Max Picks …songs from 1994

1994

We are nearing the end of Max Picks…we still have one more year to go.

R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency Kenneth? 

This song along with Fall On Me is my favorite REM song.

REM really let loose on their album Monster. I love the tone on Peter Bucks’s guitar and the loud in-your-face production. Peter Buck played the late Kurt Cobain’s Fender Jag-Stang, which he plays upside-down because Cobain was left-handed. This to me…is very close to having a REM and Replacements song all in one.

This song is about an incident that took place on October 4, 1986, when the CBS news anchor Dan Rather was attacked on a New York City sidewalk by a crazed man yelling “Kenneth, what is the frequency.” The man turned out to be William Tager, who was caught after he killed a stagehand outside of the Today Show studios on August 31, 1994. Tager, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, said he was convinced the media was beaming signals into his head, and he was on a mission to determine their frequencies.

Lead singer Michael Stipe says this is an attack on the media, who overanalyze things they don’t understand.

After this song I lost contact with REM’s music for a long time…the same with The Replacements. Those two bands represented the best of the 80s for me.

Weezer – Buddy Holly

This was released to radio on September 7, 1994, which would have been Buddy Holly’s 58th birthday.

The video for this song hooked me for not only the mention of Buddy Holly, Mary Tyler Moore but also the Happy Days set… Plus its a fun song.

Spike Jonze directed the video. Vintage Happy Days footage was intercut with shots of Weezer performing on the original Arnold’s Drive-In set. Al Molinaro, who played the diner’s owner on the series, made a cameo appearance in the video. One of the most popular clips of 1995, it scored four MTV Video Music Awards, including Breakthrough Video and Best Alternative Music Video, and two Billboard Music Video Awards, among them Alternative/Modern Rock Clip of the Year.

Pretenders – I’ll Stand By You

Chrissie Hynde wrote this with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. “I’ll Stand by You” was released as the second single from the  1994 album Last of the Independents. It’s a beautiful song that has been covered a few times.

For Hynde, working with outside songwriters was different, as she was used to writing on her own. It ended up being a very positive experience that led to more collaborations.

Chrissie had said she was uncomfortable about having such a hit but felt better after Noel Gallagher said “he wished he’d written it.”

Chrissie Hynde: “When I did that song, I thought, Urgh this is s–t. But then I played it for a couple of girls who weren’t in the business and by the end of it they were both in tears. I said, OK, put it out.”

Green Day – When I Come Around

This was my first introduction to Green Day. The more albums they released the more I liked them. American Idiot is probably my favorite album but this song was a good introduction to the band for me.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool are listed as writers of this song. It was not released as a single, which was a strategic move by Green Day’s label Reprise to up the sales of the album.

When performing this song at Woodstock ’94, a fan threw a clump of mud on stage and Billie Joe stuck it in his mouth. This caused the fans to keep throwing mud and started the infamous mud fight. Many fans look back at Woodstock ’94 fondly, calling it “Mudstock ’94” largely because of this incident.

Nirvana – The Man Who Sold the World

This version has a charm about it I like. Cobain did a great job on this.

David Bowie liked this cover saying, “I was simply blown away when I found that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and have always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering ‘The Man Who Sold the World’.”

What he didn’t like were the kids that came up after his show and said, ‘It’s cool you’re doing a Nirvana song.’ And I think, ‘F**k you, you little tosser!”

Nirvana performed it on the MTV Unplugged episode a few months before Cobain died…it was released on the MTV Unplugged album in November of 1994.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

56 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1994”

  1. Good choices all. I need to go look at the weezer video, I remember the song clearly but must have forgotten the video if I had seen it at all. ‘when I Come Around’ was the first song that I heard by Green Day that I liked; back then I think I’d heard a couple of other tracks off ‘Dookie’ before it but didn’t find they did anything for me. REM’s ‘Monster’ I think most fans now agree was not as good as we thought back then but is much better than a lot of the later reviews which seem to write it off. It was a needed shift of direction for them, which is what kept them relevant for as long as they were.

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    1. When I come Around was the first one by them I ever heard…I liked it. As far as the REM song…it is really high on my list because it was so unusual…those are open distorted chords…not bar chords…I loved it. It was like The ReplaceREM’s to me. But…this is about the time I stopped listening to both bands for a long long time.

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    1. Thanks Randy….I’m on 1995 next and I have 4 but that 5th one is elusive….of course I may just repeat one of the bands I have….just this once lol.

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      2. Yea next year….what I call the Beatles year…is why I’m stopping…I stopped paying as much attention after that.

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  4. That Monster album by REM is a beast. Buck added a nasty tone to his sound. Also that blue Weezer album is a classic as well. Great picks dude.

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      3. I was out Monday night and I looked at my stats at one point and you were sitting at 20 rbi’s and 5 homers and it wasn’t even 11 pm yet. hahaha I was like I’m cooked but my pitching has been holding the fort….that can implode anytime hahaha

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  5. Nice picks, Max! The only song I didn’t know is Weezer. Basically, I only know the band by name and because of their cover of Toto’s “Africa”.

    Nirvana’s cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” is one of the most haunting renditions I’ve ever heard.

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    1. That cover by Nirvana is probably my favorite song by them…well except one…”About A Girl”…you ever heard that one? Imagine Meet The Beatles.

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  6. Yeah, good picks indeed. And I feel for Bowie- kids, eh? They all think they know it all, especially about music; and it’s not as if Bowie was a flash in the pan one hit wonder. There is a history and backstory out there, you precious precocious young whelps.

    (Ooooh, I feel so much better for venting…)

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    1. I could not believe when I read that. I mean it’s not like Bowie wasn’t known like you said. I loved his thoughts or hopefully reply to the idiots.

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  7. Bad finger

    Ouestion- I have a Beatles 65 vinyl album in fair condition. This album has a reputation of having the most counterfeited album but I researched how to tell the difference and it appears to me to be original copy

    If it is original, it can be worth up to $7000 depending on condition according to an article I used.

    Do you know anyone who you can personally recommend to trust to help me verify if it is indeed original  album?

    Regards and goodwill blogging.

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    1. That is really cool! But unfortunately I don’t know anyone who could. I missed buying a Butcher Cover in the 80s for 250 dollars…I wish I would have now.

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      3. Badfinger,

        I went to the library and found a couple of books that list the value of just about every record every made.

        I won’t tell you how much the Beatles Butcher album is worth according to the books because it might upset you.

        However, you might be interested in writing an article on your great music blog about counterfeit copies of vinyl records being sold on the web.

        For example, Introducing the Beatles 65 album, which is probably the most counterfeited ever.

        Regards and goodwill blogging.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Oh wow…do you think yours is real?

        Yea I can imagine how much they are. The Butcher cover have some that still have the replacement label over them…every yardsale I go to…if they have “Yesterday and Today” I look for a sign that the Butcher cover is underneath.

        That would be a good idea…thank you!

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      5. Badfingr
        I am fairly certain after reading an article on introducing the Beatles 65 that the one I have is an original vlued at 600 dollars instead of 20000,
        I
        I bet you might obtain more followers to your blog if you list how much the current value of the recording is with

        Regards and good will blogging

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Pingback: Max Picks …songs from 1994 – MobsterTiger

  12. Excellent playlist, Max. Except for the Green Day, which I still like, I love all of the rest of them. Am embarrassed to say I thought that was a Nirvana original also, like the kids in the audience. Just went out and listened to Bowie’s original; Nirvana stayed pretty close to it. Damfine song. Bowie was a genius, and Cobain was purposeful in the songs he chose to cover.

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    1. Yes Cobain picked a winner with that one and simplified it. Which I guess was the purpose…next year is it! There is a reason I’m ending on 95.

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      2. I don’t mind reblogging…but I have caught someone that just copied my post completely and pasted it as their own…Ron told me about it. He or she never did it again.
        Yes it’s been the most popular series I’ve done.

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      3. So “he” at least gives you attribution at his site? I have had several people just lift my posts without attribution and that’s aggravating but it’s a random thing by several different people, not just one person like this one, that lifts everything.

        So cool on the series!

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      4. Yes….he uses the reblog function….that other person just lifted my Stevie Nicks (I think) post…I commented “really good writing” and after that it stopped.
        That is just plain wrong lifting posts without saying something.

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  13. Good choices, as always. I was probably one of those who didn’t know Nirvana’s version wasn’t the original at the time… Weezer are one of my favourite bands ever, and I’ve always thought ‘Buddy Holly’ sounds like what Buddy Holly making music in 1994 would have sounded like. He’d only have been in his 50s!

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      1. Yeah I think Rivers Cuomo has one of the best ears for a melody around. Only problem is he has no quality control – they’ve released so much music! But when they’re good, they’re amazing.

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  17. “Buddy Holly” is that perfect indie/alternative rock jam that just floored me in its simplicity, humor, and slightness. I loved early Weezer when I was in college. I think they “sold out” on sound, creativity, and image in the early 2000s though. I was never a fan of their third album in which the guitar solos just doubled the refrain melody. No creativity or substance at all.

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      1. The movie series? I loved the first three, but then they get out of hand. The second one really hit me recently because we still have a baby in a crib. The first one was all-out original at the time, and the experience in the theater was downright spooky! I’ll revisit them in Oct for sure. Never went past Part 4.

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      2. Yes!
        I’m weird lol…My favorite is the third movie set in the 80s, then the second movie, then…this is where I’m on an island…the 6th one is really cool to me.
        3
        2
        6
        1
        5
        4

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      3. Awesome obsession, Max! I really dug 1, 2, 3, and, like you, despised 4, and that kinda put me off. Did you ever get into the Blackwell Ghost series? I can’t believe there are now 8 of them!!!!!

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