A lot of people say grunge died when Kurt Cobain killed himself.
I would argue that Kurt\’s death was like a bullet in the gut for grunge, but the death was much, much slower.
I watched mournfully as Soundgarden broke up after putting out a disappointing follow-up to \”Superunknown\” in 1996. By that same year, Pearl Jam put out a couple of albums that just didn\’t resonate with me at all. And to top it all off, there were wanna-be\’s aplenty — the Candleboxes and Creeds of it all that just added a putrid sepsis to the gut wound.
It\’s no wonder I went in search of something else.
Truthfully, 1994-1998 was kind of a musical desert for me. I turned to hip-hop here and there, but my favorite groups were putting out hit-and-miss albums. I turned to old mainstays like U2 and REM, but the former had gone chasing techno music and the latter was just kind of all over the place.
I couldn\’t tell you what winding roads led me there, but I found my oasis in the world of soul, funk and R&B. It started with Jamiroquai\’s \”Return of the Space Cowboy,\” the Brand New Heavies\’ \”Brother Sister\” and G Love and Special Sauce\’s self-titled album.
I needed more, and kept falling down a rabbit hole that led me to D\’Angelo\’s \”Brown Sugar,\” Erykah Badu\’s \”Baduizm,\” Maxwell\’s sexy \”Urban Hang Suite\” and Mint Condition\’s \”Definition of A Band.\”
And while all of these albums were on heavy rotation, none of them stuck with me like \”The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.\”
\”Miseducation\” combined the nastiest grooves with the most boastful raps, the most stirring melodies and harmonies with the most sweat-drenched slow jams I\’d ever heard on one album — and not a bad song on it.
On top of all that, it\’s a concept album about love — interspersed with a teacher talking to children about their misconceptions, misunderstandings and mixed-up feelings surrounding love — is it just a feeling or is it more?
And in between those admittedly adorable discussions, Hill answers her critics \”Lost Ones,\” assails the music business \”Superstar,\” dwells on fond memories of growing up, \”Every Ghetto, Every City,\” and gets honest about her decision to have her child, \”Zion.\”
Hill\’s veins are split wide open on this album, especially on the love songs, which are full of longing and heartbreak. \”Ex-Factor\” opens with the line, \”It could all be so simple/But you\’d rather make it hard/Loving you is like a battle/And we both end up with scars.\” She carries this same theme through \”When It Hurts So Bad\” and \”I Used to Love Him\” to haunting effect.
\”Nothing Even Matters,\” a duet with D\’Angelo, is one of the best slow jams ever recorded — in my opinion anyway — and drags the beat with longing and yearning that builds and builds over the course of the song.
\”Miseducation\” is the document of a strong woman confronting her life, her history, her loves, her work, and how all of those things contribute to her happiness and wholeness. She\’s wrestling with what ultimately matters, setting fire to all of it so that only the gold can stay.
The result is a beautiful, danceable, rewarding listen.