Alternative rock in the 1980s almost always borrowed from punk and garage rock in sound and spirit. They may have enjoyed Zeppelin and art rock, but they would cling to their Clash and Big Star records until the end of time. Jane\u2019s Addiction was at the forefront of the movement to blend the two together. Along with Soundgarden and maybe Faith No More, it suddenly became cool to mix big riffs into the underground sensibility. <\/p>\n
These guys came out of the same decadent Los Angeles club scene as Guns \u2018N\u2019 Roses, and both followed similar career trajectories; a little-heard debut, followed by a killer hard rock album that brought commercial and critical success. GnR was far more mainstream, of course, but smarter and less posed than their contemporaries. Jane\u2019s Addiction was just as dangerous, rocked just as hard, but had more of an art-rock, fey edge that the legions of Zeppelin imitators hadn\u2019t quite been able to capture. Guns spoke to the popular hair-metal kids; Jane\u2019s spoke to the arty, sensitive misfits (Goths, punks, etc.), at least for a time.<\/p>\n
This album, along with R.E.M.\u2019s Green<\/i>, helped the eventual push of alt-rock into the mainstream, but it\u2019s important to remember that Jane\u2019s Addiction were originals, and Nothing\u2019s Shocking <\/i>still retains a weirdness and mystique all these years later. There are plenty of Dave Navarro hard rock riffs and solos all over the place to put him in any discussion of guitar hero, but his playing fits the songs and never succumbs to showboating. Perry Farrell, of course, sings in a high, keening voice that takes some getting used to. Other than Billy Corgan and that dude from Crash Test Dummies, Farrell may have the most divisive voice of the alt-rock movement.<\/p>\n
But Navarro\u2019s guitar is the true selling point here, and his attitude and street smarts brought a missing link to what could easily have been an indulgent vanity project with a provocative frontman and little else. The two schools of rock mesh perfectly on track after monstrous track, from the instrumental opener \u201cUp The Beach\u201d to \u201cOcean Size\u201d to the second half of \u201cTed, Just Admit It,\u201d which starts monotonous but morphs into an urgent, sleazy rocker about Ted Bundy, with Farrell frequently yelping \u201cSex is violence!\u201d until Navarro drowns him out.<\/p>\n
But like all great albums, the variety on display here is astounding. The powerful rhythm section of drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery (Farrell\u2019s childhood pal) is every bit as important to the music. Witness the horns on \u201cIdiots Rule,\u201d the bucolic \u201cSummertime Rolls,\u201d the goofy jazz interlude \u201cThank You Boys,\u201d and the steel drums of \u201cJane Says\u201d to know that these guys were more than art-sleaze. <\/p>\n
\u201cSummertime Rolls\u201d and \u201cStanding In The Shower\u2026Thinking\u201d are the two weak links on the disc, slowing the momentum in the middle, but showcasing a tendency toward the epic and a commanding presence all the same, which would be exploited to great effect on Ritual De Lo Habitual<\/i>. Things come back to focus with the heavy \u201cMountain Song,\u201d one of the finest alt-rock songs in a decade full of them and one that should have been on the radio in place of whatever Whitesnake or Warrant or Great White or Cinderella were doing at the time. To that end, \u201cPigs In Zen\u201d seems to be poking fun at the genre, with Farrell\u2019s spoken-word section spitting out dumbass hair-metal phrases that would have been seriously uttered by others at the time. The song itself rocks as hard as \u201cMountain Song,\u201d more irreverent fun than trashy MTV pop metal of the day, along the lines of the smart rock that Living Colour was making around the same time.<\/p>\n
Yet for all the hard rock and variety on display, the album\u2019s most honest and memorable moment is the two-chord acoustic stunner \u201cJane Says,\u201d the song that has outlasted the album and is probably this band\u2019s best-known moment. Farrell sings a tale of addiction and creates a memorable character study \u2013 you can\u2019t help but shout \u201cShe can\u2019t hit!\u201d when he does, right before Jane starts to cry, even though she don\u2019t mean no harm. The song is more of a narrative and doesn\u2019t follow a conventional verse\/chorus structure, but the clarity of the guitar is pushed as front and center and drives the tale; it\u2019s very well written, catchy, and the album\u2019s highlight. <\/p>\n
Nothing\u2019s Shocking <\/i>pushed the boundaries of what alt-rock could be, bridging a gap and helping usher along the alt-rock movement. Were it not for these guys, it\u2019s unlikely Nirvana would have broken through to the level they did, and of course, Lollapalooza wouldn\u2019t have happened. And although Ritual De Lo Habitual <\/i>gets more press, this is actually a far stronger, more consistent album that doesn\u2019t (well, rarely) give in to indulgence. It\u2019s a record of its time that never sounds like it\u2019s of its time, an audacious, provocative, influential piece of work that mostly holds together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6050],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44477","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-janes-addiction","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44477","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44477"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}