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What were you listening to in 1996?

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11:02 / 03.09.03

What music were you listening to in the academic years 1995/6 and 1996/7? How old were you and how did the music you picked relate to how you felt about yourself at the time? Responses from people who were angry, fucked-up, goth/punk 15/16yo boys confused about their sexuality are particularly welcome.

I was, um, 20-22 at that time and listening to David Byrne, Tori Amos, and other cleverish, metaphor-driven singers backed by instruments other than guitars. Also Britpop, probably. I don't know, I have a terrible memory. I mostly wanted people who put words to emotions in a way that allowed me to feel like stupid people weren't allowed to have those emotions. God, I was horrible.

Tryphena Absent

11:14 / 03.09.03

PJ Harvey, Pulp, Elastica, Hole. I was about 13/14, majorly denying the fact that I was bisexual and knowing that it was stupid to even try. I felt completely alone but wasn't particularly lonely, my head felt so full up that there wasn't room to be particularly social. Most of the music I was listening to let me feel okay about things, it was either introspective or very extravagant, sometimes both at the same time. I was angry but didn't show it unless I was in a particularly aggressive situation. Most of my friends were pretty tomboyish and listened to terrible music (Bon Jovi springs to mind) but in retrospect I didn't like most of them anyway and they were just convenient.

11:24 / 03.09.03

what a great question!
that was a great time for me because i was at college (sixth form) and started going to alternative clubs that played punk and old grunge stuff. i got a ring in my nose and thought it looked cute! i wore bindis and never wore make-up.

i loved beck to bits and went to every festival i could. highlights were pavement playing to like 54 people sinking in the mud at glastonbury 1997; catching massive attack & bjork as the sun set at phoenix 1996 and the foo fighters at reading.

i guess the music meant a lot to me because the school i went to was pretty straight laced and i was suddenly at this cool college with no uniforms and lots of cute boys and my parents didn't care how late i got home so all i did was be free. which sounds lame but it's so true. i dumped my boyfriend and got rid of the popular clique of girls i hung with at school and became best friends with a wild girl called lucy. we would sit at the back of the classroom nursing hangovers and wearing huge cobain sunglasses.

i hated britpop so mainly listened to stuff like sonic youth and royal trux and julie ruin and sebadoh and pharcyde. oh yeah and i hated the prodigy! remember they were really big in 1996/7 with that shitty smack your bitch up. if they played that in clubs, i'd protest!

Goodness Gracious Meme

12:34 / 03.09.03

Crikey, that was final year of degree and year in wilderness (living at home/trying to pretend was still at uni, working as accountant/secretary/machinist). 20-22.

95/96 Pulp, Blur, Radiohead, Hole, Nirvana, Sugar/Husker Du,the Prodigy. In complete denial about how badly wrong things were emotionally, post-breakdown. So angry/'clever', angry/basic music, i guess.

Burning candle at all ends, finally enjoying degree/trying to do three years' work in 4months but also conscious of disappearing social space so going out loads. hitting books during day, clubbing in london evenings - megatripolis/heavenly social - ooh, chemical brothers, yes. anything on here played to death

Take That after being *dragged* to see them, Spice Girls. obsessed with 'Wannabe' (the sound of a factory summer job)

Oasis - Dont look back in anger incredibly reminiscent of last-orders singing in the SU. drunk.

The orb(story of my college years, along with pulp/nirvana!), klf, brian eno ambient, Richie Hawtin, Orbital/The Shamen (going to things like tribal gathering). Gong/steve hillage/david bowie/brian eno/ - playing in spacerock(!) band. lot of drugs. the flipside of complete denial, i can see there was alot of fun there as well. Dub and dope.

1996/1997 Hallucinogenic/Doof/ other (pyschedlic) trance stuff-incredibly evocative of the house my then partner was living in 96/97. he was guitar boy, the rest of them were playing/making/dj'ing lots of 'doofdoofdoof/*swirly noises* stuff. Drum 'n bass. Fat basslines/free parties *g*

makes me think of a club in colchester, on a barge, kind of place where they come round with fruit at 6am *g* mushrooms/spirals/flouro....you get the idea!

=escapism/idealism- in staggeringly ineffective hippy way! ambitions to start 'ecstasy club'-style communal living space/social experiment!
oh, fewer drugs. but alot of comradeship/safe space/belonging.

And alot of refusal to recognise that life moves on, pretending to be a student forever not an option, wanting stasis, even though now i can see what i had was pretty shite. (97/98 was much better!)

ooh, that was fun. and sure i've forgotten loads but i'll shut up now.

why those years, Deva?

13:47 / 03.09.03

I think I was listening to Nirvana, the Manics, Oasis, that sorta thing.

Gimmee a break - I was 14.

Why? Well I dunno. I guess it's just the obvious kind of stuff that teenage boys who've discovered rock music but haven't quite got the drop of it yet gravitate towards..

Beck's 'Odelay' also, which is about the only record I've got from that time that I'm still likely to really enjoy listening to. Elastica's album too actually, except I don't remember when I bought that.. it could have been a bit later..

14:34 / 03.09.03

why those years, Deva?

Fic research suggested those years particularly (did I not give it away in the first post? They're Harry's fifth and sixth years), but I thought people might find it a fun question to answer if someone came up with a specific year. (Plus, it's long enough ago for '1996 me' to be safely distanced, but recent enough for me to remember how I felt. Plus I was at a club in Melbourne last month where they kept playing Nirvana, Hole, Blur & Pulp and it made me nostalgic.)

Tryphena Absent

15:09 / 03.09.03

Harry the Britpop kid.

Something about that warms my cold heart.

16:55 / 03.09.03

a lot of industrial ,nine inch nails, ministry, kmfdm... still listen to them today. i still have those mix tapes from those years. i must have been 13 or 14. if it wasn't industrial it was probably pj harvey and blur. i don't know if it was an angst thing but i was very angry at school for some reason and i guess i just needed something loud to drown out the frustration. this led to a period of listening to pink floyd. i guess it was the hating school thing. listened to the wall a lot, but always from beginning to end. no skipping tracks. but damn... i'm going to unearth all the old mix tapes from that period... they were so ecclectic.

17:06 / 03.09.03

Ooh! Track listings from mix tapes from the period would be joyfully received. (I might be able to reciprocate on that one, actually. Hmmm.)

(And Cho - I thought that was a lovely answer. the longer & more detailed/explanatory the better, as far as I'm concerned.)

18:00 / 03.09.03

I was a fairly appalling more-indie-than-thou snob in 1996 - did a great deal of sitting around in my room thinking about how nobody understood apart from my Whipping Boy record, and how I wished I had some real friends who might at least have heard of Urusei Yatsura and Animals That Swim.

Professor Silly

19:59 / 03.09.03

Great question!!!

I would have been in my mid-twenties...junior and senior year in college. My favorite album from that time was undeniably Mr. Bungle's "Disco Volante." This was also the time I got my first Melvins and Jesus Lizard albums, "Stag" and "Shot" (respectively). These two bands quickly became favorites.
I also would have been exploring Zorn's Naked City material, starting with my still-favorite, "Radio."
...and Angelo Badalimente -- the "Twin Peaks" stuff.

Oddly enough, I also really liked (and still like, in many ways) No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom."

OHHH. And Zappa...lots of Frank Zappa. (I didn't remember that at first because I only listened to Zappa after getting really stoned....ah, the memories of college....

Locust No longer

20:31 / 03.09.03

Seven years ago I was fourteen so I was probably listening to Fugazi, Minor Threat, and anaracho crust punk like Resist, State of Fear, Code 13, Doom, and Hiatus. In fact I loved Hiatus. Actually, I still really like those Belgians. I like Fugazi more now than I did at the time, but like Minor Threat less(although they still are the most influential band of that time). I was heavily into any anarcho punk I could get my hands on especially records from the Profane Existence label. Ah, the memories.

I suppose those bands all helped me vent the destructive anger I felt towards society and school. I think much of that music helped shape my political views and made my general mistrust for authority and systems more acceptable to me. Before bands like Minor Threat I thought I was all alone in the world, and they helped show me that anger was a very important and constructive feeling. I wasn't the only fucked up weirdo after all. I think I might just go and listen to some State of Fear when I get back home.

21:04 / 03.09.03

did a great deal of sitting around in my room thinking about how nobody understood apart from my Whipping Boy record, and how I wished I had some real friends who might at least have heard of Urusei Yatsura and Animals That Swim.

aah - a passtime that never loses it's appeal..

22:10 / 03.09.03

Further fun activities included - but were in no way limited to - writing fan letters to Placebo and reading enough Manics interviews that the phrase '4real' appeared to be an entirely fair (and in no way ironic) phrase to describe anything of which I approved...

Matthew Fluxington

22:12 / 03.09.03

1996 was a major year for me, in terms of music. At the time, I was 16 and 17, and I was really intense about everything. Some of my favorite bands were at a peak in that period, too. Some 1995 releases that I was still heavy into then were Pavement's Wowee Zowee, Sonic Youth's Washing Machine, and The Smashing Pumpkins's Mellon Collie. The former two remain a couple of my all-time favorite records.

I was really heavy into the Pumpkins at that point. If you travelled back to 1996 and asked me what my favorite band was, I probably would've told you that it was the Pumpkins. Or maybe REM. Though I intensely loved Pavement, it didn't fully occur to me that they are by far my favorite band til Brighten The Corners came out in '97.

I was still into Pearl Jam in 1996 - that's when No Code came out, and I was really excited about that. I was still new to Fugazi, so I was buying up their back catalog, and listening to Red Medicine and In On The Kill Taker all the time.

I was very into Oasis, and liked Radiohead's The Bends a lot. Britpop wouldn't fully hit me til the next year, but when it hit, it would be enormous for me.

In 1996, I started listening to Belle & Sebastian. I'm honestly not trying to sound snobby about it, but I got into them really, really early on, I bought If You're Feeling Sinister as a new release the first time it was a new release, if you get me. That record felt really new and special, it wasn't much like anything I had liked before. (Mind you, I really kinda hated the Smiths til I was 19 or 20. A friend of mine used to play them all the time, and I only ever liked "Ask" and "How Soon Is Now")

I started listening to Sleater-Kinney in 1996 because I read about them in SPIN. I listened to Call The Doctor all the time, which annoyed some of my friends who hated them.

R.E.M.'s New Adventures In Hi-Fi came out in '96, but I didn't like it as much at first as I would later on.

There's other stuff, but it's not as relevant. I was always buying CMJ and listening to their samplers. I found lots of good stuff that way.

22:16 / 03.09.03

1996 and I was 14, and was basically educating myself with pop via the delights of the Evening Session. Stuff I remember is things like Three Colours Red, Urusei Yatsura, more Arab Strap than is healthy at that age, lots of Symposium, OK Computer went down as one of the first proper albums I bought, 97 would also make it the Colour and the Shape and the Propellerheads album, two tapes worn to near shreds; umm, and the beginnings of (shudder) the whole big beat thing?

Let's face it, I sucked a bit. I even bought the fucking Seahorses album, to my shame.

12:44 / 04.09.03

aah - Symposium.. whatever happened to them? Something horrible hopefully. I remember hearing them play live on the radio and really liking 'em - it was like noisy dumb punk-pop stuff with catchy melodies, so I went and bought a CD by them and it was absolute shite.. just really sloppy, whiny indie ballads..

13:19 / 04.09.03

Well, the early stuff, especially the One Day at a Time EP was loud and shouty. I think the later stuff went all moody.

Half of them - the drummer and rythmn guitarist, IIRC - are now in Hell is for Heroes. Who I rather like, even if no-one else does.

14:09 / 04.09.03

M. Fifteen to seventeen.

I spent the first part of those years with a boyfriend who was obsessed with Nine Inch Nails. I tried to like them, for him. Despite listening to their then-current repetoire over and over and over again, I couldn't stand it. Never wound up liking the boy, either. I listened to a lot of AC/DC because I wanted to be more like my older brother. Most of my musical taste, at fifteen/sixteen, was influenced by people I wanted to identify with. I like to think I got over it.

I liked Live, on my own, and the Pumpkins. I listened to the song Counting Blue Cars over and over and over again (female godform, death, and the wisdom of children?) and it's still one of my nostalgic favourites though I have never intentionally listened to anything else by Dishwalla. During those years, I also picked up a Cranberries habit, in part because I thought the chick was really hot, though I'd deny that until thinking about it just now. I was straight, after all.

Years later, I've grown to appreciate Trent on my own, and the penchant for metal I blame my brother for has shifted to liking modern melodic metal that nods its head to what was good about the old. I'm musically catching up with myself, as it were. I still like opinionated Irish women.

14:26 / 04.09.03

Responses from people who were angry, fucked-up, goth/punk 15/16yo boys confused about their sexuality are particularly welcome.

Oh, and my then-(angry, fucked-up, goth/punk 16-18yo boy confused about his sexuality) was, at the time, obsessed with Nirvana, a few punk bands I've STILL never heard of, the Pumpkins, and Nine Inch Nails.

We've actually talked a lot about music/this approximate time period as one important in our development/feelings/whatever over the years that we've been friends, so I'll try explaining a bit for Deva... A lot of it had to do with the raw emotion in people's voices - these were well-known obviously-male figures that, unlike the stereotype we've all been presented with and he saw a lot in his daily life, were obviously experiencing some emotional state. Usually quite pained. He was just starting to go off the deep end of bipolar and moving a couple hundred miles and leaving friends behind in the middle of that time and feeling pretty abandoned, lonely, confused, and hard on himself. That and completely unsure of how to deal with this overwhelming-emotions thing, which relates to the music pretty much directly.

Hrm. I can't seem to escape the formerly NIN-obsessed. Maybe it's a personality type for boys that like black and express emotions. Maybe it just really is that common.

20:11 / 04.09.03

Ages 16-18.

Touch & Go (GVSB, Kepone,) Dischord (Fugazi,) Big Cat (Shudder to Think.) Afghan Whigs, Come. Still liked Smashing Pumpkins, tho' I stopped sometime around then.

Was growing out of metal - before then it'd been all FNM, Metallica, Kyuss and the like round my bit. But I still dug Tool, and still do.

20:13 / 04.09.03

And, obviously, you can't actually grow out of metal.

Y'always go back, though there's not much.

And I wasn't particularly struck by gender-crisis, sorry.

Murray Hamhandler

23:44 / 04.09.03

95/96 was my first (and only, for a long time afterwards) year of college, attended whilst still living w/my parents. 96/97 was my "Lost Year", a good portion of which was spent homeless (my admittedly half-assed solution to not living w/my parents any longer). All I had on me during that period was a backpack filled with notebooks and tapes. Music got me through that mess, to be sure. I would've been 18-19 during that period, I think (although I was still 17 when I started college).

So let's see then: lots of Sebadoh's Harmacy. Cibo Matto. Soul Coughing. Juliana Hatfield's Hey Babe. The aforementioned New Adventures In Hi-Fi (REM), Washing Machine (Sonic Youth), Disco Volante, (Mr. Bungle) and Wowee Zowee (Pavement). Yo La Tengo's Electr-O-Pura. Sammy. The Kids soundtrack, ad nauseum. The last Alice In Chains album, strangely enough. I discovered Sleater Kinney (s/t), Tricky (Pre-Millennium Tension) and Massive Attack (Protection) in late '96. Electronic music in general was brand new to me and a bit awe-inspiring (see: Orb's U.F.Orb, Oval and the first two Microstoria albums). Overall, relatively un-sunny and somewhat disconnected music, reflective of my mindset at the time.

The music from that particular period reminds me more of a specific time in my life than any other music does. I love it, but it's a little hard to listen to sometimes, if only for the memories dredged up.

02:17 / 05.09.03

i was 18, 19-ish, then... somehow had deluded myself into thinking i was actually a punk or somethin' since the youthful age of 16, and the delusion was still going strong all through college. was starting my second year of college in '95, studying everything from politics to media studies to modern lit to buddhism, had a comic strip in the daily college paper, was the graphics grrl for the infamous school satire mag. black hair was manic panic-ed to a lovely glowing shade of emerald green, later red, then eventually faded to a horrible orangey blonde. got my first tattoo back then. piercings. you know the drill. listened to rites of spring. violent society. the suspects. the bouncing souls. sleater-kinney. the make-up. guess it went with the brash, flamboyant, "i'm fuckin' smart and a fuckin' good student so who the fuck cares what i look like put yr eyes back in yr head or i'll poke 'em out" kind of attitude. although i've actually always been rather shy and quiet by nature.

in moodier moments, it was mogwai. ride. pulp. and rites of spring, 'natch. hmm, i remember now, the first time i heard mogwai was in 1995, actually, opening for pavement. utterly orgasmic bittersweetness. sigh. i soon lost interest in pavement after that mind blow by mogwai.

hardcore on the outside, a sentimental fool on the inside, really!

Danzig: He Pitys the Fool!

10:58 / 05.09.03

In answer your question Rizla, Symposium split up many moons ago. A couple of them then formed Hell is for Heroes, who are infinitely better.

In '96 I was 18 and listening to a lot of industrial. The usual stuff KMFDM, Front 242, Front Line Assembly etc. Used to hang around a club in Southampton called The Dungeon. It was(and still is) much more squalid than a dungeon, but the DJ played what I wanted to hear.

13:11 / 05.09.03

Like I said.

14:41 / 05.09.03

Deva:
"Ooh! Track listings from mix tapes from the period would be joyfully received."

I think this one 'ere is from late 1996, and it must have been the first tape I did for a complete stranger ('96 was the year I got access to the interweb at work). Still one of my favourite comps for doing the washing up to. It totally doesn't reflect my latest 'thing' at the time, which was lounge(core) and old easy listening stuff. I think all those 'Bachelor Pad' compilations started coming out in 1995.

How old were you and how did the music you picked relate to how you felt about yourself at the time?

I was 28, and I have no idea. All I know is that I had been into noisy stuff for a long time, and I really needed pop (I consider all the stuff below to be pop). The lounge stuff had smashing tunes and nostalgia value (dim memories of songs heard on radio 2 as a tiny nipper). Ah, I remember - it was great for sampling, too, being, in many cases, jazz, with plenty of instrumental breaks and solos.

The Cat's Arse
Side 1
Dinosaur Jr - 'Freak Scene'
The Leopards - 'Cutting a Short Dog'
Super Furry Animals - 'Play it Cool'
Cibo Matto - 'Beef Jerky'
Dawn of the Replicants - 'Lisa Box'
The Fall - 'Inch'
Beck - 'Hollow Log'
Coil - 'Things Happen'
Mercury Rev - 'Something for Joey'
Stereolab - 'Iron Man'
Can - 'Mother Sky'
Cpt Beefheart - 'Sun Zoom Spark'
Wire - 'Options R'

Side 2
Brigitte Bardot - 'St Tropez' (aka Eurotrash theme)
Public Enemy - 'Who Stole the Soul'
Nomeansno - '2 Lips, 2 Lungs and 1 Tongue'
Ice T - 'Fly By'
Minor Threat - 'In My Eyes'
Beck - 'Painted Eyelids'
Ebo Man - 'Do-Nuts With Buddha'
Jesus Lizard - 'Nub'
Lard - 'Hellfudge'
Sukia - 'Dream Machine'
Cibo Matto - 'Sugar Water'
Flaming Lips - 'Xmas at the Zoo'
Nomeansno - 'Oh no! Bruno!"

18:05 / 05.09.03

That's a seriously cool tape. Is the Stereolab track a Black Sabbath cover? Cos that I'd like to hear..

22:15 / 05.09.03

I think I was possibly as far away from a goth/punk into industrial music as it was possible to be. I was 14 /16, and didn't listen to much music at all. What I did listen to was on the radio radio, and I can't remember what. What I do remember is that I really disliked distortion on guitars, because I wanted to be able to hear the melody and harmony on those parts. Similarly, I wasn't interested in anything like dance music, because I thought it was boring and repetative. The music that was really important to me at that age was classical, and I'd guess at least half of it I would have played in the school orchestra or choir.

As for emotional involvement, I can only really tell you about what I played (I don't remember the rest). I choose to play such a large amount because I found playing with a large group of performers was wonderful. It was exhilarating, and a challenge, but most importantly you have a place to belong, whoever / whatever you are. Inside a piece of music the little unit that is you can be left to one side. 1994 - 1997 were the years when I really fell in love with orchestras.

10:10 / 06.09.03

saveloy: i LOVED freak scene! that was like the anthem of my school.

15:10 / 06.09.03

Ok... well those were my formative years.
17 years old, just moved back to London and out of my parents.

What did I listen to?

Suede. Coming Up (god forgive me) and I got incredibly excited about too. To this day I've never been so excited about such a rubbish album. Obviously DMS and Suede albums were still in my CD player, a perenial accessory to match my cords and eyeliner.
Moloko. Do you like my tight Sweater? album was out and my flatmate made me listen to it through the living room walls. I thank him now but back then I wanted him to shut up about that bloody band.
Oddly enough I was also listening to lots of mid-nineties american RnB. The shop I worked in used it as the permanent music on our PA and I grew to love the genre. The Fugees came along and blew my mind.
Other bands/artists to throw in: Supergrass (Lenny era wasn't it?), Gene (I am the only surviving fan), Dannii Minogue (gay-hi-NRG singles), Kylie Minogue (Impossible Princess best Kylie album ever), Blur (was this great escape era? I may have spat on them), MENSWEAR!!!! Oh how quickly we forget, Skunk Anansie, Sleeper (who were still quite good and popular by this point), Ash (just showing their true colours), Minty (art-house darlings), Spice Girls (Say You'll be There - pop became good again), all the romo bands (Orlando, Plastic Fantastic, Dexdexter, Hollywood etc all 1996 though), Super Furry Animals, Gorkys Zygotic Munki, Placebo, Tiger (the mullet returned).

We were avoiding The Manics at all costs, Oasis, Kula Shaker, Baby Bird ("you're gorgeous" on constant rotation for TWO YEARS!!).

Phew... I'm sure I could go on.
I wasn't particuarly 'confused' about my sexuality though. I was a card carrying poof and rampant with it.

07:57 / 10.09.03

Ah... Menswear and Gene. Great days.

I'm bumping this thread to say:

(1) thanks to everyone for wonderful, information-rich, thoughtful and rambling answers
(2) keep 'em coming

11:57 / 10.09.03

I have resisted posting in this thread for quite some time but I have decided to give in. 1996 (hell, all of 1995-7) was (were) such formative years for me: not the best years of my life (though they were in some ways) but really important nonetheless. Consequently, the music that goes with those years is also very important and very emotionally charged. Let's see: Tori Amos was on constant rotation, as were Radiohead, Portishead, Tricky, Bjork, PJ Harvey and Massive Attack. I had just discovered drum'n'bass (latecomer, I know) so Goldie was some sort of god at the time. Archive's first album was also playing in the background. Spice Girls' "2 become 1" and "Who do you think you are?", for some reason, are also very important for very obscure, personal reasons. Texas also became a band I liked, during that time, for the same obscure personal reasons. I became gobsmacked with Material's "Seven Souls" (my first conscious purchase of something that was Laswell-related). Michael Nyman was also someone whose stuff I would play incessantly. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Jeff Buckley were also like some sort of absurd Hindu twin deity in my musical pantheon. Oh, BT, Orbital, Paul van Dyk and Chemical Brothers, too. Some Oasis and a bit more of Blur, too. And some Greek stuff, too.

Fuck, the more I think about it the longer the list becomes. I'll just stop now and dig up all the stuff I mentioned.

14:24 / 10.09.03

Gene.

Fucking Gene.

Fuck, I really fucking hated Gene.

20:25 / 10.09.03

Gene.

Fucking Gene.

Fuck, I really fucking hated Gene.

For my sins I still love them. Their first album has a few emotional connections that I still can't shift.

Powder anyone? Af-ro-dizzie-ac.... oh and Marion, how could I forget Marion?? What the hell happened to them? The new U2 supposedly.

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