Meat Puppets II

Weer een zanger die met verdraaiende of eigenlijk gewoon valse zang de muziek weet te verpesten. Voor de instrumenten zou ik een tweede sterretje kunnen geven. Maar als zure broeder word ik geregeld gecompenseerd bij alles wat maar lijkt op punk. Dus ik compenseer op voorhand die compensatie.

My expectations were low for a band called meat puppets. Their instrumentals were fun and unexpected. All was more country than expected. The singing was awful. 2*
Highlights: magic toy missing (because it involved 0 singing)

Interesting blend of noise and avant-country. Decent album but not surprised I never go into them the first time around. 3/5

An unlikely combination of post punk angularity, country twang, and prog complexity with a vibe that presages much of the 90s slacker alt rock feel.

If Neil Young is the Godfather of Grunge, these guys are the cool uncles. Like a lot of people, I knew them from Nirvana Unplugged and from Backwater, their hit during the grunge era, but had never listened to any of their albums. This is a very cool album. The singing leaves a little to be desired in spots, but the songwriting and lyrics are outstanding, and the singing fits the style (for example, the singing in Lake of Fire is borderline unhinged, but that works with the lyrics). This led me back to Nirvana Unplugged, which is an all-time great album so it's not fair to compare this album - but they deserve credit for being forebears of grunge nearly a decade early. Lots of great moments - my favorites are admittedly the tracks Nirvana played with them, possibly based on familiarity (Plateau and Lake of Fire). Of the other tracks, favorites were Split Myself in Two (which I originally found a little too unhinged, but grew on me, particularly on close listen), Aurora Borealis, and We're Here. Least favorite were Climbing (the slacker singing was a little too much) and New Gods (noisy sloppy guitar work, which was surprising given that Curt Kirkwood is a pretty good guitarist). Solid 4, maybe even a 5 over time but the sloppiness and slacker singing are keeping me from putting it over the top.

Come for the songs they performed with Nirvana on Unplugged, but stay for the distorted guitars and signs of proto-grunge

It was pretty chaotic, but not the good kind of chaos. I didn't enjoy it

Pretty great and influential album. I wonder how well known it would have been had they not been highlighted by Nirvana's unplugged concert however. That's how I heard of them, along with most people I would imagine. They were definitely ahead of their time either way, hard to believe this was released in 1984! Sure the singing is a bit rough in places, but the guitar playing and songwriting are brilliant.

I’m at a 4.

I can see why Kurt Cobain liked these guys. They’re just kind of honest. That is to say, this album isn’t overly produced to hide any flaws – it actively welcomes them at times. There are moments where the vocals are hanging onto the beat by a thread, and to hear something like that in 1984, when everyone is trying to hit on masterpieces to compete with Thriller or any of the other stiff competition of the era, is rather welcomed.

It’s also just a really fun blend of genres with a bit of variety – this album kinda bounces back and forth in time and goes all over the place. There’s some 70s rock tropes in here, the punchiness of 80s drums, a bit of garage/grunge influence that would be more present in the 90s, and even an occasional soundscape reminiscent of late-2000s indie rock. It’s not necessarily ahead of its time or anything, or super innovative, but it sounds pretty damn good.

I can’t say this ever got into 5 territory for me – it certainly flirts with it a few times, namely on the tracks that are perhaps more well known as part of the MTV Unplugged performance, but it never keeps a consistently high mark on the other songs. There’s not any bad tracks here, though. It’s a fun album, and it’s a rather quick 30 minutes, even with about a quarter of it taken up by instrumentals. Obviously, this album’s influence on Kurt Cobain may be its legacy in the long run, but it’s rather good in its own right. Pretty solid 4.

At least they are having fun.

There were some very refreshing mixes on the album. Some tracks rather alienated me. It was interesting to listen to this album. It probably won't happen again so soon.
3/5

the music is fun but the singing on the opener is just so bad to the point of parody. Thankfully it does get better, and the music is fire. Great hearing Aurora Borealis at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within my speakers.

damn good album

Of course this album was a big inspiration to the alt-rock acts of the late 80s and early 90s, I mean, just listen to it. Just enough country twang to be subversive. Enough fuzz to rock hard, but still melodic enough to gather a crowd willing to jam. It's its own thing through and through, with only small things you can pick out and go "oh they probably did that because of this act," but otherwise you're listening to the sound of an all new era of entertainment, and while its still ironing out some of the kinks, okay, A LOT of kinks, its otherwise nothing short of revolutionary.

These guys wrote 3 of the songs that Nirvana played on their MTV Unplugged record (Plateau, Oh Me, and Lake of Fire... All of which are on this record). These guys are an odd genre. Sometimes it's straight grunge, other times it's like country mixed with punk or grunge.... Which I've learned has a classification.... It's called cowpunk.... What an awesome name. I don't mind this stuff, as long as you ignore the fact that the singer can't sing... Like at all. I'm Not Here is a good example of that "cowpunk" style. It sounds like Johnny Cash on speed.

Favourite songs: Lake of Fire, Plateau, Magic Toy Missing

Least favourite songs: Teenager(s)

4/5

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. It was great. I went back and forth about how I feel about the vocals, but I like them!

This isn't what I expected from the band name. Some of the music is not bad, but the singer has a pretty poor voice.

Easy 5 and new favorite album!

Plateau feels like a Nirvana song. The whole album rides the line of interesting and sonically pleasing in a way that never quite lands. It feels masterful in execution, but just misses my palette.

I really enjoyed this album. It's sort of crazy and off the wall, with tons of different sounds and styles. And the one singer's voice can take a while to get used to. But I really loved listening to it and listened to it twice back to back.