1998 in music. • Page 7

Dizzy Up The Girl is great for a lot of reasons, but a big one is they hadn't fully morphed into hot AC yet so there was still some edge to the production and performances along with A+ songwriting. The big instrumental in "All Eyes On Me" with the ripping solo and the flailing drum fills WITH the strings? Perfect blend of where they were and where they were going.

 

They definitely get much glossier, that's for sure.

 

i think my favorite goo goo dolls song is here is gone

 

"Here Is Gone" is the bomb. "Big Machine" is my favorite on Gutterflower, I think.

 

Their most underrated track. Right on par with the absolute killers on that album.

 

Gutterflower rules too. "Think About Me" is my favorite on that one.

 

Yeah, I love that one too.

 

Yes

 

1. Pearl Jam - Yield
2. Korn - Follow the Leader
3. REM - Up

 

Gave Follow the Leader a spin. It had me for the first 3 songs and then it gets pretty dull and repetitive. Have to give them credit though. They really were the one nu metal band with a coherent sonic aesthetic that was trying to find a new path forward for heavy music. So much of the genre just sounds muddy and awful and underproduced, but you can't level that claim at Korn.

 

Try Orgy's Candyass

 

i mean, deftones also did this haha

 

Sure, just worse

 

ok

 

they pretty clearly found a new path for what a heavy band can do and did it cohesively about as good as any band can lol. you just don’t like them, which is fine. that doesn’t mean they did a bad job at it.

 

I don't really think of them as nu metal, though they get lumped in there. They really were as much a straight metal band.

But you're correct, they did have a clear sonic identity.

 

I just have to echo this once again as I give another revisit to Dizzy Up The Girl. I kinda recall liking "January Friend" when this album was popular, but hearing it right now sandwiched between "Broadway" and "Black Balloon", woof. No offense to Robby intended whatsoever, but it's just a rough listen comparatively.

 

I think the New York rock critic establishment was always super annoyed they had to give column inches to, before the term was widely used, normie-type music. Similar thing happened in the the nu metal era. Spin magazine so desperately kept trying to push electronic music on the masses but had to begrudgingly put the likes of Limp Bizkit and Dave Matthews Band on their cover haha.

 

The Robby songs on A Boy Named Goo are better. You could get an idea of the band no longer being a democracy in the DUTG era simply by their stage set-up. When they toured A Boy Named Goo they still played as a 3-piece with Johnny and Robby on one side of the stage. Once Dizzy hit, Johnny was front and center with the made-up hair, etc.

I still will vouch that the run from Superstar Car Wash-Gutterflower is one of the best pop/rock runs of any band.

 

Yeah, you're totally right. I think that, plus the Pitchfork snobbery of the early days, is why a lot of those bands have been reclaimed by the generation that grew up with them, who have now come out of the woodwork (many of them as critics themselves!) to say "Actually, this was always great."

 

The Hieroglyphics album from this years is really good too

 

On Superstar Car Wash, Johnny and Robby were dead even, and then again on Gutterflower. In between, Johnny found the magic and pulled away for a bit.

 

Like...Dizzy Up the Girl has Benmont Tench on it and strings by David Campbell. For people to have ever pretended it was hackery is so disqualifying to me for a critic.

 

Billboard did an interesting write-up on Follow The Leader, Devil Without A Cause and Candyass (which were all, believe it or not, released on the same day in 1998).

How Korn, Kid Rock and Orgy Made August 18, 1998 the Biggest Day in Nu-Metal History | Billboard – Billboard

I don't think any of these albums are front-to-back great but interesting points made by the writer. He seemed to enjoy Candyass the most.

 

"Stitches" by Orgy is a GREAT song, with no irony or anything else needing to be attached to that statement. And I will die on that hill lol