BACK IN THE DAY WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, BEFORE I HAD STATUS AND BEFORE I HAD A PAGER: Twenty years ago today, the albums
Nevermind,
The Low End Theory, and
Blood Sugar Sex Magik were all released, with
Trompe le Monde having an official release date the day before. Not bad.
I was working in a record store that day -- it was a good day.
ReplyDeleteI just devoured Everybody Loves Our Town, an oral history of grunge in Seattle. Pretty interesting stuff, tracing the music scene in Seattle from individualism to community to phenomenon to cynicism. The sheer number of people who say things like "well, I [could have been/was] in Nirvana, but ..." is both funny and sad. It's pretty amazing that there is an actual narrative arc, from the "hey, let's start a band!" enthusiasm at the beginning to the exhaustion after the repeated deaths. Uh, spoiler alert.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Crowe filmed Singles before Nevermind and Ten came out.
Working in a what now?
ReplyDelete<span>I was largely busy potty training and constructing rudimentary sentences.</span>
ReplyDeleteDid not know that about Singles. Helps, actually.
ReplyDeleteLow End Theory is the one that really takes me back. It wasn't out when I was in high school, but it feels like high school maybe more than anything else ever recorded, by anyone, because it's the album that we (my high school friends who've stayed in touch) all had in common. It will always be the definitive Tribe album for us.
No one needs to hear that. Especially not those of us who were considerably PAST our potty training!
ReplyDeleteIt still had vinyl! It was called NATIONAL RECORD MART.<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing about Singles is that Jeff Ament designed a fake cassette for Citizen Dick, the fictional band in the movie, which tape was discovered by one Chris Cornell, who then, in his trailer, on his 4-track, recorded an 8-song EP to correspond with the song titles. One of those songs was "Seasons" (on the soundtrack,) one was "Spoonman" (released on Superunknown with a title credit to Ament), and I'm very sad that I haven't heard the rest.
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where Cliff is packing his car with flowers, you can hear an acoustic Spoonman riff.