Albums in My Life: 1996

Hi, all. Happy new year, for those rocking that good ol' Gregorian calendar. I've been busy with the festivities, so I haven't really been keeping up with my weekly posting schedule, but alas. After this post, I'll be doing my year end lists for 2018, and then back to the year 1997 in my Albums in My Life series.



Beck: Odelay
This is probably the most hip hop centric Beck ever got, and probably the most popular in the mainstream as well. He enlisted the Dust Brothers to add production, and this album mixed his folk, pop and hip hop sides into a whole a bit more cohesive and accessible than his debut. I just remember as a kid who played saxophone in lessons not even needing to look at the liner notes to hear the 'Desafinado' sample in 'Readymade' and feeling like the smartest kid in the class.






Current 93: All the Pretty Little Horses
This is probably my favorite Current 93 album for its amazing mix of serenely beautiful and creepy as hell. The stark difference between the title track, which is a traditional lullaby performed with love and care, and something like 'The Inmost Night' is amazing, and really shows the range of David Tibet as a performer, as well as the very disparate approaches of Michael Cashmore and Steven Stapleton when it comes to the music. Cashmore lays down a beautiful acoustic atmosphere, while Stapleton bends electronic soundscapes and manipulates silence into the stuff of pure nightmares.


Swans: Soundtracks for the Blind
Over the summer, I picked this album up in its first official vinyl release, and it gave me a lot of time to really sit with it and let it grow in my mind. I had always appreciated the scope and ambition of this album, but now I really believe to be their best work; a complete encapsulation of everything they had done up until that point, and a bit of a teaser of what was to come after the reunion, with its epic length. It really is quite an experience, and if I ever met Michael Gira or Jarboe, the first thing I would ask is ,"how does the recording used in 'I Was a Prisoner in Your Skull' end?"



Weezer: Pinkerton
If The Blue Album is Weezer at their most pop rock accessible, Pinkerton is probably them at their most raw, acid tongued and bitter. Following a mental breakdown, a stint at Harvard, and a completely aborted second album, Pinkerton is considerably darker than its predecessor, and delved into a lot of Rivers Cuomo's darker thoughts concerning relationships. As a tennager, his spoke to me a little more than I would like to admit. A failure when it first dropped, it gained a cult fan base and a critical re-evaluation when emo and pop punk hit the mainstream in the early to mid '00s.




"Weird Al" Yankovic: Bad Hair Day
This was my first full album experience of Weird Al, and it's still an album I come back to a lot. A lot of the songs he parodied I only heard after, so I know his versions better. I still play 'Callin' in Sick' when I, well, call in sick. It is my firm belief that 'The Night Santa Went Crazy' is one of the best Christmas songs of all time. This album warped my little adolescent mind, and even though when I play it now its a little juvenile or corny, I still love it.






So, that's my list for 1996. I'll be back after my year ends for 1997. First up, the top 5 disappointing albums of 2018.





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