Beck, Jeff Buckley, Massive Attack: A Summer '94 Pick Three
This summer Soundcheck is looking back to the summer of 1994 to explore the hits, defining albums and pop culture of 20 years ago.
Normally, Ann Delisi seeks out new discoveries as a DJ at Detroit public radio station WDET. But in a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, she looks back 20 years, to her first "tour of duty" at the station in the 1990's, and shares a playlist of three favorite songs from 1994.
Ann Delisi's Pick Three
Â
Massive Attack, "Protection" from Protection (released Sept. 26, 1994)
"I'm not a big fan of long songs, but the seven-minute version of this song kept me captivated the whole time which surprised the heck out of me. You get sort of sucked into this trip-hoppy dreamy song, and I thought Tracey Thorn's voice was put to great use in this song."
-----
Beck, "Loser" from Mellow Gold (released March 1, 1994)
"I remember the first time I heard it, I was in the WDET library and the music librarian said, 'You have not heard anything like this — you have got to hear this.' When they did this song, the vocals were all done in one take... the whole thing was cut in about six and a half hours. The funny thing is, [Beck] and his producer at the time, Carl Stephenson, really didn't expect anything to happen with this song and they both later on talked about how they wished the lyrical content would have been more substantive. Beck said he would have tried a little harder if he had known [that the song would be a major hit]."
-----
Jeff Buckley, "Last Goodbye" from Grace (Aug. 23, 1994)
"I remember sitting in [a Canadian] studio and I was so excited that a commercial station was actually playing him at the time. I remember sitting there and thinking, 'This guy is going to be incredibly famous and everybody's going to know about him.' And then I remember being in that same studio and getting the information and the sad news that he had died."
