7. “First Of The Gang To Die” – Morrissey: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

7. “First Of The Gang To Die” – Morrissey

(From the album You Are The Quarry)

2004

After the twin heights of Your Arsenal and Vauxhall & I Morrissey decided to challenge his audience with 1995’s Southpaw Grammar. While rooted in a similar sound as his two previous albums Southpaw Grammar was harder and harsher and featured two songs in excess of ten minutes long. Southpaw Grammar is actually a fairly strong record but it takes some to unveil its pleasures and those pleasures may not always speak to fans waiting for the next “Everyday Is Like Sunday”. Indeed, Southpaw Grammar, released right when all of Morrissey’s spiritual progeny in the Britpop scene were ascendent, seemed to refudiate that legacy to some degree and Morrissey fell out of favor. His next album, 1997’s Maladjusted, did nothing to bring Morrissey back into favor and he went on an extended hiatus and moved from Britain to Los Angeles. Morrissey released several compilations over the next few years but his next new studio album would not be released until 2004. By 2004 Morrissey’s reputation had recovered some as his music and persona was an obvious influence on both the emo and pop-punk genres that were popular at the time and he was regularly namechecked by many of those bands as an influence. While Morrissey’s new album, 2004’s You Are The Quarry (which featured an incredible cover featuring a James Bond-ish looking Moz carrying a tommy gun) doesn’t stray too far from the sound or style of Morrissey’s 90’s records it is produced by Jerry Finn, who helped to shape the sound of many of the then-current emo and pop-punk sound, and gives Morrissey a slightly modern update that makes the album feel contemporary without losing the essence of Morrissey’s sound. You Are The Quarry was well reviewed by critics and hailed as a comeback. It even was a moderate commercial success in the US and scored two UK top ten singles with “Irish Blood, English Heart” and “First Of The Gang To Die”. The second of these songs, the poppy rocker “First Of The Gang To Die”, being seen as a tribute of sorts to Morrissey’s large number of Mexican-American and Latin fans. Morrissey followed up You Are The Quarry with another strong record in 2006’s Ringleader Of The Tormentors (which has both an awesome title and album cover). Ringleader Of The Tormentors scored Morrissey more UK chart success and continued his run of alt rock success in America. Ringleader Of The Tormentors also found Morrissey working with songwriting partners other than Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer as former Red Hot Chili Pepper guitarist Jesse Tobias joined his band and co-wrote five of the songs, including the album’s most successful single “You Have Killed Me”. 2009 saw the release of Years Of Refusal, another album that was well received by critics. It also was a turning point for Morrissey as Jesse Tobias replaced Alain Whyte as Morrissey’s lead guitarist and primary songwriting partner (although Whyte does still have five co-writing credits on Years Of Refusal). The years since the release of Years Of Refusal saw Morrissey write his autobiography and a novel. Morrissey also has spent much of this time battling with his various record labels, the media, and many of his fans over cancelled shows and unpopular political views. Still, in spite of these setbacks to his reputation and issues with labels Morrissey has released four more albums – World Peace Is None Of Your Business, Low In High School, California Son, and I Am Not A Dog On A Chain – three of which consisted of new original material and one being a covers album. Morrissey also has recorded a fifth record during these years, 2022’s Bonfire Of Teenagers, which in spite of being completed and having a lead single released (the Smiths sounding “Rebels Without Applause”), has been shelved by his former record label due to a dispute with Morrissey that saw him leave the label. A new album titled Without Music The World Dies has been announced but currently has not been released either.

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2. “Everyday Is Like Sunday” – Morrissey: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

2. “Everyday Is Like Sunday” – Morrissey

(From the album Viva Hate)

1988

Viva Hate went all the way to #1 on the UK charts and, perhaps somewhat surpringly, to #48 in the USA where the album earned support from college radio and, to a lesser degree, from MTV. Morrissey followed up the success of “Suedehead” with the second single “Everyday Is Like Sunday”. “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is a dramatic ballad based on Neville Shute’s novel On The Beach about nuclear holocaust and living in a place so boring and unimportant that nobody even bothered to nuke it. Thus, the song’s protaganist must wait for a natural death rather than a quick one. While the song is quite morbid in its literal interpretation, “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is more a song about loneliness and longing and wanting to be someplace other than where you are. It was another hit for Morrissey and peaked at #9 in the UK. Following the success of Viva Hate Morrissey wrote a handful of other songs with Stephen Street before moving on to begin a writing and working partnership with the production duo of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. These various writing sessions (which also saw him working with former Smiths bandmates Andy Rourke, Craig Gannon, and Mike Joyce on some tracks) eventually led to the release of three non-album singles – “The Last Of The Famous International Playboys”, “Interesting Drug”, and “Ouija Board, Ouija Board”. The first two of these, co-written with Street, reached the UK Top 10 while the latter, written with Langer and Winstanley, went Top 20 in the UK. All three songs were also hits on the US alt rock charts. Morrissey then decided to begin work on the follow-up to Viva Hate and entered the studio with Langer and Winstanley on that album. However, that project would end up going in a different direction than expected.

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7. “Pagan Poetry” – Bjork: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

7. “Pagan Poetry” – Bjork

(From the album Vespertine)

2001

Following the release of Homogenic Bjork took an acting role in Lars von Trier’s 2000 film Dancer In The Dark. As the main character in the film Bjork won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the same award at the Golden Globes. She was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Song for “I’ve Seen It All”, a duet with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, that was from the film and released on Bjork’s soundtrack from the film titled Selmasongs. Bjork followed up her acting success by saying the process of acting was so emotionally and physically draining that she would never act again (a vow she has largely honored in spirit although she has taken some small roles in other films on rare occasions). Bjork quickly followed up Selmasongs with her next studio album Vespertine, an album that earned Bjork three more relatively successful singles, especially in the UK, Europe, and her native Iceland. The second of these singles was the haunting and beautiful “Pagan Poetry”. A partial factor in these singles being less successful in America was that the videos for both “Pagan Poetry” and  “Cocoon” were banned by MTV, which had been one of Bjork’s biggest supporters in the past. Nevertheless, “Pagan Poetry” cracked the UK Top 40 and became a fan favorite. Bjork followed up Vespertine by releasing a greatest hits record. The release of this hits compilation seemed to mark a turning point for Bjork in her career. The albums Bjork released in the years since her 2002 Greatest Hits album have moved even further into the realm of the experimental and Bjork seems to have made a conscious decision to make music for herself (and large cult of fans) and not worry about chasing (or setting) trends to make pop hits. This doesn’t mean that Bjork’s 21st century albums are not worth listening to, if you liked her early records that this is a rabbit hole worth following her down, but the albums increasingly follow the whim of Iceland’s quixotic muse without thought to trends or fashion.

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5. “It’s Oh So Quiet” – Bjork: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

5. “It’s Oh So Quiet” – Bjork

(From the album Post)

1995

Bjork followed up the success of “Army Of Me” with “Isobel”, another song that melded genres by combining electronic beats with a string arrangement. However, it was the third single from Post, a cover of the 1951 show tune “It’s Oh So Quiet”, that really showed how willing Bjork was to push the boundaries of pop music, while also sealing her reputation as an alt rock maverick willing to try almost anything. Bjork’s cover of “It’s Oh So Quiet” is musically quite faithful to the big band/show tune style of the original version (which had already been redone several times in various languages over the years) but is really sold by Bjork’s dynamic and over-the-top vocal performance. Bjork treats the song like a true musical number from a Broadway show and goes from whisper to shout and back (all done with her exotic, ear-catching accent) while also adding all sorts of personality to the vocal piece, making her performance feel as if it draws on acting as much as it does singing. Of course, a show tune is meant to be seen and the colorful and fun music video directed by Spike Jonez adds to the song’s magic. Indeed, Bjork sells “It’s Oh So Quiet” by taking it so serious, really sinking into the piece like she was playing a role in a musical; while at the same time making it so over-the-top that it feels playfully ironic (or at least read that way in the irony-drenched 1990’s). Who knows though, maybe Bjork did have a bit of the acting bug, as she would have a cameo role in Pret-A-Porter around this time and then played the main role in 2000’s Dancer In The Dark, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Whether done seriously or ironically, “It’s Oh So Quiet” would be one of Bjork’s most successful songs, going Top 20 in ten territories including #4 in the UK, while also being an alternative radio hit in the United States.

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3. “Hit” – Bjork: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

3. “Human Behaviour” – Bjork

(From the album Debut)

1993

Bjork did not wait very long to release her English solo debut, fittingly titled Debut, which came out only sixteen months after the last Sugarcubes record. For the album Bjork collaborated with producer Nellee Hooper and largely abandoned her post-punk and alt-pop past with The Sugarcubes to create something much more eclectic, drawing on pop, electronic dance music, jazz, and hip hop. This new direction can be heard on the lead single “Human Behaviour” which is built up from cavernous percussion and an array of electronic noises to create a rhythmic, pulsing, yet strange bed of music to serve as a backdrop for Bjork’s enchanting, otherworldly voice. “Human Behaviour” was crafted with enough beat to be a hit in the clubs, enough melody to be a pop hit, and different enough to be an alt hit. Indeed, the song cracked the UK Top 40, while going to #2 on both the American dance and alt rock charts. When “Human Behaviour” was released it felt very edgy, showing that Bjork was willing and able to be unique (how could she not be with a voice like hers?) and combine disparate genres in interesting ways. However, a listen to Debut quickly shows that the diversity of styles on “Human Behaviour” is just a starting point. Second single “Venus As A Boy” draws on ambient music and Bollywood Indian influences, while third single “Play Dead” (originally on the film soundtrack for The Young Americans but added to later versions of Debut) is a superb groove-heavy ballad. Fourth single “Big Time Sensuality” mixes things up again and is a straightforward electronic club song. This kind of experimentation with various genres and in blending various kinds of music would become a hallmark of Bjork’s solo career moving forward but “Human Behaviour” remains one of her best moments.

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7. “Love Of Our Lives” – Indigo Girls: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

7. “Love Of Our Lives” – Indigo Girls

(From the album Poseidon & The Bitter Bug)

2009

The Indigo Girls had started off the 21st century with a return to form on the excellent Become You. They then released the solid but not spectacular All That We Let In in 2004 and the excellent Despite Our Differences in 2006. As the end of the first decade of the 21st century was closing in, Indigo Girls were on a run of high quality album releases and becoming respected elder statesmen to a younger generation of artists; not to mention that they had earned a rabidly devoted fan base. That run of excellent albums continues with 2009’s Poseidon & The Bitter Bug, a relatively concise album that saw the duo come as close to returning to the sound of their early records than they had in more than a decade. Poseidon & The Bitter Bug is strong from front to back and offers new classics from Saliers’ like the upbeat “What Are You Like?” and the reflective “Fleet Of Hope”, while Ray is equally strong on the teenage nostalgia of “Driver Education” and the country/folk of “Second Time Around”. The deluxe version of the album also has a second disc where all of the tracks are stripped down into a raw, acoustic style that purposefully mimics the band’s earliest work in sound and aesthetic. The second disc is a great bonus and many of the versions are as good, if not better, than the more produced versions. However the real treat of the bonus material is Amy Ray’s excellent “Salty South”, which is the only song on the bonus material not to be on the album proper, which is a crime as it is one of Poseidon & The Bitter Bug’s best songs. Another clear highlight of Poseidon & The Bitter Bug is the second single, Emily Saliers’ “Love Of Our Lives”. A call to action that could be heard either as an attempt to save a personal relationship or to fight for the often still denied rights of the LGBTQ community (which was a big topic at the time of the album’s release). “Love Of Our Lives” does what Indigo Girls does best, marries smart lyrics about important topics to melodic music while two of the best singers in the business weave beautiful harmonies. In the years since Indigo Girls have continued to work, tour, and release great new material, including four new studio albums: The holiday album Holly Happy Days, and the new studio albums Beauty Queen Sister, One Lost Day, and Look Long, all of which are strong latter-day efforts.

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3. “World Falls” – Indigo Girls: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

3. “World Falls” – Indigo Girls

(From the album Nomads Indians Saints)

1990

One of the things that makes Indigo Girls unique is that the two women in the group, Emily Sailers and Amy Ray, write their songs separately from one another. Not only that but the two women have fairly different styles, interests, and influences. Emily Saliers tends to be the more poetic, literate, and pop-oriented of the two, while Amy Ray is the more direct, rootsy, and rock-influenced partner. Part of their magic is how by singing and playing together Saliers and Ray are able to make their songs seem like part of a connected whole. However, it can also mean the two women had to work together to create a balance between them and their songs. On Indigo Girls the big, breakthrough single “Closer To Fine” was penned by Sailers, as was the lead single “Crazy Game” on the previous record Strange Fire. To some extent this was balanced out by the fact that Amy Ray wrote six of the ten songs on Indigo Girls and that the second single was her “Tried To Be True”, but it was still important to their success to maintain some kind of balance. 1990 saw Indigo Girls release their third album Nomads Indians Saints quickly on the heels of their last in order to maintain the momentum built up by that album. In spite of the quick turnaround Nomads Indians Saints is a great record that once again goes very deep with quality material. Nomads Indians Saints also feels like an album dominated by Amy Ray’s darker-hued, rootsy sound. Some of this is just the track order as Emily Saliers (who penned five of the eleven songs) has the first and last song on the record, but that means six out of nine in a row bear the stamp and sound of Ray. And while Saliers’ “Hammer And A Nail” opens the album and serves as a fine lead single (and it makes sense to promote a Saliers song first since she had the big hit on the previous record) it is the Amy Ray penned second song (and second single) that really sets the sonic and spiritual tone of the album. “World Falls” feels like an extension of their previous work while also introducing the rootsy, earthy tone of Nomads Indians Saints (especially as it is followed by another Ray penned classic “Welcome Me”). “World Falls” does what most of the best Indigo Girls songs do and finds a way to blend the two women’s voices in a beautiful and interesting way. None of the songs on Nomads Indians Saints had the same crossover appeal with the mainstream as “Closer To Fine” had, but “World Falls” did earn some airplay on college radio and alt rock stations in the last year before NIrvana would change the formatting on those radio stations to something that wouldn’t usually play Indigo Girls.

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5. “Here Comes Your Man” – Pixies: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

5. “Here Comes Your Man” – Pixies

(From the album Doolittle)

1989

The second single from Doolittle was “Here Comes Your Man”, one of the catchiest and most pop-oriented songs ever released by the Pixies. While “Here Comes Your Man” was still clearly the work of the Pixies, full of unexpected moments, unconventional dynamics shifts, and almost completely unlike anything else at the time; it also seemed to tie back into the era of early rock and roll and pre-British Invasion pop without directly paying homage to it. “Here Comes Your Man” also tied back into the sound of the band’s most successful pre-Doolittle song “Gigantic”, by prominently featuring Kim Deal’s vocals and bass playing. While Black Francis takes the vocal lead on “Here Comes Your Man” Deal provides both secondary and backing vocals that give the song a unique quality, while the song is propelled forward by Deal’s bouncy bass groove. “Here Comes Your Man” did even better than “Monkey Gone To Heaven” did, hitting #3 on the US alt rock charts and #54 in Britain. Although few, if any, knew it at the time the new sound the Pixies were pioneering was going to become much of the blueprint for the sound of alternative rock in the 1990’s. The Pixies were different from the “big” college rock and indie bands of the 80’s. They didn’t have the cinematic scale of U2 or the anthemic scope of Simple Minds or Peter Gabriel. They also didn’t have the witty literacy of The Smiths or the obscure beauty of R.E.M. The Pixies were raw and emotional, surreal and surly, blending sweet melodies with crazed intensity, and using unconventional non-linear lyrics and dramatic loud-soft-loud dynamics. The sound that would break the alternative into the mainstream was being established and a major shift in what was acceptable to a mainstream audience was just around the corner and the Pixies were playing a big part in that shift.

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5. “Nearly Lost You” – Screaming Trees: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

5. “Nearly Lost You” – Screaming Trees

(From the album Sweet Oblivion)

1992

Screaming Trees career seemed to be one beset by bad luck and poor timing. The band spent half of the 1980’s helping develop the core sound that would become popular as alternative and/or grunge rock in the early 90’s, but that put them out of step with the slickly produced hair metal of the time. They managed to sign with the noted punk label SST, a goal for many alternative-inclined bands, only to have the label prove to be difficult to work with and unable to even release their Buzz Factory album until they had finished the tour supporting it. Then Screaming Trees released their major label debut Uncle Anesthesia a half year before Nirvana brought the Seattle sound (and eventually the whole alt rock aesthetic) into the mainstream. Screaming Trees seemed like a band that couldn’t catch a break. And then a break came, sort of. Prior to Nirvana’s mainstream breakthrough director Cameron Crowe decided to make a romantic comedy about Gen X singles living in Seattle in the early 90’s. Crowe, a resident of Seattle and someone very familiar with the sound of the local music scene (he is married to Heart’s Nancy Wilson), decided to make the soundtrack to his film, called Singles, a primer in the Seattle sound, not knowing that that very scene would blow up into massive success right around the time that his film was released. The Singles soundtrack contained songs by Seattle bands Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, among others. Screaming Trees’ placed the song “Nearly Lost You” on the soundtrack and it would go on to become the group’s most successful song, also serving as the lead single for their own next album Sweet Oblivion which would be released in September, three months after Singles. “Nearly Lost You” is everything great about the Seattle sound that became known to the world as grunge. The song rocks hard, with a driving rhythm section (new drummer Barrett Martin is very gifted and bassist Van Conner always was a secret weapon of the band), while Gary Lee Conner’s fuzzy guitars allow just enough room for the song’s strong sense of melody to cut through the weighty murk of the Screaming Trees sound. And, per usual on Screaming Trees songs, Mark Lanegan’s vocals are the perfect addition, lending a weighty weariness that works together perfectly with the band’s music. “Nearly Lost You” would become ubiquitous on alternative rock radio and eventually peaked at #5 on the US alternative rock chart, while hitting #50 in the UK. 

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7. “Too Many Rappers” – Beastie Boys: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

7. “Too Many Rappers” – Beastie Boys

(From the album Hot Sauce Committe, Pt. 2)

2011

The Beastie Boys fifth album Hello Nasty was a commercial and creative success and the group was set to embark on a co-headlining tour with Rage Against The Machine and rapper Busta Rhymes when the tour had to be canceled due to Mike D suffering a major injury while biking. By the time he recovered from surgery and finished his rehabilitation Rage Against The Machine had broken up and the tour was never rescheduled. The group released a best-of compilation in 1999 called The Sounds Of Science but for the most part the Beastie Boys pulled back from the spotlight and the various members spent the next few years working on solo projects, building their own recording studio, and promoting various political causes. 2004 saw the Beastie Boys finally release a new album with the self-produced To The 5 Boroughs. The album was another success, going to #1 on the US album chart and #2 in the UK. The album also earned more positive critical reviews and gave the group another hit, especially in the UK, with “Ch-Check It Out”. Despite this success though To The 5 Boroughs did not have the same cultural impact as the previous Beastie Boy records did. Perhaps sensing that their moment at the center of the cultural zeitgeist was now passed the Beastie Boys next album, 2007’s The Mix-Up, was an all-instrumental release that focused on the group’s instrumental and production skills. In early 2009 the trio announced that they would release a new studio album (with lyrics) later in the year. In fact, the Beastie Boys announced the new material would be released as two albums and the group released the tracklist for Hot Sauce Committe, Pt. 1 in June of 2009. All seemed to be on track for the planned September release as the pre-album single “Too Many Rappers”, which found the Beasties collaborating with rapper Nas, was released in July. In fact, the song had been debuted in a live performance by the Beastie Boys and Nas a month earlier at the Bonnaroo Music Festival. It would be the last time the Beastie Boys would ever perform live as the full group though. On July 20th of 2009, Adam “MCA” Yauch announced that the band was canceling several tour dates and postponing the release of the Hot Sauce Committe, Pt. 1 due to his being diagnosed with cancer in his parotid gland and lymph nodes. In October of the next year the band announced that Part 1 was indefinitely delayed but that Part 2 would be released in the spring of 2011 as planned. True to their word the Beastie Boys released Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 in May, 2011. However, in a strange twist, the long-awaited Hot Sauce Committe, Pt. 2 contained the same basic tracklist of songs that had originally been announced for Hot Sauce Committe, Pt. 1. A new single “Make Some Noise” (a definite need as the first two singles – “Lee Majors Come Again” and “Too Many Rappers” had been released two years earlier) was released to support the album’s release but the album did contain a remixed version of “Too Many Rappers” dubbed the “New Reactionaries Version”. The new mix, still featuring Nas, kept the same basic track but added new, more elaborate production and, in my opinion, is the better version of the song (and the one included here). “Too Many Rappers” finds the Beastie Boys and Nas doing a cool update of the trade-off style of rap common in the mid 1980’s when the Beastie Boys first made a name for themselves and so, in a sense, finds the Beasties returning to their roots. The Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame on April 14, 2012, the same day as Adam Yauch was admitted to the hospital for the last time. Yauch died on May 4th of that year, less than a month later. The Beastie Boys scrapped the release of Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 and Mike D and Ad-Rock announced that while they would possibly still work and perform together, they would not work under the Beastie Boys name anymore, officially disbanding the group.

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