The top six of 1994 were pretty clear-cut—for me, at least.
For much of the rest of my year in review, the choices were more difficult. When I look back at what I’ve selected for my 7-12 picks, I note that I’ve skipped over some established alt-rock-era landmarks in favor of some lesser-known albums that have possessed me more completely over the years than the classics did. (I seem to do this frequently with my 7-12 picks—it’s not really a conscious choice, but it often seems to work out that way.) Let’s dive in.
Six More Albums, for
My Top 12 Albums of 1994
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). Note: Entries for this post may have been written alongside the Artist Spotlight posts for the respective artists and might therefore contain some similar material.
Green Day
Dookie
Green DayReleased 1994/02/01
When I first moved to Boston in 1993 for grad school, I searched for a radio station that could replace the college radio of my undergrad days, KTRU. (To be honest, I listened to KTRU more in the two years after I graduated than when I was actually a college student.) Boston, it turns out, didn’t have anything as far-out as Houston did (surprisingly, at first, yet not so surprisingly in retrospect—I could go on about the homogeneity of Boston here, about how culture was more left-leaning but with less of either extreme). But Boston did have a mainstream radio station that was far and above more alternative than anything I’d heard before from a mass market station—the now-defunct WFNX. They played alternative rock and pop that was catchy but not insubstantial.
But I did discover a trend—quite often when I bought an album based on a great song I’d heard on FNX, I found the rest of the album disappointing. So in the end, I decided FNX was a less reliable source of good albums as word of mouth and my good-old SPIN magazine, which I’d turned to so often before. So when Green Day’s Dookie first came out, I initially dismissed the group as another one of those bands that had a few great songs that I could easily hear on FNX, and I never bothered with them past that.
I did see them in a free live performance that was cut short after only a few minutes, for reasons unclear. (It was some security thing, we thought, but we were too far back to see clearly. The rumor we heard at the time was that singer Billie Joe Armstrong had stage dived and the security wouldn’t let him back on the stage, but this is completely unsubstantiated by any actual reporting I heard about the event.) That clipped-short concert prompted a flood of disgruntled teens and twenty-somethings from Boston’s Hatch Shell to overflow onto a local throughfare, stopping traffic completely, and proceed to loot the nearby convenience stores. I recall entering one corner store to buy something to drink, past dudes smuggling sodas out beneath their shirts, to find the only beverages left were two solitary rows of TAB. We left still thirsty.
It was only a few years later, toward the decade’s end, that I actually bothered to pick up any Green Day albums. And I was glad I bothered to go back and check them out. It turns out, not only are the albums very good past the hits—but many of the deeper album cuts are better than what I’d heard on the radio.
Heck, this is great stuff—kinda like if the Descendants grew up listening to Nirvana instead of Black Flag. Green Day are masters of rapid-fire punk-pop tunefulness. Armstrong wears his self-deprecating, alt-rock heart on his charming, witty sleeve, and bassist Mike Dirnt propels the songs masterfully. (They can all play better than your typical first-generation punk rocker, but Dirnt in particular has got the chops.)
“Burnout” opens the album with an endearing burst of sunny-sounding teen angst: “I declare I don’t care no more / I’m burnin’ up and out and growing bored,” sings Armstrong. “I’m not growin’ up, I’m just burnin’ out.” He’s taken what he likes from “Teen Spirit” and added his won touches, wrapping it up in an efficient, catchy 2-minute package. “Basket Case” tackles his anxiety attacks; he dismisses his emotions as melodramatic, neurotic whining. Amusingly, neither his psychiatrist or a whore can help him. The song fits nicely alongside such other alt-rock era classics as Beck’s “Loser” and Radiohead’s “Creep.” Until my recent study of the lyrics, I didn’t realize “Coming Clean” was about bisexuality, specifically, but its misfit, coming-of-age confusion is clear, from the narrator’s own disillusion to the disconnect with his parents. “Sassafras Roots” offers the quintessential alt-rocker pickup line: “Well, I’m a waste like you / With nothin’ else to do / May I waste your time, too?” I love it, absolutely. “She” gives a conscious shout out to feminism, a different type of attempted pickup line. Armstrong’s neuroses reach an apex on “Having a Blast,” in which he envisions doing himself in and taking us with him.
I still like the Dookie hits I had heard on the radio—the jerk-joke “Longview,” the slumming-it-after-leaving-home anthem “Welcome to Paradise,” and the relationship dysfunction of “When I Come Around.” But honestly, I don’t think they are among the best songs on the disc. I can see why their less-punk, more-rock, anthemic vibe would get more radio play and popular approval, but I feel Green Day truly excels at catchy, two-and-a-half-minute, punk-pop gems.
The only way for a punk fan not to love Green Day, I think, is to let negativity—the thought that they might be posers or sell-outs or somehow not genuine enough—stopper your ears and prevent you from actually listening. They’re just that good.
Low
I Could Live in Hope
LowReleased 1994/02/18
Sometimes, in days when I find myself listening to a lot of Low, I will unexpectedly find my mind replaying back for me a particular warm, meandering bassline, soon to be joined by a brushed beat and spare electric guitar melody. And when the voice kicks in I realize my brain is playing “Down” back to me, a song I didn’t think much of at first but now haunts me completely. Like “Down,” the remaining tracks on Low’s debut album I Could Live in Hope (1994) are quiet, slow, and—if they strike you—utterly chilling. They can worm their way into the darkest crevices of your mind and take root.
Somebody somewhere at some point in time decided to call Low’s style of music “slowcore,” one of those cute subgenre names that make me want to dunk my head in a bucket of manure, and it seems to have stuck (the genre name, not my head). I hadn’t heard the term until a few years ago, in fact, although it seems to have been used since the early ‘90s. But several acts I like seem to fall into the category, for both good and bad. With almost all slowcore artists, some of their songs absolutely captivate me, whereas the songs that fail to tug at just the right nerve provoke more yawns than chills.
Low is one of the key originators of the slowcore movement, a reaction against the big, loud sound of grunge. Their hushed, minimal pieces aim for a spare beauty, a haunting melancholy, an existential anguish that touches you to the core. And I find almost all of I Could Live in Hope thoroughly spellbinding. I’m not sure a subdued album has ever held my attention so thoroughly and compulsively. The more I listen to it, the more I want to keep it playing. It changes my mental space.
The music is sparse and slow and quiet. The lyrics are spare, too, and although the content can be explosive, the delivery is restrained; the pain, if it shows at all, seeps through the cracks in the voices. Low keeps things fresh by its use of two singers of quite different character. The husband-and-wife duo of Alan Sparhawk (also on guitar) and Mimi Parker (equipped with a minimal drum kit) trades songs back and forth across each album. Sparhawk’s voice is decent enough, and when he’s at his best, he can evoke a vaguely unsettling emptiness. Parker’s voice, on the other hand, is arrestingly beautiful. And the contrast between them creates the perfect balance.
Alan Sparhawk opens the album with a quiet complaint about hearing too many “Words,” quite possibly of the preaching variety. “Fear” is an exercise in lyrical sparsity; in its scant five lines it manages to work in a Biblical reference, pine for an imaginary daughter, and state, quite succinctly, “I fear.” I love the warm, warbling guitars of “Lazy,” a song about a girl who doesn’t have enough to share. (Enough what? It’s not clear. Love? Beer? Doritos? Probably love, I guess. That’s what it feels like.)
Parker’s “Slide” seems to address the gradual, depressing slide into passive acceptance of whatever shit life decides to dump on you. The achingly slow “Lullaby” is many a Low fan’s favorite, open to a myriad of interpretations. (I’ve heard a few, none of which convince me: A song to a dead child? A relationship in tatters? A reflection on songwriting? Maybe that one.I don’t think much about what it means, just let it creep and wash over me like a slow-motion tide.)
A trio of Sparhawk songs towards the end of the album might just be my favorites. I love the music on “Down,” from that mellow, hypnotic bass to the gently meandering guitar solo—especially the moments where the guitar gets all jangly and impressionistic to flirt with chaos. Moments that with many other bands might be a quiet interlude feel like explosions here in contrast. The lyrics are good, too, although I feel he repeats “out of control” too much. But it’s eerily compelling to hear a line like that sung so quietly. (One can only imagine how Soundgarden might play it.) The contrast encapsulates the band’s aesthetic perfectly. “Drag” is a hushed ode to self-loathing; the guitars and the chorus feel like a quiet downward spiral, with Parker’s pure, suspended background vocal falling off into nothingness. And the lyrical simplicity of “Rope” hides a dark cynicism. “You’re gonna need more” (of the titular rope), Sparhawk advises, over and over, until he reaches the final, muttered words, “Don’t ask me to kick any chairs out from under you.”
I Could Live in Hope is a masterpiece of quiet minimalism, an essential contrast to the aural excess so inherent to much alt-rock. Low’s next two albums, despite sounding quite similar, I found mostly dull as dirt. When I sit and listen to the albums carefully, I can’t always put my finger on why one song clicks with me and others don’t. But it’s the case. This slowcore stuff is pretty hit-or-miss—I assume that the songs that click will be different for each listener. This one hits me hard, softly.
Nas
Illmativc
NasReleased 1994/04/11
I didn’t know Nas’s Illmatic until fairly recently. It’s now considered a hip-hop classic, but I don’t remember hearing anything about it back in the day. (As I’ve mentioned before, during the peak years of the alt-rock era, rap seemed to be pushed to the sidelines among many listeners and critics. There seemed to be a four- to five-year gap in my rap listening from that time.) I suspect if I had known Illmatic back then, I might have an even higher opinion of it. The more I listen to it, the more I like it.
The brilliant “N.Y. State of Mind” portrays New York City not as the vibrant, pulsating, do-it-my-way Big Apple of yore, but as an urban scene of strife and struggle. “I never sleep ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death,” raps Nas, in one of the entire genre’s most memorable lines. Guest MC AZ lifts “Life’s a Bitch” to great heights with his high-pitched voice and masterful flow. In contrast to such “Then you die” pessimism, “The World is Yours” presents a take-charge attitude, with producer Pete Rock’s singing voice contrasting nicely with Nas’s rapping for the chorus. Producer Q-Tip lays down some great marimba grooves for “One Love,” a song written as a series of letters written to friends in prison. “Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park)” reflects on his upbringing in the Queensbridge Housing Projects. Here he makes it clear he’s rapping for the people with whom he feels the most connection: “I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners / Hennessy-holders and old-school niggas.”
I’m not about the anoint Illmatic the best rap album ever, as I’ve heard it described—there are too many other albums that have moved me more—but it’s damned solid. Its spare production is spot-on (from Gang Starr’s DJ Premier), Nas’s rhymes flow masterfully, and he’s got good stories to tell. Essential.
Sebadoh
Bakesale
SebadohReleased 1994/08/23
Lou Barlow left proto-alt-rock band Dinosaur Jr. in 1989 with a chip on his shoulder and his ever-confused heart on his sleeve. His work in Sebadoh, along with co-writer and co-vocalist Jason Lowenstein, made the band a key figure in the alt-/indie-/lo-fi rock ethos that predominated the first half of the ‘90s American rock scene. Sebadoh III (1991) is often cited as a landmark album in the lo-fi indie-rock ethos, but I’d say Bakesale shows Sebadoh at their peak. They’ve added some much-needed pace and pop-punk hooks
Barlow’s “License to Confuse” opens the album with some herky-jerky guitar and vocals before the chorus smooths out the vibe; the music and lyrics nicely reflect the staggering turmoil and periodic calm of an addled, insecure brain, making it a quintessential alt-rock track. “Magnet’s Coil, and “Rebound” sweep you up irresistibly with catchy melodies and up-tempo flow, as they explore relationship dysfunction. New drummer Bob Fay kicks up some propulsive percussion. “Skull” is one of those sounds-like-a-girl songs that is in fact about drugs; since I don’t do that shit, the song works best for me as a brain-hookup kind of song, where it’s about a fleeting but genuine cerebral connection, not all about sex.
Jason Lowenstein adds some great tracks, too. “Got It” shows him caring about another’s wellbeing than his own—it feels like an ode to new love, a warm sentiment in a sea of bitterness. “Drama Mine” moves confidently from catchy hard riffs to the more delicate, meandering guitar line that accompanies the verse. “S. Soup,” with its off-kilter, bludgeoning guitar, feels like an ode to self-abandon, inspired by love. He so consumed by passion he won’t eat or sleep, getting nourishment of his love’s recklessness. “Crazy people are right on,” he says of her. “You’re so off, you’re on.”
As far as I’m concerned, Bakesale is Sebadoh’s best album. It also features one of my favorite album covers of the alt-rock era, showing Lou Barlow as a toddler peering down into a toilet. Classy. (What is it with babies and alt-rock album covers?)
Built to Spill
There’s Nothing Wrong with Love
Built to SpillReleased 1994/09/13
Nowadays, among the indie-rock crowd, Built to Spill is considered one of the original mainstays of indie rock, their sophomore album There’s Nothing Wrong with Love an established classic. But back in 1994 I knew nothing about them. I didn’t pick up any Built to Spill until 1999’s excellent Keep it Like a Secret. That album and this one show them at their best.
Front man Doug Martsch’s sweet, squeaky voice is reminiscent of Neil Young (or maybe the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne). With that voice, he’ll never be a pop star, but he fits in great with the scruffy alt-and-indie rock crowd. His masterful guitar work (which would become even more apparent on later releases) is perhaps even more indebted to Neil Young; he is his generation’s version of the guitar virtuoso who gives the music exactly what it needs—able and willing to crank out an aching, beautiful solo or simply accompany the band, as the song dictates. No showing off or virtuoso wanking here. And even a cursory listen to Martsch’s lyrics (which, to be honest, is how I tend to operate for the first many listens) shows a certain richness of expression, a genuine contemplation of the complexities and contradictions of life.
“In the Morning” opens the album with some hesitant, muted guitar scribbles before launching into launching into some jangly power chords and Martsch’s voice. It’s a hangover song, about waking up feeling only “half right” after a night that Martsch tries to convince himself is an “isolated incident.” He seems lost, letting life happen to him rather than setting his own course: “When my mind’s uncertain my body decides / What it will do to get through the hell of the night.” The song works up some momentum, briefly hanging in suspension for some swirling guitar lyricism only to stop with a start. The lively “Big Dipper” contrasts the innocence of childhood—when the Big Dipper looked like a wondrous brontosaurus in the sky—and the uncertainty, disillusionment, and ennui of adulthood, when the stars are just something you drink to.
Light acoustic strumming backed by a mournful cello give “Fling” a warm, hypnotic vibe. It contrasts an intense, romantic fling with his current relationship, with a girl who nabbed him shortly afterward, who is good for him but doesn’t tug at his consciousness the same way. “Car” seems to be about a couple (or perhaps a pair of roommates) going in different directions—she wants to go out and explore the world, while he settles for staying at home to crawl into the hole of his own mind. He seems skeptical that she’ll find any purpose to life but wants her to let him know if she finds any; a darker side of him hopes that life will break her. “Twin Falls” is a tender song about a childhood crush that he still dreams of now and then. He’s left her behind, having moved away to bigger and better things; she stayed behind, and he imagines her trapped in small-town life, married with children.
The band can play if fast and loud or soft and gentle, and they bring the hooks the music needs. The humorous, album-closing hidden track playfully shows the band posing at an assortment of alt- and mainstream rock clichés, which they have so skillfully avoided throughout the record, both lyrically and musically. It only highlights their accomplishments.
Soul Coughing
Ruby Vroom
Soul CoughingReleased 1994/09/27
Soul Coughing is one of those bands that’s hard to classify. Vocalist Mike Doughty sing-speaks his lyrics in a style that’s neither rap nor spoken word poetry, exactly, but perhaps something in between. His lyrics roam the wastelands of the most absurd and contradictory aspects of modern life, riffing on themes with nonsensical free-form association. Musically, the band lays down some grooves that feel a bit like a jazz act trying to sound like hip hop. I’m a sucker for upright bass, and here it’s pretty killer. And an undercurrent of avant garde experimentalism seems to inform the music, with bit parts played on toy instruments and a rich variety of samples adding to the appeal.
Their debut Ruby Vroom (1994) was big with my friends and I back in the day. And it’s an album I remember hearing about only through word of mouth; I don’t think I read much of anything about it in the press. Rap music and hip-hop culture’s ‘80s arrival in the mainstream influenced the subsequent white music, as well. Some white boys started rapping themselves, in their own style—the Beastie Boys, for example. But some of the best music of 1994 saw whites taking some cues from rap without imitating it, creating something new. Beck and Portishead and Soul Coughing don’t sound at all alike, but each in their own way used elements of rap music to shape their own sound. Together and individually, they form a captivating listen.
The absurdist lyrics of “Sugar Free Jazz” advise you not to be a poser. “Put the fake goatee on,” he says, ironically, “And it booms as cool as / Sugar-free jazz.” I love the seagulls the appear occasionally in the background. “Blue Eyed Devil” tells of a traveling salesman, “Born to be a god among salesmen / Working the skinny tie… / Moving door to door to door.” He ODs in a motel bathroom, apparently. “Casiotone Nation” is a snarky rant of a tune, in which Doughty chants, “The five percent Nation of [fill-in-the-blank],” targeting corporate America, ad slogans, media manias, silly trends, and more.
“Bus to Beelzebub” is a delightful romp of absurdist ranting with clackety percussion and distorted sampling. I’m not sure what the yellow no. 5 food coloring has to do with the Lord of the Flies, but I’m thinking of booking a ticket. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beelzebub ] “Down To This” is a pile of nonsense that supposedly details the imaginary disposal of Doughty’s own corpse off of a building. “You get the ankles and I’ll get the wrists,” he sings, about to pitch himself over the edge of the roof. It’s not clear how he might be pulling himself up by his own wrists.
The album builds to an up-tempo climax with “Mr. Bitterness,” as Doughty spirals down, down, down after a bad breakup. “She cracked now / Now they call me Mr. Bitterness,” he says. “I will lash out dancing like a madman when you’re gone / I will spit the blue flame and hurl my glass against the wall / And I will hear your name coming out from a boom box / I will hear your name called out from passing cars.” The song rolls and grooves like freight train.
Even in tenderness, they are full-on snarky. Album closer “Janine” is a genuine love song, accompanied by an ex-girlfriend’s rendition of the folk song “Lemon Tree.” Doughty gave her the lyrics and asked her to go to payphone and sing the song—whose melody she did not know—into his answering machine. The recording provides an awkward and unexpected backdrop for his professions: “Janine, I drink you up.” Brilliant.
Ruby Vroom was unlike anything else I’d heard—a ranting, nonsensical spoken-word manifesto delivered over a crisp, propulsive funk- and jazz-infused white-boy groove. Terrific, and essential. It should be remembered as one of the key albums of its time.
Here’s the 1994: The Year in Review playlist for you—three tracks per album.
I’ll be building the playlist as I go, adding to it as I complete different tiers of commentary. By the time I finish all Year in Review posts for the year, the playlist will be complete!
Enjoy!
More 1994, The Year in Review
More Years in Review of the 1990s…
Cover Art Citations:
- Dookie: By https://www.amazon.com/Dookie-Green-Day/dp/B000002MP2/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_2, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=195456
- I Could Live in Hope: By http://www.chairkickers.com & Low (band), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5554751
- Illmatic: By Derived from a digital capture 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=590211384
- Bakesale: By The cover art can be obtained from Sub Pop., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6135520
- There’s Nothing Wrong with Love: By Scan of cover, and intellectual property owned by Up Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1652056
- Ruby Vroom: By The cover art can be obtained from Slash Records / Warner Bros. Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3041469
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