Survivors of the 1990s, Unite

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

When My Bloody Valentine arrives on the stage of the Roseland Ballroom on September 22 and 23, don’t be surprised to see a few grown men crying. The band’s September 19 performance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival at Kutshers Country Club in the Catskills is the British-Irish band’s first American show in 16 years. In the interim, My Bloody Valentine has grown from one of the most celebrated “shoegaze” bands of its era into one of the most widely adored rock bands on the planet.

A great deal of that devotion stems from the band’s 1991 album “Loveless,” which has universally been crowned one of the best rock albums of the last two decades. A long-awaited follow-up album never arrived — and chances are it never will — but while My Bloody Valentine’s activity slowed to a trickle, the band never really went away, casting a long shadow over every shoegaze and dream-pop band that followed.

My Bloody Valentine’s string of 2008 performances nicely frames some trends in popular music for the coming season. Nostalgia for the 1990s may have started less than five years after the decade ended, but the longing for the not-so-distant past has differed a bit from similar idealizations of 1970s culture in the early ’90s and the romanticizing of the ’80s in more recent years. Notably, the longing has been spearheaded by many of the people who lived through it the first time, highlighting the fact that the 1990s never really went away.

If there are any doubts about that, a string of forthcoming releases and concerts by artists who earned mainstream attention during the previous decade should allay them. These are the acts that succeeded in turning so-called alternative music and underground hip-hop into mainstream corporate brands.

The transformation of hip-hop and R&B into commercial forces continues to this day. The Chicago rapper Common, who made his debut in 1992 as Common Sense, will release “Invincible Summer,” his eighth studio album, on September 23. The same day, House of Pain rapper Everlast, whose 1998 album “Whitey Ford Sings the Blues” spawned the genre-crossing hit single “What It’s Like,” will release his fifth solo release, “Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford,” before visiting the Highline Ballroom on September 30. Come October, new albums from such 1990s hip-hop survivors as Coolio (“Steal Hear,” October 28), Warren G (“The G Thing,” October 28), Outkast’s Big Boi (“Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty” (November 4), and the still-reigning queen of dance-floor hip-hop, Missy Elliott (“Block Party,” November) will arrive in stores.

In the rock department, Mercury Rev, the orchestral, psychedelic outfit from Buffalo, N.Y., that rose to ’90s adoration alongside the Flaming Lips, will release its eight album, “Strange Attractor,” on September 30. Also that day, “The Fabled City,” the second album by former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, under his folky alter-ego the Nightwatchman, will arrive in stores. Of Montreal, the folk-tinged indie pop band from Athens, Ga., sees its ninth album, “Skeletal Lamping,” hit shelves on October 7 before they make a stop at Roseland Ballrooom on October 10. And Oasis, the band that, for good and ill, defined 1990s Britpop, bequeaths its seventh album, “Dig Out Your Soul,” to the world on October 6.

But that’s not the end of the 1990s supersale! Some other artists popular in the decade may not have new albums coming out, but they have hit the road. Slowcore trio Low stops by the Bowery Ballroom September 22; Stereolab flutters into the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza October 2-4. And a reformed Shudder to Think — a critically influential Washington D.C., post-hardcore act that rose to modest success with its 1994 album “Pony Express Record” — rocks Webster Hall October 4.

To prove that the cultural warmness for the 1990s is more than just a longing for the era’s best bands, a number of the decade’s lesser acts have managed to grab hold of the 21st century. Dallas’s Jackopierce (at the Highline Ballroom September 26), Oklahoma teen-pop sensations Hanson (at the Nokia Theatre October 20), the southern-fried Black Crowes (at Town Hall November 4), and the alt-rock one-hit wonder the Toadies (at Webster Hall November 6) all make autumn stops in New York.

Of course, not all noteworthy new albums and shows are 1990s holdovers. Fans anxiously await new albums from Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis (“Acid Tongue,” September 23; playing the Apollo Theater October 4), teen-scream R&B hit machine Pretty Ricky (the sublimely titled “Eighties Babies,” September 23), TV on the Radio (“Dear Science,” September 23), party-starter Pink (“Funhouse,” October 28), and soul stirrer John Legend (“Evolver,” October 28). And hot-ticket shows from a variety of mainstream and underground marquee names — including Madonna at Madison Square Garden October 6, 7, 11, 12; 1980s post-punk workhorse Killing Joke at the Fillmore October 11 and 12; young French pop sensation Yelle at Webster Hall October 14; ambient-metal force Sunn0))) and minimalist pioneer Tony Conrad at the Knitting Factory October 15, and theatrical Japanese rock outfit Dir en Grey at Terminal 5 November 14 — are sure to pull fans away from the 1990s remembrances going on.

But as with My Bloody Valentine’s anticipated American return, sometimes revisiting an old musical friend is pure joy. In October, the Dead C — an improvisational, experimental noise-rock trio from Dunedin, New Zealand — makes its third visit to these shores. Although formed in the late-’80s, the Dead C became a beloved underground band on the strength of a series of early-to-mid-1990s albums and 7-inch singles on Philadelphia’s staunchly independent Siltbreeze label, which captured the band’s visceral intelligence and sensual dissonance. Dead C’s new album, “Sacred Earth,” will come out October 14, and Ba Da Bing Records and Jagjaguwar are reissuing the band’s 1988 “DR503” and 1989 “Eusa Kills” albums as double LPs, as well. Dead C hasn’t played the East Coast in 13 years, making its October 13 date at the Bowery Ballroom one of the season’s must-see events.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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