Being a child of 1980, I started getting into music around 1994 when I was a young whippersnapper of 14. Thankfully this allowed me to bypass the terrible pop music of the late eighties and early nineties when people like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice ruled the roost. Some of the bands that got me into music included Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Beck, Whale, Cracker, The Meatpuppets, Green Day, Nirvana, Tool, Soundgarden, and more. It’s sort of sad that out of that whole list the only bands still around are Green Day and Beck. And Green Day sucks.
Anyway, thanks to the magic of YouTube, I’m allowed to easily take a “lackadaisical ride on my back-in-the-daycycle” as one might say (if one were MC Paul Barman). So now I share a little collection of some of my favorite videos (and songs) of the mid-to-late nineties.
(Also, as an aside… I’m really not into pop/rock/alternative music anymore. Around the late nineties, thanks to the internet I got into whatever weird eurodance i could find (stuff like E-Rotic) and from there found my true love of deep house music, which has been my number one brand of music up until now.)
Beck – Loser : I have to admit… this was the first video that did it for me. Up until this point all I ever listened to as a kid was Oldies (due to my mom’s control of the radio in the car) and Weird Al (my choice to listen to at home). After I heard/saw Loser by Beck I was hooked and got all up into “Alternative” music as it was known in the mainstream of the 90s.
Smashing Pumpkins – Rocket : The first Pumpkins video I saw was Disarm, and at first I wasn’t impressed (give me a break… I was like 14) but then I saw Rocket and fell in love. Siamese Dream was purchased and quickly became my favorite album. I’ve not listened to it in forever, but I’m sure it aged well and probably considered cool again by today’s hipster 14-year-olds. Oh yeah… Today was pretty good too.
Stone Temple Pilots – Vaseline : I enjoyed their first album, Core, but the videos were all pretty gloomy and lackluster. When Vaseline dropped it became one of my favorite songs of all time. The video is weird and arty… but in a fun way. Enjoy!
Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun : Wow. This was a great new entry into the world of weird-ass videos. I loved it at first, but quickly grew tired of it playing on MTV every hour on the hour. You have to keep in mind that this was back when MTV still played videos and the shows were minimal. M2 didn’t even exist yet. Anyway, still a classic video. I’m sure some college students in some class somewhere are writing papers about it.
Meat Puppets – Backwater: The Meat Puppets never really got the recognition that they deserved. Perhaps they just didn’t rock quite as hard as the other major bands, or their videos weren’t quite crazy enough, but I always enjoyed them.
Whale – Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe : YES! This was one of those videos that only ever got played at 4AM, but thankfully I’d put a tape in the VCR and record videos from midnight to 6AM. A friend of mine claimed that this video gave him nightmares once. Quality stuff.
Green Day – Longview – Ahh… a nice young Green Day… back when they used to sing about beating off and not politics. This is back when they were a punk-pop band and not a pop-punk band like they are today. Anyway, a fun video and a fun song.
Toadies – Away : Easily one of the most overlooked bands of the nineties. Rubberneck was an awesome album. Every song a classic that nobody ever got around to listening to. Sadly. Anyway, I linked to the video of Away, because I couldn’t find one for Possum Kingdom, which is just a slightly better video. Both are great songs.
The Flaming Lips – She Don’t Use Jelly : What the hell happened to these guys? Wayne was so much cooler when his hair was orange and he wasn’t a beardo obsessed with furries. Clouds Taste Metallic was an awesome solid album, but then it was all downhill after that. RIGHT?
Marilyn Manson – Dope Hat : I wasn’t too big into the more industrial or gothic bands, but Manson will always hold a place in my heart with their first great album and the awesomeness that is the Dope Hat video.
Nine Inch Nails – Closer : Again… not my favorite style of music… but the video was great and the album was pretty solid for being more industrial than I was really ever into. I honestly don’t think this has aged that well. That, or I’ve just outgrown my teen angst.
Rancid – Salvation : Just like industrial music… i dabbled in punk music a little too. Rancid’s early work was fun and entertaining, but I never really explored many other punk bands. Seeing a black and white video was refreshing at the time. I can’t think of too many other bands who had them then.
The Breeders – Cannonball : I know everyone loves The Pixies, but I never took the time to get into them. I heard Cannonball used in a sketch on “The State” on MTV (featuring a pantless Michael Ian Black) and loved the song. I discovered the video soon after, which is pretty decent. Still hear this one on the radio every once in awhile…
The Rentals – Friends of P : Weezer was ok… but The Rentals were AWESOME! I totally discredited my statement above about the black and white videos, because I forgot about this one, but I’m too lazy to write anything else about Rancid. Anyway, The Rental’s album was solid. Tons of great songs that could easily fit into a party mix with today’s best electro-rock music.
White Zombie – More Human Than Human : YEEEEAH! White Zombie was back when Rob Zombie had a great band. Astro Creep 2000 was another solid album you could pop in while playing video games and get yourself worked up into a nice little adrenaline-crazed mountain-dew-drinking teenage one-man-mosh-pit. Oh… nice video to boot.
Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees : I wasn’t a huge fan of Radiohead, but this song was great. And the video was great too. YES!
Primus – Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver – Not the best Primus song, but hands down the best Primus video. Such a weird, yet talented band. Most kids today know Les Claypool as the man who’s delivered hits such as The Theme to South Park… and… The Theme To Robot Chicken. Primus was awesome.
Butthole Surfers – Pepper : This was my first exposure to the BHS, and I bought a lot of their older albums after this poppy hit notified me of their existence. Great video. A lot of it is black and white (doh!) but does have some color as well.
Our Lady Peace – Superman’s Dead : I had a friend who was REALLY into these guys, and got me hooked. Great songwriters. Another one of those bands that could have been bigger hits but some unknown force was holding them down. Watching this again now (probably first time in 8 years) looks like it’s aged really well compared to some of the new stuff out there right now.
Ween – Freedom of 76 : It’s hard to say, but I think this was the first Ween video I ever saw. Unless you count watching Beavis & Butthead and seeing snippets of “Push the Little Daisies” on that. Anyway, Chocolate and Cheese was one of the weirdest albums albums I ever owned. That is until I bought some of Ween’s earlier albums.
Presidents of the United States of America – Lump : Yeah. I remember digging this video the first night I saw it and got some big ridicule from my friends for it. Perhaps a little too childish for some, but I loved it. Good wacky stuff, those Presidents.
That’s about all I can think of right now. I know I’m forgetting some bands and songs and videos. Perhaps more will come to me in time and I’ll update this entry. But for now it should suffice.