Radiohead “The Bends”
Belly “King”
Garbage “Garbage”
In 1995 I was working in the Admissions Office for the U of M, Crookston. Traveling for the job let me listen to a lot of music. At the time I was buying CDs and still making mix cassette tapes of various songs. Radiohead's "The Bends" was not an album I loved immediately. Yet it still holds up nearly 20 years later, and I like it now more than ever. This was Radiohead when they had great melodic, fully formed songs like "Fake Plastic Trees" and "High and Dry" with more rock oriented tracks like "Just" and "Bones." By far it is my favorite album of 1995. Coming in a close second is Belly's "King." While it was considered a commercial disappointment, it had a bunch of fantastic songs "Silverfish," "Super-Connected," "Now They'll Sleep," and "Judas My Heart." Tanya Donelly was the driving force, and her distinctive singing style with the punk to new wave to rock to grunge to pop sound was something I fell for totally. Garbage's debut album was fresh and sinister. Scottish lead singer Shirley Manson had a sexy presence, and when she teamed up with producer Butch Vig (of Nirvana fame) sparks flew. The singles "Queer," "Only Happy When It Rains," and "Stupid Girl" were all standouts, but the whole album worked--and it's one of the better debut albums of the 90s in my humble opinion.
