The 90's.

[Alanko]

Anything but Type O Negative!!!!

[uwe]

Okay, now I feel that I should defend Radiyawnhead

I like that they have covered a lot of territory, mostly successfully in my view, from their initial melodramatic pseudo-grunge hit to acoustic ballads ("High and Dry") to quasi-psychedelic harmony-drenched 60s-pop ("Let Down") to EDM ("Idioteque") to atmospheric work driven by either Reichian polyrhythms ("Weird Fishes/Arpeggi") or more irregular grooves ("Bloom").  I like that they are by turns both very melodic and catchy and aggressively experimental.

I like the way they are a band where every member brings something essential to the mix and they all take foreground and background roles as needed. It's not just the Thom Yorke show by any means. They have entered the relatively small group of bands with their original lineup 100% intact for several decades (almost three now).

Finally, I really like the bass player. Colin Greenwood is one of those guys that doesn't stand out to anybody who's not paying close attention but aside from being really solid, has tried a lot of different ideas all very much serving the song (I am especially fond of the way he finds simple grooves that contrast with the rest of the music and give it a new context, like the stuttering 3-note rhythm that goes throughout "Airbag" and the counterpoint riff that repeats endlessly through "How to Disappear Completely", it's like a second train of thought that fits but doesn't fit.)

Nicer things have never been written more beautifully and more eloquently about Radiohead. You really should apply for their PR department because Herr Yorke is not very good at either explaining or defending their music. 

Can I hire you for my obituary? If I promise to give my all my Radiohead CDs another listen with your words in mind?

[uwe]

Anything but Type O Negative!!!!

Hey, I was just about to say they are a honorary exemption! I kind of liked their later "Depeche Mode melancholy goes doom metal"-spiel.

Speaking of bands that start with a "T", does Tin Machine count as a 90ies band (founded in 1989, folded in 1992)? I thought they were brilliant:

- Reeves Gabrels was an innovative guitarist - not afraid of atonal excursions -, but could rock as well,

- the Sales brothers were brilliant as a rhythm section, they played all these weird impromptu breaks that sometimes were on the verge of toppling the band, but always regained control of the groove and beat, it sounded like it was one brain steering drums and bass, talk about a brotherly bond!

They also had a singer - I forgot his name, he came from Brixton - who played a little sax and rhythm guitar on the side, a talented chap, grossly underrated in the role as their frontman.

[gweimer]

Hey, I was just about to say they are a honorary exemption! I kind of liked their later "Depeche Mode melancholy goes doom metal"-spiel.

Speaking of bands that start with a "T", does Tin Machine count as a 90ies band (founded in 1989, folded in 1992)? I thought they were brilliant:

- Reeves Gabrels was an innovative guitarist - not afraid of atonal excursions -, but could rock as well,

- the Sales brothers were brilliant as a rhythm section, they played all these weird impromptu breaks that sometimes were on the verge of toppling the band, but always regained control of the groove and beat, it sounded like it was one brain steering drums and bass, talk about a brotherly bond!

They also had a singer - I forgot his name, he came from Brixton - who played a little sax and rhythm guitar on the side, a talented chap, grossly underrated in the role as their frontman.

Me likey Tin Machine...

[Granny Gremlin]

All of Trip Hop guys. Mezzanine by Massive Attack was gold all the way through for example.

[Dave W]

geez, get over the carol kaye stuff. i posted the whole page because there is always extra stuff someone might like. open culture is like that.

You linked to the whole site instead of what you wanted to discuss. No wonder some of us missed it. Carol Kaye teaching Gene Simmons doesn't interest me so I didn't even notice there was more.

Now that I see it, I'm not interested in joining Spotify just to see and hear yet another list of someone else's favorites.

As for the 90s, anyone who thinks it was all about grunge wasn't listening. I have lots of 90s CDs and not a single song of anything that would qualify as grunge.

[uwe]

Or the dreaded stadium rock!

[slinkp]

All of Trip Hop guys. Mezzanine by Massive Attack was gold all the way through for example.

Oh man! I'm glad somebody else here likes that stuff.  I'm not sure if somebody who wasn't there would realize how groundbreaking it was at the time.  Mezzanine got a LOT of play in my house.  Aside from all the cool stuff they did combining trippy dub / EDM textures with bits of live drums/bass/guitar, and especially one bassline that is permanently lodged in my head ("Dissolved Girl" ) ... all of that was eclipsed when on Mezzanine they also got some of the best ever vocal performances from Liz Frasier - whose work with Cocteau Twins I always found kind of sonically fascinating, but hard to approach emotionally, a bit too fey, drifting too far into some ethereal world; but on "Teardrop", Massive Attack they got something much more intimate and compelling. What a voice. Gets me every time.  Best Massive Attack song for me.



  (Frasier's other shining moment in my view is her cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" from This Mortal Coil back in the mid 80s,  which I don't even care if it makes me a sad goth emo boy, that song can make me cry.)
   

 
And then there was Portishead. Dummy was the first most of us heard of trip-hop, we didn't even know what the heck to call it, but god damn that was a brilliant record.  I've only heard the two 90s releases from Portishead, but both of those are really incredible.  I keep forgetting I want to check out the 2008 release as well.

[Dave W]

Or the dreaded stadium rock!

 

[Granny Gremlin]

... all of that was eclipsed when on Mezzanine they also got some of the best ever vocal performances from Liz Frasier - whose work with Cocteau Twins I always found kind of sonically fascinating, but hard to approach emotionally, a bit too fey, drifting too far into some ethereal world; but on "Teardrop", Massive Attack they got something much more intimate and compelling. What a voice. Gets me every time.  Best Massive Attack song for me.

True, but don't forget their genius (vocally and otherwise) version of Man Next Door.  I have always been a fan of the original (as well as the Slits version) but then this dropped and it killed me.  I can't sing it since hearing this version without getting a bit misty. Horace Andy gave John Holt a run for his money, which is saying something. 

  (Frasier's other shining moment in my view is her cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" from This Mortal Coil back in the mid 80s,  which I don't even care if it makes me a sad goth emo boy, that song can make me cry.)

The Twins were a band that I repeatedly neglected to check out more, and This Mortal Coil was OK but struck me as too poppy, in an era where post riot grrrl slow/mid tempo sparse songs with breathy female vocals were a little too cliche (at the pet store where I worked at the time, the radio station played almost exclusively that sort of thing and I was sick of it).
   

 
And then there was Portishead. Dummy was the first most of us heard of trip-hop, we didn't even know what the heck to call it, but god damn that was a brilliant record.  I've only heard the two 90s releases from Portishead, but both of those are really incredible.  I keep forgetting I want to check out the 2008 release as well.

YES. Dummy was newish when I first met The Wiff.  She was already into it, but the first time I heard that record all the way through was when, a few weeks into dating, I took her down to The Beach and we dropped acid for her birthday (best trip ever).  After a bit we went in to a coffee shop to warm up and Dummy was on.  Scared the shit outa ball-trippin me; crazy witch brew music.  Etheral and captivating.  I don't remember which friend it was that later borrowed my CD copy, but I had a hell of a time getting it back, when I finally did I think it was without the liner notes and one of my favorite tracks had a huge skip in it.  Never lent out records again.

[uwe]

That's Trip Hop too, right? It certainly is 90ies (and I thought it adventurous though it was doomed to failure with the Priest community):

[slinkp]

True, but don't forget their genius (vocally and otherwise) version of Man Next Door.

 
Yeah, I like that one too. A great use of the When The Levy Breaks sample

The Twins were a band that I repeatedly neglected to check out more, and This Mortal Coil was OK but struck me as too poppy, in an era where post riot grrrl slow/mid tempo sparse songs with breathy female vocals were a little too cliche (at the pet store where I worked at the time, the radio station played almost exclusively that sort of thing and I was sick of it).

I can relate. "Song to the Siren" is the only song on the This Mortal Coil CD that really does much for me. About "post riot grrl slow/mid tempo sparse songs with breathy female vocals" though - I can understand overdosing on that stuff (it gets REALLY boring) but the Cocteau Twins themselves pre-dated riot grrrl by at least ten years, to say nothing of post-riot-grrrl.  As far as I can tell the Cocteau Twins pretty much invented their sound out of almost nowhere. (Somebody will probably pop up with a list of influences that destroys that argument!)  Certainly the whole "shoegaze" scene owed them a huge debt (along with other forebears like MBV).  I find them kind of fascinating, though like I said I can't get that involved in a lot of their stuff.  My favorite song of theirs, apart from the appearance on This Mortal Coil is probably this unusually upbeat poppy one circa 1990 (to make it marginally on topic, though to me it's a very 80s sound) ... if you crank it up it's a lot of fun:

[slinkp]

Can I hire you for my obituary? If I promise to give my all my Radiohead CDs another listen with your words in mind?

Sure, but what should I talk about other than basses and planes?

[slinkp]

That's Trip Hop too, right? It certainly is 90ies (and I thought it adventurous though it was doomed to failure with the Priest community):

Good question.  I hadn't actually heard 2wo before.  I do hear definite similarities to trip-hop, especially Massive Attack's more rock-ish tracks on Mezzanine, though it's certainly pretty far removed from Portishead.  Wikipedia claims 2wo is "industrial metal", but it doesn't sound very metal to me, so ... who the heck knows?  I'm certainly no expert on the trip-hop genre; I only really know four records (two Portishead and two Massive Attack).

[Granny Gremlin]

Never heard of them before either.  I hear the industrial element for sure, but there is definitely some trip hop influence in there too; maybe not a pure trip hop, but this ain't no dog show.