#2198 Mother Love Bone - Apple

More than a before-they-were-in-Pearl-Jam footnote! Mother Love Bone's only album is actually pretty solid in its own right. The riffs are solid, the lyrics invitingly mysterious, with some real swervy, memorable moments (dig that last minute of Stardog Champion!).

Two asides about 90's rock.

First:

This sounds like it was written to be played in the clubs of Seattle. Like, you know how late-era Coldplay and U2 sounds made to be played in arenas? You can hear where a band sees themselves playing in their music, and that tells you a lot about who that band is. And in rock music, who you are _matters_

So who is mother love bone? More so than pearl jam, more so than stone temple pilots or nirvana, it sounds like a band writing songs to play out: intimately, meaningfully - that spirit rendered to tape. And there's something earthy and legitimate and warm and uncommonly rock and roll about that, especially in the production-driven world of the 10's.

Second:

It's easy to see 90's rock as obsessed almost exclusively with 70's hard rock - a back to basics reaction to the 80's flagrant nonsense. But one thread survived: glam rock. It comes out here and there, in British acts like Spacehog and Kula Shaker, in flashes on Tiny Music, Mellon Collie, and Without You I'm Nothing. This's a key touchstone: Andrew Wood moans and writhes and declares himself, like a sexy preacher, like a nightbound dreamer, like a tights-bound space commander.

There's a Guns 'n' Roses thread running though the entire album, the guitars funking and soaring, Wood wailing and mewling - but all the machismo's dropped, it's just that fuckin, ima do me spirit, that strutting confidence, that's left.

--

If I'd come across this in the 90's I would have played it to death. There's something in its sprawling ambition, its sincerity and effortless invention, its offkilter structures. It's that old stuff, that channeling of the rock and roll that gets +10 piercing to your soul.

There's a whole microtreatise here about how 90's music hooks into hearts, but mother jesus this thing is long already.

A grower, sneakily essential if you missed it the first time around 4.5/5