Here’s one I’ve been saving because … well, I’ve been too lazy to break out the USB turntable.

1994 was a great year for the Breeders. Last Splash had just turned platinum and “Cannonball” was crossing over from Alternative Nation to Top 40 radio, something completely unthinkable today. Sadly, it would also be the final year of the group in its most popular form, as success screwed with the band’s heads. But for a time, the Breeders could do no wrong. So if the band wanted to release a single available only on 7″ vinyl, then heck, sure! And make sure the vinyl is lime green! Okey dokey, Deals! Oh, and we only want to put one new song on it and not one, but two covers. Genius! And we’ll make a video to promote the B-side, not the A-side. Um, sure!

“Shocker in Gloomtown” (download) was one of the two covers on the Head to Toe single, a song originally by fellow Daytonians Guided By Voices, who also appear in the video, peering through the garage windows. It’s also the shortest and best track on the single, an under two-minute blast of punk hooks, raw production by Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis, and almost remedial guitar as Kelley Deal learns to play in front of all of us. (more…)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Knoxville, Tennessee combo Superdrag’s 1996 major-label debut, Regretfully Yours, will always remind me of driving. Y’see, I was finishing up college at Cleveland State University, which was about a 40-minute drive from my place in suburban Elyria, Ohio. Not exactly a hotbed of culture, mind you. Luckily, Regretfully was about the perfect length for the one-way trip, so that final semester of school, I would use it as my driving music. By the time that last song hit, I knew it was time to start looking for parking (of course, I could play it all the way over again by the time I’d find a spot on a busy Wednesday).

I came across Superdrag the same way most of the alternative nation did, via the video for their first single, “Sucked Out,” (download) which got some pretty heavy airplay on the MTV Buzz Bin days. The Wikipedia page for Regretfully Yours says “Sucked Out” was about the record industry, and taking a listen to the lyrics, particularly the chorus of “who sucked out the feeling,” it’s tough to argue that assessment.

“Sucked Out” was cute for a while, but after quite a few listens the hoarse screaming on the chorus nearly crosses over into novelty territory. I much preferred the follow-up single, “Destination Ursa Major,” a tasty power-pop rocker with another nifty video to match: (more…)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Since we’ve got the Ocean Blue on the brain, we should probably take a look at the band most commonly associated with them to the point of being an almost slavish imitation. Drawing from the same influential well of Echo & the Bunnymen, the Smiths and the Railway Children, comparisons to the Blue were inevitable — throw in the fact that One was produced by then-recently exiled Ocean Blue keyboardist Steve Lau, and the point is almost indisputable.

A cursory listen to single “Waterfall” (download) reveals all the tricks in Riverside’s bag — the chiming guitars, shimmery production and oblique lyrics that bring to mind a certain Hershey, PA band. Lead singer Keith Kochan’s voice, however, is a little on the thin side, his limited range keeping the melodies throughout the album a little too similar. “Waterfall” did attract MTV’s attention, though, and got quite a few 120 Minutes spins. It didn’t hurt that Riverside’s members looked like they stepped right out of a Guess Jeans commercial:

It’s tempting to say now that you’ve heard “Waterfall,” you’ve pretty much heard the rest of One, since there’s not a lot of variety to be found. Second single “Cinnamon Eyes” tries to break the sameness of the album by adding some more exotic percussion, which was nice: (more…)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Let’s get this out there up right up front: I love this song. Space’s 1997 single, “Female of the Species” (download), is one of the funnest songs of the ’90s, with its kitschy steel drums, Doris Day strings and lead singer Tommy Scott’s camp delivery (particularly on the line “shock, shock, horror, horror, shock shock horror,” which never fails to crack me up). Mixing elements of the Kinks, the Who and early ’90s Blur Britpop, Space concocted a tasty brew that hit big in the U.K. and even crossed over to Stateside MTV and radio.

So the question now is: did Space do anything close to matching this stellar single? Their one-hit wonder status would lead one to instantly assume “no,” but the Spiders album on the whole isn’t half bad. Early indie single “Me and You vs the World” (download) shows up again with all its Kinks charm and “Neighborhood,” the sneeringly comedic “Money,” and the Charlatans UK-ish freakout “Drop Dead” make it well worth the 68¢ it currently sells for used on Amazon. Plus, many copies come with an extra CD with two b-sides and an instrumental version of “Female of the Species” ready-made for car karaoke fun.

Three more albums have followed Spiders, the most recent being 2004’s Suburban Rock ‘n’ Roll, but unlike the bargain Spiders is, check out how much coin the later releases grab. Yowza.

“Female of the Species” peaked at #15 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart in 1997.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

When Ian McCulloch left Echo & the Bunnymen in 1988 for a solo career, no one really expected the rest of the band to carry on without him, much less attempt to replace him. McCulloch was such a singular rock presence, mixing Jim Morrison brooding with goth attitude (before there was such a thing), that any attempt to slot a new singer in his spot was nearly unthinkable. But the Bunnymen did, in fact, soldier on, and the results were surprisingly good — maybe even better than McCulloch’s glossier solo debut.

While Ian chose to continue the mainstream sound of the Bunnymen’s self-titled 1987 album, the new Echo & the Bunnymen, with St. Vitus Dance vocalist Noel Burke, touring keyboardist Jake Brockman, and drummer Damon Reece (piling on the bad news, original Echo drummer Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1989) moved back to the earlier psychedelia of Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here with 1990’s Reverberation. Luckily, the band was poised to catch the zeitgeist of the Manchester baggy sound of the time with tracks like the first single, “Enlighten Me” (download), a trippy mix of sitars, baggy beats and guitarist Will Sergeant’s distinctive guitar riffs. New singer Burke wisely chose not to try to imitate McCulloch’s singing style and the results were catchy and appealing. (more…)

Popularity: 10% [?]

Former New Order bassist Peter Hook has a pretty big set of brass balls. When the band decided to take a break after 1993’s Republic, various members did their own thing — singer Bernard Sumner continued his Electronic project with Johnny Marr, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert experimented with more synthpop as the Other Two, and Hook … well, Hook just decided to keep New Order going with Monaco. If he couldn’t use the New Order name, he certainly could use the sound.

Hook’s distinctive high-note bass technique was joined by vocalist David Potts, who seemed to be selected purely for his ability to ape Bernard Sumner’s vocals with Rich Little precision (but accurately, unlike Rich Little — sorry, I couldn’t name another famous impressionist). Just take a listen to Monaco’s modern rock hit, “What Do You Want From Me?” (download) — if there wasn’t an MP3 tag on there identifying it otherwise, you’d swear it was New Order.

The cloning process continued on Music for Pleasure’s second single, “Shine” (download), which improbably manages to be even more New Order-ish than New Order. It’s like Hook took every New Order cliche and combined it in an evil laboratory experiment to create the perfect New Order song. It’s all here — the high-plucked bass, the oblique love-song lyrics, and that distinctive New Order-yet-not voice. Shameless, yes, but perhaps Hook had a lot more to do with New Order’s sound and success than we think? (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

Washington D.C.-based art-punk quartet Jawbox earned the ire of indie purists in 1993 when they left Dischord Records for major-label Atlantic in the Great Post-Nirvana Alternative Rock Swoop-Up. It proved to be not that big of a deal in the end when the resulting album, For Your Own Special Sweetheart, while sounding a little cleaner, ended up sounding pretty much like their Dischord stuff. Lead single “Savory” (download) summed up the band quite well, as the tension and release that was the band’s calling card was paired with metallic riffs and a melody almost bordering on crooning.

Atlantic’s marketing muscle got the band on MTV, and “Savory” got some airplay on 120 Minutes and even Beavis & Butthead commented on the video featuring a little girl’s twisted birthday party (love the Barbie cake!):

While Sweetheart didn’t exactly make Jawbox a household name, Atlantic was happy enough with the buzz to place the band on their ill-fated Alternative-focused TAG Records imprint in 1996 (an imprint that was recently revived, in name only, to promote Tag Body Spray — seriously). (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

By all rights, L.A.-based Possum Dixon’s second full-length album, 1996’s Star Maps, should have been an unfocused disaster. Band members were beset by serious drug problems and lead singer/songwriter Rob Zabrecky’s wife committed suicide during its recording. The band was following up its first major label LP, which garnered them a pretty big modern rock hit with the single, “Watch That Girl Destroy Me,” a song that seemed tailor-made for one-hit wonder-dom. Amazingly, the band was able to overcome all these barriers and deliver a consistently great, if overlooked, second album.

Lead single “Emergency’s About To End” (download) is as insanely catchy as a single gets, with its Peter Gunn-isms and hook-filled chorus. While the song got some scant alternative radio airplay, it also appeared on the soundtrack for the infamous Showgirls, aka The Greatest Movie Ever Made. Now, I’ve seen Showgirls about 87 kajilion times, but I couldn’t tell you where in the movie “Emergency’s” shows up, if at all. Anyone?

I really wanted to link to the band’s superb video for the single that references Devo’s performance of “Worried Man” in a toxic waste dump from Neil Young’s movie “Human Highway,” but the band’s label, Universal Music, for some reason doesn’t allow it to be embedded from YouTube, so two things:

1. Sorry.

2. Fuck you, Universal Music. God forbid you allow someone to promote your artists. (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

On Tuesday the B-52’s will release their first album of new material in 16 years: Funplex. While that’s a long stretch between releases, the band wasn’t exactly quiet during that period — they toured every few years or so, and in 1996 vocalist/yelper/cheerleader Fred Schneider released his second solo album, the surprisingly gritty and punkish Just Fred.

Working with “recorder” Steve “Don’t Call Me a ‘Producer’” Albini and members of Six Finger Satellite, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the Supersuckers, Just Fred is a raw take on the party rock the B-52’s are known for, recalling their earlier CBGB’s days. Trouble is, coming after the huge pop success of Cosmic Thing and, to a lesser extent, Good Stuff, B-52’s fans didn’t quite know how to take it.

Dishing out equal portions of camp and indie rock, lead single “Whip” (download) has Fred posturing and growling until he becomes positively Lydon-esque. All together now — FORTY LASH-SHESSS! FORTY LASHES FROM YOUR EYYYYYYYEEESSS!

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Popularity: 13% [?]

Led by the progenies of two ’60s rockers, hippy-dippy Donovan and blue-hatted Monkee Mike Nesmith, pomo new wavers Nancy Boy definitely rebelled against their musical pedigree, emphasizing fashion and style over traditional substance. Model Donovan Leitch and Jason Nesmith threw Bowie, Suede, Duran Duran, and Blur in a blender and served up their self-titled full-length debut in 1996, competing with the post-grunge, Creed-infested landscape of alternative music. With their skinny ties and eyeliner, they didn’t stand a chance.

Nicking a guitar lick and chorus from early Blur, lead single “Deep Sleep Motel” (download) was an instantly catchy if lightweight song that would have fit quite nicely on that band’s Modern Life Is Rubbish a couple years earlier. Considering I was in the throes of a serious Blur phase at the time, I didn’t mind at all, enjoying Nancy Boy much as I did Camouflage in the ’80s when Depeche Mode were between albums — they were far from the real thing, but nice in a pinch.

A track the band carried over from an earlier EP, “Johnny Chrome & Silver” (download), sounds like a lost Duran outtake circa 1981, and that’s a good thing. It’s completely out of step with what was happening musically at the time, but that doesn’t stop it and the album as a whole from being entertaining. The group’s proclivity for posing, quite literally (they did a few fashion-magazine spreads), didn’t endear them to the press or public, but Leitch’s Paris Hilton-like celebutante image garnered the band a small but fervent following in New York clubs.

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Popularity: 14% [?]