The Fritchpork Project: The 1990s

THIS SITE HAS MOVED: FRITCHPORK.COM

THIS SITE HAS MOVED HERE: FRITCHPORK.COM

I’ve been realizing that the userface of tumblr is really not all that compatible for a wordy blog such as this (and I do like it wordy), so I decided to buy my own domain name from wordpress and start blogging there instead. If you’ve been liking what you’re seeing, then please, by all means, check it out: fritchpork.com.

It’s the same exact content (and, to the best of my admittedly inept web design experience, a similar layout), but non-tumblr users can now comment and “like” posts and, for whatever reason, it shows up when you google, “Fritchpork.”

Enjoy!

95. Massive Attack, Mezzanine

I wasn’t really looking forward to writing this review. And the main reason is that I’m kind of a hater. Sure, I think my tastes in music are pretty eclectic and, sure, I consider myself pretty open-minded when it comes to listening to new things. But there are certain artists, certain instruments, and definitely certain genres that I think are so corny.

Before listening, really listening, to Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, I’d always thought of trip-hop in this way. It felt dated, it felt irrelevant, and it felt, just, LAME. But, needless to say, it takes a lot to admit when you’re totally wrong and, in this one case, this one little case, I was indeed mistaken. Okay??!!!

96. Herbert, Around The House

Classification’s a funny thing. On the one hand, it’s incredibly important to define a work of art within a genre and a conceptual framework, to recognize the dialogues taking place between works of art, and to celebrate their divergences so that the work can make sense in the world and in musical history. On the other hand, sometimes it can just screw you over.

When I first listened to Herbert’s Around the House, regardless of how much I was just enjoying the music itself, I kept on thinking, Is this house? Or just electronic music in general? But it also sounds kind of like pop, but also kind of like disco. What do I call this? While all of these thoughts were probably legitimate in themselves (or, maybe just some of them), they also made me overlook one of the most important facts right in front of me: that I was listening to a piece of music and that I was enjoying it. When you disregard the special relationship between a musician and their audience, then you disregard art itself.

Yes it’s electronic. Yes it sort of sounds like (and sort of doesn’t sound like) house music or pop music, with elements of disco. First and foremost, though, Herbert’s Around the House is an album that’s meant to be enjoyed. It’s warm, it’s inviting, it’s sexy, it’s danceable, and man is it relaxing (These are all adjectives NOT used when describing the dewey decimal system). Listen to this and try to tell me otherwise.

97. Mogwai, Young Team

Mogwai’s Young Team, while almost entirely instrumental, begins with a clip of a woman’s hesitant, stammering voice as she talks about their music:

“‘Cause this music can put a human being in a trance-like state and deprive it for this sneaking feeling of existing. ‘Cause music is bigger than words and wider than pictures. If someone said that Mogwai are the stars, I would not object. If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this. The punishment for these solemn words can be hard. Can blood boil like this at the sound of a noisy tape that I’ve heard? I know one thing. On Saturday, the sky will crumble together with a huge bang to fit into a cave.”

Ugh. SO meta, and SO, SO arrogant. When I first heard this, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and think, The musical equivalent of stars? Oh, blow it out your ass, you pretentious douche!

98. KMD, Mr. Hood

A lot of times when I listen to music, I find that I make faces. I really can’t help it, especially when I’m listening to something I enjoy, and especially when it’s the first time. It’s worth noting, I think, then, that the first time I listened to KMD’s Mr. Hood, I found myself smiling the entire time, squinting my eyes, shaking my head back and forth, occasionally biting my lip (and if not that, then pursing my lips), and even (at certain moments, when I was really jamming) shaking my index finger in circles as if I were saying, “You’re crazy for not liking this music” or holding my outstretched hand down and in front of me while swaying, as if acting out getting a phenomenal beej and trying to slow it down to savor it for as long as possible. This is risky if, like me, you’re at work, but listen to this and tell me you wouldn’t take the risk as well.

99. Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Okay. So please know that I don’t want this blog to review Pitchfork reviews because, first of all, that website already exists, and second of all, because I’m sure they can do a much better job at it than I can. That being said, the Pitchfork review for this album is sooooooo embarrassing that it merits a little hate-age. But just a little.

100. The Orb, The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

I LOVE that I’m starting this list off with an album called The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, one which, moreover, features tracks with names such as “Supernova at the End of the Universe,” “Into the Fourth Dimension,” and, oh God, STOP IT THIS IS MAKING ME AROUSED, “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld.” Needless to say, I sort of knew what to expect.

The List

Apparently this was Pitchfork’s first ever “Top 100” feature and, on first glance, I’d believe it. It seems to be filled, unsurprisingly, with indie bands, the majority of whom I’ve never listened to before, many of whom I’ve never even heard of before!

Again, unsurprisingly, pop music is noticeably absent from this list - I think it took until their “Top Songs of 2000-2004” list for hipsters to admit to genuinely enjoying pop. Sidenote: the “2000-2004” list is worth checking out. It features both Missy Elliott’s “Get Your Freak On” AND “Work It” (in the Top 10, moreover), “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child, and (I nearly shat myself when I saw this one) “Danger! High Voltage!” by Electric Six. If you haven’t heard this last track, stop reading this blog post IMMEDIATELY, go to youtube, listen to it, and then come back please.

Why?

1. I LOVE THE 90S. I love the aesthetic of the early to mid-1990s. I love the idea that it was cool to not give a shit and truly embody alternative culture. I love the movies of the 90s. I love that irony wasn’t considered the default mode of expression and that, in my opinion at least, people were much more accountable for their art because of it. More than anything else about the 90s, though, I absolutely love the music. Since I was born in the late 80s, most of the music I came across in the 90s seeped itself into my consciousness and it wasn’t until I was able to acquire at least a modicum of taste (I, too, succumbed to TRL for years. How could I not?! I was in sixth grade and had just started masturbating when “Baby One More Time” debuted!) to realize that, musically, that decade resonates profoundly with my sensibility.

2. I love music.

3. I love lists (clearly). It’s so much easier to hierarchize the world into quantifiable relationships and pretend that you understand the way things work than to accept the disorder of life. There was a period of time in college where I was so stressed, I’d make lists daily that literally included “brush teeth” and “eat lunch.”

4. Since I love music and I love lists, the logical extension is that I love Pitchfork (although “love” may be a little too strong of a word… “admire,” maybe). Sure, it can be irritatingly self-referential and robotic in its classification of genres, subgenres, and sub-subgenres, even if there are, like, two bands MAX who would qualify into these categories (I recently read an article about a new ”genre” of indie music they’ve “observed” called “witch house.” VOM). Regardless, I’ve found it to be the case that I generally agree not only with their reviewers’ overall opinions of artists and bands but also with their objections to and particular points of praise around albums. Which brings me to my final point.

5. I love albums. And my love of albums is one of the reasons I love the 90s as much as I do, since, in immediately preceding the explosion of online music piracy, it really is the last decade where the album was the primary category of musical experience, where songs related to each other in a self-contained whole and not to other songs in playlists or to other external entities, where artists could express themselves and their ideas not only through their songs but through the relationships amongst the tracks as well. I love that there were actually hidden tracks, where you could genuinely experience surprise upon first listen, where your exposure to these songs was so much purer than it will ever be again.

Because of these reasons (and given, as I mention in the summary of this project, the amount of free time I have), I think it should be both a worthwhile and an enjoyable experience to sift through these albums one by one, starting with #100 and descending down, snarky post by snarky post, to #1 (What will it be? Nirvana’s Nevermind? Radiohead’s OK Computer? Sisqo’s Unleash the Dragon?). Only time (or this link) will tell…