PryTo wrote:Hi everyone. Long time lurker, new to the board. (I'll recount my story of being kicked out of the Ten Club for criticizing the dog leashes another time. Nice to be here.) Vs. was the album that sold me on PJ. Like many folks, I heard and enjoyed the first record, but it wasn't in my top ten that year. There was a lot of incredible music coming out at that time and Ten was overproduced and blatantly commercial to my ears. Vs. was a game changer. It's hard to appreciate now what a radical departure this record was for them, what a huge left turn. I always thought part of it had to do with their self consciousness over Kurt Cobain's critiques of them as jock rock metal heshers. They basically did away with most of the sing-songy commercial material that weighed down Ten. (Daughter aside, but a "feminist" song from a band of bros was a left turn in its own regard.) What remained was less commercial, less accessible, far more raw, and just a whole lot more interesting.
I love the opening one-two punch of "Go" and "Animal," but the songs that still get me today are "Dissonant" and "Glorified G," mainly because they're really sort of anti-commercial and weird songs. This was light years from the lighters-aloft anthem rawk of "Ten." I also have a lingering fondness for "Rats," because, well, that bass line, but also because that song and "Dirty Frank" are really the only two songs that demonstrate what a huge influence the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the young PJ. They never really pursued this sound, but "Rats" and "Dirty Frank" are sort of remnants of an influence that they basically chose to ignore. That's probably a good thing in retrospect, but I think the RHCP influence on the band gets forgotten.
And yeah, Dave A. just eats this material alive. It's widely discussed, but this is one of those bands where the different drummers almost completely impact the overall sound. Can't think of too many bands where changing the drummer had as much impact, unless you're talking about Kenny Jones/Keith Moon or something.
Today, Vs. is not my favorite PJ record but it was a head-spinner at the time, a massive step up that forever made me take them seriously as musicians, as artists, as a band capable of tremendous power. Even more amazingly was how they took the greatness of Vs. to yet another level on Vitalogy. A rare feat, indeed.
There's a reason why we still discuss a band whose current output consists primarily of cringeworthy dad rock, and that's the undeniable greatness of records like "Vs." People can and do debate the merits of everything from "No Code" to "Lightning Bolt," but you'd be hard pressed to find any PJ fan who doesn't appreciate "Vs."
Rick Rubin ???
