Every year the world is blessed with hundreds upon thousands of horrendous pieces of recorded music. The worst ones seem to sell the most and the best ones seem to be swept under the carpet and forgotten about without ever being heard. In what will follow I will attempt to pass along what I believe to be some of the best music to have been released in 1995.
- Grant Lee Buffalo “Mighty Joe Moon”
A few years ago Michael Stipe proclaimed Grant Buffalo Buffalo the band that would one day take over the world. I’m not sure what this means exactly but Mighty Joe is a damn good record. Grant Lee and the gang don’t write songs about drinking beer and smoking butts, they are old fashioned romantics who apply a classic rock “seriousness” to a sophisticated art rock mentality. Leader Grant Lee Phillips is blessed with one of the strongest and sincere voices in music, letting into his head for moments that most people are shy too confess. This is a range where the buffalo still can roam.
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- Zumpano “What The Rookie Said”
These days late 70’s and early 80’s mod pop, i.e. Joe Jackson and Three O’Clock, has begun to receive a well deserved acknowledgment in the form of a full-on revival. Canada’s Zumpano takes the piano driven hyperpop to a new level on their debut SubPop recording. Each of the ten songs skips the predictable rock crescendo, sending you immediately into a blissfully silly puddle adolescent contentment. Driven by a jubilant piano and equally happy vocals, this a record to play when you just feel like you need to smile.
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- Dead Can Dance “Towards The Within”
For years Dead Can Dance has created an incredible world of music by grafting elements from an assortment of musical cultures. Towards The Within is their first live album featuring songs from all of their past six records. The beauty of DCD is the near perfect clarity they have managed to extract from their art. Utilizing both Gaelic and Aboriginal musical traditions this record combines wonderfully executed vocal chants with multifaceted orchestral element. Towards The Within is exactly what it announces, it is music takes you to a place where words exist only as ethereal sounds pushing towards something somehow larger than life.
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- Guided By Voices “Alien Lanes”
Guided By Voices are, without a doubt, the greatest rock n’ roll band making music today. On Alien Lanes GBV has managed to fit 28 songs onto a forty-two minute disc. They specialize in quick but perfectly measured pop hooks, throwing you immediately into a song and then moving on before you become too attached. Sounding more like the Beatles since any band since the fab four, GBV takes the music of their youth and applies it to today. Let these voices guide you into their own strange alien lanes.
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- Stereolab “Mars Audiac Quartet”
The latest record from British synth-moog-lounge aficionados is yet another slice of a brilliant pop-pie. Set to the a bouncy buzzing collection of synthesizers, Stereolab fuses a 90’s reinterpretation of 70’s ambient disco with their own unique musical innovation. Lyrically the songs are song in both English and French, as blissful harmonious banter is exchanged between both of the female vocalists. Stereolab is both dance music and groove music, to be played while vacuum cleaning and party throwing.
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- Silver Jews “Starlight Walker”
Silver Jews are a side project for three of the members of Pavement, fronted by college buddy David Berman. On Starlight the band takes you on an educated slacker stroll through the American Southeast. On their first full LP they have fashioned a lazy rocking chair aesthetic into a vehicle to tell stories about their seemingly banal existence’s. The Silver Jews are Pavement without the punk rock and REM without the pop. Starlight Walker is an imperfect piece of perfection, where every rough has a sterling silver underside.
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- Red House Painters “Ocean Beach”
Simply put, Red House Painters write some of the most restrained and beautiful songs in music today. At times their songs may feel painfully slow, but they seem covered in a white fluffy cloud serenity. Singer Mark Kozelek’s vocals and tastefully poetic lyrics are neatly surrounded by the tinkling of a lightly stroked piano, and easy flowing guitars. Ocean Beach brings exactly where they say that they will, a place where waves crash and light winds blow.
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- The Verve “Northern Soul”
I am sad to announce that The Verve is no longer. Fortunately they have left with us one final slice of brilliance. I have often thought that if U2 was kind of arty, they’d sound a lot like The Verve. On Northern Soul the band offers up a dark landscape of tunes, no doubt the result of singer Richard Ashcraft’s recent romantic fallout. The band plays heavy groove laden atmospheric jams, sounding vocally somewhere between and an upbeat Nick Cave and Bono, and instrumentally somewhere between Swervedriver and Slowdive. This is a record to help you get through a breakup or one that will just help you put the bed spins to rest.
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- Magic Hour “Will You Turn Me On”
Magic Hour is the fusion of two visionary bands: Galaxie 500 and Crystallized Movements. The final product is a dreamy fusion of psychedelic guitar and atmospheric bliss. The band is truly an experiment in cosmic unconsciousness, an improvisation of complex guitar solos with steady bass and hazey drumming. You Turn Me On features six short songs, culminating in a twenty minute voyage into art-rock bliss. This is a wonderful way to spend a magic hour.
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- Pavement “Wowee Zowee”
For nearly five years Pavement has been sitting casually a top the indie elite as the progenitors of cool. On Wowee, they cruise skillfully through the muddy waters of alterna-rock, cranking out another bunch of satiric gems set to hooky meandering guitar and bass lines. Although they haven’t been swallowed by the ugly jowls of mainstream, and for this I am thankful, Pavement manages to sell a couple hundred thousand record without offending their loyal following. This Pavement is one you’d like to hit hard.
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