Working at the Carnival

The year of 1995 was a momentous year in music. All-time classics such as Me Against The World by Tupac, Liquid Swords by GZA, and The Infamous by Mobb Deep dominated the hip-hop game. Pulp finally broke into the British mainstream with Different Class. The Brothers Gallagher released their masterwork (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, an album that even the youngs still listen to. Bjork did not fall into a sophomore slump on Post, an album that showed her talent was greater than anyone could have imagined. If this weren’t all enough, Radiohead released The Bends, an album that superseded what they had done on Pablo Honey and set them on a clear course for their masterpiece, OK Computer.

If we look at the R&B world, Mariah Carey dropped her phenomenal Daydream, an album that featured “Fantasy,” an song that dominated the street corners and radios throughout the country. If you lived with a Black woman of a certain age—or knew one—you heard the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, which featured Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Brandy, Toni Braxton, TLC, and Mary J. Blige absolutely crushing songs written by Babyface, one of the best writers and producers in the genre. In addition, there was Brown Sugar, the debut album of D’Angelo, an artist who reshaped R&B for years to come by ushering in the neo soul movement.

Looking even further out, you get Maxinquaye, the debut album from Tricky, a formative voice in the foundation of trip-hop. In addition, there is one of my absolute favorite albums: Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine, which features classics such as “Little Trouble Girl” and “The Diamond Sea.” As well, there are great albums like Teenage Fanclub’s Grand Prix and Goldie’s Timeless, masterworks of power pop and jungle, respectively. Oh, and before I forget, there were also these two really small albums you might have not heard of: Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt and Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill. They definitely did not have a massive cultural impact at all.

There’s still more like Garbage’s self-titled debut, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins, and Mystic Stylez by Three 6 Mafia, but this isn’t just a recap of the year. It could be, but that’s not what this series has set out to do. This series finds a couple of albums and draws out some ideas related to them.

In 1995, I was 10 and 11 years old. I had a stereo and a walkman, and I was starting to buy music. With both of these devices, I was listening to a lot of music because I had little else to do with my time. Thanks to private school, I didn’t live near any of my friends, and because of Reagan and Bush, my neighborhood was unsafe, full of crack heads, drug dealers, and stick-up kids. As a result, I spent a lot of time inside. And, when you’re of that age and indoors, you inevitably watch a lot of television. For me, I watched a lot of MTV. Too much MTV? Definitely, because I remember the MTV series Austin Stories, but that was in 1997, and we’re talking about 1995. In addition to watching a lot of television, I listened to the radio a lot. DC has never lacked for good radio stations, and the ones I was listening to at that time were WPGC 95.5, WKYS 93.9, DC 101, and WHFS 99.1 . I heard WHUR 96.3 (home of the original Quiet Storm) and Majic 102.3 when I was driving around with my mom.

The result of all of this listening was that I was starting to develop my musical taste, what worked for me and what didn’t. While I might have been into the Offspring, I know that I didn’t like Reel Big Fish. I knew that Nice and Smooth were trash, and Kris Kross was pretty good. (I was 11, cut me a break.) I liked the Junkyard Band and Backyard Band more than I liked the Northeast Groovers. Because I am still a visually minded person, seeing images with the songs helps them to stick better for me. So, the visual of a beautiful, cool Shirley Manson guiding a young man to his demise in the “Queer” video has emblazoned upon my mind.

The two 1995 albums that I wanted to talk about are ones that worked their way into my mind through their music videos and radio. They are PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love and Natalie Merchant’s Tigerlily. Both of these albums got into my consciousness because of their music videos, even though they are rather different in tone and style. Unbeknownst to me when I made this decision, it turns up that these two artists happened to be at similar points in their career. Both women had already released music, but they had left those projects behind. Merchant left 10,000 Maniacs, a good college-folk-pop band, and Polly Jean Harvey ended the PJ Harvey Trio. Both had made very good music in their original bands (many will still argue that PJ Harvey’s best albums are from her time in the trio), but in 1995, both women reintroduced themselves to the world with these albums.

Our examination will begin with Natalie Merchant’s Tigerlily. The video that stuck with me from this album is the one for her single “Carnival”:

Over congas and a fuzzy jazz guitar, Merchant sings about the rich pageantry of life in the streets. While the video is rather literal with Merchant walking through Manhattan doing street photography, it does work rather well for getting at the new energy that Merchant wants to display. It’s urgent and sizzles with the possibilities of the larger world. On Tigerlily, Merchant does keep some of the folkier elements of her original band, but when you listen to the first track, “San Andreas Fault,” it is clear that she wants to do more than repeat the past.

On that first track, a Rhodes piano accompanies Merchant as she sings some notes in a higher register. The drums slide in, and the song settles into a lovely groove as Merchant tells a story about a starlet who moves to Los Angeles looking for success but only finding failure like so many before her. This track is followed by the mid-tempo rocker “Wonder.” You’ll never mistake it for a rave-up, but it has energy and verve while showing off Merchant’s range as a singer. In addition to these two tracks and the sauntering “Carnival,” there is the psych-influenced ballad “I May Know The Word,” the solo piano track “The Letter,” and the folk-rocker “Jealousy.”

The whole album, while it may get weighed down by the sometimes obvious lyrics of Merchant (the less said about “River,” her tribute to River Phoenix, the better), is a phenomenal solo debut of an artist who is stretching her legs and find new ways to express herself. This album certainly plays more for the adult alternative audience, but it is an album that is thoughtfully crafted by Merchant and her crew, displaying a variety of musical influences and a great sophistication. It showed that Merchant was a musical force all upon herself.

Polly Jean Harvey recorded two albums with the PJ Harvey Trio: Dry and Rid of Me. Raw and confrontational, they catapulted the band into the public consciousness and got them written up in various print publications. In 1993, after going on tour with U2, the band’s internal friction grew too great, and they disbanded. Two years later, PJ Harvey arrived back on the musical landscape with “Down By The Water”:

If you had known PJ Harvey before, this new version was quite different. With her wig curled, wearing a bright red dress with red lips and nails, Harvey stands on a turntable against a black background as a deep, stark synth line pulses. Dancing and looking directly into the camera, Harvey completely sucks the viewer into her world. She is enrapturing. Her dancing is provocative, playing with ideas of sex and power. But let’s be clear: Polly is always in power. You, fair viewer, are under her control.

As can be sensed from the video, this is a new Polly. The raw Polly of the trio has been replaced with someone who is playing more with story and drama. I can imagine that hearing this song was greatly disappointing for those who loved the rawness of her work with the trio. I was 11. I did not care about her earlier work. I was watching a rather garishly dressed white woman do weird dancing and swim through water while singing about her daughter. I loved this video. (I still do. I was watching it for research, and it still hits.) It was upon seeing this video that I developed the love that I still foster for PJ Harvey to this day.

The album that this song comes from, To Bring You My Love, is inline with the image portrayed in the music video. On the first track, which is the title track, the starting silence is slowly filled in with the buzz of Harvey’s guitar playing a simple blues lick. Harvey sings with a snarl, harnessing all of the blues music she’s been absorbing since her youth. The song’s tempo lurches, even as guitars explode, organs quiver, and Harvey wails and warbles. Much like “Down by The Water,” it is dramatic, removing some of the immediacy present in her earlier work and creating a slight distance between the artist and the listener.

This distancing continues throughout the album. Across the ten tracks of this album, Harvey presents a variety of women dealing with their lots in life. Some of them are looking for romance, some of them are looking for resolution, and others are looking for absolution. The hard-edged sound from her albums with the trio is replaced with one that is far more sonically diverse. The blues is a clear touch point throughout, but there are also tracks like “Send His Love To Me,” whose main melody is a flamenco guitar line, as well as “The Dancer” and “C’mon Billy,” which both heavily feature acoustic guitar melodies.

The other major change is the use of electronics in the production. With effects processing on her voice and the heavy use of synthesizers, Harvey opens her music into another realm, giving it greater depth and complexity and allowing her to explore her ideas in new, intriguing ways. An example of this is on “Long Snake Moan.” In this track, Harvey’s processed voice adds greater fury to the riotous song, making it hit harder and allowing it to stand out among the maelstrom of guitars. I don’t think that “Down By The Water” works without the synth bass line. It drives the song forward and provides a slightly aqueous feel, which is fitting for the lyrics.

The link between Tigerlily and To Bring You My Love is a woman making music on her own terms. For Merchant, this is a mellow examination of romance, emotions, broken dreams, and the various elements of life. For Harvey, it is a sonically diverse examination of faith, sex, love, and death anchored in the blues. In both cases, the women saw great success for their efforts. Tigerlily is, by far, Merchant’s best solo album and went 5x platinum in the United States, and To Bring You My Love cemented Harvey’s artistic legacy and is considered one of the best albums of all time by various critics.

As can be seen from the rundown at the beginning of the dispatch as well as this analysis of Tigerlily and To Bring You My Love, 1995 was a year that changed a lot in music. Artists made grand statements, and many artists-in-waiting will hear these albums and then make their own grand statements. We’ve all probably heard more artists than we can count who were influenced by the records that I have mentioned in this dispatch. Next month, we’ll see what happened in 2005, a particularly fun year in my music history. We’ll see what kind of legs these 1995 albums had. As always take care of yourselves and each other. And, if you can—and it will let you—pet a cat or dog.