When I Was 21, It Was A Very Good Year

…because 1997 was really the year I “got” music in the way some people “get” religion. When I came to college, my entire CD collection fit into a Nike high-top shoebox. When I left, it occupied about 4 entire milk crates. Some of that growth was due to the late, great BMG CD club (which I joined early and often), but most of it was thanks to Rudi, who didn’t know what kind of monster he was creating when he showed me my first issue of Q magazine. It (and the occasional bundled CDs) opened the door wide to British music, and I quickly became a voracious musical Anglophile.

I’d been a big fan of Brit rock (Oasis, Kula Shaker, and Pulp all spent quality time in my CD player), but Q (and the soundtrack to Trainspotting, too) broadened my horizons past jangly guitars. I quickly distanced myself from the Dave Matthews/Rusted Root scene that thrived on campus and dived head-first into electronica, trip-hop, and British pop. ‘97 was the year I became obsessed with Primal Scream, got into arguments over the merit of Future Sound of London’s “Dead Cities,” and turned my writing for my campus newspaper into a weekly review of the latest & greatest in (for the campus populace at large) obscure British music. Good times.

There’s a lot of music that debuted in ‘97 that I discovered & loved much after the fact (Björk’s Homogenic is a prime example), but I decided to give you a list of exactly where my head was at that year. Hope you dig!

1. Primal Scream, “Burning Wheel”
   I never would have discovered the Scream without the soundtrack to Trainspotting. The wordless titular track on the CD intrigued me, and it lead me to the Scream’s ‘97 album Vanishing Point which blew me completely away — I’d never heard anything like it (which, wonderfully, is par for the course for most Scream albums). This opening track from the album sets the table & sums the it up nicely: equal parts late-60’s Stones, Detroit punk, Madchester dance, and hallucinogenic dub, all of it utterly captivating.
2. The Prodigy, “Breathe”
   Remember the firestorm of controversy around The Prodigy? Misogynistic samples (”Smack My Bitch Up”), aggressive songs (”Firestarter”), and a freaky, frightening public face (Keith Flint) took their ‘97 album The Fat Of The Land to #1 in both the US and UK. It didn’t hurt that Fat is loaded with innovative music that was the first truly popular blending of dance music, rock n’ roll, and punk attitude, too. I do believe our culture has turned a corner, tho: just a couple weeks ago, the NBC show used “Smack My Bitch Up” to accompany a fight between two women on an episode of Chuck.
3. David Bowie, “I’m Afraid Of Americans”
   See? I wasn’t the only person to jump into British techno feet-first: David Bowie made Earthling, a whole album steeped in the (then) current jungle/electronica culture. This tune actually owns a lot to the mutual love-fest between Bowie and NIN’s Trent Reznor that was going on at the time — the menacing, fuzzy guitars and pseudo-industrial sheen of the beat could certainly pass for ‘97-era NIN. Reznor actually remixed this track six times over on a CD single (one version features [oddly] Ice Cube rapping), but I still prefer this original. It’s a great, paranoid song.
4. Texas, “Black Eyed Boy”
   This I discovered thanks to one of Q’s year-end best-of CD compilations — I remember the first time I heard it, thinking “who are Texas, and why do they sound so much like the Supremes?” The answers are (1) they’re a Scottish pop band whose fourth album shot them into the stratosphere in their native UK (White On Blonde hit #1 and spawned 5 British top-10 singles) and (2) it turns out they’re masters of classic-sounding blue-eyed soul, hitting the 60’s-throwback-pop mark a decade before Amy Winehouse made it über-popular. Singer Sharleen Spiteri’s voice is a total knockout, innit?
5. Sneaker Pimps, “Walking Zero”
   ‘97 was also a big year for downtempo trip-hop: Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack, and Morcheeba all received a lot of attention, but one of my favorite albums of the year flew pretty well under the rader: the Sneaker Pimps’ Becoming X was a very radio-friendly set of tunes thanks to input from the great Nelle Hooper. “6 Underground” got some attention from radio thanks to its appearance on a number of film soundtracks including The Saint and Cruel Intentions, but my favorite cut is this darker, much more ominous song — love the way the big beats mix with the string samples.
6. The Chemical Brothers, “Setting Sun”
   The Chems’ Dig Your Own Hole was the other big British dance album of the year, and nearly the polar opposite of The Prodigy’s aggro Fat of the Land: it was all big beats, psychedelic sounds, and good times. Instrumental cuts like “The Private Psychedelic Reel” and the Grammy-winning “Block Rockin’ Beats” are solid, but the album soars when the Chems are joined by guest vocalists. Oasis’ Noel Gallagher takes the mic on “Setting Sun,” and the resulting creation is a nifty slice of rough-edged “Tomorrow Never Knows”-inspired techno.
7. The Rolling Stones, “Saint Of Me”
   Bowie wasn’t the only oldie looking for a jolt of youth this year — the Stones recruited hot shots like hte Dust Brothers and Danny Saber to augment their then-standard Don-Was-supplied sound to mixed results. This Dust Brothers-produced tune was the high point of the Bridges to Babylon album, the gospel-inflected mirror image of “Sympathy for the Devil.” The personnel on the song is an interesting mix of band members & guests: Keith Richards is not on the track, so guitar duties are handled by Ronnie Wood and Waddy Wachtel, a member of Keith’s X-Pensive Winos side project; and that’s Me’Shell Ndegeocello filling in on bass.

Download: Primal Scream, “Burning Wheel” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: The Prodigy, “Breathe” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: David Bowie, “I’m Afraid Of Americans” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Texas, “Black Eyed Boy” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Sneaker Pimps, “Walking Zero” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: The Chemical Brothers, “Setting Sun” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: The Rolling Stones, “Saint Of Me” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)