Marius 1991-1995
In
In
Mix
- Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
- Charmless Man - Blur
- Mile End - Pulp
- Welcome to Paradise - Green Day
- Kiss From A Rose - Seal
- Where The Wild Roses Grow - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Kylie Minogue
- Forgiven - Alanis Morisette
- The Wild Ones - Suede
Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end
Liner Notes
The 90s was rich in songs of vague teen alienation, of which the greatest is Smells Like Teen Spirit, chosen as a clear announcement of the next jump forward in time.
Charmless Man is the perfect song for wealthy, tedious Gillenormand. I cheated a little in the timeline to include Mile End, made famous on the Trainspotting soundtrack but really could slot anywhere in Pulp's discography, to describe the shithole Marius moves to. It's such a great song. Welcome to Paradise is also about leaving home and moving to a broken place.
I love Seal, and I've picked the vague, haunted city of A Kiss From A Rose for Eponine to stumble about in hungry, romantic reverie to. I don't love the decision made in adaptations to pull her in purely as part of a love triangle, but I can't deny its the easiest way to compress a large book. Where the Wild Roses Grow - what a song - is the love song of unsettling implications, as Marius develops a fondness for the site of a famous murder-suicide, of a shepherdess by her stalker, as a place he might chance upon Cosette. So pleased this one was the perfect year. Forgiven was written about reconciling Catholic guilt as a girl with sexuality, and is on the mix for Cosette.
Suede is probably my favourite band of the era, with Wild Ones as the overblown romantic epic for Marius' and Cosette's fear they must part.
I was pretty worried about pulling this together, I'm not excited by nor do i know a lot about 90s music, but I think this is a great collection