The 500 - #312 - Nothing's Shocking - Jane's Addiction

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 312

Album Title: Nothing's Shocking

Artist: Jane's Addiction

Genre: Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal

Recorded: Eldorado Studios - Los Angeles, California

Released: August, 1988

My age at release: 23

How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Mountain Song

Two years ago, I wrote a post about the album Pink Flag -- the debut release by the band Wire. Artists and music critics who love it consider it to be part of the post-punk movement (which arrived in the early 80s). Therein lies the conundrum:

How could an album released at the outset of British punk in the seventies be influenced by the genre it was helping to create?

After all, Pink Flag was released in 1977, just as punk was gaining a foothold. Wire arrived on the British music scene along with the three most important punk bands of the era, The Damned, The Clash and Sex Pistols.

Pink Flag - debut record by Wire (1977)

Nothing's Shocking, the debut studio record from Los Angeles alternative-rock band Jane's Addiction is similarly perplexing. It was released in 1988, but sounds much more like the alternative rock that would become popular in the early 90s.

The late 80s were a time when the charts were dominated by hair metal -- a sub-genre of heavy metal that was influenced by the glam rock of the 70s. Popular bands included Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Def Leppard.

The members of these groups were dressed in spandex, denim and leather, with long and teased coiffed hair. The music featured catchy riffs, "gang-vocal" harmonies, virtuoso-level guitar solos with a big drum sound. Most hair metal songs were hard-pounding anthems that invited audience participation, but every album contained at least one soft, heartfelt ballad. These songs were often the "hits" that, alongside each group's pretty-boy appearance, attracted a loyal female following.

I was more of a Progressive Rock fan in the late 80s. My favourite bands were Rush, Marillion, Queensryche, Genesis, Yes and Peter Gabriel. However, I certainly liked some hair rock - Def Leppard in particular - and I had adopted some of the fashion choices (see below).

With my future wife, Summer 1988 Algonquin Park

Little did we (or the hair metal bands we loved) know that things were about to change. In 1991, Grunge hit the mainstream. It was a sudden revolutionary groundswell in the landscape of music that, unless you experienced it, is hard to quantify.

Almost overnight, hair-metal was dead or at least comical and tragically dated. In November, 1991, I watched the band Skid Row perform on Saturday Night Live. I felt connected to popular music -- with my finger clearly on the pulse. This was my generation of sound on television's biggest stage.

Just a few weeks later, Nirvana appeared and everything shifted. Suddenly, I felt like a dinosaur, a member of a bygone generation. There was a new sound taking over -- and I didn't understand it...yet.

However, according to Vice writer Jason Heller, "if grunge was the nail in the coffin of 80s hair metal, then alternative metal built that coffin". At the forefront of that coffin-building movement was Jane's Addiction. Formed in 1985, they are Perry Farrell (vocals), Dave Navarro (guitars), Steven Perkins (drums) and Chris Chaney (bass).

Jane's Addiction promotional photo - 1987
(l-r) Navarro, Chaney, Perkins, Farrell

I can't remember who first played Jane's Addiction for me. At the time, I was working at a restaurant called Mother Tucker's Food Experience so I am pretty sure it was one of the cooks. I do remember that it was the song Jane Says from Nothing's Shocking.

I was fascinated by the inclusion of steel drums in the song and, and wondered about the band's name. Who was Jane?

Years later I learned that Farrell picked the name to honour his roommate and muse, Jane Bainter, who had originally pitched the name "Jane's Heroin Experience" -- no relation to my former place of work.

Bainter (1988)

Then, some time later, I saw a broadcast of a blistering performance of the band’s Mountain Song from the MTV studios. It reminded me of Led Zeppelin, but there was a grittier, androgynous and slightly dangerous quality about it. Written by Farrell before the group's formation, it chronicled the challenges of a heroin addict who climbs a mountain of euphoria when using, only to come crashing down to a painful reality.

Farrell (right) performing with Navaro and Jane's Addiction

Farrell, who lost his mother to suicide at age three, struggled with heroin addiction through the late 80s and early 90s. Despite this monkey on his back, he was a force in the music industry. Not only did he front Jane's Addiction and the side project, Porno For Pyros, he also conceived and created the Lollapalooza Music Festival in 1991.

Poster for Lollapalooza - Toronto (1991)

Unlike other music festivals that took place over several days in a single venue, Lollapalooza toured across the United States and Canada through the summer of 1991. Taking its name from a 19th Century expression meaning "an extraordinary and unusual thing, person or event", the festival featured artists from a number of musical genres (rock, folk, hip-hop, electronica) and non-musical performance artists, including the Jim Rose Circus Side Show – the  modern-day version of a carnival side-show, complete with strongmen, contortionists and the fully-tattooed "Lizardman". There was even Zamora - The Torture King who ate fire, swallowed swords and punctured himself with electrified skewers.

Zamora - adding weights to a sword swallowing stunt

The festival was a massive success and expanded to become a series of international tours, each featuring the biggest acts of the day. Now, the event is now held annually in Chicago's Grant Park. It is a four-day affair held in late July. This year's iteration features 150 bands on nine stages, including headliners Metallica, Dua Lipa, J. Cole and Green Day.

The event has made Farrell an incredibly rich man, but he still performs. He will be fronting his band Porno For Pyros on the final night of the 2022 Lollapalooza on July 31.

Thirty-seven years after forming, Jane's Addiction announced a multi-city tour supporting The Smashing Pumpkins. They will hit my region in Southwestern Ontario in late October. 

The band that was once ahead of its time is now a nostalgia act, playing songs from their four-album catalogue -- mainly hits from their first two records -- for fifty-somethings like me. However, the ever-creative Farrell has hinted that recording new material may be in their future. Who knows -- maybe there are more coffins to build.