Jamwise #40 - Best Albums of 1992, pt. 2

Featuring: Alice in Chains, The Cure, Aphex Twin, PJ Harvey, Stone Temple Pilots, Sonic Youth, Arrested Development

It’s going to be hard to find another year as jam-packed with classic albums as 1992. In part 2 alone we’ve got 4 legendary debuts - legends who were somehow left out of the RS top 500 list - not to mention some of the key 90’s grunge-heroes whose albums lined the walls of my childhood basement / music dungeon. OK, fine, it wasn’t a dungeon, it was a semi-finished basement where I was banished when I was practicing my guitar and playing my silly CD’s. OK, OK, you got me, I wasn’t banished, I went down there so nobody had to hear me feverishly trying to figure out the guitar riff to “Down In A Hole” for the ten thousandth time. And I had a pair of $4 headphones and a Walkman so I wasn’t disturbing anybody.

And on top of all that, there’s another pile of 1992 albums that deserve a nod, I just didn’t have enough time to listen to them all. I may never make it out of 1992. Oh well.

Part 1’s selections can be found here:

Jamwise #39 - Best of 1992, Pt. 1

Dirt - Alice In Chains

Crawling, grimy, oily, grungy metal. I find the constant harmonization an unusual choice for metal, but it works adding a droning, atmospheric effect to the crunchy guitar and pounding drums. It’s more like the sound of a group of warlocks chanting in the forest than to Crosby, Stills & Nash’s harmonies. Like an old barbershop a capella group but the barbershop they work in doesn’t actually cut hair, they just make you grow it to your shoulders.

Alice in Chains is capable of creating some truly grimy sounds, but they’re such well-rounded musicians. The deep musicianship is an overlooked aspect of many metal bands, but AiC takes it a step further with their acoustic arrangements (not to mention their incredible MTV Unplugged performance where they really showed off their talent). Grunge will never be everyone’s favorite, but this is among the best of the genre.

Jams

• “Them Bones”

• “Down In A Hole”

• “Rooster”

• “Would?”

Wish - The Cure

It’s a shame that the silliest song on this album is the one everyone knows - I associate the Cure with “Friday I’m In Love,” and that song, when taken out of context, just makes them sound like an insipid and unserious pop group, and not in the way I often like. That song kind of feels like a restaurant a friend of mine worked at one time - it’s known for its fantastic and creative food, but in the end cheeseburger sales pay the bills. “Friday I’m In Love” is the Cure’s cheeseburger song, fodder for the pop culture sphere that has little to do with the artistic achievement of the rest of this album. I don’t know how the band feels about that song, but I’d probably be sick of it by now. It seems meant as an ironic counterpoint to the brooding songs surrounding it on this album, like an inverted “build tension and then release it” technique, but one where the public missed the point and took the song at face value. Taken ironically, it fits and accentuates the rest of the album through contrast. But taken literally and on its own, it’s the worst song on a great album. 

Jams

• “Apart”

• “Doing The Unstuck”

• “A Letter To Elise”

Selected Ambient Works  85—92 - Aphex Twin

Widely considered a major inspiration (or copypasta) for Radiohead’s Kid A, by an artist who doesn’t like Radiohead. I feel kind of justified in my, shall we say, infinite confusion about the near-universal love of Kid A after hearing this album. It’s superior and came earlier. It’s original. It’s unpretentious. It’s smart. It’s perfect for deep focus on something else or deep introspective listening. Ambient music isn’t even my favorite - I have a pretty low hit rate even among the greats of the genre. But this is something else entirely, and I’m happy to say I’ve found ambient electronic music I actually enjoy. IDM, the genre Aphex Twin helped pioneer, is appropriately named based on this excellent example - Intelligent Dance Music. 

I think there are different ways to show intelligence through music. Some might think it means to overcomplicate things, to make crazy 13/5 time signatures and confuse the hell out of people, obscuring the point of the music so much that they can claim “you’re just not smart enough to get it” when there’s really nothing to get. Others might turn to wild concepts that require a companion novel and an astrophysics degree to understand. But Aphex Twin’s music is intelligent because it’s understandable, yet still keeps you guessing at every turn. It twists the everyday sounds into something totally warped yet cohesive, like an alien with a different grasp of physics. It doesn’t need to rely on gimmicks or wacky concepts or lyrical obtuseness. And for that, this gets my vote for the most “I” of the IDM I’ve heard so far.

Jams

• “Xtal”

• “Ageispolis”

Dry - PJ Harvey

Another insanely impressive debut. PJ Harvey’s first album is the definition of raw energy. In her own words, she performed this album as if it would be her only chance to ever make one - and how fortunate we are that she was wrong. It feels like she was exploring another possible evolution of rock - this isn’t following in anyone’s footsteps. She ignores the broader alt-rock and grunge-rock trends and makes a path towards something totally her own. It’s both complementary and completely different to the other guitar rock of the day.

I didn’t register PJ Harvey’s music in youth because I was in my basement reading Guitar World, worshipping 20-year-old classic rock music and the occasional present-day guitar slinging band instead of keeping up with the times. And I would have undoubtedly loved her music. No ragrets, as they say - we’ll undoubtedly come across PJ many more times, and I can’t wait.

Jams

• “O Stella”

• “Dress”

Core - Stone Temple Pilots

STP’s debut is straightforward and purified grunge rock - this might be what they’d put next to the encyclopedia entry for Grunge if encyclopedias still existed. I get that grunge might not hit a lot of people the right way - the emotions involved are less subtle human expressions and more of a wordless shout of mixed frustration, determination, anger, and a little bit of swagger all rolled into one. Maybe it’s not the deepest genre in the world, but this is a well-developed example of smart people making heavy rock music without just succumbing to the temptation of hiding behind epic guitar riffs (not that those are missing here). Maybe they do sound like Pearl Jam crossed with Alice In Chains - but such is the way of genres. Look at today’s music, look at 1970’s music, and you’ll find clusters of artists that sound identical to each other from the perspective of outsiders. This is how music devleops, how genres grow; through a bunch of talented bands exploring the depths of the sounds together. True invention isn’t real - iteration is how greatness really gets made. And STP iterates on the greatness of the bands around them with stellar results.

So many of these songs have stayed with us over the years that it’s mind-boggling. Just try to listen to a rock radio station for an hour without hearing “Dead and Bloated” or “Plush”. This music inspires a deep nostalgia for me since grunge (and rock music if you’re a pessimist) has more or less disappeared from popular music. It’s got all the classic elements of the things Millennials are most nostalgic for - it’s from the 90’s, it’s gone, and modern kids would probably hate it. But dang, do I love STP.

Jams

• “Dead and Bloated”

• “Plush”

• “Sex Type Thing”

• “Wicked Garden”

• “Creep”

• “Piece Of Pie”

Dirty - Sonic Youth

You can almost hear the sound of grunge seeping into their signature tone. This album has such a different sound from Goo - a fact most people chalk up to the pop-leaning production and more polished sound than many of the band’s previous releases. Every review I read references how much Sonic Youth fans hate this album compared to their discography, but I don’t get that. I might need that one explained to me by one of the wiser denizens of the musicStack world.

Jams

• “Drunken Butterfly”

• “Theresa’s Sound World”

3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of… - Arrested Development

Living in the southern US is a complex blend of emotions. This album, by a group from Atlanta, deep in the heart of the south, captures many of the less discussed aspects of the south beautifully - it’s a story of terrible history, lingering prejudice, economic struggle, yet also one of faith and family and relentless optimism.

It plays like a response to the east coast / west coast gangsta rap scene, offering people a hip hop voice that doesn’t endorse the violence and anti-glamor of the mainstream artists of the era, the Ice Cubes of the world. It’s introspective where its peers fought over slights to their outward images. It’s about love where much of the 1992 hip hop world glorified violence. In short, it’s powerful enough to make you drop everything and listen, and when you’re done you have to sit in silent contemplation for a while.

Jams

• “Dawn Of The Dreads”

• “Mr. Wendal”