Apologies, avid readers of this humble blog. I had a pretty good run, didn't I? I was spitting them out quick as a flash, and then all that momentum tumbled into a giant void of emptiness. To be truthful, I actually had one of those periods of life where work/life balance became work/work balance, and I literally had no time to do any recreational activities, such as silly blogging. After a holiday (right now) resulting in me feeling even more anxious instead of more relaxed, needless to say I need a huge career change. Anyway, here I am, who knows when I'll be here again.
SO! WHAT did you think of the final Hottest 100 of the Last 20 Years countdown, announced about 70 years ago? Did you vomit in disgust or cheer in elation at the songs that made it and didn't make it? Oasis being no. 1 was probably deserved in my opinion, as it was a song that still is hard to escape. On social media there are a lot of opinions, like of course 1.where are the girls, and 2. why was one of the only hip hop songs to make it in (Nosebleed Section by Hilltop Hoods at number 4) by white Australians (never mind being average), and 3. where were these songs. Also it appears a lot of people can't count and are shitty that Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (released in 1991) didn't top the list.
No one will ever be completely happy with a music list, otherwise why would there be polls based on opinion!?
This discussion is completely obsolete of course because all watercooler discussions (if you have colleagues who follow such polls) have already been done and dusted...
Nevertheless, I shall press on with my project, and here is 1996's most memorable for you. This was a pretty good year and I had to make some serious cutbacks, such as Björk's Hyperballad... I don't want to Björk you all out too much, audience.
Snout- Cromagnon Man (coming in at #89)
Snout! They were such a good band, guys. They had a terrible name which probably held them back and reserved them only for soundtracks to The Secret Life of Us etc. But this song was cracking as and had me rocking the car on the way to Brisbane Arts Theatre rehearsals. Plus they had a stack of great singles that you'd probably remember if you heard them now, I bet. What happened to Snout, you ask? Not a lot musically, apart from frontman Ross McLennan who had his own solo act in 2009. I hope he's still doing stuff.
A catchy addictive song by a bunch of girls with excellent voices. This song made the rounds a lot as it has become firmly embedded in my head since it got airplay. Probably fair to say Luscious Jackson was some of a one hit wonder in Australia with this, but I know they had a few more good songs up their sleeve.
You Am I - Soldiers (#80) + Good Mornin' (#84)
Too hard to pick one! When each of these songs came out (I can't remember which one was first), I fell in complete love with You Am I and decided they were my new favourite band. I remember watching the ARIA's that year and cursing whoever won over You Am I, who had released 'Hourly Daily' at the time. It ended up winnning Album of the Year AND Best Independent Release, so there was a lot of cheering. They toured Brisbane in June playing that album, plus 'Hi Fi Way' in their entirety, which was abso-fucking-lutely fantastic.
After their searing success with 'Marvin the Album', Frente! released their second offering, 'Shape', which saw them shape their music into less poppy and slightly deeper territory (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!). I thought they had even dropped their exclamation mark, but I can't confirm this anywhere. 'Shape' wasn't that well received, and they soon disappeared off the radar. But there was some pretty excellent stuff there (or at least, I would assume, it's near impossible to find this album). But I loved this song and also this song, both quite dramatically tragic in tone.
Holy shitballs I loved this song. 'Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' was the only album of the Smashing Pumpkins that anyone in my family have ever owned, and it often ended up in my room at the time, although I skipped most of the grungey hard songs. This filmclip, an ode to "La Voyage Danse La Lune", by Georges Melies, is pretty incredible, and the whole thing solidifies the pumpkins as a truly great band. But Billy had to go ahead and do his own stuff and kind of spoil their legacy a bit.
I have a pretty un-fun ironic story of this song. When I was in grade 5, I was made to go on our school camp to Samford, during which we travelled to the Planetarium, which was the best part of the shitty camp (during which my class teacher told us 9 and 10 year old girls that we were a bunch of bitches... anyway). This song was playing on the radio, when a car almost turned into our bus, the driver of which slammed on the breaks and sent us all flying. A couple of kids had their teeth knocked out, a lot of us were bruised, and all of us shaken, so much that I couldn't listen to the song again for weeks. I managed to break on through it though, and it's such a fun little ditty so I'm glad I got over it.
Ah, Jamiroquai stole all our 90's hearts and promised us to never let us down, but all 90's acts with only one schtick do, especially those who can't take off oversized hats. Ok Jamiroquai is the BAND not the GUY but all I can see in this Jonathon Glazer-directed filmclip is moving furniture, not other band members. The clip by the way is great, however just like Jamiroquai, gets a little boring after the concept gets old. Anyway, this is still a great song.
This song had a great title to play hangman with. I have used it a few times, and every time it was revealed, it was a complete let down for the other player. I'm a bit of a hangman jerk. Anyway I still really love this one hit wonder and it gives me a fuzzy nostalgic feeling whenever I listen, which is happening right now.
Beck - Devil's Haircut (#29)
This song came out, my mum loved it, she bought the album from Sunflower Records during a holiday to the Gold Coast, and so my love affair with Beck began. I honestly don't think my mum has ever listened to a Beck album all the way through more than once, because I kept stealing them and storing them in my cd player. I think Beck did a lot for my musical upbringing, including giving me my first enjoyable taste of hip hop. I'm sorry it was a white man who did it, but hey, I was growing up in Caboolture at the time, so cut me some slack. I think our electorate was even lead by a One Nation member at that time.
Cake - The Distance (#27)
Cake's breakthrough hit was inevitable to get stuck in your head and still holds up today as an earworm of a tune. I remember dancing to this one in my room quite a bit, using actions to describe all the words (including crossing my chest for "hugging the turns"). Cake went on to become a pretty solid band, but are sort of lost in that late 90's glow, never having really progressed from that era. Still, 'Fashion Nugget' is a pretty excellent album.
No Doubt - Just A Girl (#25)
There's room for a splash of girl power in 1996 too! When No Doubt came on to the scene and Gwen Stefani hadn't discovered a swag of Harajuku girls as an entourage just yet, they were pretty rock, and pretty awesome. I was also obsessed with "Spiderwebs" and "Sunday Morning" (which I bought the single of, never being able to afford an entire CD), and was pretty fascinated with Gwen's hair, makeup, abs and voice. Also her last name was kind of my first name! We must be related!
I had NO IDEA what the 'Gurge boys were talking about in this song, I just really liked it. My dad knew very well though, and when the CD came out for this year, he made very sure I didn't read too much into it...
Of course there was no film clip for this song, and it was so rude I don't think it was played as often as I remember hearing it... but somehow, even though I was one of the naiver girls of my bogan town, this song was my first happy memory of enjoying Regurgitator. It also helped that Quan Yeomans was a total cutie, turning into a pretty major celeb crush.
Babylon Zoo- Spaceman (#16)
This is the worst song ever made in the entire world. But who didn't love this song at the time and this weird bronzed up guy's haircut? The sped up 'alien'-like intro and outro, the spacey sound effects and vocoder, and disgustingly ridiculous lyrics "I always wanted you to go into space, man... Intergalactic christ..." ERGH, oh my god it's so spookey spacey dark! It's SO BAD that it's SO GOOD. I wish I could have shown you the equally awful filmclip.
This is another sexually themed song that went right by my head. I thought it was sweet and bright with a very addictive chorus that was easy to sing to younger sisters when they were cute. It is an odd song, with an equally odd filmclip, particularly the weird laughing bit in the bridge. Babybird had some other really excellent songs, such as "Bad Old Man" and "The F Word", but they never really got as popular as this song. Apparently the band reformed in 2009, and in 2012 played a music festival in Suffolk with our friends Wheatus! There you go.
Ben Folds Five - Underground (#3)
Oh boy. When this song got airplay and became a hit, for guitarless dudes Ben Folds and his 'five', that was it for me. As you probably already know, I became a massive, MASSIVE fan of this band, to the point of joining online forums and shit. Oh those were the days where I was a member of an online forum about Ben Folds... *cough*...
As I was saying recently, now listening to Ben Folds Five in public gives me an awkward feeling... like it's now too personal to do so with other people, because their music was so personalized by me. It sounds weird, but now I feel like Ben is an older cousin or uncle who I used to spend a lot of time with while my parents were away. And whom has since become a bit senile and creepy.
The filmclip for this song is horrible, but if you want to watch it I've linked the title to it. Instead, watch the band do what they do best, their live performance.
Well that's it for 1996, and I hope to bring you 1997 a lot sooner than later. It appears to be the big year in which the majority of the songs in the final countdown were from. We'll see if it really was all it's cracked up to be!
