Here's another installment of our reflections on life-changing albums, this time by music critic Scott Harrell:
The Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen (Elektra, 1993) It was my first Florida roommate and new-sounds pusherman Jeff B. who really freed me from the chains of FM-dial slavery. He brought Pixies, The Replacements, The Descendents, Public Enemy, The Buck Pets, Galaxie 500, Fugazi and countless others to my Faith No More/Soundgarden/Primus-heavy existence. He recognized a spark of interest in alternative music within me, and fed it constantly, with the most combustible fuels at his disposal.
(In return, I showed him that the reason why most of the people who talked so passionately about his favorite bands smoked so much pot was because it made the tunes sound even better.)
By 1993, however, the alternative was the mainstream. And we still loved our Alice in Chains, but were always on the lookout for something melodic and compelling and powerful that the masses would never embrace wholesale. One place we found it was Sugar’s Copper Blue. Another was Gentlemen, the major-label debut by a sexy, drunk and angry band from Cincinnati that had cut its teeth on Sub Pop, but had managed to flourish largely outside the hoopla our favorite independent label was constantly creating.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2006.