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January 1995

I don't know if I'll keep this up but let's try. After all it is 2025 so it kinda beckons.

January didn't bring much for me but there were a couple of shiners.

One is the single "She's a River" by Simple Minds from their album "Good News from the Next World".

The other is Leftfield's debut album "Leftism" which included the singles "Open Up" featuring Public Image Ltd.'s John Lydon and "Original" featuring my beloved Curve's Toni Halliday.

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Vintage Visions: Ray Gun

At first I wanted to post just the 1994 stuff but then I said fuck it.

Ray Gun was an influential rock magazine with a revolutionary design aesthetic headed by art director David Carson, whose motto is "why not?"

This blog's header is obviously a homage to the magazine.

Notably infamous was Carson's decision to render a Bryan Ferry interview in dingbats font, because he found the text dull.

Carson left after three years and was succeded by several art directors, including Getty creative director Chris Ashworth and music video director Robert Hales.

Ray Gun was first published in 1992 and had its final issue published in 2000, sort of befitting for a staple 90s magazine.

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Metal Monday

Korn actually put out two hit albums over two consecutive years. First was Follow the Leader in 1998 featuring Freak on a Leash, followed by 1999's Issues featuring Make Me Bad.

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Vintage Visions: Vaughan Oliver

More graphic design appreciation. This should actually be a huge post because Vaughan Oliver is one of the most legendary album cover designers ever. Hopefully we'll get to it at some point. Meanwhile, here are just a few of his 1994 designs.

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Vintage Visions: Crooked Rain

Not a music post because the album never quite spoke to me, but an appreciation of the art direction/graphic design of Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, by Mark Ohe and Alex Kirzhner.

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dEUS

More 1994 odds and ends. dEUS is a Belgian indie/alt rock band who had an underground hit with Suds & Soda off their debut, Worst Case Scenario.

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Age of Panic

We are nearing the end of the year, so I'm still trying to find some odds and ends for completion. This one half belongs in Metal Monday but I don't really have enough to fill a post. So here's Senser with the very relevantly titled Age of Panic.

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Metal Monday

Just a quick one, two songs by Deftones, from their 1997 sophomore album, Around the Fur, where they really came into their own.

(The first was also features in The Matrix soundtrack.)

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To Sarah, my love.

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Some More 1996

Wikipedia isn't comprehensive so I tried to pick up some loose ends.

We had singles Firestarter and Breathe, as the leadup to the best electronic album of the 90s. (both directed by Walter Stern)

Echoing the ad post from the beginning, here's another Levi's ad that spawned a hit single.

The song is Babylon Zoo's Spaceman.

Going by discogs, we also had Metallica's Until It Sleeps (directed by Samuel Bayer) - maybe should have been a Metal Monday post.

BT mixed Tori Amos into Blue Skies

Lots of people were into Suede. I wasn't.

There was the adorable I Love You Always Forever, and the poppy I Want You (technically only in Australia. Rest of the world 1997).

Following in Enigma's New Age fusion was Era with Ameno.

Bally Sagoo released the beautiful Tum Bin Jiya

Cheating because Joan Osborne's album came out in 1995, but who knows when I'll get to it, so here's the single from 1996, St. Teresa.

There was more, like Jesus Christ Superstar from Laibach, and Michael Jackson's Stranger in Moscow (again cheating), but I'll wrap it up for now with the Andy Goldsworthy-inspired video for Midge Ure's Breathe.

Okay one more, the song I used as temp music to end my second year's film at film school, Lamb's Gorecki.

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Metal Monday

Kind of a short one I guess. Today we're doing Rammstein.

1995 brought Herzeleid which lended Heirate Mich to the Lost Highway soundtrack.

Then came Sehnsucht in 1997 with Du Hast and Engel.

Bonus: Scala's a capella rendition:

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Kino Cuts: 1994

It's called Media Memoir, not Music Memoir, so I suppose I should expand a little. Besides, film is our main interest anyway.

Let's start with the ones most relevant to us, which are Pulp Fiction and Leon. Pulp Fiction was the first time I've been to a film fest. I was 15 and pre-ordered a ticket to the Haifa Film Fest's closing night, after the hype on MTV including its Cannes win. Blew. My. Mind.

Other films that are relevant to your interests are probably Exotica and Color of Night (you know why), and an excellent TV movie which was so good they released it in a few theaters, The Last Seduction.

Forrest Gump was the second biggest earner (after The Lion King) and also robbed The Shawshank Redemption of its deserved Oscars, the latter was the debut feature from Stephen King fan Frank Darabont, who previously wrote horror films The Blob and Dream Warriors (one of the best Elm Street entries), and later worked on The Mist and The Walking Dead, apart from his work as a script doctor.

We had what is probably John Carpenter's last really good film, the Cthulhu-inspired In the Mouth of Madness (though I do have some affection for Ghosts of Mars).

A scathing satirical dark comedy, Swimming with Sharks was inspired by abusive producer Scott Rudin. It also had a haunting end title music.

We got Clerks, THE indie hit of the 90s, which was made for $27,000 and grossed around $4m, and made a name for Kevin Smith.

I already covered The Crow, Speed, Natural Born Killers, and Reality Bites via music posts.

It was Jim Carrey's biggest year with THREE movies, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, and The Mask, the latter directed by The Blob co-writer and director, Chuck Russell and featured in this oddly specific list.

I only caught Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express years after its release.

We had two excellent British debuts from wildly different directors who took quite the opposite paths, Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave and Paul W.S. Anderson's Shopping.

And then there was the most unsettling experience of the year (I actually watched in the the film fest the following year) - Lars von Trier's horror/black comedy/soap opera mini-series, The Kingdom.

More notable films include Interview with the Vampire, which was supposed to feature the late River Phoenix, replaced by Christian Slater; Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, which starred Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey; Tim Burton's Ed Wood; and Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red, which might also be relevant to your interests.

There are obviously more but it's getting too long for me, so I'll just end by mentioning that as a Tim Roth fan, you might be interested in Little Odessa.

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Mental Monday

Not metal at all anymore, but might fit your Monday listen. It's Garbage's 1995 self-titled debut, with the trip-hoppy Queer, Stupid Girl, and my favorite of theirs, the brilliant Only Happy When It Rains.

The first video directed by Stephane Sednaoui, the latter two by Samuel Bayer.

Other singles of note include the quietly dark ballad Milk, and album opener, Supervixen.

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Me(n)tal Monday

I realized not everything I posted and will post here is metal, so maybe a slight name change?

Hopping back to 1994, I already covered Bush's Glycerine from Sixteen Stone and Nine Inch Nails' Closer and A Warm Place from The Downward Spiral. But we still have the angry Ruiner from NIN, along with the heart wrenching Hurt.

Bonus tracks: The remixes for Piggy, Ruiner, and Heresy from Further Down the Spiral, and Johnny Cash's definitive cover of Hurt.

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Metal Monday #3

So I saved Tool for this one, they delve a lot into progressive metal so I wonder what you'll think of it. Also I'm thinking of cheating and referencing other Maynard James Keenan projects, like I did with Mike Patton.

Tool became known not just for their music, but for their visuals as well, expressed in their stop-motion videos, directed by guitarist and co-founder Adam Jones.

So Tool's first full length album (preceded by EP Opiate) was Undertow, released in 1993 and had hits with Sober and Prison Sex.

Then came what is probably their most influential album, 1996's Ænima, produced by David Bottrill, who previously produced two King Crimson albums. The standout singles were Stinkfist and Ænema.

Stinkfist also has a excellent unreleased remix by the great Dave Ogilvie.

So now I'm stepping out of the 90s for a taste of Lateralus, featuring Schism and my second gf's fantasy lovemaking soundtrack, Lateralus.

And while we're here, I'll mention Maynard James Keenan's other projects. A Perfect Circle, which he co-founded with Billy Howerdel, had its first hit with the David Fincher-directed Judith.

Also notable for me is The Hollow.

And then came Puscifer, Keenan's personal project, which I mostly got to know and warmed up to through its more electronic, more beat heavy remixes, like The Undertaker, Queen B, Momma Sed, and the unremixed Trekka.

Hope you find something interesting to you in all of this.

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1996: Unlisted

Two of my favorite 1996 tracks could not be found on any major list, and through sheer luck I remembered and Googled them.

The Beloved's uncharacteristic track and video, inspired by Damien Hirst.

And this four-way collaboration featuring Stakka Bo (aka Johan Renck, who became a successful music video and TV director) and Titiyo (half-sister to Neneh Cherry).

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1996: October-December

So it's supposed to start with Tool's Ænima, but I'm thinking of saving Tool for a Metal Monday post.

So let's go to Xzibit with Paparazzi which samples Barbra Streisand's version of Gabriel Faure's ethereal Pavane.

We had Shawn Colvin's Grammy-winning Sunny Came Home.

Matchbox 20 had a big hit with the dubious Push.

Then came one of the standout songs of the year with what was definitely the most striking music video of the year. It was Marilyn Manson with The Beautiful People, directed by Floria Sigismondi. The aesthetics just blew me away. I'm still not sure what grabbed me more, the song or the video. (It should have been a Metal Monday but I couldn't resist.) DP Chris Soos won the Canadian Society of Cinematographers award for best music video, and it's clear why.

(art director: Kenny Baird, styling: Carole Beadle)

Then came Paula Cole with this chronicle of a tragic romance.

(Another single, I Don't Want to Wait, became huge as the second opening theme of the hit teen series, Dawson's Creek.)

The Spice Girls exploded with their debut, Spice, and the single, Wannabe. (I was not into it.)

Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension would spawn a beautiful video, but only later, in 1997.

Bush's Razorblade Suitcase featured the darker Greedy Fly (directed by Marcus Nispel)

Enigma had a minor hit with Beyond the Invisible, directed by Julien Temple. (Wikipedia says the ice rink was built especially for the video and took a week to freeze. Music videos used to have money.)

And that's it for what Wikipedia lists as albums released in 1996, but there's still more to come.