Tag Archives: 120 minutes

Album of the Month: Gish

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Gish

Gish
by Smashing Pumpkins
1991
Buy the reissue on Amazon

If I’m ever put on the spot with one of those “top ten albums of all time” questions, without hesitation, I’ll name Gish and then I’ll stumble around for while and name off albums that happen to be on high rotation at the time of the inquiry.  But Gish is always there.  In my mind it’s timeless and that has a lot of to with the lyrics. I don’t understand any of them. Continue reading Album of the Month: Gish →

November Five-Star Shuffle: “Cherub Rock”

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Siamese Dream
Siamese Dream

“Cherub Rock”
by Smashing Pumpkins
from the album Siamese Dream
1993
Buy the album on Amazon

Having a Smashing Pumpkins song pop up on one of my five-star shuffles is a sure bet, particularly if it’s from the first two albums.   I was so excited when the “Cherub Rock” video debuted as I was one step closer to listening to their new album.  Their debut, Gish was and still is one of my favorite albums of all times and this new track didn’t disappoint, me at least.  The record company wanted “Today” as the first single, but Corgan strong-armed them into releasing this as the first track.  I’m glad they did – it gave me a little time to adjust to thought of my darling band becoming huge.  You could feel the shift about to happen with the Pumpkins.   Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Cherub Rock” →

MVA 101: “Lucas With the Lid Off”

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Lucascentric
Lucascentric

“Lucas With The Lid Off”
by Lucas
from the album Lucascentric
1994
Buy the album on Amazon

Music videoswere my primary form of music discovery back in the day.  Whether it was falling in love with metal bands watching “Dial MTV” or  learning about Madchester music on “120 Minutes,” I got more new music exposure via the boob tube than the boom box.

Most of the videos were cheesy, boring or both, full of concert footage, lip-synced performances or weirdly stretched-out, Vaseline-coated imagery.  But every once and awhile, music videos would stumble upon greatness and I think it’s time we called some of these out, particularly since nothing in the past 10 years is probably even watchable. Continue reading MVA 101: “Lucas With the Lid Off” →

November Five-Star Shuffle: “Somebody to Shove”

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Grave Dancers Union
Grave Dancers Union

“Somebody to Shove”
by Soul Asylum
from the album Grave Dancers Union
1992
Buy the album on Amazon

Soul Asylum is one of those bands that I never normally think about; they don’t really orbit in my 90s universe of music.  But occasionally a song of theirs will come up on the local 90s station or Pandora/Spotify/iTunes and I gotta give it up to them.  They’ve got some great tunes, and this is definitely one of them. Continue reading November Five-Star Shuffle: “Somebody to Shove” →

I’m Getting Too Old For Concerts

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Afghan Whigs
Afghan Whigs courtesy Grantland

On Friday night I went to check out the Afghan Whigs in Austin, a band I’ve loved since the early 90s but never got to see live.  Greg Dulli’s voice is one of my favorites and I’ve often said if I had the chance to sing like anyone, it would be him.  His voice is so raspy and powerful, it’s just killer.  I was really excited to check them out at a venue I’d never been to be before.   Continue reading I’m Getting Too Old For Concerts →

Album of the Month: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet

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Girlfriend

Girlfriend
by Matthew Sweet
1991
Buy the Legacy Edition on Amazon

Chris and I have been talking about doing full album reviews ever since we started MNP a few months ago.  We recently set a goal of one album per month from each of us, which seemed manageable at the time, particularly since we had no other rules regarding what to pick or how to go about covering it.  You’d think it would be awesome having the ability to choose any album ever made, throughout all time and space but fuck if it’s not totally stressful – particularly on the first go-around.  You want to pick something great to initiate your catalog but at the same time you don’t to completely blow your load and have nowhere to go.  While my wheels were turning I became aware of the dates quickly advancing towards the end of the month, I have to get the entry done by the 31st.  The 31st, that date means a lot to me, which I’ll get into later… but it did make this album pop into mind and when I started doing a bit of research, I came across another interesting fact:

Twenty-three years ago today, Matthew Sweet released his masterpiece of an album, Girlfriend.

That sealed the deal.  My first album of the month will be Girlfriend. Continue reading Album of the Month: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet →

Belly: “Feed the Tree”

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Star“Feed the Tree”
by Belly
from the album Star
1993
Buy the album on Amazon

I didn’t know much about Tanya Donnelly when this song came out. Throwing Muses had been in one Venn circles of the type of music I was mainly into, but I had never been that exposed or into them. I knew her more from being part of the Breeders’ first couple of albums. When this song came out, though, I got hooked, and got really into Belly and a lot of her later solo work (some day I’ll do a proper full album post of Star, which is a great album).

I even tried this once at karaoke because, well, yes I love it, but also because admittedly I really liked our friend Matt’s karaoke version of Lisa Loeb’s Stay, and was wondering if this song could match it. The song might, but my version was fairly horrible. I’m certainly not opposed to singing female songs, but wasn’t a match for this one.

Karaoke Tuesday: “Song 2”

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Blur
Blur

“Song 2”
by Blur
from the album Blur
1997
Buy the album on Amazon

Oh man, “Song 2.” How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  • That beat.  Air drums.  Real drums.  Pots and pans.  It’s just fun to play.
  • Sludge-filled bass line.  ‘Nuff said.
  • Nonsense name.
  • Lyrics that are all over the place.
  • Motherfucking woo hoo!

I tossed this one into the mix one night after I had gone through all my regular songs and the house was practically empty.  So. Much. Fun.

For me, anyway.

Continue reading Karaoke Tuesday: “Song 2” →

Karaoke Tuesday: “Undone (The Sweater Song)”

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Weezer
Weezer

“Undone (The Sweater Song)”
by Weezer
from the album Weezer
1994
Buy the album on Amazon

I started to write a post about “The Middle” when I had the suspicion I already had.  I was correct.  Oh well, time to pick another artist. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how many times we had written about Weezer, particularly the blue album since that’s one of the geeky loves Chris and I share.

Once.  We’ve written about Weezer, exactly once.  What the fuck is wrong with us?  Let’s correct this travesty right now.  I’ll go for the long-hanging fruit and pick the song that Chrance is best known for performing (with “Summer of ’69” and “ITEOTWAIKI” coming in close behind).  Ladies and gentlemen, I present the perfect karaoke song: Continue reading Karaoke Tuesday: “Undone (The Sweater Song)” →

Karaoke Tuesday: “Losing My Religion”

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Out of Time
Out of Time

“Losing My Religion”
by R.E.M.
from the album Out of Time
1991
Buy the album on Amazon

Sure, this was a big hit off of a big album that really brought R.E.M. into the mainstream, but the only really important thing is that this is the song that represents Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan. I’m pretty positive they played parts of this song somewhere around 87 times during that episode of 90210.

Continue reading Karaoke Tuesday: “Losing My Religion” →