Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 72 i Under the Radar

I spent the summer of 1995 in my hometown of London, on break from my university in Los Angeles. It was the summer that Britpop truly exploded; when the press hyped the Blur vs. Oasis chart battle where both bands decided to release a big single on the same day (Blur’s “Country House” beat Oasis’ “Roll With It” to number one, but then Oasis ended up selling more copies of their new album). I bought the two singles on release day and wore out my copies of both. It was the summer I saw R.E.M. at Milton Keynes Bowl, with support from The Cranberries, Radiohead, and Sleeper (it was frontwoman Louise Wener’s birthday and Michael Stipe brought her out on stage and sang “Happy Birthday” to her). And it was…

Two incredibly rare gifts tell the story and success of The Cranberries: The first innately belonged to the band and the other was given to them by the music industry. It’s a familiar music industry trope by now, the once-promising band that got swallowed by marketplace demands and label pressures. The halls of popular music history are lined with such stories, wallpapered over one another in thick layers of creative frustration and forced decisions. But somehow The Cranberries never wrestled with such powers. Instead, they were always free to follow the muse as they saw fit—a present from the industry to chase the band’s own gift of such strong creative chemistry. “We were lucky in that the record deal we signed gave us all of the control,” says Fergal Lawler,…

“It’s weird because if there are 20 songs from the '90s that still get played at the Home Depot, ‘Closing Time’ is definitely one of those. It’s like, ‘How did that happen?’” That question is an honest one for Dan Wilson, the longtime frontman and principal songwriter for Semisonic. A decade known for its musical abundance—as rock went authentic and hip-hop went mainstream amid several other blooming genres—also created enough room for a power pop trio from the Twin Cities to make its mark as well. Those in the region were already well aware of Semisonic before the rest of us. After seven years touring the Midwest and beyond with alt-rock outfit Trip Shakespeare, Wilson and John Munson linked arms with drummer Jacob Slichter to form a new outlet—at first…

Few underground ‘90s bands have had a legacy as lasting as SleaterKinney’s, while also continuing to push themselves to this day with new material. Launched in Olympia, Washington, in 1994 by co-guitarists and vocalists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (also the sole current members), the band was part of the feminist and queer-friendly riot grrrl scene, and was heralded for its social consciousness propelled by equally forward-thinking vocal interplay, guitar riffs, and percussion (the latter courtesy mostly of their longest running drummer Janet Weiss, who left the band in 2019). “We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and certainly proud of the records that we made in the ‘90s, and the way that we tried to run in the community,” Tucker tells Under the Radar. She and Brownstein were busily promoting…

“Common People,” “Country House,” “Alright”-the same hits are always centered in any remembrance of Britpop. Great songs, for sure, but they aren’t the whole story. For starters, there’s also “Underwear,” “One Born Every Minute,” and “Je Suis Votre Papa Sucre,” some of the B-sides on those singles. Outside of niche corners like the Sub Pop Singles Club, 45s have become an anachronism, but they were still important to the music business in the ’90s, and even more so in Britain than in America. While the singles section at your nearby Tower Records in America may not have been much larger than a few racks in a corner, in the UK they took up considerable floor space in the HMV and Virgin Megastores (RIP). The price of CD singles in Britain…

Acloudy morning. Seagulls caw; a bell clatters in the distance. The lonesome foghorn blows. On the beach, inches from the rolling water, lies the body of a young woman. Dead. Wrapped in plastic. And so begins the investigation into the mysterious death of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, and the saga of Twin Peaks: the first important TV show of the 1990s, and one that would pave pathways for countless television shows to come. When it premiered in the spring of 1990, Twin Peaks acted like something of a Trojan horse. Its central murder mystery was what got many viewers hooked as details about the dead girl’s tragic, hidden life came to light, and the list of potential killers seemed to grow every episode. The famous question, “Who killed Laura Palmer?”…

Emmerdale (1994) They establish their gift for pop right out of the gate, via numbers light and breezy, with Nina Persson’s vocals both high and demure (almost bubbly). Considering the substance to come, The Cardigans’ debut (released initially in Sweden and Japan only) feels like a tray of tasty hors d’oeuvres. Essential songs: “Black Letter Day,” “Celia Inside,” “Rise & Shine,” “Sick & Tired” Life (1995) A commercial breakthrough, especially in Japan, the retro lounge vibe peaks here, regardless of what edition you listen to (outside of Sweden and Japan, Life was billed as The Cardigans’ debut and included select tracks from Emmerdale in place of some songs, with the 10-minute final song, “Closing Time,” omitted from international versions). Again, considering what follows album-wise, the music here feels restrained. Essential…

As a founder member and one half of the songwriting team in ’90s alternative legends Lush, Emma Anderson needs little by way of introduction. Despite only being active for less than a decade, Lush were one of the most influential bands to emerge from both the shoegaze and Britpop scenes, releasing four critically albums and a host of EPs and singles, all of which received similar levels of reverence. Their eagerly anticipated but shortlived reformation in 2015 and 2016 also yielded an EP (Blind Spot) before disbanding once more, but their influence lives on having been cited by numerous bands and musicians both past and present. In between times, Anderson also formed the band Sing-Sing, releasing two albums in the early 2000s (The Joy of SingSing, Sing-Sing and I) but…

DIGITAL BONUS CONTENT Ride’s seventh and latest album, Interplay, represents a shift in focus from the delay and reverb heavy guitar sounds that have become synonymous with the band. Instead, this is a more diverse collection of songs bathed in electronics as much as their customary guitars while displaying a pop sensibility some might not associate with the band. If predecessors Weather Diaries and This Is Not a Safe Place were their Rubber Soul and Revolver, Interplay is Ride’s White Album. A sprawling masterpiece that builds incessantly while taking the listener on a journey via innumerable twists and turns of direction. As with its aforementioned predecessors, Interplay also heralds Ride’s reunion as one of the finest reformations in recent years. Not least because the new material stands gallantly alongside the…

Mark Redfern (Publisher/Senior Editor) 1. Suede: Dog Man Star (1994) 2. Pulp: Different Class (1995) 3. Spiritualized: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997) 4. R.E.M.: Automatic for the People (1992) 5. Primal Scream: Screamadelica (1991) 6. The Verve: A Northern Soul (1995) 7. Lush: Split (1994) 8. Radiohead: OK Computer (1997) 9. The Divine Comedy: Casanova (1996) 10. Björk: Post (1995) 11. The Cardigans: Life (1995) 12. Massive Attack: Blue Lines (1991) 13. Garbage: Garbage (1995) 14. Oasis: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) 15. Blur: Parklife (1994) Austin Trunick (Games Editor/Senior Writer) 1. Beck: Odelay (1996) 2. Clutch: Clutch (1995) 3. Pulp: Different Class (1995) 4. The Aquabats: Fury of the Aquabats! (1997) 5. Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) Lily Moayeri…

Lisa Loeb’s rise to stardom in the ’90s is regarded as a renowned tale. The singer/ songwriter was a student at Brown University when she met actor Ethan Hawke through a mutual friend. Once Loeb made her way to New York City, she and Hawke would run in the same creative circles. The pair also happened to be neighbors. Hawke, who was an emphatic fan of Loeb’s music, procured her song “Stay (I Missed You)” for the 1994 film Reality Bites under the moniker Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories. It was also selected to be the first single released from the movie’s soundtrack. Loeb made history by becoming the first unsigned artist to have a number one song on the Billboard Hot 100, as “Stay (I Missed You)” remained at…

To many, Spiritualized’s third LP, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, remains their pièce de résistance. Released in 1997 against a landscape of Britpop, Britpop, and more Britpop, Ladies and Gentlemen… stood out like a proverbial sore thumb and in many ways still does. It was the culmination of two years’ work that signaled the end of an era in many ways, as it would be the last record to feature the line-up that also made its predecessor, 1995’s Pure Phase. Sessions for the songs that eventually became Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space initially started in Bath during the summer of 1995, then moved to London, before eventually ending up in Memphis where legendary blues musician Dr. John recorded his piano and vocal parts for the…

Probably my favorite movie of the ’90s is My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant. I’m a big Gus Van Sant fan. I think My Own Private Idaho beautifully exemplifies something I’m sure a lot of people have been through one time or another. Me as a gay man, I grew up with mostly straight friends, but I was always openly gay, so I used to go through falling-in-love with people who loved me, but couldn’t love me back in the same way I loved them. I think that story is about bargaining with yourself whether you’d still rather be close to someone, even though they can’t be as close as you want them to be. Being away from them is probably more painful than not being with them…but…

Maybe Sonic Youth could have been one of the biggest crossover bands of the ’90s. But that wouldn’t have been as satisfying as it sounds. Yes, the New York City noise rockers spent much of the ’80s pushing the boundaries of punk with their art rock sensibility, attracting an adoring niche of fans all the while (which guitarist and co-founder Thurston Moore detailed meticulously in his 2023 memoir, Sonic Life). But they never broke through like their similarly uncompromising successors, Nirvana, whose 1991 LP Nevermind shattered all paradigms. One of Sonic Youth’s brushes with showbiz’s upper echelon was in 1993, Moore tells Under the Radar. Sonic Youth—whose main lineup until their 2011 breakup was Moore (vocals/guitar), Kim Gordon (vocals/guitar/bass), Lee Ranaldo (guitar/vocals), and Steve Shelley (drums)— were then opening, alongside…

Birthmark Birth of Omni (POLYVINYL) Birth of Omni, the fifth album by multi-instrumentalist Nate Kinsella under his Birthmark moniker, is an astonishing artistic statement. Begun during the Trump presidency in 2018 and worked on through the isolation of the pandemic and with Kinsella, nearing his 40th year, married with a newborn daughter and another on the way, Birth of Omni is a lush, exotic, genre-defying, multifaceted work that simply astounds in both sound and scope. In it, Kinsella examines fatherhood, its effects on personal and spousal relationships, what it means to be male, fear of mass shootings, and reckoning with one’s sexuality. Weighty themes all, but in the context of these 10 songs, they are simply a backdrop to the magnificent sonic cornucopia. Upon first listen, Birth of Omni is…

DIGITAL BONUS CONTENT I just love The Simpsons. I’ve reflected on why it’s been so important to me. And I think it’s because it’s one of the most consistent things in my life. They are still doing new ones, so there hasn’t been a day I’ve been alive that The Simpsons hasn’t been on the air. [Lay was born in 1991, two years after the show’s debut.] It’s such a trip. And the humor and the wit especially in the [earlier] seasons, like one through 11. I think [those seasons] are rock solid. It’s just such smart TV. I really appreciate the character dynamics. I think you can you can have a little bit of everyone inside of you. It’s so relatable. I love Lisa [the most]. I think Lisa…

The 1990s were a time when my teenage brain—and possibly the broader American culture—was certain the future would play out something like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Various political leaders would hold polite meetings in luxe conference rooms, realize “we’re all human, man,” eradicate hunger, bigotry, money, and national identities, and go off and explore the cosmos together, just cuz, “that’d be cool!” We just had to wait patiently for this inevitable tomorrow. You can perhaps excuse some naiveté based on being, well, a kid—but I think there was a broader cultural sense back then that the long arc of history would eventually bend towards warp drives and spandex. I mean, even Axl Rose was wearing bike shorts. But the reality of that era—and the future that was to follow—was…

In the spring of 1997, I stood with Damon Albarn outside Los Angeles’ uber-trendy and impossible to get into Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel. It was Albarn’s idea for us to come here after Blur’s successful, and, if memory serves, sold-out gig at The Palace (now Avalon Hollywood) in support of the group’s eponymous fifth album. At the show’s afterparty, Albarn invited me, whom he knew from my interviews with him, and two friends to join him at the Skybar. A ubiquitous face in his native U.K., Albarn expected ease of entry. But as the doorman ignored him, I muttered under my breath, “Noel would have gotten in.” At that time, one thing is for sure: Albarn and Noel Gallagher of Oasis would have been ushered in anywhere in their…

“Most of the music I still hold dearest is from the ‘90s,” says Nina Persson. “I’ve continued to find new music that I love, but my formative years were then, so the stuff that sort of honed my taste and ended up being what gave me courage to make my own music, that’s all ‘90s stuff.” The Cardigans’ lead singer and lyricist is speaking from her home in Sweden, framed by a neatly curated wall of artwork and an impressivelooking floor-to-ceiling library of books in a low-lit study. It’s an apt setting for the 49-year-old to reflect on a decade of massive personal significance, and apt timing as well. “There’s been some years when it was a little embarrassing to admit it, and I tried to suppress it, but now…

To conclude, we ask Gruff Rhys some questions about endings and death. In the 1990s there was no band quite like Super Furry Animals and there hasn’t really been one since. The Welsh five-piece was led by Rhys and formed in 1993. While they were at first lumped in with the Britpop scene, and even toured with Oasis, they were much more idiosyncratic than most of the Cool Britannia (or Cool Cymru in Wales) acts and had a much longer and more varied career. No other band brought a tank, one with a soundsystem built into it and their logo painted on the side, to British summer music festivals in the mid-’90s. No other band convinced Sir Paul McCartney to chew celery and carrots on one of their tracks (as…