This far in, and this is the first NIN we post. Wow. Looks like we have a long way to go here.
(We have posts scheduled into 2026 (so far), so I wouldn't sweat us leaving anytime soon).
This song was the 2nd single from the Nine Inch Nails (which, let's face it, is Trent Reznor) debut album, Pretty Hate Machine. It was industrial, it was metal, and yet it was unlike anything else released in 1989. Radio didn't QUITE know what to do with so much angry, accessible energy, but it was still a US and UK alternative hit.
Its popularity has grown over the years, of course - it is their most covered song, and it's beloved by Rachels, Jacks and Ashleys everywhere.
This song remains popular today, and is usually the closing song at live shows. This is the performance from the Woodstock '94 festival, and it is a doozy. Yes, there is a full band - Trent cannot do everything live. All he can do is embody the angry, muddy angst of the crowd,
I mean, after we posted what we did yesterday, you had to know we'd post this well-known song by Elvis Costello & The Attractions today. A great man once said that he was OK with it and that's how rock and roll works.
This is fine by me, Billy. It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did. #subterreaneanhomesickblues#toomuchmonkeybusiness
This song was released in 1978, so more than 2 Olivia Rodrigos ago, but is still really well-known today. There's a good reason for that - it's a great song. Costello's hashtags are in reference to two songs HE himself used to influence this song.
Costello, of course, still performs this song live. Here he is, teamed up on an unusual live performance with Juanes, giving this timeless song a biligual refresh.
Wow, did Olivia Rodrigo have a couple of great years, and to her, we say "good for you!" Her debut album, Sour, won a Grammy (Best Pop Vocal Album) and, somehow for an American artist, a Juno (there's an award for International Album of the Year given yearly).
This song, the fifth and final single from the album, is not a pop song at all. It's more grnuge than pop, and actually got a lot of rock and alternative radio airplay. Because it is an Olivia Rodrigo song, it was STILL a top 20 pop hit, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Written by Rodrigo and producer Dan Nigro, the song is simply dripping with teen angst (almost as if she was in some sort of misery business) and frustration. The guitar riff sounds like something straight out of an Elvis Costello song - specifically, "Pump It Up" - but don't worry. He doesn't care (and is on record saying that). At any rate, the song is not what one would expect out of a 17-year-old songwriter, who is mature beyond her years and is destined for a long and acclaimed career (we hope).
The video is a Gen Z surreal masterpiece. Just.... watch.
In 2022, Rodrigo recorded a documentary, recorded on a road trip from Salt Lake City, called Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U, for Disney+. As part of this, she recorded new versions of several songs with her live band, including this one. We think this performance is a true masterpiece, and shows better than the video the raw angst that the song is trying to capture.
We probably should have ended the post there, but instead, here's a 2021 performance of the song showing Rodrigo showing the exact opposite of angst - she clearly enjoys performing this song.
Martina Stoessel was an Argentine child star who got her start on a show called Patito Feo, which translates to "ugly duckling".
At some point, she moved from TV to music. She was an instant hit in Argentina and the Spanish-speaking world.
With her fourth album, Cupido, released in 2023, Tini, as she is known professionally, has hit an international audience. This was the NINTH single from the album..... which was released a month after the single. No, I'm not kidding.
Tini teamed with La Joaqui on the song, which is a women's empowerment anthem specifically tied to the dance floor, which is appropriate, because Steve Aoki's beats make this an absolute banger. The song was a hit in the Spanish-speaking world but also on Hulu, where ads for the song were EVERYWHERE.
I stumbled across this album by Heavenly, called Tragic Tiger's Sad Meltdown, which is really just a few songs and a lot of sonic experimentation. This song itself is part of an 11 minute long track that includes a recording of the ocean, which is absolutely amazing. I've supported Heavenly on Bandcamp, and you can as well.
The whole album, including this song, is luscious and minimalish ambient folk music with a hint of spoken word.
But who is Heavenly?
Looking at the credits on the track (courtesy of Spotify) gives us some clues.
Heavenly is Heavenly Hirani Tiger Lily Hutchence-Geldof, the daughter of the late Michael Hutchence of WGP Hall of Fame inductee INXS and British television personality Paula Yates. Her father passed away when she was 1, and her mother when she was 4. At that time, the father of Paula Yates's three elder children, Bob Geldof, took foster and eventually adoptive custody of Heavenly - hence the hyphenate.
Given the deaths of her parents (as well as her half sister Peaches), that makes that album title hit a little harder (I presume she's the titular tragic Tiger).
Anyway, she's made some beautiful music and we hope to hear more.
This may very well be one of the strangest songs we've ever posted on here.
In 1987, influential British label 4AD Records released a compilation album containing a bunch of songs their artists had recorded. That alsum was called Lonely Is An Eyesore, and it is a classic. The vision of label head Ivo Watts-Russell, it was intended to introduce the small label to the masses, and included a videocassette version of the album, with a music video to accompany each song. Put a pin in that, because it's important later.
4AD had featured mostly British and European artists (before you go there, yes, Dead Can Dance was Australian) but had not signed an American band until soon before this compilation was released. In 1986, they signed a four-piece minimalist pop-rock band from Newport, Rhode Island and broke that streak.
Let's rewind now, to 1985. Throwing Muses had released a cassette called The Doghouse Cassette, with a lot of their early songs, many of which the band ended up rerecording for a number of albums for years to come. One of the songs on this album was called "Fish", and it was a surreal masterpiece. As the story goes, it quickly became Ivo Watts-Russell's favorite song, and he couldn't get enough of the song.... so much so, that he made a lyric from the song the title of his prized cornerstone of a compilation album.
So, for its inclusion on Lonely Is An Eyesore, a video for this song was recorded in a loft in Boston and also at the New England Aquarium (that's where the fish came from). It shows the song and band in all its glory: David Narcizo with his military drumming (note the lack of cymbals), Leslie Langston's heavier-than-expected bassline, Tanya Donelly's ringing guitar and perfect harmonies that almost don't sound like harmonies.....
I can't just put Kristin Hersh in a list. Hersh's haunting vocals weave through the verses paint a vivid picture of vulnerability and introspection. The lyrics are poetic and enigmatic, to say the least. Her (and Donelly's) guitar to open the song and throughout are both delicate and relentless, and are a lot more complex than they sound. The most noteworthy thing about this completely surreal song is that she wrote the whole thing. It all started off with a hand-made Jesus on a crucifix on the wall of an apartment Hersh crashed in. Apparently, ir looked like a fish to her.
That speaks directly to her unparallel songwriting genius. Who else could turn I remember this quote someone once wrote about her.
"Kristin wrote the song... She is one of the most overlooked songwriters of her generation (which also happens to be my generation)". - Me, 4 March 2012
Is it hard to pick a favorite song by my favorite band? Absolutely it is. This song floats to the top - for all the reasons I've mentioned and so much more. It is a song that encapsulates the band - the minimalist yet technically tricky style, the surreal lyrics open to broad intrepretation, the award-winning video.
As I've said before, Throwing Muses were the first band I saw live, in 1989, and this song was absolutely on their setlist. I saw them in Hartford, indoors, in September, and not at a summer outdoor music festival in Glastonbury, but the song and performance were the same.
This is our 1,400th post, and for that, I wanted to share a story with y'all.
I was a DJ at WSBU, the Saint Bonaventure University college radio station, from 1990 until 1993.
Now, we were a classic rock formatted station - not the so-called "alternative" or "college music" format you saw at most university radio stations of that time period. The classic rock format was underrepresented in the rural Southern Tier of New York state - we literally had a country station on the university's front lawn - and so that decision was made. However, as a concession to all us punks, the late night hours - 11PM until 7AM - were dedicated to that fringe music that wasn't so popular on rock radio in the early 90's.
We used to get all the best fringe music from all the record labels, including all the Warner Bros. imprints. I already talked about the greatest thing we ever got from Elektra Records (apologies to Jonathan Falls, who was kind enough to hand me our station's copy of the "Counting Backwards" single by Throwing Muses (who were signed to Sire Records, which was also a Warner imprint) so I could debut it on my show (and lent me his copy of Lonely Is An Eyesore which I'm going to have to write about someday soon)).
As I came back to school for my second year, in the fall of 1991, the album Abort by a band from Boston called Tribe that I had never heard of showed up at the station. I don't know that I was the first to play this album, but when I did, I played the very first track, which was not the single, but rather a song called "Here At The Home." This was a band with harmonzied vocals that still managed to rock really hard.
I was blown away, needless to say, and played that song a lot for the next couple of years. And, well, we're still talking about it now, so I guess I'm still playing it.
What I didn't know then was that this was their 2nd album - mostly made up of songs from their self-produced first album. The title of that album? Here At The Home.
Here they are at Boston College performing the song in 1993.
