While Nirvana tapped into the mainstream and were being touted around the world as the kings of Grunge, the true emperors were not so quietly, but happily back in Seattle sitting upon their rightful thrones. Their Album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, has always been by far my favorite of the bunch. I can still remember waiting anxiously for it's release and having my friend's grandmother drive us down to Music Plus (of was it already Wherehouse, by that time?) to finally get my hands on it.
While their previous work was exceptionally good, I enjoyed this album above the rest because it began to venture a way from the fuzzy distorted sounds they helped bring about. You're actually able to listen to the band mature as musicians right in front of your stereo. This is not to say they got rid of the sound altogether, but rather refined it into a garage, blues rock sound.
If your a fan of the 90's rock explosion labeled "grunge" and haven't put this album on your rotation, well... repent! The go and make it right.
It's funny how after the fact, so many people love to criticize this band and talk about how overrated they were. Yeah, I don't know, maybe to some extent people jumped on the Grunge bandwagon, but I still remember this album and Nevermind with the fondness of youth.
I still remember the first time I heard this album, I had been trading music with a newfound friend. When one day he handed me this record to listen too, I thought this was a joke at first. Prior to this album he had given me a wide selection of Punk albums to check out and now here he was handing me a metal album. I was confused, to say the least. Nevertheless, I went home and sat on my bedroom floor and popped the tape into the stereo. I hadn't heard anything out there sounding quite like this, I mean there were some unquestionably great bands during that time (ex. Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.- the list could go on), but this was familiar and unique at the the same time. I know some of you will point out the endless grunge bands already on the scene starting with Mudhoney and working your way down, but I didn't know about them. I lived in a small farming town just outside of LA. It didn't take long for the others to follow suit, but this was the band, the album that opened the Seattle Music door for me.
That first time I listened to "Bleach" was like listening to a deconstructed rock record. Distorted guitars, the heavy pounding drums (which I found out later was enlarge part was due to Dale Crover of the Melvins), the melodic whines and scratchy screams of Cobain, was a stripped down minimalist approach to the "rock" being peddled over the airwaves. The glaring juxtaposition between Nirvana and the Warrants, Skid Rows, and Ugly Kid Joes only helped to expose the artificial pseudo-rock that LA radio stations like Pirate Radio were force feeding us. We were starving for something new and creative in the Rock world. Bleach was the ground work for that change.
Funny, I haven't listened to the album in so long, I forgot what an inspiring album this was to me. From their first single Love Buzz, to the pop driven About a Girl (the only song he ever wrote for his then long time girlfriend), to the frenzied Negative Creep, the album delivers unpolished rock hits.
A funny story- A short time after hearing this album, Nirvana was touring for their upcoming Nevermind album, and were headlining a show in LA at the Palladium. By this time I was sold on the band, so with two of my friends in tow, we went to the show. After, a couple of bands played, (if I recall correctly Redd Kross and Hole... Not too sure about Redd Kross, but I really want to say so), three guys, walked out on the stage; The guitarist a dorky, short haired blond guy with holes in his the knees of his jeans; the bassist another short haired, towering giant with no shoes; and the a long haired drummer who hid his face behind the hair, slightly resembling cousin it. I was confused. I read the bill, I knew which bands were playing, and the name of this band was nowhere to be seen. The only picture I had ever seen of the band up to this point was the one on the cover of " Bleach" so you could imagine that I was expecting big haired, jean jacket rocking rockers. Thus, I turned to my friend Jason and asked "What band is this?" He shrugged and then the music started.
Well, Hole is probably more of an LA band, but since Courtney Love grew up in Portland, OR., I will include it here.
This maybe the most underrated and underappreciated grunge albums of the early 90s. This is pre-Cobain teaching Love how to play the guitar and long before the band started preforming pop radio hits like “Doll Parts” and “ Miss World”. In fact, you probably couldn’t tell Hole’s early work from what they morphed into once they had the taste for popularity.
Pretty on the Inside is a wall of noise taken from Sonic Youth's playbook along with Eric’s Black Sabbath-esque guitar riffs. On top of that is Love furiously shouting, in a singing kind of way, about sex, rape, and drugs. Yet, she does so in such a way that doesn’t come off sounding like she’s trying to say the cool things, but rather is introspective of the pain in her life that has brought about such hatred and bitterness. It’s not sweet or sexy, more often than not it’s vulgar and brutal. While love and guitarist Eric see this album as something of an embarrassment this is probably Hole’s best work to date.
