jane's addiction: name your reasons they are so bad and hated

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They're horribly self-indulgent, their singer thinks he's smarter than he is, and they smell worse of California than RHCP,

I BELIEVE YOU ARE DESCRIBING THE DOORS, ACTUALLY.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Whoa, a Doors hater!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Though no real fault of their own, Jane's made the LA music scene miserable for years with a legion of wannabe-Farrell/Navarro junkie chicster. Plus they were indirectly responsible for Lollapalooza.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link

you know i hate the doors!!!
vintage lollapalooza was great and you know it.
and since when has LA had a good music scene?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:19 (eighteen years ago) link

I BELIEVE YOU ARE DESCRIBING THE DOORS, ACTUALLY.

I'll agree with that fully. Meanwhile, indirectly responsible for Lollapalooza? I thought Perry got the whole shebang rolling.

Jane's wannabes are sad figures, and this includes Farrell/Navarro since the first reunion on.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link

also: porno for pyros suck.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link

I liked Porno For Pyros. Especially the 2nd album.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link

I want to hear it - I liked the verse of "Tahitian Moon."

― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 15 January 2006 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link

The true Morrison heirs are not Perry Farrell and Ian Astbury. They are Todd Tamanend Clark and Neil Hagerty.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 15 January 2006 23:16 (eighteen years ago) link

(Actually, I don't think Hagerty's lived up to this.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 15 January 2006 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link

i think hagerty is more an ax genrich type figure.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 15 January 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link

At the RTX zeitgeist, he was close. The leather pants on the Thank You tour. Then the beard in the Sweet Sixteen booklet ...

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 15 January 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link

I liked Porno For Pyros.

oh my...

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Monday, 16 January 2006 02:19 (eighteen years ago) link

These guys destroyed rock and roll along with the Red Hot Chili Poopers, Pearl Jam (what a yucky name!), Smooshy Pumpkins, etc.

― of montreal, Monday, 16 January 2006 03:33 (eighteen years ago) link

the bears need a fullback. it's funny someone would try to say jane's addiction's no good when there's ritual de lo haibitual. i mean, for real

― of montreal, Monday, 16 January 2006 03:44 (eighteen years ago) link

they made prog rock sexy psychedelic and gay. actually i'm not sure what i'm saying there. but i liked them at the time (high school/college) and they sounded really fresh which must count for something.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 16 January 2006 03:50 (eighteen years ago) link

no kidding. people with something to prove ten years gone just ruin it for kids. "been caught stealing" was the rock jam that cleared it all out for "smells like teen spirit." it was all just a sea of hairspray and more than words and shit before this song. not that it's the greatest ever or anything, but fuck

― of montreal, Monday, 16 January 2006 03:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Great band that dominated college radio pre-Nirvana. At the time it brought together Sonic Youth & Motley Crue fans. It hasn't held up as groundbreaking or epic but it's still damn good.

I think if I was 18 instead of 36 ot might not impress me that much either.

― Anthony Lombardi (CCPO), Monday, 16 January 2006 06:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Van Halen with better makeup.

I'm can't tell if this is a great compliment for Jane's Addiction, or a horrible insult to Van Halen.

That said, while they were certainly overrated, I admire that they were the only sexually ambiguous band at the time that frat boys -- at least in California -- had no qualms admitting liking (since Guns 'N' Roses saved them the embarrassment of admitting they liked Poison right before.. and also Freddie Mercury had died. Judas Priest was still chugging along though.. I think?). also, they had a few good songs on each album: "Mountain Song", "Three Days", "Classic Girl", etc. I could never listen to "Stop!", "Jane Says", or "Been Caught Stealing" for the rest of my life and be happy.

So glad Eric Avery never followed up with the reunion requests.

― Dom iNut (donut), Monday, 16 January 2006 06:29 (eighteen years ago) link

they were so bad and hated because they were totally and completely full of shit. porno for pyros was kinda fun, though, because at least they copped to it. and i like some of the live reunion thing for its sentimentality.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 16 January 2006 07:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Got placed into the newly minted "alternative" section of record stores so girls would buy it.

Oh my god! That is so awful! I hate it when girls like bands that I like. Also, I hate it when girls like bands that I don't like. Life is so unfair. I was "alternative" before there was a record section for it. Honest.

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 16 January 2006 07:59 (eighteen years ago) link

i liked 'em well enough when i was 18 and a freshman in college. i haven't felt any need to hear anything by them or perry farrell in 10 years or so, to be honest, and i still don't. even back in the day, though, i never quite understood why some people just totally flipped over them -- honestly, as far as bands like jane's addiction went, i preferred faith no more (who gave me the same punk-metal thrills, but with a better sense of humor).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 16 January 2006 08:30 (eighteen years ago) link

i KNEW that this had been covered before!

TS: Jane's Addiction vs Faith No More

p.s.: i don't give a shit about mr. bungle or fantomas, any more than i give a shit about porno for pyros.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 16 January 2006 08:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I think what knockers are missing (or is that what critics missing their knockers don't get) is the polysexuality of the band, mixed with the oomph of funk-thrash that Faith No More had opened up in 89/90. This was before the internet and VHS1 or whatever the fuck you suck, and before cable tv in Australia, and before Triple J was rolled out around the country, so Perry and Co came in on stations you could only get at night and for we small town Hedwigs, this was the band we were proud to be called fags for. They represented possibilities and ambiguities that weren't there in the metal cockplay of Metallic or the hyper-hype of hair metal, and as musicians, it's true, they paved the way for bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but so did REM and Sonic Youth and fuck knows who else, and it's like blaming the Beach Boys for Hanson, Frank Sinatra for Robbie Williams, Shirley Bassey for Jessica Fucking Cadillac in her ass Simpson. Janes's first album introduced me to the Velvets and to the Rolling Stones, as well as the miracles of Jane Says and the greatest love song everr covered at a conservative catholic school celebration for its patron saint, I would for you.
They were different times - go back and check what was shitting ddown our throats in the name of pop, what the industry was calling music whilst disembowelling our wallets.

― Queen Got Caught Feeling, Monday, 16 January 2006 09:29 (eighteen years ago) link

otm

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 16 January 2006 09:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I still maintain that Nothing's Shocking coming out on Warner Brothers in 1988 was a bolder major label more than Nevermind coming out on Geffen in 1991.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Monday, 16 January 2006 10:01 (eighteen years ago) link

they have some good songs, but their albums are incredibly filler-heavy. probably overrated as a band, but not horrible.

and i don't care what anyone says, but "Stop" rocks

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 16 January 2006 12:35 (eighteen years ago) link

dan s is otm about their "cultural" significance, but i think he's too generous regarding their actual musical accomplishment. i found a few cassettes several years ago when cleaning out some boxes and tried to listen, but my god what a bloated, pretentious mess! the druggy haziness, the day of the dead exoticism, the "walk on the wild side"-style sexual ambiguity all exerted a much stronger pull than the acutal music. if i hadn't been an impressionable young thing sitting up late at night with guttering candles and fracesca block novels for company, i doubt i would have succumbed.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 16 January 2006 12:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Queen...is dead wrong. 1990 (when Ritual de lo Habitual came out) was a fascinating year in music. Other reelases (all of which easily top Jane's Addiction) included:

Cocteau Twins' "Heaven or Las Vega"
Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet"
Pixies' "Bossanova"
Depeche Mode's "Violator"
Happy Monday's "Pills, thrills..."
Breeders' "Pod"
Ride's "Nowhere"
Sonic Youth's "Goo"
Dee Lite's "World Clique"
Lou Reed & John Cale's "Songs for Drella"

These were incredible times for both techno and hip hops singles too...

― paulhw (paulhw), Monday, 16 January 2006 14:33 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, they were incredible times, if you've got cash/cultural capital - it's been great to trawl back through the pixes and sonic youth and morrissey - but when you're stuck with mates who are arguing whether the drummer from ACDC is better than the drummer from Iron Maiden, JA, which someone managed to push through the video haze into our consciousness was something to hold onto, to make tapes of, before the Chilli Peppers achieved their success and mainlined it all. I have no problem with the idea there was better music around, but nowhere and no one was playing it here - the radio stations wouldn't even play guns n roses during their request hours because they were too heavy.
I can't defend JA's regrouping, nor porno for pyros, but they did mean something, they were an access key to something beyond. Back then, to see someone in a JA t-shirt meant possible ally (does my ass look big in this), meant a respite from the home grown, tried and true repetition of cliches collapsing uner the weight of their own testicular encephylitis -- working class man, anyone? - and their music indicated a bigger scope than the strum und wank of bands appearing in Hot Metal.

― Queen Going away to spain, Monday, 16 January 2006 15:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Your assessment is otm. Somehow in retrospect Janes is pre-mook Woodstock '94 alt-frat music. But I liked 'em when I was 15.

― mcd (mcd), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link

I didn't even realize there was that much hate for them until I read this thread. Fuck all y'all (and, yeah, Anthony, I got into them after the fact, i.e. post-pubescence).

― Sundar (sundar), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link

(And obv they were great because they were classic hard rock and did something modern with it.)

― Sundar (sundar), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:08 (eighteen years ago) link

They were different times

i guess that's a reason a person who lived through certain times might like a band (see: your boomer-approved canon) but i don't see why it's a valid argument for any band in THESE times.

― marc h. (marc h.), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I never felt there was anything all that great about their music from the get go. But then I saw an interview with Perry and I thought he was a totally pompous full of shit jerk off. So everytime I was subjected to them I would squirm in a my set a little more everytime - knowing what a douche bag he was and how completely uninteresting the music itself was. To this day his fucking voice irritates the fuck out of me.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 16 January 2006 17:14 (eighteen years ago) link

Are you (still?) in Rochester, Ian? What do you say we ditch these clowns and go listen to Ritual somewhere?

― Sundar (sundar), Monday, 16 January 2006 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link

I've never been in Rochester, Sundar! That was Jon. I know it's easy to get us confused.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Happy Monday's "Pills, thrills..."
Sonic Youth's "Goo"
Lou Reed & John Cale's "Songs for Drella"

There is absolutely no fucking way these albums could possible comapre to Ritual De Lo Habitual, especially the second half.

― Dan (Crazy People) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 16 January 2006 21:48 (eighteen years ago) link

OTM.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:06 (eighteen years ago) link

or the fuckin Breeders!

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Cocteau Twins' "Heaven or Las Vega"
Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet"
Pixies' "Bossanova"
Breeders' "Pod"
Sonic Youth's "Goo"
Lou Reed & John Cale's "Songs for Drella"

none of these are the artists best records. Or even second best.

― bendy (bendy), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link

fear of a black planet is the best public enemy my money can buy.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Haters begone! The "Been Caught Stealing" video was a classic shark-jump, but the first album and "Three Days" are for the ages. I'd rather hear Perry's junkie-hippie nonsense than listen to Mike Shinoda and Linkin Park emote about being 18 any day of the week.

― mitya can't remember his f---ing password, Monday, 16 January 2006 22:12 (eighteen years ago) link

I never said theat they were the bands' best albums (just that they were also released in 1990). That being said, Happy Mondays' "Yes Please" is better than Ritual...Jesus, as is Black Grapes' "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid..."

― paulhw (paulhw), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link

The thing is, any Happy Mondays song that isn't "Loose Fit", "Step On" or "Kinky Afro" is shit.

― Dan (Crazy Brits) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:35 (eighteen years ago) link

Jane's remain one of the best live acts I've ever seen, and Ritual... absolutely holds up (not so sure about Nothing's Shocking; some great songs on there like "Summertime Rolls" and "Mountain Song," but some real dross, too, like "Idiots Rule" and "Thank You Boys" and "Pigs In Zen" and "Ted, Just Admit It").

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:38 (eighteen years ago) link

you had to fucking be there people. not tryi to be elitist. but at the time they were a beacon for legions of freaks. queen g otm. i remember when they played a shitty club in prov opening up for the ramones but i was a few years too young or was i there? see what i mean. i can not imagine them having any presence playing an arena. that just seems laughable. the first album is a classic. yes i never listen to it anymore but that doesnt mean jack.

― no bones, Monday, 16 January 2006 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Ahem... The *first* album was a fairly pedestrian live outing. So the people here who keep saying how good it is either are forgetting that part or they are touting the virtues of a record that isn't that amazing.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Monday, 16 January 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link

That "pedestrian live outing" is actually pretty fucking awesome.

― Dan (*Eye-Roll*) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 16 January 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Here's my cycle of Janes:

When I first heard them as a lad: OMG this band is epic mindblowing holy shit!

Then I got older and "coolerl": Wannabe Zep hippie dumbasses

Then I got older still: Loveably wacko alt-rock dinosaurs actually has some pretty great song, now find their hippie doofy crap kinda charming.

also, GREAT live band, if you ever saw them back in the day, really amazing.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 16 January 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Skipping 129 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

i am so proud of this thread.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 01:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuck the haters.

Pashmina OTM.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 07:55 (eighteen years ago) link

most crowds i was in durring that era were mostly awful. all the idiot moshing, etc...twas the times and the kids.

― bb (bbrz), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 13:59 (eighteen years ago) link

I witnessed violent moshing at a fucking VELOCITY GIRL show circa 1991-2.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:40 (eighteen years ago) link

i thought i might die at a goddamned cracker show (like '93....some festival thing...violent femmes sset also amazingly violent)

― bb (bbrz), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link

i was crushed to the point of blacking out at a posies show.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link

strangled at a Young Fresh Fellows show

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:54 (eighteen years ago) link

sorry lauren but im finding that too damned funny and i dont even know exactly why....perhaps no more coffee for me....

frosting, beaters...oh, i best go outside

― bb (bbrz), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I actually recall a pit developing when I saw The Posies at CBGB's when touring for the first Geffen disc. So it's not impossible.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link

definitely not impossible, as it actually happened.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:59 (eighteen years ago) link

no...totally possible...i think frente could have drawn up such a situation back then...

― bb (bbrz), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 18:09 (eighteen years ago) link

aren't you guys a little too old for this?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:53 (eighteen years ago) link

I feel sorry for anybody jaded enough to dismiss them for this stuff, for "not having a sense of humor about it." Was Bowie kidding about it? The Velvets? Zeppelin? Is Coil? Rock and roll is magic if you want it to be, pretentious or silly if you don't.

For me this is the most OTM thing on this thread. I'd like to add that I also feel sorry for people who can't seem to like a band unless the frontman is idol worship material. Who cares if he was a cracked-out asshole? I'll never understand people who let that figure into the equation.

― Mustapha Peabody, Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:21 (eighteen years ago) link

only the old man (well i don't know about lauren)..im not THAt much older than you, ian

the cracked out downfall only matters if yr looking for an idol rather than a soundtrack. most people, esp when they're young, like their bands to be idols. so figuring that in is only as stupid as the worship itself.

― bb (bbrz), Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link

This is one weird thread. People making out they were into them as kids and are now too grown up for 'em, you may as well call Led Zeppelin music for children then. I'm in my 40's and I consider them as one of the very best rock bands of the last 25 years and a class above The Pixies (who are brilliant - not quite as good as Jane's though). They were original and good musicians too. They also were a big influence on The Smashing Pumpkins and Tool. And for a band that you supposedly heard everywhere in the late 80's/early 90's, their records were remarkably unsuccessful commercially (look at chart placings). Hmmm......strange..

― des, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link

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