Well, that's a wrap,boys & girls. February is coming to an end. And my 1991 charts are finally complete. For now. I thought that I would only need one, but there was so much good stuff that I'd like to come back to in the future that I made a second custom chart as well. Check them out and let me know what you think INCLUDING what I'm missing. But for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.
ps. How do u make this links look like text? Such that clicking on the descriptive test brings you to that page.
Wow, this is over. Well on to whatever year you are going to. Also checking these lists right now.
yeah I learnt A LOT from really diving into this year, and I now want to explore several awesome artists and scenes from it in more detail over the next two months AND THEN I'm going to repeat this entire process in a more mellow way with 1992. The TWO scenes I'me going to be dabbling into over the next couple of months are...
1. The Flatlanders & Lubbock Country Scene
One of my favorite new discoveries of the year was Jimmie Dale Gilmore's After Awhile LP. I'm now going to delve into his first band - The Flatlanders, their breakup and their antecedents which had a MASSIVE influence on Alt Country.
2. Sarah Records
Three of my favorite discoveries from this year are The Field Mice, Heavenly, and The Orchids. All three of their albums from 1991 will likely be in my top twenty and are overall chart worthy kind of stuff. I'll be looking into the birth of this label and its early years.
3. The late 80s & early 90s Power Pop Rebirth
1991 was the year that power pop really came back onto the scene with a vengeance and may just have been the high-water mark for the entire genre. I'm going to explore that scene and such bands as Material Issue, Velvet Crush, Matthew Sweet, and of course Teenage Fanclub who are second only to the immortal Big Star as the greatest power pop band of all time.
4. Giant Sand THE cult band of the entire Alt Rock scene. Revered by many but mostly unknown even to music fiends like us. It time to shine the light.
Well, that's a wrap,boys & girls. February is coming to an end. And my 1991 charts are finally complete. For now. I thought that I would only need one, but there was so much good stuff that I'd like to come back to in the future that I made a second custom chart as well. Check them out and let me know what you think INCLUDING what I'm missing. But for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.
Well, that's a wrap,boys & girls. February is coming to an end. And my 1991 charts are finally complete. For now. I thought that I would only need one, but there was so much good stuff that I'd like to come back to in the future that I made a second custom chart as well. Check them out and let me know what you think INCLUDING what I'm missing. But for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.
The '91 Project Counts Backwards => The Sarah Years
But why am I even counting backwards? I realized during the '91 project that I know next to nothing about Sarah Records. It's this giant hole in my music knowledge from this time period. Although their influence can be heard in some of my favorite American bands in the late 80s (such as Galaxie 500), I don't even think I knew that the Sarah records label existed back then. And I love tracing music history. My cds and albums are arranged in an attempt to trace musical genres. Trying to show the complicated family tree of different offshoots by a very nonscientific process of placing certain bands in proximity and order. I love how it ends up looking. So today's AOTD is Sarah's very first Comp...
The first compilation from Sarah records which gathers their early singles that came out back in 1988.
A couple of observations from this comp which I've listened to about six times....
1. It's extraordinary how homogenous and congruous this sounds. It's like all the bands got the same memo from the head of Sarah records a couple months prior of what they needed t sounded like. I've heard other labels such as 4AD & 80s Sub-Pop which tried to have a general aesthetic or sound, but Sarah really took it to another level. For most of the bands on this comp, I couldn't tell you who was who. That's both a strength and a weakness to this comp. The songs can be a little samey which is bizarre for a label comp. The twist is that most of these tracks are really good and their is only a couple of tracks that are skippable, again an anomaly with most label comps where some mediocre bands just detract from the whole.
2. The one band that really stick out on this is non-surprisingly The Field Mice. Their 2 or 3 cuts on this are easily the best, and there's no question at this early stage that there was The Field Mice and then everyone else. At this stage, even the Orchids don't really stand out from the pack.
3. The England underground was radically different from the american underground where most of the bands did NOT sound at all cute or cuddly. Scary & dangerous and a serious edge was more the norm. So it's interesting how different this was from what was gong on in America at the time for the most part. Even Beat Happening had a serious dark side. Again, only Galaxie 500 are sort of comparable to this Sarah sound and I know that Dean Wareham (the defacto band leader)r was pretty confident and lacked that twee, super sensitive indie boy aesthetic especially live.
I figured it would be easier (& more fun) to do this piecemeal. So here's the battle for the Midwest throne. Two Chicago Punk classics going at it. These are the type of albums that would be played IN FULL at Chicago's annual Riot Fest. Both are treated with a degree of reverence out here. Chicago likes its punk. As always, my kids will probably have the freshest takes & luckily I'm picking them up in a couple of hours. 😁
One of the most influential Pop Punk albums of the entire 90s.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Hi Tilly, I finally got round to listening to the Pegboy album: at first I thought I would find it fairly run-off-the-mill but in fact I quite liked it. Especially the instrumental Locomotivelung (makes me think a bit of Jethro Tull) is special and actually very good: a more varied record than I thought it would be. I already gave you my opinion on Screeching Weasel (meeh) so Pegboy clearly wins for me.
I'm curious to hear what your kids at the back of the car thought of it 😉
I figured it would be easier (& more fun) to do this piecemeal. So here's the battle for the Midwest throne. Two Chicago Punk classics going at it. These are the type of albums that would be played IN FULL at Chicago's annual Riot Fest. Both are treated with a degree of reverence out here. Chicago likes its punk. As always, my kids will probably have the freshest takes & luckily I'm picking them up in a couple of hours. 😁
One of the most influential Pop Punk albums of the entire 90s.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Hi Tilly, I finally got round to listening to the Pegboy album: at first I thought I would find it fairly run-off-the-mill but in fact I quite liked it. Especially the instrumental Locomotivelung (makes me think a bit of Jethro Tull) is special and actually very good: a more varied record than I thought it would be. I already gave you my opinion on Screeching Weasel (meeh) so Pegboy clearly wins for me.
I'm curious to hear what your kids at the back of the car thought of it :wink:
lol. My kids liked Screeching Weasel better but A LOT that had to do with their name I think. they love animals. Even screeching ones. Mostly, they just wanted MORE TESLA!!!. lol. Being the good Dad I am, I obliged. I think punk rock is a more acquired taste than hair metal.
Psyched you liked Pegboy!!! It's one of my faves to listen to at the gym rn. You should really check out Naked Raygun if u liked this. Naked Raygun r even better and have that same muscular Midwest punk sound. They invented it in fact. Throb Throb's probably the best to start with.
Well, that's a wrap,boys & girls. February is coming to an end. And my 1991 charts are finally complete. For now. I thought that I would only need one, but there was so much good stuff that I'd like to come back to in the future that I made a second custom chart as well. Check them out and let me know what you think INCLUDING what I'm missing. But for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.
ps. How do u make this links look like text? Such that clicking on the descriptive test brings you to that page.
Wow, this is over. Well on to whatever year you are going to. Also checking these lists right now.
yeah I learnt A LOT from really diving into this year, and I now want to explore several awesome artists and scenes from it in more detail over the next two months AND THEN I'm going to repeat this entire process in a more mellow way with 1992. The TWO scenes I'me going to be dabbling into over the next couple of months are...
1. The Flatlanders & Lubbock Country Scene
One of my favorite new discoveries of the year was Jimmie Dale Gilmore's After Awhile LP. I'm now going to delve into his first band - The Flatlanders, their breakup and their antecedents which had a MASSIVE influence on Alt Country.
2. Sarah Records
Three of my favorite discoveries from this year are The Field Mice, Heavenly, and The Orchids. All three of their albums from 1991 will likely be in my top twenty and are overall chart worthy kind of stuff. I'll be looking into the birth of this label and its early years.
3. The late 80s & early 90s Power Pop Rebirth
1991 was the year that power pop really came back onto the scene with a vengeance and may just have been the high-water mark for the entire genre. I'm going to explore that scene and such bands as Material Issue, Velvet Crush, Matthew Sweet, and of course Teenage Fanclub who are second only to the immortal Big Star as the greatest power pop band of all time.
4. Giant Sand THE cult band of the entire Alt Rock scene. Revered by many but mostly unknown even to music fiends like us. It time to shine the light.
Well Tilly this was a very interesting quest into 1991 and it's such an amazing year I feel I haven't yet completely discovered it. Anyway it was a great journey and I really like your two 1991 charts.
As for your 4 new projects: now listening to that Sarah comp but I think I will further investigate the regular albums of the bands themselves like The Orchids and Heavenly.
But I'm mostly interested in your last two planned projects. I have a lot of recs for powerpop albums of the 80's and the 90's (although it's not always easy to say if it's powerpop or indie) but to me the Posies rule.
I know you know that country is not really my thing but Giant Sand is great although I mainly know them from a compilation but when I look at the number of regular albums they issued (and that doesn't even include the fairly large number of solo albums by Howe Gelb), there's a lot to discover: and it's funny they seemed to be on holidays in 1991 😉
Psyched you liked Pegboy!!! It's one of my faves to listen to at the gym rn. You should really check out Naked Raygun if u liked this. Naked Raygun r even better and have that same muscular Midwest punk sound. They invented it in fact. Throb Throb's probably the best to start with.
I listened to Throb Throb and some of the tracks are ok but overall the album is very pamphletic: a fairly good album but not great. But I read some good reviews on Jettison (described as a kind of bridge between punk and grunge) and I'm now listening to that one and I must say I like it much better and much more varied and melodic but in some way harder edged than Throb Throb (if that makes any sense).
Psyched you liked Pegboy!!! It's one of my faves to listen to at the gym rn. You should really check out Naked Raygun if u liked this. Naked Raygun r even better and have that same muscular Midwest punk sound. They invented it in fact. Throb Throb's probably the best to start with.
I listened to Throb Throb and some of the tracks are ok but overall the album is very pamphletic: a fairly good album but not great. But I read some good reviews on Jettison (described as a kind of bridge between punk and grunge) and I'm now listening to that one and I must say I like it much better and much more varied and melodic but in some way harder edged than Throb Throb (if that makes any sense).
Hmmm.... The trilogy of Throb Throb, All Rise, & Jettison were huge in cultivating that Midwest muscular sound that Bick Black would popularize. Throb Throb in particular was influential on The Pixies sound. All three are essential Midwest Underground albums, but they definitely evolved over time and I can understand you liking Jettison best. (I think a lot of punk albums require repeat exposure in order to sink in otherwise they all can sound kind of samey.And Throb Throb is definitely still a punk album) A lot of these bands were moving from hardcore and into more indie rock/noise rock/grunge territory and so their was definitely an advancement in sound. But, Naked Raygun were certainly one of the key ones and one of the most unheralded given their influence omn the Midwest scene.
My two cents. lol. I will have to listen to them all again. I really dig all three! Psyched that you at least dug Jettison! 😁
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