1990: Top 50 Singles

Our '90s flashback is about to begin! Last year we revisited our favorite singles of the '80s with a monthly series of posts featuring our Top 50 lists for each year of the decade as well as playlists where you could listen to most of these 500 tracks.

Between now and November 2012 (just in time for the Mayan Apocalypse!) we are going to choose another 500 remarkable singles, this time from the '90s, and create playlists with the music we like to remember from this period.

For the first installment of our '90s Singles project, we have the Top 50 of 1990, a year where the Madchester sound reigned supreme, Shoegazers flooded our ears with sweet noise and the American underground rock scene was revving its engines loudly as it was about to overtake the mainstream. Meanwhile, My Bloody Valentine who were getting closer to the end of the two-year gestation period that gave us "Loveless", released in April of that year the "Glider" EP on Creation Records (Sire for USA), showing us that they were not immune to the charms of the dance-rock crossover. And with "Soon", they proved that they could do it better - and dreamier - than anyone else:

My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Glider EP)

Here's 1990's Top 10 Singles - for the complete Top 50 click here:

1. Glider EP - MY BLOODY VALENTINE
2. Kool Thing - SONIC YOUTH
3. Telephone Thing - THE FALL
4. Heavenly Pop Hit - THE CHILLS
5. Jacket Hangs - THE BLUE AEROPLANES
6. I Am One - THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
7. The Wagon - DINOSAUR JR.
8. Everything Flows - TEENAGE FANCLUB
9. Velouria - PIXIES
10. Sliver - NIRVANA

And here's the (almost complete) 1990 Singles playlist:

Attack of the 50 Foot Wave

50 Foot Wave, the rock beast created by Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges of Throwing Muses with drummer Rob Ahlers, is back once again with an awesome 5-track new EP titled "With Love From The Men's Room". The EP, priced with the pay-what you like model that the group has used since 2005, is available from here, while you can also download their entire awesome back-catalog including all 4 EPs they've released between 2004 and 2009, instrumentals, live recording, and a few other goodies here.

The good news from Kristin Hersh's camp do not stop here. Throwing Muses, the band that introduced us to the astonishing talents of Kristin Hersh more than 25 years ago (along with those of Tanya Donelly of course), are also on the way back with a new album (their first since 2003) which is currently in the mixing stages. Throwing Muses who celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of their monumental (self-titled or untitled as we later found out) debut last September by releasing the "Anthology" compilation (a good place to start if you're unfamiliar with their work), currently have 38 new songs and we're waiting to find out how many of those will make it in their ninth album which is entirely listener-funded thanks to Kristin’s subscribers (Strange Angels) and other contributors via CASH Music.

Here's "Grey" from 50 Foot Wave's "With Love From The Men's Room" EP:

50 Foot Wave - Grey

And here's a blast from Throwing Muses's past - the amazing "Bright Yellow Gun" from the 1995 LP "University", which, in a fair world, should have been a universal No. 1 smash hit:

Throwing Muses - Bright Yellow Gun

The Men, live @ An Club (Athens, February 11, 2012)

They are called The Men, but they are actually (at least on stage) three men and one woman. They have named their latest album "Leave Home" in tribute to the Ramones but they don’t sound too much like them (not to me, anyway). They do, however, make one hell of a noise that would make Mudhoney or Dinosaur Jr. proud and their psych-rock jams sound even more appealing live than on record.

This was the first Athens show of the rising Brooklyn noise rockers that came at a time that we really needed a hard-hitting, ear-splitting rock show to get our minds off our troubles for a little while. And, truly, for at least an hour or so nothing could be further from my mind than the crumbling state of our national economy. 

The Men played a wall-shaking, intense set that sounded more focused than the exhilaratingly loud but wildly chaotic "Leave Home" and were at their best when delivering their shorter, faster noise punk bombs like the excellent "Bataille" or the new "Open Your Heart" from the forthcoming, same-titled album. With more tracks like this one (and perhaps a bit improved production) something tells me that the new LP which drops in March on Sacred Bones could see this band rising to new heights. We’ll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, check out one of the surprises of their set - their lean, mean cover of The Boys Next Door track "Somebody’s Watching Me":

The Men - Somebody's watching me, live @ An Club

The gig opened by the equally loud local hardcore punk act Ruined Families (we could use a hardcore revival right now, methinks) who delivered an explosive half-hour set at breakneck speed and by psychedelic garage rockers Acid Baby Jesus. The latter’s recent self-titled LP which got an international release by Slovenly Recordings, has raised the popularity of the band and I think they could easily have filled the club by themselves. In the year and a half since the last time I saw them, Acid Baby Jesus have grown into a fully-fledged garage-rocking machine that not only performs at the highest levels of adrenaline but is also able to put on a veritable rock’n’roll show, with impressive guitar theatrics that can sweep the fans off their feet and send them crowd-surfing in no time. A very fine, noisy rock’n’roll night indeed.

Acid Baby Jesus, live @ An Club

Ruined Families, live @ An Club