Three Years in Music
A coworker of mine asked about a Stone Temple Pilot's CD I have. The CD is their third album "Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop." I told him yes, it's pretty darn good. I asked him why he wanted to know. He said, "because I just rediscovered Core, their first album, and I forgot how good of a band they were."
This led to me spinning Core, and busting out their best album in my opinion, Purple. I almost forgot too - what an incredible band they were. And to think of all that criticism of them being a wannabe Pearl Jam...I never understood that. They never sounded the same. I think people were just overwhelmed by the grunge coming out at that time and couldn't process that yes, both bands really are that good. They were made to look like hanger-ons at at time when grunge was still at a fad stage rather than an era in 1992.
This all got me thinking. What is the best three-year period in music? If you had to pick a string of three years, what would they be? My pick is 1992 - 1994.
I think I have a solid case. Now I'm not arguing "who provided the influence, that's what's important" and all that jazz. I'm talking about what I like. What I look back on and say damn, now that was good music. I'm sure it's not surprising that those years happen to be 9th - 11th grade. High school - some of the most formative years of our existence. Yet I've always been a music lover. I've never stopped buying music, and those years still stand out as being the best of my collection. It's not just because of my personal love for grunge either. There are many more reasons behind the cut.
1992
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
Nine Inch Nails - Broken
Stone Temple Pilots - Core
Alice in Chains - Dirt (CLASSIC, HUGE album)
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine (Again, a MONSTER debut album)
Dr. Dre - The Chronic (Do I even need to say how influential and awesome this album is?)
Sublime - 40 oz. to Freedom
Nirvana's Nevermind went to #1. Bunches of singles from Nirvana and Pearl Jam's Ten album stormed the charts. Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" came out this year. Everybody hurts - REM, Creep - Radiohead.
And last but not certainly least, BABY GOT BACK - SIR MIX A LOT.
1993
Tool - Undertow (Sober, anyone? They are huge to this day)
Bjork - Debut
Cypress Hill - Black Sunday
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (whoah, Huge!!)
Nirvana - In Utero
Adam Sandler - They're All Gonna Laugh At You
Pearl Jam - Vs.
Wu Tang Clan - Enter the Wu Tang
Snoop Dogg - Doggy Style
Beck's Loser single came out. Snoop's Gin and Juice. Mazzy Star - Fade Into You.
Last but not least, TAG TEAM - WHOOMP THERE IT IS.
1994
This year was immensely important for me, musically. Some of my favorite albums and bands of all time became known to me in 1994.
You owe it to yourself to look at wikipedia's 1994 music page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_in_music
Rusted Root - When I Woke (I've seen them 9 times...so far!)
Dave Matthews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming (holy goodness...where do I start??)
Blues Traveler - Four (another favorite...as well as my sister's)
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Soundgarden - Superunknown (another incredible band)
Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Pantera - Far Beyond Driven (Many people don't know how big Pantera was/is. This album debuted at #1 in the US! The first metal album ever to do so)
Notorious BIG - Ready to Die
REM - Monster
Tom Petty - Wildflowers
Bush - Sixteen Stone
Korn - Korn
Songs include Beastie Boys - Sabotage (which is now in my head), TLC - Waterfalls, Weezer - Buddy Holly, Warren G - Regulate, Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye, The Cranberries - Zombie.
The list goes on and on. Not only was grunge huge at this time...it seemed that ALL music was good then. The jam band scene was exploding. Rap was insanely good. Not only were the big names like Dre, Snoop, BIG, Wu Tang in there, but there were tons of awesome lesser known rappers putting out great stuff. Spice One and DJ Quik being a couple of my favorites. Established artists like REM and Bruce Springsteen were still releasing excellent songs.
Looking at the state of music now....well, I think it's time to dive back into my collection. :)
This led to me spinning Core, and busting out their best album in my opinion, Purple. I almost forgot too - what an incredible band they were. And to think of all that criticism of them being a wannabe Pearl Jam...I never understood that. They never sounded the same. I think people were just overwhelmed by the grunge coming out at that time and couldn't process that yes, both bands really are that good. They were made to look like hanger-ons at at time when grunge was still at a fad stage rather than an era in 1992.
This all got me thinking. What is the best three-year period in music? If you had to pick a string of three years, what would they be? My pick is 1992 - 1994.
I think I have a solid case. Now I'm not arguing "who provided the influence, that's what's important" and all that jazz. I'm talking about what I like. What I look back on and say damn, now that was good music. I'm sure it's not surprising that those years happen to be 9th - 11th grade. High school - some of the most formative years of our existence. Yet I've always been a music lover. I've never stopped buying music, and those years still stand out as being the best of my collection. It's not just because of my personal love for grunge either. There are many more reasons behind the cut.
1992
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto
Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
Nine Inch Nails - Broken
Stone Temple Pilots - Core
Alice in Chains - Dirt (CLASSIC, HUGE album)
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine (Again, a MONSTER debut album)
Dr. Dre - The Chronic (Do I even need to say how influential and awesome this album is?)
Sublime - 40 oz. to Freedom
Nirvana's Nevermind went to #1. Bunches of singles from Nirvana and Pearl Jam's Ten album stormed the charts. Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" came out this year. Everybody hurts - REM, Creep - Radiohead.
And last but not certainly least, BABY GOT BACK - SIR MIX A LOT.
1993
Tool - Undertow (Sober, anyone? They are huge to this day)
Bjork - Debut
Cypress Hill - Black Sunday
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (whoah, Huge!!)
Nirvana - In Utero
Adam Sandler - They're All Gonna Laugh At You
Pearl Jam - Vs.
Wu Tang Clan - Enter the Wu Tang
Snoop Dogg - Doggy Style
Beck's Loser single came out. Snoop's Gin and Juice. Mazzy Star - Fade Into You.
Last but not least, TAG TEAM - WHOOMP THERE IT IS.
1994
This year was immensely important for me, musically. Some of my favorite albums and bands of all time became known to me in 1994.
You owe it to yourself to look at wikipedia's 1994 music page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_in_music
Rusted Root - When I Woke (I've seen them 9 times...so far!)
Dave Matthews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming (holy goodness...where do I start??)
Blues Traveler - Four (another favorite...as well as my sister's)
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Soundgarden - Superunknown (another incredible band)
Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Pantera - Far Beyond Driven (Many people don't know how big Pantera was/is. This album debuted at #1 in the US! The first metal album ever to do so)
Notorious BIG - Ready to Die
REM - Monster
Tom Petty - Wildflowers
Bush - Sixteen Stone
Korn - Korn
Songs include Beastie Boys - Sabotage (which is now in my head), TLC - Waterfalls, Weezer - Buddy Holly, Warren G - Regulate, Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye, The Cranberries - Zombie.
The list goes on and on. Not only was grunge huge at this time...it seemed that ALL music was good then. The jam band scene was exploding. Rap was insanely good. Not only were the big names like Dre, Snoop, BIG, Wu Tang in there, but there were tons of awesome lesser known rappers putting out great stuff. Spice One and DJ Quik being a couple of my favorites. Established artists like REM and Bruce Springsteen were still releasing excellent songs.
Looking at the state of music now....well, I think it's time to dive back into my collection. :)