Music Chatter Personal Rambling: faith no more guns n roses metallica red hot chili peppers stone temple pilots ugly kid joe
by Matthew
6 comments
Toad 2.0
Those First Tentative Steps…
Whilst it was a year in Glasgow with the redoubtable James Strath that finally marked my transition into the world of cutting edge indie, there had been signs in previous years that I was ready to abandon the steadying hand of my parents’ Stones, Dylan and Bowie records and take those tentative first steps on my own, into the brave new world of popular music.
Unsurprisingly I tottered a little at first, and there were a few bumps and bruises along the way. Living in Austria meant there was no Madchester for me – not even The Stone Roses. My peers were loosely divided into heavy metal fans (Metallica, Iron Maiden, Guns ‘n’ Roses, although they don’t half sound tame now) and dance fans (shudder). There quite simply was no indie in Austria.
Consequently, the first really popular songs that I liked at the actual time they were popular were a hodge-podge of tracks that leaked out of these two camps and reached just far enough into the indie territory that I still didn’t realise was my genre that I was able to get a handle on them. Mostly, I must confess, it was the rock stuff that I liked, albeit generally the less shouty stuff that tended to catch my ears, but it was a pretty incoherently mixed bag of bits and bobs at the beginning.
The album that I finally connected with completely, the one that marked my actual participation in mainstream popular music for the first time, came in about 1991 when Pearl Jam released 10. But until then it was these stray songs here and there that I was starting to catch onto and began slowly to realise that there was something in this popular music thing that might just be for me…
Ugly Kid Joe – Cat’s in the Cradle
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge
Metallica – Nothing Else Matters Heavy metal for people who really don’t like heavy metal!
Faith No More – Easy
And a couple released a bit later that I was actually aware of as they were released – the first time this happened to me.
Guns ‘n’ Roses – Live & Let Die Kids in my class actually cut school to run to the shops and buy this the second it hit the shops.
Stone Temple Pilots – Plush That Beavis & Butthead favourite. I thought B&B were really, really fucking cool!
Bloody hell! A very honest post. I remember the release of Guns’n'Roses’ albums in 1991 being a pretty big deal around our school too. Loved them at the time, but not so fussed now. Still like Metallica in small doses, but Ugly Kid Joe? Nah, that one can stay back in the early nineties where they belong!
Oh goodness, forgot all about Ugly Kid Joe. I remember liking that “I Hate Everything About You” song when I was a kid. Oof.
I didn’t know you got Beavis and Butthead over there – did you ever see the episode where they were watching PJ Harvey’s “50 Foot Queenie” and Butthead said, “huh-huh, it’s Mallory,” referring to Justine Bateman on Family Ties?
Thanks for that, happy memories while munching my cornflakes yesterday morning
you missed extreme’s “more than words” which all the girls in our class used to try and sing in a 12 part disharmony.. ouch! Ah the romantic ballad, last song at school disco, sweaty palms followed by crushing rejection.. sigh
those were the days
Jesus Brian, the fuckers at our school did that as well, with some long-haired, sensitive muppet on guitar. It was quite good the first time, and then they trotted the bastard thing out at every conceivable opportunity until I really, really wanted to batter them all to death with that bloody guitar.
Hi China, yes, it was a toss-up between Everything About You and Cat’s in the Cradle. We got Beavis & Butthead on MTV, so that was my first exposure to pop, really. It all changed when I moved to England in 1993 though. But that’s a whole different post!
My hatred of most of this sort of music is well-known, although I am fond of quite a few tracks from the Chilli Peppers from that era (but not the stadium-rawk shite they peddle nowadays).
I would also urge casual listeners to track down ‘Everything’s Ruined’ by Faith No More as a fine example of the metal gengre.
[...] Those First Tentative Steps… [image] Whilst it was a year in Glasgow with the redoubtable James Strath that finally marked my transition into the […] [...]