115. Garbage - Garbage (1995)




I love this album too and feel that this album/group is underrated too. They get scoffed at a lot and seem to be ridiculed pretty easily around here but I don't see what they're doing as being too distant from the likes of Pretty Girls Make Graves.

'Vow' and 'Only Happy When It Rains' are my two favorites on here. But the whole thing's pretty decent. It's also solid. I admire than in an album. The kind of album where, if you like one song, you'll probably like the whole thing. But it's not really that samey. There is some level of diversity to it.

116. The Boo Radleys - Wake Up! (1995)

[img][300:300]http://www.zero.co.nz/music/images/The%20Boo%20Radleys%20-%20Wake%20Up.jpg[/img]


There's something about this album that doesn't quite do it for me. It always feels like something's missing. I enjoy 'Wake Up Boo!' and 'It's Lulu' and the rest of the tracks sound like they should be good. They have everything I generally look for in a song. But I just don't feel it. Can I blame this on the production? Or is it something intangible about the band itself? I'm not quite sure but I'll never like this album as much as I could if that x-factor were there.

117. Morrissey - Southpaw Grammar (1995)




This album is just really strange. It opens and closes with two ten minute plus songs. The cd booklet is almost non-existant with a cryptic poem on the inside and a short list of album credits.

The music itself varies. 'The Boy Racer' is a really good Morrissey song but the rest I don't know about. 'Dagenham Dave' I find more annoying than anything.

And looking at the context in which it came out. The albums before and after this on my list: Blind Melon, Garbage, Flaming Lips, Smashing Pumpkins, Lisa Loeb. It's completely out of place. I can't imagine what the reviews for this were like.

I liked "The Boy Racer". Probably haven't heard it since it came out.

118. The Flaming Lips - Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)




I forgot just how many classic Lips songs are on this album. 'This Here Giraffe', 'Brainville', 'Kim's Watermelon Gun', 'Christmas At The Zoo', 'Guy Who Got A Headache And Accidentally Saved The World'... It's almost half of a best-of compilation right there.

The Soft Bulletin gets most of the praise and rightfully so, but this disc is so fantastic it's got to be in the top three of Lips records. Nearly every album from the second half of their career is essential but this record is very essential, if that makes any sense.

I know so many people who should love this album. Why they don't already is beyond me. And the suspicion that they wouldn't, even if I were to play it for them, is just saddening.

I think for me, it just gets lost in the jumble. I always mix this and TfSH up. For that reason alone, it usually doesn't get pulled out. When it does though, I find myself a little more bouncy. Also, this tends to get put on when I'm in the kitchen.

119. Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Tails (1995)




Oh, where do I start with Lisa Loeb? Probably deserves to be in my top ten artists of all time. If she's not on a regular listing of mine, it's due to the fact that I have to give an explanation or apology every time I state how much I love her. This album also belongs in my top twenty. Definitely.

I only knew her from 'Stay' for the longest time. But when I finally looked up more of her stuff, I was impressed. This entire record is solid from start to finish. Tracks like 'Waiting For Wednesday', 'Rose-Colored Times' and 'Do You Sleep?' are just as strong as "her hit". 'Sandalwood' is my favorite song by her.

I really dislike how she's just lumped in with the generic Lilith Fair girls. She's got much more to offer than the Meredith Brookses and Natalie Imbruglias of the world. I can't imagine any of them on an Ozzy Osbourne tribute record. Or recording a song with Brian Eno. Or having Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett open a show for them.

And to play the "indie cred" card, she hit the top of the charts while not on any label. Also, it's fairly rare that a song without a chorus of any sort becomes that big of a success.

That's because she was "discovered" by Ethan Hawke!

Their best album, and maybe my favorite album of the nineties. I love everything the Lips did from '90-'99, but I still think this one tops it all.

120. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (1995)




Yeah, I really don't like the Pumpkins anymore. The singles are the only ones on this that are doing it for me and even 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' and 'Zero' don't have the punch they once did.

So, out of these twenty-eight songs, I think I like 'Tonight, Tonight', 'Muzzle', 'Thirty-Three', and '1979'. That's about it.

I don't know what happened. I used to like them. But now his voice is so, so grating. And the music is just noisy and annoying.

Adore was always my favorite. I guess we'll see if that can save part of this band for me.

121. Pulp - Different Class (1995)




Everyone agrees this is just a fantastic fucking record, right? There's not anybody on here who actually thinks this sucks or doesn't like it, is there? Where did this place on the obner Listmania? This should be higher than London Calling.

Every time I put this on, it feels fresh and new and exciting. I can't get sick of it. I love every song for a different reason. Every track has a certain specific thing about it that I absolutely love. The part in 'F.E.E.L.I.N.G..C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E' where the "WHAT" comes in and everything gets loud, for instance. That makes the song.

This is an album where, after I listen to it, I want to give a copy to everyone I know who hasn't heard it. Because I can't imagine them not liking it. Who? I don't know. My sisters, my parents, friends, coworkers, strangers on the street...

I had a copy of Different Class in high school, and I sold it after a few months. I tend to keep quiet about that, though, because it was a long time ago (10 years, at least), and my tastes have changed a lot since then.

I imagine I would probably like it now, but I seriously doubt that I would love it like so many people seem to.

There may be hope for you yet. That's the best assessment of SP I've ever read. It's as if I wrote it myself, even.

But I'll cop to liking "1979."

122. Guster - Parachute (1995)




Backstory:
I love Tiffany's version of 'I Think We're Alone Now'. I did from the first time I heard it. But I felt guilty about it. So I thought that there might be some rock band that did a version of it. That way, I could listen to it, enjoy it, but not feel too ashamed. So I did some searching and found some group called Guster who covered it live. Downloaded their version and loved it. Looked into it and found that they did a ton of covers, including acoustic Nine Inch Nails covers. This led to seeking out their original stuff which led to my infatuation with the group who are now my my third favorite band of all time.


I did not hear their first album Parachute until a bit down the line. After hearing their second and third discs, I believe.

Parachute is a good disc, a good debut. It's not as strong as their next three albums but features a handful of essential Guster tracks. Songs like 'Mona Lisa' and 'Window' are amongst my favorite songs by the group. And 'Happy Frappy' is many a Guster fan's favorite song by the group, despite them not having played it live in many years.


After Headstones retired, Guster have been the only real band I've been an enthusiatic street-teamer for. I promote shows, sell cd's, poster, and try to include a song by them on any mix I make for someone who isn't already a fan. I also own their fan-club only EP's and got free stickers, valentines, and a free t-shirt from the group.

Tommy James and the Shondells don't count as a rock band?

"Crimson & Clover" has some of the most rawk lyrics ever.

I'd only heard of them a few months ago. I didn't know her version was a cover before then.

James is still plugging away, even. Just put out a new album, albeit on a label about as big as a K-Fed thought cloud.

The Shondells weren't as fun as the Dave Clark Five, but they had some good tunes.

That reminds me...he needs to be included in the "hippie-est" lyric thread for a major transgression in "Draggin' the Line."

123. Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits (1995)




I was ten when my parents' best friend bought this album for them as a gift. I listened to it, became understandably captivated, and the album quickly found its way into my then predominantly-Disney collection of cd's.

I had heard of only a few of the cartoon shows featured and even fewer of the bands. I liked the Flintstones and Jetsons. I loved Ren & Stimpy. I knew the Popeye song though I'd never seen the show. And I of course knew the Spider-Man theme.

I knew my parents had a Collective Soul record. And I thought I'd heard of The Ramones.


Listening to this now, for the first time in a long time, is mesmerizing. Eleven years later, I'm more familiar with these artists' regular output and it's so bizarre to relisten to this, now knowing these artists back and forth.

This was my first exposure to bands like Butthole Surfers, Reverend Horton Heat, Sublime, and Violent Femmes.


Artists on this album that I discovered through this album and now absolutely love: Liz Phair, Sponge, Mary Lou Lord, Matthew Sweet, Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly, Ramones, Frente!, Violent Femmes, Tripping Daisy, Sublime, and The Murmurs.

Wow.

124. Gin Blossoms - Congratulations I'm Sorry (1996)




Gin Blossoms were once, I suppose, my favorite band. While New Miserable Experience was a large part of that, this album did its fair share.

It's not as strong as NME. A couple of the tracks are kind of dull. But 'Follow You Down' and 'Til I Hear It From You' are inarguably among the band's best work. And I always find myself enjoying tracks like 'My Car' and 'As Long As It Matters'.

Maybe not as good as NME but definitely didn't deserve to be the last thing before the split.

125. The Refreshments - Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy (1996)




This album was one of maybe seven or eight cd's my parents owned when I was around ten or eleven that I would constantly take out, put into our six-disc cd player, and program just to hear the one track on it I wanted to hear. The track on here was 'Banditos'. The other discs were Gin Blossoms, Blind Melon, The Verve Pipe, The Wallflowers, and Soul Asylum.

Sometime along the road I listened to the rest of this album and loved it. Somewhere further along the road, I became self-conscious of the music I listened to and sold off ninety percent of my alternative rock cd's. This one was among them but I missed it enough to rebuy it used a few years later.

I still really dig this album. I'm a man who enjoys a good upbeat, rocking, singalong song. This disc is full of them. I love nearly every song on this disc.



At one point, simply because of my love of The Refreshments and Gin Blossoms, Arizona was number one on my list of places I'd like to visit.

Not so much anymore, but still an interesting fact.

126. Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks (1996)




Saturday Morning Cartoons' acted as an introduction to many alternative rock bands for me. This album was the same thing, gone indie.

When I was a kid, Schoolhouse Rock! shorts were still shown between shows on CBS on Saturday mornings. During my Saturday morning fill of Bump In The Night, Fudge, Garfield & Friends, and others, I could catch these short, catchy, funny, informative little songs and videos. They were amazing. And my parents knew the lyrics to every one. When VHS collections were made available of all the shorts, themed into their little groups, I collected them all. When I discovered there was a cd of bands like Better Than Ezra and Blind Melon covering Schoolhouse Rock! songs, I had to buy it.

This album introduced me to Pavement, Ween, The Lemonheads, Biz Markie, Chavez, Man Or Astro-Man?, Buffalo Tom, and Daniel Johnston.

Considering that I now own at least two albums by nearly each of those artists, I guess this album was pretty important in the evolution of my musical taste. In fact, this is the album that probably first introduced me to the genre "indie rock". Which led to me seeking out some Best Of or Top 100 lists. Which led to me accidentally finding a thread on some message board called 'The Top 1000 Indie Rock Songs'. Which led to me joining that board. Then some other board that was created as an offshoot. And so on.

That is a great comp. 8/15 songs are fucking ace. The others are at least decent even if the bands that recorded a few of them are borderline jokes now.

127. Modest Mouse - This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About (1996)




This is not my favorite MM album. And it does seem too long and kind of drags on toward the end. But it does have many essential MM songs and it was one of my first introductions to the band.

MM was a band that I was introduced to through the CMJ Top 1000 thread. With twelve or thirteen songs placing in that list, how could I not check them out? Suffice to say, I'm a big fan now and own practically everything by them and I've seen them live twice in the past five years which is a lot for me.

Despite this being their first album, this wouldn't be the starting point I'd recommend for newcomers. However, it would be in the top three of order they should be gotten into, most likely.