Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

The 1990s had two major movements in rock music. There was the depressed dissulution of Grunge in the US and the every day social hit making of Brit Pop in the UK. Placebo didn't really fit in the UK, they had more in common with the more meloncholy punk of the US, and along with fellow scene leaders Garbage they quickly became the most influencial bands in a burgeoning UK alternative scene. Critics were chomping at the bit, magazines like Kerrang were desperate for some home grown talent to put on their US trend dictated covers and Placebo just were that. It also helped that for some reason every girl under the age of 30 instantly fell in love with Brian Molko. Placebo ended up being more than a mir UK knock off, they turned out to be the real deal with some electrifying rhythm and some killer hooks. Brian Molko tapped into a drinking sex crazed society with his seedy androginous lyrics. Never had there been a more straight forward mission statement than the genius of Nancy Boy. Placebo had arrived (shame they wouldn't go away).

It's always nice when a band treds the line between musically credibility and being pop hit makers. On Everything Must Go the Manic Street Preachers toed that line perfectly, creating their most successful album and four top ten singles. The album itself saw the band tone down the guitar wankery, trim the album to an approachable tight twelve tracks and generally cheer up from the depression of The Holy Bible. It was quite the transformation, from a critical peak to a commercial peak without losing credibility. Musically the Manics retained their knack of big choruses and clever songwritting but brought in soaring euphoric guitar lines and orchestral arrangements. This didn't however aquate to a dumbing down, the Manics simply got better at writting pop songs (who else could write a top ten hit set in a library?) and better at creating more intriguing musical arrangements. Before the Manics only had one gear now they had discovered gears 1 through 4 to accompany five.

If your a father and you daughter is a talented singer or MC and you hear that she's wants to be and R'N'B singing, I think every father would hope that she ends up like Lauren Hill rather than Christina Milian or Lil' Kim. With the wave of plastic crap that's thrown out and described as R'n'B these days it's easy to forget just how good and just how influencial this album was back in 1998. When this album dropped the music industry was stunned, it wasn't the perfect album but it was a powerful, important and heartfelt album. Lauryn wasn't being compared to her Fugee peers Wycleaf or Pras no, Miseducation was being compared to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Stevie Wonder in his prime. Miseducation was a concept album detailing the struggle of a Black woman in the record industry machine. It was beautifully arranged and showed off a great depth of ability stringing together decades of great black music from Marvin Gaye through Bob Marley to modern day hip hop. Whether it was the pop swing of Do Wop and Ex-Factor or the MC stylings of Lost Ones or one the albums seemingly endless supply beautiful ballads, Lauryn Hill proved that she's head and shoulders above all her peers.

It took them twenty years but the Red Hot Chilli Peppers had finally done it! They had matured and created and slick but creative album that was set to concour the world. No one would be safe, all would fall pray to this albums might. Of course it still had some major weakness most prominantly the Chilli's obssession with putting far to many tracks on a single album (or double album for that matter) and Antony's ridiculous rapping which grates over seventeen tracks. However these are minor quibbles and Rick Rubin had successfully molded the Chillis into stadium rock stars and this was a record stacked with singles and huge live anthems. People forget this album contains Californication, Parrallel Universe, Otherside, Scar Tissue, Road Trippin' and Right On Time, all tracks that still remain stables of a Chilli's live show. This album achieved what the Chilli's so rarely up until this point had managed consistancy. Californication was the step from the Brixton Academy to Hyde Park, the Chilli's haven't looked back since.

Pulp always had this knack of righting this hugely affecting music, it was gritty, real and intelligent. While Blur and Oasis were laddy and drunk, expressing the the aspiration of the working class (in Oasis' case) or in Blur's case detialing and crituqing every day lives. Pulp represent something else, they spoke beyond class, looking both up and down and bringing out the inner neurossis in all of us. Themes of passionless sex and depression, suming up the meloncholy of the daily routine. Listening to Pulp was like peering into a bedroom in Kensington and then watching a dinning room in Sheffield. Or as Jarvis Cocker puts it on the superb opener The Fear "This Is Our Music From The Bachelors Den/ The Sound Of Lonilness Turned Up To Ten" or best of all the sublime turn of phrase that seemingly only Jarvis Cocker can summon "This Is The Sound Of Someone Losing The Plot / Making Out That There Okay When There Not". Some critics thought this was the sound of Pulp losing the plot musically but they were dead wrong, this was the sound of a band who saw the limmits of Brit Pop and wanted to move on with huge beautiful haunting and tender arrangements. A Staggering end note to the 90s.

So whose the greatest rap act of all time? It's a shame that today rap critics can't seem to see beyond the modern age Jay Z is the concensus choice and beyond that for some unkown reason (actually who am I kidding I know why) it has to be either 2 Pac or Notorious B.I.G. Now 2 Pac and Jay I have time for I'll listen to the argument but B.I.G? he had the beats but nothing else. It's a problem of short sightedness that seeing the genius of A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy and Del le Soul go unapprecaited. When it comes to raw swagger Tribe are peerless, they're so laid back and they flow so naturally and smoothly you feel instantly relaxed and there slick rhymes flow into your mind and merge with your natural scream of consciensness. Their flow is mind blowing whether their rapping about going to the shops to buy their little brother a toy or whether their launching a scathing attack on race inequality it's all delivered with smooth soft sheen. Public Enemy where the soldiers shouting the message and sloganeering, however A Tribe Called Quest prove that a well worded whisper can be more powerful than the loudest shout.

You have to feel sorry for Weezer, they really came around at the wrong time, could you imagine if they released this superb debut album in 2002? When indie was really blowing up, they'd probably be the biggest band in the world and the US version of Arctic Monkeys. That said we shouldn't be too sad, Weezer are suitably huge and are real trendsetters. The Blue Album feels like it could have been made at any time, it doesn't sound like a nineties records, it feels fresh and exciting even today. While Weezer always had nice bouncy cord structures and some short little slick solos it's never really been a secret what their secret weapon is. The brilliant Rivers Cuomo of course, a superbly subtle song writer who has a knack for clever sad/happy/nerdy songwritting and monster choruses. Geffen must have liked there lips when they heard this album practical every track on the album could be a single and even the unreleased gems like My Name Is Jonas, No One Else and The World As Turned have become huge Weezer anthems. Weezer were the Indie hitmakers before it was cool to be an indie hitmaker.

While Portishead will always be the sacred hallowed ground of critical and musical artistry when it comes to Trip Hop, Massive Attack became the genre's hit makers and popstars (anti-popstars?). However this was not achieved at the expense of artistical merit, infact on Mezzanine Massive Attack stretched there creative muscle creating these huge lush soundscapes that you became lost within. It was so deep and brooding, whether it was the downbeat and engrossing Risingson or the beautiful Teardrop that had the texture of being stuck under the rain, with a beautifully female vocal that softly soared and blended sublimely into the deep electronical urban city soundscape. It felt like listening to some kind of wonderous impending doom, like a ticking clock in a never ending downpour. While there is no doubt that the album lacks the genius that Tricky brought to Blue Lines, it is the moving ominous highly textured journey that this record takes you on that over comes the individual merits of any individual singer or song. This is like one long walk in a dark scary heartless electronic city, a glorious accomplishment of mood setting and shaping.

The Great Escape was Blur's last brit pop album, their endnote to the genre which they kick started with Modern Life Is Rubbish and definitively defined with Parklife, before they got bored of what they had created and the characters what they had to live up and destroyed them with the brilliant escapism of 13. So being Blur they could only go out in style, say farewell to the genre they created with one final blow out of mamoth proportions. This was Blur the hitmakers throwing out massive tunes seemingly willy nilly, this was Blur living up to their Stereotype, a song that may have hinted at the bands own distaste for what they created. Of course Blur had to throw out the irresistable singles the gorgeous The Universal, the hilarious Charmless Man and Country House the song that thankfully saved the nation from the morose Roll With It. In between the pop singles we saw Damon's great skill to throw out these amazing one liners seemingly at will "The Suburbs They Are Sleeping But He's Dressing Up Tonight / She Likes A Man In Uniform, He Likes To Where It Tight", "He's Reading Balzak / Knocking Back Prozac", "Educated The Expensive Way / He Knows His Claret From His Beaujolais", sorry I could go on quoting Damon's one liners for days this was an album stack with great pop and even greater witicism.

Nas was always a special talent that many feel failed to live up to his potential. What made Nas special back in 1994 and still makes him stand out today is his message. Nas looks details inner city life with its drugs, violence and gangs but Nas never glorifies it. He often critiques but often he simply detials his surroundings, he never feels preachy or false he comes across as geniune. He is at his most powerful on tracks like One Love where he tells us the story of meeting a twelve year old thug and how he urges the kid to take the right path and find a way out of the streets. This sounds syruppy but Nas' stories are gritty and real. His flow is closer to Tribe Called Quest and Big Daddy Kane than Jay Z but like Tribe he never sounds dated. His beats are sparse and spacious, somewhat downbeat and bare. You can almost imagine Nas sitting on a stoop in some god awful neighbourhood just spitting rhymes as he's dismayed by the stupidy of gang life and the racial inequality that surrounds him. At the heart of the album is Nas and his words, the arrangements are so bare that you follow his words and you nod your head to the cander of his rhymes not the beat of his bass. A remarkable debut of a prodigous talent.