Welcome to Part 2! The post can be found beyond yonder "Read More" link.
When we left off last night, I was raging mildly about people not knowing who the fuck The Tragically Hip are. Now that I've calmed down, had some sleep, had some food, and had a long goddamned day in a boring classroom, I think we'll finish the roll I was on.
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If you've been alive in the past fifteen years, it's a decent bet that you've heard Third Eye Blind at some point. I'm willing to bet, however, that you're probably more familiar with songs from their self-titled debut album than with most things they've done since. I'm not saying that the first album is anything to sneeze at, please understand - it's probably one of the best albums ever made. What I'm saying here, though, is that Blinded When I See You is a fucking amazing song, and if you've never had a listen, you should. (You may also know them from this one, as well.)
A fine example of Songs That Are Awesome If You Can Get Past Some Of The Lyrics come from our friends Live, in the form of Lightning Crashes. You may know it as 'the one with the line about placenta'. They have some other good songs, which I'm going to venture a guess about and say that you might have heard at some point in your life: All Over You, Selling The Drama, I Alone, to name a few. (I can only reiterate that some of these videos could give you horrid secondhand embarrassment.)
I have a theory that R.E.M. is secretly the world's best cover band moonlighting as serious artists. I mean, with all due respect to Leonard Cohen (though no respect to Peter Gabriel, as I think I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing Sledgehammer again - COME AT ME, BRO), they can re-work songs to be more palatable than previously imagined.
In seriousness, though, they have had some damned good songs in their time - Man On The Moon, The End Of The World As We Know It, Stand, The One I Love, The Great Beyond, etc.
I'm not going to sit here and link to every song on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - I have time on my hands, but... no. Just go friggin' torrent it already. The Smashing Pumpkins, may they for all intents and purposes rest in peace, were really quite brilliant. (Way to be a total douche and ruin it for everyone, Corgan.)
Which is not to say that Siamese Dream is chopped liver, mind you. Cherub Rock is a fantastic song (of which there are no non-live versions on youtube, sadly).
I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you and say that I've ever listened to Gish, though.
I know that a lot of people think that Crash Test Dummies were kind of stupid, and... I mean, I can see how they might not have been everyone's cup of tea. I happen to quite like Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, though, and God Shuffled His Feet is interesting. I'll have more to say about them in a later section.
It would be amiss if I were to leave They Might Be Giants out of the proceedings. A duo from New York City, they released music through the 80's, but are likely best known for the 1990 album Flood and the theme from Malcolm in the Middle. Their music has been featured on Tiny Toons and Pushing Daisies, and as the theme from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. While their material tends to be quite unusual, there's nothing wrong with that.
I point you in the direction of Smail Shell, Doctor Worm, No One Knows My Plan, Ana Ng, A Self Called Nowhere, and hope that you can manage to take yourself in the right direction. (Also, if you can find a copy of Severe Tire Damage, you'll find one of the better versions of Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas.)
Hole is an amazing band, even if Courtney Love herself is a trainwreck of a human being. Celebrity Skin, Violet, and Olympia are wondrous.
If we want, on the other hand, to talk about grungy ladies who aren't absolute trainwrecks, we can look to Shirley Manson of Garbage - likely best known for Stupid Girl and Only Happy When It Rains A redo of #1 Crush was featured on the soundtrack for Romeo + Juliet, and I Think I'm Paranoid was featured in one of the iterations of Rock Band. It would be Milk and Queer are probably my favorite Garbage songs.
It was through my minor obsession with the film Velvet Goldmine that I became familiar with the band Placebo. It is not for a lack of love towards Placebo that I can't sit down and write about them eloquently; it's a lack of not knowing how to keep myself from rambling on about them for hours and hours on end. Their exquisite cover of 20th Century Boy speaks for itself, though. I would also recommend Protege-Moi, My Sweet Prince, The Bitter End, their cover of Running Up That Hill, their cover of Where Is My Mind, and their cover of David Fucking Bowie's Five Years.
Every You Every Me is their best, though.
I spent about a third of my trip to Europe in high school with their greatest hits album glued into my ears.
(Speaking of David Fucking Bowie, we will get to him eventually. I promise. We've got less important things to get out of the way first, though.)
(I will also discuss the track to Velvet Goldmine later, but there's other topics of discussion that I intend to tie it in with.)
Hot on the heels of that, I'll give a brief mention to The Caesers/Ceaser's Palace/The Twelve Caesers and their song Jerk It Out. My memories of this song are not fond, but I am fond of the song itself.
Make of that what you will.
A band about whom I know little (if nothing), The Stranglers, are responsible for a song called Golden Brown. About this song, I know two things. Firstly, it was featured in Snatch. Secondly, the music video for the song is equally as lovely as the song itself.
The Wombats are a band that I was turned on to by my Australian friend Chloe. Though I am only familiar with A Guide To Love, Loss, and Desperation, I can say that Moving To New York and Let's Dance to Joy Division are acoustic perfection. (I also suggest Tales of Girls, Boys, and Marsupials.)
And now, for a break. We will finish The 90's and 00's in future editions; the next entry will be a break in style.
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