Have you ever listened to an album, stopped at some point and
\nsaid to yourself, “They’re trying to tell me something?” (Charles
\nManson is excluded from this conversation.)<\/p>\n
It’s rare if I ever have that kind of feeling as I listen to
\nsomething, but that’s exactly what I found myself doing when I
\nfirst listened to
\nTweaked<\/i>, the 1995 release from Chicago rockers Enuff Z’Nuff.
\nI had made it halfway though the disc, and was listening to “It’s
\nToo Late,” when I stopped the disc and said out loud, “These songs
\nare all connected.”<\/p>\n
I don’t know if this was the intention of Chip Z’Nuff and crew,
\nnor do I claim to have any inside knowledge on the story behind
\nthis disc. But what I
\ndo<\/i> know without a doubt is that
\nTweaked<\/i> is the most ambitious disc that Enuff Z’Nuff had
\ntackled to this point in their career, and it is an incredibly
\nsatisfying listen, even if the outcome of the story I’m hearing is
\nleft a bit open-ended.<\/p>\n
The story that ties this disc together seems to be the decline
\nof a musician into the world of an addict after being spurned by
\nthe love of his life. As the tale opens on “Stoned,” our hero is
\npleading for his inamorata to save him from the hell he knows he’ll
\nfall into should she leave him: “People all around me seem to \/
\nLove to get me on the thing \/ Oh my darling you could save me \/
\nTake me home I’ll be your king”. Despite the title of this track,
\nthis song could have easily been the key that Enuff Z’Nuff needed
\nto re-open the doors to mass popularity; the guitar work has more
\nhooks than a bass fishing competition, and the track is one of the
\nbest the band has ever produced. (It still sounds great live, too –
\nsomething I can vouch for as of December of last year.)<\/p>\n
Apparently, our hero’s pleas fall on deaf ears, as he quickly
\ndescends into the rush of the scene on “Bullet From A Gun” – but
\nthe fun quickly wears off, and the rocker knows he’s in the grip of
\naddiction in “Mr. Jones” – and while he sees the mess he’s made of
\nthings, he can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel to get
\nhimself out. The see-saw battle of hope versus hopelessness
\ncontinues to act out its play in the next two tracks, “My Dear
\nDream” and “Life Is Strange”.<\/p>\n
Desparate to free himself from his prison, our hero tries to
\nreach out again to his beloved, in the hope that she’ll save him
\nfrom his self-inflicted hell on “Without Your Love”. The
\nhope\/hopelessness saga then picks up again on “We’re All Alright”
\n(with a slight nod to Cheap Trick) and “It’s Too Late”.<\/p>\n
Our hero seems to hit the bottom in the songs “If I Can’t Have
\nYou” and “Has Jesus Closed His Eyes,” suggesting that his
\ndesparation for salvation is reaching the point of being
\nunbearable. The latter is another wonderful track from the band,
\nand ranks up there with being one of their most thought-provoking
\nsongs.<\/p>\n
Here is where I admit the story becomes fuzzy for me. The final
\ntwo songs of the album proper, “Style” and “My Heroin,” could
\neither be seen as our hero finally recovering from his addictions
\nand looking back at the foolishness of his ways, or it could be
\nseen as the view of an outsider who has watched this whole tragedy
\nunfold and can keep silent no longer. (The addition of the bonus
\ntrack “How Am I Supposed To Write A Love Song?” seems to support
\nthe former; you could view it as our hero reacts from the constant
\nspurning his beloved has shown him. Or, you could say it didn’t fit
\nthe story, which is why it wasn’t originally included.)<\/p>\n
I refuse to go out on a limb and say that this is an
\nautobiographical work, since I have too much respect for Z’Nuff (as
\nwell as the rest of the band, though my contacts with them have
\nbeen briefer) to make any kind of speculation without knowing every
\nsingle fact. And the only fact is: I don’t have enough concrete
\nknowledge of the band’s history to make a bold claim. But I can say
\nthat
\nTweaked<\/i> is a powerful anti-drug statement, warning people of
\nwhat lies ahead behind the euphoria of the first rush – and the
\npicture it paints isn’t pretty.<\/p>\n
But how is
\nTweaked<\/i> musically, you ask? If you try to listen to this as
\njust a collection of songs, it’s difficult to get through at first.
\nBut if you try and follow the story line (at least the one I
\nheard), the music makes much more sense, and the disc reveals
\nitself to be one of the best that Enuff Z’Nuff has recorded. Pity
\nthat more people don’t know about this disc; they’re missing one of
\nthe best concept albums to hit the market – and one that thankfully
\ndoesn’t hit the listener over the head with the fact that it is a
\nconcept disc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6133],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37013","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-enuff-znuff","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37013"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37013"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}