Alphabet Soup Week 28: The N Tracks

As I continue my walking journey along the South West Coast Path, Alphabet Soup ticks over into week 28 and the N Tracks!

Welcome to week 28 of Alphabet Soup, coming to you from the Waterfront Hotel in the village of Westward Ho! in North Devon, the only place name in the British Isles with an exclamation point in its name.

I noticed while writing this week’s column that there were four tracks from 1994 and it reminded me of what an incredible year that was for music, at least for my musical tastes.

Excluding this week’s playlist, 13 albums released in 1994 have already appeared in my playlists through the first half of the year. And we still haven’t even touched a bunch of fantastic 1994 releases from artists like Beck, Massive Attack, The Cranberries, Weezer, Nas, Stone Temple Pilots and many more. While I recognize there’s clearly a selection bias going on as a result of limiting the musical universe for this series to albums that I used to physically own on CD, 1994 still feels like a standout year.

That got me thinking about what THE BEST single year for music was in my lifetime (it may well actually be 1994 for me). This isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about before, and I’m not sure how I would even begin to try and answer the question.

To start with, the list would have to be a purely subjective one; it would be MY list. The first challenge, one that might prove insurmountable before we even get out of the gate, would be to come up with a definitive list of albums that came out for each year. No matter what source I used (assuming I could even find the same source to use for every year from 1971 to present), I would surely miss some of the more obscure albums that really resonated with me.

Then there’s the challenge of choosing the perspective from which I view the albums. Am I looking at every year’s albums as 2024 me? Or am I looking at them as I was when I first experienced the music? While some of the music I listened to in my formative years, from 1984 to 1994, may not stand out to an outside observer, the powerful emotions intrinsically tied to that music would likely push some of those individual years up in my rankings.

It’s certainly not something I’m going to figure out anytime soon, but it’s an interesting thought experiment and something I may consider digging into next year when I have some more time.

Until then, I ask you, Dear Reader, what’s the single best year for music (for you) that you can think of? What are some of the artists and albums that stand out to you from that year? And why? Please let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear!

Let’s dive into this week’s playlist . . .

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ALPHABET SOUP WEEK 28: The N Tracks

This week’s selections:

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TRACK: “Numb” from Dummy (1994)

ARTIST: Portishead

If you’ve been following Alphabet Soup this year you’ll have no doubt recognized my love of late 90s trip hop acts such as Mono, Morcheeba, Massive Attack and Sneaker Pimps. While Massive Attack’s 1991 release Blue Lines is widely seen (particularly in hindsight) as the first trip hop album, it was ultimately Portishead’s Dummy that hooked me to the genre (it’s also one of my Desert Island Discs). The album was universally acclaimed upon release and won the 1995 Mercury Music Prize as the best UK album. Numb, the lead single, would turn out to be the least successful of the three singles as both follow-ups (Sour Times and Glory Box) would reach #13 in the UK Singles Chart. The album would go on to be certified triple platinum in the UK and is listed at #131 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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TRACK: “Naveed” from Naveed (1994)

ARTIST: Our Lady Peace

From one stunning debut album to another with Our Lady Peace’s Naveed, also released in 1994. Naveed was the fifth and final single from the album, which has been certified 4x platinum in Canada. While not my favorite album of theirs (that honor goes to the 1997 follow-up Clumsy), it was nonetheless my introduction to a band that I followed religiously for their first four albums before losing touch with them (as happened with many Canadian bands once I left Canada after graduation) after their 2000 release Spiritual Machines. I’m currently listening to, and very much enjoying, 2021’s Spiritual Machines II and beginning to think I should go back and give some of those five intervening albums a listen.

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TRACK: “Nautical Disaster” from Day For Night (1994)

ARTIST: The Tragically Hip

Such is the level of love and respect for The Tragically Hip in Canada that the term “legendary” likely understates the importance of the band in the country’s collective psyche. This is the third appearance for the band in Alphabet Soup as Courage and Grace, Too appeared in weeks 6 and 14 respectively. Nautical Disaster, the third single from the 1994 album Day For Night, was one of the two songs performed by the band in their 1995 Saturday Night Live performance.

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As you make your way through this week’s playlist, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these tracks really stand out for you? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Please click the button below to leave a comment.

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TRACK: “No Aloha” from Last Splash (1993)

ARTIST: The Breeders

I was only on The Breeders bandwagon for one short ride, that being their second album, 1993’s Last Splash. But oh what a ride it was! I likely first heard of the band when Cannonball, the first single from the album, was released in August 1993. Given how much I loved the album back then, I’m surprised I never went back and listened to their debut album Pod.  In researching this week’s column, I learned that  Pod appeared on Kurt Cobain’s list of the 50 albums most responsible for Nirvana’s sound (see the image of the full list below).

Sadly, as a result of guitarist Kelley Deal’s 1995 drug bust, the band ended up on hiatus for the better part of a decade, only reuniting in 2002 to release Title TK. Since then, the band has released two additional albums and are currently supporting Olivia Rodrigo on some of the dates on her Guts World Tour.

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TRACK: “Never Let Me Down Again” from The Singles 86-98 (1998)

ARTIST: Depeche Mode

Although Depeche Mode has featured on a couple other Joy in the Journey playlists, this is only their second appearance on Alphabet Soup (Stripped appeared in week 7). While we had several of DM’s albums on CD (my wife Tina was a big fan), I’m not sure whether we actually had 1987’s Music For The Masses on which Never Let Me Down appears. But we definitely had the singles compilations (81-85 and 86-98), both of which saw heavy airplay over the years. It’s hard to believe the band is still going so strong over 40 years after they first started, now with 15 albums under their belt, including last year’s wonderful Memento Mori, a release that just missed making my AOTY list.

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TRACK: “Number One Blind” from American Thighs (1994)

ARTIST: Veruca Salt

Last week’s playlist included the title track from Nina Gordon’s first solo album, 2000’s Tonight and The Rest of My Life. This week we feature a track from her work with Veruca Salt in the form of Number One Blind from the band’s 1994 debut album American Thighs. The album generally received positive reviews, with Spin Magazine ranking it number 8 on their list of the 20 best albums of 1994 and Rolling Stone ranking it number 21 on their list of the best alternative rock albums of the year.

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TRACK: “Never Take Me Alive” from Dark Side of the 80s (2003)

ARTIST: Spear Of Destiny

I'm fairly sure Never Take Me Alive is the only track by British band Spear of Destiny that I've ever heard. It found its way into our CD collection on the fantastic 2-CD 40-track compilation Dark Side of the 80s. The track originally appeared on the band's fourth studio album, 1987's Outland and was their most successful single, peaking at #14 on the UK Singles Chart.

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TRACK: “Nirvana” from Love (1985)

ARTIST: The Cult

Another appearance from the Cult on Alphabet Soup as Hollow Man from the same album, 1985's Love, featured in week 16. This was the album that broke the band wide open, particularly in the UK where it spent 22 weeks in the charts, peaking at number 4. Nirvana, the  opening track, sets the tone for the album as a shift in direction for the band away from the darker post-punk and goth of their 1984 debut and towards a more psychedelic-tinged classic rock sound. It would serve as a transitional album to the even harder sound that came with 1987's Electric, which was a real banger.

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TRACK: “New Year’s Day” from War (1983)

ARTIST: U2

Back in May, friend of Joy in the Journey Steve Goldberg covered U2's 1983 album War in his always excellent Earworms and Song Loops Substack. It was probably the first time I'd even thought of that album in a couple decades and I spent much of the next couple weeks revisiting it.

Here's what I wrote in the comments section of Steve's post about how I came to learn about and love this album:

"War was the first U2 album I ever heard, funnily enough not until the summer of 1984 by the time it reached my ears. One of my classmates had an end of year party for the summer after grade 8 (also the first time I ever smoked pot, but that’s a story for another day).

One of my old friends from grade school showed up with a batch of awesome and new to me music including this album. He’d been away at boarding school for years and was just the coolest cat when he returned. I borrowed his copy of the album, in a 1+1 cassette format that had the full album on both sides. I had a stereo that could continuously play both sides of a cassette over and over again. And, no joke, I probably had this album on repeat in my bedroom all night for a couple weeks that summer.

This will always be my favorite U2 album."

An excellent album indeed.

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TRACK: “No One's Gonna Love You” from Cease To Begin (2007)

ARTIST: Band of Horses

I had a brief love affair with Seattle band Band of Horses for a couple albums beginning in 2007 with their second studio album Cease To Begin. The album was critically acclaimed upon release and became their most successful album at that point in their career, reaching number 35 on the Billboard 200. No One's Gonna Love You, the second single from the album, is a track I love and one which has made its way into My All-Time Favorite Songs Spotify playlist. After 2010's Infinite Arms, whether driven by changes to their sound or to my musical tastes (or perhaps both), I kinda fell out of love with their music. I've listened to all the albums but for some reason the last few don't really do it for me.

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Week 2 on the South West Coast Path

My wife and I are now nine days in to our epic 630-mile hike of the UK’s South West Coast Path. Here are some photos taken since my last post on Friday:

Thanks, as always, for reading, I truly appreciate it. I’m hoping to get back to publishing on Wednesdays as has been my custom for most of the year. But it’s not a standard I’m gonna hold myself to arbitrarily. I’ll just see how the days go and whether I feel like writing on any given day. If I’m able to string sufficient writing sessions together then I’ll see you next Wednesday. If not, I’ll see you when I see you!

Until then, here’s hoping that life treats you well. Peace.

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Here’s the link to the running playlist which is updated on a weekly basis as each new installment is published:

ALPHABET SOUP RUNNING PLAYLIST

Tracks missing from the Spotify playlist:

• Allegory by Murray Attaway (Week 02)

• Face Me and Smile by The Lover Speaks (Week 12)

• From Your Mouth by God Lives Underwater (Week 13)

• This Can’t Go On! by The Lover Speaks (Week 23)

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Thank you for reading Joy in the Journey, I appreciate you being here! If there’s someone in your life you think may enjoy this post, feel free to share it.