30 Years, 30 Days: Day 12, 1991

1991 can be categorized not necessarily as the best year of alternative music, but definitely the year where the commercial potential was truly grasped and subsequently cashed in on. All this meant nothing to me, of course, because at the age of 11 I was truly beginning to hear music as my own thing. It was becoming less of a background track to life and moving quickly into the foreground. A Walkman and headphones were almost always in my possession, I was constantly listening to music. Really, anything I could get my hands on would do, but the great breakthrough albums of 1991 were seeping in there as well.

Nevermind, Out Of Time, Bloodsugarsexmagik, Badmotorfinger and Achtung Baby were in heavy rotation over the next few years, and these are very important albums, not only in a public way but also to me in a personal way. But there are a few other gems of the year that I listened to voraciously, and they have definitely inspired me as a listener to diversify what I listened to. There would always be something to be found, often in unexpected places.

Take, for instance, the massively successful debut album from the Spin Doctors, Pocketful Of Kryptonite. First and foremost, being a comic book nerd, I was immediately drawn to the title. It was the first time I ever saw something from my peer-ridiculed world coincide with rock music: the oblique pop-culture reference. In truth, they were probably the first "jam-band" I ever listened to, a good few years before I would ever hear Phish. They were bluesy, funky and very up-tempo. Their songs were not dirges of depression and darkness, but straight-ahead rock, inspired by their forefathers (people like the Stones and Curtis Mayfield) and not at all apologetic about being a little out-of-date. I think that may be one of my favorite things about the 90s: in a rush to find the "next big thing", bands that were simply putting their spin on the classic-rock era were picked up as well and gave the otherwise bleak world of grunge and punk a little 60s and 70s shot in the arm.

In 1992, when this album was really making its impression on everybody, I can remember listening to the cassette constantly. "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" were a fantastic revelation to me of how music can be incredibly fun and good-spirited, and that wallowing in your own angst and maladjustment was all fine and good, but a person needed to be happy some of the time. 1992 was definitely the summer of "Two Princes", and I will always associate the song with a summer by a lake in Western New York at camp and the first time I ever kissed a girl for real. Everyone's got their summer where they started finding themselves a bit (only to reinvent it time and time again over the next several years), and mine was the summer of the Spin Doctors.

The Smashing Pumpkins will forever be remembered by me as one of my largest disappointments in music ever (1995's Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness). They will also be remembered as one of my absolute favorite bands from 1993 until then. And I first heard Gish about the same time I heard Siamese Dream in 1993. I will definitely go into more on the latter when the time comes, but Gish deserves its own reflection as well.

Like My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins were a wall of fuzzy guitar noise sculpted into coherence with pop hooks. More so with the Pumpkins, actually. What I love about Gish is that it sets the scene for the following album in terms of the "quiet-loud-quiet-louder" formula that would define their early work. And it's track listing is amazing: "I Am One" and "Siva", the first two tracks, were huge for me, mixing wildly chaotic guitar feedback with heavy blues riffs and some of the most bombastic drumming I've ever heard (Jimmy Chamberlin still remains one of my all-time favorite drummers). And the band just looked so darn cool: long hair, pale-skinned female bassist, Asian guitarist. They would be the very essence of cool for me for the next few years.

But one of the other big albums for me from 1991 was not released by a young, up-and-coming band, eagerly scooped up by a major label trying to find the next Nirvana. It was by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, already well established in my father's generation. The album Into The Great Wide Open is by no means their best album (although it was their first for Warner Brothers after their split with MCA), but it is my favorite mostly because of my dad. He played that record all the time, in the house, in the car, everywhere. He even used to do (I gotta be honest) a very poor impersonation of Petty, particularly on the title track. However, as a testament of genetics or upbringing or both, I also do that same sub-par impression myself. I have gotten a lot of things from my father (height, build, most of my face, my work ethic), but it's truly apparent to me that I am my father's son whenever I impersonate Tom Petty (or Neil Young, for that matter).

And to its credit, the record has some awesome songs on it. "Learning To Fly", "Into The Great Wide Open", "Too Good To Be True" and "Makin' Some Noise" are all great rockers. And the title track has one of my favorite "gotta-make-this-rhyme" verses:

"His leather jacket had chains that went jingle

They both met movie stars, partied and mingled

Their A and R man said 'I don't hear a single.'

The sky was the limit."

It's also one of my favorite Petty songs because it is a song about being a nobody, then being a somebody, and staying pretty optimistic about all of it. 1991 would bring us a lot of hope and hype of great young bands who careened onto the music scene with reckless abandon. And many of these bands would quickly become jaded and bitter and it would show in their attitude and their subsequent material. My favorite thing about Tom Petty (and I have a lot of them) is that he gained success while still keeping his wits and sticking to his guns about how he wanted to do things. He is honest, principled, hard-working, funny and has miles of integrity. Kind of like my dad, actually.

-Dan