R.E.M

R.E.M are one of the most influential and loved bands of the 1990s. Although not strictly a 90s band by any means, as they formed in 1980 and have continued to have much success to this day, their breakthrough period in the early 90s remains their definitive period commercially.

R.E.M formed in Athens, Georgia (a productive city for musical success, also bring forth the B52s of Rock Lobster and Love Shack fame.) Their first acclaim came from the release of their 1981 debut single Radio Free Europe[1], which in my opinion remains one of their greatest tracks. In 1983 came the hugely significant debut album Murmur[2], which was critically well received and would go on in subsequent years to be lauded as a classic of early alternative rock. There weren’t commercial riches coming their way from the album thought, as is to be expected. Its success was sufficient enough though to ensure them a place as a burgeoning underground band with a rich fan base dominated by college students.

Their profile began to rise near the end of the 80s with minor hits like The One I Love[3], It’s The End of the World As We Know It[4] and Orange Crush[5]. Right as the 1990s began, R.E.M were poised to take over the world. This finally happened with the landmark album Out Of Time[6] in 1991. This album contained the iconic 90s megahit Losing My Religion, as well as (however much the band don’t want to admit it), the infectious classic Shiny Happy People (which included the vocals of Kate Pierson of the B52s.) The following year the band continued this success with Automatic For The People[7], featuring the famous hits Man On The Moon and Everybody Hurts. Ever since these two albums, R.E.M have been worldwide superstars and their every album has sold millions.

R.E.M are successful enough by a long way to warrant an indelible place in the annals of 90s music. But the true importance of their contribution to the decade lies in their pioneering of the Alternative Rock genre and subsequent influence on artists as varied as Nirvana and Sonic Youth.[8] R.E.M tend to be formally classified as alternative rock. While attempting to place an entire band’s catalogue (especially one this eclectic) into one genre is arbitrary, the term is particularly strange when applied to R.E.M’s music. Considering they are regarded as the godfathers of alternative rock, their music seems unusually far removed from what would typically be associated with this genre. Their sound is overall cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than often distressing contemporaries like Radiohead. More telling than anything is the fact that because of R.E.M, it can be said that my mum likes an alternative rock band, which is truly bizarre in the wider context of her tastes. Part of the reason for this is the comparative pop value of their biggest hits compared to their wider catalogue. Certainly my mother’s fandom lies almost exclusively within a succession of their mainstream singles. Much of their album material reflects more of a typically associated alternative sound.

The main reason for their classification however lies in the way they have gone about the business of making music, moreso than the sound of the product itself. In their early days they deliberately subverted mainstream music practices after some initial bad experiences with the industry. They refused things like guitar solos or the synthesizers which were prevalent at the time because they were cliché. Another factor which created a distinct identity for the band was the nature of their primary output mediums and fan base. They associated with indie labels and other less prominent labels through the 1980s, and received heavy rotation on college radio stations where students of that specific age group identified with the band. Musically they were noteworthy not for any sort of defined alternative sound (mainly because none existed at the time), but for a distinct return to more 60s style sounds and musical substance and visions in the wake of post-punk.[8][9]

R.E.M are a legendary feature of 90s music, and they transcend barriers between pop and alternative to a level no-one else has ever achieved. It is this broad appeal that has garnered them so much success and I can recommend them equally to hardcore alternative fans, and people who like good melodic 90s pop in general. But surely recommendations should be unnecessary unless you've lived under a rock for at least twenty years.

Artist Details

Visit R.E.M's official website here.

R.E.M videos...

Other Recommendations

Whether for time reasons, or because I haven't actually acquired these albums yet, I didn't get a chance to review every great '90s album I know of. So here's a list of other recommendations if you're still unsatiated and craving for '90s music.

+R.E.M. - Out of Time (1991)
REM's breakout mainstream success

+Queen - Innuendo (1991)
The last album released before Freddie Mercury passed away

+Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
Proto-post-rock (!) and Talk Talk's second masterpiece album

+Dream Theater - Images and Words (1992)
Before they went off the deep-end trying to outplay each other, DT wrote a great batch of songs

+Ruins - Burning Stone (1992)
Japanese zeuhl band's best (in my opinion)

+Shakespear's Sister - Hormonally Yours (1992)
Edgy pop from ex-Bananarama member Siobhan Fahey

+Duran Duran - Self-Titled (The Wedding Album) (1993)
Duran Duran prove they aren't just '80s nostalgia

+John Wetton - Battle Lines (1994)
Well-crafted pop rock from the lead singer of Asia

+Marillion - Brave (1994)
Marillion's greatest album from the Steve Hogarth era

+Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads (1996)
An iconic Australian album

+Metallica - Load (1996)
Hard rock, heavy metal, and a dash of country

+Neil Finn - Try Whistling This (1998)
Crowded House leader's debut solo album

+Bondage Fruit - Bondage Fruit IV (1999)
Amazing surreal music from another Japanese zeuhl band

+Peter Gabriel - OVO (2000)
Technically 2000 is still the '90s. World music soundtrack for the Millennium Dome

:)

The Loudness War

Editorial

The loudness war is the term given to "the music industry's tendency to record, produce, and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness to attempt to create a sound that stands out from others".

The following articles explain it better than I could:

Over the Limit

Imperfect Sound Forever

Because of the nature of digital recording, the CDs can only be made louder to a certain point. After that the music producer must rely on "dynamic range compression", which makes the quiet parts of a recording as loud as the loudest part. This video demonstrates the technique:

Loudness War Demonstration

The overuse of this technique started in the 90s, with big-name albums such as Oasis' "(What's the Story) Morning Glory" and Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication", although it has persisted through to today, with the recent Metallica album causing a stir (this time for the production, not the music itself).

A CD that has been overcompressed has no dynamics, and dynamics are what make music so great, so while it sounds alright when you first press play, it soon becomes a neverending wave of noise. It can also give you headaches and, in some people, nausea.

One of the problems is that at first it's hard to notice when something's been overcompressed this way. Most modern music already is, and unless you know how to spot it, you can easily miss it. It's only once you know that you begin to realise how much music is produced this way, and how irritating it is to hear. Unwary listeners often dismiss the physical effects as being unrelated, not realising the music they're listening to is giving them a migraine.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)

Album Review

Tracklist - Interview with Kevin Shields

This album is considered the greatest album of the '90s by many[1][2], including the friend who turned me onto Joy Division and Nine Inch Nails. Seeing a chance to purchase a CD and legitimately say "This is for educational purposes" was enough for me to grab this album.

Don't be thrown off by the band's name, like I was. While emo bands have used the "My [blood/vampire reference] [word connotating love]" template to death, this sounds nothing like them. The music consists of the usual drums/guitar/bass setup, except that the guitars are laden with effects, feedback and the like, creating a hypnotic and dreamy sound echoed by Bilinda Butcher's vocals, which are used more as another instrument than as the main focus. It's quite hard to describe the album beyond this; while at first everything seems to blend together, given its unique style, as I get to know Loveless better each song stands out in its own way.

While it hasn't ruined music for me as it did Mr Raggett[3], already My Bloody Valentine's critically acclaimed album has worked its way into my personal canon of "outstanding music". If you haven't heard it, this is an album you must hear before you die.

‘Representing Musical Genre: A State of the Art'

http://www.jj-aucouturier.info/papers/JNMR-2003.pdf

In this article, the concept of the music genre has been analysed and deconstructed, revealing the horribly flawed but inevitably necessary nature of classifying music by genre. The article is very long and as it goes on, becomes very mathematical and difficult to read. However the opening exchanges are extremely interesting and increasingly relevant in our modern world.

As the article outlines in its first line, genre is “probably the most popular music descriptor.” Throughout the era of popular music, people have felt the need to categorize music into set genres so as to associate any given artist or album within a particular arbitrary grouping, allowing some sort of easy-reference description of what would otherwise be difficult to understand within the everyday world.

The idea of intentional and extensional genre classification is a new and interesting one which makes a lot of sense. Intentionally, genre is reflective of sociocultural factors as opposed to actual musicological factors. Songs, usually helped by an imprudent connotation of the artist as a whole, are represented by a communal interpretation. Many of the ideas associated with our first assignment, those of the place of music within society and humanity, are validated here. Meanwhile extensional genre classification involves an on the surface more accurate account of the particular musical details of something. Generally I find that intentional classification, while important as it creates much of the cultural iconicity associated with songs such as Stairway To Heaven, is unhealthy and misleading in relation to placement in a particular musical genre. Extensional classification has merits as it is some sort of attempt to seriously analyse the traits of the piece or artist involved, however even this method is fundamentally flawed. Artists tend to be given particular classifications, and while this can sometimes involve a list of three of four genres, this takes an audience without experience of the artist no closer to truly knowing the sound of the band. Overall music is too complex, or “automatic”, to ever be able to define by arbitrary parameters no matter the effort involved.

Genre is criticized as “intrinsically ill-defined” within the article. This is a sentiment I agree with. While genre has always been around as a concept, the modern direction of society and technology has made the concept both more important, and more dangerous. In the modern world of passive pop cultural human subjects and expanding fields of music, it has become necessary to provide specific genres and even more shaky associations to ‘similar sounding artists’ to allow the everyday listening to find and identify music. The advent of and music sharing technologies, in tandem with a seeming cultural obsession with the concept of ‘genre’, has meant that mp3 files of music often need to come with a genre classification embedded as part of the file’s tagging, creating even more misinformation. This modern environment has also resulted in a huge blossoming of genre titles. Distributors and reviewers of music now have a plethora of hundreds of genres to choose from. Many of these completely manmade definers of music involve a ridiculous crossover of existing ‘base’ genre types. These are clearly so over the top and arbitrary and show how largely useless the concept of genre has become in modern times.

Despite its fallibility thought, genre overall is in fact important to an extent, but primarily within individual songs. A majority of artists who have existed for any length of time would have a large variety in their sound, surely to such an extent that they are impossible to classify simply. Any artist who is unoriginal and uncreative enough to easily classify in one word, probably isn’t worth the time and effort to listen to their music. Without genre, the very fabric of music distribution and consumption would fall apart in such a homogenized western culture. In my opinion the problem lies in the imbalance between the two uses of genre. Extensional classification of music is the primary constructive use of genre classification as it does contain some form of formal study of the structures involved, even if this should only ever be attempted to a simple and vague extent. While intentional classification, which is for all intents and purposes misguided in terms of ‘establishing genre’ as it’s defines, operates as the prevalent mode by which the general public associate music. These associations are undeniably important, the most important part of music in fact, but they have a damaging effect when coupled with the concept of genre. In the grand scheme, whatever human-given genre something apparently falls in should have no bearing on the sonic experience, but the arbitrary and often wholly inaccurate genres given for something, create unfortunate stereotypes and associations.

Overall genre is something which is inevitable within the data basing of music, but must always be eyed with a certain skepticism and will never in reality do justice to what it tried to pigeonhole.

The appeal of grunge today

The appeal of grunge rock and Nirvana in the late 80s and early 90s was the unique nature of the music and lyrics. However, with many new bands taking on this genre since then, what is the appeal of grunge in today's modern society.

The demand for political and social songs of protest.

In a world of social poverty, political dominance and the promotion of consumerism, the desire to bring awareness to the world's problems is huge. The appeal of songs with real meaning and purpose has skyrocketed as famous bands and rock stars continue to address the issues of the modern society, such as wars, poverty, environmental destruction and political influence.

This is one of the reasons behind the continued success of grunge bands such as Nirvana, as they question to state of the world through their lyrics and music.

While many other genres of music are beginning to address these issues, such as rock and emo, the nature of grunge music to contest the ways of society since the beginning is the appeal. Despite the controversy which arose from the music, bands such as Nirvana continued to sing for their cause, no matter what it was.

Artists are now even more committed to sending out messages of social and political importance in the hopes that their music will make a difference, making people aware of the things going on around them. Nirvana did this by criticising the consumer driven society in which they lived their lives.

PROTEST MUSIC IS THE FUTURE OF MUSIC... apart from most pop music, which covers issues of love, heartbreak and loss...

Tori Amos - Professional Widow

Song Review

Lyrics - Live Performance Video

There are two versions of this song. The Armand Van Helden remix was a huge hit, and was a major contributor as to why I avoided Tori's music for so long. It's a shame, because it's perhaps the most divergent "unrepresentative hit song" of the decade.

The album version, on the other hand, opens with a chromatic riff (think "Bohemian Rhapsody", the middle section of Muse's "Butterflies and Hurricanes" or the overture to Phantom of the Opera), played on harpsichord. When I first heard it I was blown away by how unlike the remix it was, and how much I enjoyed it. Industrial drums, an inventive bassline and some weird background noises join before Tori begins singing. "she moans, breathes, screeches and sighs"[1], intoning "Don't blow those brains yet", becoming progressively more intense and desperate as the song goes on.

A delicate piano and vocal duet interrupts the flow and introduces a more overtly feminine aspect to the song, with Tori's clean, sweet singing contrasting the surrounding dirge. The harpischord riff returns, and the odd roaring background noises increase.

The chaotic coda, with Amos pining "Mother Mary, give me peace", introduces a panoramic guitar line, and the song finishes as abruptly as it begins.

The lyrics are oblique and cryptic, most likely dealing with "sex and religion"[2] (the former during the verses, the latter in the interlude and coda). The remix quotes a couple of lines and repeats them ad nauseum, creating a mischeivous but unsubtle double entendre. "Honey bring it close to my lips" and "it's gotta be big" work better in context, and at the proper, unmanipulated speed.

As you might guess, I'm not fond of the famous remix, although it got me interested in what the original might sound like, so in that respect it served its purpose quite well. If you're put off by the remix, try the album version of "Professional Widow", a rare song that can appeal to both fans of Tori Amos' brand of piano rock and those into dark, heavy and unusual music.

Cynic - Veil of Maya

Song Review

Lyrics - Hear the Song @ Progarchives

Genre classifications are useful for conveying a large amount of musical information in a short space. If you say "This is a polka song," everyone has a fair idea of what it will sound like. However, they can lead to shortcuts and myopia when dealing with new or unfamiliar music. Many listeners avoid certain genres completely out of misguided assumptions or exposure only to the most mainstream (and usually weakest) examples of that genre. Country music is dismissed as bland, middle-of-the-road singer-songwriter wannabes; hip-hop and rap are dismissed as black men flaunting their riches and misogynist sensibilities; entire genres become unfairly stereotyped and dismissed.[1]

Veil of Maya is classified as a death metal song. Any reader who isn't a metal fan will base their opinion off of that single term and move on. I say "classified", because it certainly wasn't the genre I associated the song with, and while there are a few characteristics of "death metal", I believe this music deserves to be heard by more than just death metal fans.

Sure, Veil of Maya has heavy distorted guitarwork, and death growls. These can be offputting, but distorted guitar is no unknown quantity to anyone exposed to rock music, and while I'm no fan of the death growl, it's only marginally worse than vocals employed by MCR. The band has two vocalists, the other a digitally processed "robot-voice"[2] which contribute to the uniqueness of the music.

The song has been equally described as "jazzy"[3][4], most notable when the metal intro to the song segues effortlessly into an atmospheric, calm and relaxing interlude that conjures images of the ocean.

The lyrics are philosophical and somewhat spiritual, discussing duality and Mayan mythology (as the title suggests). Not exactly what comes to mind when you think of "death metal".

The musicians are all highly proficient, and though it may take a few listens to get past prejudices and appreciate the song, most music demands active listening and multiple hearings. In a decade that propagated passive listeners too afraid to go beyond their familiar ground, unusual and vital music that pushed boundaries is a welcome change.

[1] Matt Brennan "The rough guide to critics: musicians discuss the role of the music press" Popular Music, Volume 25, Issue 02, May 2006, pp 221-234

King Crimson - Dinosaur

Song Review

Lyrics - Live Performance on Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien

King Crimson is criminally underrated. The band members who played on this song alone, have worked with such famous and varied artists as:

-Genesis
-Frank Zappa
-Nine Inch Nails
-Talking Heads
-Brian Eno
-Blondie
-Tori Amos
-Seal
-Pink Floyd
-Cher
-Tina Arena
-Tim Finn

as well as putting out 13 albums, each one amazing. That the bassist who played on Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer", the guitarist who created the hypnotic guitar hook on David Bowie's "Heroes", the drummer who played on Mr. Mister's hit "Broken Wings", and the singer/guitarist who contributed to landmark albums "Remain in Light", "Graceland" and "The Downward Spiral", as well as appearing on Rockwiz, can be in the band that I personally (just opinion) believe is the greatest rock band ever...and yet barely anyone has even heard of them, baffles me.

But enough elitist fanboy histrionics. "Dinosaur" is a song from their 1995 album, "THRAK". This album features the "double-trio", an odd experiment involving two guitarists, two bassists, and two drummers. It's a novel idea, but when listening I don't really notice more than one drummer or bassist.

The song opens with guitarist Robert Fripp, playing an orchestral MIDI guitar line. King Crimson are no strangers to cutting-edge technology; in the 80s their drummer Bill Bruford revolutionised electronic drums, and Fripp himself devised (with Eno) a looping system involving tape machines, which seems quaint nowadays but was unheard of in 1974 (at least, in rock music).

This pensive intro gives way to crashing drums and distorted guitar. The main riff, an ever-constant alarm, is laid over crunchy chords and an inventive drum pattern. The first verse cools off, before dynamically leading into the ominous chorus.

The Adrian Belew-penned lyrics use the dinosaur as a metaphor for the protagonist's outlook on life. "Ignorance has always been something I excel in...Doesn't take a scientist to see how any clever predator could have a piece of me"; "when I look back on the past it's a wonder I'm not yet extinct". I've felt the way the song describes many a time, and in the end, emotion is the most important aspect of a song.

The middle section, a quiet ambient instrumental break with a MIDI guitar solo, this time sounding like a clarinet, allows quick respite before the main riff returns, and Fripp unleashes "a searing solo that pins you to the wall" [1]. The final chorus, where Belew howls "IIIIIII'M A DINOSAUR!" is one of those well-pulled off moments that could feel so daggy in a less impressive setting.

I may prefer King Crimson's 70s and 80s output more, but Dinosaur is a high-point for the band, and for the decade. Given Conan O'Brien's now starting at The Tonight Show, it's a happy coincidence that I discovered King Crimson performed Dinosaur on his show back in 1995.

Nirvana, The 90s and The Drug Scene

In the birth place of grunge rock during the late 80s, heroine was the drug of choice. Being isolated from the american music scene, artists turned to hard drugs, quite often for inspiration for their music and lyrics.

When the grunge artists became rock stars the drug use turned to a higher level, with many artists dying from overdoses including Andy Wood and Stephanie Sergeant. Many artists wrote songs about their struggles with drugs, Alice in Chains "Drug of Choice" was one such song. It seemed wrong that people liked these songs and the artists, who were singing about their troubles and problems with drugs.

Despite the large number of deaths of artists, heroine was still the number one drug for the rock stars of the 90s, with a number of deaths occurring because of it.

Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain was one such artist who suffered the perils of drug addiction, using heroine as an escape from the rock star world he despised so much. While Cobain did check himself into a rehab clinic, he left 4 days later.

Cobain's troubles with fame and heroine ended when he committed suicide. He had used a huge amount of heroine then shot himself in the head.

While one could never say the outcome of drug use or addiction is in anyway anything but horrific, the gunge music scene would have been so different if it weren't for the drugs. Can you imagine what the grunge genre would have produced without the drugs?

Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark

Song Review

This review discusses the studio version in the context of live versions.

Lyrics - Listen to the Song

After their magnum opus "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" in 1988, Iron Maiden released a couple of mediocre albums in the 90s culminating in lead singer Bruce Dickinson's departure from the band. His return in 2000 saves the song "Fear of the Dark" from the dubious honour of being the last Iron Maiden song to feature his vocals.

It opens with a grand and memorable riff, followed by the first verse consisting of a clean guitar figure playing the melody over arpeggios. The more upbeat second verse introduces their signature distorted guitar sound, and a change in vocal technique. While the earlier quiet verse has Bruce singing in a raspily in lower pitch, the following verses and chorus feature his famous high-pitched "air-raid siren" wail. Although I prefer the music of the first verse, the vocal change is welcome, as his lower range singing doesn't really work [1].

An engaging guitar solo, the highlight of the song, leads to the dramatic final chorus and a reprise of the clean guitar arpeggios. Renowned bassist Steve Harris' parts are noteworthy, although not surprising given he wrote the song.

The lyrics predictably deal with nyctophobia, a fear of the dark, or more accurately "fear arising [from] what might be out there in the dark"[2]. While the topic seems at first rather childish, the lyrics are quite encompassing and convey the subject matter well. And, as discussed elsewhere, lyrics matter less than the music (and the vocal itself, which for the most part is great).

Interestingly, while I enjoy the song, I find it much better performed live, an opinion shared by others[3]. Although preference for live music can be ascribed to a greater connection between audience and performer, or the allowance for spontaneity, or even simply better sound (hearing instruments amplified at high volume with greater dynamic range, as opposed to hearing a simulation) I cannot use these as justification for my preference, as I have never actually been to an Iron Maiden show (only witnessing their performance through live albums and DVDs).

No, one of the reasons I enjoy the live versions because "improvement found one night can inform every performance thereafter", having "a cumulative effect". [4]
Apart from general improvements over the original recording, which may have less-than-perfect production, it also allows for changes and even audience participation. The unfortunate raspy vocals are better, because Bruce's vocal range and delivery has improved over the years, and are in general less raspy. The crowd even sings along during the main riff, an effect which greatly adds to the song.

"Fear of the Dark" is one of the few 90s songs that Iron Maiden continue to perform live. Whether it's because the song is a highlight on an otherwise forgettable album, or because the live setting is its true home is the interesting question. I enjoy it in both forms, but it seems no coincidence that this song was only released as a live single.

[2] William Lyons (1985) "Emotion", ISBN 0521316391