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Part 1: MUSIC (jump to Tim Riley / Milo Miles / Stephanie Zacharek / Lists part 2
by Chuck Eddy
I avoid readinq rock criticism as much as possible anymore, so I have no idea whether there's an official consensus on the question, but most of my friends seem to think 1995 was a lousy year for music. I completely disagree--I think it was a great year, a total surprise. In 1993 and 1994, I had trouble coming up with lists of ten albums I liked at year's end; this year I could've easily listed 45, with 100 good singles as footnotes. It's the first time since I bought my word processor that I actually had to keep track of everything I liked on a disc, so I guess that makes 1995 my favorite music year of the 199Os.
I've now listened to Rancid more than any other musicians this decade. Their first album was mostly so-what slamdance hackwork with three unexpected sparks of tunefulness ("Hyena," "Detroit," "Rats in the Hallway" -- tracks two through four); 1994's Let's Go was the best oi! album ever, which by definition means it was about ten times as fun as the best hardcore album ever (there's a difference.) ...And Out Come the Wolves puts back into punk all the music (melody, harmony, rhythm) that hardcore was afraid of--the spaces in the sound finally let Rancid's guttural tube-station shouts breathe amid all the sloppy claustrophobia. Not counting Licensed to Ill (The Beastie Boys), it's the greatest album ever made by human beings who started off hardcore. No American rock band has ever done more with reggae, and nobody since Appetite For Destruction has written rock songs so rocking, not to mention so specific. Supposedly the lyrics are autobiographical, but I don't hear them that way; they're about kids fighting with parents or getting stood up by girls, so they decide to run away to California or explode like time bombs or get stoned or flirt with new girls or roll the dice of their lives. In other words, they're about the exact same thing that great rock'n'roll has always been about. They also sound like the Clash, which bugs some people. But the Clash had lost the powerfulness they were born with by the time they expanded their sonic boundaries with London Calling (i.e.: they stopped doing any fast songs), and Rancid hasn't--Wolves is the best Clash LP since the American version of The Clash (which I've always preferred to the Brit one, but then I'm a new waver not a punk).
Rancid actually made the two current albums I listened to more than any others in 1995, but it seemed somehow redundant and piss-in-the-windish for me to give Let's Go 15 points, so I opted to omit it and make room for another of the pinnacles of my favorite (no contest) genre for albums this year (and this decade), namely Romance-(mostly Spanish)-language guitar rock. (The Clash are a popular influence below the border now, too--Tijuano No cover "Spanish Bombs," Los Fabulosos Cadillacs do "Revolution Rock," and Attaque 77 do "I Fought the Law.") Aterciopelados are from Colombia and Chico Science & Nacao Zumbi are from Brazil (Los Del Mar is Latin disco-not-rock from Havana by way of Montreal, though they do cover "Oye Como Va"); I also would've felt perfectly comfortable giving five points this year to sundry additional rock albums from Colombia (La Derecha), Mexico (Santa Sabina, Fobia, Botellita De Jerez, Sergio Arau), Argentina (Los Fabulosos Cadillacs), Spain (Heroes Del Silencio, Um Pah Pah), Venezuela (Desorden Publico), and/or France (Mano Negra), and I might as well toss Maria Fatal in here even though they're from L.A. (and that only counts CDs I was able to get ahold of--which isn't easy). I'd also give thumbs-up to Latin dance-pop albums by Selena (who most Mexicans like most Americans had never heard of until she died by the way) and Mexico's Fey, and a merengue CD by Los Toros Band from the Dominican Republic.
By comparison, too many of the English-language also-rans I wouldn't have blanched at giving points to were actually best-of-type anthologies of pre-mid-'90s music, just like Laura Branigan and The Scene Is Now and Peter Laughner in my Top Ten (Tapps, Don Henley, Garth Brooks' The Hits, Stacey Q, Young Canadians, Pointed Sticks, Modernettes, Metal Mike, Wayne/Jayne County). But Mariah Carey, the Goops, Garth's Fresh Horses, Green Day, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Urge Overkill, Whigfield, Supergrass, Ted Nugent, and the Upper Crust were in the running as well. As were Mo-Do and FSK, from Germany.
Sometimes I even worry I'm liking too much stuff, but then somebody plays me something horrible which a few months later winds up topping all the magazine polls, and I decide that as far as falling for emperor's new clothes go, I'm obviously still choosier than your average critic. I don't understand the appeal of Bjork at all, and life is too short to figure out why. I can handle P.J. Harvey's "C'Mon Billy" because it sounds like U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" (which sounded like "When The Levee Breaks"), and I liked Dry okay (not that I ever play it or anything.) But Steve Albini's idiotic production job on Rid of Me just kept switching between ugly noise and empty near-silence at all these completely random points that had nothing at all to do with what was happening in the rest of the music, and the whispery parts of that "little-fishies" thing that MTV kept playing on 120 Minutes last spring were as irritating and dead-in-the-water as any music I heard all year. The rest of her blues album was just corny old Birthday Party cabaret droning with a woman replacing Nick Cave and singing almost as bad. Moby's album, even more than the EP he put out a couple years ago, bored me silly from beginning to end. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me there's something convolutedly circular in the logic that says he's an innovator by using "soul" and "rock" sounds in "techno" music when the only thing that differentiated "techno" from the Depeche Mode that came before it in the first place is that it took all that pop stuff out. At least Depeche Mode never stooped to doing generic pigfuck and gospel-house and new age. Anybody who feels Moby and White Zombie and Nine-Inch Nails demonstrate remarkable fortitude and foresight by combining mechanical keyboards with loud guitars should search the thrift stores for old Cars, Tubes, Loverboy, Prism, and Night Ranger vinyl--though maybe they'd say all those early '80s guys cheated by having too many hooks, not to mention singers who didn't moan like death-gloom morons.
Likewise, all you new-wave-of-new-wavers who think Elastica are a skinny-tie zenith ought to track down debut albums by the A's, Brains, Kings, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, and Sue Saad and the Next to find out what you're missing. I have nothing against Elastica -- they're speedy and sexy, and as impotence ditties go, "Stutter" is right up there with "Mister Softee" if not "Band of Gold." I'm just pissed they didn't put their other two memorable songs on its B-side. Tricky I don't know jacksquat about, but I have a funny story about him. I write for a fanzine called Why Music Sucks that Frank Kogan puts out, and every issue Frank sends a few people a blindfold test tape with 25 or 30 songs on it, and he doesn't tell them the songs' titles or who's performing them, but he asks them to rate and write about them anyhow. On the tape he sent me a couple months ago, I basically thought every single song was at least tolerable except one, which I more or less hated. I had no idea who it was by, but it was so awful that I had no doubt that Frank intentionally put it on the tape for that very reason, just to see how everybody would react to such lousy dogshit. I actually didn't mind its first minute or so (vaguely reminded me of "Sentimental Journey" on Pere Ubu's first album), but then I started writing stuff like this: "I don't like the way the guy's whispering; sounds 'ominous' not because he's a scary person (what I bet he wants me to think) but because it's a highly disturbing omen that the song's about to suck. And sure enough, he's loading up his gun (you can hear him fiddling with its chamber) and he's gonna shoot himself. What is this, a fucking sound effect record?" The song just kept going on and on, forever, and it just kept getting worse. I decided Frank must've borrowed it from his roommate Elizabeth's pile of old Swans albums. So I kept writing: "'Label me insane,' oh is that right, lady? Oh god, fuck this shit." Anyway, a couple months later over the phone, Frank explained to me it was by Tricky, which made my day. It's still the only Tricky song I've ever heard, and I don't intend to find out how typical it is.
So I don't think I'd make a very good trip-hophead. I kept busy for a couple minutes last winter trying to figure out the spy plot in Portishead's "Sour Times" video, but when I heard it over the radio it was way too slow to drive to, so I switched frequencies. Beyond that, I somehow keep forgetting if "trip-hop" is the new imaginary genre that sounds like all those useless old Adrian Sherwood dub LPs I sold five years ago, or if "jungle" is. This was a real good year for imaginary genres, from what I could tell--"ambient," "drum and bass," "Britpop," "lo-fi," "acid jazz," "post-rock," who comes up with these hokey names, anyway? I used to think it was Simon Reynolds' job, but maybe somebody took his place. If you can't find any exciting new sounds, I suppose exciting new words are the next best thing. I even went into a record store and saw a section labeled "rare groove," but when I told the man at the counter that I personally prefer my grooves medium rare, he just stared at me funny.
It was actually a fairly feeble year for dance music, but nobody seems interested in the lineage of the crazy Italodisco/Latin-freestyle/electric-salsatFlashdance/Laura Branigan '80s. I guess now that disco or house or whatever has lost all its giddiness and cheesiness and chillingness and warmth, now that it's devolved into the new progressive rock, it's okay for rock critics to like it. "House used to be weird and funny and austere and salacious all at once; now it's just a rev-it-up rhythm with either rev-it-down mood slush or edgy experimental sound effects," Frank Kogan wrote in his most recent Why Music Sucks (he later told me in a letter that he left out "rev-it-up diva vocals" by accident), and I hear it the same way--techno and house and dancehall all peaked in the mid-'80s, rap even earlier. My list has five dance compilations anyway, but I cheated--Totally Wired is early Ô80s punk-funk that was rhythmed too rigidly to mover la colita to even when it was new, and Country Kickers is for line-dancing in malls. (I have a feeling that if I bought a few banda compilations I'd be listing one or two of those instead--videos I saw in my Mexico City hotel room in November convinced me it's way more glitzy than the Tex-Mex roots stodginess I'd been mistaking it for.) 20 Fingers is novelty hits about cavemen and penises, Playa Dance has versions of both "La Bamba" and "Lambada" (and "Macarena"!) on it, and Sputnik 5 is live goofiness from Barcelona that reminds me of ska and "Pump Up the Volume." I doubt any of the comps I listed are trendy or unlistenable enough to score many other votes.
Hip-hop confuses me almost as much as club music these days. I was really surprised to see critics embracing the Notorious B.I.G. and various clodlike Wu-Tang Clan offshoots at the end of the year--Eric Weisbard called B.I.G. "vocally amazing" in his Spin roundup overview essay, which makes no sense to me at all unless "amazing" now means "a clumsy, sluggish oaf with a really disgusting speech impediment like he hasn't finished chewing his lunch." And B.I.G. looks like he'd have trouble getting his fat ass out of his chair, so I'm a bit skeptical when he brags about being hot shit between the sheets. TLC have ridiculous voices too, and I'm not the only person who thinks so. When my son Linus (age ten) saw the "Waterfalls" video, he asked whether the short-red-haired girl sang in her hoarse voice on purpose or as a joke, and when Left Eye started rapping, he cracked up laughing. He said her squeakiness reminded him of our first-grade neighbor Siggi. "Creep" was a nice slinky cheating song with a Southern grits-and-gravy soulfulness to it, and Left Eye helps the Jerky Boys and Paul Rodriguez do a wacky "Gee, Officer Krupke" on RCA's new Songs Of West Side Story album, and (thanks to the underutilized long-black-haired chick) the chorus harmonies in "Waterfalls" were actually fairly waterfall-like. But Miss Hoarsemouth's neighing attempts to be "sultry" waterlog everything--In "Waterfalls," she sounded sickly enough to qualify for some Wax Trax industrial band.
This was a real good year for imaginary genres, from what I could tell-- "ambient," "drum and bass," "Britpop," "lo-fi," "acid jazz," "post-rock," who comes up with these hokey names, anyway?
Anyway, getting back to the sorry state of mid-'90s drug-casualty disco, maybe my problem now is that I've never been a huge fan of music without words--I enjoy wild screwy novelty instrumentals once in a while, but that's about it. Sometimes I wish all these Krishnas finding spiritual fulfillment in "acid jazz" and "jungle" and "ambient" would just switch over to hacking for Keyboard or downbeat or Pretentious Crap Quarterly where they belong, and leave pop fans like me alone with our fake grunge. It was a blast this year hearing airwave hits like Collective Soul's "Gel," Sponge's "Molly," Candlebox's "Far Behind," Ruth Ruth's "Uninvited," and Silverchair's "Tomorrow" cash in on the season's trendy teen sounds like true punks always have ever since Ô60s garage days. It's incredible how catchy even boring "alternative" genres can get when suburban white boys finally figure out that they can make money off them!
I don't even hate Hootie--Moby's a bigger blowfish than the Blowfish if you ask me. (Think about it.) "I Only Wanna Be With You" was the only hit single ever about being a fan of both the Miami Dolphins (are dolphins blowfish?) and some Dylan song where somebody shoots a man named Grey then goes to Italy and inherits a million bucks. (I swear I didn't realize it was "Idiot Wind" until I saw some critic whining about it in Rollinq Stone in December--Shows how much attention I've paid to Blood on the Tracks' lyrics over the years. "She was working in a Catholic place/And I stopped in for a beer.")
The Hole single I voted for says "They get what they want then they never want it again." The Selena single I voted for says "But if I take that chance right now, tomorrow will you want me still?" So Courtney and Selena were both operating in the tradition of the Shirelles ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow"), Lisa Lisa ("I Wonder If I Take You Home"), and one of my best friends who told me she got laid for the first time in two years in Texas in August then didn't even get a phone call from the guy the next day. She swore off men after that, as usual. (I told her maybe she should've gone down on him in a theater instead.)
My big-hair buddy Jennifer (only person ever to walk into my office, see my cover of Hard Machine on the wall, and exclaim "Stacey Q! Yay, "Two of Hearts"!) does people's fingernails, and she was talking about implanting jewels into somebody's once, and my wife Martina (who prefers Si Kahn) scoffed "that's so tacky!," then Jennifer rebutted "it's tacky but beautiful!" (and I don't think she really believed the tacky part.) Which was my favorite "but" since the buck Army private in early '80s Germany who labeled Martina when she was a drug counselor--or maybe he labeled me, I forget--"intelligent but friendly," thus implying that most smart people are really mean. So here's a verse I wrote: "I'm intelligent but I'm friendly/I'm tacky but I'm beautiful/I've got one hand in my pocket/And the other one's changing the channel on that damn Alanis Morissette song."
In November Martina and I threw our first party in 13 years of wedded bliss (we'd never even thought of throwing one before, maybe because we never go to anybody else's). 40 or 50 people showed up saying here we are now entertain us, and the last ones didn't leave until after 3 A.M., and our neighbor Diane got asked out by Mike the bike-juggling boy. Martina's friend Fred warned us it'd be a waste of time to try to get anybody to dance, because nobody ever dances at house parties. But a half-hour in, this cute girl Jenny grabbed my arm and we did the ska to "Time Bomb" by Rancid. After that, all kinds of geeky library and record store misfits danced all night: A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, as if our little group had always been and always will until the end. When the light's out (or at least when blue Christmas lights are on) it's less dangerous. (Because like Moe Tucker said once, all the people look well in the dark.)
I finally visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for the first time ever in June, but I was actually far more impressed by the glass museum my wife dragged me to in Corning the day before. If I knew as much about glasswear as about baseball, I might've appreciated the baseball one more. But it's no crime that most museums and halls-of-fame are meant for people who know nothing about the subject at hand and therefore have something to gain from them. If I ever make it to Cleveland, I may well be bored stiff by the Rock and Roll Hall, but I bet it's great for kids just discovering the history of music for the first time. I'm sick of everybody complaining about it.
The best "post-rock" review I read all year was Skeeter Pomeroy's live review of Tortoise (whoever they are) in the Chicago fanzine Milk: "My dad knew some guys from Chicago that played this kind of shit, too, but they were called Murph and the Magic Tones." I've never knowingly heard any "post-rock" myself; from what little I've read, I gather it's some arty kinda Pink Floyd jazz-fusion background-Muzak-montage kinda thing, which basically strikes me as old news. But who cares. Fact is, we're no more "post" rock than we were in 1990, or 1966. Most people I know find out about new Better Than Ezra and TLC and Shania Twain songs they like the same way people have always found out about new songs: from the radio, from TV, from dee-jays and cover bands in bars. If anything, the music on (especially "modern rock") radio seemed more rock to me this year than it had in the previous few. I'm not convinced anything has changed, except in the minds of pompous nitwits who need a headline and have nothing to say about the real world. My old Three Johns phrase "post-everything," coined when I was young and dumb and full of cum myself, was more creative than "post-rock" anyway...But frankly, I'm more interested in finding out who invented the word "paradigm." Then I want to shoot them.
Rancid, ...And Out Come The Wolves (Epitaph)
Gillette, On The Attack (SOS/Zoo)
Laura Branigan, The Best Of Branigan (Atlantic)
Rednex, Sex & Violins (Battery)
Los Del Mar featuring Wil Veloz, Macarena (Quality/Lime Canada)
Kix, $how Bu$ine$$ (CMC)
Aterciopelados, El Dorado (BMG Latin)
The Scene Is Now, The Oily Years (1983-1993) (Bar/None)
Peter Laughner and Friends, Take the Guitar Player For a Ride (Tim Kerr)
Chico Science & Nacao Zumbi, Da Lama Ao Caos (Sony Discos)
Los Del Rio "Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)"/Scatman John "Scatman (Ski-Ba-op-Ba-Dop-Bop)" (RCA)
Gillette "Mr. Personality" (SOS/Zoo)
Rancid "Time Bom"" (Epitaph)
Lordz of Brooklyn "Saturday Nite Fever" (American)
Mo-Do "Eins, Zwei, Polizei" (ZYX Germany)
Rancid "Salvation" (Epitaph)
Rednex "Cotton-Eye Joe" (Battery)
Hole "Violet" (DGC)
Selena "I Could Fall in Love" (EMI)
Collective Soul "Gel" (Atlantic)
Chico Science & Na~ao Zumbi "A Cidade"
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs "Mal Bicho"
Fey "Media Naranja"
Mariah Carey featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard "Fantasy"
Mary-Chapin Carpenter "House of Cards"
Jimmy Castor Bunch, The Everythinq Man: The Best Of (Rhino)
Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Essential Ride '63-'67 (Legacy/Columbia)
Babe Ruth, Grand Slam: The Best Of (EMI/Harvest Canada)
The Marshall Tucker Band, The Best of the Capricorn Years (Era)
Les Brown And His Great Vocalists (Legacy/Columbia)
20 Fingers (SOS/Zoo)
Playa Dance 95' Compilation (Ibiza/BMG Latin)
Totally Wired (Razor & Tie)
Country Kickers (K-Tel)
Sputnik 5 Anys En Concert 1 (Discmedi Barcelona)
Hole, Ask For It (Caroline)
Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Rotting in the Fart Sack (We Bite)
Junior Brown, Junior High (MCG/Curb)
Ajax, Aphrodite (Zoo).
--Chuck Eddy officially became middle-aged (35 years old!) this year, but contributed to all of the following publications regardless: Radio On, Why Music Sucks, Martina's and Kay's Big Secrets, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, Huh?, Millennium Pop, LA Weekly, Eye Weekly, City Pages, Request, Vibe, BAM, Where's the Snake. Call me at 215-483-4030 if you don't believe me. (This article was lifted straight from Eddy's Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll essay...)
1. PJ Harvey, To Give You My Love (Island)
2. Luna, Penthouse (Elektra)
3. Sugar, Besides (Ryko)
4. Wayne Kramer, The Hard Stuff (Epitaph)
5. Yo La Tengo, Electr-O-Pura (Matador)
6. Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Virgin)
7. The Upper Crust, Let Them Eat Rock (Upstart)
8. Pizzicato Five, Made In Usa (Matador)
9. Portishead, Dummy (Go! Discs/London)
10. (Various), Only The Poorman Feel It (Hemisphere)
Tricky, Maxinquaye (Island); Alison Kraus, Now That I've Found You: A Collection (Rounder); The Bottle Rockets, The Brooklyn Side (Tag/Atlantic); The Jayhawks, Tomorrow The Green Grass (American); Southern Culture On The Skids, Dirt Track Date (DGC); Rosie Flores, Rockabilly Filly (Hightone); Dwight Yoakum, Dwight Live (Reprise)
"Adam Raised A Cain," Bruce Springsteen, Solo Acoustic; Orpheum Theatre, Boston, 12/15/95
Crumb (Rykodisc)
Devil In A Blue Dress (Columbia)
Capitol Blues Series, especially Fred Mcdowell, Roy Brown, Snooks Eaglin (Capitol) Personal Best: Harry Nilsson Anthology (RCA)
The Who, Live At Leeds (MCA)
It's Hard To Believe It: The Amazing World Of Joe Meek (Razor & Tie)
Bach Cello Suites, Mstislav Rostropovich (EMI laser disc)
Chopin Nocturnes, Maria Tipo (EMI)
The Russian Piano School (Melodya/RCA)
Classical Live Andras Schiff, Solo Piano Recital (Schubert, Beethoven) April 1995
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink Mahler's Ninth Symphony, November 1995
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim Elgar's Falstaff, October 1995
Gone, Dwight Yoakum (Reprise) (10 Songs Totaling 35:05, less than half the space of a standard 75-minute CD.)
Alanis Morissette
Smashing Pumpkins
Tie: kd lang/Beck
Natalie Merchant (Previous Winners Include Chicago's Pete Cetera)
Chuck Berry, Backed By Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band: "Johnny B. Goode," HBO Hall Of Fame Show.
Chuck Berry, Backed By Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band: "Rock'n'roll Music," HBO Hall Of Fame Show.
Outside, David Bowie (Virgin)
Roseanne
"Free As A Bird," "The Beatles" [Sic Quotes] (Apple/EMI)
Live Footage, 1963-69, From The Beatles Anthology, On ABC-TV
The Great Escape, Blur (Virgin)
(What's The Story) Morning Glory, Oasis (Epic)
I Should Coco, Supergrass (Capitol)
Joan Osborne
Conversation Peace, Stevie Wonder (Motown); Faust, Randy Newman (Reprise); Some Rainy Morning, Robert Cray (Mercury); Coast To Coast Motel, G Love And Special Sauce (Okeh/Epic) (Jim Dickinson produced, so hey); Insomniac, Green Day (Reprise); Trace, Sun Volt (Warner Bros); A.M., Wilco (Sire/Reprise); We Care, Whale (Hut/Virgin).
--The Beatles' Anthology (ABC-TV) may have been the first time the band couldn't live up to its hype. Short on revelations, the best thing about it was the live footage, which sounds great on CD (especially "I'll Get You" at the London Palladium, 1963). Paul is still an overbearing, patronizing flake, lying his way through the break-up. How winning of him to let George's low opinion of Lennon's late songwriting leak to the press. How generous to disdain Harrison's "Love To You" in accepting MOJO's greatest rock album award for Revolver. George rises a notch in my book for thoughtfulness ("The world used the Beatles as an excuse to go crazy, then turned around and blamed us for going crazy..."); Ringo is irreproachable as ever. The sonic sweetening (adding sound to raw film) in many of the live sequences on the broadcast was both unnecessary and unimpressive. It's not as though fans can't tell the difference. We'll see what's been left out that will emerge next year when they release ten hours of footage in home video form.
"Free As A Bird" sucks, and George Martin knows it or his hearing is worse than his doctor thinks. It sounds like freaking Electric Light Orchestra, produced to fussy distraction by the unmentionable Wilbury, and "Real Love" does nothing to salvage it. Both are unfinished, better left alone. Enough already with these necrophiliac duets! Supposing McCartney had been killed by a bus (who would bother to kill him?), can you imagine Lennon warming over one of Mac's unfinished demos? (Why bother warming over something Mac would have simply put out as finished?) Wouldn't happen. Lennon would have declared McCartney's material soddy and written a parody of Natalie Cole's virtual duet with Nat, "What A Shame Natty Had a Thing for Her Daddy At The Party."
--Tim Riley is the author of TELL ME WHY: A BEATLES COMMENTARY (Knopf/Vintage), HARD RAIN A DYLAN COMMENTARY (Knopf/Vintage), and MADONNA: ILLUSTRATED (Hyperion). He contributes to "The World" on Public Radio International, and oversees the millennium pop Web page.
Side A: Aceyalone, "Mr. Outside" (Elektra); Arches of Loaf, "Nevermind the Enemy" (Alias); Buju Banton, "Complaint" (Loose Cannon); The Black Dog, "End of Time" (Island); James Carter, "'Round Midnight" (Atlantic); Ornette Coleman, "Street Blues" (Harmolodic/Verve); Coolio, "Gangster's Paradise" (Tommy Boy); Elastica, "Line Up" (DGC); Everclear, "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore" (Capitol); Garbage, "Queer" (Almo); Goldie, "Angel" (FFRR); PJ Harvey, "Down By the Water" (Island)
Side B: Luna, "23 Minutes in Brussels" (Elektra); Moby, "Every Time you Touch Me" (Elektra); Yoko Ono, "Where Do We Go From Here" (Capitol); Joan Osborne, "One of Us" (Mercury); AFKAP, "Pussy Control" (Paisley Park/WB); John Prine, "New Train" (Old Boy); Rancid, "Junkie Man" (Epitaph); Sonic Youth, "Saucer-Like" (Geffen); Peter Stampfel, "Take Me Away (Gert Town Records); Tricky, "Black Steel" (Island); Whale, "Happy in You" (Virgin); Naut Human, "Deliquesce" (Somnient)
--Milo Miles is the world music critic for NPR's "Fresh Air."
The Hard Stuff, Wayne Kramer
Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters
MTV Unplugged, Bob Dylan
Kojak Variety, Elvis Costello
Gone, Dwight Yoakam
To Bring You My Love, PJ Harvey
Forever Blue, Chris Isaak
Such Friends Are Dangerous, Excuse 17
Grandpaw Would, Ben Lee
Mirror Ball, Neil Young & Pearl Jam
"Gangsta's Paradise," Coolio
"This is a Call," Foo Fighters
"A Girl Like You," Edwyn Collins
"Waterfalls," TLC
"Connection," Elastica
"Morning Glory," Oasis
"Baby, Now That I've Found You"
"Bright Yellow Gun," Throwing Muses
"Hole in the Bucket," Spearhead
"Diamond Sea," Sonic Youth
--Stephanie Zacharek has written for many different publications, including Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Phoenix, and Salon.
Links part 2: Movies, Television, and Books
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