Loud Family - Music: What Happened?

1995
by Scott Miller

"Ticking" - Loud Lucy
San Francisco's KITS "Live 105" represented my last consensual relationship with a broadcast radio station—where DJs seemed to have a choice in what they played, etc. I can't quite say I was a Green Day fan, but the sound of the station in 1995 was that everything sounded like Green Day, and you could do a lot worse; Green Day came from a bona fide exciting local scene in Oakland. "Ticking" was one of many respectable one-hit-wonders I knew of from that radio station, and it still sounds plenty okay today.

"Skinny Hot Rod" - The Sugarplastic
The Sugarplastic were another certifiable scene band—from the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, associated particularly with the great venue Spaceland. They get a big, polychromatic sound for being a not very histrionic three-piece; they bear a somewhat accidental vocal resemblance to XTC or Talking Heads, but were actually gigantic Pixies fans.

"Alone + Easy Target" - Foo Fighters
Did anybody know Dave Grohl was going to be Mr. Entertainment? It's interesting that amid an industry of bands duking it out to become the most cheerlessly bilious in Nirvana'a wake, the Foo Fighters didn't buy in, taking a fairly upbeat, traditional rock course.

"Grounded" - Pavement
No pop act ever had more natural ease at rejecting or parodying prevailing aesthetics than Pavement. From their album art, rendered in found palatable images caked with white-out and scraped with an exacto blade to frame Pavement's branding, to their sounds-like-a-first-take sound, Pavement didn't give the impression of trying to please everyone, and in fact do not. I happen to be a fan. Wowee Zowee was controversial for most fans—something like a cross between T.S. Eliot and Danny Kirwan-era Fleetwood Mac—though right in the sweet spot for me.

"Allyson 23" - Anton Barbeau and the Joy Boys
This is a rapid-fire assault of pure enthusiasm; you don't feel any hesitation to think "power pop." A zillion little amusing lines go by a mile a minute—somewhere in there is "She knows the secrets of the squirrels/Knows my nuts are buried deep."

"Some Might Say" - Oasis
(What's the Story) Morning Glory was great. For me, I think it was the very last rock album that had song after song that sounded like it was going to be a hit, and was. The singing has that somewhat rare quality that it was undeniably superior, yet pretty much did not scream "smart person" at all.

"Fanfare" - Eric Matthews
That's about as convoluted as you can make a unison horn chart and still qualify as a pop hook; well done. The liner notes are worth reading: an announcement of a new talent that renders other acts so much noise, done in a circa-1960 style that only functions as parody because no one dares that much audaciousness anymore. Eric has one of the great voices, featured on 1994's brilliant Cardinal project.

"Sad Tomorrow" - The Muffs
The Muffs had an uncommon flair for simple, catchy melodies, which were delivered in Kim Shattuck's almost comically sneering adolescent rasp. There were a whole lot of bands doing very similar guitar rock with a punky delivery around this time (can't imagine why!), but I vote these folks near the top of the heap.

"1979" - Smashing Pumpkins

I feel the pain of people who don't like the Smashing Pumpkins; Billy Corgan comes off more pretentious in interviews than is justified by any particular innovation or distinction. Yet, I like what many consider their lowest moments: "despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage" (nice hook) and "...cleanliness is godliness and God is empty... just like me!" (nice adolescent rant). But nobody doesn't like "1979." For me it nails the feeling of realizing that a whole social world is gone into thin air.

"Stutter" - Elastica
It starts with two different, perfectly complementary fuzzed-up guitars—a good lesson in how to get a lot of white noise to sit well in a mix. I believe the "stutter" is a male's reaction to trouble exercising a certain interpersonal obligation. Not your everyday subject. I chatted Elastica up sharing a bill in England in 1994; at the time they were on the cover of NME on the strength of one single. I whined that in America, even the hottest band could expect to put out several albums before getting that much press, which was mostly true. Looking back, the single must have been "Connection."

"The Blunderbuss" - Brad Jones
I know about this terrific Brad Jones album because the illustrious Mojo magazine once picked both it and something by a band of mine in a little article (my God, here it is). It's a good showcase for what are obviously formidable production skills, and the vision of the West being won by showboating homicidal maniacs is surreally memorable.

"Sparky's Dream" - Teenage Fanclub
I always start out indifferent to Teenage Fanclub albums, and about 50% of the time end up loving them (and not disliking the other 50%). Grand Prix is their most consistent whole record so far. I always want to jump to the conclusion that they should shift focus to the obvious vocal gifts of Norman Blake, but this is the second album in a row where I picked a Gerard Love number as the standout. But, "Neil Jung," too, for sure.

"Santa Monica" - Everclear
There's sort of a jaunty low-life aura to this one. The singer wants to forget the "ghost" who left him, go the the west coast, see some palm trees, "swim out past the breakers," and "watch the world die." It's so catchy there's not really such a thing as not liking it, but why would the world be dying even were our lad to care to watch it do so? There's something about a "fire" in there. Let's hope he doesn't settle in Topanga Canyon.

"Apathy... Superstar!?" - P.M. Dawn
Don't call it "Christian R & B"; the Jesus Wept album was closer to hip-hop-influenced English shoe-gazer acts, and the lyrical approach was more personal and complex. It's atheist-approved! The blissful sonics and voice—in an insistant, insinuating rhyme pattern—lead to the unusually expressive, "Everything's all right/Almost everyone I know believes in God," revealing a gift for telling the truth not just about what one believes, but how it feels to believe it. "Sympathy should be a superstar."

"In the Veins" - Semisonic
This was after the group Trip Shakespeare, and before the Semisonic of "Closing Time" fame. I think the band might actually have been called Pleasure; the reissue I finally found it on is credited as "Pleasure e.p." by Semisonic. This is a big, tough guitar riff number—unexpectedly so, given the surrounding bands' less aggressive styles. Semisonic wrote very decent words, and these are a compelling meditation on the physical nature of mentality: "It's amazing all the things a self contains/Peace is in the veins."

"Planet Telex" - Radiohead
I actively disliked Radiohead until this song. Hated "Creep," was indifferent at best to "Fake Plastic Trees" and "High and Dry." But here all the positives are in place: the willingness to go out on a limb in the production (vocals and drums recorded way in the red), major playing off minor playing off tritone, the something-is-terribly-wrong theme: "Everything is broken/Everyone is broken/Why can't you forget?"

"Try Try Try" - Julian Cope
This has everything a giant mainstream hit by, say, the Steve Miller Band should have, and then some. But Julian Cope is a driven individual and it's hard to imagine him getting enough of the hit-making machinery greased to actually pull it off. I've come to expect the words have something to do with wanting to fly free of the Christian dispensation. I wouldn't want to speak for the man about what he feels is holding him back, if indeed I'm even getting that much right.

"You Could Make a Killing" - Aimee Mann
"I know it's neither deep nor tragic/Simply that you have to have it" is an incisive description of addiction, or maybe desire in general. Set to ravishing music. These song selections are arranged with best-toward-last, and here I should disclaim impartiality as I'm friends with Aimee Mann. Although, hardly a left-field pick.

"King of the Kerb" - Echobelly
This is probably the very best of the massive mid-nineties rock productions. Sonya Madan has a sweet voice and usually applies it to provocative subject matter; Echobelly usually have that particular edge to them. In this case I think the subject is how pimps are abusive, but I admit my first hand experience is limited.

"Philosophy" - Ben Folds Five
I remember telling everyone "You have to hear Ben Folds Five," more emphatically than I can remember doing with any other debut album. The piano playing is, for one thing, so clearly outstanding that you almost can't go wrong, and the fact that it's set in more or less a three-piece punk band seals the deal. I'll go so far as to say that "Philosophy" contains my single favorite piano performance on any recording. My conjecture is that in this song, the Statue of Liberty is talking, yet it's also about someone evaluating a group of friends according to whether each has proper philosophical moorings or not—don't worry, it all makes perfect sense when you hear the song.