90. New Order – “Regret” (1993)
New Order released a string of classics in the 1980s after rising from the dust of Joy Division following the suicide of Ian Curtis. Their first offering of the 1990s came three years into the decade with Republic and its lead single “Regret”. It was a shrewd choice, as “Regret” is instantly recognizable as New Order but is also a progression of the band’s sound for a new decade.
Unlike many of their contemporaries who emerged in the 1980s, New Order maintained their relevance and success after that decade collapsed under the weight of its glittery scrap heap of excess. “Regret” spent five weeks at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart, their biggest ever hit in America.
“Regret” has a dense rock sound compared with the generally sparse and mainly electronic arrangements on their prior album, Technique. Peter Hook’s bass rumbles in the midst of a simple guitar pattern and one of Bernard Sumner’s smoothest vocals. The lyrics are inscrutable and open to interpretation. Still, despite its upbeat nature, it closes with a fatalistic stanza: “Just wait ’til tomorrow / I guess that’s what they all say / just before they fall apart.”
The word “regret” is only used once in the first verse, as Sumner insists, “Maybe I’ve forgotten / the name and the address / of everyone I’ve ever known / it’s nothing I regret.” It’s not uncommon to hear someone claim no regrets when, in fact, the reverse is true, and the song does possess the wistful aura of someone looking back with a certain sad nostalgia.
Peter Hook told MTV News in 2013 that he considers “Regret” to be the last great New Order song, and he was right — until 2015 when the Hook-less incarnation of the band unleashed Music Complete, easily the band’s best album since Technique.
89. Bush – “Everything Zen” (1994)
“Everything Zen” was the first single by British rockers Bush, whose debut album Sixteen Stone yielded five major hits and became one of the signature albums of 1990’s alternative rock. Gavin Rossdale’s stiff sandpaper voice cuts through the massive waves of guitar, croaking out anxiety-choked lyrics of a world-run amok.
Everything is turned on its head — “Everything zen? I don’t think so”. The lyrics are littered with pop culture references. For instance, “Minnie Mouse has grown up a cow / Dave’s on sale again” is an allusion to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”, and “Rain dogs howl for the century” refers to Tom Waits’ brilliant 1985 album Rain Dogs and Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem Howl.
Rossdale also slides in lyrical references to songs by Alice in Chains (“Try to see it once my way” is nicked from their 1992 single “Would?”), and he reverses lines by Jane’s Addiction (“Your sex is violence!” from the epic “Ted, Just Admit It” becomes “There’s no sex in your violence”) and Living Colour (“Elvis is Dead” was a key track on their 1990 album Time’s Up, and Rossdale flips it with the repeated litany of “I don’t believe that Elvis is dead!”) before launching back to the chorus at the 3:43 point with guitars all barrels blazing.
It’s pretty easy to figure that, in fact, nothing is zen; the title is bitterly sarcastic, and roiling turmoil is felt in a song practically quivering with angst. It fit the zeitgeist of its era well, although some critics claimed Bush was nothing but a wan imitation of other, better bands of the period. Utter nonsense. “Everything Zen” hit #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and endures today as a 1990s alt-rock essential.
88. Everclear – “Heroin Girl” (1995)
The Portland, Oregon-based trio Everclear rose to alt-rock prominence with their second album, Sparkle and Fade, easily the strongest of their career. “Santa Monica” was the bigger hit, but the harrowing “Heroin Girl” packs a much more potent sonic and emotional wallop.
The connection between musicians and heroin, of course, is not something unique to the 1990s. It’s a co-dependence that has persisted for decades and seems to be worse than ever now as America struggles in the midst of a ghastly heroin epidemic stemming, in part, from rampant over-prescription of opioid painkillers. The scourge of smack addiction is part of the fabric of 1990s alternative rock, with many artists battling it, writing about it, and dying from it.
Everclear frontman Art Alexakis has his own nightmares to tell, as the raging bitterness in “Heroin Girl” makes clear. The song mixes a fictional character (Esther), who dies alone in a field, with elements of Alexakis’ real life. The line about the cop saying, “Just another overdose!” which Alexakis sings in a barely controlled fury, was actually something a policeman said following the heroin overdose of Alexakis’ brother George. Alexakis was 12 at the time. It would endure his own struggles with addiction.
The shock and outrage over the police treating his brother as less than human are palpable, and there is little reason to believe this is an isolated case. “Heroin Girl” is about the co-dependency not just with the drug but with those who supply, enable, and participate in that world of addiction, as well as the often callous way those trapped in its grip are treated. Riveting and unflinchingly honest, “Heroin Girl” was perhaps a bit intense for many alternative radio programmers as it only reached #34 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart. Still, as we know, the highest-charting songs are not always the greatest.
87. The Church – “Ripple” (1992)
Although best known for their 1989 classic Starfish, the Church’s 1992 release Priest=Aura is arguably the Australian band’s artistic pinnacle. It’s an expansive, trippy collection that drifts from one shadowy dream to another. Priest=Aura was the band’s first album with former Patti Smith and Waterboys drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, and he brings a flowing groove to the mix that adds a bit of swing to the band’s dark psychedelia.
“Ripple”, one of the album’s two singles, is a hypnotic late-night song, richly layered and lush. Steve Kilbey’s dusky baritone is particularly fine as he navigates the cascading guitar and strings that give “Ripple” its shadowy grace.
The lyrics are abstract and dreamlike, romantic, and riven with pain. The narrator seems to be caught in the throes of love with someone who seems locked in the grip of addiction: “I lent you some collateral to buy new clothes / it went out the window and up your nose / and that’s the end of the honeymoon”. Of course, Kilbey could be indirectly referring to his own struggles with heroin during this period, about which he has been very open.
Regardless, it’s an intense and mystical song that feels like it should be played with some nice incense burning and a few candles. “Ripple” reached #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and is definitive proof for the more casual fans out there that the Church is far more than just “Under the Milky Way”. The die-hard fans already know.
86. Screaming Trees – “Nearly Lost You” (1992)
Not many bands that rose to prominence in the 1990s can match Screaming Trees’ top-notch musicianship. In “Nearly Lost You”, they play with wild abandon, barely restrained. The track was propelled onto alternative radio thanks in part to its inclusion on the highly popular and influential soundtrack to the film Singles, which also included tracks by Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Alice in Chains.
There are nods in “Nearly Lost You” to 1970s-era psychedelic-tinged classic rock in the blistering jolts of guitar by Gary Lee Conner and relentlessly dynamic drum work by Barrett Martin. Mark Lanegan’s gruff voice is an instrument powerful enough to stand up to the musical hurricane that buffets him from all sides.
The track seems to be about a relationship nearly derailed by some “sin” that the narrator struggles to resist: “Did you hear the distant cry / calling me back to my sin? / Like the one you knew before / calling me back once again / I nearly, I nearly lost you there / and it’s taken us somewhere.” Drugs? Perhaps. Addiction is such a constant struggle documented by many alternative rockers in the ’90s that it’s easy to see references everywhere, even when it might not be the case.
“Nearly Lost You” stormed up to the #5 slot on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart, by far the Screaming Trees’ highest placement. Unfortunately, the song’s success couldn’t procure the band a wider audience, and they were not long for this world. Screaming Trees released one final album, 1996’s Dust, before drifting away on the winds.
85. Stereolab – “French Disko” (1993)
Stereolab are one of the most innovative and endlessly fascinating acts of the 1990s. They developed their own unique sound, a hodgepodge of sorts that borrowed from alternative rock, new wave, krautrock, and 1960s influences, and they infused it with their unique beauty and weirdness.
French vocalist Lætitia Sadier has a distinct voice, oddly mannered and almost atonal — reminiscent of Nico but with a lighter touch. One of their finest tracks is “French Disko”, a piece of hard-driving space-rock. During the verses, Sadier’s monotone vocal oscillates over the rhythm like licks of blue flame wafting above a raging pyre, with a vocal countermelody weaving sinuously throughout. During the chorus, her voice alights with furious intensity for the heated exclamations of “La resistance!”
The song flatly rejects the inevitability of violence and the abject acceptance that the world is doomed to perpetual warfare: “I’ve been told it’s a fact of life / Men have to kill one another / Well, I say there are still things worth fighting for.” Instead of retreating, Sadier urges us to engage in “acts of rebellious solidarity” that “can bring sense in this world.” The “La resistance!”, obviously a slogan borrowed from the French Resistance to the German occupation of World War II, in this case, refers to a different kind of human resistance — “French Disko” is a call for peaceful resistance to war.
Stereolab originally recorded “French Disco” for the 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline before revamping and improving it later that year, slightly changing the spelling to add the “k”, and releasing it as a limited edition vinyl and CD single. “French Disko” was later included on Stereolab’s stellar 1995 collection of stray singles and rarities, Refried Ectoplasm: Switched on, Vol. 2, and again in 2006 on the compilation Serene Velocity: A Stereolab Anthology.
84. Whipping Boy – “We Don’t Need Nobody Else” (1995)
Irish rockers Whipping Boy are among the great unsung bands of the 1990s. Their 1995 album Heartworm, a seething collection of viscerally intense hard-edged rock, deserves a much wider audience than it received upon release.
“We Don’t Need Nobody Else” is a brutally chilling narrative from the point of view of a violent sociopath. The verses are spoken with cold malevolence: “I hit you for the first time today / I didn’t mean it / It just happened… / Christ we weren’t even fighting, I was just annoyed / Silence / And you started to cry / ‘That really hurt’, you said / Yeah, and you thought you knew me!” The chorus is a savage repetition of “We don’t need nobody else… just you and me!” over bracing squalls of guitar. Usually, a line like this would be amid a tender love song, but it’s deliberately cruel and obsessively controlling here. It’s a nightmare scenario for the woman in the song as she is awakened for the first time to the brutal nature of her lover.
The narrator’s dissatisfaction and bitterness at the world drip from every line, like in his disdainful reaction to his countryman Bono’s success, “They build portholes for Bono / So he could gaze out across the bay and sing about mountains / Maybe / You are what you own in this land / You can be King, and it all depends on the view and what you can see.” We are privy to the caustic asperity and rage of a man who feels the world has passed him by and he’s been cheated by life. He flexes his power over someone he can (or thinks he can) control. It’s a powerful glimpse into a disturbed mind, and vocalist Fearghal McKee convincingly and fearlessly inhabits the manic rage and obsessive need for control that his character exhibits.
83. Veruca Salt – “Seether” (1994)
Veruca Salt were the hot band of the moment when they emerged from Chicago at the peak of alternative rock’s popularity in the mid-1990s. Led by vocalist/guitarists Nina Gordon and Louise Post, who each sang lead on their own compositions, Veruca Salt’s mix of ragged garage rock and strong melodic hooks was a natural fit for alternative radio. “Seether” was their first single, a frazzled rocker sung by Nina Gordon about a sorta Jeckyl & Hyde scenario.
The “seether” is an irrational aspect of her personality, with a vicious temper, quick to anger, and self-destruction. It flexes its power without warning and whenever seems appropriate (which can be the worst possible moment), and is nearly impossible to hold back. Gordon tries to keep it down but doesn’t seem to be able to: “I try to keep her on a short leash / I try to calm her down / I try to ram her into the ground, yeah.”
“Seether” reached #8 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and helped launch the band’s debut album to significant success and acclaim. Other key tracks from American Things include “Forsythia”, “Victrola”, and “Number One Blind”. Veruca Salt released one more album with their classic lineup — 1997’s Eight Arms to Hold You — but Nina Gordon soon left, and Louise Post carried on the band for years with a revolving cast of musicians. In 2015, that all changed, and the original lineup were reunited for the album Ghost Notes.
82. Live – “Lightning Crashes” (1994)
Live’s earnest brand of emotional rock is the kind that critics enjoy bashing, but there is no denying the power and impact of their 1994 smash “Lightning Crashes”. As the third single from their album Throwing Copper, “Lightning Crashes” became by far the band’s biggest hit. It was a spectacular smash on alternative radio, spending an incredible nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart starting in February 1995.
Produced by former Talking Heads’ guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison, “Lightning Crashes” gains much of its power from Ed Kowalczyk’s impassioned vocal. He begins in a half-whisper and then builds intensity as the song winds to its epic climax. On the surface, it’s simply about the circle of life, but it goes deeper than that.
The lyrics are carefully considered. In an instant — like a flicker of lightning — a new child is born, just as an elderly woman takes her last shuddering breath. One family is jubilant and full of visions of hope and the future, and one family grieves and remembers. Life can change for us all in the flash of an instant, something we all know and don’t often appreciate when the rigors of day-to-day existence leave us wan and drained. We’re all in this together, sharing humanity’s innate confusion.
After the song was written, Live dedicated it to Barbara Lewis, a friend who was killed by a drunk driver, whose organs were donated to save the lives of others. “Lightning Crashes”, with its blinding sincerity, has become a song of healing and understanding grief as part of a never-ending process of which we are all a part.
81. Slowdive – “Alison” (1993)
British “shoegaze” pioneers Slowdive released their second album, Souvlaki, to mostly uneven reviews in 1993. It’s a great example of an album that takes time to digest and appreciate. Over two decades later, Souvlaki is nearly universally hailed as a masterpiece of its genre.
The languid drifts of melody married to dense guitars is exemplified in the album’s only single, “Alison”, a gorgeously narcotized piece that bestirs slowly like a hazy dream and builds to a glowing beauty. The album’s opening lyrical passage could describe the song itself: “Listen close, and don’t be stoned / I’ll be here in the morning / cause I’m just floating”.
Neil Halstead is indeed floating, but no need to suggest we not be stoned. After all, if there was ever music ideally suited for drifting in an altered state of consciousness, this is it. Halstead’s lead vocal is leisurely and sedate, and during the chorus, Rachel Goswell joins to harmonize in a luscious wall of sound that blends with the woozy guitars to create a glorious swell.
It couldn’t be mixed more perfectly — the vocals blend with the guitar like they are all the same instrument, the same river of sound. There’s a detached solemnity to it, like you can never entirely penetrate its secrets, but that only adds to the song’s mystique. “Alison” fades out like a half-forgotten dream, solemn and airy.
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This article was originally published on 8 July 2016. It has been reformatted and updated.