Oh, I have been waiting to rip into this one for a long <\/i>time. Three words, Rhino: What The Hell?<\/p>\n
Seriously, don’t fuck with my decade and expect me not to say something about it. I grew up in this time period, and I am still uncovering great songs from it. Snarky commentators on Internet boards and blogs choose to remember it as a musical decade of flannel, chick rock, boy bands and nu metal, and they need to be locked into portable toilets for a week or so listening to OK Computer <\/i>and Ten <\/i>and Under The Table And Dreaming<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, several of those lost souls apparently got jobs at Rhino as compilers, because they have slapped together their version of this decade onto seven discs. To me, this was a decade rich with innovation, a time that harkened back to the late ’60s in its span of genres that brought people together while breaking new ground. This was the decade where hip-hop gained major traction among all youth instead of just urban youth, where electronic music became a viable art form and gained popularity, where rock went the opposite way of the ’80s and became more introspective and less girls-booze-drugs-party Spinal Tap clich\u00e9s, where country started producing national superstars on an annual basis, where boy bands and nu metal closed out the decade in depressing yet hyper-popular fashion, and where female singer-songwriters came out from the coffee shops and shadows and touched a nerve with listeners from both major genders.<\/p>\n
All of this is the 1990s, and yet so little of it is present on Whatever<\/i>. I get that licensing is a big issue, but you’re better off not releasing anything than in just pretending the best and\/or most popular bands of the era didn’t exist, then offer pale imitations of them. To wit: Nowhere in this collection will you find Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Green Day, TLC, Smashing Pumpkins, Eminem, Stone Temple Pilots, Metallica, Dave Matthews Band, Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Korn, Kid Rock, Tool, Shania Twain, NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, U2, Phish, Destiny’s Child or Mariah Carey.<\/p>\n
Think about that.<\/p>\n
Instead, we get a bunch of second and third-rate grunge and alt-rock imitations, a pile of one-hit wonders and only a hint of the creativity and truly amazing, life-affirming music from this period. To the compilers\u2019 credit, they manage to touch on the swath of genres that were all popular from the decade, so listeners will hear grunge, Britpop, electronic (back when it was called techno), R&B, hip hop, alternative rock, pop punk and a pile of inoffensive, crowd-pleasing rock or pop songs that everyone my age can still sing.<\/p>\n
Seven discs of this are what you will pay good money for. Just the first two discs alone are depressing; the track list includes such luminaries as Michael Penn, Jane Siberry, Das EFX, L7, The Gits, Supersuckers and dada. Remember any of them? Me neither. The commercial side of hip hop is represented by MC Hammer, Kris Kross, Naughty By Nature, Queen Latifah and Ice-T, and the one-hit wonders include \u201cRight Here, Right Now,\u201d \u201cGonna Make You Sweat,\u201d \u201cGroove Is In the Heart,\u201d \u201cI Touch Myself,\u201d \u201cWalking in Memphis,\u201d \u201cUnbelievable\u201d and, of course, \u201cBaby Got Back.\u201d At least someone had the decency to include Mother Love Bone\u2019s \u201cChloe Dancer\/Crown Of Thorns,\u201d Pantera, Ministry, the Lemonheads, Matthew Sweet, the Black Crowes and My Bloody Valentine.<\/p>\n
Disc three starts with the Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 breakthrough \u201cUnder The Bridge\u201d and features Stereo MC\u2019s excellent \u201cConnected\u201d and an entry from Primus, but then quickly dissolves with forgettable dreck from Wreckx-N-Effect, Silk, Sugar, Green Jelly, Fastbacks and Helmet. Remember any of them? No? Shucks. Oh, and House of Pain\u2019s \u201cJump Around,\u201d Duran Duran\u2019s \u201cOrdinary World\u201d and Dinosaur Jr. are here, plus 4 Non Blonde\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Up?\u201d just to piss people off.<\/p>\n
The fourth disc starts to right the ship with the Afghan Whigs, Gin Blossoms, Aaliyah, Pavement, Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan (\u201cPossession,\u201d an interesting choice), but also includes yet more unheard yawn-inducing cuts by the Posies, Tad, the Muffs, Belly, Guru and a not-great choice by the Juliana Hatfield Three. Also here is Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s \u201cWhatta Man,\u201d a track from Ween and the Crash Test Dummies\u2019 \u201cMmm Mmm Mmm Mmm,\u201d which will piss more people off.<\/p>\n
Disc five is probably the best one, what with Collective Soul\u2019s \u201cShine,\u201d Candlebox\u2019s \u201cFar Behind,\u201d the Flaming Lips, Weezer\u2019s \u201cBuddy Holly,\u201d Better Than Ezra\u2019s \u201cGood,\u201d Blues Traveler\u2019s \u201cRun-Around,\u201d Silverchair\u2019s \u201cTomorrow\u201d and Natalie Merchant\u2019s \u201cCarnival.\u201d Ani DiFranco makes an appearance alongside Melvins and Des\u2019ree\u2019s \u201cYou Gotta Be,\u201d and R.E.M. finally shows up, albeit with the wrong song (\u201cWhat\u2019s the Frequency, Kenneth?\u201d), fitting the sonic theme here but not doing justice to a brilliant group. The theme from Friends <\/i>is here too.<\/p>\n
The sixth disc starts to acknowledge the second half of the decade with Oasis (\u201cWonderwall\u201d), Jewel (\u201cWho Will Save Your Soul\u201d), Sublime (\u201cWhat I Got\u201d), the Verve Pipe (\u201cPhotograph,\u201d a good choice) and Seven Mary Three. Yes, we also have Supergrass, Babes in Toyland, Stereolab, Ash, Primitive Radio Gods and Deep Blue Something (\u201cBreakfast At Tiffany\u2019s\u201d), but then there\u2019s Jamiroquai and Cibo Matto, so there you go. To piss people off, as per requirement now, is Joan Osborne\u2019s smug \u201cOne Of Us.\u201d<\/p>\n
And finally, with one last chance to make it right, the seventh disc includes \u201cMMMBop,\u201d \u201cSex and Candy,\u201d \u201cWalking on the Sun,\u201d \u201cTubthumping\u201d \u201cBitch,\u201d \u201cSteal My Sunshine,\u201d \u201cLovefool,\u201d \u201cLullaby,\u201d the Goo Goo Dolls\u2019 \u201cSlide\u201d and \u201cKiss Me.\u201d Oy. Nods are at least given to Sleater-Kinney, Fountains of Wayne, De La Soul, Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, Everlast and Moby, but by then it\u2019s too little too late. <\/p>\n
You can be forgiven, after listening to this horseshit, that the decade was full of meaningless music and guilty pleasures, with little that has stood the test of time. Rest assured that the best music of the decade ranks alongside the best music of any decade ever, and so little of those artists and that spirit is found on Whatever<\/i> that, once it\u2019s over, you will find yourself shrugging and repeating the title. Apparently, it was easier to cherry-pick a bunch of Top 40 songs and fill in the gaps with little-known rip-offs than to release something worthwhile. Four or five good songs per CD does not a quality box set make. <\/p>\n
Shame on Rhino for thinking that this is anywhere close to capturing what the \u201990s was really like. Don\u2019t waste your money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5827],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-43777","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-various-artists","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43777"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}