There are many bands over the years that I have been obsessed with. At one point it was Depeche Mode, The Cure, and The Smiths. Then it was Suede, Pulp, Blur, and The Verve. Once your obsession reaches a certain point, I think it never really goes away. Part of it is always there or it just builds and gets bigger and stronger. I have no doubt that these bands will be with me the rest of my life. Depeche Mode and The Cure are my Rolling Stones and The Who. The Smiths are my Beatles. My obsession can live on in Morrissey's solo career much like that of Paul McCartney does for fans of The Beatles. The Verve could not have come at a better time in my life. I sort of needed them. I needed a new band to latch on to and get obsessed with. My shoegaze bands like Ride, The Pale Saints, and Slowdive were starting to break up and dissolve away. The first Blur album had come out a couple of years prior to 1993, but I didn't really get into them until 1993. This was the year of the first Verve album, A Storm in Heaven and also the year of Blur's second album, Modern Life is Rubbish. The album that really made me a fan. 1993 was also the year of the self titled album by Suede and my first Pulp album, His 'N' Hers. Pulp had already been around for a decade or so but I had never heard of them until 1993. I suddenly had all these new bands to obsess over. The albums were all excellent and easy to get obsessed with. Many of my friends, and most everyone else in the world, were all into Oasis, but I remember seeing Oasis in some interview and right then deciding that I didn't want to like this band..but they obviously played a part in this period of music. Their debut album Definitely Maybe would come out a year later in 1994. These bands were also all over the magazines and a lot of my friends were also getting into the same bands. It was just an exciting time for music.

Rhino has finally decided to put out a special box set just for me. If I could imagine up any box set to best describe me and capture my little world of music, it would look something like this new brilliant box set released today by Rhino. The new "Brit Box" is a 4 cd set of the british music from the 80's and 90's that made me who I am. I have many mix tapes that resemble a lot of what is included in this box. Some of them made by me and many made by friends. I can remember the exact moment that I heard some of the songs on this box for the first time. The exact moment that I went to a record store in search of the albums from these artists. There are 78 songs by 78 different artists in this box.

The box is officially called "The Brit Box: U.K. Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit Pop Gems of the Last Millennium." It really looks awesome. The box is shaped like one of those red telephone booths in England. I have never seen one up close but we all know what they look like. It even has a working light. It also comes with an 80 page book of interviews and photos. It includes essays by Alan Mcgee, Stephen Street, and Alan Moulder. It drives me a little crazy when box sets or collections have a random order to the track listing. So it made me happy to see that the tracks are all in a basic order. The box set is not perfect. But it comes really close. I own or have owned at one point almost all of the songs in this box. If I didn't own one of the albums that all these songs were on, then I definitely had a close friend that did. I might have picked a couple different songs for some of these artists and I probably would have included a couple more artists. But overall, the box is very impressive. I really can't wait to open one up and read all those interviews and stories in that fancy little booklet. And I can not wait to listen to all these songs again. I have never stopped listening to most of the bands in this box. The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, The Stone Roses, Lush, Suede, Blur, & Pulp remain some of my favorite bands. It is really hard to even put into words the lasting effect that these bands have had on me and on a whole generation of music fans.

In my continuing series of lists, here is my next list. I was thinking again about how much I love the reissues. Those great 2 CD remastered deluxe versions. I get very excited when my favorite albums get the deluxe treatment. There has been a lot of deluxing over the last couple years of some of my favorites from the 70's and 80's.

But not much from that very important time in music which was the early 90's. I might be a bit biased about this period since this is also the period in which I graduated high school and started college. A period when my obsession with music and bands really developed. There have already been some great Slowdive and Pulp reissues, so those will not be on the list. The first two Ride albums "Going Blank Again" and "Nowhere" have also been reissued. But all these reissues are just imports, so I'm still hopeful they will be cheaper domestic versions out soon. There is a possibility that Morrissey will be going back to Warner! He is currently without a label again. Which is great news, since that is where his catalogue as well as the Smith's resides. It can't be too long until we see some great Rhino style Smiths and Morrissey reissues!

I originally was going to go through my CDs and just grab the ones that stood out from the 90s. When I was done, I looked at all the albums and realized all the bands were from England and all the albums were put out in the early 90's. I also realized these were the dirtiest and most used CD's in my collection. They have been through a lot and have been played many times and traveled all up and down the coast of California. It started out as 10 but quickly changed to 12. I could have easily went on and made a list of 25 but I had to stop somewhere. So here it is....My list of the top 12 british albums of the early 90's that I would like to see reissued...


Lush "Spooky" (1992) 4AD/Reprise

OK everybody, it's april. I'm not sure how 3 months already passed by this year, but they did. Today is a tuesday, which means another street date. So every tuesday I'm gonna discuss the new releases that are coming out. At least the important releases. or at least what is important to me. Which may not be important to you. But it should be. As far as music goes, there is not a whole lot out today.

But most important is the new album by jarvis cocker "jarvis." I have loved jarvis for a long long time now, but i have to admit that I had not paid much attention to him lately. After pulp broke up in 2002 I never thought jarvis would be able to put out anything near as interesting or fun as those pulp albums. Back in the 90s I wore out my old pulp albums: "His 'n' Hers" (1994), "Different Class" (1995), and "This is Hardcore" (1998). These 3 albums have all been reissued as deluxe versions. They are available now as imports but i'm sure they will be out soon domestically. Especially now with the domestic release of his excellent solo album.



It's been over 12 years since "different class" came out. Seriously, one of the best albums of the 90s! I danced many nights at pop scene to pulp along with blur, oasis, and suede. This album made pulp huge stars both in their native england and in the U.S. and this album blew me away. It was just one of those albums you can't get enough of. I could never hear mis-shapes, common people, or disco 2000 too many times. and it seemed like most friends I had at the time agreed with me. This album came out when brit pop was one of the most popular styles of music. They were on the cover of all the music magazines and everyone was talking about them.  1995 was the year blur's "great escape" and the oasis album "(what's the story) morning glory?" came out. suede's "dog man star" was released the year before, just as jarvis is now releasing his solo album ...