Classic or dud : Jane's Addiction

Nothing's Shocking actually holds up better for me than Ritual. I think I just find the songs more cohesive and I really like the big guitar sound; also have an easier time hearing what Farrell is singing (although I never knew that line was "Ms Smith" until this thread). "Had a Dad" and "Mountain Song" are easily my favourite songs of theirs and "Jane Says" is my favourite slower thing they did. As much as I appreciate their more ambitious ideas, I seem to be a Jane's Addiction poptimist.

I don't really know why "Mountain Song" freaked me out as a kid tbh, since I liked all the FNM/Living Colour/King's X songs that were getting radio and video play at that time. Maybe the video? Maybe harder to find the tune?

I seem to be a Jane's Addiction poptimist.

I don't like "Been Caught Stealing" as much, though, somehow.

I do think it's funny that just about everywhere else on the board, fucking a 15-year-old is pretty consistently summarily dismissed as rape / something that can't be "consented" to, but Farrell spins a good yarn and the tune is real good so we can let this one slide maybe

I do agree with Branwell that the "fucking strippers" rhetoric is gross, weird and reductive

Simon H, I don't get into those kind of conversations, on ILM, for some very good reasons. Please do not confuse that with "letting it slide". Thanks.

ooooook!

tbc I do not place judgment on any of the posts itt, I just think this thread stands out, tonally, on 2020 ilx

She was wise beyond her years, you see.

lol

She wasn’t 15 at the time of the weekend chronicled in the song, was she?

19 I thought?

I do think it's funny that just about everywhere else on the board, fucking a 15-year-old is pretty consistently summarily dismissed as rape / something that can't be "consented" to, but Farrell spins a good yarn and the tune is real good so we can let this one slide maybe

Yeah I don't think that's what any of us were saying but if you want to stir up trouble where there isn't any go for it champ

18 when she died in 1987. The song Xiola by Psi Com was released in 1985.

I knew she was his cousin, which made me go o_O when I found out, but I didn’t know she was 15 and now I’ve gone full O_O

I don't care about digging up and cancelling perry farrell or antagonizing anyone itt but I think it's probably a good thing overall that this sort of behavior from a contemporary rock singer would provoke a much more visceral response

behavior

You are now banned from the Canpol thread.

hisser par mon propre pétard

The fact that he released the song and (in particular) album cover several years after she died of an overdose doesn’t seem very... respectful of the deceased?

(I’m not scolding him or anything, it’s just something that strikes me as I read the backstory.)

when i was a melodramatic early teen, i swore when i died i would hear "summertime rolls" gently lifting me off to heaven

Can I just ask you, what about the song cycle, or indeed the cover, seems like it’s disrespectful, and not like it’s a memorial or tribute from her former lovers?

ffs

The grooming part.

personally I am not sure there is a "respectful" way to memorialize someone who you (allegedly) gave heroin when they were 14

publicly, anyway

It may not be my place to judge – but knowing she was only 17, and died the next year, does put the song and album cover in a somewhat different context for me.

Yeah this has been an eye opening thread fer sure

Hooking your 14-year old trust fund baby cousin on heroin is peak Robin Hood Romanticism amirite.

i didn't know until now that she was PF's cousin? also did not know she was 14-15. what i knew amounted to "xiola" + "heroin" + "died young"
i was a teenaged magazine reader and i have a feeling the music mags weren't dwelling on the inappropriate nature of that relationship very much? idk. i am embarrassed to admit that i cut pics of this band out of magazines and taped them to my wall with all the other pictures i cut out of magazines and taped to my wall.

"I was the first guy she ever did heroin with": https://youtu.be/zNR8JitAWo8?t=1609

yikes

I don't think anyone needs to feel bad or defensive or whatever, but it is interesting that for such a mythologized band, the potentially uglier angles, which I gather have never been hidden, have not often been mentioned in the press as problematic or whatever (AFAICT). speaks to some pretty specific blind spots I guess?

such was the state of music journalism in the late 80s/early 90s
no one gave a shit iirc

Yep.

This isn't an indictment of Jane's Addiction fans btw, it's just sad how this behaviour remained entrenched even in groups that partly defined themselves in opposition to the overt machismo of their predecessors.

In the same clip, he talks about discovering she was his cousin after the fact.

Well, going back to my comparison to Motley Crue, even as recently as whenever The Dirt came out, I don't recall any reactions to those sleazy tales that went beyond mundane shock and titillation. Just lots of "lol, that's Motley Crue for you." It's possible that for many years/decades, fans as well as writers viewed rock stars of all stripes as sort of exotic animals, yet somehow never made the connection that this kind of bad behavior was shockingly/typical, and that if all of these acts had all of these stories then, well, maybe they're not that unique or exotic after all, just pervasive. They were just par for the seedy, scumbag course. A feature, not a bug, as it were.

Huh, can't say I've ever been a Jane's fanatic, though I have the first three records. I had no idea about Xiola at all so, yeah, this has been an eye-opening revive.

Not to pile on – but according to this 2001 piece, the “Jane” featured in the band’s name (and most famous song?) wasn’t too thrilled with the name (“I didn't take it as a tribute at all”), and I wonder if she consented to this:

Bainter's photo appeared on the insert of the vinyl version of the first Jane's album, and on thousands of posters that appeared all over the world. "It was very hard for my family," she says.

whenever The Dirt came out

The book, or the movie? I wrote about the movie for Stereogum and had...some thoughts.

I wrote a thing about that whole era of winking at "bad rock star behavior"

https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/the-dirt-netflix-movie-motley-crue-book-adaptation.html

xpost The book. By the time the movie came out the tide had turned pretty dramatically, so that even Nikki Sixx wasn't even trying to defend their behavior, he was iirc claiming Neil Strauss made the worst of it up.

But, like, Crue, Jane's Addiction ... I'm willing to believe the worst anyone says about demonstrably gross people and their respective bad behavior.

This revive is fantastic. I'd missed it. Wow. Thank you, ILM :)

By the way, I thought I'd put this comment here, from a YouTube video of 'Summertime Rolls':

Eden Lobb
1 year ago

This song always makes me feel nostalgic for a life that I never had. It makes me feel like I am am old man reflecting on my youth, but I'm 22 and I was homeschooled and do not have memories like that]

This revive is fantastic.

You could even say it's a… great revive.

But, like, Crue, Jane's Addiction ...

you can keep doing this but it's not going to start making more sense

You know I'm not suggesting they share many sonic similarities right? Or any? They are just similarly scummy and hedonistic hard rock LA people doing the things they do, the things that can fill a salacious oral history. Makes sense to me.

Los Angeles is literally all they have in common

Don't forget tattoos! So scummy

Come on, I know you all disagree, and they're not some perfect analog, but they have at least a little more in common than that.

those two bands and Oingo Boingo