The renaissance of 1994
Nov 14, 2020
When considering or debating the best year in music history, there’s an avalanche of arguments to be made for any given collection of months. Nineteen sixty-seven had the summer of love and the seemingly collective efforts of all musicians to push the boundaries of sound, composition, and production value. Albums began selling more than singles and pop music evolved into something more similar to today’s definition. In 1977, one could see subgenres of simple rock-n-roll categorization start to contour. Punk, prog, reggae, jazz fusion, disco all had current legends skyrocket into the organic growth of American culture . Nineteen ninety-one birthed the new classics, with masters from Pearl Jam, Metallica, A Tribe Called Quest, Nirvana, Soundgarden, U2 and REM. Since music appreciation is subjective, the debate can either linger in annoyance or blossom in eagerness depending on your vigor for such conversations. There will never be an objectively correct answer, even if you were to attempt using hard data such as album or ticket sales. Population growth and economical factors would play into those, invariably ruining any attempt. However, all of the aforementioned aside, allow me to make the case for 1994. The sheer number of acclaimed, creative records, alongside some notable debuts, makes it more than the best year in music history. It is a renaissance. Let us begin.
January
On the 18th, prog rock band King’s X enters itself into the adumbral realm, that the recent popularization of grunge materialized, with Dogman. They leverage a shared producer of Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, and the result is a heavier record than any of King’s X’s previous efforts and the production values are timeless. Everything is punchy, crisp, and so smoothly mastered that every element of the band is symbiotic in a way that can only be described as a producer’s endless wet dream amidst a foam insulated Elysium. It is given a critical nod by most and largely unnoticed by the general public who didn’t, at the time, realize Dogman was the initial inkling; the morningstar twinkling in the dawn of a vibrant epoch.
Tuesday, January 25th, Meatpuppets’ Too High to Die and the surprisingly profound EP by Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies release. Not “surprisingly profound” because no one knew the most austere of the Seattle bands were capable of gloomy introspection, but it is the delivery in which AIC convey their now famous bleakness. It’s a beautiful epilogue to the junky suicide that was Dirt and conveys the most with less than arguably any album to date. The month closes with the sophomore effort from Tori Amos, Under the Pink. “God” and “Cornflake Girl” would remain staples in the mix tapes of grunge acolytes, made for their indifferent love interests.
February
On the first of this month, soon to be pop-punk godfathers, Green Day release Dookie. The album single handedly reignites a genre of rock all but forgotten in the rise of more nuanced angst outlets. It is rage without the issues, violence with a good natured pie in the face climax. It’s energetic, thoughtless, and an immediate hit. To say in 2020 that kids needed an outlet in 1994 seems ludicrous. But, against the ever growing landscape of bands taking themselves so seriously, Dookie provides an outlet for the booger eaters that don’t want philosophy with their rock music.
Back to those that did, the Reality Bites soundtrack releases on February 18th and, aside from being one of a few soundtracks of note for the year, single handedly launches the (short lived) career of Lisa Loeb with her song “Stay (I Missed You)”.
March
The star witness for my case.
Beck releases Mellow Gold on March 1st. While the musician would spend the rest of his career running as far from “Loser” as he physically can on this physical plane, there is no doubt that the track is as favorable to his career as is damning. It is a song uniquely fit, and only successful, for its time. Misfits finally have their day in the sun in the early 90’s and everyone finds a disheveled identity in relating to a “termite choking on the splinters”. Jocks are no longer cool. Awkward adolescence is king, even if the popular kids see it more ironically than those poor grotesques living it in real time. Had “Loser” been a one hit wonder, its statement of the times would have supposedly been simply novel. That the weird kid living with his grandma down the street eventually became an indie god fortifies Mellow Gold as an inception to a wonderfully strange trip.
In regards to strange trips, Selected Ambient Works Volume II is released on March 7th. The second studio album by Aphex Twin incites quizzical looks by everyone asking “Is this music?”. Those that acknowledged its credentials immediately began to listen to music differently. It was no longer about a good hook or catchy chorus. There was something...more to music. If an ambient series of waves, not created by traditional instruments, could construct a melody, one furthermore without vocals and lyrics, why couldn’t it be music? And in so enjoying this foreign means of instrumentation, aren’t we then bound to deconstruct the mere principle of musical standards at its base? Certainly there exists an artist who was doing similar compositions prior to Aphex Twin. But it was the cultural nature of Volume II, the way it was passed around from friend to friend with sincere pretext, that sent a segment of music aficionados eventually toward Radiohead and Portishead. Selected..Volume II dropped alien DNA into our evolutionary pool and spawned music mathematicians.
A day after Selected.. is released, the industrial revolution begins. Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral drops at midnight on Tuesday, March 8th 1994.
It is vulgar. It is violent. It is anxiously peaceful. It is sexual, in everything that isn't missionary. And for all it’s validity in holding up a mirror to humanity’s perversions, it is also a cobwebbed trampoline for a new subculture of goths to express themselves to their parents over beef stroganoff on a Tuesday night. Even those familiar with Nine Inch Nails from Pretty Hate Machine and Broken could not have seen such a sophisticated, eloquent expression of turmoil. The leading single “Closer” reached #11 on the Billboard charts proving that, lyrical content aside, the song was an absolute hit. Intriguing in its iniquity, the song was a freak show rolling into town to incite our demons within. Those that followed the single into the depths of the album found a masterpiece of atrocity. And while mainstream music outlets soon found that they couldn’t endorse the album outright, for all its depravity and hedonism, it was certainly forefront on the minds of all who experienced music in 1994, the year of our lord.
Not to be overshadowed by the forthcoming trend of NIN gothness, two other albums of great significance release that same night. Failure’s Magnified and Soundgarden’s Superunknown share space on the display case and both are, again, major milestones on the road of 1994. While their peers were focused on distorted power chords drowning out all that could be perceived, Failure focused that attentiveness to bass guitar. That bottom drudging drone contrasted against vocals that exhibited a man, just now understanding that he is caught in a bear trap to die, constructed a unique corner for the band in the palatial mansion of 90’s rock bands. That contrast between seemingly savage musicianship and clever, patient vocals would go on to inspire the likes of Tool, which takes some serious fucking clout.
Soundgarden, on the other hand, were not entering 1994 with a sophomore effort in mind. They had already attained a decent plot on the territory of heavy metal. Superunknown distanced themselves from that tribe, but only enough to make their mark on the grunge genre they had been lumped within. They accepted that mantle and produced an album with all the existential crisis expected of them, with brutally heavy riffs to back it up. The band played their part..but Superunknown was more Black Sabbath Paranoid than it was Tad’s Infrared Riding Hood. The expected angst of the time was projected outward, rather than internally, and the creative soil before them was harvested to its last grain. Superunknown’s gorgeous brutality spoke to the grunge teens’ elders more than them and its cohesive genius will stand with the conquerors of that era.
Soundgarden’s lead in the arms race of rock would last exactly 14 days. On March 22nd, Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven arrives and changes the entire concept of metal forever.
To understand the impact of Far Beyond Driven, you have to allow yourself some prejudices. Heavy metal before ..Driven was speed metal, devil worshipping, all the things Tipper Gore warned your parents about. It was evil and as fast as possible. And that evil, mind you, was the fantastical kind: warlocks and death and whoever knows whatever dumb shit wasn’t intriguing me at the time. But Far Beyond Driven? Far Beyond Driven? Man, this was some fix your posture, look your insecurities in the eye, and start swinging type shit. Metal no longer was aggressive without a purpose. This was Spartan metal. This was look at your failings Johnny Cash style and crush them. This album would go on to create an entire subgenre of metal that professed it’s insecurities behind a tough exterior and is, somehow, infinitely more frustrated and heavier today.
Everyone loves The Crow and everyone, now, is wrong. It doesn’t hold up. But the soundtrack sure as shit does. It releases on March 29th, 1994, and its compilation of artists at the time, with their abilities to convey the dark suffering of an anti-hero, etch their names in the era of 1994 angst. Bands you looked up and decided were trash still have a nostalgic place in your heart, if for only being on the The Crow soundtrack. Machines of Loving Grace, For Love Not Lisa, Medicine, and even Jane (fucking) Siberry hold a special place in the heart of those who found nonconformist relations with the dead Brandon Lee who, despite simply looking for an acting gig, became the idol of our nonconformity. This soundtrack is intimately important to some of us, but fuck help us if we ever have to share that with someone on the outside.
For all intents and purposes, the final Pink Floyd album The Division Bell issues on March 30th. It is the second Floyd album recorded without founding member Roger Waters, but is the first to convey sentimental elements ascribed to the band without Waters’ influence. While the end of a multi-decade band, in and of itself, warrants lamentations, the specific despondent sentiments of Gilmour’s own influence after such a length of time are surgically profound to those that followed the band over their progressive pilgrimage. “High Hopes” is not only a final track on the album, but an eulogy for the band as a whole..and utterly heartbreaking for those whose rebellion held an ever present compassionate tone.
April
Where Green Day had already sowed the seeds for punk appreciation, April 8th produces another more mainstream offering in The Offspring’s Smash. In skateboarder circles, The Offspring’s success was much more palatable as they had two previous albums already that adhered to the true nature of the punk religion. Their songs were short, to the point, and didn’t seem to subscribe to the produced nature of rock bands that had sold out. And, really, Smash doesn’t do anything that the previous albums hadn’t, other than have some bona fide great songs within its roster. Before The Offspring could prevent it, if they even wanted to, “Gotta Get Away”, “Come Out and Play”, and “Self Esteem” were constants on modern rock radio. Why they get a pass and Green Day doesn’t for “selling out” is subject to early punk politics, of which few of us are privy and can understand, but that’s the way that finicky genre goes.
On April 12th, Hole’s Live Through This arrives to scepticle reception. Courtney Love’s husband, Kurt Cobain (isn’t that a backwards introduction) had died seven days prior and no one in the music world, from critics to dirtheads on the street of Bakersfield, knew what to do with it. The album had some undeniable good songs such as “Violet”, “Miss World”, and “Doll Parts” which were adequately plucked by the label as singles, but it all felt like charity. Love should have been the heir apparent to our sludge covered Marily Monroe but, even then, no one bought it.
Contrasted wholly was Rollins Band’s Weight, released on the same day. The album is a cathartic, visceral bridge to the spoken word and books that would occupy Rollins’ interests going forward. But in the volunteered exposition of feelings and nerves in the early 90’s, Henry Rollins gathered a band of musicians to express upon their compositions thoughts that he held within and required further exposition beyond that of a three minute hardcore stanze. It’s not a great album, aside from hearing Henry expose that he “feels good” and realizing now what that catharsis would eventually become.
Amongst all the existential doom monopolizing the cultural attention, a young man from Brooklyn releases a hip hop classic as a debut: Illmatic by Nas concusses the rap scene on April 19th. Death Row, with the individual legacies of Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, and N.W.A members, claimed hip hop as their own. Their reduction to actual anecdotes of the streets in Compton certainly added to the idolization of gangsters in impoverished situations, but it took Nas to bring the attention back to the same hardships of New York. With respect to the later Chicago hip hop scene, Nas embraced the prohibition era sound of the burroughs to add creative and historical validity to his rhymes due to the beats behind him. When Nas came to preach the gospel, his casual yet eloquent flow over old school bars projected to the rest of the industry that New York would not be forgotten.
On April 26th, another hip hop entity stepped their gators onto the scene. Outkast release Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and pronounce that Atlanta has skin in the game. The title track combines the ‘Saturday cookout with the family’ slow groove with a combination unique to Outkast: street cred with an artistic flair. While other dungeons of the country were preoccupied with flexing their hood’s strength, Outkast introduced a type of hip hop where strength is presumed so creative expansion was accepted. Come to the bar-b-q knowing you have strength and can relax. You need not cast aside creative endeavor for fear of losing your corner. In doing so, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik served as music for their people more so than any hard luck banger ever could. Which is why seeing Outkast’s birth in the year of 1994 is even more profound.
Also on April 26th, the inevitable end of this year’s renaissance is foreshadowed with Throwing Copper by Live. The album is first out of the gates for those that would take the “grunge” subgenre and morph it into a more universally acceptable “alternative”. It is hugely successful with singles “Selling the Drama”, “I Alone”, “All Over You”, and pretentious ballad “Lightning Crashes”.
May
On the 10th, Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star by Sonic Youth, Swamp Ophelia by Indigo Girls, and Weezer’s Blue Album release. The latter of the three, if not composing the most memorable single of the year, certainly produced the most memorable music video with “Buddy Holly”. Another example of fun in an era embracing angst, the Blue Album is effervescent even when it's pouting. “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” and “Say It Ain’t So” are more sing along than suicide, and are as somber as the album gets. Released soon before the official start of summer, the album is both an anthem for good times of the dog days of ‘94 and a template for indie rock going forward.
Dulcinea by Toad the Wet Sprocket arrives on May 24th. The album is a bright spot in a vein of alternative music that rides the rail of folk but turns its drum circle gaze toward the darker caverns thematically. “Something’s Always Wrong” is an excellent example of this noir bend as a love song for one. “Fall Down” would present a delightfully uneasy video of a dance marathon turned tortuous.
Finally, on May 31st, The Beastie Boys’ album Ill Communication drops and debuts at #1 on the Billboard charts. Hit single “Sabotage” is played on pop and rock stations alike, as the bridge Beastie Boys built between guitars and beats is fortified with the group’s fourth album.
June
Until the release of their sophomore effort, Stone Temple Pilots fielded criticisms for being a Pearl Jam copycat (I, personally, never saw it). These criticisms start to drop significantly after the 7th of June and the release of Purple. The growth of the band from their debut album Core to sophomore effort Purple could most easily be compared to that of a TV series whose second season was given a greater budget. The lyrics are more thoughtful, the arrangements more colorful, and the overall sound of the band is fully realized. We were all given a taste of Purple back in March when “Big Empty” appeared on the aforementioned Crow soundtrack. The song, drizzling over the gothic images of the movie coupled perfectly and, while the rest of Purple is too vibrant to share that imagery past “Big Empty”, the more complex representation of the band, in conjunction with their exposure on The Crow, launched STP past any negative comparisons to their peers.
The in-hindsight-cringe-inducing debut title by Aaliyah, Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, drops on June 14th. The gimmick is she’s only 14 years old with a record deal. She would spend her short life and career proving she was anything but a gimmick, beginning first with the breakout single from Age.. “Back and Forth”. It is, and always will be, a legitimate banger reminiscent of an easier time when a summer sunset at a house party could cure all of one’s ails.
The album that still brings people to Helmet shows, Betty, releases on June 21st. This one too got an early single release via The Crow soundtrack, but “Milquetoast” is far from the best song on the record. “Speechless” takes the typical thumping and grinding of Helmet, adds a rare hook, utilizes Paige Hamilton’s melodic vocals, and produces an even rarer song where the offended narrator is more sympathetic than misogynistic. As a whole though, like seemingly everyone in 1994, it represents the band at its most creative and is undoubtedly Helmet’s best.
On June 28th, the second to last album by the desert, stoner rock legends Kyuss, Welcome to Sky Valley, releases. It originally segments into three total tracks, with a fourth hidden. Later versions would break out the songs into their independent ten tracks. But it’s initial version was meant to be listened to in one sitting with the groovy drone of the melodic fuzz sweeping you away in a stoned swell. It works.
July
We’re halfway through the year. Take a moment to reflect on what has already come out: Alice in Chains, Tori Amos, Green Day, Offspring, Nas, Outkast, The Downward Spiral, Purple, and Ill Communication are the likely highlights. It’s a banner year already.
You good?
Great..because in July we enter the maniacal adoration for Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View. You may be questioning the validity of this release date. ‘I don’t remember Hootie and the Blowfish in 1994’ and you would be right there with me. Cracked Rear View didn’t see most of its accolades until 1995 but, on July 5th 1994, the ascension of Hootie into every corner and nook of our culture begins. Yes friends, it is on this date that we locate patient zero for the virality of eunuch rock. It would soon be played in every department store and bar with speakers and patrons who cry at the failures of the Miami Dolphins. Good god, what a truly trying time.
L7’s Hungry for Stink and Grassroots by 311 release on July 12th. Both are staple albums for two very niche bands, but they are beloved by their respective scenes and an interesting addition to a year of multiple genres getting their rocks off.
On July 19th, Punk in Drublic by NOFX and Portrait of an American Family by Marilyn Manson drop. The former album would go down as a punk staple for the decade. The latter would escalate the arms race for the title of the 20th century’s last boogeyman. Fans of Nine Inch Nails, who thought The Downward Spiral was the nadir of self harm and deprivation, would be introduced to the antichrist two years before his enshrinement. Manson (and Reznor, who helped produce the album) utilize a trick of White Zombie’s with the inclusion of clownish clips integrated with Manson’s perverted music to give the degradation a chilling sense of evil playfulness. The gaiety made the album, and band overall, diminutive compared to what would come in the first week of August.
August
New Orleans sludge metal legends Acid Bath release When the Kite String Pops on the 8th. The album is lesser known to the general public but delivers on horrific imagery that far surpasses that of Reznor or Manson. Adorned with artwork by John Wayne Gacy, the grueling guitars and brilliantly vivid lyrics of Dax Riggs compliment the eerie cover. It is music for murderers. The conveyed imagery is ghastly but absolutely poetic, espoused with equal parts glass shard screaming and haunting melody from Riggs. It really is a brilliant album, one of only two, made more cherished by the band’s breakup three years later after the death of bass player Audie Pitre.
Another legendary metal band submit their debut album a day later. Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes opens with the band’s most iconic song to date and, some would argue, it was downhill from there. There may be no more controversial band in the genre of metal than Machine Head since the release of Burn My Eyes. But there is no doubt that, in 1994, the appreciation for the album, and subsequent expectations of the band, were at an all time high.
Culturally, music gets a nice, good dose of smack and calms the fuck down immediately on August 22nd, when Portishead release their debut album Dummy. Lovingly described as “trip-hop”, the group offers an ethereal collection of digital jazz and record scratches that takes the aforementioned Aphex Twin’s oily static bath and compliments it with Beth Gibbons’ pained crooning. Absolutely everybody who first heard this album were either (a) on drugs or (b) suddenly searching desperately for drugs to take. It’s simply the soundtrack for sedation.
A day later, the immensely talented singer/songwriter, Jeff Buckley would release his only studio album Grace. There’s very little left to be said about Buckley that hasn’t been written or said between those who appreciated his work on Grace and lament over what could have been. The album is vulnerable, eloquent, and a brief glimpse at a flaming meteor before it falls apart in his seemingly endless sky.
That same day, Dinosaur Jr release Without a Sound, Toadies issue Rubberneck, and the Natural Born Killers soundtrack drops. For Dinosaur Jr, the album would be their most commercially successful behind the single “Feel the Pain”. The Natural Born Killers soundtrack would be the first of many soundtracks or scores produced by Trent Reznor. Rubberneck would also be a first for the Toadies, finding immediate commercial success with their single “Possum Kingdom”. However, those that purchased the album for the single soon found that the Ft. Worth foursome was short-selling themselves, as every other song on Rubberneck is either more energetic or distinctly profound.
On August 29th, British pop returns to the States with Definitely Maybe, the debut album by Oasis. While it never quite hits the popularity in the US that it enjoys in the UK, the gold trimmed airliner with one blown engine lands. The diva driven drama of the band would carry their popularity for another couple of years. For, while few can deny the band’s talent for writing a hook, no one really wanted to give the dicks the satisfaction.
The world is introduced to Usher on August 30th with his self titled debut album. It’s rough and unpolished, but another notable debut for the year. Usher would go on to be a pop icon for the next decade and, from what I’m told, still loves cosplaying as Michael Jackson.
September
One could be forgiven for having heard Dookie, then listening to Stranger than Fiction, and presuming Bad Religion set out to show the kids in Green Day how to make punk more commercially accessible. For while the album still has genuine punk bona fides with “Leave Me to Mine” and “Individual”, the band also sneaked in timely hit singles “Infected” and a renewed “21st Century Digital Boy” on the September 12th release. In ‘94, anything with distortion was being gobbled up and claimed by the cultural dignitaries of the time. So yeah, “Infected” sounds cool and, “What’s this? 21st Century something something?” Also, cool. Good for Bad Religion for seeing the schmucks and getting a cash grab.
Notorious B.I.G. releases his debut album, Ready to Die, on September 13th. It’s largely an autobiographical retelling of his life slinging drugs and a testimony to his lavish lifestyle in its wake. “Big Poppa” is an instant hip hop hit, utilizing a traditionally West Coast template of sampling old school R&B classics (this time the Isley Brothers). It is his only studio album released while he is alive. Prior to his death, Christopher Wallace was raised as the kingpin of New York gangsta rap. While Sean Combs had a number of other artists under his production umbrella, it was Biggie who catapulted both himself and the wannabe mogul to celebrity status. The East Coast rap scene was striving for the crown and they saw in Wallace a ready made nemesis for Dr. Dre and Suge Knight. He would challenge for an unfortunately short period before the title of his album would become painfully ironic.
September 27th sees another blitz of classics in Corrosion of Conformity’s Deliverance, REM’s Monster, Dave Matthew’s Band Under the Table and Dreaming, and the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. The appreciation of Deliverance would come over time, as metal and rock fans found their way to the band by following any number of the genres’ roots that lead to New Orleans. That latter three albums however would become scenic overlooks on highway ‘94. In each their own way, they produce a postcard of mid 90’s culture, better appreciated with the warmth of nostalgia.
Of perhaps lesser note, Veruca Salt also release American Thighs, which includes their hit single “Seether”. The track is simultaneously responsible for their brief rise to fame and their inability to be appreciated by the culture in which they hoped to affiliate.
October
The Cranberries release No Need to Argue on the 3rd and see their most successful single to date, “Zombie”, stake their claim on a plot of land in the soundscape of 1994. “Zombie” would go on to be the worst karaoke song in human history and days yet to come.
Danzig 4, Testament’s Low, and Smashing Pumpkins’ Pisces Iscariot all drop on October 4th. For Danzig and Testament, their albums reflect a more experimental and modern approach to their respective sounds and it pays off big. The production of 4 musically marries much better to Glenn Danzig’s gothic lyrics and Low evolved one of thrash metal’s grandfathers back into the company of their contemporaries. Pisces Iscariot, on the other hand, is a collection of B sides and cover songs that, while better than most rarities collections, is simply more Pumpkins when the world wanted more Pumpkins (and that’s not a bad thing).
While Korn’s influence (which eventually becomes mighty) wouldn’t truly be felt until their third album Follow the Leader, on October 11th the band issues their self-titled debut. It quakes the musical landscape, opening a fissure from which a new subgenre of metal would eventually surface. All the angst and self loathing that everyone had happily celebrated to that point suddenly became very, very uncomfortable. Lyrical themes of molestation, bullying, homosexualty, and buried malevolence were presented atop seven string muted guitar tones and tectonic bass lines. It was concurrently the heaviest and most vulnerable thing anyone had ever heard. Anyone. Ever.
On the 18th, the Melvins release Stoner Witch in continuing their pattern of releasing everything that is technically a riff with lyrics.
The second album by the rapper who would eventually be known more simply as Common, Resurrection by Common Sense, releases on Oct. 25th. It has a wonderfully jazzy production that would come to represent the Chicago hip hop scene. It is more Avon Barksdale than Omar Little, with Common flexing his intellect and clever lyrical storytelling rather than boasting about rims he didn’t own and pockets he hadn’t picked.
The expanding reach of European metal grows further as well on the 25th with the debut of Hypocrisy’s The Fourth Dimension. The band’s comingling of synthesizers, melody, and buzzsaw measures is imperfect in execution, but sets the table for future feasts that would inspire dozens of European butchers.
November
The first of November is another glut of now classic releases. Amorica by the Black Crowes is the band’s third album and would reach #11 on the US Billboard charts. The Robinson brothers are already at each other’s throats by now and the creative tension produces one of the band’s greats. Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, the second solo album by one of America’s greatest songwriters, also lists and would go on to be one of Petty’s most appreciated works. “You Wreck Me”, “You Don’t Know How it Feels”, and “It’s Good to Be King” would each enjoy timeless presence in the artist’s continuously played catalogue.
Continuing the November 1st releases, Megadeth’s Youthanasia follows their most commercially accepted album, Countdown to Extinction. Not an incredibly creative departure from the formula that made Countdown.. a success, it is more of Mustaine at his most creative and yet still a polarizing record amongst the band’s faithful who saw Youthanasia as confirmation that the thrash days of Megadeth were well behind them. Even still, the beloved snark and rattlesnake guitar tone is focused on, not shredding you, but surgically improving you with unwanted implants. Youthanasia is focused and Megadeth’s last relevant stand.
Perhaps most notable of the November 1st releases is Nirvana Unplugged. Coming out almost seven months after Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home, the very nature of its subdued, acoustic performance lends perfectly to the catharsis of a fanbase who may have mistakenly felt they had already reconciled the musician’s loss. It’s as much a wake for Cobain as it is a creative expression of the band’s ability to stretch their perceptions of what Nirvana could be. With covers of the Meatpuppets, Bowie, and Vaselines, they uniquely honored their inspirations while demonstrating an identity beyond unyielding power chords.
In 1980, Don Henley famously told the world that the Eagles would reunite when “hell freezes over”. On November 8th, 1994 the band releases their first album in fourteen years with Hell Freezes Over. It is mostly the recording of another monumental MTV special, but it both satisfies the long held desire of Eagles fans to see the group together again and introduces a new generation to the classic rock band.
TLC’s Crazysexycool drops on the 15th. It would eventually stay on the Billboard 200 for two years and be certified twelve times platinum. Though it is the group’s second album, it serves as their mainstream introduction with giant singles “Creep”, “Red Light Special”, and “Waterfalls”. What TLC accomplished, in a time where hip hop was dominated by male artists referring to women as “bitches” and “hos”, is extraordinary. Crazysexycool was not only a monster of a pop album, it was an emancipation.
On the 22nd, Pearl Jam release their third album Vitalogy. It is an absurd left turn into the band’s more experimental side. It opens, familiarly enough with “Last Exit” and “Spin the Black Circle '' but let’s the listener know by the third track that the record is “Not for You”. The subsequent songs sink into existential depression and ascend into unintelligible mania. The result is another of the typecasted grunge bands ripping off the limiting label slapped on their collective anatomy in inventive fashion.
December
Finally, the renaissance comes to a timely end with the release of Bush’s Sixteen Stone on December 6th. It is grunge/alternative rock diluted for the mainstream and signals the cascade of new rock bands who would farm the land arid. Commercially, it would be a huge success..but of course it would. All the thoughtfulness and sincerity of the recent modern rock genre was absent, leaving Bush to walk around in a sort of Halloween mask of grunge rock stars. The year was coming to a close, as was the year long renaissance. For crying out loud, Deion Sanders released his album Prime Time and Insane Clown Posse released A Carnival Christmas. If those aren’t two silver bullets into the cranium of culture, a plague to kill a renaissance, then I’m Skank and “That’s Skank right there. Skank’s dead.”
With pinnacle albums from modern legends to legendary career births, 1994 was an incredibly important year in music. Nearly all genres were fed and fed well. We even had a Woodstock, to placate those who require a milestone event to certify my claim. MTV still played videos, furthering the all important imagery and fashion of the time. Netscape Navigator was released, introducing more music fans to a global civilization, laying the asphalt for future file sharing technologies like Napster. Culture, not politics or even technology (yet), was booming. The year was truly a relatively brief, but golden age.
Shipp
