45574736
• Gala compilation: By May be found at the following website: http://www.toastboy.co.uk/music/images/cover/459.jpg http://www.toastboy.co.uk/music/images/cover/459.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17458977
• Fear of a Black Planet: By The cover art can be obtained from Def Jam Recordings., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36013197
• Ritual De Lo Habitual: By The cover art can be obtained from Warner Bros.., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1144660
• Weeville: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8511572