Thirty of 1992’s biggest or best, sometimes both.
For more 1992 music, click here.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter
Follow me on Instagram
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 9-22-22
Today’s playlist celebrates the September 21 birthday of Leonard Cohen, inadvertently missed the other day; the September 22 birthdays of Joan Jett, Nick Cave, Whitesnake’s David Coverdale, Mystikal, Toni Basil, Right Said Fred’s Richard Fairbrass, The Rentals’ Matt Sharp, Debby Boone, Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano, Marlena Shaw, Martin Solveig, The Jones Girls’ Shirley Jones, Timebox’s Mike Patto, and Pat Suzuki; and the September 23 birthdays of Bruce Springsteen, John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Ani DiFranco, The Whispers’ Walter and Wallace Scott, Jermaine Dupri, Freeez’s John Rocca, K’s Choice’s Sam Bettens, Paul Petersen, Anya Marina, and Mary Kay Place.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter
Follow me on Instagram
Queer Music of the 1990s
What makes compiling lists of queer music by decades more challenging as we move forward in time is that the number of songs from which to choose keeps increasing greatly. For today’s playlist, I started with a list of several hundred songs by out LGBTQ+ acts or with LGBTQ+ subject matter, from which I whittled it down to the 30 tunes below. I second guess myself a lot. Should three of the first four songs be by straight-identifying acts? Should I include a lightweight novelty number over something by Maria McKee? (I decided yes, though I love Maria.) I didn’t necessarily choose my favorites. Instead I went for songs/acts that were on some level trailblazers. Here they be:
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter.
Follow me on Instagram.
Throwback Thursday: 1992
It’s Throwback Thursday, and on today’s playlist we go back to 1992. Compiling this list made me notice (or remember) what a kickass year for music 1992 was. The success of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a top ten pop hit around the world months after it was sent to alternative radio, came as a complete surprise to the band’s record label and management, and seemed to kick open the doors for weirdos and freaks (I use those terms affectionately) to find their place in the sun and on the charts.
The left field entries weren’t solely from the guitar rock field. Shakespear’s Sister’s “Stay” was a song (or two songs) that stood out from the pack and was not something one would have expected from a former member of Bananarama and someone who co-wrote and sang backup on Eric Clapton’s hit “Lay Down Sally.” And Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” endures all these years later.
To me this era was a golden age for hip hop. Arrested Development, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Kris Kross, Das EFX, Sir Mix-A-Lot and House of Pain hit creative peaks, while rap duo P.M. Dawn hit number three with “I’d Die Without You,” an unexpected ballad with nary a hint of the hip or hop.
Nineteen ninety-two was the year we met Mary J. Blige and Billy Ray Cyrus. It was the year many more people got to know Red Hot Chili Peppers, k.d. lang and En Vogue. And while new names were dotting the Hot 100, there was still room for more hits from Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Whitney Houston and U2.
Here are thirty musical highlights from 1992, a year that most definitely was not wiggida wiggida wiggida wack.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Facebook.
Follow Tunes du Jour on Twitter.
Follow me on Instagram.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (9-22-20)
Inspired by the September 22 birthdays of Joan Jett, Nick Cave, Mystikal, Debby Boone, Martin Solveig, Pat Suzuki, Right Said Fred’s Richard Fairbrass, The Rentals’ Matt Sharp, Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano, Timebox’s Mike Patto and The Jones Girls’ Shirley Jones.
Not Your Typical LGBTQ+ Pride Playlist
June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Tune du Jour celebrates with this playlist consisting of two hundred songs by and/or about Ls, Gs, Bs, Ts and Qs. Happy Pride!
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter: @tunesdujour
Follow me on Instagram: @glennschwartz
A Hint Of Mint – Volume 86: LGBTQ Music From 1991 To 1992
This playlist consists of twenty songs, most performed by artists who fall somewhere under the LGBTQ umbrella, a couple with queer lyrical content. Artists include Pet Shop Boys, Joan Jett and Right Said Fred, plus all the ones you’d expect and perhaps some you wouldn’t.
[8tracks width=”300″ height=”250″ playops=”” url=”http://8tracks.com/mixes/8559397″]
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!
Follow me on Twitter: @TunesDuJour
Follow me on Instagram: @glennschwartz
Throwback Thursday – 1992
Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores, and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band’s second album, 1991’s Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse. Nirvana popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing them into the American mainstream like no other band to date.
– AllMusic
It’s the Song that Broke Punk, the incantation about self-despising entertainment that turned a dead-end Aberdeen kid into a supernova, the very last rock song everyone could rally around.
– Pitchfork
The song that changed everything, “Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was released as a single in September 1991. It reached #6 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in January of the following year, and kicks off this week’s Throwback Thursday playlist focusing on 1992.
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!
Follow me on Twitter: @TunesDuJour
Let’s Sing About Sex
Today is the 57th birthday of English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. My favorite song of his is “Sexuality,” a #2 US Modern Rock hit from 1991. Co-written with The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, “Sexuality” is, as described by Wayne Studer in his book Rock on the Wild Side, “a bouncy, ringing celebration of healthy, open-minded live-and-let-live attitudes about the human body and human relationships.” Singing “your laws do not apply to me” and “I demand equality,” this is a protest song that remains relevant 20+ years later.
In celebration of “Sexuality,” today’s playlist consists of twenty songs with the word sex or some variant thereof in the title. Get down!
Click here to like Tunes du Jour on Facebook!