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101 Best Songs of 1994 - #1 - Notorious BIG - Juicy (2 Viewers)

scorchy said:
#53 - Hole - Rockstar

Live Through This is not just one of my favorite albums of 1994 but of the entire decade.  There, I said it.  Just lucky that the singles were split over two years so I didn’t have five Hole songs show up here.  Rockstar wasn't even one of those singles.
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Glad you came clean so I can agree with you.  I shouldn’t like that album as much as I do but I do still like it and I do still listen to it.  It’s very basic songwriting but Loves singing and melodies win out.   It’s not like Love is a great singer but she was made to sing those songs.   

Love is a mess. She seems dirty.   I need to take a shower after listening to the album.   

 
massraider said:
Yeah. Pretty much. Had a great bulls*** detector, which I always appreciate. Live Through This was great. She was awesome in the Larry Flynt movie. 

And it's just been a mess ever since. Some people simply shouldn't become famous. 
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Honestly, I think she was a mess before she was famous, and since then has had moments/years of clarity..  No doubt though that she's crazy smart and insightful and really, really interesting.  I've read a bunch of rock writers who consider Courtney to be among the best interviews because of how sharp she is.

 
DocHolliday said:
Glad you came clean so I can agree with you.  I shouldn’t like that album as much as I do but I do still like it and I do still listen to it.  It’s very basic songwriting but Loves singing and melodies win out.   It’s not like Love is a great singer but she was made to sing those songs.   
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I'm honestly shocked by the Courtney Love lovefest this afternoon.  The few times that I've sung Hole's praises in the past, I've needed a flak jacket.  And a self-censor.

I'm gonna have to save my story on seeing a post-reunion Hole till later in the thread.

 
scorchy said:
I'm honestly shocked by the Courtney Love lovefest this afternoon.  The few times that I've sung Hole's praises in the past, I've needed a flak jacket.  And a self-censor.

I'm gonna have to save my story on seeing a post-reunion Hole till later in the thread.
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When I said Kurt had bad taste in women, I was talking about Courtney as a person, not as a musician. Live Through This is great. 

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
When I said Kurt had bad taste in women, I was talking about Courtney as a person, not as a musician. Live Through This is great. 
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Ha - I wasn't necessarily talking about you, GB.  It's always been friendly banter.

And I think you might just as easily say that Courtney Love had bad taste in men.

 
Celebrity Skin has three of the best opening songs to begin an album since I don't know when. I mean, who writes songs like that? 

Oh, wait...

In all seriousness, the Love/Corgan songwriting team was awesome for those first three tracks. 

 
krista4 said:
If it helps, Steve Albini absolutely despises her, though I've never asked exactly why.  ;)  
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I can think of a zillion reasons why and don't have any delusions about her likability.  I'm still enamored and willing to defend her from the fabulist stuff.

 
rockaction said:
Celebrity Skin has three of the best opening songs to begin an album since I don't know when. I mean, who writes songs like that? 

Oh, wait...

In all seriousness, the Love/Corgan songwriting team was awesome for those first three tracks. 
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I would go four opening tracks. A few moons back, I made a SoCal playlist* for my annual winter visit to LA/SD.  Malibu was track 1 because I always wanted it to be the first thing I'd hear when I got in my rental at LAX.  My son wasn't aware of this and rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the ritual when we were in town last month.

*No, Hotel California was not included.

 
scorchy said:
I would go four opening tracks. A few moons back, I made a SoCal playlist* for my annual winter visit to LA/SD.  Malibu was track 1 because I always wanted it to be the first thing I'd hear when I got in my rental at LAX.  My son wasn't aware of this and rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the ritual when we were in town last month.

*No, Hotel California was not included.
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These time and place moments are what makes music appreciation so individual.  For me, with the SoCal filter, it was flying into LA on January 1st, 2010, to watch the Ducks play tOSU in the Rose Bowl, and Party in the USA was playing on the in-armrest music station on the plane as we descended.  "I hopped off the plane at LAX....."  Now I like me some Miley Cyrus, don't get me wrong, but that song holds way too much of a special place in my heart because of the context.

Carry on.....

 
scorchy said:
I can think of a zillion reasons why and don't have any delusions about her likability.  I'm still enamored and willing to defend her from the fabulist stuff.
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Oh, I know a lot of reasons it could be, but just don't know which of them it is.  ;)   Definitely that has nothing to do with enjoyment of her music (which I don't anyway but obviously am in the minority on that).

 
SFBayDuck said:
These time and place moments are what makes music appreciation so individual.  
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The first time I heard MGMT's Time to Pretend, I was in a rented convertible driving down Sunset and thought "this song might be perfect."  Every time I hear it on the radio, I'm teleported immediately back to that moment in winter 2007.

 
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scorchy said:
The first time I heard MGMT's Time to Pretend, I was in a rented convertible driving down Sunset and thought "this song might be perfect."  Every time I hear it on the radio, I'm telepoted immediately back to that moment in winter 2007.
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Yeah, that's pretty perfect, actually. Such a great couple songs by the guys from Wesleyan, which became a hotbed of musical acts around that time (mostly because of the record company rush to that scene). 

 
Sticking with a theme here...

#52 - Oasis - Rock 'N' Roll Star

Just last month, Dave Grohl said of Liam Gallagher:

It’s like putting a ####ing quarter in a jukebox and just turning it up with that guy. It’s ####ing great. Obviously, he’s an amazing singer and he’s a ####ing rock star. He is one of the few last remaining rock stars.  
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Takes one to know one, I guess.  I love Oasis.  In a decade full of people lamenting how much they hate being famous, the Gallagher brothers embraced it.  Sure they ripped off the Beatles and their lyrics didn’t make much sense, but at least they totally owned it:

All I ever wanted to do was make a record. Here’s what you do: You pick up your guitar, you rip a few people’s tunes off, you swap them round a bit, get your brother in the band, punch his head in every now and again, and it sells. I’m a lucky *******. I’m probably the single most lucky man in the world.
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Rock 'N' Roll Star - the first track from Oasis’s debut album, perfectly nails the attitude.

Rock 'N' Roll Star

 
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Can't believe Oasis didn't blow up in the U.S. They're freaking great and the fact that Noel and Liam troll each other on Twitter makes life so much better.

Legends!

 
scorchy said:
I would go four opening tracks. A few moons back, I made a SoCal playlist* for my annual winter visit to LA/SD.  Malibu was track 1 because I always wanted it to be the first thing I'd hear when I got in my rental at LAX.  My son wasn't aware of this and rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the ritual when we were in town last month.
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A few years back I had to drive from LAX to Ventura a bunch of times for work, and if I took the PCH Malibu would get stuck in my head every single time.  Could be worse, though, as I live near Aqua street, and my brain puts Barbie Girl on loop whenever I go by there.

 
#51 - Stone Temple Pilots - Big Empty

Our second and final song from The Crow soundtrack, STP also included Big Empty on their smash album Purple.  Purple debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts on its way to selling 6 million copies.  None of those copies were purchased by me personally.  Up until a few months ago, I didn’t think I even liked STP that much.  I’ve still never listened to an entire record front-to-back, but damn if their singles output in 1994 wasn’t pretty damn solid.  More later.

Big Empty (MTV Unplugged)

Because I can't help myself, here are some bonus songs from The Crow that were under final consideration before Mrs. Scorchy put the red sharpie to work on my list.

Nine Inch Nails - Lost Souls (Joy Division cover - live at Woodstock '94)

Jesus and Mary Chain - Snakedriver (did I already post this?)

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - After the Flesh

 
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foxco said:
Can't believe Oasis didn't blow up in the U.S. They're freaking great and the fact that Noel and Liam troll each other on Twitter makes life so much better.

Legends!
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at the risk of getting into another "the smiths are an unsung, small band here in the US" thing... I thought they did blow up here with Wonderwall... no? not UK levels of blowed up, but stadiums and such?

because I will fight you over this. 

if I have the energy or interest.

probably not.

 
El Floppo said:
at the risk of getting into another "the smiths are an unsung, small band here in the US" thing... I thought they did blow up here with Wonderwall... no? not UK levels of blowed up, but stadiums and such?

because I will fight you over this. 

if I have the energy or interest.

probably not.
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Oasis blew up here, but not the kind of "selling out two Knebworth shows in minutes" kind of blowing up.  The biggest venue they played in the US was MSG.  They were definitely the only britpop band to reach that kind of level over here, though.  The whole Oasis vs Blur thing didn't really translate stateside.

When the Oasis Knebworth '96 documentary had its limited theatrical release last year, it only played for a single night in Baltimore.  I had a blast sitting with a couple hundred fellow fanatics and singing along to every song.

 
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scorchy said:
Oasis blew up here, but not the kind of "selling out two Knebworth shows in minutes" kind of blowing up.  The biggest venue they played in the US was MSG.  They were definitely the only britpop band to reach that kind of level over here, though.  The whole Oasis vs Blur thing didn't really translate stateside.

When the Oasis Knebworth '96 documentary had its limited theatrical release last year, it only played for a single night in Baltimore.  I had a blast sitting with a couple hundred fellow fanatics and singing along to every song.
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:yawn:

I said I'd fight somebody.

there are two things I came here to do... something or other and have some coffee. looks like I"m almost out of coffee.

 
those were joke posts. I genuinely don't have a stake in the Oasis blowed up battle.

I'm kinda bummed I had to type that out just now... but I don't have the energy to respond to a squis or anybody else who actually does want to fight over this. arguments are down the hall. 

 
scorchy said:
Sticking with a theme here...

#52 - Oasis - Rock 'N' Roll Star

Rock 'N' Roll Star
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By the time my friends and I were a bit tired of how unhappy and miserable and heroin-y the grunge bands were, Definitely Maybe arrived. It was needed. I always loved the British bands, they were a bit more melodic, guitars were  little more jangly, everyone was less depressed. I mean, at the age when all this stuff came out, eventually you wanted to go out and have fun. This CD was playing when my friends and I were getting ready to head out. 

 
Oasis is hit or miss for me, and I still don't need to hear Wonderwall for another decade, but Don't Look Back In Anger ('95 according to my google) is way up there for best songs of the '90s in my opinion.

 
The Crow soundtrack is just so good.  I don’t necessarily care much for many of the bands included on the soundtrack but it all works on  that album.   

 
DocHolliday said:
The Crow soundtrack is just so good.  I don’t necessarily care much for many of the bands included on the soundtrack but it all works on  that album.   
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Wow. I also think the soundtrack is really good, and worked well in the movie, but holy cow was it ever packed with bands I was into back then.

 
Bangers start to finish, and all unreleased at the time, The Crow is my pick for best rock soundtrack ever, edging out Singles which has a couple of duds

For Love Not Lisa, whoever that is, was always a personal fave.. sounds a little dated now I'm sure

 
STP's Purple also,  a worthy follow-up, I think I know what else we'll see from that but we could be thrown a greasy curve ball

 
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Just going on a pure scale of good rock songs that hold up, STP has more good tracks than any of the other grunge bands. They weren't from Seattle, and were always seen as poseurs by the music fans who always needed a punch in the soul patch. 

I never understood why they weren't taken as seriously as their contemporaries, and I didn't really care. Damn good rock band, good front man. 

 
massraider said:
Just going on a pure scale of good rock songs that hold up, STP has more good tracks than any of the other grunge bands. They weren't from Seattle, and were always seen as poseurs by the music fans who always needed a punch in the soul patch. 

I never understood why they weren't taken as seriously as their contemporaries, and I didn't really care. Damn good rock band, good front man. 
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Just this past weekend I listened to "Purple" from start to finish. Excellent album IMO, holds up really well.

 
massraider said:
Just going on a pure scale of good rock songs that hold up, STP has more good tracks than any of the other grunge bands. They weren't from Seattle, and were always seen as poseurs by the music fans who always needed a punch in the soul patch. 

I never understood why they weren't taken as seriously as their contemporaries, and I didn't really care. Damn good rock band, good front man. 
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STP was my favorite of the grunge bands back in the day.  Followed closely by Soundgarden (who really aren't grunge but get lumped in, I'm guessing because they're from Seattle and Cornell did the Temple of the Dog thing)

 
#50 - Blur - Girls and Boys

In the great Britpop wars, I was staunchly Team Oasis.  Proving there's a Gallagher brother quote for any situation, Liam nailed my feelings exactly: “Being a lad is what I’m about. I can tell you who isn’t a lad: anyone from Blur.”  Which is why it's so weird that my favorite Blur song is one of the artsiest of the bunch.

Girls and Boys

 
scorchy said:
Oasis blew up here, but not the kind of "selling out two Knebworth shows in minutes" kind of blowing up.  The biggest venue they played in the US was MSG.  They were definitely the only britpop band to reach that kind of level over here, though.  The whole Oasis vs Blur thing didn't really translate stateside.

When the Oasis Knebworth '96 documentary had its limited theatrical release last year, it only played for a single night in Baltimore.  I had a blast sitting with a couple hundred fellow fanatics and singing along to every song.
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It’s amazing how much airplay Blur and James still get in the UK and Europe.  Oasis was definitely bigger in the US  than the other two. 

 
scorchy said:
#50 - Blur - Girls and Boys

In the great Britpop wars, I was staunchly Team Oasis.  Proving there's a Gallagher brother quote for any situation, Liam nailed my feelings exactly: “Being a lad is what I’m about. I can tell you who isn’t a lad: anyone from Blur.”  Which is why it's so weird that my favorite Blur song is one of the artsiest of the bunch.

Girls and Boys
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I’m definitely team Blur. Liam Gallagher is a yob. He said some disgraceful things about Damon Albarn in particular. Noel I have learned to admire. He has at least proven himself to be a human being. 

Albarn has demonstrated his artistic chops through Blur, Gorillaz, Elastica, The Good the Bad the Queen and countless others @Eephuscould name drop. 

This song blew me away, but then I bought the album. Just great song after great song. 

The most hyped Vs battle in UK chart history since the Beatles V the Stones occurred with the first single from their next releases coinciding. It was Country House V Roll With it. I was conflicted. Roll with It  is my favorite Oasis song by far. Country House is ok, but far from their best. The Universal and Charmless Man were the better songs from the new album. Blur of course won entering at no.1 in the UK charts. Oasis won the battle eventually releasing Wonderwall. And they exploded globally. Blur I biasedly think won the war, with consistently brilliant material for a decade. 

A chart battle between Blur and Oasis, dubbed "The Battle of Britpop", brought Britpop to the forefront of the British press in 1995. The bands had initially praised each other but over the course of the year antagonisms between the two increased.[36] Spurred on by the media, they became engaged in what the NME dubbed on the cover of its 12 August issue the "British Heavyweight Championship" with the pending release of Blur's single "Country House" and Oasis' "Roll with It" on the same day. The battle pitted the two bands against each other, with the conflict as much about British class and regional divisions as it was about music.[37] Oasis were taken as representing the North of England, while Blur represented the South.[20] The event caught the public's imagination and gained mass media attention in national newspapers, tabloids and television news. NME wrote about the phenomenon:

Billed as the greatest pop rivalry since the Beatles and the Rolling Stones,[39] it was spurred on by jibes thrown back and forth between the two groups, with Oasis dismissing Blur as "Chas & Dave chimney sweep music", while Blur referred to their opponents as the "Oasis Quo" in a deriding of their alleged unoriginality and inability to change.[40] In what was the best week for UK singles sales in a decade, on 20 August, Blur's "Country House" sold 274,000 copies against "Roll with It" by Oasis which sold 216,000, the songs charting at number one and number two, respectively.[41][42] Blur performed their chart topping single on the BBC's Top of the Pops, with the band's bassist Alex James wearing an 'Oasis' t-shirt.[43] However, in the long run Oasis became more commercially successful than Blur, at home and abroad.[40] In a 2019 interview, Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher reflected on the chart battle between the two songs, both of which he saw as "####", and suggested that a chart race between Oasis' "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and Blur's "Girls & Boys" would have had greater merit. He also noted that he and Blur frontman Damon Albarn – with whom Gallagher had enjoyed multiple musical collaborations during the 2010s[44][45] – were now friends.[46] Both men have noted that they do not discuss their 1990s rivalry,[46][47] with Albarn adding, "I value my friendship with Noel because he is one of the only people who went through what I did in the Nineties."[47] Noel Gallagher has also described Blur guitarist Graham Coxon as "one of the most talented guitarists of his generation."[48]
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Huge fan of both bands. I was a bigger fan of Oasis, but they were kind of the perfect rock band to me. I didn't care about their rivalry with Blur. I didn't actually hear about it till later.

Liam is such a little jerk, he's great. Noel describes him best: Liam is a man with a fork, in a world full of soup. 

In a career retrospective, Albarn crushes Noel (Liam is just a sneering voice in a parka). Albarn crushes most anyone since he's been active, really. 

I saw the Gorillaz first tour, when Dan the Automator was still part of the group. The concert was an opening DJ set by Dan, and then the band playing behind a screen with Gorillaz cartoons projected on them. Just worked out to be a great dance party. 

In the UK, there is no competition. It's Oasis. There's just more working class people than posh. Simple. 

 
FatMax said:
STP was my favorite of the grunge bands back in the day.  Followed closely by Soundgarden (who really aren't grunge but get lumped in, I'm guessing because they're from Seattle and Cornell did the Temple of the Dog thing)
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STP is my second favorite grunge band after AIC.   I’m not sure how all those grunge bands really fit under the grunge label but I guess that is what we do.   I love the STP guitar sound and riffs.  The riff in Wicked Garden is one of my favorite guitar riffs from any band.  

 
massraider said:
Liam is such a little jerk, he's great. Noel describes him best: Liam is a man with a fork, in a world full of soup. 

In a career retrospective, Albarn crushes Noel (Liam is just a sneering voice in a parka). Albarn crushes most anyone since he's been active, really. 
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Love the Noel insult.  My favorite may be about Jack White - "He looks like Zorro on donuts."

No doubt Damon has done more than Noel, but I can't agree with the "crushes" part if only because Blur/Gorillaz has never done anything that can make me feel the way Don't Look Back in Anger, Live Forever, or Acquiesce do.

 
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scorchy said:
#50 - Blur - Girls and Boys

In the great Britpop wars, I was staunchly Team Oasis.  Proving there's a Gallagher brother quote for any situation, Liam nailed my feelings exactly: “Being a lad is what I’m about. I can tell you who isn’t a lad: anyone from Blur.”  Which is why it's so weird that my favorite Blur song is one of the artsiest of the bunch.

Girls and Boys
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I agree with pretty much everything you said (I'm Team Oasis, but I love this song), but I'm not sure Girls and Boys is really "artsy."  I just consider it a great dance song.  

 
scorchy said:
Love the Noel insult.  My favorite may be about Jack White - "He looks like Zorro on donuts."

No doubt Damon has done more than Noel, but I can't agree with the "crushes" part if only because Blur/Gorillaz has never done anything that can make me feel the way Don't Look Back in Anger, Live Forever, or Acquiesce do.
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I don't like anything Albarn has done more then almost every song on Definitely Maybe.

But his resume, objectively, is impressive. If we are grading on some David Bowie 1-10 scale of creative reinvention, Liam never getting above a 1, Noel might be a 3, if we are being generous. Albarn at least a 6. 

These grades are easy when you make your own scale up, I just noticed. 

 
#49 - Elastica - Connection

Now that Damon Albarn’s out of the way, time for something from the other half of Britpop’s first couple.  Justine Frischmann formed Elastica in 1992 with another ex-member of Suede and had a minor hit the following year with debut single Stutter.  They released Connection in late 1994 ahead of their first album.  The single reached #2 on the modern rock chart and even cracked the Billboard top 40.  

Unfortunately, Elastica was more than just derivative of their post-punk influences.  They got sued by both Wire and The Stranglers (settling out of court) while Mark E. Smith from The Fall just blew it off.  I’m docking Elastica 20-25 spots in the countdown as a penalty.

Connection

Compare to Three Girl Rumba by Wire

 
scorchy said:
#49 - Elastica - Connection

Now that Damon Albarn’s out of the way, time for something from the other half of Britpop’s first couple.  Justine Frischmann formed Elastica in 1992 with another ex-member of Suede and had a minor hit the following year with debut single Stutter.  They released Connection in late 1994 ahead of their first album.  The single reached #2 on the modern rock chart and even cracked the Billboard top 40.  

Unfortunately, Elastica was more than just derivative of their post-punk influences.  They got sued by both Wire and The Stranglers (settling out of court) while Mark E. Smith from The Fall just blew it off.  I’m docking Elastica 20-25 spots in the countdown as a penalty.

Connection

Compare to Three Girl Rumba by Wire
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That Elastica album is fantastic. Cant deny the Stranglers rip off. Its obvious.

Still not sure what Albarns official role is with this album. I suspect he wrote and produced most of it,  but he will never admit it. Funny how everything released by Elastica after Albarn and Justine split sucked Ballz. Then again rock history is littered with fantastic debuts and artists never recapturing the magic. Drug use was rife in this band after success. 

 
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