STILL ALIVE AND KICKIN’

For those of us of a particular vintage, 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of several influential rock albums— Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Use Your Illusion I and II, Nevermind, Ten, and Metallica’s ‘Black Album’ among them. Many of these albums landed within a few months of each other, raising the question: Will we ever see such a concentration of influential (and loud) music in such a compressed timeframe again?

Among the many essential releases that year was Mr.. This was an album of surprises, not least because it contained a platinum-coated worldwide hit. Yet that song almost didn’t progress beyond the writing stage—and was eventually placed at the end of the album, drawing parallels in that sense with Toto’s ‘Africa’.