When you’re on your deathbed, there’s ample amount of time to reflect on the important things in life. And while the grim reaper’s claw still rests lightly around my throat, I think I’m cured of my tonsil leprosy just long enough to blog about a moment of clarity I had around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday (okay, it was actually a fever dream).
Sometime between groans of pain and torturous throat-boil moans of agony, I realized that it’s been exactly a decade since many of my favorite albums were released. 1997 was a good year for me in general (licensed to drive, first love, etc…). But the most important and lasting effect of that year was the nearly month-by-month release of instant-classic albums.
So I’d like to take a minute to revisit the highlights. Some of the records you probably heard, others I’d recommend you rush out and get immediately.
The year started with a bang. Blur released their woo-hooing, self-titled fifth album in February. Beyond “Song 2″ - that “Starship Troopers” and hockey arena staple - the highlight of the album was the way in which the Brit-pop band blended their overt Britishness and pretty melodies with messy, American lo-fi production.
In March, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds dropped The Boatman’s Call, a 12-song rumination of love and loss. Cave has always been known for his crazed live shows and his violent, intense lyrics. For the first time, he toned it down and slipped gracefully into middle age, creating a classic album of torch songs, love songs and hate songs like “Idiot Prayer,” the post-coital “Brompton Oratory,” and “Where do we go now but Nowhere?”
In April, Depeche Mode released Ultra, the first without key member and arranger Alan Wilder and also the first since lead singer David Gahan’s brush with suicide and overdoses on heroin. The album cranked out several modern rock hits, including the marvellous “It’s no Good,” a throwback to the melodicism of their 80s hey-days. The album itself was gritty and muted, and felt torn from the pages of songwriter Martin Gore’s own substance abuse issues and doubts about the band’s future.
In June, Michael Penn came through with Resigned - easily the best singer-songwriter album of the decade. I still haven’t heard one better. I’m not a doctor (though after all the visits I’ve had this week, I feel like one) but if that song above - “Try” - doesn’t grab you and make you want to hear more, there’s something seriously, life-threateningly wrong with you. The album gave Penn the chance to flex his lyrical muscle, while playing with Beatle-isms, George Harrison style. It’s a masterpiece.
In July, we got two splendiferous offerings.
The first was Sarah McLachlan’s long-awaited Surfacing, which officially kicked off the Lilith Fair craze. While slighter than 1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, as pure pop albums go, it’s a total stunner and has worn its decade well. Runs of singles don’t get much better than “Building a Mystery,” “Sweet Surrender,” “Adia” and “Angel.” Voices don’t get much better than hers, either.
Radiohead also dropped the seminal OK Computer, a decade-defining album that launched 1,000 imitators. Admit it: The first time you heard the epic 6-minute “Paranoid Android,” your mouth was agape. That the rest of the album fit so neatly and flawlessly around that genre-defying single was even more remarkable. And then, when you consider that the band recorded the 12 uber-paranoid, twitchy songs in the haunted house English country manor of Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman), makes songs like “No Surprises” and “Lucky” ever more impressive.
Bjork returned to Earth in October to hand us Homogenic her best batch of songs yet. While the alternative music press was still cartwheeling over Radiohead’s album, many missed this quiet little gem and her two best songs ever: “Joga” and “All is Full of Love.” After conquering house and big band, Iceland’s fairy princess revealed she’s best when she deals with the human heart.
In November, a little band called The Verve began making waves with “Bittersweet Symphony” and a Nike commercial that eventually put them at No. 1 and found them earning no cash from the hit thanks to the greedy mitts of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (who argued that using a symphonic version of their song is as flagrant as using the real thing). No matter. The Verve disbanded within a year, leaving Urban Hymns - a tear-stained, old-soul of an album - to remember them by. It’s often hard to say whether an album is a classic on its first spin, but when you’re tossing off pearls like “Sonnet,” “Space and Time,” “Lucky Man” and “Rolling People,” the conclusion is almost inevitable. Richard Ashcroft still has the voice of a legendary frontman, even if his band never quite got there.
And, closing out the year, Catherine Wheel’s crowning achievement, Adam and Eve, was thoroughly ignored by the masses on both sides of the Atlantic. This could be my favorite album of all time, with just enough melody, pomp and Pink Floyd-ian grandeur to reel me in every time I spin it. Ten years on, songs like “Phantom of the American Mother,” “For Dreaming” and “Here Comes the Fat Controller” still leave me in a tailspin after I hear them. They exist in their own worlds.
It’s difficult to believe that there could ever be a better year in my life - musically, or otherwise, - than 1997. These albums serve as a reminder why. Not just because they’re great, but because they, like all great music, return me to the times I first heard them.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Lists, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Right decade, wrong year, in my not-so-humble opinion.
For the sake of argument, allow me to take you six years earlier to 1991, which to me is even a better year for music. Why? Here’s a not-so-small sampling of the albums released that year:
Nevermind - Nirvana
Achtung Baby - U2
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Ten - Pearl Jam
Badmotorfinger - Soundgarden
Temple of the Dog (yes a combination of the first two bands but a solid album nonetheless)
“The Black Album” - Metallica
Use Your Illusions I & II - Guns ‘n’ Roses
fear - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Joyride - Roxette
X - INXS (not as good as Kick, but still decent)
Cypress Hill - Cypress Hill
Travelers and Thieves - Blues Traveler
Sailing the Seas of Cheese - Primus
Pocket Full of Kryptonite - The Spin Doctors
Not knocking 1997 by any means, but to me, 1991 was a more kick-butt year for music (along with the fact that glam-rock/hair metal finally got a bullet between the eyes that year).
=| ???
*delete last comment, i was confused.*
But yeah now that ya mention if, 1997 was pretty sweet. OK Computer changed the world, but what I like is how you always find the albums that fall through the cracks. How many people would recommend the Michael Penn album, but i’ll tell ya, it’s amazing. Thanks.
I think the world got over 1991 pretty quick. I mean some really good stuff happened post 80’s metal and all, but it seems more of a reaction in hindsight.
Charlie - You’re not going to add Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” to that list? Seriously - Why not C+C Music Factory? That’s actually a decent house album.
And I think “X” was 1990 - but “Suicide Blonde” and “Bitter Tears” should have been on the radio forever. However, Sarah McLachlan’s “Solace” was released that year - and was a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting for her.
91 was a good year. I still think Ten is one of Pearl Jams greatest albums and the only one I can sit through the whole thing while driving or running. You had to mention Bjork?! Why? I think I’m going to go club a large goose and wear like a dress now.
Metallica’s Black album was when they “jumped the shark”
Don’t ever ever knock C+C Music Factory. I’m serious on this one.
In fact…if you look close enough at the Metallica Black Album’s cover, you can actually make out the image of Fonzie jumping a tank of live sharks.
But dont take my word for it! buh du-duh
And what is Fonzie?
he’s cool
How much more black could it be?
The answer is none. None more black.
(You can’t dust for vomit.)
Truth is, you could cherry pick from almost any year. I chose 1997 because it was a year of tidal change within the music industry - the rebirth of teen pop with Hanson and Spice Girls; the pinnacle of women’s popularity in modern rock with Lilith Fair; the industry’s attempted foisting of electronica on us (U2’s “Pop,” Bowie’s “Earthling,” The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers); and the death of most 80s acts (INXS, literally).
If I’d chosen 1998, I could’ve gone with Garbage’s “Version 2.0″; Tori Amos’ “From the Choirgirl Hotel”; Neil Finn’s “Try Whistling This”; REM’s “UP”; Alanis Morissette’s “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” and Hole’s “Celebrity Skin.”
In 2000 (my next favorite year) it could have been Travis’ “The Man Who”; Aimee Mann’s “Bachelor #2″; Michael Penn’s “MP4″; Radiohead’s “Kid A”; PJ Harvey’s “Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea”; The Wallflowers’ “Breach”; Bjork’s “Selmasongs”; Poe’s “Haunted”; U2’s “All That you Can’t Leave Behind”; David Gray’s “White Ladder”; and Ryan Adams’ “Heartbreaker.”
1994 was another good year.
But so many artists peaked in 1997 that it’s hard for me to ignore.
What is it with you and Bjork?!
Forget the swan - it’s irrelevant (and was just stupid). Bjork just happened to release 3 amazing albums in the 90s, and one kickass EP/soundtrack this decade. Her new album in May should be tons of fun (like a 40″+!!).
Michael, you’re right about the cherry-picking albums part. I did it from 91, you did it from 97. Anyone could probably go to solid music years like 1994 or 1987, do the same thing and make their case for why that year is the greatest ever.
Getting over 1991, though? I think more people have gotten over the Indigo Girls than they have Nirvana.
I also look at 1991 for a couple of reasons. One, “Nevermind” was my generation’s “Sgt. Pepper.” Two, it finally killed off hair metal and glam rock (although a couple of desperate bands tried to hang on afterward).
Your forgot (besides OK Computer), my next two favorite albums that both came out in 1997.
1. The Color and the Shape- Foo Fighters
2. Third Eye Blind- Third Eye Blind