Music advent II - 1993-98

[mellicious]

More picks from #musicadvent - I continue to not be terribly creative about this. My taste is more, y'know, mainstream alternative than real alternative. - Yeah, I know "mainstream alternative" is totally a contradiction in terms, but I bet you know what I mean, too.

(Here was the first group.)

I didn't get around to actually posting this one on Twitter, but for 1993 I went with "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" from The Proclaimers. I have a definite tendency to pick songs that have worn well for this, and I loved this song from the moment they played it at the beginning of Benny & Joon and I still love it today. (Notes on the video: the Proclaimers are still sort of adorably geeky, and I still think, as I'm pretty sure I thought then, that Aidan Quinn is cuter here than Depp, for all that Depp's Keatonesque schtick is the star of the video. My god, Depp is really young, though.)

(Aside: I checked and this was after Edward Scissorhands and just before Gilbert Grape. So pretty early on in Depp's career. I suspect I wasn't completely past thinking he was just that guy from 21 Jump Street.)

I also have an honorable mention from 1993, and that's Creep. Because it was creepy and great then and it still is now.

Oh yeah, and I linked to this the other day when I was talking about movies, but it bears repeating here, because both these came from this list: 20 songs you can't believe are 20 years old

I'll lump my 1994 and 1998 picks together, because they're both Pearl Jam. "Corduroy" for 1994, and "Given to Fly" for 1998. Not much alike, really, other than both being Pearl Jam songs! - This is a version of Corduroy with the lyrics, and to tell you the truth (and I am fighting the urge to delete this little confession) I had never figured out exactly what Eddie was singing about. I have a tendency sometimes to listen to the music of songs and ignore the lyrics. I could have come up with part of the lyrics to this, but not the whole thing. And I'd certainly never heard the part about the replica corduroy shirt that apparently inspired the whole thing.

This one has the lyrics in Spanish, which I for one can't really translate anyway, but oh well.

There might be a part 3 in which I discuss more of these later, but here's what else I've picked so far:
1995 - You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette

1997 - Push, Matchbox 20

For 1996, I didn't get around to posting anything - I can't remember now if it was because I was late or because nothing from that year really stood out, but for your perusal, this was my shortlist, which came from this list:

Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla

One Of Us, Joan Osborne

Name, Goo Goo Dolls

Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel

Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman

(There's also the #1 song, which is **cough** a classic: Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio)

holidailies.org

Comments

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

1996, One of Us, absolutely. It was such an arresting song (and I thought also beautifully shot video). I remember thinking that this is how the Church should market itself, but of course nearly every religious figure condemned it as offensive and blasphemous (though I do recall at least one priest saying, yeah, that's what I want people to realize -- God is among us and wants our love, but he got drowned out in foolish outrage).

For 1997, how about Brick by Ben Folds Five? I know it's an utterly bleak song, and for me at least, 1997 was a terrific year when I stopped full-time legal practice and started teaching law school in Buffalo. But the song totally went with the late fall leaden skies up there, and it seemed to be on the radio every time I was driving to or from campus, so it's indelibly associated with that time in my life, even though mine was upbeat and exciting.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd agree that One of Us is without a doubt the best song of that year - I think somebody else had already picked it, though, so that's why I was sort of casting around for something else.

I always did like Brick but that one didn't even occur to me. (Figuring out what songs go with what year is kind of the hardest part of this, for me!)

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, remembering years without a hook to the song is hard. I remembered Brick from '97 because it was my one year in Buffalo and was on the radio all the time. It's like Human League's Don't You Want Me, which is burned into my head as 1982 because I was in Europe that summer, and it got a lot of play there. But yeah, take One of Us, if you said it was '95 or '94 I'd completely believe you because I remember watching the video in NYC in my early 30s, but I couldn't by memory alone pin down when.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Early-80s music, I can mostly tell you the general time-frame within a year or two, at least, because I watched MTV a lot and probably knew more about the music business than at any other time in my life. One of my close friends was really into the British New Wave, too, and got me interested and we used to spend time reading those British music magazines like NME and such, and poking around Waterloo Records looking for import singles. (I think I still have some EPs in a closet somewhere around here.)

More recent music, yeah, I can maybe put a year to songs where I can match it up with what I was doing at the time - like 2000-2001, when I had my brief fling with Napster and spent hours downloading stuff. Other than that, it's hard to remember.