Tag: Neutral Milk Hotel
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Thank You, Next
Scope &
Horror
Yeah, this one is pretty ugly too, so let’s slog through.
16. You Oughta Know -Alanis Morrissette (Jagged Little Pill, 1995, Maverick and Reprise)
I don’t like this song, though I suppose I did the first couple of times I heard it. Then it was several hundred more times, and several hundred more after that, and I do not like it. There are songs I dislike a whole lot more, but this one would never make any playlist I am making unless I have a lobotomy. Also, I have never forgiven her for writing a song about irony filled with non-ironic things, although in the end, I guess that kind of makes the song itself ironic, which was not what she was going for I don’t think.
Oh! And my favorite Alanis Morrissette-based trivia (no, not that one). She was on the straight-from-Canada-to-Nickelodeon kids’ sketch comedy show You Can’t Do That On Television as a tween. My sisters and I watched a lot of hours of that show. SLN did a spot-on parody of it a few weeks ago:
Final Verdict: No.
Replace with: Wild Thing – Liz Phair (Girly-Sound, 1991, self-released)
17. Are You Gonna Go My Way – Lenny Kravitz (Are You Gonna Go My Way, 1993, Virgin)
This is a good song. I will leave as is.
Are You Gonna Go My Way – Lenny Kravitz (Are You Gonna Go My Way, 1993, Virgin)
18. All the Small Things – Blink 182 (Enema of the State [witty], 1999, MCA Records)
There were five to ten of these bands in the late 90s that I would not be able to tell apart with a gun to my head and none of them are good. I listened to this whole playlist while I worked over the past few days just to be thorough, and I can confirm that this song is not good.
Final Verdict: No. I could be a smart ass and write it 182 times, but I think too highly of you to have you waste any more seconds of your life on this band.
Replace with: All Your Experiments – Elf Power (Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs, 1995, Arena Rock Recording)
19. Sabotage – Beastie Boys (Ill Communication, 1994, Capitol)
I have given up on the but-they-were-popular-in-the-80s argument. I mean they were, but whatever. I mean, they did form in 1981, and Licensed to Ill came out in 1986, but we will carry on. It’s a good song.
Final Verdict: Good song. It stays.
Sabotage – Beastie Boys (Ill Communication, 1994, Capitol)
20. Firestarter – The Prodigy (The Fat of the Land, 1997, Maverick)
I did not know what this song was until I played it, and of course, it is instantly recognizable. I was not a club kid by any stretch of the imagination, but on the times that I did (a handful of times when I lived in Portland, Maine and another handful of times when I lived in Philadelphia), this song was certainly played. I don’t don’t like it. I wouldn’t listen to it every day, but I am feeling generous, and the commenters on YouTube live for this song, so I will leave it.
Final Verdict: Staying, with a sort of ambivalence, but as you have probably noticed, when I don’t like something, I am pretty clear about it. For the record, I think the singer in the music video looks moronic, but maybe that was what he was going for. Also, I looked moronic a lot in the 90s too. And the aughts, and so on.
Firestarter – The Prodigy (The Fat of the Land, 1997, Maverick)
21. Glycerine – Bush (Sixteen Stone, 1994, Interscope)
No. I can’t get behind this band. I think they are at best meh. Kind of like Coldplay, like maybe you could catch yourself liking a song or two, but then just feel embarrassed about it. Their songs are boring, and there are far too many great ones out there to waste time on this horse shit.
Final Verdict: Horse shit.
Replace with: Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, 1998, Merge)
22. Today – Smashing Pumpkins (Siamese Dream, 1993, Virgin)
No, this band is boring.
Final Verdict: No.
Replace with: Truly Great Thing – Sebadoh (III, 1991, Homestead)
23. Everlong – Foo Fighters (The Color and Shape, 1997, Roswell Records)
You already know from the first song that I don’t like the Foo Fighters, though I have not heard all of their songs. I do like the song Times Like These, but I don’t like this one.
Final Verdict: No, sadly. Really truly, I admire Dave Grohl quite a bit.
Replace with: Styrofoam Boots – Modest Mouse (The Lonesome Crowded West, 1997, Up)
24. My Own Worse Enemy – Lit (A Place in the Sun, 1999, RCA Records)
Another song and band I do not remember having heard of before, but I can see why this song hates itself.
Final Verdict: No.
Replace with: A Minor Place – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billie (I See a Darkness, 1999, Palace)
25. Come as You Are – Nirvana
Yes, I don’t want to be too hard on this album. It deserves acclaim.
Final Verdict: Yes, good song.
Come as You Are – Nirvana (Nevermind, 1991, DCG)
Scope & Horror
dedicated to votaries of the absurd, beautiful, miserable, and suspicious
2022
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[…] Read Part 1: I Was There: ’90s Music […]
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FU2
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Some of you might be asking what have I done to prepare for the final word on such a list, and I will have you all know that I have as of late re-watched all the seasons of Seinfeld to get myself in the right frame of mind; I am wearing a t-shirt and boxers as outwear, and on Sunday, I re-watched Point Break (it holds up).
Read Part 1: I Was There: ’90s Music
Highlights: Neutral Milk Hotel, Yo La Tengo, Elliott Smith, and Tool. Bonus: More Remembering Headbangers Ball
Okay, this next segment is quite a doozy, and I don’t have a lot of good things to say about it. It features one of my most-loathed bands of all time, and a host of other sub-par picks, so let’s dive in.
6. One – U2 (Achtung Baby, 1991, Island)
U2 has absolutely no business being on this list. By 1990, they had like 4 hit records, played at Live Aid, a movie and a double album based on the movie. Their inclusion on any list regarding “alternative” anything is astonishingly oxymoronic.
Also, I do not like them, but it doesn’t matter because again they do not belong here.
Final Verdict: No. Every song I have ever heard by U2 sounds like a song you are kind of supposed to like, maybe even want to like, but just winds up annoying you.
Replace With: Initially, I was going to try to limit to only songs from the 1990s that I knew in the 1990s, and not later but I broke that rule with the very first song. So, let’s bump Bono the f off of here with one of my favorite bands Neutral Milk Hotel – Everything Is from The Hype City Soundtrack (1993, The Egg as a Whole Music). I have never found an actual copy of this soundtrack, but it is really good and on YouTube.
7. Basket Case – Green Day (Dookie, 1994, Reprise)
This one is a tough call because I really loved this album at the time, but I don’t like them anymore. Before this album came out, I had probably heard a few of their songs and knew that they had toured with Bad Religion. They had skateboard park approval as far as I know (I do not skateboard, but as I told you in yesterday’s post, I had reason to be interested in their opinions and spent a stupid amount of time at skateparks, but I suppose anything was better than being home). Anyway, before this album, they seemed like a palatable enough band.
In the summer of 1994, I listened to this album a lot with my friend Amanda. A lot, a lot. I can barely recall listening to anything else, except maybe also a NOFX dubbed cassette tape that someone must have made for me. Possibly my friend Maryann.
They were on MTV and obviously very popular, and then they were huge and no self-respecting alterna-teen would be caught dead listening to them by October. And so it remained. I think Billy Joe Armstrong’s voice is pretty annoying now, but I do remember digging it.
P.S. I rediscovered the song She. Oh my god, this song spoke to me in 10th grade. I loved this song, I must give it its proper due. I still like it, but mostly for the nostalgia, it brings.
Final Verdict: Fine, but again, please remember that in real-time, they got way too big to be cool. This was very important to us for some reason.
Better: Yo La Tengo – Sugarcube (I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, 1997, Matador Records)
8. Under the Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers (Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 1991, Warner Bros.)
Another tough one. I really loved the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, though the misspelling has always bothered me. I have never liked this song. Other than this song, I would listen to them now if I heard them on the radio, but never really otherwise. Anthony Kiedis was excellent in Point Break.
Oh, negative points for the nauseating Rolling Stone cover where they are all wearing just socks on their junk. I would confirm it was Rolling Stone, but then I would also have to see the picture again, so apologies if the reference is incorrect.
Final Verdict: No. I don’t like this song. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. I think songs from then that I did not like make me so angry because I heard them so many times. The thing my children will never understand is that we just watched MTV, whether we liked the music video that was playing or not. We just waited them out. Kind of like how we just read shit that was there, which is also how I happened to read the autobiography of Lance Armstrong. The whole thing. I can’t explain.
Better: Elliott Smith – The Biggest Lie I hesitate to put this in here so early, because I think it is one of the most heartbreaking songs ever written, and I could not tell you how many likely thousands of times I have listened to it. It probably deserved a better setup, but I search randomly through a group of albums I have written down for this, so here you are and you’re welcome.
9. Been Caught Stealing – Jane’s Addiction (Ritual de lo Habitual, 1990, Warner Bros.)
Jane’s Addiction is kick-ass. You may have noticed yesterday that I mentioned watching Headbangers Ball? My relationship with music had some weird phases. I definitely remember listening to 45s in between Disney Storytime Records and being young enough to not understand why my parents laughed at us when we sang along with The Horny Toad, the B-side of Prince’s single Delirious.
I was absolutely too young to see Flashdance, but somehow I did and loved it (doesn’t every 6-year-old kind of want to become a pseudo-stripper dancer?)
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