The Most Meaningful Songs of 1993

ROCK955 Hosts Angi Taylor, Klinger, Jaycee, Walt Flakus, and boss James each pick one song that they feel is the most meaningful from 1993. We learn about Angi's questionable crushes, Walt's tour life, and Klinger's tour bus escapade.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's the Top five on Rock ninetyfive to five, this time nineteen ninety
three. Here it is the inauguralepisode of the Rock ninety five to five
Top five. I get it.We have one, two, three,
five people in the room, Yes, and we all have picked our favorite

(00:20):
song or the most meaningful song forthe year nineteen ninety three, and we
got to see which one's best.You guys are actually gonna have the vote,
because you're going to get a voteat the end of this. But
first of all, we have tosell you on why our song is the
most important song of nineteen ninety three? Can I get these rules right?
So we're so this this particular episodeis nineteen ninety three, correct. Each

(00:44):
one of us have a different songfrom that year, yep. And we're
talking about why we love it,why it's amazing yep. And everybody gets
to vote, and then the nexttime we do a pod it's like a
different year. Correct. Oh,this is the greatest idea ever? Who
came up with this? And we'reall pointing to the because that was it
won't be Jimmy Jaye often because I'mfilling in from Maris today who had to
do other things. Okay, Hi, Jimmy Jowner. That's our boss,

(01:07):
Jimmy Joun. So let's go aroundthe room introduce ourselves. I'm Walt Hello,
I'm Angie Taylor. Hey, friends, it's Clinger, It's JC Nice,
I'm James Nice. All right,so we've all picked our favorite song
from nineteen ninety three, and nowwe sell you on it, and we're
gonna start over. Yeah. Thiswas hard. It was hard. That
was a hard thing to do,especially when James texted us the other day
and he's like, hey, Ineed your your song and at that point

(01:30):
I had it whirtled down to twosongs same. So yeah, and I
do think that, I mean,I think we should just pick the song
we picked, but that at theend we could maybe talk a little bit
about the honorable mentions that we maybewanted to do. The runner. I
think there's so many great songs,first of all, on this radio station
in general, but specifically from nineteenninety three was really hard, so I
think it'd be fun to talk aboutit. Sure, right on, all
right, so we're gonna start overhere. Angie Taylor, Oh my gosh.

(01:55):
Well, first of all, likeI think the nineties in particular was
so great for rock period, allof music, but really for Rocket was
super awesome. My pick today forthe song that I loved the most that
year rock song was Stone Tumble PilotsPlush Okay nice, I mean, I
mean crack love it. I've readthat there's like so many different meanings about

(02:15):
that song though. I read thatit was inspired by Scott Wiland reading a
paper and there was a little girlthat was kidnapped and murdered, which sounds
horrible, but then Scott Wiland cameout and said, well, there there
was that story going on, butthe song is really about how men are
dogs. So I'm like, thisis my jam so because so that line

(02:39):
actually makes sense. Yes, yes, when he's talking about the dog sniffing
around, it's the guy and aboutlike broken relationships and things like that.
So this is material you're familiar totally, and especially in nineteen ninety three,
I was in college and with thatone guy that was the dog in the
Stone Tumble Pilot song, and Ijust loved Stone Tuble Pilots as a band.

(03:00):
I think Scott Wiland is one ofthe greatest front men we've ever had.
For me, like James is gonnamake fun of me because I think
I have crushes on the weirdest people. I think Scott Wiler was sexy and
he wasn't. He wasn't like aguy that I think everybody thought was sexy.
But it's the Swiggers a lot hotter. Yes, I agree, And

(03:25):
I like the big bug like glassesthat he wore and all that. I
just thought he was was an era. Yeah, I thought he was a
real rock star, Like that's arock star. And also he died in
my hometown of Minneapolis, So thehonorable mention for that, and so I
love him even more because it feelsit feels, yeah, I feel closer
to him somehow for that. Myrunner up was Radioheads Creep runner Up.

(03:50):
Talk now, because you might bepicking somebody else's song, I want you
didn't pick and we should talk aboutradiod Creep because that's a great one.
We'll talk about it later. Thenwhen we talk about runner up, I
do want to say this, Angie, and I feel like this is going
to be the vibe for the entirepodcast. There isn't going to be a
song that any of us bring upthat anybody else is going to say,

(04:11):
well, that song sucks because Idon't know, I have some weird tastes.
But I'm saying, like you bringup any song from Stone Temple Pilot,
Stone Temple Pilots like they are stpthey are incredible, and that particular
song is also one of my favorites. Yeah, and I just feel like
it kind of transcended, like Ithink, I think everybody loves that song.

(04:32):
If you love pop music, ifyou love country music, I think
that is the song plush, that'smy song. Yeah, it's a great
song, all right. Clear.So yeah, it's hard to pick because
you find that if you look atall the records that dropped in nineteen ninety
three, many of them were debutrecords for a lot of these bands,
and there were so many incredible debutrecords. I mean, Counting Crows.

(04:55):
I know they don't go hard,but that August and everything after record is
still f in good right, andNew Order had some cool stuff in there.
I'm gonna go with a record anda song from the record Undertow.
I am such a fan of Tooland I know they had opiate their eph

(05:16):
not a full length, but Undertowwas their very first full length record,
and uh, Maynard, I guesshad been dabbling with the song Sober.
Sober is my song what I thinkis one of the greatest songs from nineteen
ninety three. But he had beendabbling with that song even prior to making
the ep Opiate, and so itsort of made its way onto that record.

(05:39):
And what I love is that Toolcontains my top three favorite drummers.
Danny Carey, I think, isMagnet. I feel like Bonham step aside.
It just sounded like, like yousaid, Tool had many two of
your favorite drummers, which I waitthey have. Danny Carey is probably in

(06:03):
my top three favorite drummers all thetime, and I just find he's so
damn finesse. And I also feellike when Undertow dropped, it was in
the middle of the grunge era,and it sort of gave a lot of
us who had cut their teeth onnever Mind and and all those records from
Nirvana and stuff, like maybe alittle bit of a break and giving us

(06:24):
a different sound while paving the wayfor other bands that may be influenced by
Tool, you know. And Ifeel like even today when we play Sober,
the beginning of that and shut Upmoment. Let's listen to this song
pretty in the beginning of love.So yeah, that's my song man,

(06:45):
all all now, my choice.I didn't get as much time as you
guys did, but you jumping tobe doing this, yes, and then
you know, like uh and thankgod you were here and you can hear
you every single weekend on Rock ninetyfive five, so we appreciate you stepping
in last second. Yeah. Thething about my taste in music as I

(07:05):
like a lot of things, andI was looking at the list of really
what the top songs were, andI have to go with Melissa Ethridge.
I'm the only one. That's becauseshe was out before, she had albums
out before, but this album justshe just exploded onto the scene. And
it also for me at that time, I was out of college just barely

(07:29):
and she was a strong female singer, songwriter, guitar player. It was
an angst album as well, beforeAlanis Morissett came out with her album That's
a good points, a strong hervocals are that whole album. Oh yeah,
that whole album. I'm not necessarilythat was her big song, but

(07:49):
there's great songs on that whole album. Yes, I am so I just
think she started the I'm a I'ma rock chick, I'm gonna screen,
I'm gonna tell you how I feel, and come to my window. All
those songs are just so. Ihave to say that at the time of
my life in my early twenties,that was that was it were drinking,

(08:13):
what was going on? Yeah,I think I was Jack and I was
Jock and country. Actually at thetime I was in grad school, but
it was yeh know, me andcountry, which is really kind of funny
if you think about I could notI know, but you're a badge bunny,
so you were. It's the easiestway to my husband was They ended
up being a coption one of thetwo. I'm going I'm going back to

(08:41):
I'm going to Fireman next time.It's still bad good good pension helmet.
We know we're getting older pension.So out of all of them, I
I just went with the power thesongwriting and We're was in my life and
so that they spoke to me.So Melissa Ethridge, I do remember this

(09:05):
was ninety five. I don't knowif she would have been touring that record
still from ninety three. I wasmy first full time job in radio,
was in Daytona Beach, Florida,and we'd always go to Orlando. And
we went to the Melissa Etheridge concertin Orlando and her tour bus, of
course, was back, uh youknow, behind the venue, and we,
I don't know, we got onthe tour bus and we started drinking
or booth. She was not there. I'm dying. But wait a minute.

(09:28):
The idea of young men sneaking onto Melissa Ethridge's tour buds of it
fuel for the fire? What wereyou hoping to do to watch like lifetime
movies like I don't know, burnsome sage like savink. What's gonna happen?
You know? I mean there's alwaysthe allure of the unknown, right,

(09:50):
So I think that had a lotto do with it. Holy crap,
she's headlining this venue and she hastheir tour bus back there. Let's
get on it and we drank herher alcohol. That's Oh, that's something
I guess. God, trust me, that's the most you were going to
get on that tour bus. Weweep, true story. We were probably
on molly or something like that,and real cool man. Oh it didn't
matter, And it makes sense forwho you've become as a man, because

(10:11):
now you're like a Hallmark movie guy. You love seeing this is actually yeah,
I'm a rom com guy. Ilove it nice. I love that
means kind of push you forward asan adult. He's got a sour dough
starter somewhere in the kitchen. Yes, that's called isn't what is that called?
Is it called the Mother? Idon't know. I think they call

(10:31):
it the mother? Right, Yeah. I think the fact that he knows
that's hilarious. Exactly he knows.Melissa Ethards probably had one on the tour.
Busts. You just stay away fromit. Right between this and Walton
knowing when Scott Wiland was hot.This is why we're doing this podcast.
We're learning each other. We gotto hang out with all these rock stars,

(10:52):
which is amazing. I can't waitto get to Walt I know,
right right, all right, somy meliss all right, going around the
horn me cam. So before Iwore a blazer, I was a teenager
and we didn't have MTV play atthe violin. Now, yeah, we
we had the radio. My parentsdid not believe in cable. They were
very like, we don't want youwatching TV, want you falling out of

(11:13):
trees. Uh so usually obviously reallyimportant because we had less that we had.
You know, we had like regularTV, but we never didn't have
cable church choir. I mean,I mean like we grew up in a
very like normal suburban. I wouldn'tgrow up poor. So I don't want
to like make this seem like,oh wow, like you came from nothing.
You know. Uh, we wehad, you know, everything we
needed. I just didn't have cable. So whenever I did get a chance

(11:37):
to like go over to like EricRodriguez's house and like watch MTV, that
was a moment, Right, that'sawesome and shout out to Eric, Eric,
thank you so much. We haven'ttalked to Eric, you know what
I mean. He's got all thecool stuff at his house. He had
all the stuff, right, thebest food, everything. And ironically,
this song is something I saw onMTV before I heard it on the radio

(11:58):
on on Zeta in Miami, whereI grew up, so it did make
it to the radio. But mysong and my band is the Smashing Pumpkins
disarm hell yeah, good one,good one, which I mean, thank
you. Yes. I love agood like timpany sounding drum. I love
something that sounds haunting I've never heard, and I think about what you're talking
about with Melissa Etheridge in terms oflike searing vocals, like desperate vocals.

(12:20):
I think my favorite front people arepeople who sound desperate like that when they're
singing. You're like, no one. I don't think anyone's gonna say Billy
Corgan has the greatest voice in rockhistory. You feel it, you feel
it. There's Billy. You likewhat you were saying about Melissa Athwarde.
I feel like you can feel likejust the pain and like the anger,

(12:41):
and like you can feel everything thatthey're singing. I love that on that
record and obviously the album as well, the desperation that comes. He's one
of the most important vocalist I've everheard because he made me feel something I
didn't quite understand, and then Ithought the video was cool, which is
of course that was my entry point. Was like, ironically video in this
case, it's so interesting you saythat because you saw you heard the song
when you saw the video. Andwith Tool and their videos or imagery on

(13:05):
stage, and I think the Pumpkinsare same way in a live situation.
It almost goes hand in hand liketheir visuals with their songs are I think
equals right. So to discover asong that you love from seeing the video
for the first time is very muchfor me the same I found a lot
of rock music on MTV for thefirst time, and Billy Corgan for how

(13:28):
that happens when you actually play musicvideo. I used to actually used to
be an art to go along withthe songs and lyrics as opposed to just
throwing a bunch of crap out there. And I also remember that this is
a Billy ad hair too, andand and the I don't remember the video
you probably don't, and that's okay. It was a lot of close ups

(13:50):
of like people in the band,but also like attractive looking women for some
reason in there and then and thenit was very close up a billy and
Billy's got some like like suptuously tothe list here learning a little too.
What is doing anyway? A teenager? Of course? I love the chimes

(14:20):
in disarm I mean, there aren'ttoo many rock songs where where you hear
the you know, hitting with thehammer, the chimes. Jimmy Chamberlain,
Come on, man, all right, so here's here's I picked depeche Mode.
I feel you I love it.I love it, and this is
why, because because this band isa band that I grew up with in

(14:43):
the eighties. I admired, Iloved, but man, when they reached
they did Violator had enjoyed the silenceand so many great hits, and then
they moved on one step further withsongs of faith and devotion and they come
out swinging with the song I FeelYou, which has that squelch sound,
and then the yeah sexy, sosexy, so sexy, and then it's

(15:09):
got the power, and then it'sgot real drums on it and it's just
keyboards, like it was the fullpackage. And it elevated that band to
becoming a rock band, which theyhadn't been. And then I saw them
live and we got a tour withthem the following year, and I'd hear
it live. You wanted you wantedto hear this stuff star stories, I

(15:31):
love so and then to hear themplay it every night and just see the
crowd respond. It's like, wedon't play it often on this radio station,
but it's a rock It's a rocksong, man, It's like it
just is and it's got that thatvibe that brings women the men, everybody
together to this, uh this justso, I'm choosing that one because it

(15:54):
is a sexy ass for it issexy, and I think bands like that
the women. It's because it's sexy, but like any band that's like really
ethereal and spatial but gritty at thesame time. Is the best. Why
I love Radiohead and you know,and I love that. Think about that
riff. It's like you could headbaitthat headboard betting to that honey we want

(16:25):
here So I got a click expliciton the box. Damn it. What
a great collection of songs though.Yeah, and we talked about a little
bit. You just you teed upRadiohead. You had Radiohead radio my backup.
I do. I love Radiohead somuch. Kid A album was my
probably favorite out of all of them. The only reason I didn't pick Creep
is because of all the Radiohead songs, it might be my least favorite.

(16:48):
But I love radio Head. Ohenough is there's as well. In nineteen
ninety three when they released that debutalbum, we were recording our album in
our debut album in London, Yeah, and they were playing this Heiny club
as a record release party. I'mlike, I don't want to go to
the South of London to see this, even though they were all over enemy
at the time of like I did, though I didn't go. You're killing

(17:10):
me. One of those things thatyou look back and you're like, and
this is why Tom York is stillsad. He's still so sad. And
it's because you didn't come to hisshow. And you know what, I
was living in Jacksonville back in theday and Prince came to Jacksonville and you
didn't go to that. I didn'tbecause the tickets were like two hundred and
fifty bucks and in my mind,I was like, this is too much.
And in hindsight, that was mymistake. That's one of my biggest

(17:32):
concert regrets that I never got tosee Prince because when you saw him playing,
you know, with Tom Petty wasit and all those other guitarists yeah
and roll Hall of Fame. Yeah, he was one of the greatest guitar
players ever ever, so damn dynamic. And I didn't notice that until I
saw that performance, and I waslike, oh, yeah, shame on
me. Man his debut album nineteenyears old, he played all twenty one

(17:55):
instruments on that album. He wasa genius, a genius amazing. That
is my regret. We should doanother podcast all the things that we didn't
do. Wait, there's too many. Clear did you have a runner up?
I can't think of it. Idon't really remember it. I do,
and it was what you said.I almost picked the Counting Crows because

(18:15):
that album August and everything after itis so it was. I'm a lyricist,
so anything with words like that.And I didn't eve. I wrote
down mister Jones, but round Hereis probably one of my round Here it's
just great. Uh. And Idid write down Aerosmith Forget a Grip and
Crazy. That album. It's asolid album. I mean, talk about

(18:37):
a band that's had, you know, a roller coaster of a career where
ebbs and flows. They start reallystrong and it kind of goes down,
then they come back, the pumpout, and then it goes away and
then yeah, so and that again. Videos they had Crazy Silverstone was in
there and his live it was alllike just a story. It's kind of
like guns and Roses, the wholestory of Usual Lousion. You know.

(19:00):
They kind of did that with thevideos. Yeah, yeah, they were
great, Yes, yes, Sothose were d back. It's a little
on the nose again teenager. Iwas finding my penis this time in nineteen
ninety three. Have you found ityet? Finally? Yeah? Yeah.
So I'm going James laid because it'sa little It's a great record. It

(19:22):
is the content made sense for whatI was going through emotionally and physically,
and it was just like a verycool sounding record. And I played it
over and over again because I waslike, maybe if I could manufacture the
ability for me to sleep with thefiner sex, I said Eric Rodriguez a
part of this as well. Thisis just the music piece of it.

(19:44):
I didn't see the videos way later. I didn't either. I just love
that record, and I kind offorgotten when we did this research. I
forgot about that was a ninety threerecord, and I was like, and
again, my name is James,and you know, so it felt like
it was for me. And Ithink the best songs you feel like somebody
you may it just for you,you know. My My alternate was I
was actually gonna go with Disarm ormaybe today, but it was something off

(20:08):
of Simon's dream because again and there'sa band here in Pumpkins that actually I'm
gonna do it. Nope, nope. On tour with Billy offered a threesome
for you and you didn't do it. It was his lips. Wait a
minute, is that is that forreal? No? That is not that

(20:29):
actually happened. Uh in nineteen ithappened. And eighty nine we played a
show with Pumpkins at a small clubcalled the Avalon here in Chicago, and
to see that band on stage beforeGish came out and just like feel the
power of them musically, it waslike, oh my god, this band
is amazing. They're going to behuge. And then finally they release Gish.

(20:49):
It's got some great songs, It'ssome and but then Simon's Dream just
turns the corner another place and yousee them get to that level with Today,
and then Disarmed just opens it wideopen. So I have to have
that one on there as well,So that would be my runner. Well
done, Oh my gosh, howfun, great great song. So now

(21:11):
the real question is you, asa listener, which one you want?
Which one? Which one's what's thenumber one of the top five? Yeah,
out of the top five, whichone are you going to vote for?
On Instagram? Yes? But rockninety five to five C Hi.
You can find it there and thenjust put in what which one you think
wins. I have a question aboutthe rules again, So are we?

(21:33):
Are we you care about r?Yes? To? This is confusing?
Whoa? I mean? So doesthis mean we're do we pick now for
next month? Are we picking theyear? At least? Now? We
should pick? It's a team time, it's a team. It's a good
idea. I mean, I pickedthis one, so I think somebody else
should pick. What year might justpop in your head that you think might
be impactful. I was going tosay two thousand and one only because it

(21:56):
was in my head. Two thousandand one is a different era. It's
a different eras just become best friends. He became best friends. I am
oh one is a great uh.That's also a transition time too, yeaheah.
It's always fun when when music startsto alter it it's feeling and I
think that makes a lot of sense. All right, So we'll come back.

(22:18):
We'll reconvene next month for another roundof rock ninety five five Top five
talking about the year two thousand andone. But right now, head over
to Instagram Rock nwinety five five ch I and vote for the one that
we chose today out of the topfive for nineteen ninety three. And thanks
for listening Rock and Wall one alone.