Pj Harvey Explored Emotional Terrain
Music ‘95
This year’s top 10 albums show rock to be at a mid-‘90s crossroads. Half these albums demonstrate how passe guitar-drums-bass rock ‘n’ roll has become, the others reflect how potent it can still be.
1. PJ Harvey, “To Bring You My Love” - Island
Few performers have explored the toxic consequences of intimacy as profoundly as Polly Harvey. To what lengths will lovers go, she asks, to give themselves over to one another? And at what cost?
The answers are no clearer on “To Bring You My Love”; if anything, the emotional terrain has become more ambiguous, muddled by the conflicting impulses of predator and victim, seducer and the seduced, mother and whore, abuser and the abused.
2. Smashing Pumpkins, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” - Virgin
This one sets off all the warning buzzers: 28 songs, two hours of music, double-CD. How do you define self-indulgent? But on this tour de force, the Pumpkins are anything but. Despite the record’s girth, there’s very little fat, with songs rather than solos at the forefront.
3. Tricky, “Maxinquaye” - Island
There is a deceptive languor about the music of British “trip-hop” auteur Adrian Thaws, a k a Tricky. The lure of lust, the threat of violence, the sadness of self-knowledge oozes through every sensual groove on this extraordinary debut.
4. Eric Matthews, “It’s Heavy in
Here” - Sub Pop
With his gorgeous orchestrations, melancholy melodies and gently pleading voice, Eric Matthews evokes the baroque majesty of late ‘60s pop groups such as Love and the Left Banke. Beneath the serene surface, a turbulent beauty can be heard.
5. Moby, “Everything You Know Is Wrong” - Elektra
Richard Hall, a k a Moby, expands the boundaries of techno almost to the breaking point, with classical motifs that echo Philip Glass, churning hard-core that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Bad Brains record, a snippet of back-porch blues, and exultant disco that fuses gospelized vocals with Jamaican toasting (rap).
6. Bjork, “Post” - Elektra
Iceland’s Bjork Gudmundsdottir sings with the nonlinear abandon of a jazz vocalist, squeals like a grade-schooler on Christmas morning and purrs with the feral lustiness of a big cat in pursuit of a meal, sometimes all within the same song. The spaced-out Kewpie doll vocal mannerisms, replete with fractured English phonics, can be wearying, but Bjork’s devotion to quirkiness also has led to one of the best dance-pop records of the ‘90s.
7. Morphine, “Yes” - Rykodisc
With its third album, this Massachusetts trio consisting of two-string bass, saxophone and drums creates its most effortless blend of noir mood, experimental noise and bebop rock.
8. Foo Fighters, “Foo Fighters” - Roswell/Capitol
Who would have thought that Nirvana boasted two terrific songwriters? Everyone knows about Kurt Cobain, but the guy in back bashing the drums had a few tunes up his flannel sleeve as well.
9. Goldie, “Timeless” - ffrr
The man of the hour on the British rave scene proves himself to be a master manipulator not just of dance grooves, but also of the textures that make those grooves resonate.
10. Lida Husik, “Joyride” - Caroline
Soft and alluring of voice, Husik writes songs that merge fabulist imagery reminiscent of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez with a profound spiritualism.