Classic Rock Album of the Day-  Bush- Sixteen Stone (1994) ***

In the area of new music phenomenon the process follows a hiearchial pyramid.  Level 1 are the ground breakers and hit grinders, and the bands that first come to mind when discussing that genre.  That normally covers 1-3 bands of that era.  Level 2 are those follow up bands that are really good and offer a lot to the genre.  These typically enumerate in the 10-30 range.  Then at level 3 you will see 100-300 bands that are decent to mediocre, often one hit wonders. Finally rounding down the pyramid are those 1000-30,000 that should have never recorded or existed.

In this process, Bush is a typical Level 2.  Got to admit the airwaves were flooded with Grunge/Alternative acts that pretty much squeezed out other aspects of rock. But, from at least my taste, Bush had a harder edge which kind of propelled them above the other "2" bands.  So in many ways as "Grunge" as Bush was, and I do remember them being panned as Nirvanna and Pearl Jam initiators, there is kind of subliminal homage to what under the radar comes across as '70's rockers. 

There was a time back 30 years ago, that the most famous Gavin in the world wasn't a sleazy slimey POS California Governor. Bush's strong front man, and focal point of songwriting was Gavin Rossdale. Rossdale's voice does have slight resemblence to Cobain, which I don't know how much was intentional of coincidental.  Which is kind of interesting that after this 6X Platinum effort, Rossdale became a tabloid fixture for dating Cobain's widow, and even more for his rock and roll marriage with Gwen Stefani, who of course now is a fixture on Musical Talent reality TV show.

The rest of this band is highly competent in Grunge terms.   No outstanding standouts, but with the combo of really good songwriting, and riding the wave of what was hip and popuar at the time.  And popular?  An album reaching 6X platinum popular in 1995, and the era of Napster was quite a feat of his own.    Then add a mind blowing 5 songs that reached the mainstream Top 6?  Incredible. 

Now the down side.  This is really the only album they made worth owning.  They made only about 8 more CD's with those only having a smattering of success.  So save your money, and stick with this one.  And one last thing....  If you were listening to music in the mid 1990's, I'll bet you at least heard of few of these on the radio.  They did get that much airplay

Fun Fact:  Grunge is incredibly only an "American Phenomenon" , and for a few years back in the 1990's Seattle was the center of the musical universe.  Even with some research, I found that Bush is about the only known successfull Grunge act.  Next most successful?  Smashmouth.     A few lists try to include Coldplay, but that is ridiculous.

Very interesting is that only one Bush CD made it into the UK Top 20.  England pretty much ignored Grunge.

Track No.
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1. Everything Zen- Great start with one of those heavy-ish chaotic Grunge classics.  At the time  I thought...  Hmmm..  maybe rock and roll isn't dying. Latter part of the song does delve into some Nirvanna like licks and parts.  Yeah, they got docked for it by the critics, but still this is well worth the listen. 2

2. Swim- Nicely synced blues phrasing gives this some nice musical value.  This maybe is one of the best I have seen at an attempt to merge the genres. But in the total equation, with a down shout to the needles end of song shouting is  a lower tier as far as contribution to the album. 9

3. Bomb- An obvious Nirvanna ripoff on this one.  Doesn't even look or sound like Rossdale was even hiding it.  Sluffed off to the bottom of ranking for plagiarism.  12

4. Little Things-  Non-chorus aspects have a slight stench of Teen Spirit. This was a hit, but I sure hope Gavin gave Cobain some credit  5

5. Comedown- Slow roller that alternates nicely that slow roll with a nice Crunch center.  This comes across more like a Peal Jam number than Nirvanna.  Even as an equal oppotunity imitator, Bush did give this enough of a ubiquitous feel and with the somwhat unusal add of power chording, This was a great try.  3

6. Body-  Seems they wanted to venture off the grunge path a slight bit with no success. Sounds kind of like a sucky late 1970's AOR number.  No thanks.  11

7. Machinehead- Another of the plethora of hits from this album.  This one does have a more rocking than grunge aura.  I liked it.  4

8. Testosterone- Semi-filler  Not bad or good....  just mediocre.  10

9. Monkey- Even at 6th rank, I kind of consider this the sleeper of what is a good album.  Another that has a kind of '70's retro feel that I can relate to.  Guitar/Rhyth guitar fills seem almost Aersomith like.  Not saying their guy is as good as Joe Perry, but pretty damned good.  6

10. Glycerine-  IMO, Bush's signature song.  Very different, very eeryily set ,  and beautifully made.  This is unlike anything else on this album.  I love how they made the guitar have that sound like it was coming from a $20 amp.  The intertwined strings just enhance the beauty and effect.  Rossdale adds a pained vocal that gives so much emotion to it too.   I think the last time I heard a rock band use full string accompainent to this level of effectiveness with, was a little song a few decades back called Eleanor Rigby. 1

11. Alien- Pointless power ballad.  2 minutes too long, 8

12. X-Girlfriend- 45 second ditty that is actually a rocker, and sounded pretty good.  The fact they truncated what appeared mid-song, and what was some good stuff is puzzling, and in fact maybe a finger in the eye to old school rockers.  Or at least his ex-girlfriend.  7



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zd-wYcNeYA

I suspect that Joe's obsession with and glorification of Beau is a large part of why Hunter - the second-best son, by a large margin - fell into his many vices, from drug abuse to pedophilia to adultery. Daddy never really loved him, despite the creepy photos of them in each other's arms.

That could be likely or, he was never taught responsibility and Daddy always bailed him out.

Most of these young athletes are very agile and flexible.   

With Joe's dementia he only remember Beau.  The son who was killed by a sniper in Kuwait.

Beau was killed in Iraq under hostile fire while rescuing orphans from a burning building.
Beau managed to rescue 83,000 children before he finally fell after being hit with 27 bullets.

The bar of low NO expectations.