Overlooked Gems Of The '90s
Your guide to the best unacknowledged records of the decade
December 1999 / January 2000
By Carter Grice, Michael Koster, Al Lovelock, Steven M. Miller, and Bill Nevins
It's just like Lou Reed says: "Life's good, but not fair at all." Every decade is peppered with releases that never got their due—that despite brilliant insights, heart-clenching music, or a refreshingly original approach never made so much as a blip on either the charts or the cultural screen. Or, if some did, they were forgotten far too quickly. The following are a few of those greats whose sales don't measure up to their greatness, compiled by Thirsty Ear writers (and, no, we don't always agree with each other's choices).
STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES/The Hard Way
(1990, MCA)
Okay, everyone knows Steve Earle fell deep into the abyss of heroin addiction during the first few years of the decade and had his life turned around by a prison sentence. After his release, he arose to make the finest music of his career. But before he dropped out of the music industry to become a full-time street creep there was The Hard Way, an album that was such a downer and came from such a terrible period in Earle's life, it's likely that the record company, and maybe even Earle himself, just wanted to forget about it. It's not Earle's best work, but a handful of the darker songs make it his most harrowing. The suicidal "Have Mercy" is so raw, so full of pain it's hard to sit through. But it's impossible to forget. (AL)
Essential Steve Earle: Guitar Town (1986), Copperhead Road (1988), The Hard Way (1990), I Feel Alright (1996), El Corazon (1997)
KHALIFA OULD EIDE & DIMI MINT ABBA/Moorish Music From Mauritania
(1990, World Circuit/Rounder)
Easily one of the greatest voices from the modern Islamic world but long overlooked elsewhere, Dimi Mint Abba is a powerhouse of raw vocal talent. Only two of her records have surfaced in the West, and Moorish Music is definitely the better of the two. Abba is a master of traditional Mauritanian music, but isn't afraid of innovation, including tastefully appropriate electric guitar on some of the cuts here. The singing is masterful, the accompaniment spare and intense, the rhythms powerful. (SM)
Essential Dimi Mint Abba: Moorish Music From Mauritania (1990)
TAD/8 Way Santa
(1991, Sub Pop)
Remember "grunge" before it became a catch-all phrase for any loud guitar group or any band from Seattle? Back then, the grungiest of them all was TAD, a thundering quartet with the power of a monster-truck army, led by a 300-pound Idaho native, Tad Doyle. He sang about wood goblins and mean dogs and other joys of life in the backwoods with the persona of a deranged redneck who had long ago replaced his drawl with an evil growl. Of course, 1991 was the year that Nirvana hit the big time. But I always related more to the drunken hijinx of "Jack Pepsi" than "Smells Like Teen Spirit." (AL)
Essential TAD: Salt Lick (1990), 8 Way Santa (1991), Inhaler (1993)
SMASHING PUMPKINS/Gish
(1991, Caroline)
I just can't figure why the phenomenal Gish, Smashing Pumpkins' first and most infectiously energetic CD, hasn't sold umpteen gazillion copies. After all, the Pumpkins are one of the most popular bands of the '90s; and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Yawn, which is vastly inferior to Gish, managed to sell a gazillion copies. Unfortunately, Pumpkins' records get less compelling with each new release. To find the best, you have to go back to the beginning, to 1991, to Gish. Best described as '90s alternative meets '60s psychedelia, Billy Corgan & Co. never sounded so out front and wired. Especially drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who was fired for heroin use a couple years ago and only recently welcomed back into the fold. Gish stands with Nirvana's Nevermind and early Zeppelin albums as one of rock's great drum records. For proof, look no further than the ripping "I Am One" and "Siva," or the slow-build "Rhinoceros"—three of the best Pumpkins songs ever written. Forget the new stuff. Buy Gish instead. (MK)
Essential Smashing Pumpkins: Gish (1991), Siamese Dream (1993), Pisces Iscariot (1994)
LOUDON WAINRIGHT III/History
(1992, Virgin)
From his first recording in the early 1970s, Wainwright has had the knack for writing extremely personal and poignant songs about his family. Sparked by the death of his father and his own insecurities about his descent into middle age, the best songs on History are dedicated to his children. "Hitting You" finds him nearly belting "pretty little Martha," who has grown into an obnoxious teen. But the recollection of spanking her too hard when she was little fills him with guilt and frustration. In "A Father And A Son," he tries to understand his son Rufus, recalling, "When I was your age, I hated my Dad ... I was always wrong and he was always right." On History, Wainwright outdoes himself. (AL)
Essential Loudon Wainwright III: Album I (1970), Album II (1971), Album III (1972), Unrequited (1975), Alive One (1980), I'm Alright (1985), History (1992), Career Moves (1993); Social Studies (1999)
BOB DYLAN/Good As I Been To You
(1992, Columbia)
Maybe it's because Good As I Been To You was Bob Dylan's first covers-only record that most people entirely missed it. Maybe it was a hangover from all that Wilburys crap he put out in the '80s that caused folks to dismiss it. Maybe rock music was so exciting in 1992 that an album of traditional tunes—an ode, really, to his musical roots—was inevitably overlooked. But Good As I Been To You, in a coffeehouse sort of way, is about as good as it gets when it comes to a mature Dylan's just-me-and-my-guitar side. It's also a reminder of how great a guitar player this guy's become. From the impressive fingerwork of "Frankie & Albert" to the nursery-rhyme charm of "Froggie Went A Courtin'," Dylan delivers a first-rate set. (MK)
Essential Bob Dylan: Everything from the '60s, Blood On The Tracks (1974), Oh Mercy (1989), Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (1991), Good As I Been To You (1992), Time Out Of Mind (1997)
THE AFGHAN WHIGS/Gentlemen
(1993, Elektra)
"Teenage Angst" became a buzz-phrase associated with so-called grunge music in the early '90s. But The Afghan Whigs, a Cincinnati group that sounded like a Seattle group and indeed started off on Sub Pop, showed that teenagers have nothing on middle-agers when it comes to love-burned angst. The Whigs play loud, grating guitar music for adults. Commercially, that's probably their downfall—too mature for the kids, too raw for most grown-ups. But for us aging rock-&-roll reprobates, The Whigs, and this album in particular, is powerful stuff. You know singer Greg Dulli is serious when he wails the recurring refrain: "It's in our hearts, it's in our heads, it's in our love, baby, it's in our bed." But the huge climax of this record is "My Curse," sung by guest vocalist Marcy Mays of the indie group Scrawl. She belts it like a 60-year-old barfly laying her entire life on the line—downright chilling. (AL)
Essential Afghan Whigs: Congregation (1992), Gentlemen (1993), Black Love (1996), 1965 (1998)
MARK LANEGAN/Whiskey For The Holy Ghost
(1993, Sub Pop)
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Seattle's Sub Pop, the label that introduced us to Nirvana, Soundgarden, and the like, claims that Mark Lanegan's Whiskey For The Holy Ghost is one of the greatest recordings ever to come out the musky Northwest. I'd go further and call it one of the greatest records ever recorded, though this phenomenal collection of bruised folk tunes has never been widely recognized as such. A single listen might only elicit a casual, "Hmm." But after a half-dozen spins, Lanegan's understated masterpiece—an impassioned hybrid of acoustic folk and edgy rock, colored with gospel and country inflections—begins growing on you like a whiskey habit, and you just might find yourself hooked for life. Lanegan's captivating sandpaper-and-whiskey voice delivers rainy-day lyrics of lost love and disillusionment as though he invented these emotions. Somehow, though, it is not depressing: The beauty of his abused voice transcends the rubble of his lyrics. Kurt Cobain thought Lanegan, who fronts the grunge quartet Screaming Trees, has the best voice in rock. But I say Lanegan's folk efforts are where his talents really lie. And his solo recordings, the best of which is Whiskey, are where you'll find the real treasures. (MK)
Essential Mark Lanegan: The Winding Sheet (1989), Sweet Oblivion (with Screaming Trees, 1992), Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1993)
TOM WAITS/The Black Rider
(1993, Island)
I'm not arguing that this is the best Tom Waits album of the '90s. And it's not even his most overlooked album of the decade. (That would be his Night on Earth soundtrack from 1992.) But Black Rider is definitely Waits' most unjustly overlooked recording, sometimes even by hardcore Waits fans. That's probably because it's the soundtrack for a theatrical piece based on a grim fairy tale. Thus the vision is not 100-percent Waits'—he's working within a framework. But if you listen to it as if it were just an album, it's really quite wonderful. There are songs here that rank right up with his best:"The Briar And The Rose" and especially "Lucky Day," in which he sings, "Don't cry for me, for I'm going away/I'll be back some lucky day." Indeed, it would be another six years until Waits' next album. (AL)
Essential Tom Waits: Nighthawks At The Diner (1975), Small Change (1976), Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), Frank's Wild Years (1987), Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), Mule Variations (1999)
DRYWALL/Work The Dumb Oracle
(1994, IRS)
This little-known album is ex-Wall of Voodoo singer Stan Ridgway's greatest work. There's one short cut, "Hell In A Handbasket," in which a troubled voice opines again and again over sinister music/noise: "I think we're all going to hell in a handbasket." Is it a left-winger? A right-winger? A hand-wringer? Or someone about to take matters into his own hands? Ridgway and Drywall create a musical vision of a corrupt world crawling with criminals, vigilantes, mean police, and soldiers defending a crumbling realm. (AL)
Essential Stan Ridgway: Call Of The West (with Wall of Voodoo, 1982), The Big Heat (1986), Mosquitoes (1989), Work The Dumb Oracle (1994), Black Diamond (1995)
LISA GERMANO/Geek The Girl
(1994, 4 AD)
Normally self-pity is an annoying thing in music, but Germano turned it into an art form. Geek is a quasi-autobiographical concept album about a girl who feels "angry and dumb and not too cool." A heart-wrenching moment comes on the title song, when Germano sings: "I always liked rock & roll/It kind of moves me/I'd like it more if I danced/Yeah, sure." You can practically see her standing around at school cafeteria dance mixers where every song represented a rejection. But the worst is yet to come for our Miss Geek. In "A Psychopath" she gets the unwelcome attention of a crazed stalker. A recording of an actual 911 call with a woman hysterical with fear as a stalker enters her home is one of the most terrifying things ever put on a pop album. (AL)
Essential Lisa Germano: Geek The Girl (1994), Happiness (the 4AD remix version, 1994), Excerpts From A Love Circus (1996)
JON HASSELL AND BLUESCREEN/Dressing For Pleasure
(1994, Warner Bros.)
Jon Hassell has had a long and varied career, from the Army Band in the '50s, to Stockhausen and Terry Riley in the '60s, Indian classical music in the '60s and '70s, to his own "Fourth World" projects from the mid-'70s on. This record, truly one of the outstanding genre-busting discs of all time, neatly and intelligently combines Miles, hip-hop, African traditions, urban America, and the Western avantgarde into one seamless and accessible whole. This disc will confound your expectations, no matter what they are, and get your foot tapping while your brain works overtime. (SM)
Essential Jon Hassell: Power Spot (1986), Flash Of The Spirit (1992), Dressing For Pleasure (1994)
THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282/Strangers From The Universe
(1994, Matador)
Imagine Captain Beefheart mating with Laurie Anderson and giving birth to a five-headed banjo-playing mutant. That only scratches the surface. Discord and noise run amok, but some melodies are downright pretty, such as "Noble Experiment," a slowed-down waltz featuring an organ that sounds as if it's been pumped in from an ice rink in another galaxy. There's a David Lynch edge here—it's easy to envision ice-skating midgets and people with bad teeth going around in a circle as Anne Eickelberg sings her lullaby of doom. (AL)
Essential Thinking Fellers Union Local 282: Lovelyville (1991), Strangers From The Universe (1994), Hope It Lands (1995)
GUY CLARK/Dublin Blues
(1995, Asylum)
"I got an ol' blue shirt, and it suits me just fine/I like the way it feels, so I wear it all the time," drawls Guy Clark in "Stuff That Works," which pretty much sums up the Texan's take on life and art. Clark is, without doubt, one of a handful of great American singer/songwriters. And Dublin Blues is perhaps his greatest document. Clark's albums of the past few years, sung with a middle-aged man's mellow canter and wizened outlook, boast true gems here and there. But Dublin Blues is right on, dead center, every song. "Stuff That Works," "The Cape," and the title song are all thoroughly engrossing lessons in storytelling at its best. Ultimately Dublin Blues is like an ol' used car that runs just like a top/You get the feeling it ain't ever gonna stop. (MK)
Essential Guy Clark: Old No. 1 (1975), Dublin Blues (1995), Keepers (1997), Cold Dog Soup (1999)
PAVEMENT/Wowee Zowee
(1995, Matador)
Overlong, occasionally diffident if not difficult, and possessing one of the worst album covers ever, Wowee Zowee is Pavement's White Album and like the Beatles, their last really good record. Wowee offers up everything this band does well, from Fall-style rants to Can-style raveups with plenty of the broken field melodies that it's famous for. Stephen Malkmus intones mysterious lyrics with grand pop detachment and, unlike Pavement now, the band sounds like it was in the same room when the album was recorded. (CG)
Essential Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (1992), Wowee Zowee (1995)
P.J. HARVEY/To Bring You My Love
(1995, Island)
P.J. Harvey is like a poet-witch at the cauldron who substitutes angst for frogs' legs, dementia for rabbits' eyes, minimalist beats and rhythms for devils' toes. Critics are always lauding 1993's Rid Of Me, a fine collection of thump-&-grate alt rock, as a landmark recording. But Harvey really hit her fucked-up stride two years later when she put out To Bring You My Love. The CD cover features an ascetic, death-like Harvey floating in a pool of what I take to be her own neuroses, which is a fairly fitting metaphor for this stirring, eerie album of Plastic Ono beats, strange whispers, and scary stories that are intense, disturbing, and terribly gorgeous. (MK)
Essential P.J. Harvey: 4-Track Demos (1993), Rid Of Me (1993), To Bring You My Love (1995), Is This Desire? (1998)
NEIL YOUNG/Mirror Ball
(1995, Reprise)
It was a weird year, 1995. Neil Young had turned down the headline spot on Lollapalooza—back when folks were just beginning to care less about the increasingly irrelevant festival—to record an album with Pearl Jam as his backing band. Kurt Cobain was already dead; Pearl Jam were hiding out in a Seattle basement somewhere, and the great grunge tide, which had crested the year before, was rolling back harshly with nary a trendy record buyer who had anything nice to say about Northwest music. So I guess it makes sense that the great grunge progenitor, Neil Young, and the youngsters who helped bring that era's music to the fore, Pearl Jam, were doomed from the start when they set about recording Mirror Ball. It was a case of very bad timing for a very good recording to which very few people have listened. Too bad, because Mirror Ball is one of the best rock albums Neil Young ever cut: tight, gripping music in which, for the most part, he cans his hippie-drippy idealism in favor of biting, humorous lyrics. Young pulled out of a decade-long slump to record his classic Freedom in 1989, and in the next six years he would produce his strongest material. Mirror Ball is the last great recording of Young's finest era. (MK)
Essential Neil Young: Harvest (1972), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Freedom (1989), Ragged Glory (1990), Mirror Ball (1995)
THE METERS/The Meters Anthology: Funkify Your Life
(1995, Rhino)
Easily the most influential and critically acclaimed of the New Orleans funk bands, the Meters never achieved the kind of popular exposure that cohorts Dr. John, the Neville Brothers (several of whom were in the Meters over the years), or jazz folks like the Marsalis clan, Harry Connick Jr., or Professor Longhair did. Plagued by contract fiascoes, brushes with the law, and personnel problems over the years, the Meters nevertheless set the standard for funk in the Big Easy. This two-CD set is a long overdue compilation of their strongest tracks from a career spanning just under 10 years. Gets yer booty shakin! (SM)
Essential Meters: Anthology: Funkify Your Life (1995)
PATTY GRIFFIN/Living With Ghosts
(1996, A&M)
Griffin's stunning debut is similar in spirit to Dylan's Blood On The Tracks in that it's a classic heartbreak album—not in the abstract, but in the sense that the artist is a little too close to the material for comfort. Granted, there have been a lot of shitty heartbreak recordings, no matter how sincere the sentiment; but like Dylan, Griffin has a way of putting the words to the emotions without sounding hopelessly melodramatic. And like Blood On The Tracks, the aptly titled Living With Ghosts is acoustic, direct, wounded. Where she differs from Dylan is in the simplicity of her songs and in the strength of her vocals, which are about a thousand times more powerful than the old croaker's. It's a rare set of lungs, in fact, that can deliver "Moses," "Poor Man's House," and "Sweet Lorraine"—the best songs on the CD—with such passion and force. Ghosts is, quite simply, one of the most outstanding heartbreak tomes of the '90s. (MK)
Essential Patty Griffin: Living With Ghosts (1996)
ARCHERS OF LOAF/All The Nation's Airports
(1996, Alias)
Now split after an abortive final album, the Archers Of Loaf were a great North Carolina Band whose second-to-last record is a peak of post-Sonic Youth guitar imagery. Heavily treated, aggressively played six-string drones vie with loud riff ditties that leave a sour aftertaste. Nation's slays most current rock albums. (CG)
Essential Archers Of Loaf: Vee Vee (1995), All The Nation's Airports (1996)
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS/Murder Ballads
(1996, Reprise)
Funny, I didn't see any warning stickers on this disc, even though the body count probably is 10 times higher than the roughest gangsta-rap album. Mad Aussie Nick takes the time-honored folk form, looks at it from every angle—killer, victim, moralizing narrator, bemused spectator—and creates a rollicking, funny, sometimes shocking, and occasionally even touching masterpiece. (AL)
Essential Nick Cave: Henry's Dream (1992), Live Seeds (1993), Let Love In (1994), Murder Ballads (1996)
R.L. BURNSIDE/Acoustic Stories
(1997, M.C. Records)
R.L. Burnside's lowdown blues, whiskey-&-women lyrics, and willingness to thumb his Mississippi nose at blues purists with both irreverent classics (1996's blues/punk gem, A Ass Pocket of Whiskey) and irrelevant trendiness (1998's dance album, Come On In) have made him the most popular and one of the most important bluesmen to emerge in the last decade. Both purists and fans of his experimental side alike should appreciate the underrated Acoustic Stories, a batch of relatively quiet acoustic tunes recorded in the '80s that stand in stark contrast to the electric crunch of Burnside's current fare. Most impressive is the fluid, tasteful, surprisingly strong guitar playing that showcases a softer, equally compelling side of the ol' wizard. (MK)
Essential R.L. Burnside: Too Bad Jim (1994), A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey (1996), Acoustic Stories (1997)
WACO BROTHERS/Cowboy In Flames
(1997, Bloodshot)
Mekon/Uber-Wacoid Jon Langford took a Bob Wills song, turned it inside out, and howled in drunken terror at the American dream. And that's just the first tune. Remember how the Sex Pistols came to "destroy" rock & roll and ended up saving the damn thing? That's kinda what the Wacos are doing here. They hoist a mug to "The Death Of Country Music," but only after taking the old Roy Acuff classic, "Wreck On The Highway," to strange new levels. All I know is when Langford growls, "I didn't hear nobody pray," it's time to start prayin'. (AL)
Essential Waco Brothers: To The Last Dead Cowboy (1995), Cowboy In Flames (1997), Do You Think About Me (1997),Waco World (1999)
YO LA TENGO/I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
(1997, Matador)
A gorgeous set of soundscapes from this perennial alternative band. Yo La Tengo have always reminded their listeners that modern music rests on the shoulders of the Velvet Underground, but I Can Hear is the first of their many good records to match the Velvet's immortal third album for mood and texture. (CG)
Essential Yo La Tengo: Electro-Pura (1995), I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997)
SHANE MACGOWAN & THE POPES/The Crock Of Gold
(1997, ZTT Records)
The once and future king of Irish punk, Shane MacGowan, was booted from The Pogues for extreme dissipation, which is like being fired from the CIA for narcotics trafficking. He came back swinging with his own reel-rock outfit, originally dubbed The Popes, and released the wonderful The Snake. Their follow-up, The Crock Of Gold, has mysteriously never been released in the US, perhaps because it is the most obscene, in-your-face work of bog-Irish mad blues since Joyce's Finnegans Wake. The album includes MacGowan's unabashed self-portrait, "Paddy Rolling Stone," and his blunt meditation on the alleged Irish peace process, "Skipping Rhymes" ("With a knick knack paddy-whack, give the dog a bone/Send the stupid bastards home"). Somebody clearly does not want you to hear this. But you should. (BN)
Essential Shane MacGowan & The Popes: With The Pogues: Red Roses For Me (1984), Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash (1985), If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988), The Snake (1995), The Crock Of Gold (1997).
SONIC'S RENDEZVOUS/Sweet Nothing
(1998, Mack Aborn Rhythmic Arts)
It's a crime that it took two decades to release the first full-length recording by one of the most respected, sonically charged bands in history. Respected, that is, by the relatively few who have actually heard of this Detroit quartet that sought a sort of combustible catharsis through searing, bottom-heavy rhythms and blistering, over-the-top guitar leads. Equal parts punk and metal, the band reflected a stew of harsher-than-thou influences, but the main ingredients are the chaotic bliss of MC5 and the punkish thump of the Stooges (frontman Fred "Sonic" Smith hails from MC5 and drummer Scott Asheton was half responsible for the Stooges' killer bottom end). Sweet Nothing captures a typically high-energy live 1978 gig in which the spine-rattling "Asteroid B-612" shoots up your back like a stream of red-hot meteors. The title song builds slow and hard, like good sex, climaxing in a sweltering shower of feedback and histrionics. And the intense, heavy-handed "City Slang," a wild, eight-minute ride, somehow manages to be both brisk and compelling. Sweet Nothing is Sonic Rendezvous' sole official full-length release—a tribute to the band's uncommon stamina and fierce dedication to accept nothing less than burning down the damn house. (MK)
Essential Sonic's Rendezvous: Sweet Nothing (1998)
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