The 90's are coming part 2: 1991

I've already commented on what a big year 1991 was for Nirvana. Their second album Nevermind even managed to symbolically knock Michael Jackson's Dangerous off of the number #1 spot of the Billboard album charts. Not a bad feat for a band whose first album included a cover of an obscure song by Shocking Blue, and who had been opening for The Melvins. But 1991 was very kind to some other folks too.

After 10 years that saw them transform from a New Wave dance act to an Industrial Metal powerhouse, Ministry finally managed to release the hit single that had eluded them since "Every Day Is Halloween" with the classic "Jesus Built My Hotrod" featuring Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers mostly just being Gibby Haynes. Nine Inch Nails got a lot more attention after playing the main stage at the first Lollapalooza tour, organized by Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction. Trent Reznor was also touring with Pigface, an industrial supergroup centered around Martin Atkins of Public Image Limited and Killing Joke.

On the alt-rock side of things, Throwing Muses were making waves with their album The Real Ramona. The Pixies were also starting to make it big with their Trompe Le Monde LP, which sadly turned out to be their last. Former members of both bands ended up joining forces as The Breeders, though Tanya Donnelly would leave to start her own band Belly shortly thereafter. My Bloody Valentine released their swan song Loveless as well leaving thousands of hipsters waiting years for the follow-up. Fellow shoegazers Catherine Wheel put out a strong debut the following year that picked up where Talk Talk (another former New Wave 80's band who underwent a radical evolution, though in a completely different direction from Ministry) had left off with their final LP Laughing Stock.

It's hard to overestimate the impact and influence of Nevermind and Loveless (though many have tried), but for my money the most significant release of 1991 may very well have been Massive Attack's Blue Lines. By the late 90's the Grunge and Shoegaze scenes had pretty much evaporated, while the Trip-Hop sound that Massive Attack had pioneered was still going strong. Though Deee-Lite's House music and The KLF's hard trance may have grabbed the headlines at the time, Blue Lines had staying power and sounds fresh to this day.

So break out the glow sticks, tear up the jeans, get behind the wheel of your Jesus built hot-rod, and pop in Volume 17 of the ever more expansive Expansion Pack...

PAEP Vol. 17: Safe from Harm for the Last Time (1991)

1. Counting Backwards - Throwing Muses
2. Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) - Pet Shop Boys
3. Last Train to Transcentral - The KLF
4. Ratskin - Swamp Terrorists
5. Sex with You - King Missile
6. Antius - Leæther Strip
7. Good Beat - Deee-Lite
8. Kiss Them for Me - Siouxie and the Banshees
9. Safe from Harm - Massive Attack
10. Pregnant for the Last Time - Morrissey
11. Suck - Pigface
12. Grouch - Schnitt Acht
13. Grey Cell Green - Ned's Atomic Dustbin
14. Chameleon Man - Cop Shoot Cop
15. Drain You - Nirvana
16. Jesus Built My Hotrod - Ministry
17. Black Metallic - Catherine Wheel
18. Mysterious Ways - U2

The 90's are coming part 1: 1990

Now that I'm done with the 80's (with any luck American popular culture is as well), it's time to face up to the next wave of nostagia: the inevitable 90's revival. By some reports, it has already started. So to prepare ourselves for an onslaught of flannel, flat tops, and fanny packs, I have begun to compile a few more mixes in my Punk Anthology Expansion Pack series. We begin at the beginning with 1990.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, the early 90's were really a continuation of a movement that had begun in the late 80's. Nirvana, The Pixies, Fugazi, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, and countless other bands and artists had already been active for a few years before the 80's ended and the 90's began, and would continue to set the pace for the underground music scene until the big breakthrough came with the release of Nirvana's Nevermind in late 1991. Up until that point the alternative scene was considered something of a niche market, served mainly by hip upstart labels like Sub-Pop and Wax Trax, but not taken very seriously by the major labels who were busy pushing vapid pop music like New Kids on the Block and Milli Vanilli.

There were hints of the change to come. The B-52's success with "Love Shack" from 1989's Cosmic Thing and Depeche Mode's breakthrough "Personal Jesus" off of 1990's Violator showed that Alternative music had the potential to connect with a wider audience. Buzz was also growing around They Might Be Giants, My Bloody Valentine, Concrete Blonde and the Pixies. In addition, the Rave scene in England, the House scene in Chicago, and the Techno scene in Detroit were starting to make waves promising a bizarre fusion of the psychedelic 60's with the Disco of the 70's. Less well known, but equally vital was the burgeoning Industrial Dance scene mostly centered around Chicago's Wax Trax label who released a string of top-notch singles from KMFDM, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Front Line Assembly, Front 242, and various side projects featuring members of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and Nine Inch Nails.

Of course, none of these groups would take off quite like Nirvana did the following year with their potent mix of Hüsker Dü style punk and Black Sabbath style sludge. Nirvana wasn't really doing anything radically new so much as continuing a tradition that had started with The Troggs, ? and the Mysterians, Count Five, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, and MC5. They brought back the garage aesthetic, the punk attitude, and the post-punk experimentalism to a Rock 'n' Roll scene drowning in derivative and increasingly indistinguishable hair bands (who themselves were a pale echo of the much more daring New York Dolls). Nirvana's success had as much to do with who they weren't as who they were. They gave us a taste of this with the "Sliver"/"Dive" single in 1990, but the real feast was yet to come...

PAEP Vol. 16: A Daisy Chain for Flogging (1990)

1. Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy
2. Picnic on the Moon - Bel Canto
3. Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
4. Fit for Flogging - Leæther Strip
5. Iceolate - Front Line Assembly
6. Repeater - Fugazi
7. Soon - My Bloody Valentine
8. Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode
9. Provision - Front Line Assembly
10. Tomorrow, Wendy - Concrete Blonde
11. What Time Is Love? - The KLF
12. A Daisy Chain 4 Satan - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
13. Godlike - KMFDM
14. Coming of the Century - Course of Empire
15. Sliver - Nirvana
16. Dig for Fire - Pixies

I'm so done with the 80's part 10: 1989

We've finally reached the end of our little journey. I've learned a lot and hopefully you have too. We laughed, we cried, we rocked, and we rolled. The last year of the 80's saw the last LP by Camper Van Beethoven (until their reunion in 2002) and the first by The Stone Roses, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. Depeche Mode, The Cure, Love & Rockets, Fine Young Cannibals and The B-52's all scored breakthrough hits that year as well. Ministry and various alter egos (Pailhead = Ministry + Ian MacKaye, Lard = Ministry + Jello Biafra, Acid Horse = Ministry + Cabaret Voltaire, Revolting Cocks, PTP, 1000 Homo DJs) put out some of the best tracks of their career.

Despite all of the great music I've catalogued over the last few weeks, the 80's as a decade were not all that much fun to live through. People have selective memories, and nostalgia tends to gloss over the ugly parts of our past. Much of the groundwork for the financial collapse we are currently living through was laid down during the Reagan administration. The wars we are currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan might not have been fought if it hadn't been for the tacit support we gave to the Mujahedeen and Sadaam Hussein in the 80's. It wasn't until 1989 that the Cold War finally showed signs coming to an end with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As I noted in the first post in this series, most of the music that came out at the time was pretty awful as well. There was too much Great White and not enough Big Black, too much Motley Crüe and not enough Hüsker Dü, too much Eddie Money and not enough Mudhoney, too much Billy Ocean and not enough Green River. My thoughts on the matter at age 15 on January 1st, 1990 were pretty much: "Thank God the 80's are over. At least the 90's can't be any worse." Little did I know then how wrong I was. But that's a story for another day. Until then, here's the last of the 80's Punk Anthology Expansion Packs...

PAEP Vol. 15: Ouija Board Warrior (1989)

1. She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
2. Don't Stand in Line - Pailhead
3. Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys
4. Debaser - Pixies
5. See a Little Light - Bob Mould
6. Channel Z - The B-52's
7. Promises - Fugazi
8. Physical (Let's Get) - Revolting Cocks
9. Warrior - Public Image Ltd.
10. Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode
11. The Virus - KMFDM
12. So Alive - Love and Rockets
13. Pictures of Matchstick Men - Camper Van Beethoven
14. Fool's Gold - The Stone Roses
15. Ouija Board, Ouija Board
16. So What - Ministry

I'm so done with the 80's part 9: 1988

When you think about it, dividing recent history into decades is a fairly arbitrary convention. We surely wouldn't use increments of ten if we didn't use a base ten system for numbers. We wouldn't even use base ten if we had evolved like the characters in the parallel world of the Simpsons where everyone has only eight fingers. So even though the late 80's bore little resemblance to the early 80's the whole decade is wrapped up together in a convenient and generic package.

As I noted in previous posts, there are less arbitrary ways of slicing up time -- at least in terms of the history of punk and punk-inspired music. The Punk Anthology so far has covered the Garage Rock Era (1963-1968), the Proto-punk Era (1969-1973), the Punk Era (1974-1977), the Post-punk Era (1978-1982), and -- for a lack of a better title -- the Proto-alternative Era (1983-1987). We now begin the next span of time which I will call the Alternative Era (1988-1991). This was the period of time when most of the bands we think of as "Alternative Rock" -- Jane's Addiction, The Pixies, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Nine Inch Nails -- released their first full-length albums, but before the music gained much attention in the mainstream media.

The Alternative Era was particularly good for the industrial scene. Ministry transformed themselves from noisy synth-pop to a much noisier Big Black style hybrid of hardcore punk, metal, and electronic music. Skinny Puppy and Front 242 were also coming into their own after a series of strong releases in the mid-80's. Add in Nitzer Ebb, KMFDM, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Leæther Strip, Front Line Assembly and Nine Inch Nails among others and you get some of the most fruitful years in aggressive electronic music.

Looking over the tracklist of the 1988 Expansion Pack, it's amazing how many bona fide anthems came out in 1988. Front 242's "Headhunter", Ministry's "Stigmata", Fugazi's "Waiting Room", Dinosaur Jr's "Freak Scene", and Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick" all qualify, as does Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot" featured on the Punk Anthology Sampler for 1988-1990. Add in some iconic artist-defining tracks like "Under the Milky Way", "The Mercy Seat", "Anchorage", "Where Is My Mind?" and "Everyday Is Like Sunday" and you've got yourself a hell of a good year...

PAEP Vol. 14: Touch Me My Mind Is Sick (1988)

1. Victoria - The Fall
2. Where Is My Mind? - Pixies
3. Under the Milky Way - The Church
4. Headhunter V1.0 - Front 242
5. The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
6. Everyday Is Like Sunday - Morrissey
7. Testure - Skinny Puppy
8. Anchorage - Michelle Shocked
9. Touch Me I'm Sick - Mudhoney
10. Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys) - Big Country
    
11. Jane Says - Jane's Addiction
12. Burn Up - Siouxie and the Banshees
13. Carolyn's Fingers - Cocteau Twins
14. Stigmata - Ministry
15. Freak Scene - Dinosaur Jr.
16. Love Buzz - Nirvana
    
17. Don't Blow Your Top - KMFDM
18. Waiting Room - Fugazi

I'm so done with the 80's part 8: 1987

As I mentioned in the last post, 1987 was in many ways as much an end of an era as 1982. But listening to the music from that year, it feels more like a time of transition. The music that came out before that year was nothing like the music that came after, but the year itself was an odd mix of the two. As Hüsker Dü was ending, the Pixies were just getting started. The last days of Big Black were the first days of Nitzer Ebb. Green River was winding down just as Jane's Addiction was coming up. The seeds of the new scene were planted during the old scene.

That's not to say that everyone was either debuting or bowing out. Sonic Youth, The Cure, New Order, R.E.M. and U2 got their start in the post-punk era, hit their prime in 1987, and all would go on to play to enormous crowds in the 90's and beyond. U2 didn't have to wait for the 90's, as the breakout success of The Joshua Tree catapulted them to new heights surpassed only by Bono's ego. The singles from that album were so overplayed that year that it took me 10 years before I could bring myself to order the album from the BMG music club.

1987 also saw the last releases from the first bands in the so-called "emo" scene: Guy Picciotto's Rites of Spring and Ian MacKaye's Embrace. The two band leaders would join forces the following year for the debut EP from Fugazi. Today's emo artists probably owe a greater musical debt to The Cure and Descendents than to any of the bands from DC's Dischord label. Songs like "Clean Sheets" and "Just Like Heaven" practically invented The Promise Ring and (shudder) Dashboard Confessional.

So grab The One You Love (who very well might Need You Tonight) and find out why children by the millions waited for Alex Chilton when he came round...

Edit (10/21/2009): I road tested this sucker and it was a bit of a bumpy ride so I revised the tracklisting a bit.

PAEP Vol. 13: Kerosene Expressway (1987)

1. Clean Sheets - Descendents
2. Past - Embrace
3. All Through a Life - Rites of Spring
   
4. Human Cannonball - Butthole Surfers
5. Mary Had a Little Drug Problem - Scratch Acid
6. Strangelove - Depeche Mode
7. Like Cockatoos - The Cure
8. Alex Chilton - The Replacements
9. The Model - Big Black
10. True Faith - New Order
11. Join in the Chant - Nitzer Ebb
12. Girlfriend in a Coma - The Smiths
13. Happy When It Rains - The Jesus & Mary Chain
    
14. (I Got a) Catholic Block - Sonic Youth
15. Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode
16. The One I Love - R.E.M.
17. For the Singer of R.E.M. - Firehose
    
18. Stop Me If You Thing You've Heard This One Before - The Smiths
19. Rent - Pet Shop Boys
20. Just Like Heaven - The Cure
21. Need You Tonight - INXS
22. The Holiday Song - Pixies
23. In God's Country - U2

I'm so done with the 80's part 7: 1986

By 1986 the fracturing of the punk scene that began in the early 80's had produced a number of punk-influenced genres that had developed into full fledged scenes of their own. As the New Wave started to ebb and hair bands began to take over MTV, the only survivors were of a decidedly synth-pop bent -- Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, and a more electronic (thought not yet Electronic) New Order being the most notable. Despite the drum machines, noisier industrial bands like The Swans, Big Black, and Skinny Puppy had little in common with their synth-pop brethren, though Ministry managed to inhabit a middle ground (for now) on their Twitch LP.

If guitar rock was more your cup of tea, there was plenty of that going around as well from the clever jangly pop of R.E.M. and The Smiths, to the dark and atmospheric epics coming from Killing Joke, The Chameleons, and Sonic Youth. Splitting the difference was the always uncategorizable music of The Fall who put out poppy singles like "Hey! Luciani" while at the same time recording the decidedly dark Bend Sinister LP.

Like the post-punk scene before it, the mid-80's indie scene would soon give way to the next generation of punk rockers. The Smiths and Hüsker Dü only lasted another year before acrimoniously breaking up. U2, R.E.M., and Depeche Mode would all find significant commercial success in the late 80's and early 90's, while The Fall jumped from mid-major Beggar's Banquet to a series of smaller indie labels. Other bands merely faded away, treading water for the rest of the decade. While the scene lasted, it produced some great tunes. Here's some of the best...

PAEP Vol. 12: Kerosene Expressway (1986)

1. Kerosene - Big Black
2. Isle of Man (V2) - Ministry
3. Stripped - Depeche Mode
4. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
5. Running on the Rocks - Shriekback
6. Look Away - Big Country
7. A Screw - Swans
8. Oh l'Amour - Erasure
9. Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
10. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) - Pet Shop Boys
11. Expressway to Your Skull - Sonic Youth
12. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
13. Antagonism - Skinny Puppy
14. Swamp Thing - The Chameleons
15. Rubicon - Killing Joke
16. Superman - R.E.M.
17. Hey! Luciani - The Fall

I'm so done with the 80's part 6: 1985

Ladies and gentlemen we are over the hump! We now begin the second half of the decade finding many of our favorites from the first half in fine form. Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen both contributed two excellent releases that year and R.E.M. and The Replacements each dropped an album of their own. It almost seems quaint, the idea that a band might release an album (or two) every year. The Fall were already on their seventh full length studio album in six years, and would put out three more by the end of the decade. This was before the advent of the compact disc of course, but more significantly the indie labels like Beggar's Banquet, SST, Twin-Tone, Wax Trax, and Rough Trade didn't see the need to space out albums in order to maximize sales as the now ailing major labels do today.

1985 had it's share of debutantes including Camper Van Beethoven and Love and Rockets, along with some strong sophomore efforts from The Chameleons, Nick Cave, The Pogues and New Model Army. Sadly, it was also the last year for the Minutemen as lead singer and guitarist D. Boon died in a car accident at the age of 27. So this one's for you D...

PAEP Vol. 11: The Dog-End of Paradise (1985)

1. Love Like Blood - Killing Joke
2. Yu-Gung (Futter mein Ego) - Einstürzende Neubauten
3. Up on the Sun - Meat Puppets
4. Shake the Disease - Depeche Mode
5. My Country - New Model Army
6. Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven
7. Push - The Cure
8. Everything That Rises Must Converge - Shriekback
9. Makes No Sense at All - Hüsker Dü
10. Tupelo - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
11. Dirty Old Town - The Pogues
12. Driver 8 - R.E.M.
13. I Am Damo Suzuki - The Fall
14. One Flesh - The Chameleons
15. The Dog-End of a Day Gone By - Love and Rockets
16. The Whole of the Moon - The Waterboys
17. The Price of Paradise - Minutemen