5. Belly, King (1995)
This one is personal. If the world had been hip enough to get this, it would have had the success it deserved and Belly could have continued to make interesting music. As it was, the commercial failure splintered the band and that was that. Yes, Tanya Donelly made some noise on her own, but it was never the same. Perhaps this band was tapping into a distinctive early-to-mid ‘90s vibe and they would not have comfortably evolved. But Beck and Portishead, just to name two acts that made era-defining albums at this time, certainly proved that the better artists adapt while not necessarily changing. All of which is to say it’s simply a shame that an album that is better than anyone realizes ended up being the beginning of the end.
Perhaps anything they did would have been somewhat disappointing after the out-of-nowhere success of their debut, Star. There was, undeniably, something so fresh and innocently edgy (edgily innocent?) that it may have been a bit like catching pop rocks in a bottle. To their credit, the band did not try to make a carbon copy of their breakthrough—and it’s unlikely they would have had success even if they had made that cynical choice. King is definitely harder and darker, and if it’s more ambitious it’s also more mature—in a good way. It would be impossible to recreate the quirky ebullience of tracks like “Feed The Tree” or “Untogether”, just as it is difficult to imagine that band doing anything like “Silverfish” or “Untitled and Unsung”.
It is because of the sheer lyrical quality of songs like “Seal My Fate”, “Puberty” and the near-epic album closer “Judas My Heart” that Belly’s premature retirement still stings. Donelly also had an astonishing vocal range that does not get nearly the attention it deserves. She could croon (“The Bees”), coo (“King”) and soar ( “Super-Connected”), sometimes all in the same song (“Red”). Taking just the material from their two albums, a case could be made that this band could/should have been one of the major acts of the decade. As it is, attention must be paid to King and it needs to be reclaimed from the trash heap. Belly didn’t fail their audience here; their audience failed them—and they still do if they can’t figure out how worthwhile this effort is.
