It was a mix that never was supposed to work. A baritone sax,
\ntwo-string slide bass, drums. No guitar. In addition, Mark Sandman,
\nlead singer of the Boston trio, Morphine, was in his early 40s and
\ncompeting in the early-’90s alternative scene; a scene that prided
\nitself with breaking the rules, but was feverishly youth-obsessed,
\nlike any era in rock.<\/p>\n
But it did work. After working as a cab driver and in a
\nstruggling cult band, Treat Her Right, Sandman developed his patent
\n‘low rock’ sound with
\nGood<\/i>. Combining jazzy grooves, beat poetry and a smoky
\nvoice, Morphine was one of the few bands in the past 20 years where
\nyou could identify within three notes. No other band sounded like
\nthem. Still,
\nGood<\/i> could have very well been a novelty. After all, how can
\nyou stretch out that type of sound for more than one album?<\/p>\n
A great deal, actually.
\nCure For Pain<\/i>, the follow-up to Good was miles ahead of Good
\nin terms of songwriting and musical artistry. Dana Colley’s
\nbaritone sax expertly weaved in and out of Sandman’s distinctive
\nbass playing, all the while drummer Billy Conway (and Jerome
\nDupree) supplied Morphine’s driving beat. In 1993,
\nCure For Pain<\/i> was the summer soundtrack for scotch-drinking
\ncollege students and card-playing Kurt Vonnegut worshippers.<\/p>\n
Musically,
\nCure For Pain<\/i> almost has too many highlights to mention. You
\ncan hear Sandman’s confidence in songs like “Buena” and “Mary Won’t
\nYou Call My Name?” The chemistry of the trio kept red-hot jams like
\n“Thursday” and “All Wrong” from turning into meandering jam
\nsessions. The only blemishes on Cure come from its two low-key
\nballads: “Candy” and “Sheila.”<\/p>\n
Still, despite an obvious love for jazz and funk, Sandman was a
\nlyricist first and a musician second. His storytelling focused
\nmainly on romantic loss, longing and regret. And unlike other
\nsongwriters in alternative rock, Sandman opted to keep his lyrics
\nfairly simplistic. Anyone looking into how to tell a good story
\nshould only have to listen to “Thursday” — a tale of a dangerous
\naffair, pool and booze — to learn how to structure delivery.<\/p>\n
\nCure For Pain<\/i> was arguably Morphine’s most consistent album.<\/p>\n
Yes<\/i> may have included Morphine’s best songs and
\nThe Night<\/i> was a great detour for the band, but
\nCure For Pain<\/i> was the band’s most filler-free album. Sadly,
\nSandman died onstage in Rome in 1999 of a heart attack. For those
\nthat followed the band closely, Sandman’s loss hurt as much, if not
\ngreater than Kurt Cobain’s or Tupac’s.<\/p>\n
In terms of relevance,
\nCure For Pain<\/i> never tried to be an “important” album, like
\nIn Utero<\/i> or
\nSiamese Dream<\/i>. It merely was an exceptionally good album
\nthat fit in perfectly during a summer drive with the windows down,
\nor during a 3 a.m. marathon session of spades. Come to think of it,
\nthat is pretty goddamn important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5745],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37934","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-morphine","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37934","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37934"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37934"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}