I'm so glad you covered this. I dig Brutal Youth. Not sure if you've listened to The Boy Named If (2022). It has that same pop with a serrated edge feel. Best one probably since Brutal Youth

I appreciate the love for the Offspring although I never was a fan of their work - skate punk in general and in Germany, I think, this "skate period" was already dead for years 'cause nobody I know was that type of guy who was part of that sub culture - which is due to the fact that I don't like the "I'll let you do some five finger fillet on my hand so I can always be over the edge of sanity" type of singing from Dexter Holland. I hated the album "Americana" but that's a different story of being overplayed by some young teens in my school years. But I've never listened to "Smash" besides "Self-Esteem", so I guess I'm gonna give it a spin, seeing if I'll change my mind on them. Edit: If it isn't for Holland's annoying singing, this album would be a very enjoyable listen to me. Instrumentally, it's more clean than anything from the grunge era but with a good dosis urgency and melodic hardcore music. Lyrically, you can also sense that they've had fun creating these songs. But the production was a knock on it, 'cause... yeah... Holland bursts onto the scene XD

I am fully with you guys! Holy shit, dynamite 🧨 review! 😂😂

Great review guys. My brother is a massive manics fan so I'll be sending your review to him! Looking through your list of reviews, I couldn't find any of either Supergrass or the Divine Comedy... They may not be the biggest bands but they are two of the most highly respected bands of the past 30 years in the UK and Ireland (though Supergrass broke up and Gaz Coombes went on to make some amazing albums himself as a solo artist including 'Don't turn the car around' from last year. Anyway, I recommend 'In it for the money, life on other planets and road to Rouen' from Supergrass and you can take your pic from Divine Comedy 's incredibly consistent catalogue. Casanova is probably their biggest album but Promenade, Fin Di Siecle, Absent Friends and Victory for the comic muse are all top class.

Now that's what you call an episode of bangers with even an enjoyable surprise of an album which is "The Holy Bible". Other than that: PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me": Awesome experimentation with production through "un-equalization"! Hole's "Live Through This": Amazing record filled with grungy, raw female energy! (alongside L7's "Bricks are Heavy") Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral": Elite of warning nihilism! (one of the albums I've always favored as part of the decade's best and probably the most intense depiction of drowning in madness, depression and self-inflicted pain) Apart from "Hurt", one of the best songs ever written and various other essential tracks that sounded like coming from the dark web, it has also one of the best instrumentals/interludes with "A Warm Place" and a barely audible lyric in the beginning which, based on the theories of what they mean from the internet, are as ambiguous as it gets when it comes to human existentialism and the freedom of choice. Idk about the NME list with this being at No. 16, but if you wanna do mention albums with various dark themes, this has to be one of the biggest representations of living or diving in a dark place of life. All of the three are one of many contenders for making it into my top 15 of the 90s.

Head Down is a great deep cut Vol. 2 😁 Also one of the great grunge albums which, despite its length of 70+ minutes, is a great contribution of rock music, songwriting, singing, guitar riffs/sounds and drum patterns itself. Definitely my favorite Soundgarden record and that makes it a testament that the so-called "Big Four" made at least one fantastic record individually that resonated until this day.

Head Down is a great deep cut

I never liked George Michael much, although they say he was the talented one. Andrew Ridgley drew the map that rescued me, took me to paradise. I didn't do too well at school, they said I couldn't concentrate. The day he flew off into the sunset was the day my education was saved. Then years later on Kensington High Street I saw him drive a white convertible Golf GTI, carefully edging out into the traffic just like a real live human being.

Green Day is one of the few bands where I held a presentation about when I was roundabout 13. At 16 again, but I chose The Kinks and at 17/18 I decided to take Joy Division. Quite impressive when I think about that I had to make 3 presentation about bands/solo artists in three different subjects 😅 Retrospectively, I should've taken something else for the first time, sustainably speaking, like I did with the other 2 bands which I listen to with much more attention. "Dookie" is the only consistently good Green Day album that I can hear with much enjoyment without thinking of how pretentious they would become down the road in the 2000s, then turning back to their more raw roots, but didn't realize that genre like pop punk in the 2010s don't have a cemented place anymore which was self-evident in the late 1990s and 2000s. And after their okay-ish trilogy "Uno-Dos-Tres" they have never been able picking up on something fresh that fans eventually want to hear or something that wasn't made fun of over and over again. Some of their stuff before "Dookie" like "Kerplunk" or "Nimrod" after is something I dig tho.

Excellent! I hope you guys do Dylan's Time Out of Mind and Madvilliany

Yes. This album is better than Full Moon Fever, for me by a mile

I saw a band one night in 2000 called The Promise Ring. My roommate liked them and considered them emo

Nas isn't a rapper to me. He's an author imo🙏🙏

Jody Stephens’ glorious vocals on ‘For You’. ‘Take Care’ ‘Thank You Friends’ ‘Nightime’ ‘Blue Moon’ would be the easiest way in after digesting No1 Record & Radio City. ‘You Can’t Have Me’ ‘Kissa Me’ & ‘Big Black Car’.. some great moments there-in.

I agree with your assessment. I also find them whilst being intelligent also relentlessly nerdy and jokey which can become wearing. The adenoidal voice is hard to consume. The very simple child like melodies, too cute. The accordion. The drum machine. Art, where? Musicianship where? Anti music, I think this may be right, I don't get the sense these people TMBG are music fans. And yes, relentlessly white and childlike and musically not inventive.

Awesome album! My favorite of Judas Priest :3

Love this album! I’ll take this over any smug Smiths or Morrissey album any day of the week!

Get prepared for SUPER low-fi when you get to Bee Thousand

Review penthouse next!

I discovered Lush with their first album gala, which is an incredible debut. Spooky was great too, their second album. I didn't like this album very much. I just listened to to it again and I kind of appreciate it more now. At the time it sounded like they went commercial sounding. However, Lovelife, which was released a few years after split, was very "commercial" sounding, but I enjoyed the songs a lot more and it stuck. Moral of the story, check out their whole catalog for all who are interested! Really an incredible band but I do think this is one of their weaker efforts.

Nightshift is about serial killer Peter Sutcliffe Known as the Yorkshire Ripper in England

Not a good album, and I hate Don’t Stop Believin’; that song sucks and it’s so corny and hokey and boring and I’m sick of hearing it! :3

Luna is a great live band. Saw them in 2002 and 2004 here in Chicago

Oh boy, 90s Britpop is the ultimate musical definition of a "mixed bag" for me. While I do like Blur and some Pulp tracks because they're trying something forward-thinking and don't shy away from doing odd sounds/compositions and experimentations, something like The Verve on the other hand is barely listenable for me. Verve is the half of anything of the early 90s (especially watered-down shoegaze) and a soporific copy of 60s traits (psychedelia and late rock n roll) with just contemporary production. And I remember one of you guys coined the phrase "McDonalds of Music". Well, there's hardly a better depiction of a band that tried so hard to be popular so effectively by having little ambition than Oasis. While I can see the appeal to people who need some songs to sing collectively and don't need lyrics that need to make sense, it was one of the big bands able to crack international charts that I've liked only one song of. "Don't Look Back in Anger" is the one and nothing else. I tried to listen to "Definitely Maybe" and "What's the Story Morning Glory?" since your episode came out by thinking "Well, maybe I was exaggerating my claim Oasis is the worst biggest band out of UK". And after finishing it, I came to realize that my take didn't change that much, but I now lean more to the side of saying "This band is doing nothing that makes me wanna move, dance, sing along, laugh, cry, dive into nostalgic feelings, hit the punching bag, workout or anything else. It's just downright boring and misses any of my feelings for music." With that being said, your takes are still acceptable for me and pointing out the fact they wanted to appeal to the masses as much as possible and they certainly knew how to do it. Would be interesting what you'll say to the follow-up!

the voice is everything, no one else can deliver a song like nico, iggy pop has said that when people can hear nico, the same way that they can see a van gogh today, they are going to go whooaah

One of the overrated bands ever, and I really can’t stand Liam Gallagher’s voice or really the brothers themselves in general. Idk what it is, they’re basically musically conservative Beatles-copyist dad rock 😅

Ewww damn, I really loathed this listen..U2 without a guitar sound and R.E.M. without songs..post-grunge is very fitting. I really dislike Ed Kowalczyk’s singing style and I really don’t like the band’s mystical spiritual mushy gushy religion-ponderous lyrics; it’s just all so queasy and over the top and *so overwrought!* 🥲😝

8:23 I'd argue they're maybe even better live. They twist and morph and extend songs and you always get a different flavour, sometimes they play it more rock, sometimes more jazzy, more upbeat, slower, etc. The "jam" part of their name really stands out when they play live. The sound like a proper old school band.

You could tell that he could've been one of the most promising figures in 90s music and more. Quite tragic that he died so suddenly, but then again, it's amazing of how much recognition he received afterwards and today, he is hailed as a foundation for many songwriters and singers with higher registered voices and the ones who don't see many barriers for their musical pallet. For me, "Grace" (with or without "Forget Her" as an additional track) is many things: Celestial singing, great covers, great self-written songs, a combination of various genres and artist's influences that I learned to love until this album. Even the average length of the individual songs isn't off-putting as many of it stays interesting even though not everything resonates with me in and out. Jeff Buckley made one of those timeless records that could be made now and it would feel still fresh.

His band deserves props - rhythm section. Great review guys. I actually visited Memphis in 2008 and checked out the area where he drowned in Memphis Harbor. It looked innocuous enough but I remember seeing a piece of garbage slowly floating by and thinking that I wouldn't want to even put my toe in that body of water

For me it kinda goes: The Kinks>The Jam>Blur

1994 was pretty ILL. I'm glad this year turned out to be ok ;)

It's one of the few big hip-hop albums that needed quite a long time to grow on me until becoming one of my favorites. The reason was that the production which stands too much behind the vibrant presence of Biggie and left me disappointed for a while. It has various layers of samples at certain times - the original album release must've had a Parliament sample on "Machine Gun Funk" before being cut out on the remastered version - but it didn't feel as consistently hard-hitting or intruiging like on "Gimme the Loot" at first. The more the production grew on me the more I appreciated the amalgamation with his flow. As you said, his flow was truly amazing and his deep, leaned-back-type-of-voice fits various sounds. If he's the best storyteller of hip-hop is quite debatable, but he's one of them next to Nas for example which kind of gets more peotic about street life as Big who painted a more cinematic picture. I personally favor Kendrick Lamar or Lupe Fiasco, although both are leaning more towards the conscious side of the genre. 2Pac, Ghostface Killah, Scarface, The Roots or OutKast sometimes as storytellers are top tier. Sometimes, I think that the best storytellers of hip-hop aren't necessarily even English speaking folks. The Brazilian group Racionais MC's, for me, are also among the best in terms of social and cultural turbulences and problems such as racism, poverty and systematic violence. I guess that Nas and Mobb Deep and some Wu-Tang solo projects will be covered in the near future and I'm definitely interested how you perceive the core of boom bap Big L, Big Pun and DMX are also fantastic MC's that followed after 2Pac and Biggie who also, believe it or not, came to me in my earliest memories of recognizing hip-hop as a kid :D

Great talk! Hugely underrated band! Wish more people talked about them like you!

Now Kate typically doesn't take direct experiences from her own life there are a couple of tracks on this album which are directly related to her life. 📍Moments Of Pleasure - includes references to friends & family that Kate has lost over the years. So we have: her aunt Maureen, dancer Gary Hurst (Bubba), guitarist Alan Murphy (Smurph), Abbey Road sound engineer John Barrett (Teddy), film director Michael Powell, and lighting engineer Bill Duffield. The reference to "whose who will survive" was referring to her Mother who was seriously ill at the time, as if Kate was willing her to live. Sadly, her mother die a little while later after Kate had completed the album. 📍You're The One - Is Kate's break-up song with her long term partner Del Palmer. The desperation is written in the Lyrics "You're the only one I want". Despite breaking up with Kate, Del Palmer continued to work with Kate on her albums. (A sad footnote is that Del Palmer died on the 5th of January 2024, aged 71.) So with these two tracks it means by Kate's standards this is a very personal album. So after the death of her Mother and the break up with Del Palmer together the recent (at the time) death of Alan Murphy was a featured guitarist on her albums, it was really no surprise that Kate took a break. What nobody suspected was that it would last so long. === It would be very nice if you could get round to "Never For Ever" which Kate co-produced.

Horrible album! Lol It was one of my favorites in high school which makes sense; gawd what was wrong with me 😝

In my opinion, The Breeders were much better than the Pixies 😊

The drummer Ric Menck played on Matthew Sweet's 100% Fun and toured with him

Yeah, what’s there to say about an album so boring and lame? Not much lol, but they are..like seriously, what did Robbie Robertson see in them? And hearing Jon’s opinion on Mr. Jones was capital P Painful, BUT, sometimes I’m a masochist which is why I love this podcast! 🙂‍↕️

I thought it was fascinating. Just don’t try to classify; irrelevant and pointless. Take it as is.

I saw CC open for the reformed Big Star at the Fillmore (San Francisco) in 1994 . But they were billed as The Shatners. Some people in the crowd boo-ed them, which seemed a little unfair

Summary: Ice-T is the OG 😁 Probably one of the best uses of an album for a cinematic experience in hip-hop. An easy thumbs up for me and on a scale like a 9/10

Great breakdown of Last Splash. I dont love it but glad i own it. This and the No Alternative compilation. In Utero from the same year is terrific

Aside from this being a classic for hip hop - and "2001" although I like this one more - thanks for the shoutout to Eazy E, who had an underrated EP called "It's on (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa" with the infamous diss response. It's got a very good flow coming under 40 minutes. And the title track also is a great diss.

I was listening to the big three - "Off the Wall", "Thriller" & "Bad" - of Michael's penultimate dancing phase the other day. What I discovered is that "Off the Wall" is my clear favorite, album-wise and artistically. It's got the best track-to-track flow for me while the other feel more like monstrous singles coupled with deep cuts that just doesn't live up to the status of both "Thriller" ("Girl is Mine" and "The Lady in my Life") and "Bad" ("Just Good Friends", "Another Part of Me" and still "Man in the Mirror"). "Girlfriend" might be my least favorite on "Off the Wall" because of its strange back beat and overall time signature but it's still working really well within the albums flow. There's an argument that can be made for "Off the Wall" being the best collection of disco and R&B songs that ended up being a strongly cohesive and gracefully aged album, narratively and qualitatively that can be played as a whole on the dancefloor in its various phases of warming up, getting to a highpoint, calming down and finally getting ready for the last round. Still, three albums of one guy that can't be forgotten in music history.

Were you talking about the Meters in the beginning of the vid?

I saw this album, for a long time, as my preferred Nirvana album because of its raw expose of especially Kurt's emotions of irony and abstractions but also bis self-hatred, depression and drug use. Now, I'm more split between this and "Nevermind" which were both very much influenced by past sounds and influenced many bands and genres that would come after them. My favorites on "In Utero" are songs are like "Scentless Apprentice", "Frances Farmer", "Dumb", "Pennyroyal Tea", "All Apologies" and "Heart-Shaped Box" as being my favorite Nirvana song. You're not gonna be covering "MTV Unplugged"? Oh man, that's also a great one representing an acoustic side of Nirvana - not entirely because of Kurt's guitar equipment - that fits them well too.

This album and Pixies Surfer Rosa has that Albini effect. Loud drums. Not many overdubs. Love both

They were so un-90s-like and sooo 70s that they became in the process the most 90s thing ever. Anyway, I’m with you guys, especially Josh! Amazing album! Definitely one of the best of the 90s for me, and I give it a perfect five stars! 😍🤩🤗⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I never let a statue tell me how nice I am ~ Phife Dawg Again a fantastic album by those guys where I felt like they got a bit more edge on this one as "The Low End Theory" had, but I still consider TLET as my favorite for reason that I can quote some of their lyrics and the sample are more ear candy to me. But then again, it's the highest level of elevating another album for such small things. "Midnight Marauders" was and still is a big jewel for rappers to come and with "We Got it from Here..." as one of my favorites of the 2010s it's even more a testament as to why have one of the strongest catalogues of hip hop.