Elliott Smith

Jesus Jones, “The Devil You Know”

After the enormous success of “Right Here, Right Now” carried Doubt everywhere, Jesus Jones was faced with the prospect of following up a massive hit, a task which has broken many bands. The followup came a couple years later, and Perverse achieved nowhere the same level of success. Partly, those two years hurt. Partly, it was due to the pop music world having moved on to other shiny objects. It certainly didn’t help when one of the biggest bands associated with the scene, the Stone Roses, remained adamantly MIA. But for the last part, it was due to Perverse being not a terribly likable album. The shiny, crowd-pleasing stuff just wasn’t there. It’s very electronics focused, an emphasis on only one half of the Madchester formula, but it winds up feeling imbalanced. It’s really almost trending towards industrial dance, but kind of falls into an uncanny valley.

125 entries in this series and counting. Is everybody still having fun? I am! Also: I have music for you!

Craw, “Drugs”

You know, I should really be backing more music on Kickstarter. The Craw reissue project is one of my very favorites among things I’ve backed on the site.

Elliot Smith, “Ballad of Big Nothing”

Indie rock genius Elliot Smith here with a song from his best album, Either/Or. Discussing his biography always makes me sad, given his tragic early departure at 34, possibly by suicide (it was never definitively ruled a suicide). And there I go, starting to discuss his biography. Well, Either/Or is one of the triumphs of the 90s, and is just a tremendous album front to back.