Maybe because popular music was so unbearably bad, maybe because
\npoor economic times tend to bring out some of the best music out
\nthere, but the “grunge” movement was bound to happen. Nirvana was a
\ngreat band who brought the movement to the mainstream, but the
\npublic appetite was there. If Nirvana only went gold on
\nNevermind<\/i>, Pearl Jam’s
\nTen<\/i> and Soundgarden still would have gone
\nmulti-platinum.<\/p>\n
One band was on the verge of becoming superstars. And because of
\ntheir demise, Pearl Jam was able to form. For anyone who has bought
\na CD from any of these artists, I don’t need to tell you who the
\nband was:Mother Love Bone. When Mother Love Bone released their
\nfirst major label album,
\nApple<\/i> in 1990, with a little marketing, they could have been
\nhuge. At the time, heavy metal was still a marketable, but dying
\nmusic trend. People would no longer buy a heavy metal album just
\nbecause a ballad was on it, hence the flop sophomoric efforts of
\nWinger and White Lion. Listeners who wanted something different got
\nit with Mother Love Bone.<\/p>\n
The band still teased their hair, some of the songs seemed
\ncustom made for making out in the backseat of a Honda but their pop
\nsmarts made them true musicians. The radio-friendly merge between
\nheavy metal and psychedelic was evident on tracks like “This is
\nShangrila” and “Stargazer”. Their lyrics were far more mature than
\nmost heavy metal. True, nothing on
\nApple<\/i> matches the complexity of Tool, but singer Andy Wood
\nknew how to play the singer\/songwriter as well as a rock star. The
\nbeautiful ballad, “Crown of Thorns” remains one of the most
\ntouching breaking up ballads made.<\/p>\n
Andy Wood was no James Taylor, however. Unlike Kurt Cobain and
\nEddie Vedder, Wood pined to be in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
“With my crustal sheen guitar\/I’m another ego star\/so give it to
\nme, give it to me,” Wood sings on “This is Shangrila”. This song
\nalso contains a line that would tragically not mirror his own life:
\n“I’m the football who is who\/I don’t believe in smack\/so don’t you
\ndie on me.”<\/p>\n
Guitarist Stone Gossard and Jett Ament would later expand their
\ntalents with Pearl Jam. But with Mother Love Bone, they formed a
\ntight cohesion. Unfortunately, some elements of
\nApple<\/i> have indeed turned brown nearly a decade later. The
\nmotorcycle imagery of “Holy Roller” and weaker ballads such as
\n“Gentle Groove” seem to emulate the worst characteristics of
\nclassic rock. I have little doubt that the majority of the flaws on<\/p>\n
Apple<\/i> would have been gone by their third release.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately we are left with
\nApple<\/i> and a double retrospective CD. And with the rightful
\nprobability of Andy Wood’s persona eclipsing Kurt Cobain and Pearl
\nJam not forming, it is rightful to put Mother Love Bone as one of
\nthe most important artists of the 1990s. Like the lead singer of
\nSublime, Andy Wood died of a heroin overdose. And similarly, they
\neach had a vision of the new trend in music and grasped it, only to
\nhave died and never see their labors rewarded with a huge legion of
\nfans. Damn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7309],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38789","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mother-love-bone","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38789","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=38789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38789"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}