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Post by commond on Apr 22, 2024 15:58:23 GMT -5
While he was alive, Jeff Buckley was more popular in New Zealand and Australia than anywhere else. My co-worker used to play Grace over and over at the restaurant I worked at. Buckley toured Australia and New Zealand in 1996 and played a series of acclaimed shows, though the number of people who claimed to have attended grew over time.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 23, 2024 8:25:16 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994
#6 – Tom Petty – Wildflowers
Petty trades Jeff Lynne for Rick Rubin and trades in part of the Heartbreakers. This is ostensibly a solo project, but Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench are there, so...not so much. What he comes up with is a leaner more back to the basics sound that's not quite as slick as Lynne's production work. It's also a bit bloated, clocking in at fifteen tracks and just shy of an hour and three minutes. Yeah, it was conceived as a double album, but there's a bit of chaff among the wheat here.
This isn't a bad album at all. In fact it's quite good. It's just terribly front-loaded. Side one pretty great. Side two...well I tend to just move on by the time I get to side two. Maybe my attention span just ain't what it used to be. I will say that the longer length gives Petty more time to work in his various interests.
Still...a lot of classic Petty on that first side. And that's a good thing.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 24, 2024 8:02:25 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994 #6 – Tom Petty – Wildflowers
Glad to see this making an appearance in your list, as it only narrowly missed mine. I pretty much agree with your assessment of it being a patchy album and having all the best songs loaded near the start. When it's great, like on "Wildflowers", "You Don't Know How It Feels" and "It's Good to Be King" it's prime Petty, but far too much of the album just seems noticeably below par for a songwriter who'd done great albums like Full Moon Fever and Into the Great Wide Open just prior to this. The album's patchy nature is ultimately why it didn't make my list. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 24, 2024 8:05:57 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994 #6 – Tom Petty – Wildflowers
Glad to see this making an appearance in your list, as it only narrowly missed mine. I pretty much agree with your assessment of it being a patchy album and having all the best songs loaded near the start. When it's great, like on "Wildflowers", "You Don't Know How It Feels" and "It's Good to Be King" it's prime Petty, but far too much of the album just seems noticeably below par for a songwriter who'd done great albums like Full Moon Fever and Into the Great Wide Open just prior to this. The album's patchy nature is ultimately why it didn't make my list. I just don’t think he had enough quality material for this album, much less the double album he wanted to do. I feel like it could have been cut by 3-4 songs and had the tracks rearranged a bit and been a tight album up there with the ones you mentioned. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 24, 2024 8:53:21 GMT -5
More favourite albums from 1994... #7 - Dog Man Star by Suede This was the second album from Suede (or London Suede, if you're in the U.S.) and is by far my favourite long-player of theirs. After having taken the UK music scene by storm in 1993, the band followed-up their mainstream success with this much darker, more insular album. Guitarist Bernard Butler left mid-way through the recording sessions due to tensions between him and singer Brett Anderson, but despite the acrimony, Dog Man Star is a grandiose and ambitious record, brimming with confidence and gothic majesty. There are far less of the Bowie-esque glam rock stompers that the band were known for than on their debut. Instead, we get a collection of songs that take in more varied musical influences, with Anderson's tortured, darkly sexual lyrics perfectly foreshadowing the post-Britpop comedown three years before it happened. Many of the tracks on Dog Man Star have a lofty, melodramatic air to them, with the closing track "Still Life" being perhaps the best illustration of this, as Anderson's emotion-wracked voice trembles and roars amidst a 40-piece orchestra. This is the Suede album that had no hits on it, but is nevertheless their best and most rewarding collection of songs. It's an album that hangs together as whole piece and is more than the sum of its parts. It's a tragic and romantic work – a little pretentious too, of course, but then again, I've never considered pretensions to be a particularly bad thing in music. Here's the video for the single "The Wild Ones" for your enjoyment… |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 24, 2024 9:32:52 GMT -5
#6 - Vitalogy by Pearl Jam Pearl Jam's third album is by far their strangest and most experimental. On the one hand, you have standard stadium rock anthems like "Better Man" and "Nothingman", but these sit alongside weird, Tom Waits-esque things like "Bugs", the mantra-like funk of "Aye Davanita", and the joyously punk and thrash metal-influenced "Spin the Black Circle", which is a thundering paean to vinyl records. Many of the songs also seem concerned with the pressures of fame and resultant lack of privacy that fame brings, which gives the whole album a nervous, paranoid tension. There's a palpable siege mentality to a lot of singer Eddie Vedder's lyrics. This is perhaps best exemplified by the claustrophobic, snarling "Not for You". Surprisingly, the album's disparate musical excursions all sit together rather well. Vitalogy is very much an album that creates and inhabits its own musical world, with lean, stripped-down playing and a taught sense of anger simmering throughout. I consider Pearl Jam's first five albums to all be pretty much faultless, but depending on which day you asked me, I might say that Vitalogy was their best.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 24, 2024 10:21:15 GMT -5
More favourite albums from 1994... #7 - Dog Man Star by SuedeI think this is the first time I've ever heard of Suede (except for the fabric). Not really my thing. But I don't hate it. So that's nice. #6 - Vitalogy by Pearl Jam On the other hand, I really don't like Toe Jam. Not even a little bit. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 24, 2024 10:34:50 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994
#5 – Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys – Jumping From 6 to 6
Roots rock. Rockabilly revival. Rock-swing. Whatever you want to call it, Big Sandy and the boys were jumpin on this debut album. It's a debut for this iteration as Robert Williams (Big Sandy) had fronted a trio that put out a couple of independent records in the early 90s. This one doesn't quite showcase all of Williams' influences, centering on the jump blues and the rockabilly that he listened to from his parents record collection. The next album, Swingin' West, would more adequately incorporate western swing and country in to the mix.
This album was produced by the great Dave Alvin, and you can definitely hear his influence and the influence that The Blasters had on the band. Lee Jeffriess is a great steel guitarist. This album is just juiced up fun. And if you can cram sixteen songs in to less than 40 minutes...that's some efficiency.
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Post by commond on Apr 24, 2024 15:31:16 GMT -5
Pearl Jam were my favorite band as a teenager. I grew my hair out and wore corduroy jackets for a good part of the 90s. I bought Vitalogy the day it was released and instantly fell in love with it. It had more of a deliberate punk rock edge to it than their previous two records. Pearl Jam had gotten a lot of crap for being jock rock, and a lot those early grunge albums had slick production values designed to sell as many records as possible. Pearl Jam were looking to weed out a lot of the hangers-on and appeal to their core fanbase. Vitalogy came out in November of '94, and I saw them live in March of '95. That was my first big concert. I spent the entire time trying to survive the push of the crowd while struggling to get a glimpse of the stage. I remember my mom being pissed that I scuffed up my brand new pair of Doc Martens. The other thing I remember about Vitalogy was the weird album booklet with the quack, turn of the century medical stuff. I don't listen to Pearl Jam a lot these days, but I can still belt out the tunes and their music holds up. My sister got hugely into them during COVID as her husband is around the same age as me. They're going to see them live in November.
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Post by tartanphantom on Apr 24, 2024 18:12:08 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994 #5 – Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys – Jumping From 6 to 6
Roots rock. Rockabilly revival. Rock-swing. Whatever you want to call it, Big Sandy and the boys were jumpin on this debut album. It's a debut for this iteration as Robert Williams (Big Sandy) had fronted a trio that put out a couple of independent records in the early 90s. This one doesn't quite showcase all of Williams' influences, centering on the jump blues and the rockabilly that he listened to from his parents record collection. The next album, Swingin' West, would more adequately incorporate western swing and country in to the mix. This album was produced by the great Dave Alvin, and you can definitely hear his influence and the influence that The Blasters had on the band. Lee Jeffriess is a great steel guitarist. This album is just juiced up fun. And if you can cram sixteen songs in to less than 40 minutes...that's some efficiency. I've always LOVED this band. Robert Williams (Sandy) has a great voice for the material they do, and guitarists Ashley Kingman and TK Smith always knew just what to play in the right spot.
My personal favorite album by them is It's Time, followed by Swingin' West and in third place, Night Tide.
Great pick.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 24, 2024 19:28:06 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994 #5 – Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys – Jumping From 6 to 6
Roots rock. Rockabilly revival. Rock-swing. Whatever you want to call it, Big Sandy and the boys were jumpin on this debut album. It's a debut for this iteration as Robert Williams (Big Sandy) had fronted a trio that put out a couple of independent records in the early 90s. This one doesn't quite showcase all of Williams' influences, centering on the jump blues and the rockabilly that he listened to from his parents record collection. The next album, Swingin' West, would more adequately incorporate western swing and country in to the mix. This album was produced by the great Dave Alvin, and you can definitely hear his influence and the influence that The Blasters had on the band. Lee Jeffriess is a great steel guitarist. This album is just juiced up fun. And if you can cram sixteen songs in to less than 40 minutes...that's some efficiency. I've always LOVED this band. Robert Williams (Sandy) has a great voice for the material they do, and guitarists Ashley Kingman and TK Smith always knew just what to play in the right spot.
My personal favorite album by them is It's Time, followed by Swingin' West and in third place, Night Tide.
Great pick.
I think Swingin’ West is my favorite. It really brings home the Western swing and country elements. We'll have to see where it fits in next year. They’re a super fun band. |
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Post by berkley on Apr 24, 2024 21:19:17 GMT -5
I've always LOVED this band. Robert Williams (Sandy) has a great voice for the material they do, and guitarists Ashley Kingman and TK Smith always knew just what to play in the right spot.
My personal favorite album by them is It's Time, followed by Swingin' West and in third place, Night Tide.
Great pick.
I think Swingin’ West is my favorite. It really brings home the Western swing and country elements. We'll have to see where it fits in next year. They’re a super fun band.
I haven't heard this album and in fact didn't know about them at all in 1994 but I saw them live at a music festival some time in the 2000s and thought they were great. If the old CBR boards were still up I'd be able to pin down the exact year because I remember talking about it there in some thread.
I did buy a cd at their booth after the set, but not knowing anything about them just picked one at random - and it turned out to be Big Sandy Presents the Fly-Rite Boys, which is an instrumental "solo" album by the band without Big Sandy - so I still haven't heard any actual Big Sandy albums.
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Post by berkley on Apr 24, 2024 21:27:16 GMT -5
Pearl Jam were my favorite band as a teenager. I grew my hair out and wore corduroy jackets for a good part of the 90s. I bought Vitalogy the day it was released and instantly fell in love with it. It had more of a deliberate punk rock edge to it than their previous two records. Pearl Jam had gotten a lot of crap for being jock rock, and a lot those early grunge albums had slick production values designed to sell as many records as possible. Pearl Jam were looking to weed out a lot of the hanges-on and appeal to their core fanbase. Vitalogy came out in November of '94, and I saw them live in March of '95. That was my first big concert. I spent the entire time trying to survive the push of the crowd while struggling to get a glimpse of the stage. I remember my mom being pissed that I scuffed up my brand new pair of Doc Martens. The other thing I remember about Vitalogy was the weird album booklet with the quack, turn of the century medical stuff. I don't listen to Pearl Jam a lot these days, but I can still belt out the tunes and their music holds up. My sister got hugely into them during COVID as her husband is around the same age as me. They're going to see them live in November.
The grunge movement never moved me to the extent of buying any albums but I liked much of what I heard on the radio in a relatively mild way and I'd say Pearl Jam were my favourites of the acts generally associated with that tag. I liked their sound quite a lot more than I did Nirvana's, for example, who always felt a little over-rated to me, though Cobain certainly had a great hard-rock scream. I'm a bit surprised looking back that I never got around to buying at least one Pearl Jam cd, because if I was going to by something of that kind it would most likely have been one of theirs; but probably their over-exposure worked against them a little.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 25, 2024 9:59:18 GMT -5
Favorite albums of 1994
#4 – Robert Earl Keen – Gringo Honeymoon
Keen brought out his fifth album, ten years after his first. This the standard Robert Earl Keen fare, a mixture of country and folk that is deeply rooted in rural Texas. There's toe-tappers and heart-breakers (two of them aided and abetted by Gillian Welch) and a very funny Christmas song that reminds me many a holiday as a child.
If there's a knock on the album it's that Keen is so consistent that it doesn't really stand out from his catalog. Other than "Merry Christmas From the Family" I'm not sure there's a standout song here...though I have become more enamored of "I'm Comin' Home."
I usually stick to album tracks for this particular endeavor. But I have to do the live(ish) version of "Merry Christmas From the Family."
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 25, 2024 10:03:22 GMT -5
#5 – Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys – Jumping From 6 to 6
This sounds like a lot of fun. Great feel to both these tracks. |
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