Don't really have a ton of other stuff today, haven't seen any of the big summer movies yet, so can't really comment of them, been kinda busy going to and watching playoff games, but that's gonna be over soon one way or the other, so that should free up some of my time, probably get to the movies once or twice this summer. Did watch Drive Angry the other night, with Nic Cage, it was pretty bad as you might expect, the problems that I had with it, other then Nic Cage, I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a joke, like with Machete, or if it was being serious, I just couldn't figure that out. The other thing that was annoying was that it was a 3D, I didn't watch it in 3D, but there were all these crazy weird shots that probably looked cool in 3D, but when watching in 2D, is just kinda weird and annoying. I don't want to give anything away about the movie, but it gets really weird, and goes off in some crazy directions, that's all I can really say about it. I also watched Mortal Kombat last night on demand, I've been playing the new Mortal Kombat on PS3 alot lately, and I hadn't seen that movie in a long time, so I figured what the hell, kinda fell asleep watching it, but hey, Bridgette Wilson, that's once fine piece of ass.
1994, what can I say about 1994 that hasn't already been covered, well probably a lot, but whatever, lets just get to it. Gave you a little preview yesterday, I think everyone remember the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan situation, that was some crazy stuff, certainly around here since Nancy is from Stoneham, I mean, the whole situation sounds like a really terrible Lifetime movie, but it was real life. Tonya Harding jealous that Nancy Kerrigan was better then her, had her husband hire some guy to club her in the knee after practice. Read that last line again, tell me that doesn't read like a description of some move that you would not watch on Lifetime, no? Anyways, this whole situation came up because of the Winter Olympics, which it should be noted were being held only 2 years after the previous Winter Olympics, you may or may not remember, both the Summer and Winter Olympics used to be held in the same year up until 1992, after that they Olympic Committee decided, and I think I was a good decision, to alternate every 2 years the winter and the summer, which could have meant they could have skipped them or something, but they got their stuff together and were able to pull off another Winter Olympics in 1994. Now, while all the investigations and whatever about what had happened were going on, they still allowed Tonya Harding to participate in the Olympics and she went up against Nancy Kerrigan, and this blows my mind nowadays to think about this, but when it aired in the US, on delay, yup it already had happened, if you watched the news they told you but still it got huge ratings and the short program is still #6 and the long program is still #34 on the all time in terms of rating, but at the time the short program was the most watched and the long program the 3rd most watched sports programs in terms of people, this record has since been broken by Super Bowls XLII (ugh) and XLIV. Think about that though, it was on tape delay, if the internet was around then, forget about it, no way it does those kind of ratings, tons of people would have already watched it, videos would have been up on youtube already, different age. Anyways, I'm sure you know what happened after that, Nancy Kerrigan finished 2nd to the Ukraine's Oksana Baiul and ended up with Silver, as for Tonya Harding, well:
Tonya Harding would eventually end up plea bargaining and not going to jail, would become a joke, eventually she would get into boxing, there was a porno, just crazy stupid stuff. Oksana Baiul would end up getting a DUI, which was kinda big deal at the time, but nowadays, seems like every other day a celebrity or sports star is getting a DUI, police are cracking down, over the limit, under arrested. As for Nancy Kerrigan, she went on to make fun of Mickey Mouse, then was pretty awful on SNL, and recently her father died after an altercation with her brother, they charged him with manslaughter but ultimately he was reduced to assault and battery. So, it's a happy ending for everyone.
1994 was also the year that the whole Michael Fay Singapore canning incident took place. If you don't remember Michael Fay, a 16 year old kid form the US was charged with vandalizing in Singapore and was sentence to jail, had to pay a fine and 6 strokes of a cane, Bill Clinton was able to get it down to 4, and there was a whole uproar about the whole thing, it was pretty big news for a while.
In other news in 1994, the John and Lorena Bobbitt trial took place, now the actually incident took place in 93, but the whole trial which was as crazy as they get took place in 94. If you don't remember this one, they you are probably a female, cause I know every guy remembers this one. After coming home drunk one night John allegedly beat and raped his wife, which he was tried and acquitted, then after this Lorena got a knife and cut off John's penis, then drove off and threw it in a field, she then called 911, the police were able to find it and it was reattached. Lorena was able to get off by pleading insanity. Lovely couple, of course similar to the Tonya Harding story, this one also ended up having a porno involved in the end as well,
You know, I'm spending so much time talking about this stuff, when I really should just show this video that explains it all:
Well, anyway, all these stories were big and all, but all of them would pale in comparison to the biggest news that came out of 1994, and that was of course the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. I'm sure everyone knows this one, Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered at her home on a June night back in 1994, whoever killed her also killed Ronald Goldman who was apparently there to return her glasses or something. Anyway, after some stuff went down and some investigations, the police finally decided to take OJ Simpson into custody on June 17th, 1994, and this is what happened:
I remember all of this cause it interrupted game 5 of the NBA Finals against the Knicks and Rockets. I was some crazy stuff, and actually if you haven't seen it, go ahead and get a copy somewhere of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary called June 17th, 1994, covers all the crazy stuff that happened that day, Arnold Palmer playing his last round at the US Open, the New York Rangers having their parade after winning the Stanley Cup, the World Cup starting in the US, all sorts of stuff, it's a good film, check it out. Of course this whole thing would eventually lead to the trial of the century, all sorts of characters would emerge from that, as it would take over a year, which is just madness. My favorite part about this whole bronco chase thing was Al Cowlings quote "I'm AC, you know who I am goddammit" and speaking of AC.
So, moving on to the MTV countdown for 1994, there was a band that put out their first album in 1994, and while they didn't and have never and probably will never appear on MTV, they are a local band from Newton, and while I can't really say that I've ever really heard any of their music, I can say that they have one of the most controversial names of a band that I've ever seen. Now, they are usually referred to as A.C. or sometimes AxCx, but the A and the C stand for something and it's not Al Cowlings, and it's interesting cause while not as bad, when EMF became big with their song unbelievable, there was a rumor about what EMF actually stood for and with MF, probably easy to guess what the rumor was, turns out that wasn't what it stood for, but strangely enough this band did a "cover" of that song on their first album which was titled "Everyone Should Be Killed" I got to be honest, look them up, not even sure this can really even be considered music, but at the same time they have apparently been around for 23 years, and actually just releases an album this year, so good for them, good for Newton, hope everyone is proud.
Ok, so before we get into 1994, want to take a step back, cause there are a couple things that I completely missed and want to mention them before moving on too far. In 1991, a album was release by a band called Temple of the Dog, and while it initially didn't do very well, it did feature members or Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, but before anyone knew who Soundgarden was and before Pearl Jam's first album had even come out. Basically, here's how it worked, there was a band from Seattle called Mother Love Bone, which had a singer named Andrew Wood, who overdosed on heroin and died, yeah, heroin was a big drug up in Seattle in those days. Mother Love Bone also featured Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament. So in tribute to him Chris Cornell decided to team up with Stone and Jeff along with Mike McCready and Matt Cameron to make an album, at the same time Pearl Jam was just coming into form, so Eddie Vedder was brought in for a coulple songs, and they made the song Hunger Strike, and it didn't really get much radio play at first, jump ahead a year after Pearl Jam and Soundgarden had had some success with their albums, they decided to jump start Temple of the Dog again, reissuing the album and rereleasing Hunger Strike as a single and made video for it, and it got a lot of play on MTV:
This next song came out in 1993, and I'm not really sure how I forgot it when I was going through 1993, I loved this song and it was a big hit:
Ok, now moving on, when I was going over 1993, I featured the song Creep by Radiohead and while that song was popular and the video was kinda popular, it was actually their performance at the MTV Beach House that really put them on the map:
Ok, so, later in that year, there was another song called Creep that would come out, and it was actually from a band that much like Radiohead, emerged in 1993 and had a big song, but it was actually a performance on MTV that kinda elevated their status:
So, not to be outdone STP released their song Creep, and actually had a different version for the video and single, a lot of bands were doing this at that time for whatever reason, for instance the single and video version of Even Flow by Pearl Jam is different then what's on the album, same with the video version of Alive. anyway here's STP's Creep:
Ok, so what does this all have to do with 1994, well another band that was referred to by their initials TLC came out with a song called Creep and it was their first number 1 hit:
Pretty crazy that in a span of a little over a year that 3 different songs with the same name were released as singles and all were pretty popular.
Ok, so what else was going on in 1994, well a lot of bands burst onto the scene, including a band that while they had been around for a while, it wasn't until after their appearance on MTV's Unplugged alongside Nirvana that people took notice and in 1994 they had their one big hit:
Speaking of Nirvana and Seattle, there was another band from Seattle at the time that was having a nice little run and things peaked for them in 1994 for this song:
This next song you may recognize if you have recently been watching TV and have seen a Pennzoil ad, they had a nice run in the 90's but in recent years have been doing tours of small clubs and minor league baseball parks, but in 1994, they were kicking some ass:
Collective Soul - Shine (Official Music Video). Watch more top selected videos about: Collective Soul
The same thing can be said about this next group as well:
Also big in 1994 was the band that made the song that Weird Al used to make that video about the news:
Now this next group had been around for over a year, but for whatever reason, MTV wasn't letting them have their videos on, most likely because their music has some explicit lyrics and they aren't big fans of censorship, so rather the censor their songs to get onto MTV, they just didn't but they got a little too popular for MTV to ignore, so they finally got onto MTV with this song in 1994:
Punk music made a big comeback in 1994, or at least pop punk, there was a big issue with a lot of the "real" punk fans of if this was really punk music or not, but either was these next 2 bands came along and got people liking punk, or whatever you want to call it, these guys came along first:
Then a couple months later these guys came along:
The Beastie Boys were back again and they were sounding kinda punkish as well, and put out an awesome video for what appeared to be a 70s cop show:
1994 was also a big year for those kinda wussy rock bands, not sure what else to call them exactly, but I'm talking about these guys:
and not to be outdone, these guys were kinda wussy too, and they also confused a lot of people cause everyone assumed that the lead singer was Hootie, but that wasn't the case, as he is proving now with his solo career:
Alternative music, whatever exactly that means was certainly big in 1994, and these next 2 bands seems to fit that mold, maybe, I don't know, kinda feel like noone really knew what that term meant, so they just threw it out there to bands that kinda crossed different genres. This next band I'm actually not really a huge fan of, but I always kinda liked this video:
This next song I actually founds kinda annoying, but that's how you know it was popular, cause you always hear it and it's annoying:
Ok, want to take a little break here to explain some stuff, cause that last video sorta reminded me of another video that was popular at the time, and it brings up an interesting issue, cause I have clearly been leaving out some stuff that was definitely extremely popular, but I hated it, so I'm not posting it. I already discussed Madonna, but to go along with her, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey I have left off, I well aware that they were very popular, but you know what, don't like them, so not gonna include them, same goes for Smashing Pumpkins, which the Dinosaur Jr video reminded me of, I'm sure there are other groups out there that I've left out too, but whatever lets just move on, and just to show you that I can give some props to some pop music, this next song broke Whitney Houston's record for being Number 1 on the charts for 14 weeks:
Rap music continued in 1994 where it left off in 1993, Snoop was doing his thing:
As well as Ice Cube, still wasn't arguing with Coors Light bottles yet:
2Pac was also letting us know ro Keep Ours Head up:
But he should have had his head on a swivel, cause 1994 was the year that this guy came along and the war was on:
This next guy was all taking us for a ride:
Meanwhile Public Enemy was back and doing what they do best:
and it was also time to Regulate thanks to Above the Rim:
Ok, now while that was all well in good, as you can see Gangsta Rap was still pretty much in control, so what meant that some of the other rappers from the early 90s kinda had to change up and try and switch up their look and style, but you know what, it didn't really work, not for this guy:
and before we get to the other guy, let me back up a little cause the year before Run-D.M.C. tried this out too and that didn't work out well either, although, it was better then Vanilla Ice's attempt:
But that brings us to Hammer, and while is attempt feel somewhere in between Vanilla Ice and Run-D.M.C., his change was probably the most uneasy, partially cause only a couple years earlier he was telling us to Pray, and now he was singing about Pumps and a Bump, but it doesn't end there, his first video for that song, well, there was a bit of an issue with, he may or may not of had an erection:
So, then after MTV didn't really want to play that one, he made a new one featuring Deion Sanders and with him wearing a lot more clothes, unfortunately couldn't find the full version with Deion Sanders:
and speaking of bumps, this guy told us there was nothing wrong with a little:
Of course that was before he got trapped in a closet, is he still in that closet, have you even watched that whole thing, I watched like 3 minutes of it, and i couldn't take it anymore.
Can't go much farther with this with out bringing up this next guy, cause he had a big 1994, no one was really sure what to make of him, people kinda thought maybe he'd be a one hit wonder and the just disappear and after this first interview he had on MTV, that seemed about right:
Anyway, Beck was on the scene, having everyone speaking Spanish, talking about being Losers and just confusing the hell out of people with his lyrics as well as the video:
And speaking of confusing, freaky videos, Tool was back with more:
Speaking of back for more, Soundgarden had returned with their best album and probably one of the best albums of all time, and they had a huge hit that summer, thanks in large part to the crazy ass video, and there were a couple different versions of this video, first was a little less animated, then they tweaked it a bit here is the original:
Now here is the 2nd version:
Speaking of bands being back with great albums and multiple versions of music videos, Stone Temple Pilots were back with their new album Purple and their first single Vasoline, which actually had 3 different versions of the video, the X Version:
You’re watching 'Vasoline (X Version)'. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
The Y Version:
You’re watching 'Vasoline (Y Version)'. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
The Z Version:
You’re watching 'Vasoline (Z Version)'. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
And speaking of "Flys in the vasoline" before those flies were in that vasolne, they were in a jar, cause Alice In Chains released an EP called Jar of Flies, and the cool thing about that album was that the first bunch of CDs that came out actually came with Flies in the spine of the CD, which was pretty cool, anyway, this EP became the first ever EP to go to Number 1 on the charts, and it featured what was Alice In Chains only #1 hit, before the revival, No Excuses:
Now, I say before the revival, cause Alice In Chains started back up again and released a new album with a new singer and have had a couple number 1 hits, but this was the only number 1 hit with Layne Staley in the band, and I guess that's a good place to get into the other huge news of 1994.
On March 3, 1994, the day before John Candy died, Kurt Cobain was hospitalized after "accidentally" mixing champagne and rohypnol and went into a coma of sorts for a couple days, apparently he was trying to kill himself, but people kinda caulked it up to him being a rock star and parting to much, but apparently over the course of the next month, he had some other incidents, they weren't as publically known as this one, but the, on April 8th, 1994, a friday I came home from school, threw on some MTV, and this is what i saw:
Yup, Kurt Cobain had killed himself, blew his brains out, and the whole grunge, Seattle, 90s rock scene had lost it's unofficial spokesperson, and apparently that was part of the problem, Kurt couldn't deal with fame, turned to drugs with destroyed his mind and body and cause him to want to end it all which he did. They eventually determined that he killed himself on April 5th, this is interesting to notice, cause 8 years later when Layne Staley was found dead on April 20th, 2002, from an overdose, but after the autopsy, it was determined that he has died on April 5th, kinda crazy. Anyway, after Kurt Cobain died there was a generation of very depressed individuals, some of whom followed suit and killed themselves as well, course then parents blamed Nirvana and whatever, but really the parents should have been paying more attention to their kids. Same thing happened in the 80s when some kids killed themselves and then the parents started blaming heavy metal music, I think Slayer, Metallica, Ozzy, Judas Priest and probably more got sued, infact Billy Joel mentions it in his song We Didn't Start the Fire, "Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide." Anyway, with no new Nirvana music or videos, MTV decided just to start airing their Unplugged songs as videos and eventually it was released as a Album later in the year, and while many of the performances got into the regular rotation, the only one that was actually officially a single was About A Girl:
Now, Pearl Jam was still avoiding MTV in 1994, they did put out another album later in the year, but they were on Saturday Night live the week after Cobain was found, and after playing some songs:
PEARL JAM...Daughter...
Saulinho Nunes | Myspace Video
As they were saying goodnight, Vedder had written K on his shirt and pointed to it in tribute, here's a picture:
So, remember how in 1993, Danzig did that thing were he re-release his song and just added a year to it, well another guy who has a band named after him did the same thing when Bon Jovi had a song called Prayer '94, now he didn't go as far as Danzig did, didn't release a video or nothing, but he had a decent year nonetheless with Always:
This song was actually a single of a greatest hits compilation, but as is usually the case they throw a couple new songs on there, he wasn't the only one that did that this year, as this guy did too:
Similar to 1993, soundtracks played a big part in the music world in 1994, I already covered one song that was in a movie with Regulate, but there were many more, Lisa Loeb had her one big hit that was on the Reality Bites soundtrack:
Sting actually had his only Number 1 hit since leaving the Police in 1994 on a song he did with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams for the Three Musketeers soundtrack:
Bruce Springsteen had a couple big songs that were on soundtracks, the first of which was from the movie Philadelphia:
Elton John had a big summer with supplying alot of music for the Lion King, which had a huge summer and would go on to become the highest grossing animated film of all time, that would be until 2003 when Finding Nemo would move headed of it, and then Toy Story 3 took over the throne. Anyway, this song was popular:
1994 also marked the year that 2 of the more interesting directors would emerge, now while Quentin Tarantino had previously had some success with Reservoir Dogs, 1994 was when Pulp Fiction came out and really made him a household name and it had a good soundtrack and featured this song:
Then there was Kevin Smith who's low budget film Clerks had a surprising run and introduced everyone to Jay and Silent Bob and also had a great soundtrack which featured this:
1994 also saw the release of one of the greatest comedies of all time Dumb and Dumber, and while it's soundtrack was alright, it did feature this memorable song:
1994 also saw a couple of other very successful soundtracks with the soundtrack to Forrest Gump, but in terms of MTV wasn't very memorable cause it was all old songs, so no videos. Also The Crow Soundtrack, which did feature a lot of current artists and new songs, but for whatever reason none of them had videos.
Guns N Roses made what has been their last Music Video, and it featured Commissioner Gordon, well the latest Commissioner Gordon, Gary Oldman:
Late in the year REM was back and had a little bit more of a rocking sound then their previous couple albums:
Now, while REM was rocking a little big more, there also was some very aggressive angry music that was starting to emerge in 1994, one of the biggest surprises was when Pantera released it's album and it went straight to Number 1, behind the strength of this single:
Corrosion on Conformity after going through some personnel changes and changing up their sound a bit had a hit:
Prong had a song that had an interesting take on how the anatomy works:
Henry Rollins was letting everyone know the Truth, that he is in face a Liar:
This next band had some issues with spelling, as well as some serious daddy issues, also apparently issues with clowns and nursery rhymes, but first they went Blind and were about to make everyone angry for the next bunch of years:
And Finally, this next band (individual) had a big 1994 and had a huge hit with this next song that crossed over to many different genres, it was a rock hit, it was a pop hit, it was a dance hit. It also had a very messed up music video, which had a couple different versions, cause certain elements of the original version certainly would not have been cool on MTV, so there were a bunch of scene's missing from the version that most people know:
I still am not sure, what kind of animal is he talking about exactly?
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