friday random ten, 1993 edition

1. PJ Harvey, "Rid of Me." I could fill up this entire Random Ten with music by women if shuffle play got a little wonky, 1993 being a great year for women's music. I'm not sure I could do Harvey justice … she's kinda like Patti Smith, if instead of listening to James Brown and the Stones, she'd listened to Delta blues and, well, Patti Smith. The astonishing video performance is from the Jay Leno show, of all places, and includes Polly Jean being invited over to chat with Jay.

2. Iris DeMent, "My Life." Not the best segue … they're both women, but Harvey and DeMent don't have a lot else in common. Both of them released excellent second albums in 1993 (many sources say this one was 1994, but AMG says 1993, as does the MP3 tag on my hard drive, so here it is). Sadly, DeMent has suffered from writer's block for much of the subsequent years … she recorded a third strong album in 1996, but since then has only offered appearances on the albums of others, and a 2004 album of old gospel tunes. If she never records again, though, she'll be remembered for My Life. The video link is of one of those later duets, this time John Prine being her partner.

3. Liz Phair, "Fuck and Run." This is what should have followed "Rid of Me." Rather like when Madonna and Cyndi Lauper emerged at about the same time, and everyone tried to guess which would have staying power, there were people who preferred Phair and those who liked PJ more. I was in the Liz camp at the time, but time and critics haven't treated her as kindly … they've been unfair, if you ask me, but you didn't, did you? The video link isn't the best quality, but it's how she sounded when I saw her back in the day, and it makes an interesting comparison to the Harvey video … Liz wasn't gonna get invited to sing "Fuck and Run" on the Tonight Show. (Trivia note: the opening act when we saw Liz Phair was an unknown folk-singer whose specialty was yodeling. Her name was Jewel.)

4. Radiohead, "Creep." Radiohead became the symbol of a new era in, if not music, at least music criticism, when the great writer Nick Hornby trashed their album Kid A, convincing most people that Hornby was too old to appreciate new music any longer. I am four years older than Hornby, and I'm afraid I'm even more behind the curve here than my beloved Nick, who at least liked the pre-Kid A recordings. Me, I have nothing against Radiohead, but I'm one of those much-maligned lame-os who thinks "Creep" is their greatest moment … in fact, I can barely remember more than one or two other Radiohead songs as I type this. So call me a geezer, but I think this is a great song, and it remains the best karaoke moment of my life. OK, there aren't many to begin with, since I've only been to karaoke once, but the time I went, the DJ took a turn, chose this song, and we all sang along. I'm the sort of person who gets a tear in his eye when I'm part of a group singing "I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here, I don't belong here." Of course, I find out later that "Creep" is actually a karaoke standard, and I'm not fucking special, I'm a creep.

5. Brand Nubian, "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down." Shuffle play isn't politically correct. This single was actually released in 1992, and its homophobic lyrics caused controversy. (Wikipedia entries tend to put scare quotes around "homophobic" in this discussion, which is stupid, unless you think "fuck up a faggot, don't understand their ways, I ain't down with gays" is too vague for you.) The album containing the track came out in 1993, and so here it is. Video link is an expurgated version.

6. Salt 'n Pepa, "Shoop." Usually, when you hear someone say this, it means it sucks, but I have to say it, anyway: this is a perfect track for people who think they don't like rap music. P.S. This song doesn't suck.

7. RuPaul, "Supermodel (You Better Work)." Kurt Cobain reportedly loved this track. I don't know what Brand Nubian thought.

8. Snoop Doggy Dogg, "Who Am I (What's My Name?)." Doggystyle was one of the most anticipated albums in many a year. The previous year, Dre's album The Chronic had set new standards for G-funk, and Snoop's skills were a major part of that album's success. This single, with its reworked Funkadelic fuzz-bass line, was omnipresent in the weeks (months? It felt like forever at the time, in a good way) leading up to the release of Doggystyle. I would pick up my wife from work … I forget the deal, we only had one car then, I guess … and this song would come on the radio every damn day, and I would crank up the radio as loud as I could, wishing they would just play it over and over until Robin got in the car. To this day, Snoop retains the ability to charm the pants off of the most unlikely folks, even as he also retains his street thug cred … I mean, the guy did a popular guest spot on The L Word!

9. Counting Crows, "Mr. Jones." This ubiquitous song is a favorite of mine. OK, that doesn't quite get it. At the risk of ruining whatever cool I might have left after being more of a dinosaur than Nick Hornby, I will admit that I identify very much with this song, and have never tired of it:

When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me
We all want to be big stars, but we don't know why and we don't know how
But when everybody loves me, I'm going to be just about as happy as I can be

10. Nirvana, "All Apologies." Shuffle Play's Greatest Seque, Vol. 193. "Everything is my fault, I'll take all the blame."

All in all is all we are.