Tag Archives: favorite albums

2024 Year in Review: May

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May ended up a bit on the quiet side creatively as per my Dreamwidth account I’d been given a lot of midshift/Front End managing shifts which, while doable, can be extremely exhausting. [The phrase ‘herding cats’ is often used to describe said shift.] Musically it started out kind of quiet but by the end of it, I was hit broadside by quite a lot of great sounds, some of which have ended up on my year-end favorite list!

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Kamasi Washington, Fearless Movement, released 3 May. This jazz saxophonist has been around for quite some time, but it was this year’s album that caught my attention when KEXP played the wild epic track “Prologue” as a teaser single. Highly recommended.

Ibibio Sound Machine, Pull the Rope, released 3 May. Another favorite band of KEXP, the title track got a lot of play that month both on the station and in Spare Oom! It’s a super fun album to listen to.

Arab Strap, I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍, released 10 May. This Scottish indie band still revels in slower paced rock and mumbled (and heavily-accented) lyrics, but this record feels surprisingly upbeat! [And yes, the thumbs up emojis are indeed part of the title.]

Lunchbox, Pop and Circumstance, released 10 May. Yet another local jangle pop band off the local Slumberland label that has become a favorite of mine! I actually connected with this one via the label’s social media feed this time, because they’re fast becoming an “I’ll try anything they release” label for me.

Dog Party, Dangerous, released 17 May. Not quite local (they’re out of Sacramento) but I’m glad to see these two sisters are still rocking out after all these years with their catchy brand of indie that hints at 50s pop and 80s garage punk. I highly recommend checking them out!

Various Artists, Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute Album to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, released 17 May. This is a fascinating tribute record focused on the brilliant movie of the same name, following the filmed concert’s set list with fascinating covers from Miley Cyrus (a twitchy “Psycho Killer”), The National (an extremely lovely “Heaven”), Paramore (a super funky “Burning Down the House”) and more. One of my favorites of the year!

Crumbs, You’re Just Jealous, released 17 May. This jangle pop is not on Slumberland (they’re on Skep Wax) but they fit right in with the rest of the bands I’ve been obsessing over in that genre.

Mixtape/Playlist, Re:Defined 2402, created 23 May. This was about the time I decided I was going to rename all of this year’s playlists under the Re:Defined banner, and I’m glad I did. I listened to this one when we went on our mini-vacation up in Mendocino later that year.

Lenny Kravitz, Blue Electric Light, released 24 May. Yes, he’s still around and still rocking out! This album definitely feels like he’s decided to return to his blues-funk roots that shone so brightly on his Let Love Rule album but choosing not to aim for radio-friendly hits this time out. It’s a much darker and moodier album and I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

Girl and Girl, Call a Doctor, released 24 May. “Hello” is one of those earworm songs that KEXP could not stop playing for weeks, and it’s hard not to smile at its clever use of The Sound of Music at the song’s final moments.

DIIV, Frog in Boiling Water, released 24 May. This band continues to play their own swampy brand of heady shoegaze that feels more like Dinosaur Jr than dreampop, and there’s nothing wrong with that. This one got a fair amount of play during my writing sessions.

La Luz, News of the Universe, released 24 May. This one is in my list of top favorite albums of the year, and “Strange World” is definitely in my top ten favorite songs of the year. This band describes themselves as ‘surf noir’ so they kind of come off as otherworldly like Air with a bit of heady surf twang. I highly recommend this record!

+/- (Plus Minus), Further Afield, released 31 May. I’d been a fan of this band since their first album, and I was quite pleased to find out they’d reconvened and recorded their first album in ten years! They still sound fresh and exciting and even a bit relaxing, and I’m glad they’re back.

Crowded House, Gravity Stairs, released 31 May. Neil Finn returns with another great album that sounds, perhaps not surprisingly, like the Beatles. So much so that its cover is a nod to Revolver! This one kind of reminded me of Finn’s years in Split Enz, specifically their album deep cuts that never got airplay.

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Coming up, more great releases from June!

2024 Year in Review: April

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Looking back on my writing diary, it looks like I’d started the fourth and thankfully final version of my novel Theadia. For this go-round I chose to do what I’d done with A Division of Souls by pretty much starting from scratch again. A lot of the work stayed the same, but I was completely rewriting the first several chapters. Normally I’d just revise once I get to the Revision stage, but this one definitely needed a lot more work than just a dusting and cleaning. As it stands, I’m very close to the final chapters, so while it’s taken me a long time to work on this one, I’d like to think it was worth going at a slow pace to make all the improvements needed.

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Mixtape/Playlist, Theadia 4, created 1 April. The fourth (and possibly final) soundtrack mixtape for my current WIP novel and one of my favorites. The idea behind this series was for it to be a mix of moody and cinematic sounds (like the tracks from Eluvium, The Fauns and Big Wreck) as well as quirky alternative rock (such as Ducks Ltd, Middle Kids and Torres)…basically stuff that the two main characters would listen to while at work! I really like how this one came out.

Garbage, Bleed Like Me Deluxe Edition, released 5 April. I remember this one coming out way back in April of 2005, one of the first albums I’d bought after I’d moved down to New Jersey a month previous. It was seen as a sort of comeback album after 2001’s club-oriented Beautiful Garbage and a return to form similar to their guitar-heavy 1995 debut.

Jane Weaver, Love in Constant Spectacle, released 5 April. Weaver is a singer that crossed my path a few years ago via KEXP but rarely got much play, but this one stuck out for me. She’s very similar to St Vincent in sound, only more contemplative and less abrasive. This one got a lot of play during my writing sessions!

The Black Keys, Ohio Players, released 5 April. Despite their unfortunate tour debacle, this album was highly lauded by critics when it came out. While it sounds like they’re moving away from their noisy indie roots, they’ve returned to their love of blues and heavy rock. It’s definitely an off-kilter album but a very enjoyable one.

Vampire Weekend, Only God Was Above Us, released 5 April. Speaking of off-kilter indie bands, they’ve pretty much decided to slide even further away from their light twee pop and towards more adventurous sounds. This is also a very strange but highly enjoyable album as well.

Bad Bad Hats, Bad Bad Hats, released 12 April. This one showed up on my radar via AllMusic of all places, getting a decent review. It only took the first track on the album (the above “My Heart Your Heart”, one of my favorite songs of the year) to make me fall in love with it! Pretty much in line with female-led bands like Wet Leg, they revel in their quirkiness by writing super catchy pop tunes that get stuck in your head.

Linkin Park, Papercuts, released 12 April. A sort-of greatest hits collection from this band that features several of their best songs as well as a new track (see above), an outtake from their last album with Chester Bennington, One More Light. A great place to start. And yes, this band will show up again on this series soon!

Nia Archives, Silence is Loud, released 12 April. Yet another KEXP find, she’s a singer that defies genre…you’re not sure if she’s r&b, electronic, alternative, or just a mangle of all three. Interestingly enough I sense a Wire vibe in her music, both experimentally and melodically.

English Teacher, This Could Be Texas, released 12 April. Another KEXP find — and they actually name-drop the station on this album! — their track “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab” is both strange and catchy as hell, and well worth picking up. It’s a super fun record, and all the critics seem to love it.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Unwishing Well, released 12 April. Yet another album from my favorite super-local band (and not the only one this year!), this one feels lighter and brighter than some of his previous work. “Learning to Love a Band” got stuck in my head that spring!

Pearl Jam, Dark Matter, released 19 April. Proud to say I’ve been a fan since Ten and I haven’t given up on them yet! I love that their last couple of albums really bring them back to their classic hard riff/introspective lyric style. There’s a lot of tension in this one that works really well with my writing sessions!

Orcas, “Under the Milky Way” single, released 19 April. Don’t mind me, just fawning over a quite lovely cover of one of my all-time favorite songs. Their album which they’d drop a few months later is quite wonderful too!

Corridor, Mimi, released 26 April. Another album that popped up on my radar thanks to AllMusic. This is definitely a band I’d have heard on college radio and seen on 120 Minutes back in the late 80s with its post-punk style. “Jump Cut” is one of those songs that gets stuck in my head.

Pet Shop Boys, Nonetheless, released 26 April. A lot of critics and fans see this one as one of their best out of the latter half of their career, and I’m inclined to agree. They’ve chosen to veer away from the dancefloor on this one, and it’s an interesting choice as it reminds us that they wrote brilliant mid-tempo tunes and ballads as well. It’s wild to see that they’re still going strong after all these years, and still writing amazing music.

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More to come in May!

2024 Year in Review: March

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March has become an interesting month for me, as it signals not just the anniversary of the COVID pandemic in 2020 but also the month I quit the Former Day Job…and also the month I started the Current Day Job two years later! Hard to believe I’ve been at the store for almost three years now, having gone from register jockey to interim front end manager to assistant bookkeeper and more. It’s a physically exhausting job sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else right now.

As expected, there was an avalanche of great releases in March, and that meant I suddenly had quite the playlist to listen to. Let’s check some out!

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Kaiser Chiefs, Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album, released 1 March. This seemed like the year for unexpected and unannounced album releases, and this one popped up without being on my radar at all. It does what it says on the tin — it’s not mindblowing like Employment or epic like The Future Is Medieval but just as fun — and the KCs have pretty much settled down in their niche of quirky British alternapop. An easy and fun listen.

Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, released 1 March. The Oasis singer and the Stone Roses guitarist doing an album together? Admittedly the stakes were ridiculously high on this one because of that, and while it’s not the best of each band, nonetheless it’s a fun Britpop romp worth checking out.

Paula Cole, Lo, released 1 March. Yes, she’s been putting out consistently excellent music since we were pummeled by “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” way back in the day, and each album has been a corker. This one’s a bit on the dark side and kind of reminds me of Cowboy Junkies in a way, leaning a bit more on the alternative folk side.

Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?, released 1 March. This oddball band continues to entertain, amuse and confuse, sometimes within the course of a single song. You’re never quite sure where they’re headed, but the ride is certainly worth paying attention to.

The BV’s, taking pictures of taking pictures, released 8 March. I’d heard “Breakdown” on KEXP and was instantly transported to those songs you’d hear on progressive and college radio in the 80s; not quite post-punk and not quite bedroom pop but somewhere in between. Something like early Go-Betweens, I think.

crushed, extra life, released 15 March. One of many shoegaze albums that came out this year that got a lot of repeat play, this one’s more of a mini-album but it still manages to move and inspire me in my writing. Hoping to hear more from this band!

Four Tet, Three, released 15 March. This band has been around for quite some time but it’s only recently that I’ve gotten into their alternative-jazz-electronic fusion style. This album got a hell of a lot of play during my writing sessions for a few months, and it still gets a few repeat plays now and again. One of my favorite albums of the year!

Hooverphonic, Fake Is the New Dope, released 21 March. This too was an album that popped up without warning for me, and I’m usually on top of things when it comes to my favorite bands! They’re certainly showing their age a bit and leaning more towards European lounge pop than ever, but then again that’s always been their best style. Worth checking out.

Elbow, AUDIO VERTIGO, released 22 March. After the somewhat disjointed Flying Dream 1 in 2021 (which had been written remotely and recorded ‘spaciously’ during the height of the COVID pandemic), this album is a return to their quirky form of slightly off-kilter British songwriting. This time out the songs are shorter, tighter and noisier. I love that it starts off with “Things I’ve Been Telling Myself for Years”, in which Guy Garvey projects what he thinks his bandmates thought of him during their time spent away during the pandemic. [Also, I love that its bass line is sung, not played!]

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Glasgow Eyes, released 22 March. The Reid brothers continue to play their unique brand of noise-rock that’s sometimes infused in blues, rockabilly and even a bit of bright pop. This album would fit perfectly between Automatic and Reverence.

The Church, Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars, released 29 March. This long-running and much beloved band is essentially just singer Steve Kilbey and whoever’s around these days — and the band name fits considering his solo work is more on the contemplative and lighter side. This album continues on his latest wave of heading deep into experimental territory. While 2023’s The Hypnogogue felt proggy yet still radio friendly, this one ventures much deeper into prog territory with its nonstop waves of dreamlike melodies. Weird yet fascinating.

Ride, Interplay, released 29 March. This excellent Britpop/shoegaze band’s second wave hasn’t let up since 2017’s comeback Weather Diaries, and this new one is absolutely amazing. Their strength has always been in their phenomenal deep cuts (like, say, Going Blank Again‘s “Chrome Waves”), and powerful songs like “I Came to See the Wreck” showcase just how locked in their sound is. Another year-end favorite and highly recommended.

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More to come with April releases!

2024 Year in Review: February

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While February may not have been as exciting or mind-blowing as January, it did contain its own stellar releases that I often returned to over the course of the year. I was still kind of getting my head back on straight around this time, spending most of my mental focus on reworking Theadia into a much better novel and prepping Queen Ophelia’s War for eventual release.

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The Last Dinner Party, Prelude to Ecstasy, released 2 February. I’d heard many critics giving this one a very positive review, and having only heard the teaser single “Nothing Matters” (on KEXP, natch), I was pleasantly surprised by this record. I was kind of expecting one of those MTV-ish alternapop bands (and this single is very much in that style) but there’s so much more going on that I found myself intrigued.

J Mascis, What Do We Do Now, 2 February. He’s definitely channeling his early 90s Dinosaur Jr sound here, the lighter and more radio-friendly stuff that made them so popular in the first place, but that’s what makes this album so fun! Regarding the above video, I admit I’m not a big fan of AI per se, but I do appreciate the few artists who have been using it to create freakishly weird and possibly drug-influenced images like this, and somehow it makes sense to have J singing over it!

Brittany Howard, What Now, released 9 February. The Alabama Shakes singer’s latest solo record is full of blues and funk dialed up to 11 this time out, and it’s a great listen. Yet another record I got into via KEXP, of course.

IDLES, TANGK, released 16 February. I’ve been a fan of this band for quite a while now, and it’s all due to their full embrace of loud and relentless punk rock in the old school sense. They’re not about the speed, however, but the power behind their songs. Even with a ridiculously fun and light-hearted track like the single “Dancer”, they reel you in and take you for a wild ride.

Geographer, A Mirror Brightly, released 23 February. I’ve been embracing a lot more local groups over the last few years, including this quirky synthpop one-man band. We got to see them a few years ago at Outside Lands and really enjoyed them. His songs are mostly quiet and contemplative yet still full of danceable grooves.

Whitelands, Night-Bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day, released 23 February. I’ve also been listening to a lot of shoegaze pop lately as well (no big surprise there), and this band definitely has that drenched-in-reverb sound I love so much. As expected, this is another great album to listen to while writing.

The Dream Academy, Religion, Revolution and Railways: The Complete Recordings, released 23 February. The first of several reissues this year that captured my attention. If you loved “Life in a Northern Town” as much as I have, this collection is definitely worth checking out. It features not just their three albums but several b-sides and rarities as well. Highly recommended.

Curve, Unreadable Communication: Anxious Recordings 1991-1993, released 23 February. Recently someone on Threads asked about trying out different shoegaze bands, and I suggested they sample this band. They lean more towards the My Bloody Valentine style of wall-of-guitar sound than the dreamlike reverb of Slowdive, but they remain one of my favorite bands of the early 90s. This is an excellent collection of their first two albums, the first EPs, and several remixes and b-sides. Highly recommend this one as well.

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More to come with March releases!

Coming up: end of year review!

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I’ll admit I never got around to doing an end of year review for 2023 for varying reasons — mainly a major PC issue and some personal stuff going on — and when I finally had the time to focus, it was already late January and I felt it was better to just move on. Embrace the new year and see where it took me.

This past year has been one of dusting out the cobwebs, raising the windows and letting fresh air in, so to speak. I’ve spoken about the various personal choices and journeys over the last few years, making peace with some things, moving on, and looking forward. The resultant clarity has been much needed and welcomed.

So on that note, I’ll be revisiting some of this year’s releases over the next several weeks here at Walk in Silence. Some of these albums were merely entertainment, but some resonated deeply enough to become heavy rotation favorites. Which albums and singles will we see? Stay tuned!

Be Here Now

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I don’t listen to George’s solo work nearly as much as I should, as I keep forgetting that 1973’s Living in the Material World is definitely my second-favorite of his albums (just behind All Things Must Pass). Even though he leans a bit heavy on the spirituality here, such as with the teaser single “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)”, there are some absolutely lovely tracks like the above one on it as well, not to mention his smartass response to the dissolution of The Beatles and Apple with “Sue Me Sue You Blues”. It’s a fun album worth checking out, especially now that the slightly-delayed 50th anniversary deluxe edition will be coming out on 15 November.

Favorite Albums: Pretty Hate Machine

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Kinda like a cloud I was up way up in the sky
And I was feeling some feelings you wouldn’t believe
Sometimes I don’t believe them myself
And I decided I was never coming down
Just then a tiny little dot caught my eye
It was just about too small to see
But I watched it way too long
It was pulling me down

I knew where Trent Reznor was going with these lyrics, but my interpretation in the autumn of 1989 when I first heard it was personal: it was a parallel to the past two years of my life, when I’d finally found my own close circle of friends, only to have them leave upon graduation. See, back then there were two things I had to deal with as a teenager: one, the lack of any kind of social media or easy (and inexpensive) way to remain in contact with them…and two, undiagnosed ADHD that had me hyperfocusing on all the wrong things. “Down In It” encapsulated what I felt at the time: having lost what had been a really great thing followed by the triple-punch of maintaining a long-distance relationship, the inability to find my place at college, and my inability to properly focus on schoolwork. Most of that first year in college was spent in a slow but constant spiral.

I mean, I was also drawn to the band’s unique sound, a mix between the grooving EBM beats of Front 242, the heavy anger of Ministry’s distorted industrial metal, the sterile synthetics of mid-80s Depeche Mode, the clinical experimentation of Severed Heads, the atmospherics of 4AD, and the goth doom of Skinny Puppy. [Reznor admits this song was definitely a riff on their single “Dig It” from 1986.] It was an album that bridged the sounds and lyrics of 80s and 90s electronic music, taking the listener towards a kind of darkness they might not be prepared for. It was the perfect soundtrack to what was going on in my head at the time.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the second single and album opener “Head Like a Hole” — I felt it didn’t quite capture the tense desperation of “Down In It” — but it certainly worked as a big fuck you to my roommate, who I should not have been roommates with. But the second track, “Terrible Lie”…

…that was an even bigger and more violent fuck you to the world in general. I was not a happy person then, obviously.

Side-closer “Something I Can Never Have” was part of that. I’d been put through so many emotional wringers over the last several months and saddled with so many stressful situations I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for that this song was the closest to how I felt at the time: exhausted, lost, and numb. I knew I had to deal with these spirals, not to mention having to figure out workarounds that would help me academically, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I had the strength to keep it up. I kept feeling like I was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go in.

Just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be.

I’ve said plenty of times that I used to listen to my copy of this on my Walkman on train rides home for the weekend during those first few college years. Friday nights on the Leominster-Fitchburg line, having escaped the stress of school and looking forward to a few all-too-quick hours with my girlfriend T. A day or so to recharge before I headed back into Boston on Sunday afternoon, ready for another go. Pretty Hate Machine was a reminder of where I was at that point in time, a way of prepping myself for the inevitable facing of another day in a situation I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in.

Which is why I loved that “Kinda I Want To” opened side two. It was a complete change of direction: you know what? Fuck it. Let’s do this. Let’s see where this all goes, good or bad. As much as I thought I needed emotional and mental stability at the time, I also knew I needed to BREAK THE CYCLE.

Nothing quite like the feel of something new…

“The Only Time” was part of that as well. After the chaos of the track (and third single) “Sin” and the pain of “That’s What I Get”, we’re finally at the point where I want to say enough is fucking ENOUGH already. In my head I had to break so many cycles: my Catholic upbringing, my small-town mindset, my pleasing others often to the detriment of my own happiness. I had to cut ties somehow. Or at least ride it all out until I could escape.

Ending the album with “Ringfinger” may not have helped matters, because to me it was a reminder that change could not and would not happen overnight, and not without my needing to take the necessary steps first. Some of those steps would be immediate, others would take a few more years. But I had to make that move. Emotionally exhausted or not, there was no other direction I could move at that point.

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This album popped into my Threads feed the other day, as it had celebrated its 35th anniversary on Sunday. “Down In It” had also popped up on KEXP the morning I’d had to drive A down to SFO for one of her business trips, and it got me thinking about just how close I’d gotten to this album back in 1989 and into 1990. My cassette copy of the album had been played so often that most of the lettering had worn off it. It got a major amount of play throughout the years (except for a few where The Downward Spiral took its place in the mid-90s) and resurfaced again during the Belfry years. I still equate it to that time in my life where I felt like I was on a precipice. Decades have passed and I’ve figured out mental workarounds and achieved emotional stability. I never thought of that time as “just being a fucked-up kid”, to be honest, because I was trying not to be. I just had a lot of growing up to do and had to do it with little to no guidance, and I had to do it without help or influence, one way or another.

I’ve remained a Nine Inch Nails fan, though I don’t think I’ve ever resonated so deeply with an album as I did with Pretty Hate Machine. It’s an album that came out at a specific point in time, provided a life soundtrack, and kept me balanced in its own unique way.

All this talk about Bridgetown…

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…has given me a hankering to listen to some tunes from the HMV years when I wrote The Phoenix Effect. I’ve mentioned numerous times before that a lot of the music I listened to around that time heavily influenced and/or inspired many of its scenes. But it was also when I had a lot of positive things going on in my life for the first time in ages.

So now the trick is to find some current tunage that can take its place as the writing soundtrack for MU4….I do have a few in mind that have been on frequent rotation here in Spare Oom!

I need to revisit 80s 4AD again…

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…it’s been far too long since I’ve sat down and let myself get lost in this stuff. I mean, considering I’ve been working on reviving the Walk in Silence book, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of these albums were a huge influence on my high school years, and would fit nicely with the current iteration of this project.

I always call this era of the label’s output autumnal, because a lot of it, at least for me, evokes the feeling of an impending change of seasons near the end of the year. The air growing colder, the sounds of nature growing quieter, the sky greyer. Many of these albums — most of which I had on cassette and played incessantly at night as I went to sleep — might not always invoke a darkness, but more of a sense of desolation and breakdown, and even abandonment at times. You can hear the dust being kicked up as you walk through the wide emptiness of this music.

That, now that I understand music a lot more, was the key to 4AD’s signature sound then. A clever mix of heavy reverberation with sparse instrumentation gives it that same sound that Cowboy Junkies achieved with The Trinity Session when they recorded inside an empty church. Listening to these albums with my Walkman, volume set high and bedroom darkened, I entered another world, sometimes an escape but often times a safe place. I could let my mind and creativity get lost within the music, letting it take me on a metaphysical trip somewhere.

The collection Lonely Is an Eyesore is a great place to start. I listened to this one just a few days ago. Several of its accompanying grainy 8mm and 16mm videos were shown on MTV’s 120 Minutes, which in turn inspired me later on during my college years for my film production classes.

This Mortal Coil was a huge favorite of mine, especially after hearing a few tracks from their second album Filigree & Shadow on college radio in late 1986. That particular album was one of my top favorites in 1987-88 and inspired a lot of story ideas.

Dead Can Dance was a band I’d heard of in passing but it was 1987’s Within the Realm of a Dying Sun that became my all-time favorite of theirs. Not quite chamber music, not quite alternative rock, not quite current orchestral music, this album wasn’t just one that I’d lose myself in at night, it helped me find a Zen calm right when I was at my most anxious.

Cocteau Twins was of course a major influence on my bass playing, thanks to the Blue Bell Knoll album. By late 1988 I had a good portion of their discography on cassette (and a few on vinyl) and I was constantly listening to it. The twin 1985 EPs, Tiny Dynamine and Echoes in a Shallow Bay, remain in heavy rotation after all these years alongside their project with Harold Budd, The Moon and the Melodies.

And of course, let’s not forget the surprise hit by MARRS, a one-off project between 4AD label mates Colourbox and AR Kane. While this one goes against the grain of the typical autumnal sound of the label, it’s so damn catchy and inventive that you can’t help but love it.

Favorite Albums: Seal (1994)

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Last month, Seal’s second album was rereleased as a remastered deluxe edition, and thirty years later it remains not only his best and most popular album, but it’s also one of my all-time favorite records of the nineties.

This was an album I bought in the final years of being a Columbia House member, and I’d picked it up more out of curiosity than anything. I still consider his single “Crazy” one of my top favorite songs of all time, and I felt this album was more to his style than the funkier r&b of his first record. It was released during an odd time in my life, right at the end of my stay in Boston and the start of my extended stay back in my old hometown, so I connect this with two things: my job at the movie theater in Somerville, and the long process of restarting my writing career. This was one of the many albums I listened to constantly while attempting to figure my life out.

Sure, everyone remembers the ubiquitous single “Kiss from a Rose”, but it also features the popular ballad “Don’t Cry” and the stunning “Prayer for the Dying”, all songs that got major airplay on pop radio and on MTV and VH1.

“Prayer for the Dying” was the track that initially sold me on this record, even though I hadn’t heard it until after “Kiss from a Rose”, which is interesting considering this was the album’s first single. Like “Crazy” it’s full of emotional turmoil and loss. Unlike that track, however, there is much less hope here. That’s not to say it’s a downer track, however; it’s a song about survival, and that makes all the difference.

The album cut “Dreaming in Metaphors” is a track that gets stuck in my head every now and again with its lopsided beats and swirling melody. Like “Prayer” it too is about turmoil, this time focusing on the frustrations of making life needlessly complicated.

“Don’t Cry” was the last single to drop from this album and it got a fair amount of play on VH1 during the winter of 1995. It’s a counterpoint to the above tracks, an uplifting song of hope during the darkest of times. [Side note: I haven’t seen this video in years, so imagine my surprise when watching it and realizing it was shot at the Palace of Fine Arts here in the city!]

Then of course there’s his most popular single, “Kiss from a Rose”, which didn’t just get played on pop radio, I believe Boston’s WFNX and WBCN gave it a few spins as well! It’s also from possibly my favorite Batman movie — yes, I know, but it’s the only one that doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet isn’t a complete dumpster fire either, and it’s got a banger soundtrack.

A and I went to see him live with the SF Symphony back in 2017 for the tour of his Standards album — singing songs like “My Funny Valentine” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is a surprisingly perfect choice for him. While he did mostly songs from that record, he did pull up several hits from his past, including “Kiss from a Rose”, “Don’t Cry” and “Crazy”. He’s still got the pipes after all these years.

I highly recommend picking this one up. While it’s not as funky and unrestrained as his 1990 debut, it shows a singer already fully in charge of his voice and his style. It’s an amazing record, and the remaster sounds great.