I liked Rogue One probably a lot more than an average Star Wars fan might, so I was willing to entertain Riz Ahmed’s hip-hop work with the usual skepticism afforded to Hollywood actors dabbling in music. This work is no dilettante effort. Ahmed prosecutes the societal forces in the UK that brought about Brexit in an astonishing performance.
Wayne Horvitz, Live Forever, Vol. 1: The President – New York in the 80s
Wayne Horvitz dives into his archive to surface this must-have collection of live recordings and outtakes.
Kelela, Take Me Apart
I love how modern day R&B artists are willing to blur the lines between pop music and indie rock.
fIREHOSE, If’n
I’ve known about this album since it was first released in 1987, but I was too young at the time to have understood the impact of the Minutemen on independent rock.
sungazer, vol. I sungazer, vol. 2 Adam Neely, time//motion//wine
I never paid much attention to YouTube till I learned about Adam Neely and music theory YouTube. It’s been a year now since I discovered his channel, and YouTube has since eclipsed Science Channel as my television entertainment of choice. Neely’s own music combines electronic beats with rhythmically complex jazz, and while I enjoy watching him explain music theory, I sometimes wish the YouTube algorithm would give him enough slack to create more music.
What is the memory you most associate with this title?
I jumped on the bandwagon of shopping for music on the Internet really early. How early? Amazon hadn’t even launched when I was sending checks to complete strangers on the rec.music.marketplace group on USENET.
CD Connection had a TELNET interface where you could buy albums at warehouse prices. Interstate taxation hadn’t yet become an issue, although the markup to ship to Hawaii was obscene.
As terrific as Tower Records was, they couldn’t fit everything in the store, and they couldn’t cater to someone with tastes as esoteric as mine.
I bought Halfrack on the Internet, most likely from CD Connection. I knew it would take Tower weeks, if not months, to stock it, so I cut out the middle man and got it myself.
What was happening in your life when it was released?
In May 1993, I was preparing to move back to Honolulu after spending two semesters in New York City on the National Student Exchange Program.
This program allowed students to attend another university in the country while paying either the in-state tuition of the host school, or the in-state tuition of the visitor’s school.
I had wanted to go to the Mainland for college like a number of my high school friends, but my family couldn’t afford it. My parents’ combined income put us out of reach of financial aid, unless I opted to take out loans, which my mom insisted not happen.
I didn’t appreciate the gesture at the time, but I’m glad for it now. I have no student debt, and I’m sure I would be in a worse financial position now had I saddle myself with it.
What was happening in your life when you bought it?
The Internet wasn’t just the World Wide Web. Before the web gave the internet a graphical user interface, there were mailing lists, newsgroups, talk daemons and IRC.
And I was exploring anything music-related through these command-line interfaces. I sold and bought CDs on USENET. I developed friendships with people I would never meet through a shared love of Duran Duran. I chatted with high school friends if the finger command revealed they were online many time zones away.
I also started to shift my academic focus away from music and onto journalism. I wrote a few reviews for the Hunter College newspaper when I lived in New York, and I liked the experience so much, I kept writing for the paper at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The seeds of this web site were pretty much being sown right around the time I picked up this album.
What do you think of it now?
I have to admit I didn’t listen to Halfrack as much as I could have at the time. V as in Victim followed shortly afterward and quickly monopolized my listening time.
Halfrack set the tone for what would follow, including moments of tenderness next to controlled chaos. At five tracks, it whetted the appetite for more, and even 25+ year later, it’s an astonishing piece of work to behold.
The influence of Naked City is inescapable, which means it will always be a perpetual favorite.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
It shouldn’t be a surprise the largest expansion in my collection focuses on the late 1980s, i.e. my high school years. The Favorite 10 list from these years won’t see much change, as 1989 demonstrates, but the expanded lists risk becoming ridiculously long.
The B-52’s, Cosmic Thing
Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
Faith No More, The Real Thing
Steve Reich, Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint
Fugazi, 13 Songs
Emmylou Harris, Bluebird
Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love
Madonna, Like a Prayer
Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
Other favorites from the year:
The Replacements, Don’t Tell a Soul
Hoodoo Gurus, Magnum Cum Louder
All About Eve, Scarlet and Other Stories
XTC, Oranges and Lemons
De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising
Nirvana, Bleach
Pixies, Doolittle
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Bring Yr Camera
John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy
Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère de Voix Bulgares, Vol. 2
Nakamori Akina, CRUISE
Depeche Mode, 101
Fugazi displaces The Replacements, who made a shot for the charts by cleaning up their sound.
I saw this ad in Pulse magazine and scoffed at it:
Today, I nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” But it took 30 years before I had enough life experience to understand how breathtaking 3 Feet High and Rising is.
Nevermind introduced me to Nirvana like the rest of the world, but I prefer Bleach.
The events in Nakamori Akina’s life at the time CRUISE was released overshadowed the maturity of the album. It’s not ground-breaking the way Fushigi is, but it’s an album that could have only been recorded after it.
I saw Depeche Mode in concert in 2017, and 101 ruined my experience of it. I had been listening to 101 in the weeks leading up to the concert, and understandably, the band stacked the set list more toward recent work than “the hits”.
A decade ago, I wrote a series of entries ranking my favorite albums from 1985 to 2004. My collection has expanded greatly since then, particularly in the last five years. So I wanted to see what has changed in 10 years.
We’ve actually revisited 1992 earlier in the year, and this list hasn’t changed, although I did tack on L7 and Helmet in the extended list.
Wayne Horvitz / The President, Miracle Mile
Máire Brennan, Máire
Henryk Górecki, Symphony No. 3 (Dawn Upshaw, David Zinman, London Sinfonietta)
k.d. lang, Ingenue
Sade, Love Deluxe
En Vogue, Funky Divas
Prince and the New Power Generation, 0(+> (Love Symbol Album)
Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, At the Ryman
Kronos Quartet, Pieces of Africa
Robin Holcomb, Rockabye
Other favorites from the year:
The Sugarcubes, Stick Around for Joy
Faith No More, Angel Dust
Sonic Youth, Dirty
Helmet, Meantime
L7, Bricks Are Heavy
Helmet got caught up in the grunge craze of the early ’90s, even though they were clearly not grunge. Wikipedia says Helmet’s staccato riffage would influence Mastodon, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Korn and Linkin Park.
I’ll admit I picked up Meantime because of the grunge-adjacent marketing hype. I didn’t hold onto it, but like Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record, I couldn’t shake it. So I brought it back into my collection when it was reissued on vinyl earlier in the year.
Bricks Are Heavy also suffered a bit of guilt by association. Butch Vig had been doing miraculous work with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Surely, L7 would follow in that vein. I didn’t warm up to it. I’m not sure how 25 years turned around my perception of the album, but it did.
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