#nineties rock

[iburntoday]

My favorite band, my obsession, I love all of it from 1972 on up to now. Saw them front row in the pit last April and took the bottom photo. They bring me joy and make me burn.

[rocknroll105]

Lecture 21: “1979”  - The Smashing Pumpkins: “1979” was the second single released from The Smashing Pumpkins third (double) album Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995). The album was a monster hit, debuting in the #1 position on the Billboard 200 and earning critical acclaim. This song (“1979”) was by far their biggest hit, rising to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and  #1 on both the Billboard Alternative Songs and the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. The song remains a classic rock anthem of the mid-nineties, and the video presents a very Nineties-ified (if that’s a word???) portrayal of the late 1970s. 

[listentothecountdown-blog]

2585. Marilyn Manson - ‘The Dope Show’ (1998)

The drugs, they say, make us feel so hollow We love in vain, narcissistic and so shallow The cops and queers, to swim, you have to swallow Hate today, no love for tomorrow

from the album Mechanical Animals

Following the release of his band’s breakthrough album Antichrist Superstar, Marilyn Manson had become a pop sensation, whether he had intended to do so or not: by occupying a place in American culture that painted him as a child corruptor, a promoter of bad taste, and, in extreme cases, a literal Satanist, he had penetrated the mainstream at a level that was usually reserved for mega-selling pop acts, and, as the nineties came to a close, he would only get more notorious. Mechanical Animals, his first LP as a household name, no longer positioned Manson and his bandmates as active participants in the debauchery and controversy that had driven the Antichrist Superstar-era - instead, this concept album served to deconstruct the media circus that had brought the band their fame, and the contradictions inherent in using that very platform to sell what is, at the end of the day, still a commercial product.

As a product, Mechanical Animals was marketed and sold exceptionally well, as evidenced by the LP’s entry at number one on the Billboard 200, and much of this success can be attributed to lead single ‘The Dope Show’, a track which expanded upon all the hysteria surrounding Antichrist Superstar and repackaged it for MTV. In the song itself, Manson denigrates himself and his peers, sneering at the lengths in which they had gone to generate notoriety for themselves, and foreshadowing the eventual end of his run as the conservative media’s public enemy number one. In the video, he stops fucking with religion for a minute to fuck with gender instead, recreating the Mechanical Animals album cover and transforming into a glamorous, androgynous alien, a now-iconic image that was specifically designed to shock, horrify, and most importantly, get people talking. 

When MTV’s Total Request Live, the show that would become synonymous with the teen-pop explosion of the late-nineties, debuted on September 14, 1998, ‘The Dope Show’ was sitting pretty in the top ten most requested videos, right between Usher and Will Smith - Marilyn Manson had officially reached his commercial peak. How fitting, then, that it would be with a song that was both a genuinely awesome glam-industrial hybrid, and a cynically self-aware takedown of the very system in which its creator was now thriving.

‘The Dope Show’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #12, AUS #20

Written by Richard Eric, 11/3/19

[thewolverina]

This is the only good and correct youtube comment and response I have ever seen. Found on Veruca Salt’s Volcano Girls music video. 

[mercutiomaddie]

Both my babies together😍😍😍😍

[listentothecountdown-blog]

2711. R.E.M. - ‘E-Bow The Letter’ (1996)

I wear my own crown of sadness and sorrow And who’d have thought tomorrow would be so strange?

from the album New Adventures In Hi-Fi

On October 31, 1993, Johnny Depp’s band P were onstage at his nightclub The Viper Room playing their song ‘Michael Stipe’, while, unbeknownst to them, young actor River Phoenix was dying on the sidewalk outside. As a friend of Michael’s, River is mentioned in the song, and his death would have a profound effect on the R.E.M. frontman. R.E.M.’s 1994 album Monster was dedicated to his memory, and Michael would eventually examine his feelings surrounding the incident, in his own unique way, on the 1996 single ‘E-Bow The Letter’.

Once you know that the titular letter is one that Michael wrote to River, but never sent, ‘E-Bow The Letter’ begins to unravel, becoming reasonably straightforward (for an R.E.M. song). The lyrics, while never referring to or mentioning River directly, capture the impact of his quick rise to fame, and the aftermath of his death for those left behind. Other R.E.M. tracks that deal with regret and melancholy, like ‘Nightswimming’, for example, usually also hold a glimmer of hope, but it’s hard to find anything in ‘E-Bow The Letter’ but sadness.

Michael was joined on the song’s chorus by Patti Smith, who the band cited as  a major influence, and 'E-Bow The Letter’ was released as the lead-in single for New Adventures In Hi-Fi. Only a moderate chart success upon its in initial release (peaking high in the UK, but falling fast), the single was perhaps too heavy for casual audiences who may have been expecting another ‘Bang And Blame’ or ‘Losing My Religion’. Over the years, however, it has emerged as one of the band’s most beloved works among fans and critics, and it seems clear that its release as a single was based both on its strength and the cathartic qualities of its lyrics and subject matter. ‘E-Bow The Letter’ was a fitting tribute to a life lost, and remains one of R.E.M.’s greatest songs.

‘E-Bow The Letter’ music video:

Chart peaks: UK #4, AUS #23, US #49

Written by Richard Eric, 29/9/18

[kuiperoid]

What does friend mean to you? A word so wrongfully abused Are you like me, confused? All included but you

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

In honor of Keanu Reeves’ birthday, here’s a song by Dogstar, a short-lived band where he was the bassist.