90 Songs That Explain My 90's: Volume VI
Ska-riffic horns, exquisite synth pads, and one-hit wonders
And…we’re back with the 90s songs after a long break to talk about Randy Newman and burritos and word games and whatever else.
Context if you’re new: inspired by Rob Harvila’s podcast/book 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s, in which he reads sprawling and personal and funny and weird and rambling essays about songs he believes explain how the 90’s were, I thought I’d write my own version: 90 Songs That Explain My ‘90s. Emphasis on the personal, hence the MY.
I promised no sprawling essays, though. Blurbs, I said, just blurbs. Or essay-sized blurbs. But that’s been more of an optimistic thought than an actual execution. Get me talking about music and I’ll drown in my own thoughts. You knew what I was when you picked me up.
As always, you can listen along via ever-growing 90 Songs That Explain My 90s playlists on Spotify or on Apple Music, should you desire to follow along at home.
Mighty Mighty Bosstones- Where'd You Go (1992)
I was a ska kid, just not on the outside. I didn’t own a Vespa and I didn’t dress in two-tone throwback clothes. I owned *counts in head* zero fedoras. But I did… “skank”1 at a whole bunch of concerts. Or made a valiant attempt, at least. Whatever. I’m just glad there’s no footage.
The venues for ska shows typically ranged from scary-dumpy to mid-dumpy. Most of them don’t exist anymore. One of the best ones was in an old armory auditorium that got shut down by the cops. Ska just wasn’t big enough to be played in the bigger venues in the valley. It was relegated to all-ages “rooms that used to be some other business and are only temporarily acting as a venue” and other off-the-beaten-path places. University ballrooms. Ski resorts in the summer. Former churches. Strip malls. High school football fields. And, yes, armories.
My ska phase started with The English Beat (from England2, obviously), which my music gateway sister Laura introduced me to. Their album I Just Can’t Stop It is an absurd feat of concentrated greatness on any album much less a debut album—not unlike The Cars’ or Boston3’s debut albums, or Violent Femmes, Weezer’s blue album, Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, John Prine4, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Fiona Apple, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Eilish— debuts so chock full of fantastic songs that they could reasonably double as greatest hits compilations. The band was hitting on all cylinders with songs like “Mirror In The Bathroom” and “Best Friend” and “Hands Off She’s Mine” not to mention brilliant5 covers of Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of A Clown” and Doc Pomus’s “Can’t Get Used To Losing You.” The only top-tier Beat songs missing are “Save It For Later”, “Doors of Your Heart” and “I Confess.”
The sped up reggae, hyperactive feel of ska was perfect for high school. The syncopated bop-bop-bee-dop blares of trombone and saxophone and trumpet. The spastic, stuttering up-strokes-on-the-upbeat from the guitars. A little goofy. A little hectic. Energy for days. And upping the teenage draw, in the 90s, several bands took early ska and started mixing it with rock and punk music—distorted guitars, power choruses, face-melt-age. A good combo of feel-good pace and punky aggression.
The band that did it best? Swim Herschel Swim.
Yes, the distinctive artwork was a critical piece of the draw for me. I used to collect any show flyers I could find, designed (I think) by their compatriot/sometime manager Merkley. So why isn’t the song listed above—as #26 on my world-famous 90 Songs That Explain My 90s series—a Swim Herschel Swim song? Why is it a song by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones? Well, I couldn’t officially list Swim Herschel Swim because they’re not on streaming and thus I can’t share it with you, which is part of the equation here, unjust as it is. It doesn’t really matter, though, because—like The Grateful Dead or Springsteen or Phish or Bob Dylan (depending on the night)—the live shows were the thing, not the recorded versions. Swim (as some of us called them for short) was the band I loved. Worshipped, even. I chased them around Utah, seeing them 10+ different times, including the time I recruited them to come play my high school’s Spring Fest (the place I first met then Swim Herschel Swim drummer and later my friend Pat Campbell) out on the East High School football field6. I loved them so much, my band did a cover of their cover of “Ring f Fire.”7 I even formed a sort of “side project” of the main band I was in—this one a sort of ska jamband (our own take on the genre, I guess, never took off) with my friends. We even got to the point of auditioning some legitimate horn players8. All we really wanted was to create something that made us feel the same way Swim Herschel Swim did.
You know those times when you experience something so great that you go out of your way to try to find something that will give you that feeling again? Chasing that same high? That’s what forming the band was about, along with trying to pass that feeling on, spread the love.
But I also chased the high by going out of my way to see live ska bands of all stripes, er, plaids , to mixed results. I saw a litany of plaid-loving, horn-blowing, skank-a-riffic ska bands in the 90s. Skankin’ Pickle, a mostly sophomoric and occasionally social-justice-oriented band9. Voodoo Glow Skulls, the most metal/hardcore of the ska bands. Mustard Plug. The Toasters. Stretsch Armstrong10. Bim Skala Bim. The Pietasters. The Pilfers?!? Oh man, for a few weeks there, I loved The Pilfers in an unreasonable way. If there was a ska show to be seen, I was in. Sometimes it paid off. Other times, I outwardly “proclaimed” it paid off while inwardly being disappointed that it didn’t achieve Swim Herschel Swim-level transcendence. Not that I would admit it. Pride…
Mixed results aside, it is my unshakeable conviction that if Swim Herschel Swim had stayed together just a little bit longer—I’m talking months—they would have been the cream of the third wave ska craze (which included The Mighty Mighty Bosstones) that hit America in the late 90s. They were miles upon miles better11 than bands like Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, whoever.
You can’t convince me that Swim Herschel Swim wouldn’t have ruled that scene. For it is the truth, plaid and simple.
Speaking of the Bosstones12, they were the face of the next wave of ska as far as we were all concerned. Like most ska bands, they understood the importance of the sound (they blended hardcore and metal with classic ska) and the look (all of them decked out head to toe in plaid). Dicky Barrett was the quintessential 90’s frontman—maybe not the world’s most accomplished, The Voice-ready singer, but charismatic as all get-out, not to mention instantly identifiable for his gruff growl. The Bosstones were able to inject their music with both the throat-shredding, big-distortion rage13 teens need as well as some of the buoyant high-energy positivity. We used to cover “Where’d You Go” off their 1992 indie label album More Noise And Other Disturbances for audiences that for sure had never even heard of the band before.
But what you and I really need to spend just a second talking about is one unique feature to the Bosstones.
This guy:
His name is Ben Carr. He never played any instrument. He didn’t have a mic. His entire (indispensable) role in the band was The Dancing Guy. That’s it. For the whole show. Just up there, skanking. Iconic.
Basically a full-time14 hype man, dedicated to keeping the party going, to creating joy. He was ubiquitous, so much so that he eventually became credited as “The Bosstone.” And he’s probably one of two Bosstones any non-insane fan can name without googling.
Here’s to Ben Carr (raises glass).Peter Gabriel- Digging In The Dirt (1992)
Leading with my chin, let me get this out of the way upfront: I think Us is better than Gabriel’s most-successful, most-beloved album So. I don’t say that for shock value or to try to out-hipster anyone with my “cool” left-field pick. It just has more songs that have sunk deeper down into me15.
Maybe I should’ve picked “Washing of the Water” which is a hands-down perfect song. No hyperbole. I have never tired of hearing it.
I could make a case for “Blood of Eden” too, and not just for Sinead O’Connor’s outlandishly incredible harmonies. What a one-of-a-kind, all-heart singer she was.
Astutely, Us builds on and evolves some of the sonic hallmarks imbued in So by Gabriel and co-producer Daniel Lanois. Their creative partnership has some sonic signifiers, common to both albums:Lush synth pads16 galore or even more than galore. What’s more than galore? That’s how many synth pads Gabriel and Lanois use on Us.
Otherworldly disfigured guitar17 that’s somehow gorgeous too
Wall of Sound percussion18 but make it World Music then combined with modern drum programming.
For that matter, Lanois and Gabriel double-down on using world music19 elements just in general. This isn’t a standard rock (or pop) album.
Longtime Gabriel sideman Tony Levin’s trademark stick bass sound
“Steam”, to be totally fair to So, feels like a diminishing returns stab at a sequel to the groove of So’s hit song” Sledgehammer” down to the horns and, well, funk20 of it all. Not to mention the fact that it goes on longer than it probably needs to. Gabriel loves a long outro.
I mentioned Sinead O’Connor’s vocals already, but they are an update on Kate Bush’s memorable vocal on So’s ballad “Don’t Give Up.” Not diminishing returns here, though. O’Connor elevates the emotional stakes of every song that features her voice. It’s not coincidental that she sings on two of the four best songs on the record.
Us, like a lot of albums I’m drawn to, documents personal turmoil for Gabriel: miscommunication, divorce, tension with and distance from one of his daughters (“Come Talk To Me”, a song that High School Me thought for sure was a romantic song, but was about struggles in parent-child communication, which makes far more sense now), a post-divorce relationship that also broke down.
But, if I’m totally honest, I have no idea what “Digging In The Dirt” is about21, lyrically. It feels, in some spots, combative and defiant. Then suddenly it swerves and feels meditative, introspective. The musical dynamic variance from the simmering verses—“something in me / dark & sticky”—into the accusatory/confontational funk22 of what I guess I’ll call the refrain (?)—“this time you’ve gone too far”—into a more aggressive (still funky23-ish) pre-chorus—”don’t talk back / just drive the car”—and then settling into the dreamy, atmospheric, gorgeous chorus—”digging in the dirt / to find the places I got hurt.” It’s a journey, a discovery. It goes inside and pushes out too.
Writing that now, 30+ years later, it’s finally obvious what the song is about: therapy.
Duh.
17-year old Me didn’t know24 a thing about therapy. 17-year old me just loved the music, the overall and underlying feeling. It moved me, whatever the lyrics actually meant to Gabriel himself.
But 40something Me? He’s been to therapy. 40something Me went to therapy in the first place because, at the end of his mental health rope, he25 acutely felt the exasperation and desperation of what Gabriel’s lyric describes as “no way of dealing with this feeling / can’t go on like this too long.” 40something Me has spent a good amount of time—in therapy and on his own—digging in the dirt, excavating through what Gabriel’s lyric paints as “something in me, dark and sticky.” 40something knows all about “the more I look, the more I find.” And the difference-making (and difficult) parts and possible catharsis of doing just that.
“Digging In The Dirt” was written for me, way back in 1992. I could feel it then, but I didn't know why until 30 years later.
PHEW.. THAT WAS A LOT OF WORDS. LET’S DO SOME QUICK HITS, A.K.A. (SUPPOSED) ONE-HIT WONDERS!
Blind Melon- Tones of Home (1992)
Blind Melon’s hit was the relentlessly catchy “No Rain” with its ubiquitous “bee girl” (who also appeared on the album cover) music video, at its peak, airing on MTV once an hour (or more).
Blind Melon, before the tragic and untimely death of lead singer Shannon Hoon, was an underrated band unfairly dinged because they had a smash fluke video hit in the MTV era. But, really, they were a standout. 1992 was deep in the throes of grunge (and Diet Grunge and grunge wannabes), but Blind Melon were doing their own things. In fact, while preparing to make their album, the whole band moved to Durham, North Carolina because they felt like they needed their own headspace, that what was happening in Los Angeles (where they all met) didn’t line up with who they were.
And what, exactly, were they? 70’s-influenced classic rock through the lens of Gen X. Some alt-rock in there. A little folk26. Even a little southern rock27. Some trace elements of psychedelic rock in there. If you played them for a kid today, I would bet the bee girl’s residual checks that most kids would not associate their sound with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. Their sound was varied enough to ably tour with Neil Young, Lenny Kravitz, Guns & Roses, and the Stones.
Speaking of the Stones and Guns n’ Roses (for who Hoon guest-sang on “Don’t Cry”), while Hoon’s high raspy voice is the most distinctive thing about the band, my personal favorite thing about them is the interplay between the two guitarists, Roger Stevens and Christopher Thorn. It’s reminiscent of the best28 dual guitar work you hear from the Stones’ Keith Richards/Mick Taylor or Guns n’ Roses’s Slash and Izzy Stradlin or the Black Crowes’s Rich Robinson and Marc Ford or Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. They aren’t just playing the same part for strength-in-numbers; they’re playing off of each other—point, counterpoint, clean, dirty, a tapestry of interweaving guitar parts, really listening to each other and responding, yin and yang. On Blind Melon, Stevens and Thorn are often panned left and right29, so you can really get the sense of their creative synergy. I’m a sucker for that kinda guitar playing. Add in a distinctive singer, songs with interesting arrangements, and a solid rhythm section and I’m sold. The 90s were a good time for this kinda stuff.
RIP Shannon Hoon. I love this Danny Clinch photo from 1995. Fastball- Fire Escape (1998)
Fastball’s mega-huge hit was “The Way” but the song for me is “Fire Escape.” The verse riff! The chorus melody!Spacehog- In The Meantime (1995)
Now here’s a band for whom I actually can’t even name a second song. Still, I had a co-worker at Tower Records who fully proselytized the gospel of Spacehog30 to me and anyone within earshot. Spacehog’s glam/rockstar posturing in an era that was decidedly down on acting like a rockstar, the sneaky musicianship, the walls of guitars—they were ahead of the T-Rex/Bowie boom that would come to alt-rock in the late 90s31. And this song stuck BECAUSE IT’S A CERTIFIED NO-HOLDS-BARRED BANGER. The groovy/spacey verses with a huge lift for the hooky chorus!
What’s not to love?
skank: (verb) A distinctive dance, reminiscent of skipping in place, often performed at ska concerts. Typically involves a signature move as illustrated below:
Though in England, they were known as just The Beat. (Lawsuits.)
What is it about bands from Boston and stellar debut albums?
Boston’s self-titled debut with a 1-2-3 punch of “More Than A Feeling”, “Peace of Mind”, and “Long Time” back to back to back?!?
Pixies’ Surfer Rosa?!?! With “Gigantic”, “Bone Machine”, and “Where Is My Mind?”?!?!
The Modern Lovers’ self-titled debut?!?!? Out of the gates with “Roadrunner” and “Pablo Picasso”? Sheesh.
Imagine writing a song like “Angel From Montgomery".” Now imagine writing a song like “Hello In There.” And also “Paradise” and “Far From Me” and “Spanish Pipedream.” And then imagine putting all of those songs on your very first album?
The DNA of everything we love about Prine—interesting characters, heartstring-pulling one moment, joking the next, a love of language, a love of stories, the dry delivery—was already there. IN THE FORM OF ALL-TIME CLASSIC SONGS. Sheesh.
Better than <ducks> the originals.
They could’ve been too cool for it. But they didn’t phone it in. It helped that they had a thriving branch of a nonexistent fan club at our school, leading the skankin’ charge.
Our version wasn’t half bad, especially considering we didn’t have a horn section and our guitarist was dressed like….Captain Merrill Stubing. Oh, and his guitar decided to become possessed for 2 minutes, just completely losing its mind, tuning-wise. Adam pulled through like a pro, though.
Including one really, really good one who, about 11 minutes into one of our interminable “jams”, asked (nicely, it should be noted) if we ever modulate.
We did not, in fact, modulate.
The guy was a proficient jazz player. We were three-chord fools with bigger ideas than our skills could pull off. He was bored. We were embarrassed.
There’s some dissonance when, in one song, you’re talking about missing the bus or a niche Golden State Warriors players (Larry Smith) and then, in another song, you’re taking on David Duke’s racism or Ice Cube’s anti-Korean lyrics. A for effort, for sure.
The local Utah version not the punk dudes from South Carolina.
Not unlike the way Fishbone paved the way for a bunch of L.A. funk/rock bands to break through, even though those bands weren’t necessarily as good.
The Bosstones’ debut album wasn’t quite up to the same debut-as-masterpiece standard as their fellow Boston bands. It shows some promise and lays out their plaid-centric aesthetic, but, yeah, still kinda finding themselves.
Similarly, Boston art-jazz-rockers Morphine’s debut is good, but their second album Cure For Pain is the classic.
Same goes for (nearby Amherst’s) Dinosaur Jr.’s debut being outshone by the sophomore record, You’re Living All Over Me, widely considered one of the most influential albums on 90s alt-rock (Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, Death Cab For Cutie).
There’s no shame in getting better as you go.
He was also the tour manager, FWIW. They weren’t just paying him to dance, but still.
No shade to Sledgehammer, Mercy Street, Don’t Give Up, Big Time, Red Rain, In Your Eyes….all jams, without a doubt.
What’s a synth pad? Good question. You know when you hear a song and it sound like it’s all happening in some beautiful washy, sustained-note soundscape, but it’s not, like, guitars or pianos or (usually) real orchestras? That’s a pad. If you’re still curious, this is a decent explanation.
While it’s true that you CAN hear traditional-sounding guitars on Peter Gabriel songs (the acoustic guitars on “Solsbury Hill” come to mind), it’s notable that guitar parts in Gabriel songs rarely bow to classic rock modes. You won’t hear a traditional guitar hero guitar solo (like you would with, say, fellow lover-of-synth-pads Pink Floyd) and you’ll rarely hear a guitar just straight (the funk songs being exceptions), usually with some kind of magic sprinkled on it, to distance itself from the familiar. You just won’t hear some shredder on a Les Paul crank up his Marshall and show off on a Peter Gabriel song, which stands out from his peers, whether they’re 80s pop (Michael Jackson using Eddie Van Halen on “Beat It” or Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love” with a shreddy solo by Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor) or longtime rivals (Phil Collins using Eric Clapton on “I Wish It Would Rain Down”) or even peers (David Bowie using Stevie Ray Vaughan on “Let’s Dance”). You can call Gabriel indulgent for a thousand reasons, but unnecessary guitar solos isn’t one of them.
Traditional (but not from Anglo-Saxon tradition) percussion vocabulary quiz:
Ever heard of a surdo or daf? Me neither, but they were played by Hossam Ramzy on “Digging In The Dirt” He also plays the tabla
What about a sabar? The Babacar Faye Drummers play sabar drums on two tracks.
How about the tama (not the drum brand) talking drum? Assane Thiam plays one.
Ever shaken a Senegalese shaker? Manny Elias has on a few songs from Us.
The Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble provided percussion and the notes don’t say how, but—knowing they’re a dance ensemble—you gotta think it’s body percussion or tap-dancing-adjacent-but-pan-african something or other.
So famously features Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour’s iconic vocals on “In Your Eyes” and Us mirrors that with Kenyan singer Ayub Ogada.
Kudsi Erguner, from Turkey, plays the ney flute.
The Dmitiri Pokrovsky Ensemble (Russian folk singers) add their voices to “Come Talk To Me.”
Levon Minassian plays a duduk (a traditional Russian woodwind that looks kind of like a recorder) on a couple songs
Both albums include Indian violinist L Shankar, one of the pioneers of East-West fusion and inventor of his own instrument, the stereophonic Double Violin.
And of course, the whole album starts with bagpipes played by Chris Ormston (on the same song as the Russian folk singers, no less. Talk about world music…).
(you know what bagpipes look like)
Gabriel even got the guitarist for the legendary Meters to play on it! Funk royalty.
I have a whole essay in me about how I have fraudulently positioned myself as a Lyrics-First guy and am just sitting around waiting to be unmasked like a Scooby-Doo villain. This post is long enough as is, though.
Hitting the 1 in a way that’d make George Clinton nod proudly like Mr. Miyagi.
I apologize for using the word “funk” at least four times. Once is pushing it. Twice is sinful. We don’t even wanna talk about more than 3 times….
Though I have no doubt he had plenty of opinions on it, lack of knowledge and experience notwithstanding.
Don’t ask why I stuck to second person. Karl Malone gonna do what Karl Malone gonna do.
Far more acoustic guitars than most of their contemporaries (MTV Unplugged appearances don’t count). And they had plenty of mandolin and even banjo in an era when those things weren’t exactly cool.
“Change” sounds like it could be the 1992 version of the old Marshall Tucker Band hit song “Can’t You See.”
Gotta also mention:
Stone Gossard/Mike McCready (Pearl Jam)
Dickey Betts/Duane Allman/Warren Haynes (The Allman Brothers Band)
Jerry Garcia/Bob Weir (Grateful Dead)
Chris Cornell/Kim Thayil (Soundgarden)
Joe Perry/Brad Whitford (Aerosmith, listen to the guitars in the verses of Walk This Way)
Nick Valensi/Albert Hammond Jr (The Strokes)
Keith Richards/Ron Wood (The Stones)
Tom Petty /Mike Campbell
Neil Young/Danny Whitten
The Dessner brothers (The National)
Kele Okereke/Russell Lissack (Bloc Party)
Jonny Greenwood/Ed O’Brien/Thom Yorke (Radiohead)
Nels Cline or Buddy Miller or Daniel Lanois/anyone
Billy Corgan/Billy Corgan lol
*I don’t have Angus & Malcolm Young listed because (to me) it feels like their biggest hits are them playing pretty much the same thing for full power’s sake. I love them both like naughty schoolboy older brothers.
I don’t want to sound condescending. But if you wondered what “panned left and right” means, it means that, if you put on headphones, you would hear one guitarist’s guitar parts coming from the left headphone and the other guitarist from the right one.
Like Blind Melon, Spacehog stuck out for being a zag in an age of bands trying to be Nirvana or trying to yawp like Eddie Vedder. They were clearly indebted to (and enamored with) glam-rock bands of the 70s like T-Rex and Bowie but, again, through the lens of 90s alt-rock.
See also:
Big Bang Baby by Stone Temple Pilots
Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand
I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness
Every Tear Disappears by St. Vincent
Body Talks by The Struts
All of Foxy Shazam
The Killers are basically a third Springsteen, a third Bowie, and a third U2.
maybe some Suede or Placebo
Digging in the Dirt is such an amazing song. I too loved it from the get go but it truly hit me so hard during my darkest depression days. So many emotions flow through it. I’m queueing it up now ❤️ the English Beat - special beat service and the Specials self titled albums were my gate way albums into ska. When my son fell in love with special beat service at a young age I was so proud. It’s one of those albums we connect on that just makes us both just smile when we play it.
#18 - the daf, often confused/very similar/maybe even the same as the Brazilian pandeiro, played by Mr Pat Campbell on many many Madison Arm tracks