southern alt-rock, kurt redux, and faux industrial.

38 the refreshments
fizzy fuzzy big & buzzy
1996

hit single: "banditos"
$4.59 on amazon

what's worse than having a record by the band that does the king of the hill theme song on this list is that if this was 1996, i would have said this was the best record of the year, and i would have been elated to hear they were going to write the theme for "the new simpsons." yet despite its bar band twang and incessant fascination with mexico, booze, and hookers, it still manages to have a place in my heart because of its carefree southern melodies, which probably opened the door for my interest in old 97s, wilco, and, well, that's about it. also i remember that the drax hated all music until he heard the refreshments and we finally had something musical to bond over. and that's something that i will never forget (along with that cartoon babe on the album cover! schwing!). i guess the singer roger clyne got his own band that's popular with the aging hippies and that's why this album is actually decently priced on amazon? key non-single tracks: blue collar suicide, european swallo, down together

37 silverchair
frogstomp
1995

hit single: "tomorrow"
$0.35 on amazon

believe it or not, it was indeed a trio of sixteen-year-old australians that introduced me to this notion of modern instrumental music with their track "madman" that was a lot of dirty power chord riffage and then at the end of the 2.5 minutes, daniel johns screams "madman!" and i'm slouched over in the bus on my way to my sixth grade classroom and i think to myself: "whoa, that was the only word in the whole song. cool." but yes, i initially fell in love with the album for the same reasons most skinny pale boys with girly long hair did: the second coming of kurt. almost precisely a year after his death mtv starts spinning this warped video with a pig-dude grumbling emotively over sludgy (read: incompetent) yet sparkling instrumentation and everyone gets all lusty over a new grunge hero. but it just turned out it was three hormonal kids with accents and a wealthy father. false alarm. key non-single tracks: israel's son, pure massacre, madman

36 filter
short bus
1995

hit single: "hey man nice shot"
$0.53 on amazon

i kinda wanted to be a goth kid when i was going through my changes as an eleven-year-old. my brother loved nine inch nails and i thought that piano outro at the end of that dirty song that lazer 103 played sometimes after midnight was really pretty. but ultimately, i was just too much of a wuss. but every once in a while, i liked me some screaming, as long as, you know, the lyrics didn't make me feel icky and it wasn't too loud. and thus, filter's debut was everything i wanted to rebel and still be embraced by general society. in fact, the only time i honestly remember laughing at beavis and butthead was when they were watching the "hey man nice shot" video and kept falling asleep during the verse and then waking up and rocking out during the chorus. it was funny because i like to rock out, but i'm also kind of a loser because i like things that are pleasant and monotonous. ohh man and i'm just remembering this album structure: hit single, 4 hard songs, 1 slow song, 4 more hard songs, 1 last slow song. i loved that. i don't know why, but it was so beautiful to listen to all the way through every time. ugh, anyone remember that awful time we had at their free concert at the rave in milwaukee too many years after anyone cared about them? key non-single tracks: dose, under, stuck in here

This entry was posted by chris, on Friday, August 03, 2007. You can leave your response.