This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which is not new.
note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.
THE TEARDROP EXPLODES: Wilder (1981, UK #29, ***)
The Liverpool act's second album is teeth-grindingly removed from its first. Confident pop structures give way to experimental synth soundscapes and hiccuping vocals from Julian Cope. Many of the songs are remarkable, with drive and urgency, but many tend to be unmemorable in retrospect. Twenty listens and I've no idea how "Pure Joy" goes. "Passionate Friend," a snide kiss-off to Julian's former Crucial Three bandmate Ian McCulloch, was their last top 30 single.
THE TEARDROP EXPLODES: Everybody Wants to Shag the Teardrop Explodes (1990, UK #72, **)
The band recorded this third album in 1982 while disintegrating, learning to hate each other and going out of their minds on acid before splitting acrimoniously. The label pulled a single from the sessions, which charted mildly, Julian Cope started a solo career and all was forgotten. In 1990, with Cope on a critical and commercial high, the full album was finally released and it's superb. It's a hateful, paranoid, mean masterpiece. It sounds like drugs and it sounds like fear. Listen at night and be alarmed.
TEENAGE FANCLUB: "Teenage Fanclub Sampler"
This 1997 Sony/Creation release was an attempt to interest US radio in Scotland's biggest Alex Chilton fans. It didn't work. The band, led by Norman Blake and including ex-Soup Dragon and personal hero Paul Quinn, had already released four albums before the Songs from Northern Britain CD made UK #3, but it failed totally here.
THIRD EYE BLIND: Third Eye Blind (*)
Wow! This album is horrible! These 14 dull numbers take grunge mentality and run it through a pop processing plant, resulting in truly emotionless guitar crap. You probably heard the singles "Semi-Charmed Life" and "Jumper" 10 million times in 1997. Everything else here sounds exactly the same.
THIS MORTAL COIL: It'll End in Tears (***)
In 1990, while suffering the pangs of unrequited love, my friend Karen gave me a mix tape with "Song to the Siren" on it. I cried for 19 hours. Rediscovering it doesn't hurt quite as bad, but the song is still known as something guaranteed to destroy college-age students. There's even a mention of it in that respect in the July 2000 issue of Q. This Mortal Coil is a project spearheaded by 4 A D Records' Ivo Watts-Russell, featuring many of that label's artists, including members of Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Modern English and the Wolfgang Press, performing a mix of covers and originals. Other guests on this 1984 album include Howard Devoto and future Banshee Martin McCarrick. Dense, beautiful, haunting stuff.
TIN MACHINE: Tin Machine II (1991, UK #23, **)
This isn't as bad as their wretched debut, actually, and it's miles better than Bowie's mid-80s albums. No longer wishing to stand out as an angry group with a really famous frontman, Tin Machine pulls out a more focused rock sound, which still isn't great, but worth a spin or two. Tactfully, Bowie even includes a cover of Roxy Music's "If There is Something," ending long-running animosity between Ferry and himself. Other interesting tracks are "Baby Universal" and "Amlapura."
TINA & THE B-SIDE MOVEMENT: Salvation (***)
After three local releases, Tina and the B-Sides signed to Sire for their 1996 major label debut. The Minneapolis funk/country act still couldn't extend their local live success to a national level; in fact I'd never heard of them before finding this for 49 cents at Book Nook. Led by Christina Schlieske, the sharp band has a powerful edge that's still a shade commercial, but splintered in 1999, with Christina relocating to Austin, TX for a solo career.
TINA AND THE B-SIDES: It's All Just the Same (1998, ***)
Apt title. Not too many leagues removed from their first Sire album, this does have a thick commercial sheen. It might be too thick, as it keeps Schlieske's powerful voice from really jumping out and doing anything interesting. Nonetheless, the heavily-twanged funk thumping is still present, and quite a good listen.
T'PAU: Bridge of Spies (aka T'Pau, *)
This was the albatross around my record collection's neck for some time. While I no longer own this album, it remains listed here as a reminder that nobody's perfect. I thought Carol Decker was sex incarnate when I was 16. My girlfriend at the time was mad for Tim Farriss of INXS. Ah, the 80s...
THE TRAVELING WILBURYS: Traveling Wilburys Volume One (1988, UK #16, US #3, ***)
A short-lived supergroup featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison, taking turns on lead vocal and jamming on fun little guitar pop ditties like the minor hit "Handle With Care" and Roy's swan song, the operatic "Not Alone Any More." Dylan even out-Springsteens Springsteen on the Jersey road movie "Tweeter and the Monkey Man."
(marc bolan &) T. REX: The Essential Collection (1995, UK #24, ***)
Marc Bolan used the word "boogie" more than anyone in England in the 1970s, and his band T. Rex was the most successful act in Britain in the period between the Beatles and Bowie, but only had limited impact in America. Since Bolan's death in 1977, there have been more T. Rex compilations than there were original albums, ranging from best-ofs to the ongoing efforts of his fan club to legally issue every scrap of a demo on limited edition CDs. Polygram probably came up with the best and most listenable collection with this 24-track album. It includes ten top 5 hits from his most successful period (1970-73), along with lesser successes like 1968's "King of the Rumbling Spires" and 1976's "London Boys." It also has a very annoying "original full length version" of 1968's "Deborah," with jumping tape loops and other cacaphonous irritations. There is an essay and some limited notes, and the unusual sequencing -- five big hits, fourteen lesser numbers, then the other five big hits -- doesn't make this the friendliest of listens, but when Marc growled his intensely sexual sneer the right way, he created magic, and this album has a lot of it.
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