Jonathan's 1992

1992 – By this time puberty had fully kicked in and I was probably going through my most ginger phase. I spent Saturdays going to see Sheffield Wednesday with my dad and camped out at the local field with friends, drinking and causing havoc (intermittently). Note to editor, as Michael Jackson would say, if he weren’t dead and was performing one of (s)hits...You Are Not Alone, I’m writing with you!

Sonic Youth – Wish Fulfilment

Sonic Youth are yet another group introduced to me by my elder brother, following his musical ventures at university. I saw them live at Reading, ’96 I think it was but I wasn’t impressed; too much arsing about making noise than actually getting on with playing some music. I don’t like DIY, so a drill-fuelled guitar solo lasting 15 minutes gets me about as excited as putting up a shelf on a Friday night. However, there are some Sonic Youth moments when they got that balance right between noise and music. Wish Fulfilment is the stand-out track for me on one of their most consistent albums. It’s by far my favourite SY song, though there are plenty of others I really like. It’s the track I always put on compilations, however, that was a bit unfair of me because it does not really represent SY. I never get tired of those noisy explosions and I love the lyrics. A lot of my favourite songs follow a quiet, loud, quiet formula and this never deviates from that path. Sonic Youth are definitely not one of my favourite bands, but Wish Fulfilment is a favourite song of mine.

Sugar – A Good Idea

Bob Mould’s indie band, following the punk of Husker Du, were, you guessed, another band Jim introduced me to. From the album Copper Blue, Sugar’s strongest and most accessible album, A Good Idea is the second track in and is based around the bass line of Pixies’ Debaser. In spite of its obvious rip-off opening, Sugar managed to take the song into a totally different direction from that of the Pixies. Although you could argue that both songs occupy an area of madness. A tale of murder, sung to sweet, catchy melodies is always a winner for me. It’s just a damn good indie pop song. I remember going to Stomp, a club in Leeds that occupied the Leeds Met venue and later became Star, hearing it and dancing to it during my first ever time in a club. Underage and dressed in my brother’s grungy clothes (tie-dye shirt, army boots, combats) I managed to get in to the club and I suppose hearing all those tracks left its mark. Copper Blue is an album that I still happily return to from time to time and it hasn’t lost any of its quality. A Good Idea is the brilliant single from the album and I’d still put it on a compilation tape, if only I could find one!

Coleman's 1990's; Part six - 1995

Wow. Two months? Really? And a half? And it only feels like three...

Lame jokes aside, the summer break (not that there was supposed to be any summer break) is over and more than ever it feels that I'm just left on my own on this project. Which beats the point in a way but I'm reluctant somehow to switch off the lights just yet. Who knows, maybe the prospects of fame, money and occasional pint of gratitude are not completely lost yet. Besides, it's only 1995, can't give up before the end of the decade!

Of which '95 was just another year full of fantastic music. Something, you should be well used to by now... Have a little look then.

Coleman's 1990's; Part five - 1994

Since waiting for others to catch up (or even start for that matter) may result in me getting much to old to type, I think I'll just carry on regardless. Turns out the 1994 was again a little bit on a short side. But should you conclude from this fact that it had to be some bad year in music, don't let the numbers fool you. It may fall short on quantity but the quality is simply unparalleled. It may only be five songs but in terms of importance four of those five could be made of pure uranium. Or something even heavier. For very personal reasons, of course, but not without critical merit. Read on to find out why.

Coleman's 1990's; Part four - 1993

Wow. It feels like on this blog all years go pass like weeks. We've only just started and it's 1993 already (or again, depending how you're going to look at it). And it looks like for me things got a little bit heavier. They actually got far, far heavier than this selection shows as one of my friends at that time was a very dedicated metal fan (a doctor nod to Seba) and I would borrow a lot of music from him to have a try. I got introduced to bands like Samael, Paradise Lost, Cathedral, Moonspell, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Sepultura and god knows what else. Some of them, I go back to now and again but as you can tell, none of them made it to my very top of the 'most important' pile. But fear not, there is still plenty of good music to go round. Now, I don't really want to make anyone upset or cause any metal heart a torrent of rusty tears, but I would probably go as far as to say that there is still plenty of MUCH BETTER music to go round. And the best examples await you just after the jump.

Kuba's 1990's. The end of the beginning. 1991

1991. Oh, that was the year. Or maybe I should say The Year. It really changed my life with music. To tell the truth I discovered 1991 about a year later. I mean I was aware of bands like Pearl Jam or RHCP but it was really 1992 – when I started my secondary school – when I discovered how important they are. For me, not for the world. But it doesn't really matter now. Anyway 1991 starts with my a bit softer side.

Coleman's 1990's; Part three - 1992

Since 1991 was such a short year in music (only 2 songs worth remembering, huh?) it seems that the 1992 was trying hard to make up for it and then some. I've just had a quick peek - ten songs and artists varying from Bel Canto to Laibach, from Alice in Chains to Leonard Cohen. Wow, I must have been taking a lot in that year. To think of it, it was still my first year at secondary school (the old system in Poland was completely different with 8 years of primary and 4 for secondary), still surrounded by fairly new people, and still clinging to a bunch of the old ones. And some of that bridging seems to be present in my music choice of that year. Let's see how many memories I'm going to be able to dig up then.

Jonathan's 1990s; Part 2, 1991

My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow

In all honesty, I expected a lot of songs to be here ahead of MBV, but here they are nonetheless. MBV are an Irish group almost solely responsible for creating shoegaze. I am not an avid MBV fan. And I’m certainly not one of those devout fans who headed out to rediscover the old days of shoegazing (a pastime now being perfected by emos so fucking depressed they can’t stare beyond their footwear – what is the footwear choice of the emo?) whilst still believing that MBV are the greatest band to grace this planet when they recently went back on tour. Their live performances are renowned for being ear-splitting and listening to some of the material from their two albums, that hardly requires a stretch of the imagination. There are only a few tracks I truly enjoy listening to by MBV and admittedly I bought the albums on the strength of what I had heard about MBV, rather than what I actually heard, musically speaking. However, I am still here with the aim to justify my decision, ahem. Underneath the layers of distortion and reverb you find some wonderfully ear-catching melodies, and no more than in Only Shallow, the opening track on Loveless. I love the Sonic Youth style overkill on the distortion, then adding masses of reverb to provide the layered soundscapes that makes MBV simultaneously suffocating and airy. This is the kind of track you would only hear at weird indie nights full (?) of people whose only friend is the Internet (back then comics or Dungeons and Dragons) or are seriously considering serial killing as a hobby, or both...hobbies are healthy. It’s not an immediate track, in fact, MBV through their choice of production seem to try to test the listener, alienate them and make it a difficult record to swallow. They are a bit of a ‘marmite’ band, but if you persist, there is a rough diamond to be polished. Perhaps the critic got the better of me. I really do like the song and I love the melodies and the driving rhythm, how the song hovers, swoons and dives, but in comparison to others here in my top 50, it’s one of the runts of the litter, but a classic runt of my litter.

Jonathan's 1990s; Part 1: 1990

Gun Club – Humanesque

I have decided to kick off my 90s with a track that truly harks back to the previous decade as so many early 90s tracks did. For me, Gun Club are and were one of the best bands of the 1980s, having had their most outstanding moments back then, but personally I feel they deserve to get a track in the 90s too. Jeffrey Lee Pierce is one of the greatest lyricists of all time and Humanesque is littered with great lines. JLP managed to churn these out like a great lyrics factory for around sixteen years, before his timely/untimely (delete where appropriate) death. JLP was already suffering from serious health problems, all of them pretty much of his own making, and therefore it was surprising he had made it to the 90s, dragging himself through the haze of sour whisky and cheap drugs like the true veteran of the music world that he was. Humanesque doesn’t have the ferociousness of early Gun Club albums, the grandeur of the Las Vegas Story nor the accomplished sound of Mother Juno; but it’s still a beautifully layered track and a great demonstration of JLP’s talent when his health was failing.

Jonathan's 1990s - The tracklist

My favourite 50 of the 90s

Jonathan's 90s

My 90s: A decade not only important for some damn good music, but the decade in which I, for all intents and purposes, “grew up”. Admittedly I’m still just a big kid but when you consider that I entered this decade as a Lego brick loving, subbuteo playing eleven year old, I did leave the decade somewhat different. This was the decade when I discovered the joys of...

Coleman's 1990's; Part two - 1991

Time to carry on the preview of the Nineties to keep the blog alive. You wouldn't believe that at this stage it has 4 (FOUR) contributing authors out of whom some didn't even bother to read what's been posted so far. Well, time (and blog) waits for no one. 1991 is here and it seems to have been a very brief year indeed.

Kuba's 1990's. The beginning. 1990

Konrad's brilliant ideas are always brilliant. So I've decided to explain my Nineties top 50 just the way he did. Call me a copycat if you want, I don't mind. So here we go, year by year, starting with the very beginning. And please be so kind and do not mock my English. Any corrections are welcomed though. 

Coleman's 1990's; Part one - 1990

There is no doubt that the Nineties were the busiest decade for me, music-wise. I've entered my Sturm und Drang teens and for the first time became properly music aware. Then, (seems today-) just as suddenly I've waved goodbye those teens and welcomed my twenties. Since I was blessed with a good handful of friends with original and eclectic musical tastes, something new and exciting was always just round the corner. We've had the classical one (aka Ciupi), the punk one (aka Adasiek), the Rush-and-everything-six-string-bass-else and me (aka Misiek), and a vampire for dummies (not known as anything particular to my frustration). It was the golden age of discovery, broadening horizons, the time of listening to albums (although on cassettes) late at night, with the headphones on. You know, those most fantastic years of your life, as you remember them :) And it all (chronologically) started like this:

Kuba's 1990s. The tracklist

It's the 90s that shaped my musical taste (good or bad, it doesn't really matter now). Earlier I used to listen to a few bands I liked, but music wasn't anything very, very special for me. In the beginning of the decade I got into punk and rock, started listening more and more. And then came late summer of 1991. And it really changed my whole life. Just check the list, you'll understand. 

It's absolutely impossible to choose 50 best songs of the 90s (of any decade, to be precise). I'm sure I forgot about songs so obvious, that someday I'll check this list again and just weep silently, begging for forgiveness. 

Almost all these songs represent also my favourite albums of the 90s. At least a very small part of my favourite albums of the 90s. And when you see, eg. Faith No More's 'Midlife Crisis' on the list, that really means something like that: Oh my god, I just love this album so fucking much that I didn't know which song to choose. More or less.

Coleman's 1990s - The tracklist

Let's kick off with a list of my favourites of the Nineties. As dates in brackets indicate, they're organised chronologically as putting them into worst-to-best (or other way round) order would simply be impossible. Even the whole selection, should I be doing it today, would most likely look a little bit different, let alone picking that best of the best. So, have a look at the running order, the detailed descriptions and explanations of choices will follow very shortly.


Find the full list after the break: