1997 Playboy Music

There are two ways to look at the music of 1996. Al Gore dancing the macarena is one. The other is to think of 1996 as a transition year. If alternative is passé, then what's next? Music lovers voted on the year with their dollars--they didn't spend them. There were a few surprises--Celine Dion, LeAnn Rimes, No Doubt--and a lot of recycling. Kiss' comeback was a hoot and a financial success, Patti Smith's was poignant and the Sex Pistols' a flop. It's not enough to be in it for the money. The Beatles had a great year, Michael Jackson an off one, and Prince surprised everybody by making a three-CD album that wasn't a bomb.

It was a good year again for the women. Madonna found a new way to get our attention. Alanis Morissette's CD went platinum 14 times by the end of 1996. Keeping up in the honorable mention category: Toni Braxton, Sheryl Crow (fueled by the Wal-Mart ban over these lyrics: "Watch our children as they kill each other/With a gun they bought at Wal-Mart discount stores"), Mariah Carey, Jewel, Shania Twain and the women the critics loved--Ani DiFranco, Tracy Chapman, Tracy Bonham, Anita Cochran and Fiona Apple.

Country responded to a drop in sales by moving a little to the offbeat--Junior Brown, BR5-49, Gillian Welch, Iris DeMent and the 14-year-old phenom with the huge voice, LeAnn Rimes. Bill Monroe died, leaving the bluegrass music he popularized to be carried on by Allison Krauss and friends.

This was the year that rap imploded. Tupac Shakur died in a hail of bullets, as if fulfilling his gangsta destiny. Dr. Dre took a hike, changing labels and direction. Snoop was acquitted of murder. Just when we wondered if rap could survive its old ways, a strong new direction appeared in the music of Fugees and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony--melody and (occasionally) a more uplifting attitude.

Things changed in R&B, too. Babyface's success at producing, writing and performing seemed to remind others--D'Angelo, Maxwell, Tony Rich, Faith Evans--how to do what Whitney, Toni and Mariah have perfected. College students discovered P-Funk this year. Not too long ago, George Clinton was happy just being sampled. Now everyone's got the funk.

Rock's strongmen--Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Hootie--did not emerge with one particular lyrical or musical point of view this year. That bodes well for the future. Even the warhorses--John Mellencamp, Sting, David Bowie--looked for new ways to say things to their listeners.

And what about jazz? Is it coming back? Is it already here? Dead? Each year the same question is asked and remains unanswered. Certain musicians--Harry Connick Jr., Tony Bennett, Kenny G, Quincy Jones, Wynton Marsalis--have broken through. Everyone knows them, if not their music. But what about the others? Cassandra Wilson, Cyrus Chestnut, Joshua Redman? Some of them appeared in Robert Altman's Kansas City. The soundtrack received more attention than the film. And even if BET on Jazz, the jazz cable channel, doesn't have MTV's audience, the death of the first lady of song, Ella Fitzgerald, touched everyone.

We think we've finally figured out the appeal of soundtrack CDs. They give the buyer what radio used to provide--a little variety. People who won't see Evita in the theater will buy the CD to hear what Madonna made of it. People who love R&B bought Waiting to Exhale. We bought the Supercop soundtrack to hear Tom Jones sing Kung Fu Fighting. Even Beavis and Butt-head's soundtrack has an avid audience.

We also witnessed the revival of heroin as the drug of choice among musicians this past year. This, of course, is not new. Jazz in the Forties and Fifties was the background music for a heroin epidemic. Rock in the Seventies faced it, too. There were musicians who did not survive it--Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Kurt Cobain, Jonathan Melvoin--and those, such as Scott Weiland, who are trying to beat it. The music establishment hasn't come to grips with the problem, though it debated the subject endlessly during the year.

The other highlights in 1996? The Memphis Symphony premiered the Elvis Overture on the King's 60th birthday. Sufi religious music went pop when Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan became the Ravi Shankar of the Nineties. Rent opened on Broadway so that theatergoers who would not be caught dead strolling in Tompkins Square Park could have an alternative moment in $65 seats. The Ramones split up. The Who reunited and took Quadrophenia to the stage. The Olympics relied on Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to give the opening ceremony a contemporary feeling. Warner Brothers resigned R.E.M. for a cool $80 million. Bruce Springsteen told the Dole campaign to lay off Born in the U.S.A. Chuck Berry turned 70. The Monkees played together again. Hole's Courtney Love reinvented herself, as an actress. And it all worked.

So what did we like? Junior Brown's yodel, Jakob Dylan's Wallflowers, Gwen Stefani's outfits, Lou Reed's better mood, Beck's loopy energy, Poi Dog Pondering's huge sound, Morphine's saxophone, the return of the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus and Anglo-Irish band the Big Geraniums. What did you like? The answer to that will tell a lot about 1997. This year you voted by staying out of the concert halls and record stores. Musicians and the record companies want to get you back. We bet they will.

Music Poll Results

Music Video

Tonight, Tonight

Smashing Pumpkins

Soundtrack

The Crow: City of Angels

Concert

Kiss

Albums of the Year

Rock

[albumTitle]Tragic Kingdom[/albumTitle]

[label]No Doubt[/label]

Country

[albumTitle]Borderline[/albumTitle]

[label]Brooks & Dunn[/label]

Jazz

[albumTitle]Q'S Jook Joint[/albumTitle]

Quincy Jones

REB/RAP

[albumTitle]Gangsta's Paradise[/albumTitle]

[label]Coolio[/label]

VJ

Daisy Fuentes

MTV

1997 Playboy Music Poll Winners

Hall of Fame • Hank Williams

Born Hiram King Williams in Georgiana, Alabama on September 17, 1923, Hank Williams had a vocal style--which he called "moanin' the blues"--and durable songs that established him as one of country music's greatest entertainers. Your Cheatin' Heart, Hey Good Lookin' and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry are among 125 songs in Williams' vast catalog of hits. Hank Williams was influenced by the gospel music of Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff as well as the sounds of black music that he heard from street singer Rufus Payne. But his life came to an end at age 29 when Hank Williams died of a heart attack in the backseat of his Cadillac on the way to a show in Canton, Ohio on New Year's Day 1953. playboy salutes a pioneer of country music.