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The 1990s showed lots of promise for alternative music. Its a shame it didn’t last. What does last is the enduring sounds of some of the hardest music heard to date. Here’s a list of albums that are alternative & hard, but not metal.

Before you start reading this list please note: This is my personal list that I wanted to share. There are many albums/artists on this list that you would classify as “metal”, but I do not. Most artists would be classified as punk, alternative, industrial, techno, break-beat, and the like…not metal. With that said, here we go:

10.5
Judgment Night (stdk)
by Various Artists (1993)

This gets a .5 rating due to the fact that half of the bands on the album were metal bands. Couple that with rap bands of the day (both sets of groups in their pr

imes) and you have a great CD. Hightlights from the CD include the Helmet/House of Pain tune “Just Another Victim”, “Judgement Night” by Biohazard and Onyx (both of which were pretty hard bands), “Disoder” by Iced-T and Slayer (the apex of the CD).

10
Manic Compression
by Quicksand (1995)

Although some would argue that Quicksand’s second effort “Manic Compression” was not their best, it certainly makes your heart race. It has the perfect blend of punk agnst, distorted bass, and crunchy guitar licks.

09

Rage Against The Machine

by Rage Against The Machine (1992)

This first time I heard “Bombtrack” the lead track off of the debut CD from Rage Against The Machine I was hooked. Many rap/rock band owe Rage for their ability to break through with the genre.

With the music talent and songwriting ability of the members of Rage this album is solid with awesome music, production, and lyrics that many listeners took to their hearts and still hold close today.

08
Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes & Undeniable Truths
by Clutch (1993)

Clutch has been making music for well over a decade now and their success is due, in my opinion, to their debut CD “Transnational Speedway League…”. These guys took the southern-fried rock that ZZ-Top brought to us and added some gasoline, adrenaline, and pure rock fury. By the time you hit the 4:52 mark in “Binge in Purge” you need release of rock and Clutch delivers.

This CD is true to its roots from start to finish.

07
Burn, Berlin, Burn!
by Atari Teenage Riot (1997)

In the late 90s grunge was fading away and some of us were looking for some to blow our minds out of the water. Atari Teenage Riot made our head bleed with some of the hardest beats, samples, and rage of the 90s with “Burn, Berlin, Burn!”. Complete with break-beat drum loops and anime samples this album deserves a spin around the block with the volume cranked up.

06
Nevermind
by Nirvana (1991)

Some may think that Nirvana’s “Nevermind” started the grunge scene in America (and they’d be right) it also ushered in a time when hard rock was accepted in main-stream media.

Although “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is one of the defining tunes of the grunge era it also is one of the heaviest. “”In Bloom” was certainly playing in the bed room of Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) due to it’s blend of catchy vocals and tough guitar chords.

Perhaps it was Kurt Cobain’s inability to follow the rules on guitar that made this album so rough around the edges and so dear to many a fan of 1990’s music.

05
La Sexorcisto-Devil Music Vol. 1
by White Zombie (1992)

At first glance one would think that Rob Zombie, leader of White Zombie, was Al Jourgenson’s younger brother that would not hold water once he started singing. Zombie was able to fuse rock with style of b-horror films. This album’s sales soared once the video for “Thunder Kiss ‘65″ made its way to MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead”. Aside from the cartoon dumb-witted duo, Many music critics think this is one of the best albums of the 90s.

04

The Fat of the Land

by Prodigy (1997)

In the early 90s Prodigy made head-way as a techno band but in 1997 they took a turn to the dark side. They caught a lot of flack for the tune “Smack My Bitch Up” from people who thought the lyrics were inappropriate. No one can deny that tunes like “Breather”, “Firestarter”, and “Funky Shit” (taking a Beastie Boys sample) were on the cusp of a new genre close to the metal/industrial/techno border.

03
Angst
by KMFDM (1993)

When I was in college I put this album cover on a poster for a radio show I did. It caused one of biggest stirs of my junior year. This album had the same reaction to listeners to the German-based band, but that time in a good way. Taking a page from the hip-hop of the 90s KMFDM’s Angst starts off with a track where they talk about great they are. With killer guitar riff and a line like “Easy to swallow, KMFDM light” they had me sold. Other notable heavy tracks include “Drug Against War”, “Sucks” and “Glory”.

02
Cleansing
by Prong (1994)

Prong’s “Cleansing” knocked my Doc Martins off when I first heard it. There were awesome drum beats with bass kept the great guitar and vocal tracks going. There’s not really too much more I need to say about this record except to say that if you like this list so far and have never heard this CD try to hear tunes like; “Whose Fist Is This Anyway?”, “Broken Pieces”, “Cut-Rate”, and my personal fav, “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck”.

01
Psalm 69
by Ministry (1992)

The first time I heard a song from this album it was for a video game (Predator vs. Robocop). After hearing that song I thirsted more…and I was not disappointed. This album has more than enough hard sounds and killer riffs coupled with teenage/college angst. It was a perfect record for me. Although there are plenty of great tracks on this album I would suggest N.W.O. (featuring Bush 41), Just One Fix, Jesus Built My Hotrod (my favorite on the album), Psalm 69, and Corrosion (the tune from that video game commercial). This album was one of a few that changed my whole perspective on music and dare I say, life. If you haven’t heard this I would suggest you give a listen to it.

The RIAA has forced YouTube to pull videos from its site that have guitarists playing copyrighted music.  Guitar students, who use the site to learn to play guitar have lost a resource that was free, searchable, and easy to use.

In one instance, a guitar teacher had over 100 videos taken down from his account.  In a statement it mentioned that the teacher was infringing on copyrights.  Most of the videos taught people how to play Rolling Stones songs.

In England they plan on releasing Bob Marley’s “Exodus” album to mark the 30 anniversary of its release.  Although most people own “Legend”, “Exodus” was also great representation of this work.

The re-release is set to be on USB and Micro SD memory cards.  Only 4,000 of the USB sticks and 2,000 SD’s will be available, starting next Monday.

There’s no word on what bitrate the tracks will be on, but you can expect to have them DRM’d to allow “protection” against transferring it to devices you already own.

I’m sure all of this is what Bob would have wanted.

Tom Waits has announced he’ll team up with the Kronos Quartet for “Healing The Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation”.  The live CD will be out in stores on July 10th.  The music was captured at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in September of 2003.  All proceeds will be donated to Healing The Divide’s Tibetan Health Initiative, a program dedicated to providing medical care to impoverished Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns living in refugee camps.

Here’s an old clip of They Might Be Giants with the backing of Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Orchestra

So you want to buy a used CD, do yah?  In some states that CD may be treated as if it were gun or some other controlled substance.

New laws are springing up across America that are turning your local record shop in to a pawn shop. When you buy a CD in some states you may be asked to show identification or even your fingerprint.  Some states, like Florida, are taking extreme measures by making shop owners take out a $10,000 bond on to ensure that owners treat their customers are criminals.

So why such measures?  The legistation is out there to stop the sale of counterfeit goods (as sometimes sold in pawn shops) in your local record shop.
This second-hand-goods legislation is the new trend in some states.  States like Florida, Utah, and soon Wisconsin and Rhode Island are putting bills through that force a retailer to ask for a driver’s license when you buy a CD.  Florida has gone so far as to have a “waiting period” for retails to wait until they can resell used CDs.  You may also be stuck with store credit instead of cash when trading in your CDs.
There is no particular reason why these laws are coming up now but, there is a history of retailers and the music industry that pre-dates Napster (which was also a huge “problem”) Once these types of laws become the new thing in states DVD resales will be sure to follow.

There are a few things lawmakers have decided really ought to be handled with the “care and oversight” that only the government can provide: e.g., tax collection, radioactive materials, biohazards, guns, and CDs. CDs? No, I’m not talking about financial Certificates of Deposit, though that might make more sense. I’m talking about Compact Discs.

New “pawn shop” laws are springing up across the United States that will make selling your used CDs at the local record shop something akin to getting arrested. No, you won’t spend any time in jail, but you’ll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don’t want to pay a $10,000 bond for the “right” to treat their customers like criminals.

Check out Danny Elfman on the trumpet.

My favorite video of all time.