Albums in My Life: 1992

I was still very young in 1992, but I was finally starting to gain some memories. The first album on this list is one of the first records that was released during my lifetime that I actually have memories of.


The Barenaked Ladies- Gordon
My dad used to make many trips to Toronto, and on one trip, he stopped by Sam the Record Man (the "late night record shop" described in 'Brian Wilson') and picked up the Barenaked Ladies' debut. This record is very interesting to me and had songs that appealed to young me and current me. I remember loving 'Grade 9' when I was a kid because it was kind of goofy, not hearing the Rush musical cues. Now I'm kind of into 'Box Set' and it's weird description of filler that's in a lot of musical box sets. If all you know by Barenaked Ladies is 'One Week' or 'If I Had $1000000', you should definitely check out more. You might be surprised with what you hear.


Gin Blossoms- New Miserable Experience
I used to hear the singles from this album on the radio all the time as a kid, but I didn't ever hear the album in its entirety until much later. It has such a quintessentially '90s sound to it, and every time I hear that jangly guitar sound it brings me right back. I really love the mix of REM-esque college rock, soft rock, and California country into a sound that is very familiar but altogether unique. Gin Blossoms are a lot more than 'Hey Jealousy' and I think they're a pretty underrated band in the '90s alt rock conversation.





Nine Inch Nails- Broken
Broken was a stepping stone from the goth synth pop of Trent Reznor's debut Pretty Hate Machine to the all out industrial noise onslaught of The Downward Spiral. This EP is super dark (and the accompanying film even darker. Seriously, don't watch it if you're not prepared. It will scar you for life.) but retains a lot of the catchy dance music portions that made Pretty Hate Machine a hit at the goth club. It's a step towards the more aggressive fare that made Nine Inch Nails one of my favorite groups during teenage years.



Rage Against the Machine- Rage Against the Machine
The first time I heard anything by Rage Against the Machine was when I was 10 or 11 and I heard 'Wake Up' at the end of The Matrix. I heard other tracks here and there during the following years but I didn't pick up the first album until I was in high school, and needless to say, it blew my mind. The anger, Tom Morello's innovative guitar playing, the politics of it all; this band was a game changer. I later found Inside Out, Zack de la Rocha's previous band, and the connection to hardcore punk makes this album make so much more sense. It's a little disappointing that they lasted for only a few albums, because Audioslave, Prophets of Rage, and the other splinter groups are not an acceptable substitute. The current world we live in could use a band like Rage to call out all the injustices.


Sonic Youth- Dirty
The first time I heard Sonic Youth was probably when they mangled the Simpsons theme for the Hullabalooza episode, but I didn't actively seek them out until I heard 'Kool Thing' on Guitar Hero (people bash those games, but they turned me on to some good music). Dirty is one of my favorite Sonic Youth albums because it really embraced the Seattle Sound (the band put on Nirvana and had them open on a European tour in 1991) and pushes the feedback to freakish levels. '100%' is an amazing album opener and the aggression doesn't ever really let up.



What are your favorite or most formative albums of '92? Next week, I'll discuss 5 albums from 1993 that made me who I am today.




"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

Albums in My Life: 1991

After a small break, here is my next installment of the albums in my life. 1991 was still very early in my life, so a lot of these albums were not heard until a lot later.


Guns n' Roses- Use Your Illusion
I couldn't pick which of the two I prefer, so I cheated and just picked both. A lot of songs from these albums are classic. I was barely alive for the hype around these albums, but from interviews and media around this period, the rock world was shaken every time one of their opus length music videos dropped. These were also their last albums of original material for 17 years, and the diversity of the material definitely branched out from Appetite for Destruction and showed the range of Guns n' Roses besides the hardened hair metal.



My Bloody Valentine- Loveless
I first found this album in college, a little while before mbv came out. The layers to pick apart on this record are endless, and I always hear something new every time I listen to it. It's definitely a headphone album, and really changed the way I thought about how vocals are mixed and textures within a song. This was my introduction to shoegaze, and I couldn't have been introduced to that sound with a more classic album. This album is perfect to me, and it gets even better every time I hear a new little sonic Easter egg.



Nirvana- Nevermind
This album is probably one of the most famous and well known albums to come out in my lifetime, and deservedly so. It's not my favorite Nirvana album, but this record and Nirvana's presence on MTV really brought '90s alt rock into the mainstream and made it possible for tons of my favorite bands to exist. I wish I could have been around to see the impact this album had at the time, but I was about a year old when this album broke. I don't really know what to say about this album that hasn't already been said. It's the most critically acclaimed album of the '90s, maybe behind Ok Computer.




Slint- Spiderland
Though many have tried, there is no album that sounds like Spiderland. I wish there were more like this, because Slint's combination of math rock, hardcore and spoken word has created a sound so unique on this album that even Slint's other material sounds nothing like it. There is such a mystique surrounding this LP, and even the 33 1/3 book on this album (which I highly recommend) can't cut through the haze of mystery. While Spiderland has been building a reputation over the years, I still think its very underrated.




The Smashing Pumpkins- Gish
Billy Corgan and company crafted a sound in the '90s that was truly unique. They mixed alt rock with a dreamy, shoegaze polish and had a timbre to the drums and guitar solos like no other group. This is the first of many appearances the Pumpkins will have on this list. With Nevermind stealing a bit of its thunder, it would have been interesting to see this record's impact on the musical landscape, because the Smashing Pumpkins were really on an island to themselves, both in the Chicago scene and in indie rock in general.





So that's it for now. What are albums that have really had an effect on you? Let me know. Off to work on Albums in My Life: 1992.



"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."