Guilty Pleasures: Bush – Razorblade Suitcase
I have over 1,500 DVDs and 3,000 CDs, some of them generally respected as great, others are simply Guilty Pleasures.
BUSH: RAZORBLADE SUITCASE
The more current radio I listen to, the more I appreciate the alternative rock of the 90s. Say what you will about the slacker generation and the Grunge movement, the 90’s was the last time that radio truly had a variety to it. Currently everyone has a dance/rap influence to their songs whether it’s country or pop music or even punk bands. However, back in the 90’s it wouldn’t be weird for a radio station to play Metallica (Heavy Metal), Beastie Boys (Rap), Soul Coughing (No clue what Genre they were), Sister Hazel (Folk Rock) and Nirvana (Grunge) all in the same hour.
Even the word Grunge had a slightly varied sound. Nirvana sounded like a punk band while Pearl Jam had more of an Arena Rock sound and then there’s Alice in Chains who sounded like straight up metal, yet all 3 were classified as Grunge and/or Alternative. It was around 1996 when the radio seemed to focus more and more on punk and hip-hop. It was also the year that Bush (a grunge band from London) released their sophomore album Razorblade Suitcase, considered to many as the last Grunge album.
Bush’s previous album Sixteen Stone is the type of album bands dream of releasing as their debut album. Despite peaking at #4 on the Billboard Charts, the record has sold over six million copies and spawned five top 10 radio singles. Bush was unstoppable. Anything they touched seemed to turn to gold. It was time to make a follow up.
In late 1996 Bush released the first single to the album. The song was titled Swallowed and it was the #1 song on the BIllboard Modern Rock chart for 7 consecutive weeks. The album debuted at number one on the charts, but quickly began to fall, underselling their debut. The follow up single Greedy Fly reached number 3 on the charts while their follow up singles didn’t chart at all.
The reviews for Razorblade Suitcase ranged from average to negative. People seemed turned off to the darker tones of the album, leading many to compare it Nirvana’s In Utero (Steve Albini’s producing certainly helped lead to the comparison). The simple fact of the matter though is that In Utero was a better album than Nevermind stylistically and lyrically. I wouldn’t go as far as to say the same about Razorblade Suitcase vs. Sixteen Stone, Sixteen Stone is one of my all-time favorite albums, but Razorblade Suitcase is certainly better than the 2 star rating Rolling Stone magazine gave it.
The variety of sounds Bush played with on this album makes it a little hard to swallow at first listen. You’ve got pure radio pop in the song Swallowed mixed with the anger fueled rock of Personal Holloway and Greedy Fly, and that’s just the first three tracks. Most people are familiar with the song Mouth for it’s remixed version found on the American Werewolf in Paris soundtrack. The original version doesn’t have the electronic mixing and is steady and slow with powerful build to its conclusion. It sounds raw and gritty the way the song should be. It’s followed by Straight No Chaser, the best song on the album.
Straight No Chaser should have been the third single on this album. It can easily be compared to Glycerine off their previous album for its use of simply electric guitar and strings, but unlike the clean sound of Glycerine, Straight No Chaser feels angrier. The strings don’t play beautifully and subtly in the distance they’re abrasive and abrupt as if conducted by Bernard Herrmann in the 1960s. Even vocalist/guitarist Gavin Rossdale’s guitar sounds frigid, almost out of tune but purposefully.
Straight No Chaser however wasn’t the third or even the fourth single. Instead Bush released Bonedriven and Cold Contagious as singles. They fared so poorly that neither track are even present on Bush’s Greatest hits album. Since Bonedrive, Bush released only a handful of well received singles. Mouth (Remix) from the American Werewolf in Paris Soundtrack and The Chemicals Between Us from 1999’s The Science of Things both performed well but the commercial failure of 2001’s The Golden State led to the band’s break up in 2003. Gavin Rossdale formed a second band with Bush guitarist Chris Traynor called Institute that failed to achieve any commercial success. He then attempted a short lived solo career that also did little on the charts.
This year Bush has released their first new album in a decade: The Sea of Memories. The band is currently on tour with Cheville and Filter to promote the new record. It is their first self released album and seems to be a return to the straight rock sound of Sixteen Stone (which they attempted to recreate on Golden State). The album has received some of Bush’s best reviews since Sixteen Stone. Hopefully with their return to recording, new and old fans will go back to Razorblade Suitcase and give it the praise it truly deserves.
When he’s not watching bad movies and listening to poorly reviews albums Matt “Saint Mort” Kelly hosts his own podcast The Saint Mort Show and writes in his blog Pure Mattitude.
