Ah, the nineties, when the guitars were huge and squalling, and the self-loathing was too palpable and overdubbed to be true.
I am in the middle of this project of going back through my music collection and listening to everything I own. My basic rule for the project is that I basically can’t seek out any new music until I have listened to everything I already own. It started because I realized I tend to get stuck on a small handful of albums and listen to them compulsively, and then set them aside where they languish with all the others. I feel I need to make more use of all the resources at my disposal.
So right now I’m digging back through all my pre-teen and teen-angst favorites: Siamese Dream, The Bends, Pearl Jam’s vs., and so on. I’m greatly enjoying it, which surprises me because I haven’t listened to some of this stuff in years. I might need to get a copy of Weezer’s blue album just to keep the vibe going a little bit longer. Nirvana will have to wait awhile, though, because I’m just not in the mood for them. Maybe I’ll dig really deep and find the old Catherine Wheel. Do I still have a copy of Stone Temple Pilots’ second album? Because I suddenly have need of it again.
Want to follow the progress of my listening project? You can see it here. The general idea is that I start with the newest and work back in time. But I listen to whatever I want to listen to that I haven’t listened to yet.