I hate myself for loving this pretentious piece of pretty-boy pablum. Forget justice, just bang your head and sigh. Prong put out the year’s most accomplished loud rock album, and what did they get? Dumped by their label and scattered to the winds, that’s what. You’re going to Hell either way just for listening. You have to scream to keep from laughing. You have to laugh to keep from screaming. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads (Reprise/Warner Bros.) Geils Band singer Peter Wolf gets in touch with his inner blues-man, then shows just how razor fine that long line between the blues and rock & roll can be.Ĩ. Peter Wolf, Long Line (Reprise/Warner Bros.)įormer J. Scary and lovely, like a ticking Valentine’s day card.ħ. John Parrish makes all the sounds a beaten band should make. Polly Harvey broods, moans and screams to beat the band. Harvey and John Parrish, Dance Hall at Louse Point (Island/PolyGram) No token local pick, either, as it sounds boss next to any city’s best offerings.Ħ. This family fave spent more time on the living-room stereo than any other disk this year. Sell-out? No way! Subversion? You bet! Just watch a group of grade-school kids singing about “the ever-present football-player rapist” if you think otherwise. Butthole Surfers, Electriclarryland (Capitol) “Stella Maris” may be the year’s most beautiful song–despite the fact that its rhythm is generated by a chain being dragged over a metal plate. Einsturzende Neubauten, Ende Neu (Mute/EEG)Īn austere, mature industrial record. If only I could understand what I was singing.ģ. It took awhile for these Welsh psychedelicians to grow on me, but now they’re attached to my singalong gland like lichen to a cairn. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Introducing Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (Mercury/PolyGram) Come 1996, I find myself really loving R.E.M.–largely because of insightful front-man Michael Stipe. in a half-hearted way–despite obtuse front-mumbler Michael Stipe. R.E.M., New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.)