FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Every Friday we set the Hot Tub Time Machine to one year in rock history and give you the best (and worst) music from that year, all day long beginning at 1:00 AM EST and running for 24 hours on Jivewired Radio powered by Live365.
This week: 1993
Next week: 1972
Last Week: 1985
Article & Image Sources: All Music Guide, Amazon.com, Rolling Stone Magazine, Previous Jivewired Friday Flashback Articles, Music Outfitters, Alaska Jim, Sire Records, The Guardian, UK, Joel Whitburn, Billboard Magazine, WLS-AM89 Chicago, The Examiner, The People History Encyclopedia, The Village Voice, Pop Culture Madness, Rate Your Music.
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Album art from 1993 - Click album cover to purchase at Amazon.com
1993 Album I Wish I Owned:Boom-Bap by KRS-One
1993 Album I'd Give Back If I Could:The Spaghetti Incident by Guns 'N' Roses
1993 Nominee For Worst Album Cover Ever:Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest
1993 Most Underrated Song:Fade Into You by Mazzy Star
1993 Most Overrated Song:What's Up? by 4 Non-Blondes
1993 Most Memorable Song:Man On The Moon by R.E.M.
1993 Most Significant Song:Trout by Neneh Cherry with Michael Stipe
1993 Most Forgotten Song: Two Steps Behind by Def Leppard
1993 Album Of The Year:In Utero by Nirvana
1993 Fan's Choice For Most Popular Song:Runaway Train by Soul Asylum
1993 Most Likely To Start A Party Song:Gin & Juice by Snoop Dogg
1993 Please Don't Play Anymore Song:I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meat Loaf
1993 Song That I Like More than I Actually Should: Pets by Porno For Pyros
1993 Album I Liked More than I Thought I Would:Core by Stone Temple Pilots
1993 Song That I Tend To Leave On Repeat:Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine
1993 Comeback Player of The Year: Van Morrison, Duran Duran
1993 Rookie of the Year: Blind Melon, Counting Crows, Liz Phair, Neneh Cherry, The Cranberries, Beck, Lenny Kravitz,
One Hit Wonder of 1993:I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers
Gulity Pleasure of 1993:Loser by Beck
Overplayed In 1993: Spin Doctors
Not Played Enough In 1993: Afghan Whigs
Greatest Single Chart Re-Entry from 1993:Into The Mystic by Van Morrison (1970)
Best Cover Song Of 1993:The Man Who Sold The World by Nirvana (original by David Bowie 1970)
Worst Cover Song of 1993:D'yer Mak'er by Sheryl Crow (original by Led Zeppelin 1973)
An unheralded great album from 1993:Too Long In Exile by Van Morrison
An unheralded great single from 1993:Find The River by R.E.M.
Best Soundtrack of 1993:Dazed and Confused
Our Top Five Songs Of The Year
01. All Apologies by Nirvana
02. Find The River by R.E.M.
03. Daughter by Pearl Jam
04. Today by Smashing Pumpkins
05. Star Me Kitten by R.E.M.
HONORABLE MENTION: Ignoreland by R.E.M.
HONORABLE MENTION:No Rain by Blind Melon
HONORABLE MENTION:Man On The Moon by R.E.M.
Our Top Five Albums Of The Year
01. Automatic For The People by R.E.M.
02. Vs. by Pearl Jam
03. Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins
04. In Utero by Nirvana
05. The Chronic by Dr. Dre
HONORABLE MENTION:Too Long In Exile by Van Morrison
HONORABLE MENTION:MTV Unplugged by Nirvana
HONORABLE MENTION:Exile In Guyville by Liz Phair
1993 was the birth of alternative music as an accepted and defined genre. That's a loose definition, however. Alternative rock is essentially an amalgamation for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism of mainstream culture. Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth. The term basically became the accepted genre for a combination of sub-genres that includes college rock, post-punk, brit-pop and new wave among many others. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is fiercely iconoclastic, anti-commercial, and anti-mainstream, so the genre has always theoretically existed. But in 1993 the music marketing machine decided we needed alternative music as a definitive genre, thus commercializing the anti-commercial and making mainstream the anti-mainstream. History lesson over. Thanks for playing.
However, the alternative movement was chastised by many journalists and artists alike. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance."
Robert Smith of The Cure rejected genre labels like alternative, gothic rock, and college rock applied to his band. He has said, "Every time we went to America we had a different tag ... I can't remember when we officially became alt-rock."
So there.
Nirvana, Pearl Jam and R.E.M. were the standard-bearers musically in 1993. In particular, R.E.M.'s success had become a blueprint for many alternative bands in the late 1980s and 1990s to follow; the group had outlasted many of its contemporaries and by the 1993, with the release of Automatic For The People, had become one of the most popular bands in the world. Thanks to PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Belly, Luscious Jackson, Juliana Hatfield, and the Breeders, 1993 was named the year of Women in Rock — so coined by the trade magazines looking hard for a trend.
On the flip side, debut, major label releases by bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Urge Overkill, Counting Crows and The Afghan Whigs, as well as a break-out releases by Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins indicated that the industry was embracing it's alternative image. As a reaction, a flurry of defiantly British bands emerged that wished to capitalize on the movement, taking the public and native music press by storm. Dubbed brit-pop by the American media, this movement represented by the bands Blur, Oasis, Suede, and Pulp was the British equivalent of the alternative explosion.
At the MTV Video Music Awards, Pearl Jam was music's undisputed champion. The Seattle-based band performed Jeremy a year earlier on the VMAs and came back to collect and armful of awards for its Mark Pellington-directed clip: Best Group Video, Best Metal/Hard Rock Video, Best Direction and Video of the Year. Interestingly, it wasn't long after this success that the band gave up making videos entirely.
The Grammy Association avoided the alternative movement almost completely, giving the award for Best Alternative Performance to U2, which is clearly an anthem-rock band and off a less-than-stellar release, bluntly speaking, and giving Whitney Houston the coveted Album and Record Of The Year Awards.
Gone But Not Forgotten:
- Dizzy Gillespie, aged 76 (January 6)
- Conway Twitty, aged 59 (June 5)
- Richard Tee, aged 49 (July 21)
- River Phoenix, aged 23 (October 31)
- Albert Collins, aged 61 (November 24)
- Frank Zappa, aged 52 (December 4)
- Doug Hopkins of Gin Blossoms, aged 32 (December 5)
- Michael Clarke of The Byrds, aged 47 (December 19)
Creep On Creepin' On
Both Radiohead and Stone Temple Pilots had varying degrees of success with songs titled Creep in 1993. The Radiohead version was actually released as a single in 1992 but had little success. However, it proved quite popular in Israel thanks to DJ Yoav Kutner, who played Creep incessantly on Israeli radio. He had been introduced to the song by a local representative of EMI. The song soon became a national hit, and it had similar success in New Zealand, Spain, and Scandinavian countries.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco, California radio station KITS added the song to its playlist as the calendar turned to 1993; and soon other radio stations along the American west coast followed suit. A censored version of the song was made available to radio stations, and by the second half of 1993, the song had become a number one hit nationwide. In December 2007, the song was ranked at #31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's.
The Stone Temple Pilots version climbed as high as number two on the Rock Tracks Chart in 1993. There were two videos shot for Creep, the first by director Gus Van Sant but that video was originally shelved due to its drug and sexual references.
The song's lyrics were written by lead vocalist Scott Weiland and bassist Robert DeLeo. DeLeo also wrote the song's music. DeLeo stated the following about Creep:
"Musically speaking I was thinking about a song along the lines of 'Heart Of Gold' by Neil Young, which is in the key of D-minor, the saddest key of all. Scott was thinking about the lyrics, and at that time in our lives we were struggling very much. What Scott was writing about was a real-life situation. Also about me, the thing about the gun. 'Creep' is a very demeaning word. It was one of those instances where we looked at ourselves, looked in the mirror."
It Is Commonly Referred To As The Spaghetti Incident:
On November 23, 1993, Guns N' Roses released a collection of glam rock covers entitled The Spaghetti Incident. Despite protests from Rose's band-mates, an unadvertised cover of the Charles Manson song Look at Your Game Girl was included on the album, at his request. Years later, Rose said he would remove the song from new pressings of the album, claiming that critics and the media had misinterpreted his interest in Manson. Axl can be seen wearing a black Manson shirt in the video for Estranged from Use Your Illusion II. He also can be seen wearing a red Manson shirt in footage from their show in Milton Keynes, England, in 1993, with the additional text on the back, "Charlie Don't Surf". The song Look at Your Game Girl has actually never been removed and is still featured on pressings of the album. It's release consequently led to increased tension within the band.
Allegedly, and unbeknownst to his band mates, Rose had actually hidden the track on the CD release, which he intended as a personal message to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. Rose along with Dizzy Reed (on percussion) are the only members of Guns N' Roses to perform on the track, with the acoustic guitar played by Carlos Booy.
A Charles Manson-penned song always makes a wonderful parting gift, don't you think?
Controversy ensued, and the band in it's original form slowly began to dissolve, with Rose being the first to go.
Manson does earn royalties from the song, in case you were wondering.
Go forth, for you are the future of Rock & Roll:
The following bands all formed in 1993: Wilco, Ben Folds Five, Spoon, KoRn, Daft Punk, Jimmy Eat World, Modest Mouse, The Donnas, Blonde Redhead, Sister Hazel, Veruca Salt and Filter. Sadly, 1993 also gave us The Backstreet Boys.
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