1997 in music. • Page 3

1. Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
2. Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
3. Green Day - Nimrod

 

1. Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
2. Matthew Ryan - May Day
3. Foo Fighters - The Colour and The Shape

Third Eye Blind is just perfect. Euphorically catchy and disarmingly sad. I fell in love with it as a kid because the melodies were such earworms. It became one of my favorite albums during adolescence and young adulthood because the songs seemed to speak so eloquently and authentically about things like losing friends, or getting over a really rough breakup, or reckoning with death. The singles are obviously huge, but I've long gravitated toward the closing trio, which I'd put on any list of "best ways anyone has ever closed an album." And no hyperbole to say that "Motorcycle Drive By" is one of my top five favorite songs of all time. Here's what I wrote about the album in 2017 when it turned 20: Third Eye Blind – Third Eye Blind

May Day is a record I didn't hear until a few years ago, as part of #MWE. I'd been familiar with Matthew Ryan's work, but had missed this album, his debut, for some reason. What I wrote in my #MWE tweets at the time is that May Day kind of predicted a lot of what modern Americana sounds like. Anyone who's a fan of Jason Isbell, Josh Ritter, or Brian Fallon could probably find something to love here. I especially adore "Irrelevant," which is such an achingly beautiful song with such a lovely lyrical approach. I doubt this album gets any other votes in this thread, but I'd love if people checked it out.

The Colour and the Shape is actually not my favorite Foo Fighters record (that one is coming up in the next few years here!) but it's got maybe the greatest batch of singles of any '90s LP. I like the Foo Fighters debut for how scrappy and raw it is, but this record really showed how adept Grohl was both at writing big, big hooks ("Monkey Wrench," "My Hero") and building his songs into massive, stadium-filling epics (the last four songs, especially "Everlong" which is the greatest alt-rock ballad of all time).

Some other shouts:

Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen: "Brick"! "Song for the Dumped"! "Evaporated"! Not my favorite Ben Folds album, but there are some great, great songs on here.

Bob Dylan - Time out of Mind: Bob's big Grammy-winning comeback album, which contains, among other things, my personal favorite Dylan song in "Not Dark Yet."

Guster - Goldfly: A high school buddy and I performed "Demons" at a concert together once, and it was lit. Love this band; they'll be appearing on one of my top 3s pretty soon here!

Marvelous 3 - Math and Other Problems: Butch Walker makes his humble debut as frontman, songwriter, and producer on this extremely Elvis Costello-influenced power pop record. He's not fully formed yet, but the sticky melodies are on songs like "Appetite" and "Valium."

Oasis - Be Here Now: So much cocaine, so many extended song lengths. Hubris and excess kind of sink this one as a cohesive listen for me, but there are some absolute sterling moments -- especially "Stand By Me," which is some days my favorite Oasis song.

Sister Hazel - Somewhere More Familiar: These guys and their very distinctive roots-pop sound were a favorite of mine for a lot of years. I actually like 3-4 of their albums more than this one, but "All for You" remains a classic '90s radio song, and there are some other big gems here, like "Just Remember" and "Cerilene."

U2 - Pop: I find this album disjointed, frustrating, and overlong, but it's also packed with great, great songs. "Do You Feel Loved," "Staring at the Sun," "Last Night on Earth," "Gone," and "Please" are all ace U2 tracks.

 

1. Radiohead - ok computer
2. Elliot smith - either/or
3. Modest mouse - Lonesome crowded west
4. Pavement - brighten the corners

 

Dude Ranch is their 6th best album

 

i don’t particularly like any of their albums but s/t is pretty clearly their best

 

Very clearly is their best, correct

 

1. Biggie - Life After Death
2. Will Smith - Big Willie Style (you might not find this often when googling 1997 rap albums of the year lists, but you should)
3. Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope

4. Mariah Carey - Butterfly
5. IAM - L'école du micro d'argent

Wu-Tang Clan - Wu-Tang Forever
Jay Z - In My Lifetime, Vol. 1
Capone-N-Noreaga - The War Report
O.C. - Jewelz
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
Soul Assassins - Muggs Presents.. The Soul Asssassins, Chapter 1
K-Ci & JoJo - Love Always
Next - Rated Next
Joe - All That I Am
Blink-182 - Dude Ranch (the second best Blink album)
Mase - Harlem World
Pennywise - Full Circle
Boyz II Men - Evolution
Puffy - No Way Out
Master P - Ghetto D
Juvenile - Solja Rags

 

Another rager from 97

 

Third Eye Blind - ST
Everclear - SMFTA
Blink and the Eighteen Twos - Dude Ranch
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let’s Face It

crazy year for singles

 

The way people talk about blink's S/T (untitled whatever) album is so funny to me. Sure, in 2003 it was a pretty big departure from the dick and fart jokes of their previous albums. But with enough time removed I think it's settled in to be a pretty average to above average pop rock record. "Feeling This" is a highlight, but you really do feel the weight of "this is serious business" across many of the songs, which doesn't necessarily age well for me. Outside of "Feeling This" and "Always", I really don't return to the record at all. When I look back and think of blink 182, that's not the record that first comes to mind.

Dude Ranch is the perfect encapsulation of the band. The best Mark and Tom have sounded. The buzzsaw guitar production that you don't find on any of the later albums. I also think it has the best lyrics of any blink release. People cite the joke songs and "Voyeur" as reasons to dismiss the record and, yeah, I get it. But I don't think you ever get the lyrical heights that they reach on any later blink release.

All of that is to say nothing of the fact that it was the first album that I really attached myself to. I was 100% way too young to be listening to it (2nd grade? 3rd grade?) and had no idea what the fuck they were saying on half the songs. But it felt dangerous and special, unlike any other album I had heard until that point. It's an album that grew with me, that I returned to when I got older and made stupid fucking mistakes or had a high school heartbreak and I could finally sit down and relate to a song like Apple Shampoo. It's also an album that I can still appreciate and return to and get enjoyment out of.

 

All of that is to say, I can absolutely be a dickhead and start picking apart lists for being made up of boring white dudes or bands that are absolute fucking garbage, but I don't want to do that. So let me put Dude Ranch #1, shut the fuck up, and go listen to The Velvet Rope

 

Mark’s lyrics on Dude Ranch are top notch.

 

They've been totally forgotten, but I kind of love Black Lab. Their next record after this one, See the Sun, is a minor pop-rock masterpiece.

 

preach

s/t is a decent attempt at stepping beyond their bread and butter, but half the songs aren’t anything special and it’s still kind of “just” a pop punk record, albeit one with some spiffy production, anyways.

Dude Ranch is a band doing what they’re good at and (poorly aged jokes aside) doing it perfectly 10+ times over.

Blink 182 defense is responsible for some of the worst posts this site sees on a regular basis and pop punk is an easy genre to dunk on in general so I get it but a week removed from us all voting for matchbox 20/insert any 4 chord guitar band here I’m reading most dude ranch hate as posturing

 

the bands aren’t remotely similar lol, at least dunking on green day votes made sense

 

also i couldn’t care less if you choose to vote for a dumb 90s band of white dudes, i voted for oasis two weeks in a row lol. i was just picking on nick for doing so because he has acted like it was crazy when myself and others have done so in previous years

 

dude ranch actually has the only truly great blink song on it (apple shampoo)

 

1. 311 - Transistor
2. Deftones - Around The Fur
3. Radiohead - OK Computer
----------------------------------
4. Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape
5. Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind
6. Oasis - Be Here Now
7. Green Day - Nimrod
8. Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
9. Our Lady Peace - Clumsy
10. The Offspring - Ixnay On The Hombre
11. Depeche Mode - Ultra
12. Blink 182 - Dude Ranch
13. Live - Secret Samadhi
14. Everclear - So Much For The Afterglow
15. Silverchair - Freak Show
16. Blur - Blur
17. Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
18. Guided By Voices - Mag Earwhig!
19. Helmet - Aftertaste
20. Limp Bizkit - Three Dollar Bill, Y'all $

Honorable Mention:
The Apples In Stereo - Tone Soul Evolution
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Buck-O-Nine - Twenty-Eight Teeth
Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On
The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
Collective Soul - Disciplined Breakdown
Daft Punk - Homework
The Dandy Warhols - The Dandy Warhols Come Down
David Bowie - Earthling
Days Of The New - Days Of The New
Dismemberment Plan - The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified
Elliott Smith - Either/Or
Feeder - Polythene
Fu Manchu - The Action Is Go
The Get Up Kids - Four Minute Mile
Harvey Danger - Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?
The Hives - Barely Legal
Hot Water Music - Forever and Counting
Marcy Playground - Marcy Playground
Metallica - Reload
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let's Face It
Mogwai - Young Team
Old 97s - Too Far To Care
Pavement - Brighten The Corners
Portishead - Portishead
The Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land
The Promise Ring - Nothing Feels Good
Savage Garden - Savage Garden
Sevendust - Sevendust
Smash Mouth - Fush Yu Mang
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating In Space
Superchunk - Indoor Living
Teenage Fanclub - Songs From Northern Britain
Toad The Wet Sprocket - COIL
U2 - Pop
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

Checking Out for the First Time in Full:
Aerosmith - Nine Lives
The Ataris - ...Anywhere But Here
Ben Harper - The Will To Live
Bjork - Homogenic
Black Lab - Your Body Above
Death Cab For Cutie - You Can Play These Songs With Chords
Dinosaur Jr. - Hand It Over
Dispatch - Bang Bang
The Divine Comedy - A Short Album About Love
Faith No More - Album of the Year
Goldfinger - Hang-Ups
Guster - Goldfly
Handsome - Handsome
Jay-Z - In My Lifetime, Vol. 1
Matthew Good Band - Underdogs
Matthew Ryan - Mayday
Millencolin - For Monkeys
Paul McCartney - Flaming Pie
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing
Supergrass - In It For the Money
Ween - The Mollusk

 

Give me the Matchbox 20 catalog over the Blink discography any fucking day of the week.

 

Yeah, See The Sun was excellent as well. I think that was the planned major label follow-up that just never came to fruition since the label shelved it (it certainly SOUNDS like the kind of slick pop/rock record that would have been released around 2000).

 

Yeah, they had to have sat on that one for awhile. "Learn to Crawl" is on there and that song originally showed up on the Spider-Man soundtrack in 2002!

 

To clarify, I enjoy Dude Ranch (and included it on my list!) but I feel like this album is a little over-rated and from a front-to-back listen, starts getting tired towards the end.

 

It doesn't seem in the spirit of these threads to criticise other people's picks, unless Liam Gallagher features on it.

 

I completely forgot the Harvey Danger album was released in 1997 as I, and many I assume, didn't hear about them until 1998.