Jane's Not Shocking Me

The early 90's for music was one of the most interesting in my life. I listened to a ton of Classic Rock. I also listened to my fair share of bad Heavy Metal and bad Pop music. I tried my hand at other music, but it just was not fun. Then I started hanging around a different crowd. This music listened to modern music. It was music as we call it now College Rock. These bands included The Cure, The Smiths, R.E.M., and Jane's Addiction. I liked most of the music that I heard from this crowd, but I did not know what to get and what to listen to. I started listening to a lot of it and trying to figure it out for myself. I had loads of fun picking the great stuff to the really bad. This music was also featured on MTV in form of a late show called 120 Minutes. It was all the cool cutting edge music. Every Sunday at midnight to 2am they have a show. I was in bed, but I set the VCR to record and the next day when I got home from school I would listen to and see what I liked.

I would come to my new group of friends at ask them about bands I saw on this show. They kinda guided me into the right direction. Most of my musical listening of this stuff was me blindly picking something. Even before the internet you went by descriptions of what the record store guy said. He of course was trying to sell the product. I also went by the little descriptions in the Columbia House catalog. They of course wanted you to buy everything, but they have been accurate before so why not now. I even went to see my friends at the record store. They were pretty good at telling me what to get and what not to. One of them even told me if I follow this list of artist and albums I will not go wrong. I decided to use that approach because it was cut and dry and these are the must listens.

One day with list in hand I was trying to figure out what to get what artist should I focus on I was approached by a friend. I did not talk to this person a lot, but we talked music here and there. She asked me if I would go with her to Jane's Addiction. I did not know much about them, but I figured seeing them live might work. I did not know what to say to her, but I told her if one of her friends could go then give them first dibs. She insisted that I go, because as she told me that I was gutsy enough to check them out compared to her friends. I took the chance and went. I figured I had nothing to lose and hey the ticket was not that expensive compared to high prices today. I went to the show with no expectations nor a cassette or anything by them in my collection. When I got out of the show I was completely blown away with their talent. From Dave Navarro's great guitar playing to Stephen Perkins drumming this band had talent. When Perry Farrall announced to the audience that Jane Addiction are part of a music festival this summer I told the person I was with that I would go. I walked away completely impressed with this band and the show.

When I bought the two albums of Jane's Addiction I was completely impressed with the albums. Even the songs they did not play live were killer. I could not believe how great the music was. Each song was better then the next. I could not believe that this band was so good, yet the people who knew about them kept it a secret how good they were. Both albums were hard to get into the first time around. Hearing these songs live took on a sound that could not be reproduced in the studio. Then after a while I realized how great these songs were live or studio. The music of Jane's Addiction is quite good. Dave Navarro's playing really shines on both albums. My problem was to choose what album to do in the blog.

I chose Nothing's Shocking because it was the first album I listened to when I got them through the record club I chose that one to listen to. It's mix of Progressive Rock, Funk and Punk is wonderful. It's songs like "Summertime Rolls" that makes use of the up and down mood and dynamics that some bands of that time never did. Songs like "Jane Says" and "Mountain Song" are wonderful pieces of Alternative Rock. The influence of Jane's Addiction is pretty damn important. They only really put out two great albums, but this is the one that you should go with first. The music is great and most of this is timeless Hard Rock at it's finest. Vote this for another one to crank up to eleven. Enjoy!!!