Sixteen Stone - A Good Album!!!
 

So, I've been relistening to that good old record Sixteen Stone (Bush)... and I'll start by pointing out the obvious, so nobody else has to: it's a blind Nirvana rip-off, it's uninnovative, it's derivative, unoriginal, and so on and so forth.

But the music itself, for what it is (i.e. a bit of post-grunge), is really pretty damn good! The album's a consistent one, with the odd weak track here and there but generally with good enough material throughout, with at least five proper good (to listen to) grunge songs (Everything Zen, Little Things, Comedown, Machinehead and Glycerine) that make it virtually unmissable for your simple fan of the grunge sound (as opposed to your dumbass purist).

Who agrees with me that for what it is, this is really a pretty damn good album?

Sixteen Stone is a bland album. There isn't much flow and only half the songs are decent. Razorblade Suitcase on the other hand is a great listen from beginning to end.

Yes it is true that only half the songs are good, but they're really good. And when I say "good album", I'm talking within the grunge/post-grunge context, which would usually necessitate at least half an album's songs being rather bland, and that's at the better end of the spectrum. Hell, even Nevermind and In Utero weren't really that great ALL the way through.

You really prefer Suitcase to Sixteen Stone?

Maybe I ought to listen to Suitcase again!

This was probably my favorite album for a year and a half after it came out. Although RJ, what's the deal? I actually like every song on this album, except for the hidden track at the end. All the tunes you mentioned as good were all the singles from the album. 'Body' and 'Beautiful Rain' were awesome tunes, too, as well as all the others. I think they were just really on top of their game when they made this, and I guess I'll also have to check out Razorblade Suitcase, which I haven't heard but like a few songs from it. I'm glad to see you like it, but I would disagree, I think it's one of the few great albums you can enjoy from beginning to end.

This is good music to sleep to, and not in a positive way.

Sleep to me beating off

Oh don't get me wrong, I most certainly think you can enjoy it from beginning to end. No doubt 'bout that. But I wouldn't say that's because all of the songs are above par; I'd say that's because the production is top-notch. The sound created is just precisely the Nirvana-style grunge ideal, it hits the nail on the head - in fact, although it's a blatant rip-off, I'd argue that here it's done even BETTER than Nirvana did it themselves imo. Though saying that, I think enough of the songs do not survive off of their own strength.

As I say...it's a *good*, rocking album! And someone with even a passing interest in grunge music really OUGHT to afford it some serious damn attention!

Nirvana does it better, which is pretty bad considering that most of Nirvana's material fails.

Hardly. At least Rossdale could actually sing properly and the guitars and drums are able to keep in time!

Just went and listened to 'Glycerine' online. Can anybody explain to me why the word Glycerine is in there? Why on earth is he singing about glycerine??? It's like one of the most pointless nouns he could have chosen.

He might as well have sang "vegemite" or "I eat mice" or anything else with 3 syllables.

Was all grunge this same combination of pointless songwriting and dull instrumentation? Were Nirvana just a fluke? Or were Bush just a silly pop band who jumped on the bandwagon?

Who cares what he means? It the feeling that resonates with the listener that matters. He could sing about vegemite, and it would have been just as good, with the same emotion behind it.
Also, the guitarist for this band has such an awesome style that I can barely move.

In this case I'm sure there's a pretty good reason (probably memory-related) to why he's saying "glycerine", but there's no way of anybody possibly knowing that because it's unexplained - so perhaps stupidly inaccessible all the same.

I don't think Bush were by any means a "silly pop band". They jumped on the bandwaggon TO A POINT, though I'll say in earnest that I believe Gavin was well and truly honestly inspired by that music (i.e. Nirvana, Pixies etc.) and just wanted to emulate it the best he could, so to speak. Almost to the point of a tribute. The thing is, they emulated it and pillaged BETTER than EVERYBODY ELSE (possibly even Nirvana)! But that's not why they were so successful, no, it was more than that. See, it wasn't Gavin's plan or anything, but it just so happened that, him being dreamy 'n all, Bush were SUPER marketable to the entire population! He became the pin-up with the guitar! Things just worked in their favour, was all.

They were really a pretty important band, in reality. They were the most successful, biggest and probably the best post-grunge rip-off act that there was. Their work is at least deserving of some serious attention whether one likes it or otherwise. It's, at the least, educational.

Thats precisely why Nirvana were a better grunge band.

I think that assessment is pretty close to perfect. I personally don't like Bush but I agree completely that they were very inspired by grunge and chose to emulate the bits that they associated with. They managed to chop the ends off it, remove a lot of the emotion and make it neater and slicker... as perhaps they were more interested in the chugging instruments and groaning vocals.

Maybe this simplification of grunge was a cynical ploy to make the music a bit poptastic, or maybe they were just emphasising the bits they liked and it happened to come out nice and populist, either way I think you're completely right that when it was coupled with Gavin Rossdale's prettiness it was bound to sell millions.

Best band the UK could have banished to the USA during the 90s.


Well apart from Shed 7 & Kula Shaker anyway

Hey! Kula Shaker weren't that bad! Apart from Crispian Mills' inability to realise that however often Swastikas may pop up in Dharmic religions, asian temples aren't the main thing that Brits would connect it with...