Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.Don’t be misled by the megawatt smile of Algerian singer-songwriter Khaled. Known as the king of raï, his songs are as provocative as they are joyful. Raï (which means “opinion” or “point of view” in Arabic) first blossomed in the 1970s and ’80s in the rowdy cabarets of Oran, a port city on the coast of the Mediterranean. As the music gained in popularity, a pioneering record producer named Rachid Baba-Ahmed started bringing local stars to his studio in the northwestern city of Tlemcen to record pop-oriented tracks featuring synthesizers, guitars, and drum machines. This “pop raï” sound was documented on the iconic 1988 compilation Rai Rebels, which put raï on the map and helped lay a foundation for international superstars like Khaled — then known as Cheb Khaled, an honorary title meaning “Young Man.” As he gained in popularity, Khaled dropped the “Cheb” from his name and toured the globe. In 1999, the genre’s renown was fully cemented as singer Cheb Mami teamed up with Sting to record the hit “Desert Rose” — which made it into the Top 20 on the U.S. Billboard charts — while Khaled paired with fellow raï stars Rachid Taha and Faudel for the much-celebrated live album 1, 2, 3 Soleils. By now raï hits were fully globalized affairs featuring Western-style song structures, universal themes, and some of the most sentimental pop hooks known to man. But the genre remained controversial back home, where a civil war was consuming Algeria whole. The singer Cheb Hasni and the producer Baba-Ahmed were both assassinated by Islamist militants in 1994 and 1995, and many artists had to flee, no longer able to safely sing music that dealt with controversial matters like drinking and forbidden love. The war in Algeria ended in 2002 and today raï continues to evolve, with younger artists fusing it together with genres like R&B. And of course, Khaled scored another hit in 2012 with his club banger “C’est la vie.” It just goes to show how powerful the genre is, encapsulating the drastic extremes of life itself.
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.
Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.
Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.
