The year after Nirvana kicked open the doors for a form of
Rock that did not require crates of Aquanet, “grunge” was the industry’s
favorite buzzword. Yet the less grungy sounds that would soon be championed as
“alternative” by a press desperate to put some sort of label on all the
eclecticism were already in effect. Many makers of the best albums of 1992 may
have had a pair of Doc Martens in their closets, but their sounds drew on a
wide variety of sources: the Girl Group sound of the sixties, punk, folk, twee
pop, industrial, and synthesized minimalism. And I’m not just talking about
Guided by Voices’ eclectic annual contribution. I’m talking about Psychobabble’s Ten Greatest Albums of 1992!
10. Hey Babe by Juliana Hatfield
While a lot of independent groups were getting grungy or
disturbingly surreal or channeling The Smiths in the late eighties, Boston’s
Blake Babies were a fresh breath of pure pop. As soon as the trio split in
1992, bandleader Juliana Hatfield didn’t waste a second getting her solo career
started, and she did so with her most Blake Babyish disc. Hey Babe is a smashing solo debut with all the sweet pop melody and
power pop guitar work of the Babies’ best. Yet tracks like “Nirvana”
(about Hatfield’s infatuation with the band with which everyone was infatuated
in ’92) and “Get Off Your Knees” indicate that she could get heavier on her own
than she had with her old band. Some critics sneered at Hatfield’s girlish
voice and accused her of being either too self-deprecating or too self-aggrandizing,
failing to realize how patronizing the former gripe is and how shortsighted the
latter one is. Just as a lot of critics missed the humor in Morrissey’s tales
of woe, they also let the subtle funniness of “Ugly” (“I’m ugleeeeee with a capital U”)
and the knowingly absurd “Everybody Loves Me But You” soar over their heads. As
over-the-top as these songs are, there is still a layer of true woe beneath
them that makes them work as humor and weepy diary entries. Maybe Hatfield was
channeling The Smiths after all. Not a bad band to channel.
9. Get Your Goat by Shudder to Think
By Frankensteining hard rock and indie rock with a sort of
angular artiness and Craig Wedren’s otherworldly wailing, Shudder to Think
forged one of the most unique sounds of the late eighties (Wedren’s
predilection for performing naked with a banana balanced on his shoulder gave
them a pretty unusual look too). However, it took them several tries to figure
out how to put that sound to best use. The band’s first two albums found the sound
coalescing but couldn’t sustain the same level of great material heard on the Ten Spot E.P. released between them.
Shudder to Think finally managed to produce an album’s worth of awesomeness for
Get Your Goat. Anyone could probably
stitch together a bunch of disparate and difficult influences, but not every
band can do it while also delivering hooks, and glammy tracks such as “Love
Catastrophe” and “Shake Your Halo Down” prove that Shudder to Think was more
than capable, while “Pebbles” shows just how much pop mileage they could get
out of a single, bizarre line. I defy anyone to hear it and not spend the next
week hiccupping “Poor little girl screaming traffic in her hair.” Shudder to
Think did not go easy on their audience, though, and both Wedren’s voice and
fractured pieces such as “Rain-Covered Cat” and “Funny” seem designed to clear
the uncommitted out of the room. The committed should probably be committed,
but they will also find themselves obsessed with a band unlike any other. Poor
little girl screaming traffic in her hair.
8. Eleventeen by Daisy Chainsaw
Daisy Chainsaw is another band with recognizable
influences—a bit of metal riffing, a bit of punk velocity, a bit of psychedelic
flightiness— who used those influences in a totally unique synthesis. Also like
Shudder to Think, Daisy Chainsaw got a lot of their personality from their
freaky lead singer. KatieJane Garside presents herself as a sort of mud faerie,
a waif splattered in filth whose cute coos and girly giggles inevitably froth
over into serial-killer shrieks. Opening tracks “I Feel Insane” and “You Be My
Friend” pretty much sum up the band’s mission: they are crazy and you will be
their friend, like it or not. From there they are either slashing out
outrageously killer riffs (the metal-mania “Dog with Sharper Teeth”, the
ass-wagging “Love Your Money”) or trying to freak you out with aural nightmares
(the queasy “Waiting for the Wolves” and “Everything is Weird”). With “Hope
Your Dreams Come True”, Daisy Chainsaw pull off both in a single show-stopping
package. With “Natural Man” they do the truly unthinkable by whipping off a
catchy little acoustic pop tune unlike anything else on the record. Set in a
bathtub, “Natural Man” also features pop’s best bait-and-switch fart joke.
7. Congregation by Afghan Whigs
There are germs of Afghan Whigs’ roguishness and soul
leanings on Up In It, but the unique
approach that separated them from the generic grunge scene didn’t crystallize until
Congregation. The band’s third album
is not only focused in vision with its fixation on back alley sexual politics,
self-loathing, and chemically induced surrender, but also totally consistent in
quality. Up In It jumbled great songs
with more forgettable ones. Congregation
shuffles really good tracks (“Kiss the Floor”, “This Is My Confession”, “Let Me
Lie to You”) with really great ones. Greg Dulli let’s himself go completely
with “I’m Her Slave”, the piano-driven “Turn on the Water”, “Conjure Me”,
“Dedicate It”, and the incredible bonus track “Miles Iz Ded”. You can
practically hear the drool splattering against the mic. On the acoustic
“Tonight”, the mania lets up but the intensity doesn’t. It’s a bit of a preview
of the more textured tone to come on the Whigs’ masterpiece, Gentlemen, and there is a bit of a
transitional flavor to Congregation,
but the album still holds up as a harrowing experience on its own. Plus a cover
of “The Temple” is the most listenable thing Jesus Christ Superstar ever spawned.
6. Smeared by Sloan
Anyone who came to the Sloan party a little late might be
surprised by the band’s beginnings. While Cheap Trick-Meets-The Beatles power
pop ruled the mass of Sloan’s future recordings, they entered the Halifax scene
with a noisier, indier sound deeply indebted to Isn’t Anything-era My Bloody Valentine. The band’s signature
poppiness was not exactly absent in songs too catchy for the real Valentine. In
fact, if you drain off the rivers of feedback that drown “Underwhelmed”, “I Am
the Cancer”, and “Take It In”, those tracks would be fit for Twice Removed— and you wouldn’t even
have to strip much from the appropriately sweet “Sugartune”, the dreamy “What’s
There to Decide?”, or the rapturous “500 Up”. “Raspberry”, “Marcus Said”, “Left
of Center”, “Lemonzinger”, and “Two Seater” are edgier, more innately
dissonant, and further removed than twice from subsequent Sloan discs. These
are the tracks that make Smeared cool
and unique, though the poppier ones are what make it excellent.
5. Automatic for the People by R.E.M.
R.E.M. had been genuine pop stars for a few years by 1992,
so they could afford to cash in on some of that commercial cred by taking their
music in a moodier direction than that of Green
or Out of Time. While those albums
had strong flashes of the dusky, acoustic mood that dominates Automatic for the People, they balanced
them with a lot of shiny, happy pop tunes. Aside from the giggly Dr.
Seuss/Tokens tribute “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” and the oddly romantic
Andy Kaufman memorial “Man on the Moon”, Automatic
keeps its chin down and its brow furrowed. This is even true when lyrics about
the naked bliss of swimming at night (“Nightswimming”) or fucking (“Star Me
Kitten”) don’t reflect such grimness. That dark tone makes Automatic for the People enchanting as a whole, even if its
relentless pop-culture referencing is a bit too cute and its centerpiece
“Everybody Hurts” is a lyrically and musically insipid ball of corn that demands a sprint to the “next”
button on your CD player. When it’s at its best, as it is with the elegant
“Nightswimming”, the clashing “Ignoreland”, the bitter “Monty Got a Raw Deal”, and
the woozy “Sweetness Follows”— a far less cloying boost of encouragement than
“Everybody Hurts” — Automatic for the
People is automatically one of R.E.M.’s best albums.
4. Marvin the Album by Frente!
At a time when thick, grungy guitars brewed in Seattle were
the major rage, Frente! must have seemed as though they came from another
place. For us Americans, they did come from another place—Australia—and I say
“must have,” because the band wasn’t really known in the States until their
debut album was finally released (with the addition of their cover of “Bizarre
Love Triangle” and the moving “No Time” and the loss of a couple of minor
tracks) in 1994. That’s when there was more of a framework for their sunny,
Kinky pop within the more expansive “alternative” scene, and Marvin the Album does feel perfectly in
tune with the multi colors of ’94 when likeminded artists such as The Cardigans, Parklife-era Blur, and ¡Simpatico!-era
Velocity Girl did their thing. So in its way, Marvin the Album both looks back to fresh sixties pop and forward
beyond the dull grays of grungy ’92. Each track is a lovely little nugget, and
though Angie Heart’s mile-wide smile is audible across most of them, Marvin is no village idiot. It begins on
a melancholic note with the dusky “Girl”, revisits that mood on “Pretty Friend”
and the break-out single “Labour of Love”, broods on “Reflect”, and expresses
outrage while playing the roles of El Salvadorians amidst a Civil War on the
jazzy “Cuscatlan”. That being said, the prevailing mood is happy, and
“Accidentally Kelly Street”, “Most Beautiful”, “See/Believe”, “Ordinary
Angels”, and “Dangerous” could be prescribed as mood altering drugs.
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Original
Soundtrack) by Angelo Badalamenti
Fans were furious when Twin
Peaks got the axe in 1991. Many were flummoxed when David Lynch served up
its feature-film prequel/sequel the following year, though critical assessment
of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has
certainly improved in recent years. Less controversial is its soundtrack album,
which has even been called the “best ever” by the NME (not to mention ME
without the N). Maestro Angelo
Badalamenti revisits and expands some themes used in the series, taking the
simple synthesizer pieces “New Shoes” and “Audrey’s Prayer” and swelling them
into the sensuous pure-jazz title theme and the stunningly beautiful “Questions
in a World of Blue” featuring Julee Cruise’s sad serenade respectively. Beyond
similar jazzy (“The Pine Float”, “Don’t Do Anything [I Wouldn’t Do]”, the too
dreamy “Moving Through Time”) and somberly synthy (the spellbinding “Voice of Love”) pieces,
Badalamenti adds colors new to the Peaks
palette. There’s the punishing blues “The Pink Room”, which pulses on a
sneering string bass riff, his own manic beatnik vocal on the rocking “A Real
Indication”, and one shadowy nook too dark and scary to describe called “The
Black Dog Runs at Night”. A mind-bending medley feels like a mini-Badalamenti’s
Greatest Hits by morphing from
nostalgic fifties pop to one of his saddest synth themes to a particularly
tear-jerking take on “Laura Palmer’s Theme” to the familiar yet still
transcendent TV theme song. As the cherry on this slice of pie, the Little
Jimmy Scott-crooned “Sycamore Trees”, one of Badalamenti and lyricist David
Lynch’s most mysterious concoctions, gets a second life after its use in the
gob-smacking final episode of the TV series. You may hate the film, but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is an
irresistibly dreamy slice of music.
2. Propeller by Guided by Voices
Guided by Voices hit their first major artistic peak in 1990
with the conceptual Same Place the Fly
Got Smashed, but that didn’t matter much when Robert Pollard was in debt
from self-financing albums too few people bought. Having lost core members
Mitch Mitchell and Kevin Fennell, Bob suspected that his band was coming to an
end and resolved to make one final GBV disc. This fond farewell would blossom
into a true labor of love finding the guys individually customizing each of its
500 LP sleeves and selecting the very best of Pollard’s bottomless barrel of
tunes. Since there wasn’t the controlling feel of the essential indie rocker Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia or the
doomy Same Place, Propeller ended up as the most eclectic
GBV release yet, highlighting everything the band did so well and often doing
so filtered through a cheap cassette four-track machine. There were pastiches
of big arena rock (“Over the Neptune”), psychedelia (“Mesh Gear Fox”, “Weed
King”), heavy metal (“Lethargy”, “Some Drilling Implied”), and hot-rod rock
(“Quality of Armour”, “Exit Flagger”), as well as classic Uncle Bob power pop
(“Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy”) and pure weirdness (“Particular Damaged”,
the odds-and-sods medley “Back to Saturn X Radio Report”, “Ergo Space Pig”).
There were also touches of tremendous beauty with “Red Gas Circle” and “14
Cheerleader Coldfront”, a collaboration with prodigal band mate Tobin Sprout.
And so through various circumstances, the album that was to be Guided by Voices’
goodbye pulled the unexpected trick of setting all the essential elements of
the band’s “classic” era—ultra-lo-fi recording, unfettered eclecticism, Tobin
Sprout—into place. Propeller ended up
vivifying interest in the band, which would go on to make a string of albums
that launched them into lo-fi legend. GBV! GBV!
1. 99.9F° by Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega had already proved she was much more than some
wan NYC folkie when she made the mysterious, multi-layered Days of Open Hand in 1990, but not enough people heard that record
for it to really change her rep. Then a few months later, the production team
known as DNA made a dance remix of the a capella “Tom’s Diner”, which became a
huge hit and a surprisingly successful marriage of Vega’s literacy with a
harder dance sound. Perhaps that is what inspired her to go further out on a
limb with her next personal project. With the assistance of producer Mitchell
Froom, Vega created a near-industrial landscape totally distinct from any of
her previous sounds and received her sharpest support yet from such aces as Richard Thompson, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, and MVP Bruce
Thomas, who contributes some of the most memorable bass lines of his career,
which is saying a lot. Vega puts such collaborators to good use with her best
selection of songs. While 99.9F° is
not exactly a concept album, there is a running theme of the body running off
course as Vega tells the tales of a patient dizzy after receiving a
traumatizing diagnosis (“Blood Makes Noise”), a woman coolly noting the
feverishness of her lover (the title track), a woman imagining the object of
her desire is addicted to diagnosis (“([If You Were] In My Movie”), a child
being examined for sexual abuse (“Bad Wisdom”), and former golden boys and
girls finally hitting bottom (“When Heroes Go Down”). In the twisty “As Girls
Go”, she stands back in amused confusion as a man takes full control of his
body by slipping into a more suitably feminine skin. With “In Liverpool”, she
creates her absolute masterpiece, a transcendent showcase of production
grandeur, Beatlesque tunefulness and arpeggios, Gothic-romance poetry, and
intense longing. The over-heated bodies often at the center of such lyrics receive
complimentary textures and temperatures in a record that sounds as fiery as its
flame-engulfed cover image, both because of Froom’s steam-works production and
Vega’s embracing of her voice’s latent sexiness. All of this makes for not
just the best album of 1992 and one of the best albums of the 1990s, but one of
the best albums of the entire pop era.
5 More Great Albums from 1992
Good by Morphine
Palomine by Bettie Serveert
Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion by The Black Crowes
Wish by The Cure
5 More Great Albums from 1992
Good by Morphine
Palomine by Bettie Serveert
Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion by The Black Crowes
Wish by The Cure