On Blimpy’s birthday thread, Japanthersan made a comment about 1991 being a mutual Year Zero. That struck a chord, and in fact I’d been planning a post on the subject for a while. Here it is…
I started to listen to pop properly in late 1990 (before this, I had an interest in folk music that was maybe a little unhealthy in a 12 year-old). I remember listening to the Top 40 for the first time. The Beautiful South were number one with “A Little Time” (that album would be the first I bought), and I also loved the Happy Mondays’ “Kinky Afro”.
So 1991 was the first year in music I was really aware of. And what a year it was. And no, I’m not just talking about Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do…”
I don’t think you can put that all down to rose-tinted nostalgia – any year that contained Screamadelica, Nevermind and Blue Lines has got a fair claim to greatness by any objective standard. But there’s something about music from that era – even the rave stuff that I hated at the time – which evokes an almost painful nostalgia, and brings back senses and feelings that are vivid and specific, but almost impossible to put into words. I suspect everyone feels like this about a particular time…
Anyway, here’s a personal, narrowly indie-focused playlist. Since much of my music from the time is on cassette, I’ve put together a YouTube playlist. The videos also bring back a few memories.
Here’s hoping this brings back memories for a section of the ‘Spill demographic, and maybe even tempts Pa McFlah out of his extended paternity leave.
And a couple of questions: Where were you in 1991? And what was your own Year Zero?
At this point, there should be an embedded YouTube playlist of 10 songs, but for some reason WordPress doesn’t like it. But you can open the playlist here or follow the individual links below.
We kick off with the riff that launched grunge (and made the over-sized jumpers my grandma used to knit instantly fashionable): Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit.
The first REM song I heard was Losing My Religion and I knew I’d discovered something special (although I thought “Shiny Happy People” was even better – but, you know, I was young…).
In the right mood (and/or with the right drugs), I think Screamadelica by Primal Scream is the greatest album ever made – it still sounds like past and future rolled into one ecstatic present, represented here by Higher Than The Sun.
Massive Attack pretty much invented what was to become one of the dominant sounds of the decade (it’s a much wider thing than “trip-hop”). I didn’t understand the genius of Unfinished Sympathy at the time, even when they performed it complete with string orchestra week after week on Top of the Pops. I do now.
I did like St Etienne‘s Nothing Can Stop Us Now when it came out, without quite realising that 20 years (WTF? 20 years?) later it would be one of my favourite songs from my, ooh, let’s say 8th favourite band of all time.
We’ve got My Bloody Valentine providing the blueprint for shoegazing with When You Sleep. Most indie records for a year or two sounded like this, except not as good. That this sound appears to be influencing a new generation at the moment also makes me feel old.
Representing the tail end of baggy, we have Caravan by the Inspiral Carpets. The Beast Inside was the first proper indie album I bought. I still wear the T-shirt when I’m gardening.
What can I say about The Wonder Stuff and Size of a Cow, other than that they don’t make indie disco classics like that anymore, do they?
I thought I was incredibly cool when I bought Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub after hearing The Concept. It was Album of the Month in Vox magazine you know.
You can tell Blur have got something about them from the video to There’s No Other Way. But what odds would you have got on that floppy-fringed kid becoming arguably the most creative pop musician of his generation?
OK, what’s happened to the embedded video, huh? Please bear with me while I try and sort this…
Great post Barbryn!
1991 was a key year for me as it happens but not in the musical sense. I was trying to back out of a dead-end job (and a pretty dead-end existence, truth be told) and spent most of the winter/spring trying to get the sack. I was successful! I decided to come back to Spain because at 29 I’d realised that it was the only place I’d felt truly happy (as an adult) and that teaching was the only job that had given me any satisfaction. I applied for a whole load of jobs and the same day I was having the interview for the job that would eventually bring me back to Madrid, the future Mrs Maki got in touch by phone after eight years of silence. We had met in 1982 but the fates conspired to separate us – her ‘phone call was one of those “I wonder what happened to that guy” things. She had no idea I was thinking of coming back to Spain! The coincidence seemed significant. And here we are still together. I spent the summer doing bar work in a number of pubs on the North Yorkshire Moors and came back here in September. By November Conchita and I were engaged and we’re still together. Now with a (step in my case) grandson!
My musical year zero is a little less interesting. I was born in 1962. I was 15 in 1977. Enough said, really.
Thanks for the response Maki.
Any idea why the YouTube playlist that should be embedded here isn’t showing up? I’ve tried using the YouTube embed code and WordPress’s own instructions, and it just disappears.
I wonder what happens if I embed it here:
Hmmm, not a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2A2C9A38ADBA17B5
Barbryn – forget all the embed stuff
Just type:
in the post (HMTL) and Bob’s your uncle!
squarebracketyoutube=linksquarebracket
No matter how you slice it, (unlalenteed, somemties impromtu) noise bands just dont make sense in a family pizzaria! I played a show there and it was a horrible time! The band got two free beers (theres 5 of us) for playing and I didnt get paid (as usual in CT) and no one there appreciated it (as usual in CT)! Even the people there to see the show were outside smoking cigarettes the whole time and didn’t even say boo to me. I went to 3 shows total and they were all the same. If I was the owner I would get rid of that headache too! Sorry Bobby, we all love you but you need to find an audience and a real place to book shows. The only person making out from these shows doesnt even want you there so think about moving on! I hear there is a bunch of abandoned warehouses you can rent out for $100 or less down the street. Also, someone please use that Reeds center for something besides housing supposedly artsy – definitely rich people. Book less shows, book better bands and get the fuck out!
It won’t accept a list from what I can see. One by one.
Another good post, Barbryn. You should do this more often.
In 1991, I’d been in the US for about a year & it was the year that grunge & “alternative” was starting to hit the mainstream. “Classic” rock stations were playing Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Chili Peppers et all. You only heard this stuff on college radio in 1990. Work was keeping me busy, so started losing touch with much of what was going on in the UK, musicwise. Do recall that this was the year of the Phantom 50. A combination of lack of air time & John Peel having a bit of a snit that his listners voted for tunes that he hadn’t championed; meant that the festive 50 wasn’t broadcast over Christmas. Didn’t affect me as I couldn’t listen from here anyway. The internet comprised a 5 minute dial-up to enjoy some lime green or blue text & e-mail was alien technology that was unlikely to catch on.
Also a bittersweet year, in that we got the swansong albums from Pixies & Talk Talk.
A few more notables:
Slint – Spiderland
U2 – Achtung Baby
Tribe Called Qwest – Low End Theory
Great post barbryn – if I needed any more convincing (and I don’t think I did!) this just reconfirms how great a year 1991 really was. The alternative stormed the mainstream and it hasn’t really properly recovered thankfully.
Great selection of tunes too. I know and love each one (although i’ve always had an irrational dislike for St. Etiennne – a malady which age and alleged wisdom has yet to cure).
Donds for Slint Shoey – simple one of the finest albums ever made.
Was 1991 the legendary Phamtom 50 year? Interesting to know.
I would add:
Pearl Jam – Ten
Kill Rock Stars Compilation – intoduced Riot Grrl to the world (and a young impressionistic me!)
Manics – their finest singles “Motown Junk” and “You Love Us” came out in 1991
EMF – Schubert Dip – one of the first big indie-dance crossover albums
….and about a million others personal to me that I won’t bore you with, like Senseless Things “Easy To Smile” that can have no claim to greatness, but were all important milestones for a teenage music obsessive…..
Ah! EMF! I saw them at the Brighton Escape that year… I remeber it being very, very loud (this is what happens when you stand next to a Very Big speaker in a Rather Small club). They were a bit grumpy about playing “Unbelievable”, I think.
Good choices!
I was at university in 1991. I lived in Brighton, which was cool but expensive.
The first part of the year was spent in a house with people who I suppose I didn’t have much in common with. Well, one of them was on my course and had a car, which was jolly handy as the campus was 4 or 5 miles away. (I also caught the train on occasion, and in the summer I think I walked it once or twice.) Anyway, my course-mate-with-wheels did, as it happens, have pretty good taste in music, so it was a pleasure to ride with him…
I think most of your chosen albums were on his stereo at some point, although I don’t seem to recall St. Etienne being his cup of tea.
I like St. Etienne, though.
And I definitely agree with you about Blur; there was something there, but at the time they seemed like indie kids with a short but sweet career ahead of them. With the potential to sell more T-shirts than records.
Talking about selling T-Shirts… weren’t James active around then? Ah, yes – “Sit Down” got a rerelease. Good stuff.
Come the academic year change, I moved house (nicer people, a mile or so closer to campus but further from town). No more lifts, but there was still a train. I caught the bus once or twice but I could never work out the timetable. I walked more often.
Major music event in Zalamandaland of 1991: All About Eve released their third album, Touched by Jesus in – it says here – August of that year.
Here is “Strange Way”:
All About Eve – Strange Way
Did that work?
My own year zero? Some time around 1987, I think.
In 1985, I made a conscious decision to listen to pop music: I adopted A-Ha as my favourite band and discovered the large number of Eurythmics tunes that had already crept into my consciousness. But I was 16 in ’87 and had a bit of cash from my (short-lived) Saturday job in a greengrocer’s. I remember buying Swing Out Sister’s debut LP and Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night.
1991 was a bit of a year zero for me too, though not in musical terms. After a few years of being a semi-dropout surviving on bar & cafe work, and trying to get other people to employ me in theatre, I set up my own community theatre project. I never made any money out of it, and I still survived mainly on bar and cafe work, but the project led to bits of other freelance work, and in a roundabout way set me on the path that led to my current work. The project is still running strong now, nearly twenty years after it started, and 13 years after I ended my involvement.
1991 would also be the year that I ended up visiting friends in Belgrade just as the civil war broke out, and a drunken Serbian restaurant owner threatened to put a bullet in my head, because he thought I was German (& therefore pro-Croat). I was of course totally oblivious at the time as I only spoke a few words of Serb, and had no idea why my friends were in such a hurry to get us out of the restaurant…
Musically, REM, Massive Attack, Primal Scream and Nirvana were all on the radar for me.
My own year zero would be 1978. I seem to remember Public Image, Germ Free Adolescents, and Ever Fallen In Love all hitting the charts about the same time, and a subscription to NME.
Thanks! no time to listen or for an extensive reply now, (I was in LA at the time), but a quick wiki check gives two more albums out that year (that i was listening to anyway)-
RHCP – Blood Sugar Sex Magic
Metallica – Black Album
donds for both of them Amy – RHCP I loved at the time and Metallica I came to later but it’s now a big favourite
Twenty years ago!!!???!!! Some of this still sounds entirely contemporary and brilliant (Massive Attack, most obviously), which may be an indication that music hasn’t moved on as much as one might have expected. Some of it was deliberately retro back then and still sounds great (St Etienne). Some of it is very much of its time, so I’d listen to it as a nostalgia trip (Nirvana). And quite a lot of it, I’m afraid, I didn’t think that much of at the time – 1991 for me was an abrupt change of direction, inspired by Massive Attack, away from indie rock towards dance, electronica and rap – but it still brings back memories…
’91 – ummm.
Wolfgang press – ‘queer’ – my favorite oddness
KLF – ‘white room’- perfect pop
Pavement – ‘slated..’ – what are you talikin’ about?
Dinosaur jr – ‘green mind’ – a man left to fall out with himself in a studio and succeeding
Bongwater – power of pussy (positive this was 91 in the uk) nut nut anyway.
Lush and Pale Saints put out 12″ on 4AD, going back to their roots. while celebrating their 10th Birthday (I will do a 30th birthday post before the month is out)
808 state and front 242 scared our neighbors…
orb and orbital danced and chilled.. paving the way for many a chill out album (klf had been there and moved on already)
de la soul is dead – weirded out the daisy age and Tone loc and young mc were played in the indie discos.
who did I miss – throwing muses – the real ramona
was 30 something released then?
what was I up to? – bumming around being 21 with no hope of ever finding proper work after leaving art college.. didn’t matter.. we had dropped out and were dancing in fields (until we had to cash our giro,warm up and stop being chased by those pesky aliens/ or police)
‘DEATH TO THE PIXIES’ yeah!
Looking forward to the 4AD post already!
I suppose in ’91 I was most taken with The Smiths, Triffids, Go-Betweens’ and REM back catalogues, Achtung Baby, Morrissey and Grant Mclennan’s early solo albums, Flying Nun, The Church and The Wedding Present.
Not really with the Zeitgeist.
The following couple of years I guess I was pretty heavily into acid jazz, that would probably be the only genre besides trip-hop and d&b which has actually affected me as it was happening. I guess I’ve always been more of a back catalogue freak.
I had a rather hard time coihsong just one type of physician I would want to work for. So many of them fascinate me, and with me not really going into any medical field other than support, I never gave this any thought in the past. After reading the list, I am more favorable of working for a neonatologist. It is difficult to think about how neonatologist physicians sometimes have the most difficult job in the world, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be to be a part of saving a baby’s life. I had a coworker once whose baby was born at 36 weeks, and her baby had a lot of heart and lung problems. There were concerns about whether or not they would ever fully develop once she had him, but after many months in the NICU, and many scares that happened during it, the doctors were able to save him and he is now a very healthy 5 year old. It is because of that I have a higher interest in the neonatologist field.I hate to say which type of physician I would care less to work for, and it is because I worry that many will take it the wrong way. When I was 16, I used to help my mom at an assisted living home as a caregiver. We would get to work at 7:00 A.M. every morning to prepare breakfast for four of the elderly men and women that we were caring for. We would then make sure that all bedding was changed, rooms were cleaned, meals were prepared, and appointments were handled. We worked 12 hour days, and they were always grueling. The owner of the home made sure that everyone had their medicine and made it to their doctor appointments on time. However, she was more worried about getting paid for her services than actually helping the elderly. She would yell at them if they did something wrong, and even call them terrible names. My mom reported her and we both quit our job, but it has always left a sting in my heart since then. It is because of my experience with that situation that I do not think I could ever work for a gerontologist. I know that the situations would be much different, but ever since my experience with caring for elderly individuals it is very hard for me to think about assisting a physician in geriatrics because I worry that someone else might treat the elderly in the same way the owner of the home did. I am a firm believer that the elderly deserve the ultimate care and comfort when going through any treatment and aging in general, but I do not think I could ever work in that environment again.
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Whoops, forgot MBV. OK, I get one Zeitgeist point, I suppose.
Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the other US indies- I think I’ve said this before, and it’s no fault of the bands concerned- was big in NZ but music I characterised as being listened to by the people most likely to assault me on the street for no discernible reason.
Pavement was always too slack for my jazz ears, Massive Attack I’ve always found soulless and depressing.
(do I get kicked out of the 69′ers club for writing that?)
Whoops! Late again. Sorry, barbryn.
I’m almost there with Maki, but with a fundamental difference. I had my 12th birthday in late ’76, and as a consequence, though punk was an obvious Year Zero, it just missed coinciding with my hormonal rush. As someone who’d had his primary school years soundtracked by glam, I latched on to what followed punk, namely the musical movement with the worst acronym in history, the NWOBHM. As such, my personal Year Zero would really be 1979, but it was turned from a rash into a life-threatening terminal condition by 1980.
AC/DC’s Bon Scott died, but before the year was out we had Back In Black.
Black Sabbath also got a new vocalist and re-invented themselves with Heaven And Hell.
DsD all-time fave band UFO were serious chart-botherers; they, as well as Scorpions(twice), Judas Priest(also x2), Rush, Motorhead(2), Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent, Van Halen, Rainbow(2), Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Magnum, Kiss, (Ian) Gillan, Michael Schenker (DsD No.1 guitar god), Blizzard Of Ozz(y Osbourne)(2), released albums still on my shelves today, and (quick count-up) constituted twenty-odd of the major gigs I went to that year alone. Unfortunately I also saw Saxon FIVE times in that one year, but you have to suffer for your art, right?! And there were more concerts/gigs that year too: no wonder 75% of my O-levels resulted in scraped C-grade passes!
AND WHERE THE HELL DID A 15yo GET THAT KIND OF MONEY? I hear you ask. The answer? Haven’t got a bloody clue, but I wish I could remember and reproduce it!!!! Although it does help that, for instance, the inaugural http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_of_Rock at Donington only cost me £7.50 for the ticket. It also nearly cost me my life, but that’s a story you’ve already heard.
Damn! I hate wordpress! Why can’t I make links work properly on this bloody site?
Ah, the NWOBHM! That was huge when I was at school. For some reason nearly everyone in my year went down the DSD route. There would be a tiny gang of us in ex-army greatcoats in the corner going on about the Fall, Joy Division & PIL & swapping tapes of our Cabaret Voltaire albums whilst the rest of the sixth form common room was a sea of denim wastcoats with Saxon & Samson patches. It led to a few years of snobbish antipathy on my part towards heavy metal in general. Must admit still not a huge fan, but I try to be a bit more open minded now!
ElrobotDecember 23, 2010 at 04:50 There’s reaosns why the Windows sales are down by half of the Linux sales. One reaosn could be Windows users have a much bigger selection of games and like many other games, these went unnoticed and they rather buy COD: Black Ops. Just a theory
Thanks everyone. There’s still some great things that we haven’t mentioned in the Melody Maker end-of-year lists:
Albums
1. Screamadelica – Primal Scream
2. Weld – Neil Young & Crazy Horse
3. Out Of Time – Rem
4. Yerself Is Steam – Mercury Rev
5. Nevermind – Nirvana
6. Never Loved Elvis – The Wonder Stuff
7. Loveless – My Bloody Valentine
8. Everclear – American Music Club
9. The Real Ramona – The Throwing Muses
10. Use Your Illusion 2 – Guns ‘N’ Roses
11. Bandwagonesque – Teenage Fanclub
12. Laughing Stock – Talk Talk
13. Pretty On The Inside – Hole
14. Levelling The Land – The Levellers
15. Electronic – Electronic
16. Metallica – Metallica
17. Foxbase Alpha – St Etienne
18. Of The Heart, Of The Soul Etc…. – Pm Dawn
19. Trompe Le Monde – The Pixies
20. 30 Something – Carter Usm
21. Apocalypse ’91 – Enemy Strikes Bak – Public Enemy
22. Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld – The Orb
23. Blue Lines – Massive Attack
24. Diamond And Pearls – Prince
25. Original Gangster – Ice T
26. And Now The Legacy Begins – Dream Warriors
27. Badmotorfinger – Soundgarden
28. To Mother – Babes In Toyland
29. The Ruby Sea – Thin White Rope
30. Schubert Dip – Emf
Singles
1. Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack
2. Losing My Religion – REM
3. Higher Than The Sun – Primal Scream
4. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
5. Blindfold Ep – Curve
6. Coppelina Ep – Levitation
7. Tremolo Ep – My Bloody Valentine
8. Nothing Can Stop Us – St Etienne
9. Carwash Hair – Mercury Rev
10. Enter Sandman – Metallica
11. Size Of A Cow – The Wonder Stuff
12. Bring The Noise – Anthrax/Public Enemy
13. This Is Fascism – Consolidated
14. Starsign – Teenage Fanclub
15. Last Train To Transcentral – The Klf
16. Where The Streets Have No Name – The Pet Shop Boys
17. Get The Message – Electronic
18. Adoration – Cranes
19. Winter In July – Bomb The Bass
20. Teenage Whore – Hole
(Dream Warriors! Bomb the Bass! “Carwash Hair” “Get the Message”… I’d imagine “Levelling the Land” crossed Zalamanda’s Brighton radar, and that Public Enemy/Anthrax collaboration ought to unite the full RR spectrum.)
Levelling the land was big chez Exodus back in them days.
“Levelling the Land” was certainly on my radar. In fact, it was in my box of records – signed! I managed to turn up at the in-store signing at that crusty mecca, the… Virgin Megastore. Oh, well. I was never much of a crusty, but I managed to catch those Leveller chappies at various venues around town – there was a great pub venue called The Old Vic, and they played there a few times.
I remember the Dream Warriors, too. “Wash your face in my sink”, indeed.
Talking about the Levellers reminds me, oddly, of Ruby Blue. (I made a C90 with “Levelling the Land” on one side and “Down From Above” – Ruby Blue’s 1991 LP – on the other.) D’you remember me nominating their David Mamet penned “Primitive Man” for Songs about Hunting?
Another good one.
Great post Barbryn. I was 32 in 1991 and I can’t honestly remember anything in particular about it. I have quite a few years like that, roughly 1979 – 1995!! Must have been good.
Anyway, great choice of music, thank you.
I definitely had Electronic on lots in ’91 too, maybe I underrated the year after all. Might have something to do with the dive of a flat I was living in at the time in a dull suburb, I moved somewhere much hipper in ’92-94 which has probably coloured my memory somewhat.
Way too late for anyone to be reading but I realise that 1990-91 was quite a significant period for me too, being when I became a single parent of a 13-/14-year old boy. I overindulged him by buying him a pair of Technics decks and he repaid me by playing hip-hop (I’ll make no further comment..). I also took him on a trip in the USA, hopping about LA, the Grand Canyon and NYC: he wanted to buy vinyl (already disappearing from US cities, it seemed) and I wanted to visit 710 Ashbury Street, San Francicso. I remember buying a fair amount of the music mentioned above: Primal Scream, Throwing Muses, Pavement, MBV, Dinosaur Jr, The Charlatans’ Some Friendly and, still one of my faves, Fatima Mansions’ Viva Dead Ponies. A pretty good era.
My year zero was probably the year when I was 15: 1967-68. Sgt Pepper and Piper At The Gates of Dawn had been ingested and I had my young head further re-arranged by Absolutely Free (Mothers of Invention), White Light/White Heat, Dear Mr Fantasy, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (ISB) and then, irrevocably, by the GD’s Anthem Of The Sun. Yes, I know it’s the age when we’re ready to be impressed, but that range of stuff made it a very special era for anyone with ears (and for those with functioning feet, there was plenty of Motown!).
Great post, barbryn. And great responses, all. Sorry to be so late to the party! 1991 was a great year for me too: I was in (the second half of) my first year at university, having escaped a suffocating religious upbringing; I had finally summoned up the courage to come out and the sky hadn’t fallen on my head; I finally felt known and accepted – and as if I had genuine friends for the first time in my life; I was in a show at uni that went to Edinburgh; I fell in (and then quickly out of) love for the first time… Ah, heady days!
As for my own Year Zero, again Zalamanda and I appear to have been separated at birth… My missionary parents dragged us back from Ahhhfrica in 1984, so in the mid-80s I was desperately scrambling to catch up on everything pop-wise that my UK-based peers were into. I too chose a-ha and Eurythmics. Along with more dubious choices such as Red Box. But around 1987, I started working back through Echo and the Bunnymen and The Cure and AAE – and began my enduring love affair with Sinead… So 1987 sounds about right!
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hi smitty, i only call you that beuacse that’s what my uncle ray noble calls you i remember when life goes on was so popular and uncle ray told us he knew you, my nephew, very young at the time didn’t believe him so uncle ray got him an autographed picture for him from you! we just talked about you on thanksgiving, i was telling uncle ray how phenomenal the event is, i told him that you play the vp and he kind of chuckled. well, being able to contact you is awesome and it would be so cool if you responded, take care!