Kevin Cole

Released 24 years ago this month, "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt" is built around a looped piano melody, with various other musical elements entering throughout the song's duration: interview samples, a women's choir, bass fills, electronically altered drum kicks, and a funk guitar. It also contains samples of "I Feel a New Shadow," written and performed by Jeremy Storch. bit.ly

This track was the first single released from Chemical Brothers' debut album Exit Planet Dust in 1995; it reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart. It contains a short sample from the Kraftwerk's "Ohm Sweet Ohm" from the album Radio-Activity (1975). The drums were sampled from "Theme From the Planets" by Dexter Wansel, and the vocal line, "The brother's gonna work it out," came from the song, "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" by Blake Baxter. John "Segs" Jennings, of punk rock band The Ruts, played the bass in this track. bit.ly

Gosh... 1996 "Trainspotting" flashbacks, amiright? "We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit." This track was released in July 1995 as the B-side to an unrelated track, "Born Slippy." After it was used in the 1996 film Trainspotting, "Born Slippy .NUXX" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart. It has been named one of the best tracks of the 1990s by numerous publications. Vocalist Karl Hyde wrote the lyrics for "Born Slippy .NUXX" after a night drinking in Soho, London, hoping to capture the way a drunk "sees the world in fragments." The vocals were recorded in one take; when Hyde lost his place, he would sing the same line repeatedly, creating the line "lager, lager, lager, lager." Hyde, who was struggling with alcoholism, said he did not intend the song to be a "drinking anthem" but rather a "cry for help." He was disturbed when audience members raised their lager cans during performances. Underworld producer Rick Smith said the lyrics reflected "this energy of movement, and of time and place", like an abstract painting. bit.ly

Recorded during the 1996 sessions for Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, this track was written as a response to the Seattle music scene of the 1990s and its effect on mainstream culture, according to drummer Evan Sult. Its title was inspired by the 1930 Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers, which features a line of dialogue about the pole sitting fad of the 1920s. The band was inspired to spell "sitter" as "sitta" by the Pavement song "Fame Throwa" and the N.W.A album Straight Outta Compton. Watch the song in action as the title track for deliciously ultra-dark UK comedy, "Peep Show," brought to you by the same team behind "Bruisers" and "The Mitchell and Webb Show": bit.ly

Released in 1993, Frosting on the Beater is the third album by The Posies. It featured a heavier, more intense sound than the band's prior works, in part due to production duties being handled by Don Fleming, and was the last album original drummer Mike Musburger appeared on. "Coming Right Along" appeared on the soundtrack to the movie The Basketball Diaries (1995, Island Records). "Dream All Day" was later used as the title of the band's best-of compilation, released in 2000. The Posies later remade "Flavor of the Month" with brand-new lyrics as "Voyage of the Aquanauts" for the series Bill Nye the Science Guy. bit.ly This one goes out to Leslie in Sammamish, who's been patiently waiting for this song. Thanks for being one of our wonderful KEXP Faithful!!!

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This 1992 hip-hop song, which samples 1986 Detroit techno single "Technicolor" by Channel One, was written and recorded by Sir Mix-a-Lot, and appeared on Mack Daddy. At the time of its original release, the song caused controversy with its outspoken and blatantly sexual lyrics about women, as well as specific references to the female buttocks which some people found objectionable, and its accompanying music video was briefly banned by MTV. The concept for the track came from a meeting between Sir Mix-a-Lot and Amylia Dorsey, who saw little representation of full figured women in media, especially while discussing a 1980s Budweiser commercial featuring very thin, valley girl-esque models. They decided to dedicate a song to the very opposite, featuring curvy women of colour in order to "broaden the definition of beauty." bit.ly

Released on November 5, 1990 by Factory Records, this was the third studio recording by Manchester alternative band Happy Mondays. The band chose British DJ Paul Oakenfold and his frequent collaborator Steve Osbourne to produce the album based on their work on various remixes for the band's previous singles. It marked the band's commercial breakthrough in their country of origin, propelling the Happy Mondays to the top of their commercial success amidst the height of the Madchester and baggy cultural scenes. Along with the Stone Roses' self-titled debut album, it is considered the release that best captures the zeitgeist of the Madchester scene. bit.ly

Released in February 1990 as the lead single from their third studio album Screamadelica (1991), this song was mixed and produced by Andrew Weatherall, who tragically died February 17th of this year at the age of 56 in London from a pulmonary embolism. In 2014, NME placed the song at number 59 in its list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time. As for all the fun things you hear, at the start of the song, Weatherall added an audio sample of Frank Maxwell and Peter Fonda from the film The Wild Angels. The rest of the song is constructed from the parts of "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have," with a vocal sample from The Emotions' "I Don't Want to Lose Your Love," and a drum loop from an Italian bootleg remix of Edie Brickell's song "What I Am," plus Bobby Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues." bit.ly

This track was released in 1990 as the first single from The Farm's debut album Spartacus (1991), having been produced by Graham "Suggs" McPherson of Madness and Terry Farley. It contains a distinctive guitar intro by Keith Mullin which was possibly his most significant contribution to any one song. "Groovy Train" featured on the influential 1990 Madchester compilation album Happy Daze. bit.ly

Perhaps most famously known for its use on the Empire Records Soundtrack (1995), this song comes from prolific Scotsman Collins' third solo studio album, Gorgeous George (1994). The song samples the drum track of Len Barry's single "1-2-3" (1965), and features The Sex Pistols' drummer Paul Cook on vibraphone, as well as Vic Godard with backing vocals on the outro. Collins was the lead singer for the 1980s post-punk band Orange Juice. In February 2005, Collins was hospitalised following two cerebral haemorrhages which resulted in aphasia, and he subsequently underwent a months-long rehabilitation period. (The aphasia he suffered allowed him to repeat only four phrases, over and over again: "yes", "no", "Grace Maxwell" (his wife's name) and "the possibilities are endless.") He resumed his musical career in 2007, and a documentary film on his recovery, titled The Possibilities Are Endless, was released in 2014. Collins was the co-founder of the indie record label Postcard Records and co-founded a second label, Analogue Enhanced Digital, in 2011. Collins has also worked as an illustrator, television actor, television producer and record producer. He won an Ivor Novello Award, the Ivor Inspiration Award, in 2009. bit.ly

Rare acoustic version from Rev 105! “Killing Me Softly” was a pivotal moment in music for many young black women coming up in the mid-1990s. Never before had a female member of a hip-hop group been given center stage to shine like that on a platform like that—in a song like that—and when Hill did, she changed the way we contributed to and related to that sphere of musical culture. bit.ly

Released in 1994, Ruby Vroom was the band's debut studio album, and named after a mispronunciation of the name of Ruby Froom, daughter of record producer Mitchell Froom—a frequent collaborator of Ruby Vroom producer Tchad Blake—and singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega. The album was recorded at Sunset Sound Factory in Hollywood, Blake and Froom's usual haunt—a storage room near the studio's lounge was filled with vintage keyboards and road cases filled with toys—whistles, baby rattles, children's toy xylophones. Many of these ended up in the songs, such as a train whistle played by Doughty on "Uh, Zoom Zip." This was in keeping with Tchad Blake's spirit of maverick experimentation, which included sticking a binaural head-shaped microphone in front of Yuval Gabay's drumkit, sticking a mic in a car muffler, called "the Bone" and sticking that in the drum booth as well, and having Doughty improvise wild, yelling ad-libs on "Casiotone Nation," singing into a cheap amplification system called an Ahuja that Blake bought in India. The speaker was essentially a huge bullhorn atop a stick. bit.ly

This 1993 single by the American hip hop group Cypress Hill was also released on the group's Black Sunday album. According to B-Real, the song was actually a diss song aimed at Chubb Rock. The group felt Chubb had ridiculed their style on his 1992 album I Gotta Get Mine Yo. According to a live interview aired on Double J during a feature of the Black Sunday album, "insane in the membrane" was a localised gang term used at the time by the Crips when doing something crazy; it was then appropriated into this song. A 2019 interview with The Guardian elaborated further that both Bloods and Crips used a similar phrase as an informal insanity plea upon arrest. The Double-J interview also notes that B-Real was a member of the Bloods. It is claimed that DJ Muggs produced the song "Jump Around" by House of Pain, which was later used to produce this song, with minor changes. bit.ly

Surfacing was released in July 1997, coinciding with the start of McLachlan's Lilith Fair tour. At a live performance, McLachlan explains the song as being "basically about the fact that we all... have insecurities to hide, and we often do that by putting on a facade." She also goes on to say that "unfortunately, if we just be who we are, that's usually the more attractive and beautiful thing." The album won four Juno Awards including for Album of the Year. "Building a Mystery" was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 1996, McLachlan became frustrated with concert promoters and radio stations that refused to feature two female musicians in a row. Bucking conventional industry wisdom, she booked a successful tour for herself and Paula Cole. At least one of their appearances together—in McLachlan's hometown of Vancouver, on September 14, 1996—went by the name "Lilith Fair" and included performances by McLachlan, Cole, Lisa Loeb and Michelle McAdorey, formerly of Crash Vegas. The next year, McLachlan founded the Lilith Fair tour, taking Lilith from the Jewish lore that Lilith was the first woman, who refused to be subservient to Adam. The tour and travelling music festival was co-founded with Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond, took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It consisted solely of female solo artists and female-led bands. In its initial three years, Lilith Fair raised over $10M for charity. bit.ly

Released on July 18, 1995, this was DiFranco's sixth studio album, and released on her own record label, Righteous Babe Records. The album extended the folk singer's early formula of acoustic guitar and drums, as on subsequent records, DiFranco would add electric guitar, horns, band members and guest musicians. On Not a Pretty Girl, she was accompanied by Andy Stochansky's percussion alone. The CD case of Not a Pretty Girl is designed to be looked at "the wrong way 'round," with the spine on the right hand side rather than the left. bit.ly

This is the first track from Kristin Hersh's debut solo studio album, Hips and Makers (1994), and features additional backing vocals from Michael Stipe of R.E.M. It was also featured in the film With Honors that spring, and according to Filmmaker magazine, the music video for the song was directed by Katherine Dieckmann, and is an homage to Maya Deren's groundbreaking 1943 experimental film Meshes of the Afternoon. bit.ly

Band leader Tanya Donnely shared, "This song was about commitment and respect; the metaphor is the tree that would be planted on large farms as a point of reference to getting around (the only tree sometimes). Because nothing would grow under the large tree, the family would be buried under it. Hence: 'Take your hat off, boy when you're talking to me and be there when I feed the tree.'"

"Sugar Kane" is the third single from Sonic Youth's 1992 album Dirty. It was released in 1993 on DGC. The music video for Sugar Kane was directed by Nick Egan. The video was shot in New York City and portrayed Sonic Youth performing in the midst of a fashion show that showcased "grunge" clothing. The clothing, in fact, was one of the collections ("Grunge Collection") done by Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis in 1992. Jacobs was a close friend of bassist Kim Gordon and the band. The video also marked the first film appearance of Chloë Sevigny. bit.ly

Nevermind was released on September 24, 1991, by DGC Records. Produced by Butch Vig, it was Nirvana's first release on the DGC and the first to feature drummer Dave Grohl. Characterized by its polished and cleaner sound, the album was a departure from the band's rawer debut album Bleach. bit.ly A musician has used his skills to to turn Nirvana‘s ‘Stay Away’ into a coronavirus-related public service announcement. The artist, who on YouTube goes by the name Urian Hackney, films himself playing the different parts of the song on drums, guitar, and bass – and also does his best gravelly voiced Kurt Cobain impression. He rewords the lyrics, including “Wipe every surface clean (I sanitise!) / Stock up on rice and beans (I sanitise!)” at the verse, and “stay inside” at the chorus. bit.ly

This album was released through A&M Records on September 24, 1991. Soundgarden began the recording sessions for the album with new bassist Ben Shepherd in the spring of 1991. The album maintained the band's heavy metal sound while featuring an increased focus on songwriting as compared with the band's previous releases. AllMusic considered the album's music to be "surprisingly cerebral and arty"; alternative tunings and odd time signatures were present on several of the album's songs, and lyrics were intended to be ambiguous and create imagery. Of this track, Chris Cornell revealed, ""I don't know how everyone else feels... but I definitely go through periods of extreme self-confidence, feeling like I can do anything. Perhaps a fan will sense that, like in a performance, and the hero image creeps out. But then someone will say something, however insignificant, or I'll get something in my head and, all of a sudden, I'm plummeting in the opposite direction, I'm a piece of shit, and I really can't do anything about it. That's where 'Outshined' comes from, and why I'll never consider myself a hero." Check out this fantastic interview with guitarist Kim Thayil in 2016, 25 years after the album's release: bit.ly

Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage" was covered by Johnny Cash on the 1996 album, Unchained, which won a Grammy Award for Best Country Album, and Cash's version earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. During at least three live performances by Soundgarden (July 21, 1996, in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Forks In The River, early November 1996 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, and at Soundgarden's last pre-breakup show at the Blaisdell Arena, Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 9, 1997), Cornell introduced the song with a dedication to Cash. On Cornell's Higher Truth acoustic tour in late 2015, he started including "Rusty Cage" in the set-list, employing Cash's country-rock arrangement of the song. bit.ly

"Enter Sandman" was the first song Metallica had written for their 1991 eponymous album, Metallica. The band's songwriting at that time was done mainly by rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, after they gathered tapes of song ideas and concepts from the other members of the band, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Jason Newsted. Ulrich's house in Berkeley, California, was used for this purpose. "Enter Sandman" evolved from a guitar riff that Hammett wrote, after being inspired by Soundgarden's 1989 album Louder Than Love. Originally, the riff was two bars in length, but Ulrich suggested the first bar be played three times. The instrumental parts of the song were quickly finished, but Hetfield did not come up with vocal melodies and lyrics for a long time. The song was among the album's last to have lyrics, and the lyrics featured in the song are not the original; Hetfield felt that "Enter Sandman" sounded "catchy and kind of commercial" and so to counterbalance the sound, he wrote lyrics about "destroy[ing] the perfect family; a huge horrible secret in a family" that included references to crib death. For the first time in Metallica's history, however, Ulrich and producer Bob Rock told Hetfield that they felt he could write better lyrics. Nevertheless, according to Ulrich, the song was the "foundation, the guide to the whole record" even before it had lyrics. bit.ly

This is Helmet's second studio album and major label debut, and was released on June 23, 1992 through Interscope Records. After the release of their nine-song debut album Strap It On, the band found themselves at the center of a major label bidding war, eventually signing to Interscope for a reported budget of US$1 million. In the wake of the grunge band Nirvana's recent success, many touted Helmet as the next big thing. Regarding the band's label as "the next Nirvana," Hamilton said, "They were interested in us before Nirvana even broke. And that's good, because we're obviously not it. I actually had an A&R guy at one label tell us that we were the next U2. At a certain point it just becomes ludicrous." The song "In the Meantime" was recorded by Steve Albini and later remixed by Andy Wallace. Wallace would make additional changes to the album and the contrast between his style of mixing, which involves (among other things) triggered samples and a cleaner, more polished sound (leading to the album's distinctive half wood, half metal snare drum sound), irritated Albini. Later, when in negotiations to record Nirvana's In Utero, he stipulated a clause be added to his contract stating that Wallace would not be allowed to remix the album, after he had mixed Nevermind, which was released nine months before Meantime. bit.ly

"California Love" was one of two songs produced by Dr. Dre on All Eyez on Me—the other one being "Can't C Me." The first version of the song has three verses featuring Dr. Dre's rapping. The only copy of this session is now in the possession of DJ Jam, Snoop Dogg's personal concert DJ. 2Pac first heard Dr. Dre's session while at Dre's in-house studio and asked Dre to put him on the song. Producer Laylaw also did an additional remix of the song which is often erroneously credited to Dr. Dre and has been suggested to be one of the reasons for the fallout between Dre and 2Pac a few months later. The original was released as a double-A side single together with "How Do U Want It" and intended for the Dr. Dre album The Chronic II, while the remix was included on 2Pac's All Eyez on Me. The song was made and written in Dr. Dre's in house studio, 2Pac came in and wrote his verse straight away; it took him just 15 minutes to write his verse. The weekend after the song was completed the video was then recorded. The song was released as 2Pac's comeback single after his release from prison in 1995 and was his first single as the newest artist of Death Row Records. This is one of 2Pac's most widely known singles and his most successful, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks (as a double A-side single with "How Do U Want It") and five weeks at number one in New Zealand. The song was nominated for a posthumous Grammy Award as a Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (with Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman) in 1997. bit.ly

"Let Me Ride" is a 1993 single by rapper and producer Dr. Dre, and the third single from his debut studio album, The Chronic. It experienced moderate success on the charts, until it became a massive hit when Dre won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for the song during the Grammy Awards of 1994. The chorus is sung by Ruben and Jewell, and Snoop Dogg (then known as Snoop Doggy Dogg) raps the line "Rollin' in my 6-4" and appears in some background vocals. The chorus involves both a sample and an interpolation of the chorus of the 1976 Parliament song "Mothership Connection (Star Child)," which itself quotes the spiritual, "Swing Down Sweet Chariot." It also samples James Brown's "Funky Drummer" and Bill Withers's 1973 single "Kissing My Love." The song makes a reference to popular hard rock band Aerosmith in the lyric, "And no, this ain't Aerosmith!" bit.ly

This track opens Eminem's second studio album, The Slim Shady LP (1999, and the recording garnered Eminem his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000. Producer Dr. Dre used a sample of Labi Siffre's "I Got The..." for the rhythm track. Siffre, who is openly gay, said in a 2012 interview that he refused to clear the sample until sexist and homophobic lyrics were removed from the song: "Dissing the victims of bigotry – women as bitches, homosexuals as faggots – is lazy writing. Diss the bigots, not their victims." The bass and guitar riff used in the sample was performed by Siffre's session musicians Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock, who later became the duo Chas & Dave. bit.ly

This track was released as the second single from Ice Cube's third solo album, The Predator, on February 23, 1993. He originally recorded a demo of it in his home studio, and later went on to record the album version in Los Angeles at Echo Sound Studios in 1992, where it was one of the first ideas for his upcoming album. Ice Cube commented on the concept behind the song explaining, "The inspiration was my life at the time... I was at the top of the rap game. It was the summer of '92 and I was in a hotel room, really in a state of euphoria. I had all the money I had dreamed of. I was in a good frame of mind. And I remember thinking, 'Okay, there's been the riots, people know I will deal with that. That's a given. But I rap all this gangsta stuff—what about all the good days I had?'" Initially, Ice Cube went into the studio with a sample of the Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark" and "Sexy Mama" by The Moments. DJ Pooh later enhanced the production with bass and vocals. The song has been re-released multiple times, including on Ice Cube's Greatest Hits album, Bootlegs & B-Sides, and The N.W.A Legacy, Vol. 1: 1988–1998. bit.ly

Released in 1994, Ben Harper's debut studio album established him as a popular folk musician in the California area. After Welcome, Harper went on to add a permanent backing band, the Innocent Criminals, although they remained unnamed until the Burn to Shine album. bit.ly

From Emmylou Harris' eighteenth studio album, released on September 26, 1995 through Elektra Records. Moving away from her traditional acoustic sound, Harris collaborated with producer Daniel Lanois (best known for his production work with U2) and engineer Mark Howard. The album has been noted for atmospheric feel, and featured guest performances by Steve Earle, Larry Mullen, Jr., Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Lucinda Williams and Neil Young, who wrote the title song and also provided harmonies. bit.ly