Aphex Twin - Analogue Bubblebath (1992)

 

1. Analogue Bubblebath
2. Isopropophlex
3. En Trance to Exit (with Schizophrenia)
4. AFX 2
5. Digeridoo
6. Untitled
7. Alien Fanny Farts
8. Flaphead
9. Phloam
10. Polynomial-C
11. Tamphex (Hedphuq Mix)
12. Phlange Phace
13. Dodecahedron

The story of how Aphex Twin's music got released is the stuff of legend. Richard D. James reportedly signed a record deal with the label Mighty Force while tripping on acid at a rave, who would later put out his Analogue Bubblebath EP in 1991 which would be his first release. The EP was originally released under the name The Aphex Twin but would later be credited as AFX when reissued in 1994. He would later release his Analogue Bubblebath Vol. 2 EP under the label Rabbit City which included the song Digeridoo. The song would later get picked up by R&S Records as a single.

Now it's been said that James went to Belgium where R&S was located with a box of demo tapes he made, and from those tapes they assembled what would be his first album Selected Ambient Works 85-92. But by the time his first album was released, he had already put out several EPs on different labels over the past year. He put out 7 EPs and I'm using 4 of them. The ones I'm not using are two Joyrex EPs released as Caustic Window & the Pac-Man EP released as Power-Pill.

Traveling Wilburys - Volume 4½ (1992)

 

1. Poor Little Girl - George Harrison

2. Out in the Cold - Tom Petty

3. Don't Let Go - Jeff Lynne

4. A Love So Beautiful - Roy Orbison

5. Shooting Star - Bob Dylan
6. Cockamamie Business - George Harrison

7. Zombie Zoo - Tom Petty

8. What Would It Take? - Jeff Lynne

9. The Only One - Roy Orbison

10. 2 × 2 - Bob Dylan

When I was making the last two Traveling Wilburys albums, I had to listen to 7 albums by 6 lead singers! And that's a lot of material so obviously there were a lot of good tracks I had to cut out. But honestly, I think I'd be ok with not using the Del Shannon album. I was alright with using it for the last one, but he was never an official member and I just found his falsetto vocals to be the most annoying. Also I felt like since George didn't release an album around this time I haven't been including as many of his songs, which kind of sucks cause the project was his whole idea. I think Bob was the only one still releasing solo music around this time so let's just apply Joy Division's rules. They broke up in 1991 so we won't use any solo material that's past that. The cover came from a bootleg but I'd like to think George would've called it that as a joke similar to Volume 3 being the second album. George's songs come from a compilation album he had.

Guided by Voices - Back to Saturn X (1992)

 

1. Fantasy Creeps
2. Perch Warble
3. Dusty Bushworms
4. Squirmish Frontal Room
5. Scalding Creek
6. Melted Pat
7. Spring Tigers
8. Crutch Came Slinking
9. Mallard Smoke
10. Sopor Joe
11. Tricyclic Looper
12. Scissors and the Clay Ox (In)
13. Back to Saturn X
14. Mr. Japan
15. My Big Day
16. Our Value of Luxury
17. Bottoms Up! (You Fantastic Bastard)
18. The Garden
19. Heartbeat

Guided by Voices released an album in 1992 called Propeller, however it was compiled from two album projects they were working on at the time, Back to Saturn X and The Corpse Like Sleep of Stupidity. In fact one of the tracks on Propeller was a "radio report" medley of tracks from the unreleased Saturn album. When Propeller first came out, it featured a ton of variations of the cover, each one basically being unique. The one I used was one of those unique variations. 

Devo - Hardcore Devo Vol. 3 (1992)

 

1. Booji's Industrial Death
2. Total Luv
3. Live Forever
4. Androgyny
5. Bicentennial Birthday
6. The Twinkle Tune
7. Private Secretary
8. I Don't Know Why
9. Dixie
10. Pigs Waddle
11. Death of Lt. Casanova
12. I Don't Know What I Do-Do
13. Huboon Stomp
14. Everything's Gonna Be Alright
15. Falling in Love Again
16. Lost at Home
17. Untitled
18. Never Go Back
19. Nutty Buddy

This was an idea that I had for years, but I only had a list of songs I could use and not a track listing. Recently though Devo released a 2 CD compilation album containing more of their early material. Not only would the tracks be in better quality but I could cut out a CD of stuff. 

Courtney Love (Band) - Complete Discography (1992)

 

1. Uncrushworthy
2. Sunny Day
3. Motorcycle Boy
4. 2nd Most Beautiful Girl in the World
5. Hey Antoinette!
6. Stripmine
7. My Last Night
8. Highlights
9. Shaniko
10. Disappearing Lessons
11. Spray
12. Don't Mix the Colors
13. Baseball Bat

In the mid-80s, 2 young aspiring punk rockers lived together in Portland, Oregon. Lois Maffeo and Courtney Michelle Harrison (who went by the somewhat less hippie-recalling "Michelle") used to joke about the perfect rock star name: Courtney Love. Eventually things would go sour (Harrison was not the easiest person to live with) and one of the women would escape to a quiet life of indie-rock obscurity, while the other would go on to full-blown rock stardom with every last one of the attending clichés thereof, complete with the biggest and most controversial rock-and-toll marriage since John and Yoko. Both would go on to use the name they'd created.

The Courtney Love that you haven't seen on the cover of Spin was a two-piece band consisting of Maffeo and Yoyo Recordings founder Pat Maley. The work they did is not much different than Lois' later releases under her own name. Simple, stripped down acoustic guitar and drums, with slightly clever, unpretentious lyrics drawn from Maffeo's life and relationships. The band would eventually break up after a few singles, a number of compilation appearances, and a whole host of legal threats from the woman who felt that she owned the name.

This isn't groundbreaking music, or revolutionary, but it doesn't try to be. The band formed to play at a party in Olympia in 1989 and happened to just keep it going for a couple years. I think it's pretty safe to say that within the spectrum of rock, Courtney Love (the band) and Courtney Love (the person) are about as far from one another as you can get, and I consider that a big point in the band's favor. Certainly worth checking out if you like the idea that punk doesn't mean 120 decibels and rock doesn't imply publicity agents. 

Melvins - Solo EP Trilogy (1992)

1. Isabella - King Buzzo
2. Porg - King Buzzo
3. Annum - King Buzzo
4. Dead Wipe - Dale Crover
5. Respite - Dale Crover
6. Hurter - Dale Crover
7. Bricklebrit - Joe Preston
8. Hands First Flower - Joe Preston

Similar to Kiss' stunt in 1978, the Melvins released a series of solo EPs in 1992. There were only three of them but similarly to how Peter Criss' album was voted the worst of the bunch, Joe Preston's EP was voted the worst.

Nirvana - Incesticide (1992)

Side A:
1. Token Eastern Song
2. Even in His Youth
3. Been a Son
4. (New Wave) Polly
5. Aneurysm
6. Return of the Rat (Wipers Cover)
7. D-7 (Wipers Cover)

Side B:
8. Molly's Lips (The Vaselines Cover)
9. Son of a Gun (The Vaselines Cover)
10. Turn Around (Devo Cover)
11. Do You Love Me? (Kiss Cover)
12. They Hung Him on a Cross (Lead Belly Cover)
13. Grey Goose (Lead Belly Cover)
14. Ain't It a Shame? (Lead Belly Cover)
15. Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (Lead Belly Cover)

An internet blogger known for reconstructing famously unreleased albums once did a project where he did "a reconstruction of the unreleased 1990 Nirvana album Sheep, which is essentially the precursor to what would eventually be released as Nevermind in 1991." It made me wonder what it would have been like if Nirvana had still released it in 1992 but without material included on Sheep and Ashamed to Be Human. 

I knew for a fact it'll include "D-7" (the only song from the Japanese and Australia-release only Hormoaning EP that wasn't rereleased on Incesticide besides "Even in His Youth"; that song was released on my version of Nevermind, along with "Aneurysm", which was released on Incesticide but in a version exclusive to the album and thus different than the version released on my version of Nevermind) and "Do You Love Me?" (from the 1992 album, Hard to Believe: Kiss Covers Compilation; it was recorded in 1989 and totally sounds like it should've been on Incesticide since it was full of covers anyway.) 

But don't think that all the songs that were on the original Incesticide won't be on the new version. There are some songs that Sheep and Ashamed to Be Human haven't taken yet: the covers and the alternate versions of already existing songs exclusive to Incesticide like "Aneurysm". In fact, it'll probably include a lot more covers, these ones being from With the Lights Out, and a lot more other stuff from With the Lights Out. "Ain't It a Shame?", "Grey Goose", & "They Hung Him on a Cross" came from a band called The Jury, which was a side project by Nirvana and another band called Screaming Trees which did four Lead Belly covers in two days of recording sessions in August 1989. The fourth song that they also did was "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", but while officially released, wasn't included on WTLO. I didn't mean to put all the covers together. There were just so many damn covers.

"Stain" was originally featured on Incesticide but is now on Sheep. But there are other songs from that session that we can put on here, like "Token Eastern Song" and the demo to "Even in His Youth", which interestingly was gonna be put on the "Blew" EP, but was unfinished at the time and missed the deadline, so it was put on the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single as a B-side instead, along with Aneurysm. Also from these sessions were versions of "Been a Son" and "Polly", but other versions of it were already on Incesticide. Kurt once had an idea for an album called "Nirvana Sings Songs of Devo, Wipers, Vaselines, and Nirvana". This is basically that except for the addition of Lead Belly and Kiss.  

Less than a minute less than the original Incesticide? The length makes it feel like it's more of a real album now! I'm on a roll today! But doesn't seem like I have anything else to do. With The Lights On is kind of like an alternate universe version of With the Lights Out, and if you take away all the tracks from WTLO that were used to make Ashamed to Be Human, Sheep, Nevermind, and this, they only amount to a disc and a half. I can't do anything with half a disc. And even less from With The Lights On was used. So what I did was take the exclusives from the two With the Lights On best-ofs and used those to make alternate discs 1 and 2 of With the Lights Out. Now With the Lights On has no more best-ofs.