2025 Rock & Roll HOF screechfest

[Cosmo]

Nirvana stands apart a bit for me because their evolution was different and has aged better. "In Utero" is quite possibly the best album of the 90s and a big jump from "Nevermind" in my opinion, even if "Nevermind" is more "tuneful". I get the Pixies comparison, but they took it further and louder.

Pearl Jam's best album is probably "Vitalogy", but it wasn't that big of a leap from "Ten" or "Vs". "Ten" is weird. It's probably their "grungiest", but has also aged the worst? I never want to hear "Even Flow" again as long as I live. Then again, "Alive" sounded really cool when it came out (it was floating around MTV for about a year before it finally broke) and has aged better than some of PJ's other ones.

Hate to say it, but most of the other grunge bands were very much of the moment, much in the same way a lot of the 1960s San Francisco bands were. I would think 90s grunge sounds just as aged to my kids' ears as 60s acid music sounded to mine, even if there's good songs in both genres that stand the test of time. Screaming Trees is to Seattle grunge as Moby Grape is to San Francisco psychedelia if you get my drift on this.

I think Vs is my favorite, by far. PJ is a band that I really lost touch with after Vitalogy. Really enjoyed their most recent album, though. Waiting For Stevie is a banger. Couldn't agree more on Evenflow. It's the worst song on Ten by a country mile. Release is probably the best, though you could talk me into Porch.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

He made a ton of the same points, so that's why I thought you might have. Pantera basically has made it impossible to find its early stuff because it's so cringy.

I would definitely listen to that pod! Thanks for the tip.

I think Vs is my favorite, by far. PJ is a band that I really lost touch with after Vitalogy. Really enjoyed their most recent album, though. Waiting For Stevie is a banger. Couldn't agree more on Evenflow. It's the worst song on Ten by a country mile. Release is probably the best, though you could talk me into Porch.

I also loved Vs., though I'm sure hardcore grunge/anti-hair metal fans would suggest that's b/c it's their most commercial record, or at least the one no one could miss b/c it sold eleventybillion copies. Great forking record though from start to finish. Seeing an entire arena sing along to "Elderly Woman" remains on my to-do list. I still like Ten and will always have a soft spot for Black as my favorite song there, since the summer of '92 was a great time to be getting over a first love.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why, why, why
Can't it be, can't it be mine

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Ironically, he nearly went blind making that video. The contacts he was wearing became attached to his eyeballs thanks to all the fire & smoke on the set.

I watched that video with my sister within the last five years or so. She was aghast at how much sexism we tolerated as kids.

I was just kinda like, "Lighten up, Francis" and watch Billy Idol's disembodied head come out of the ether. And then watch Billy Idol have a rock 'n roll seizure on a piece of granite. Then watch him preen, all bad boy style, with Savage Steve Stevens. Then watch some models in fishnets repeatedly slap their ashes to the beat, oh ...

That song in particular is kind of a miracle if you think about it. Billy Idol did somehow bridge the gap between punk and metal, two genres that hate each other. It was probably really only on that song and maybe one or two others, but you get my drift.

Billy Idol is probably the only one who came out of punk who embraced all of that silly metal imagery from the 80s. The hooded figures, the weird call-backs to sword and sorcery days, the we're-worshpping-the-devil-but-we're-really-not-so-don't-be-threatened iconography.

I still do like "Eyes Without A Face". Good song (lyrically challenged, but so what? Idol isn't exactly Yeats), Stevens' guitar is some good 80s ship, but man, Idol's ship got old in a hurry.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

I still do like "Eyes Without A Face". Good song, Stevens' guitar is some good 80s ship, but man, Idol's ship got old in a hurry.

fork off!!!!! If not for Billy, would Generation X (heh) still be driving around in cars chanting GET forkED GET LAID GET forkED in between verses of "Mony Mony" on the '80s station? Also, "Cradle of Love" is an absolute forking banger with a potential top-10 all-time video, which is an absolutely remarkable 1-2 punch for a song that came from the Andrew Dice Clay movie. Hell, I'm starting to talk myself into Billy just for that alone.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

See "Cradle Of Love" sounds to me like it would be in heavy rotation on the 90s rock-but-not-too-much-rock streaming channel.

"Coming right up! Cradle Of Love, followed by Life Is A Highway and Little Miss Can't Be Wrong."

I haven't watched the video in ages. I know it was, uh, inspiring for 18-year-old me. My sister probably wouldn't like it.

 

[swingline]

I was shocked to find out Chubby Checker is still alive.

All them blueberries, man.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

See "Cradle Of Love" sounds to me like it would be in heavy rotation on the 90s rock-but-not-too-much-rock streaming channel.

"Coming right up! Cradle Of Love, followed by Life Is A Highway and Little Miss Can't Be Wrong."

I haven't watched the video in ages. I know it was, uh, inspiring for 18-year-old me. My sister probably wouldn't like it.

Cradle of Love was 1990, so it was right in the sweet spot of harder rock. You're right, by 1992, whatever rock songs made it to radio were completely unattached to the '80s rock scene...and if they were, they were Bryan Adams or Def Leppard songs produced within an inch of their bombastic lives by Mutt Lange or "Human Touch" by the comebacking Bruce Springsteen.

 

[swingline]

I'd vote a thousand times against Oasis. Talk about derivative! Unoriginal forkers who thought they were the Beatles. Whiny, preening forks who leaned into Cockney while flying in chartered jets. They can die in a fire.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I'd vote a thousand times against Oasis. Talk about derivative! Unoriginal forkers who thought they were the Beatles. Whiny, preening forks who leaned into Cockney while flying in chartered jets. They can die in a fire.

I've never really understood the hostility Oasis engenders from people. Your view is a pretty common one, and I wouldn't really argue with your complaints about them.

At the same time... "Don't Look Back in Anger" is such a great song. I mean, it's so derivative that the video should have flying gloves and yellow submarines flying around in the background, but it's a forking great song. And they have others.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

I've never really understood the hostility Oasis engenders from people. Your view is a pretty common one, and I wouldn't really argue with your complaints about them.

At the same time... "Don't Look Back in Anger" is such a great song. I mean, it's so derivative that the video should have flying gloves and yellow submarines flying around in the background, but it's a forking great song. And they have others.

It's probably 95% because it was released my last couple weeks of college and those lyrics really hit when you're staring down adulthood as it hurtles towards you at 100 mph, but "Champagne Supernova" is such a majestic song.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

BLUR vs. OASIS! The British tabloid battle than no one in America cared about! Gun to head, probably go with Blur, but that's one war where I don't care about the casualties.

I'll give Oasis the nod on favorite soccer team. They supported Citeh in their pre-Abu Dhabi ownership days when they were more dysfunctional than my boys Leeds are.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Speaking of 1990s UK music, this parody of breathless "next big thing" rock 'n roll journalism of the period, here and there, is hilarious*.



* Though it also makes me sad that a perfectly good band like Teenage Fanclub is a punch line over here with "Bandwagonesque" being named Spin's 1991 album of the year over "Nevermind". I'd rather listen to "Bandwagonesque" over "Nevermind" any day ... though I'd also admit that Teenage Fanclub is a lot like the parody band in that sketch.