The Great Blitz Album Survey...Favourite Albums Across The Years...The 90s

Jeans were allowed. In fact, baggy jeans and a Billabong or Quicksilver T-shirt was essentially the uniform.

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Shame that wasn’t the case for the overage club. I don’t think there’s ever been so many pleated black, speckled pants/white collar shirt/shoestring tie combinations outside of Texas…

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Pretty sure it wasn’t in the Wiki list of albums released. I had to dig a bit deeper.

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C’mon man, I was a mature 16yo.

And what teenage male didn’t love the Cherry Pie video?

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True dat… but a whole album’s worth?

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Like I said, slim pickings.

Good or otherwise, at that point in time she was omnipresent. Her album was to parties at that time what Def Leppard’s Hysteria was from 1987-1989.

These days though, I defy anyone on Blitz (DJK in particular) to listen without thinking about Diggers and Taylor Hawkins and spit-ro… um… nevermind…

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Nah…this was clearly a time before your music taste deteriorated to the mess that it is today :rofl:

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I heard her on the radio and that was about it.

And I must be doing something right if both of our resident pop aficionados (@wimmera1 and @frosty) are unhappy with me :grin:

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Yep, heard that, forgot about it.

I think I have Shania Twain mixed in with alanis.

You definitely do.

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I assume sneakers were not allowed at that time.

Whenever people lament the old days I point them to stupid dress codes as evidence that the world is a much better place than it was 35 years ago

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Oh hell no!
Needed to have no denim, a collar and dress shoes. In Ferntree farking Gully!!!

Oh, and a belt. A mate was once refused entry for not wearing a belt. He went round the corner, stripped naked, borrowed my belt to wear, and lobbed up to the front door.
“What about now, ya ■■■■?”

Didn’t secure entry… but it was farking funny… lucky he wasn’t arrested (or beaten up by the bouncers)…

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I don’t think the production really stands up, but every girl I knew had that album. It was everywhere.

And mainstream radio at the time playing a song with some of those lyrics really was surprising.

Being a transitioning 14 yo girl was a very confusing time for me.

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Mainstream radio always played the “radio version”, didn’t they? It was only Dribble J that played the naughty version.

I actually think Dribble J played a big part in that album crossing-over and going gangbusters. It had enough novelty value (angry pop-rock songs, sung by woman no less, talking about giving BJ’s in cinemas and screwing) for Arnold Frollows to be all over it like white on rice. Having Flea and Dave Navaro on it also gave it some “indie cred”. Its angry/jilted lover tone captivated the female audience (in the same way that, say, Adele did) and it got serious wheels. Mainstream radio had no choice but to get on board.

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It was top ten selling album worldwide in the 90’s. Bigger than triple j.

Yes it was, but I’m talking in Australia. Dribble J were on it before mainstream radio here.
That was important back then. Stuff that became massive overseas, didn’t always translate here.
As examples,
Take That were collossally big in the UK and Europe. Unless you spent any time there in the early-mid 90’s, you can’t appreciate just how big. They were seriously MASSIVE!! Thankfully, Oz radio never much touched them (until right at the end), and were we spared on the whole.
On the other side of the ditch, Dave Matthews Band shifted (and still do shift) mega units and sell out massive arenas everywhere. Radio here has never touched them and I doubt they’ve ever had a top 10 selling album in Australia. Not sure why… to me they’re as beige as Coldplay (except their songs go for 10 minutes) and perfectly radio-friendly.

Radio play in the 90’s still mattered, and Alanis was not really in the mainstream’s wheelhouse. Of course Alanis would be de rigeur these days but back then it was well before angsty female pop like Pink, Olivia, Taylor etc…

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Let’s be honest, it was writing an explicit break-up song about Full House’s Uncle Joey that really took the album mainstream.

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To be fair, that was also true for most music that wasn’t boy bands, movie soundtrack power ballads, or established big names like u2 or Michael Jackson at the time.

JJJ was a sort of gateway. They played stuff first, then the bigger commercial stations picked it up later, if it was unadventurous enough.

It’s worth remembering that even though we all remember the 90s as being Nirvana, Soundgarden, even Alanis - that’s not what it was at the time. Pretty sure the best selling artist in Australian the 90s was (drumroll) Mariah Carey. The concept of ‘alternative’ kinda still meant something then. I mean, Achy Breaky Heart and Living La Vida Loca would have sales numbers that crap all over most albums named in this thread. The 90s was a great time for music, but jeez, you kinda had to work for it.

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