Popmatters Best Alternative Singles of the 90's

Putting aside the egregious editing mistake in the header -- note that this is a singles list, not a songs list -- this is a rare 90's listicle with results that I mostly agree with.  The methodology behind the SINGLES list is described here, and keep scrolling to see the full list.  

The one song per artist rule is a necessary one for this kind of project, so good on Popmatters for realizing it unlike many other sites compiling similarly themed lists.  They strike a good balance between different corners of the 90's alt-universe, American (grunge, nu-metal) and British (Britpop, shoegaze) fad genres are all here, and just about all the uncategorizable key bands (REM, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, many more) are featured.  It's very much a white male dominated list, but that was alternative in the 90's.  Other genres (electronic, hip-hop) were more varied in that regard, let's not retroactively pretend that POC-dominated bands were unjustly ignored by the grunge scene.  And finally, the #1 single is entirely predictable, and as noted in the write-up, there is really no other choice for #1.  It's nice to see a list that doesn't try to distinguish itself through surprise choices and controversial re-writes of the canon.  

There are two weaknesses here.  First, I have the notion that  Popmatters had an internal struggle between featuring cult bands vs commercial bands, and often flexed toward the former.   If Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews, and U2 are alternative, then where are the other alt-lite acts like Semisonic and Matchbox 20?  I feel like they wanted to make this a more commercial list, but held something back.   

Second, they sometimes choose singles that have gained more prestige over the years, instead of choosing more obvious singles from the same album that were considerably bigger at the time.  For instance, Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" became more of a signature song after Johnny Cash recorded it.  But at the time, "March of the Pigs" or "Closer" were far bigger and more characteristic of the popularity of "The Downward Spiral".  For No Doubt, why choose "Spiderwebs" over approximately five more massive hits (unless we're getting into the radio single vs physical single argument, in regards to songs like "Don't Speak" which was never released as a physical single)?  "If You Tolerate This ..." was a #1 hit for the Manics in the UK, but it's hardly their breakthrough song and was released after they peaked creatively.  But most of the time, they don't get cute and chose an obvious genre-defining, band-defining single.

p.s. where is 1999?  Just one song is represented (Flaming Lips, "Race For the Prize) 

IPO dir. Lahav Shani, Martha Argerich (Jeans concert)

Tonight's concert was wonderfully varied and was headlined by the sensational Martha Argerich playing Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1.  I have to admit that I didn't care for the work, it's a showcase for all the weird tonalities and dissonances that characterize the composer a bit too much.  IOW, too Shostakovich-y for me.  But the ageless Argerich (83 years young) displayed incredible dexterity in performing the work as well as she did.

The night opened with the delightful "Overture on Hebrew Themes" by Prokofiev, but the highlight for me was Bruch's "Kol Nidre" arranged for cello and orchestra.  Although it was exclusively associated with Yom Kippur for me as a child (through performances at synagogue -- permitted in Reform traditions), tonight's performance proves that the piece is magnificent enough to transcend all religious and cultural boundaries.  Bruch and Prokofiev, both non-Jews, captured a Jewish cultural essence through simple admiration for Jews and Jewish themes.  Such empathetic practices seem nearly impossible in today's climate.  Shostakovich also composed many Jewish themed pieces, during times in Soviet Russia when it was politically risky to do so. 

In addition, the music was a creative bit of programming that broke from the rut of featuring the same standard composers and repertoire far too often, a clear weakness of IPO schedules of recent years.        

Movietone, "The Blossom Filled Streets"

I was surprised to see an album by the fourth best act from the second most famous 90's Bristol scene featured in Pitchfork's Sunday review.  This feature is supposed to highlight notable albums from the past, and this has to be one of the most (if not the most) obscure album of the series.  

Don't get me wrong -- I'm overjoyed to read feature articles about the second most famous (but musically superior) 90's Bristol scene.  And I know why this review exists, that's clear based on the final paragraphs, in which Mark Richardson tells about a chance Movietone live encounter in 2000.  You can't short-change him his memories, similar music-related experiences were probably the best parts of my twenties. But let's not get carried away.  This isn't a "lost classic", it wasn't underappreciated in its time, and there's no narrative that requires uncovering.  

This isn't to say that "The Blossom Filled Streets" shouldn't be heard by more people (surely one of the motivations behind the review), and its rating (8.6) is more than fair.  Richardson isn't grossly exaggerating his case by giving it a retroactive 10 and proclaiming it the best album you've never heard.  But I think this review is symptomatic of an odd trend in modern music criticism, one that I wrote about with a different Sunday Review for Lush.  

Many writers grew up on music criticism from the 80's and 90's.  We regularly read about underappreciated acts from the 60's and 70's.  The Velvet Underground became a myth.  Can became legends outside of their time.  All the proto-punk bands from the late 60's onwards (MC5, Stooges, too many more to name) were anointed as the godfathers of something or other.  Helping to rediscover and promote such bands -- and getting credit as a visionary for doing so -- was the apex of music criticism, just about the loftiest goal one could aspire to.  

Naturally, this generation's writers want to emulate the greats of the past.  But there's a key difference.  When the Velvet Underground were active, the music press was in its infancy.  Criticism was a niche topic, and countless bands came and went virtually unnoticed.  Even the bands that did get noticed tended to flummox the writers of the time, who were still learning how to write about music in an engaging way.  I covered this in a post about then-contemporary criticism of the VU.  But that's not true anymore.  Virtually nothing falls through the cracks, just about every album of note gets pored over in countless reviews and message board posts.  That's certainly true of any band who featured in a celebrated music scene or recorded for a prestige label.  It means that there aren't many underappreciated bands to dig up anymore.  The problem is that some writers insist on trying, searching for a new angle to prop up their pet projects.  I'm sure I have been guilty of it too at times.  

Movietone were properly appreciated in their time.  They were a mid-tier band in a cool microscene that I personally enjoyed very much.  Nobody was under any illusions about Third Eye Foundation or Flying Saucer Attack going mega and supporting U2 on a massive world tour.  But 25-30 years after the fact, "properly rated band that I personally used to like" isn't much of a selling point for a major review.  This brings us to the enhanced prose to describe "The Blossom Filled Streets": "an ethereal and luminescent highlight of the underground Bristol scene" goes the byline.  Not every fine yet enigmatic band from the past needs to be elevated into a folk tale.  I think Richardson appreciates this, based on the final few paragraphs of his review.  However, there are contradictory messages here.  "One of the beautiful things about Movietone is that they're almost always written about as a spoke in their local scene's wheel."  So they're an extraordinary band deserving of this effervescent review ... precisely because they were so ordinary?     

After reading this review, I listened to "The Blossom Filled Streets" for the first time in many years, and it was like effortlessly slipping back into an old, warm jacket.  Each song was immediately familiar, and I was overcome with wistful feelings associated with this music.  The years that had passed simply melted away in an instant.  I did in fact listen to this album quite a lot back in the day -- probably more than I had realized, based on how familiar it all seemed.  It was a nice feeling, but that's about all.  And that's just fine.     

 

IPO dir. Philippe Jordan: Schubert Symphony #8 (Unfinished), Bruckner Symphony #3

Two great works by two symphonic masters -- and also a daring bit of programming.  Schubert's Unfinished is by far the more popular work, but it's not the headliner.  It takes guts to program Schubert's brooding masterpiece and follow it up with arguably the most humourless of the major symphonic composers.  

I wasn't familiar with Jordan before tonight but he impressed me with his flowing, lyrical style and masterful sense of pacing.  I always think of the first movement of the Unfinished as the "fast" movement and the second as the "slow" movement, but Jordan reverses that.  The first movement is meticulous, deliberate and intense, with a surprising emphasis on the brass.  The second movement is shockingly and refreshingly upbeat and full of Viennese charm.  It all sounds effortless, and stands in contrast to the steadiness the first movement.

For the Bruckner, Jordan does his best to hold things together while the orchestra struggles through a few sloppy moments in accents and timing.  The director of the Vienna State Opera just has to know his Bruckner, but the IPO comes across as underprepared and uninvested in one of Bruckner's lesser symphonies.  Since it's also one of his shortest, it works as the post-intermission headliner without burning out the audience too much.  Credit goes to Jordan for keeping things moving through the long opening movements, and wringing the energy from the orchestra during the scherzo and the finale, even though the latter is a bit underplayed.  

Schumann*Gardiner, "Complete Symphonies"

John Eliot Gardiner's recordings of Schumann's orchestral works are both celebrated and controversial – it depends on who you ask.  Gardiner wanted to counter the widely held opinion that Schumann was a poor orchestrator.  In the liner notes to this three disc set, he dismisses this notion as a "myth" that can be debunked by re-framing these works in period instrument performance and orchestration.  In this instance, it calls for no more than 50 players, with the violas and violins standing, and fewer instrument groups, all with the intention of reconstructing the orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus of Schumann’s time.  In other words (again, according to Gardiner), this was the orchestra that Schumann was accustomed to and for which he was orchestrating. 

There is something very refreshing about Gardiner's approach.  Sometimes Schumann can come across as colourless, although in the case of the Fourth Symphony, it's crushing bluntness in doubling up many of the instruments is precisely what I love about it.  However, Gardiner's leaner ensemble produces a less adventurous timbre but also a more consolidated one.   The tempos are consistently more brisk than most Schumann sets, the percussion is sharp and bracing, making for an often exhilarating listen.  This is a fascinating and often incendiary take on Schumann.

Having said that, I really couldn't care less about Schumann's "true" intentions, whatever that means.  It's interesting as a historical perspective into the origins of the work.  Since when is art only meant to be enjoyed in a singular manner, representative of an all-seeing eminent truth, frozen for all eternity?  And since when does the creator of said art get exclusive rights to present that truth?  I'm reminded of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", apparently "intended" by Cohen to be a plastic, faux-launge mid-80's soft rock track.   But the song turned into something else thanks to John Cale's cover, and Jeff Buckley's cover of Cale's cover, and then the dozens of versions that followed it.  "Hallelujah" turned it into the "Imagine" of the 00's, and yet I have never heard anyone pontificate on Cohen's "true" intentions for the song, and advocate for a return to the original recording, stylistically speaking.  Over the years the song morphed into something else and affected a lot more people than Cohen's original recording ever did.  That's the story of "Hallelujah", and that's not going to change whether Cohen could foretell it's future of not.  

I would argue the same to be true about the Schumann orchestrations.  Reviews such as these get a bit too hung up on settling aesthetic scores with period instrument practitioners, and the period instrument people are too focused on proving themselves right.  Theirs is a conception of the music, just as valid as any other.   

 

re: Spotify, "The playlist model meant listeners didn't have a relationship with the artists"

The sentence above is the money line from Elizabeth Lopatto's piece about Spotify for The Verge.  She's ostensibly writing a book review about Liz Pelly's "Mood Machine", but she spins it off into her own analysis and some thoughtful criticism on what the book isn't, rather than what it is.  

I like playlists.  Even back in the days of Pandora, I loved the "if you liked that, maybe you'll like this too" approach to sequencing and recommending music.  I have discovered a lot of great new music through playlists.  But it's hard to argue with the notion that many people have outsourced their taste in music to algorithms.  Spotify playlists may be the 21st century muzak -- always in the background, never commanding the listeners' attention.  

Nobody wants to return to the bad old days of $20 CDs and no outlet for buying anything less than the full album when it's only the single that you want.  Having hundreds of thousands of songs available on demand is a minor miracle that was unimaginable to my former teenage self.   But it has created a different problem.  Music is now an accessory, not a commodity.  It's too cheap, and cheap things have little value by definition.  During the peak of file sharing, many noted that music collections had lost their value.  Nobody was going to proudly display and treasure a CD of burned mp3's or an iPod hard drive whose contents were always changing.  And now?  With streaming, most people don't even have a music collection anymore.  The result is that songs drift in and out of our headspaces, and listeners don't connect to the artists who create the music.  Beyond their so very cheap subscriptions to streaming services, listeners feel no loyalty toward artists, and don't spend the money to support them financially.  

Pelly and Lopatto don't have the solution to this problem, and neither do I.  Their central theses appear sound (I haven't read Pelly's book) -- the complex monetization policies of streaming services are a disaster for all but the most successful contemporary and legacy artists.  Lopatto doesn't see why indie labels should matter, but to me it's clear.  The labels are a stamp of quality.  Association with a cool label is just about the best marketing strategy available to an up and coming non-mainstream act.  The labels don't always need to supply the production expertise and studio time, not when many DIY musicians can record at home.  Being with the label means the artist instantly becomes part of a history and a legacy.  That's a powerful marketing tool and a provides a big incentive for listening.