Toadcast #61 – The 1990s
Well, as DC pointed out on Five Friday Fatwas, the 90s revival is not quite upon us yet. It’s both totally inevitable and somewhat due, so it will be here sooner rather than later, but for the time being it has yet to entirely arrive.
So in anticipation of the inevitable, I thought I might just make a podcast which partly tried to anticipate the revisionism and partly talked just a little about what I myself might remember when the 90s revival hits full swing in a couple of years.
I wouldn’t describe myself as a child of the 90s, but I think that I might be wrong in neglecting to do so. When they started I was 15, just moved from Singapore back to Vienna and very much a kid. By the time they ended I had finished my Master’s degree and spent a long time pouring pints waiting for a proper job, which in some ways I suppose might just make you an adult. It was an interesting era for me personally and when the revival arrives, as it inevitably will, I am downright fascinated to know what the younger generation will make of the music with which I grew up.
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01. Pearl Jam – Go (03.47)
02. R.E.M. – Oddfellows Local 151 (11.05)
03. Cocteau Twins – An Elan (18.16)
04. Gene – Sleep Well Tonight (21.46)
05. Counting Crows – Omaha (30.33)
06. Supergrass – She’s So Loose (38.37)
07. Echobelly – King of the Kerb (41.33)
08. Alice in Chains – Nutshell (47.47)
09. Pavement – Gold Soundz (53.22)
10. Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra – Eggshell Miles (59.01)
Gesundheit!
Oddfellows Local 151 reminds me of what a great band R.E.M. used to be. I haven’t paid much attention to them for the last 15 years or so, but when this song came out in 1987 they were my favorite band in the world.
I really like that Cocteau Twins tune as well. I’m actually a long-time fan of Cocteau Twins, but I’ve never heard that song before.
I enjoy Slanted and Enchanted a lot and my wife loves Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but I also never really got into Pavement for some reason. I always liked the shoegazey stuff better.
Wow. Look at those italics.
The dot com bubble popped like a burst scrotum? Dark blue blazers with gold buttons? (on Martha’s fucking Vineyard maybe, but nowhere else!) Natasha Richardson? What in the Sam Hill are you on about, boy? Have you switched from gin to absinthe?
Alice in Chains makes me envy the deaf.
Dark blue blazers with gold buttons fuck the little baby jesus in the ass. Poor little baby jesus.
Omaha‘s often overlooked, I think.
It’s probably because it was the second single off the album, and so by that definition somewhat sits in the shadow of Mr. Jones which was an epochal track. Then if you get caught up in a conversation with a fellow fan about August And Everything After, you often find yourself talking about the more epic album tracks Round Here, Anna Begins, Sullivan Street and so on. So poor old Omaha often seems to get a bit neglected.
Which is a shame because it’s a magical song.
Just checked out the playlist – Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra! Great choice who used to get played on Radio Forth in Edinburgh during my time at University.
1990s started for me finishing school and starting university and ended up in Colombia, far removed from much new music, but I’ve still got great memories of most of the decade.
Proper radio people have a kill switch on their boards that mutes their mics. It’s called a cough button funnily enough
I have Audacity I suppose, which means I could have just deleted the damn thing. Still, keepin’ in real and all that, wot.
You could have at least but some heavy compression on it.
I’ve just sang along to Echobelly without realising it, just be really grateful that wasn’t on a podcast.
Maybe you could try singing along next time.
Can you imagine the horror! I couldn’t do that – not to my listeners and not to my dignity!
I’m with C&B on Alice in Chains. This list, in fact, makes me realize that I wish I’d known of Pavement in junior high school so I’d not wasted time liking Alice in Chains.
Curious, actually – how big were Bush in the mid-90s in the UK? They were huge here (and I was busy loving them alongside, and above, luckily, Alice in Chains), but I’ve always wondered how they actually fared in England.
I’m probably not the fellow to answer that question. I wasn’t raised in the UK, although I moved here when I was seventeen, but I certainly barely heard a whisper out of them.
Bush had their moments over here….couple of nights sold out at the Shepard’s Bush Empire if i remember correctly
Weren’t Bush the funny ones in that they were much bigger in the states than they ever were in the UK – that being very odd for a British band?
There’s a few like that. Even Led Zep and Pink Floyd were bigger in the States, I think. Not that they were insignificant over here of course…
I didn’t find out until near-adulthood that Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were British. I guess that’s somewhat telling…