I would say AIC was the best thing to come out of Seattle at the time, best of the "grunge" movement. Yeah, yeah, I know people love their Nirvana, but there was something in Alice in Chains' sound that I was able to dial into that just wasn't there for me with Kurt and crew. In as far as I refuse to believe (or accept) that at the end of the day all art is merely hoax, I can say I always felt more emotionally and psychologically connected to Alice in Chains than Nirvana.
There was a lot of "grunge" back then and there's always been a lot of "metal", but as I've remarked about other special bands/artists on this list over the years, who else could "Them Bones" be but Alice in Chains? That's saying something...
"I feel so alone, gonna wind up a big ol' pile of them bones..."
#265) "Whale and Wasp" by Alice in Chains - From their incredible Jar of Flies EP, the deeply compelling instrumental "Whale and Wasp" really doesn't need (or deserve) me trying to describe or explain. It's a "just listen" proposition...
Man, just listen...
#266) "I Can't Live Without my Radio" by LL Cool J - Long before I was an angst-ridden 20-something, I was actually a hip hopper in training.
Er, at least, in 7th and 8th grade I did the best I could. Which, looking back at the clothes and gear I employed to try pulling it off (bright yellow parachute pants, and a Swatch watch...lol!!), actually left me a totally legit b-boy, if the "b" stands for "Best of intentions But Bunk moves and emBarrassingly Badly dressed". I think I had a pretty nice pair of Converse though, actually...although I killed off any swagger they might have lent me in the summer of '86 with the beret. 😕
Ay-yi-yi...
I did have one thing going for me: my older brother attended college in New York City at the time, and not only were there solid bragging rights to be dug up out of that fact alone, but he would send me cassette recordings of real live New York radio, where, on certain stations (including the now legendary but defunct Kiss FM), rap music was being played on-air...something unthinkable in northern Wisconsin back then, where only recently had we finally gotten an FM station that wasn't still scooping out gelatinous blobs of Carpenters, Orleans, Christopher Cross and America (or .38 Special if they really felt like rocking out).
I wasn't aware at the time, but I very well might have been getting exposed to some great groundbreaking stuff on account of those tapes, stuff that you had to be a local to hear, and I seem to recall the on-air deejays being as much performers themselves as they were announcers: I know I saved those tapes. I'll have to dig them out someday and figure out how to play them again. (I can't remember the last time I pressed an actual physical "play" button.)
THEY should definitely come along with me on 1/48/50!
But being from small town Midwest, that was all very unusual. I jammed to those cassettes over and over, but there were three must-have mainstream rap albums that were far more important back then: Run DMC's Raising Hell, Run DMC's King of Rock, and LL Cool J's Radio. Cory, Max and I would break dance (or maybe just convulse spastically) in our front yards with those albums playing as loud as we could manage (can't remember which of us had a portable boom box...it wasn't me...). And I remember trying to do my best pop and lock moves to "I Can't Live Without My Radio", throwing in some moonwalking (??!!), before throwing myself onto the sidewalk for the worm...and feeling more "street" than I ever had, or ever would again
It's one of those memories that makes me fucking cringe, but which nevertheless I wouldn't trade for anything.
Musically speaking, "I Can't Live Without my Radio" holds up. It's definitely dated to the 80s, but there's something still very listenable about it, something hypnotic about the relationship between LL Cool J's flow and the simplistic but jackhammer rhythm surrounding it.
"My radio believe me I like it loud / I'm the man with the box who can rock the crowd / Walkin' down the street to the hardcore beat / While my JVC vibrates the concrete..."
