Trailerpark

The main thing that you need to know about this song is that it was originally written for the 1998 smash hit compilation Chef Aid: The South Park Album, but didn’t make the final cut. Which is objectively one of the funniest pieces of trivia …

Tracy Jacks

“When our third album comes out, our place as the quintessential English band of the ’90s will be assured. That is a simple statement of fact. I intend to write it in 1994.” – Damon Albarn, 1990 And that, spoiler alert, is exactly what happened. …

To Your Love

Fiona Apple is another big 90’s artist who I made a point never to listen to when she was big, under the misapprehension that she was a pop singer. Fiona Apple, of course, is a pop star only by the vaguest possible definition. She is, …

Townes’ Blues

I’ve been trying to describe the Cowboy Junkies’ appeal ever since discovered them, and I finally put my finger on it: they make country music for goth kids. That may be too pat in some ways; this music is country only under the widest possible …

To Wish Impossible Things

Here I am again, listening to a very well-known band’s most commercially successful record for the very first time in my life. I’ve already apologized for coming in very late to The Cure fandom. In case you didn’t know, they’re quite prolific. Which leaves me with a lot of research to do. The 1992 album Wish delivered the megahit Friday I’m In Love, which I am of course familiar with. I did think that it was a much older song than 1992, although at this point it’s all ancient history. If that uncharacteristically chipper mood of that made you think that the group had become sadboy sellouts, I’m happy to report that there’s plenty of weepy and despondent material to balance it out. Because what else would I be in this fandom for?

Touched by the Sun

I’ve never paid much attention to Carly Simon, because, well, because she’s just never been very edgy. Such is the stigma of gentility in certain circles, I guess, that it’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss an artist who just writes pretty songs. If she …

Total Ringo

Don’t ask me what constitutes a ‘total ringo’ but I’m guessing that it’s some kind of a drug reference. I’m guessing that because I know that the Happy Mondays torpedoed their relationship with their record label, and their career, by spending their album-making budgets on …

To the End

I spend a lot of time trying to understand what was going on in the 60’s to produce the cultural forces that in turn produced all the art I’m into. Obviously, I wasn’t around back then, so I’m probably wrong about everything. But I don’t …

To Speak is a Sin

It is about what you think it is about. The love that dare not speak its name, as they used to say. Back when meeting your kindred spirit, or a one-night-stand, required a visit to a clandestine establishment. And a lot of people still think …

Tortura

I don’t speak Portuguese, but if I had to guess, I would say that Cesaria is singing that love and loss are torture. I don’t know if it says that those things are sweet torture, for that would be too on-the-nose, but it almost certainly …