Turn It Up - 1993 Edition! - 10/2/2023

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

It’s 1993 Week on NFR! So this “Turn It Up,” like every post this week, is devoted to music currently celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. Don’t expect a definitive or completist celebration. Today, in fact, we’re hoping to remind you of singles and album tracks that, though some were notable in the moment, have missed out on larger canonization for whatever reason through the years. They may be among your favorites already, or maybe we’ll hip you to something old that’s new to you. David leads off, Charles is next, and our usual list of (recent) reading recommendations takes it home. And let us know in the comments the 1993 hits or deep cuts that you keep coming back to. 

“Country at War” - X (from Hey Zeus!, 1993)

One of the great anti-war songs to emerge from the Gulf War moment, “Country at War” is also on point for every American war since. Our bombs drop somewhere else while here at home people keep right on washing their cars and ironing dish towels—oh, and America also keeps right on turning its back on the sick, hungry and poor. “Country at War” isn’t remembered today like it should be because, well, see the previous sentence. But it’s overlooked, too, because its place in the X story falls between the departure of the band’s brilliant and beaming founding guitarist Billy Zoom, in 1986, and the first of Zoom’s several returns to the lineup in 1998. It’s from the band’s Tony Gilkyson period, in other words, an X era in danger of being forgotten altogether. A versatile guitarist, Gilkyson helped the band achieve greater sonic variety, including at times a sound that was heavier than before—and scarier. His lines here strafe like missiles streaking across the sky, like police or air-raid sirens, and near the close his guitar makes ungodly, suffocating noises. The record fades out then, but like our nation, Gilkyson’s guitar just keeps dropping bombs. - DC

“Open Wide” - Billy Dankert (from Bowling Shoes Blues, 1993)

For a few years and a couple of albums there, the Gear Daddies, a gut-punch roots-rock outfit from Minneapolis, were quietly one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet. After the Dads called it quits, Billy Dankert, the group’s drummer and second singer-songwriter (behind frontman Martin Zellar), released Bowling Shoes Blues, a set of midwestern story songs on tiny Crackpot records that you should totally hunt down. The album’s epic centerpiece, “Open Wide,” is an all timer. Dankert follows the song’s narrator from year-long childhood days to remembering his mom humming Freddy Fender songs while cleaning the house and recalling the times he drove with his old man down to the Iowa line and back, just to feel free for a few hours. Then it’s on to getting married young and long adult days slaughtering hogs at a meat processing plant. Rarely has youthful possibility and blue-collar limitation been combined so powerfully in song.  - DC

“Jessie” - Paw (from Dragline, 1993)

After Nirvana and Pearl Jam exploded, a bidding-war broke out for Paw, from Lawrence, KS. The fourpiece was inevitably billed as grunge: In 2014 Rolling Stone even ranked their debut as one of the "50 Greatest Grunge Albums.” But as my friend and colleague Mike Warren wrote at the time for KC’s The New Times, “Paw brings metal to the realm of round bailers and limestone.” They were “Sabbath meets American Gothic down to the John Deere dealer.” The band’s signature number was about a boy running away from home and begging “Jessie,” his “good dog,” not to follow. “It’s cold outside and… I don’t know where I’ll be when the morning comes.” The entrance of pedal steel halfway through, like tears abruptly blurring angry eyes, still takes my breath away. - DC

“Stagnation” - Truck Stop Love (from Truck Stop Love, 1993)

An hour and a half west, in Manhattan, KS, Truck Stop Love leaned into a heavy twang of their own and could even approach borderline funky. “Stagnation” (now that’s what I call a grunge-era song title!) is a great romping record about feeling the limits of college scenes, and it keeps cruising back around to the same bitter dis’: “I’ve been down to your bar. It looks the same—or did you remodel? I’ve seen change and I’ve seen stagnation. I’m beginning to see a little algae forming around your edges.” That reads like a mouthful on the screen, right? The wonder is how catchy and rocking a chorus it remains on disc. - DC

“Dreams” - Gabrielle (from Find Your Way, 1993)

The original version of “Dreams,” from 1991, opened with the sampled guitar strum from “Fast Car.” A savvy choice, both melodically and thematically, but less so legally, as its usage of Tracy Chapman’s recording was unauthorized. When Gabrielle recut the song in ‘93, she kicked it off with a new acoustic guitar part, albeit one strumming about the same chords, and she’d goosed its mid-tempo rhythm with a drum loop from “Back to Life” by fellow London clubsters Soul II Soul. The hit single’s proven to be a periodic earworm for me ever since, manifesting in my head whenever something somehow manages to turn out the way I’d dreamed it would forever: “Look at me, babe, I’m with you!” - DC

“House of Love” - RuPaul (from Supermodel of the World, 1993)

RuPaul’s “House of Love” is about as derivative as a dance record can be. It’s a little disco and a little New Jack. It has some “house” in there as well, of course, plus healthy dashes of any other dance sounds Madonna had been lifting for a decade. The lyrics are a cliché too: Each line RuPaul sings here has likely been in some song before, and probably several. And yet… “House of Love” is perfect. It’s a crowd-moving reminder that energy, commitment, infectious beats (courtesy here of coproducer Eric Kupper), and hooks, hooks, hooks will always be goods unto themselves. And when you have a host as arms-wide inviting and full of good, sexy humor as RuPaul, what’s not to love? In 1993, I called “House of Love” as great a dance record as I’d ever heard. Forty years of living later, I don’t just stand by that assessment. I’m moving in.  - DC

“La Femme Fetal” - Digable Planets (from Reachin’ (a New Refutation of Time and Space), 1993)

“Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” was the one-hit wonderful jam, but “La Femme Fetal” is the track I keep coming back to. Planet member Butterfly, working solo and slamming Last Poets-styled poetry, shares the story of a pregnant woman, Nikki, and her partner, Sid: “Due to our youth and economic state, we wish to terminate.” A year after the Supreme Court’s Casey decision had confirmed a woman’s right to choose but also allowed states to increase restrictions, Butterfly raps about justices Souter and Thomas wanting to control women’s bodies and advises pro-lifers to “dig themselves because life doesn’t stop after birth.” If Roe v. Wade were overturned, Butterfly speculates, unwittingly describing our present, “would not the desire remain intact?” Wouldn’t women’s physical and mental health be endangered?  “Isn’t it my job,” Butterfly asked then, and asks now, “to lay it on the masses and get them off their asses to fight against these fascists?” - DC

“Evening Gown” – Mick Jagger (from Wandering Spirit, 1993)

On a Rolling Stones hiatus, Jagger’s Wandering Spirit is perhaps his most fully realized solo album. It allows him to stretch out while also hitting the core sounds that characterize his main gig.  In fact, on “Evening Gown,” he might do one of them even better. Jagger’s country trips with the Stones sometimes veer towards lazy caricature, but here he manages to find a sweet, grainy spot of faded-lothario sadness. With piano and steel guitar supporting him, Jagger delivers a surprisingly moving performance as he moves from restrained verses to soaring bridge and final chorus. And, as evidenced by lines like “People say I’m a drinker, but I’m sober half the time,” it’s funny, too, but not jokey in the manner of some earlier honky-tonk pastiches. It’s no wonder that the great Alejandro Escovedo favors this song and recorded a fine version of it himself. - CH

“Crooked Officer” – Geto Boys (from Til Death Do Us Part, 1993)

I’ve written a lot about the Geto Boys – one in particular – and, while 1993 is not the most renowned (or infamous) year for the Houston rap groundbreakers, it was one of the best and most successful. Their follow-up to We Can’t Be Stopped and their first album following the departure of key member Willie D, Til Death Do Us Part is a roaring and rumbling collection that doubles down on their earned reputation for lyrical intensity and bass-rattling tracks. “Crooked Officer,” a Top 10 hit on the Rap chart (and a Top 40 R&B hit, to boot), is a demonstration of the fact that – as much as the group was known for over-the-top scare tactics – they were just as often and just as convincingly concerned with the real-life scare tactics employed by the official arms of the U.S. Terrordome. Scarface, Bushwick Bill, and newcomer Big Mike unleash their distinctive lyrical fire over organ-driven funk that draws from the traditions that fueled the “Dirty South” and responds to their West Coast remixes in the G-Funk era. Their peak wouldn’t last much longer, but – in more ways than one – they went down swinging. - CH

“The Indifference of Heaven” (live) – Warren Zevon (from Learning to Flinch, 1993)

For a minute there, it seemed like everyone was unplugging. After the surprise smash success of Eric Clapton’s 1992 MTV album, official and unofficial “unplugged” sets appeared in ‘93 by artists from Arrested Development to Rod Stewart. Warren Zevon’s Learning to Flinch is one of the best, featuring crisp and affecting versions of the celebrated singer-songwriter’s well-known tracks and deep cuts. His take on “The Indifference of Heaven,” a relatively recent release, is my favorite. Whereas the studio version is cramped by a stuttering rhythm and swampy sound, this spare take – backed only by Zevon’s jangling acoustic guitar – amplifies the tender desperation at the song’s core. Zevon sometimes gets pegged as a smirking cynic, which he was. But the quaver in his voice on punchlines like “Nothing left but the sound of the front door closing forever” reveal that he was a hopeless romantic too, and a pop-minded one at that. - CH

“The Hoochi Coochi Coo” – Taj Mahal (from Dancing the Blues, 1993)

Taj Mahal’s Dancing the Blues is one of the most purely enjoyable albums of his illustrious career. Nothing on it works better than his faithful version of Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ playful “The Hoochi Coochi Coo.” Mahal doesn’t mess with it - he keeps its insistent punctuating saxophone, swinging rhythm, and raucous background vocals. But it isn’t broke, so Mahal rocks with it, a vibrant example of how rarely his retro exercises sacrificed pleasure in the name of respectful re-creation. As this song teaches, in the grand scheme, we’d all do better to be more like Sue bopping in the kitchen instead of her disapproving parents in the next room. - CH

“Hero” – David Crosby (feat. Phil Collins) (from Thousand Roads, 1993)

Of all the boomer-rock comebacks that characterized this period, few are more surprising than that of David Crosby. This is partly because of the well-documented personal struggles that nearly sidelined him for good, but it’s also because he hadn’t even made a solo record since 1971’s spaced-out If I Could Remember My Name. And yet he scored a #3 Mainstream Rock hit with the crunchy “Drive My Car” in 1989 and hit the same number on Adult Contemporary (and went Pop Top 40) in 1993 with this Phil Collins collaboration. “Drive My Car” is too lead-footed for me, but this airy, cascading ballad hits right, with Crosby wondering whether the myths of the past hold any wisdom for the present. It’s got a bit of that fuzzy nostalgia that became de rigeur for this cohort, but it’s dissolved in Crosby’s sweet melancholy and Collins’ able, gentle arrangement. Maybe it’s only shlock ‘n’ roll, but I still like it. - CH

“Can’t Cry Anymore” – Sheryl Crow (from Tuesday Night Music Club, 1993)

The breakthrough of Tuesday Night Music Club gave Sheryl Crow bigger and more definitive hits, but the swaggering “Can’t Cry Anymore” (which just cracked the Top 40) is still my favorite from the album and on my shortlist for her overall. Armed with the blend of Stones crunch, dusty-groove rhythms and pop hooks that became her trademark, Crow hits the road and says goodbye to the old ways – or at least tries to, since her voice betrays an occasional uncertainty even as the clapping rhythms push her forward. The importance of getting out, either as a temporary refuge or permanent escape, proved a central theme for her, and “Can’t Cry Anymore” is a less anthemic but no less effective example of Crow’s urge for going. It’s a rock-solid reminder of the sounds and spirit that made her a crucial figure in ‘90s pop and kept her an enduring icon of influence and inspiration. - CH

“Common Dust” – The Roots (from Organix, 1993)

Before they became acclaimed artists, genre-unifying stars, legacy curators, and national treasures, The Roots were a Philadelphia-based collective of musicians and MCs finding their place within the city’s intersecting spoken-word, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop communities, as well as within its legendary musical history. The group has always carried the weight and expectation of those histories – sometimes more comfortably, other times less so – but their first album Organix, released only in Europe on a brief sojourn to London, shows the young group finding their footing early. On the guitar-driven “Common Dust,” for example, Black Thought and Kid Crumbs place themselves within the traditions, using the title image to explain the communal roles of the music and culture. Underneath it all, of course, are Questlove’s drums, striking, snapping, and propelling as the group’s then-unique mix of rap vocals and live band find the grooves they’d ride to worldwide stardom. Comparatively few people heard this album in ‘93, but those who did must have understood at least some of what was coming. - CH

Reading recommendations

Chris O’Leary on The Bee Gees and Bob Stanley’s biography of them, on his Patreon

Caryn Rose on The Who’s Who’s Next: Life House, for Pitchfork

Kate Nelson on Reservation Dogs, for The Daily Beast

Keith Harris on The Replacements and Tim, for Racket

David Cantwell on The Replacements and Bob Mehr’s Trouble Boys, for The New Yorker

Alfred Soto on Barbara Stanwyck, at Humanizing the Vacuum

Taylor Crumpton on hip-hop and the devil, for The Face

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