1994, The Year in Review, P5

Here are a few more-than-worthy albums to round out my year in review. Dig in.

Other Notable 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.

Mark Lanegan
Whiskey for the Holy Ghost

Released 1994/01/18

There are some voices that I find so captivating that I’ll listen to anything they sing. They could opine about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and still somehow move me.

Some of those voices are of the pleading variety (a type I often find irritating, other times gripping): awkward, shy ‘80s Michael Stipe, for example, or Thom Yorke in his best moments. Sometimes I’ll find myself inexplicably drawn to a weird warbler like Mark Bolan, whose vocal flourishes in his earlier work I find oddly compelling, the way the lines could spin beguilingly around themselves. Other times it’s the husky barroom rasp of a Tom Waits, or before him, Howlin’ Wolf.

Mark Lanegan’s voice contains many of these qualities, and he can be utterly captivating. I don’t like every song he’s ever done, of course, but it seems that each album he releases contains a few that strike me to the core. At times, I wonder if his songs are any good at all or if it’s only his singing them that makes them great. Husky, alcohol and tobacco-stained, world-weary, Lanegan’s voice casts an intoxicating spell.

For your ease of interpretation, Lanegan places his twin themes right up front in the title of Whiskey for the Holy Ghost. (Well, almost—Heroin for the Holy Ghost might have come on a little strong.) Lanegan is not the only singer to equate getting drunk and high with the search for God and redemption, nor will he be the last. But he is surely one of the best rock-poets of the type. He’s wise enough to be aware of his own faults yet unable or unwilling to change them, and his songs are laced with a sorrowful resignation to his fate.

“Shooting Gallery” directly equates his drug use with a spiritual experience: “I’ll tell you how I woke up on the line / My sister I almost saw the light / …Saw every soul in heaven passin’ by.” In “Carnival,” Lanegan compares his life to a freakshow, as he seems to caution women away from him—the kind of warning that both parties know holds a certain dangerous appeal. “Pendulum” finds him ill at ease in the harsh material world, yet too weary and worn out to reach for the heavens. He ends up, in “El Sol,” coming down after a transcendental high, feeling tired and old and chilled to the bone, struck with the understanding that the gates of heaven are more closed to him than ever, waiting in vain for the sun to warm him up. Lanegan knows seeking God through inebriation only leaves him farther from salvation, but bless him in all his shortcomings, he keeps trying that route anyway.

Listen to more Mark Lanegan.

MC Solaar
Prose Combat

Released 1994/02/09

I wasn’t planning on putting any French rap on my year in review playlist. I mean, this list is geared toward a primarily English-speaking audience, and what does a typical American rap fan need from a French rapper? Rien.

But the more I listen to MC Solaar’s Prose Combat, the more I can’t stay away. When he’s not sampling Serge Gainsbourg (on “Nouveau Western”), he’s doing some of the best jazz and blues sampling I’ve ever heard.

I speak a little French, but not super well, really. Most of the words of Prose Combat just fly by me. But even though I don’t often know what he’s rapping about, I enjoy hearing MC Solaar very much. His voice has a nice timbre and it flows nicely. Even the casual rap fan would dig this quite happily, despite the language barrier. It’s a keeper.

Come
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Released 1994/10

Nobody will ever accuse Come’s Thalia Zedek of having a pretty voice. More than one person I played her music had the same comment: “This dude sings terribly.” Thalia, of course, isn’t a dude at all. (One of these friends had a similar comment with early PJ Harvey, too. When the guitar rages just so and the voice isn’t sugary sweet, some people make assumptions….) Zedek’s ragged, throaty voice can be a harrowing experience—but a thoroughly engrossing one, all the same. Very few singers could sing “Let’s Get Lost” and make you feel like they mean it. And this is some flat-out powerful shit. Massive, at times, brilliant. Other times perhaps a bit too bludgeoning, but better that than too tame.

“Yr Reign, a chronicle of maladjusted power relationships within a couple, starts off in a brisk, quiet guitar trot and slowly grows more frenzied, until it runs rampant. “I’m your horse,” Zedek mutters; “Reign me.” Similarly, “In/Out” rocks with fury; it also explores power dynamics in a couple. Unlike other chroniclers of the dark side (Mark Lanegan, for instance, who almost makes addiction seem appealing with his seductive, woozy crooning), Zedek doesn’t doll up the darkness. Simmering and slow, at times erupting in apocalyptic abandon, the plodding “Let’s Get Lost” must be one of the most passionate pleas for self-destructive oblivion on record. By the time it reaches its climax in an outburst of chiming guitar, you feel you’re down in the wretched pit alongside her.

Listen to more Come.

Victoria Williams
Loose

Released 1994/10/18

Quirky, arty (yet in a folksy, unpretentious way), and, as the title says, Loose, Victoria Williams’ excellent 1994 release feels like a breath of fresh air in a desert of blistering alt-rock. “Crazy Mary,” the album’s most-known track (due to a cover version by Pearl Jam) tells the tale of an eccentric local woman, perhaps a bit too fond of the liquor, who meets her end when a car loses control and skids into her shack during a storm. “Polish Those Shoes” is a delightful collage of quirky childhood memories; it’s arty, sure, and prone to associative rambling, but never off-putting or snooty the way some artsy stuff can be. Similarly, I am happy to have heard “Happy to Have Known Pappy” even though I don’ t plan to listen to it all that often. It’s unusual—offbeat in a childlike way, filled with kooky vocals and abrupt shifts; it broadens your musical scope.

Elsewhere, Williams uses a couple mystical, religious experiences to show that “You R Loved.” “Sunshine Country” (with its entrancing dulcimer intro and muffled vocals) and “Get Away” bubble with energy, offering tastes of the need to escape. “My Ally” show Williams’ idea of a pure, healthy relationship.

Loose mostly came to light because of Williams’ earlier diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and the subsequent release of the Sweet Relief benefit album (1993), featuring Pearl Jam, Soul Asylum, Matthew Sweet, the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, and many other prominent artists of the ‘90s alt-rock era, as well as some of their ‘80s underground rock antecedents. But Loose is easily worth hearing on its own, without all that hype.

Huun-Huur-Tu
The Orphan’s Lament

Released 1994/11/23 (Source: AllMusic.com)

My ears cannot get enough of “Steppe.” An intoxicating interplay of whining and scraping strings opens the song in an amorphous, fluttering buzz of sound. And then eerie, hypnotic voices emerge, whistling and bleating and droning like creatures from another world. It’s as if some sort of endorphin rush sets my mind afire every time I hear it. The rest of my family hates it, and usually starts hurling blunt objects at me (or at the very least, ripe insults) from across the room. To each his own, I guess. There’s nothing else like the Tuvan throat singing of Huun-Huur-Tu, to my mind the world music discovery of the decade. The Orphan’s Lament is often considered their best album. Check it out.

Listen to more Huun-Huur-Tu.

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:

• Whiskey for the Holy Ghost: By The cover art can be obtained from Sub Pop., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11674348
• Prose Combat: By http://zero.co.nz/music/images/m/MC%20Solaar%20-%20Prose%20Combat.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18209825
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: By May be found at the following website: [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34948389
• Loose: By Victoria Williams – amazon.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57049418
• The Orphan’s Lament: By May be found at the following website: [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73999177