Why is Urge Overkill’s Saturation on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Alt rock with an ironic edge that still nonetheless rocks.
What does Urge Overkill’s Saturation mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I have so many things to be thankful to Quentin Tarantino for, and I think that introducing me to Urge Overkill for the first time is one of them. The band’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon,” a Neil Diamond cover, is both incredible on its own and integral to an endlessly cool and stylish scene from the iconic film, Pulp Fiction.
My memory is a little hazy on the details, but between “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” and “Sister Havana,” which saw some airplay on the radio, I got my hands on Urge Overkill’s Saturation on CD as soon as I could. It’s an album that plays great all the way through – no real weak points, and with a consistent sound – cool without being slick, rocking with a little bit of an ironic edge, great hooks, vocals, and guitar work throughout.
I’m always a fan of overly large amulets deployed in some likely ironic fashion form, so kudos to Urge Overkill in the “Sister Havana” video.
The irony factor goes up a few ticks in a great way on “Erica Kane,” the title of which references the character from the soap opera, All My Children, played by Susan Lucci. The song laments the fact that Lucci was nominated for an Emmy for the Erica Kane role many times over the years but never won.
“Nite and Grey” is a straight forward rocker, and cool as hell as just that.
Some stats & info about Urge Overkill – Saturation
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Chicago Bands, Rock Music, Pop Music, Alternative Rock, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Saturation released? 1993
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #729 out of 1,000
Urge Overkill’s Saturation on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.