friday random ten, 1996 edition
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Artist:
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Album:
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Track:
1. Tracy Bonham, "Mother Mother." It's not fair to call Bonham a one-hit wonder … she has continued to make music to this day. But she waited five years after this to release another album, and that's not the best way to keep your name in the mainstream.
2. The Tony Rich Project, "Nobody Knows." I continue to argue that this is one very weird song. Rich explains that his heart is broken, and no one knows this but him. Except he's telling the world in his song, so I guess everyone knows, after all. Beautifully done, in any event.
3. En Vogue, "Don't Let Go (Love)." Sorry, Charlie … I know you don't like this one. Oakland's finest.
4. Fiona Apple, "Criminal." Kanye's got nothing on Fiona … "This world is bullshit."
5. Sheryl Crow, "If It Makes You Happy." It's hard to call someone this popular "underrated" … shoot, she'll probably end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and she'll be pretty old when it happens, since she was already in her 30s when her first album was released). I'm not that big a fan, myself, although I like her enough, I guess. But she ranks #676 on the Acclaimed Music list of the top artists of all time, two spots below the Average White Band. I'm just saying, she might be a little better than that.
6. Better Than Ezra, "Desperately Wanting." Two top tens ago, there were a bunch of songs that sounded like this, white boys over-emoting. Now there's only this one.
7. 2 Pac, "Hit 'em Up." In which Pac over-emotes. He's really good at it. I've always been fascinated by this track, which is all the more disturbing in the context of his death. This ain't no freestyle battle, indeed.
8. DJ Shadow, "Midnight in a Perfect World." The album is supposed cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "First Completely Sampled Album." See ya later, Ezra.
9. Nas, "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)." Who makes the Hall of Fame first, Nas or Sheryl Crow?
10. Sleater-Kinney, "Good Things." A day doesn't pass that I don't miss them. Why do good things never wanna stay?
Comments (4)
A dyslexic moment had me reading about bluegrass star Tony Rice, so I clicked on the vid. Oh well....
This must have been where me and the mainstream parted company. I've heard two of these tracks previously and never even heard of Tracy Bonham. A hit album you say?
"Mother Mother" was #1 on the Modern Rock charts. The song (and the album) got Grammy noms, although they didn't win. Off the top of my head, at least 7 of these 10 were fairly popular ... I was thinking as I looked at the list that it was more mainstream than my usual (I mean, I hesitantly make a case for Sheryl Crow). Of the ones I don't think of as "hits," the 2 Pac was on his first Best Of, but it was a B-side originally, so that's not really a hit. Don't know that DJ Shadow crossed over. S-K did not crossover, I'm aware of that :-).
Sorry there wasn't any Tony Rice!
DJ Shad and 2Pac were big in the UK on the underground scene, especially since Shadow fit into the rave scene so well. Sheryl was a mainstay of pop radio and these days of...well I was going to call Radio 2 MOR radio, but it's got the biggest audience of all BBC stations, including the late teen/grown up audience, so hard to call that MOR.