+ CYNTHIA JOYCE'S TOP TEN (in no particular order) +
 1. John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey, "That Was My Veil" from "Dance Hall at Louse Point" (Island)
A thing of true beauty on an otherwise excessively overwrought album. Tape this song, then sell the CD back.
2.Beck, Live at the Warfield, 10-10-96
So this is what became of that gangly white kid who insisted on breakdancing his way through high school. Beck's verbal abuse of mosh pit perpetrators at the Warfield show ("Really now, that is SO '92...") made it safe once again for good old-fashioned fandom.
3. Tom Petty covers Beck's "Asshole" (from "One Foot in the Grave" (K Records)) on the soundtrack to "She's the One" (Warner Bros.)
Apparently still reeling from his own heartbreak, Petty takes the words right out of Beck's mouth and sings them with his trademark sardonic conviction: "She'll do anything/she'll do anything/she'll do anything ... to make you feel like an asshole." Sounds like she didn't need much help.
Possibly the only thing I'll want to remember about the retro/lounge kitsch era when it's finally over — and definitely the only thing I'd want to relive. Who knew irony could sound so good?
5. Nil Lara, "Nil Lara" (Metro Blue/Capitol)
The perfect antidote to oversaturation by all those white-bread, Dead-derivative jam bands. Lara, a Mexican-American, infuses his songs with a South-of-the-Border sensibility (several are sung in Spanish) that gives new meaning to the phrase "roots-rock." While some may find his lyrics to be a bit saccharine, his earnest delivery of them can make even the most jaded of music fans blush like a schoolgirl.
6. Bob Mould, Live at the Fillmore 11/1/96
Funny how sometimes you can hear harmonies better when they're not there. Somehow Mould managed to fill out every song — and the entire Fillmore — with just a microphone and a 12-string acoustic guitar. After attending a few too many ear-ringing Sugar shows where everything dissolved into white noise after the first set, this performance made me a true believer in the "less is more" theory.
7. Soundtrack to the Motion Picture "Stealing Beauty" (Capitol)
Some things are harder to admit to than others, but this one stayed in my CD player for a while. Forget the movie (and Liv Tyler, if you can) — with new songs by Mazzy Star and Liz Phair, a Hoover-produced version of Burt Bacharach's "2 Wicky," as well as timepiece performances by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, the soundtrack is where you'll find the real beauties. A girl and her guitar; a boy and his drums. What more do you need?
9. Suzanne Vega singing "The Queen and the The Soldier" for an encore at the Warfield, 11-17-96
The moment I'd been waiting for since junior high. Too bad her current "comeback" is no guarantee she'll ever write another song as good as that one.
10. Elliot Smith, "Elliot Smith"
(Kill Rock Stars) Don't let anyone tell you Simon and Garfunkel did it first; it may be so, but Elliot Smith is doing it now. Anyone who can write a song about "Killing the Southern Belle" and make it sound genuinely tragic without a trace of irony has got my vote. |
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