It's Inevitable
February 28, 2018 6:13 PM Subscribe
Extreme II Pornograffitti (A Funked Up Fairy Tale) was a 1990 funk-tinged 90s melodic metal/rock album that set the idea of the Sophomore Album Slump on its head. A loose concept album about greed and desire [YT album post, 1h5m], the themes it explores sadly haven't evolved much if at all in 28 years. Side A: Decadence Dance [video], L'il Jack Horny, When I'm President, Get The Funk Out [video], More Than Words [video], Money (In God We Trust)
Side B: It ('s A Monster), Pornograffitti, When I First Kissed You, Suzi (Wants Her All Day What?), He-Man Woman Hater (includes intro Flight Of The Wounded Bumblebee), Song For Love [video], Hole Hearted [video]
Also this album made Brian May from Queen spend about the first 1m45s of this video talking about one of its guitar solos. Perhaps that will convince any doubters.
Side B: It ('s A Monster), Pornograffitti, When I First Kissed You, Suzi (Wants Her All Day What?), He-Man Woman Hater (includes intro Flight Of The Wounded Bumblebee), Song For Love [video], Hole Hearted [video]
Also this album made Brian May from Queen spend about the first 1m45s of this video talking about one of its guitar solos. Perhaps that will convince any doubters.
Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas. So, Christmas 1990 - my brother and me scrape together our money to buy each other Christmas presents. We each get a CD the other one wants. I wanted a Black Sabbath album. Tyr, to be precise (I was 15 and I wanted an update on what Iommi was up to since the first four Sabbath albums and the two Dio albums - don't judge). Anyway, my brother wanted Pornograffiti. So I got it for him and taped it so I could listen to it on my Walkman.
I also distinctly remember having this copy of Guitar World with Nuno Bettencourt on the cover kicking around the house, since we both started playing guitar around the same time.
Anyway, what struck me about the album is that it's a combination of Christian rock with an anti-censorship message as well as a sort of anti-capitalist thing going on. It's rather contradictory and confusing thematically, but there's no denying that Nuno Bettencourt's guitar playing is excellent.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:15 PM on February 28, 2018
I also distinctly remember having this copy of Guitar World with Nuno Bettencourt on the cover kicking around the house, since we both started playing guitar around the same time.
Anyway, what struck me about the album is that it's a combination of Christian rock with an anti-censorship message as well as a sort of anti-capitalist thing going on. It's rather contradictory and confusing thematically, but there's no denying that Nuno Bettencourt's guitar playing is excellent.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:15 PM on February 28, 2018
Well this is just about the last album I expected to appear among hippybear's recent reviews.
I hear ya.
But thanks for posting this hippybear - true blast from the past!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:21 PM on February 28, 2018
I hear ya.
But thanks for posting this hippybear - true blast from the past!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:21 PM on February 28, 2018
One point I always want to make about this album is that More Than Words IS ENTIRELY NOT A ROMANTIC SONG! They lyrics are basically "hey, if you really love me, like you say you do, then you'll fuck me to let me know for sure".
posted by hippybear at 7:32 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 7:32 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
One point I always want to make about this album is that More Than Words IS ENTIRELY NOT A ROMANTIC SONG! They lyrics are basically "hey, if you really love me, like you say you do, then you'll fuck me to let me know for sure".
HAH. In 1991 my aunt got married to a dude and this was the first dance song at the reception (they're still together).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:42 PM on February 28, 2018
HAH. In 1991 my aunt got married to a dude and this was the first dance song at the reception (they're still together).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:42 PM on February 28, 2018
It's better than the wedding reception that I went to where the bride/groom dance to start the reception was Meat Loaf's "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad". I have no idea if they're still together.
posted by hippybear at 7:45 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 7:45 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh man, oh man. First CD I ever bought.
I was driving home from cutting grass, and "More Than Words" played on the KSHE-95 through the wait at a stop light (I can pinpoint within 10 yards the location). The DJ (John Ulett) came on after the song and said something to the effect of, "You wouldn't know it from that tune, which is awesome, but the rest of the album ROCKS. I don't think I've heard guitar like that since Van Halen came out!"
So I bought the tape and wore it out. (when I bought my first CD player next year, the CD of Pornograffiti was on the same receipt.)
Great memories.
posted by notsnot at 8:13 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
I was driving home from cutting grass, and "More Than Words" played on the KSHE-95 through the wait at a stop light (I can pinpoint within 10 yards the location). The DJ (John Ulett) came on after the song and said something to the effect of, "You wouldn't know it from that tune, which is awesome, but the rest of the album ROCKS. I don't think I've heard guitar like that since Van Halen came out!"
So I bought the tape and wore it out. (when I bought my first CD player next year, the CD of Pornograffiti was on the same receipt.)
Great memories.
posted by notsnot at 8:13 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
More Than Words was my prom theme in 1993.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:59 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:59 PM on February 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I had this album on cassette (it might still be kicking around my mother's basement) right around when it came out. Which would have made me nine or ten years old. I have distinct memories of listening to it in my yellow Sony sport walkman while mucking about in the backyard. I'm pretty sure that hearing More Than Words on either the radio, through some older kids that lived down the block, or maybe seeing the video on Nick Rocks (or maybe MTV?) was the inspiration behind buying it. Most of if went right over my head and I also remember my dad taking a look at the lyrics and not being especially pleased at what I was listening to. Although to his credit the tape wasn't confiscated. I think at the time I had a vague idea of what pornography was, but Pornograffiti was definitely something I couldn't grasp.
posted by friendlyjuan at 9:22 PM on February 28, 2018
posted by friendlyjuan at 9:22 PM on February 28, 2018
Yes, this IS the album that has "More Than Words" on it.
posted by sundrop at 9:33 PM on February 28, 2018
posted by sundrop at 9:33 PM on February 28, 2018
every time I'm tempted to write these guys off, I remember their Queen melody and what Brian May had to say up front ...
posted by philip-random at 12:04 AM on March 1, 2018
posted by philip-random at 12:04 AM on March 1, 2018
I loved this album as a kid, right down to the spending a good few weeks grease-hairedly learning the Flighttapping and having somewhat disconcerting feelings re: Bettencourt's unnecessary combination of playing prowess and absurd handsomeness, but Good lord the More Than Words lyrics are just almost entirely dramatic entitled pleading for sex.
Hole Hearted, though, is still rather nice,even if it is as early 90s as a thing is possible to be whilst not simultaneously being the Friends theme.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:30 AM on March 1, 2018
Hole Hearted, though, is still rather nice,even if it is as early 90s as a thing is possible to be whilst not simultaneously being the Friends theme.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:30 AM on March 1, 2018
One point I always want to make about this album is that More Than Words IS ENTIRELY NOT A ROMANTIC SONG! They lyrics are basically "hey, if you really love me, like you say you do, then you'll fuck me to let me know for sure".
I guess MetaFilter only hate fucks?
From the More Than Words wiki page:
posted by Chuckles at 1:04 AM on March 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I guess MetaFilter only hate fucks?
From the More Than Words wiki page:
The song was described by Bettencourt as a song warning that the phrase "I love you" was becoming meaningless: "People use it so easily and so lightly that they think you can say that and fix everything, or you can say that and everything's OK. Sometimes you have to do more and you have to show it—there's other ways to say 'I love you.'"He's got a point.
posted by Chuckles at 1:04 AM on March 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
The best thing Nuno ever did was marry Suzie Demarchi.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 1:20 AM on March 1, 2018
posted by the duck by the oboe at 1:20 AM on March 1, 2018
Oh, this fuckin album.
I don't have much personal history with this, but a few of my other 12 or 13-year old friends were really into it, which was weird, because ... they mostly didn't listen to stuff like this. The one things that's stuck with me was seeing the video of Nuno playing flight of the bumblebee and yawning while still hammering along. That's some Skwisgar shit right there.
posted by lkc at 2:04 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't have much personal history with this, but a few of my other 12 or 13-year old friends were really into it, which was weird, because ... they mostly didn't listen to stuff like this. The one things that's stuck with me was seeing the video of Nuno playing flight of the bumblebee and yawning while still hammering along. That's some Skwisgar shit right there.
posted by lkc at 2:04 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Funny that someone should bring up Christian music: http://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/2000/05/better-to-speak-out-than-to-fade-away.aspx
posted by pxe2000 at 2:53 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by pxe2000 at 2:53 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I still have this album on one of the MP3 CDs that lives in my car, so this album gets played every month or so in my world. Money - In God We Trust was always my favorite tune from this record. Also, my first thought when I saw this post was that somebody was parodying hippybear by doing a pop metal album in his post style. Then I saw that is was actually a hippybear original.
posted by COD at 5:42 AM on March 1, 2018
posted by COD at 5:42 AM on March 1, 2018
When More Than Words was ubiquitous on the radio, there were two versions that got played, and only one had the truly delicious harmonies. I remember being bitterly disappointed each time the middle part ended with no "oooo-oooo-oooooh."
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:24 AM on March 1, 2018
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:24 AM on March 1, 2018
Extreme's music has aged surprisingly well.
I always liked Peacemaker Die from their next album, with its Martin Luther King Jr. insets. And my favorite piece from Nuno Bettencourt is actually Midnight Express.
posted by cowcowgrasstree at 8:19 AM on March 1, 2018
I always liked Peacemaker Die from their next album, with its Martin Luther King Jr. insets. And my favorite piece from Nuno Bettencourt is actually Midnight Express.
posted by cowcowgrasstree at 8:19 AM on March 1, 2018
Such 80s! Crazy that the next year would bring Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Nevermind.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:16 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:16 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I loved the music on this album. Still do, really.
But the approach to lyrics--Let's say horrible things...but it's hyperbole/parody of bad things said/done/believed by...somebody?--annoyed me in the 1990s and has not aged well.
I totally agree with hippybear about the horribleness of "More Than Words" but I decided to interpret the whole "if you really loved me you'd touch me" vibe as being in the same voice as the "character" who in another song says, "Sooner or later, you'll be a he-man woman hater...Can't live with them but I'd love to shoot 'em...Wench!"
posted by straight at 9:19 AM on March 1, 2018
But the approach to lyrics--Let's say horrible things...but it's hyperbole/parody of bad things said/done/believed by...somebody?--annoyed me in the 1990s and has not aged well.
I totally agree with hippybear about the horribleness of "More Than Words" but I decided to interpret the whole "if you really loved me you'd touch me" vibe as being in the same voice as the "character" who in another song says, "Sooner or later, you'll be a he-man woman hater...Can't live with them but I'd love to shoot 'em...Wench!"
posted by straight at 9:19 AM on March 1, 2018
Unlike say, Eddie Van Halen, who always had his bass player doing boring things way down below the guitar line so as not to dilute the focus on Eddie's greatness, Nuno often had Pat Badger doubling his tasty guitar parts note-for-note on the bass.
(Fun but uncited fact from Wikipedia: "Extreme" is a derivation of Cherone and Geary's former band "The Dream", meaning "Ex-Dream")
posted by straight at 9:45 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
(Fun but uncited fact from Wikipedia: "Extreme" is a derivation of Cherone and Geary's former band "The Dream", meaning "Ex-Dream")
posted by straight at 9:45 AM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
One point I always want to make about this album is that More Than Words IS ENTIRELY NOT A ROMANTIC SONG! They lyrics are basically "hey, if you really love me, like you say you do, then you'll fuck me to let me know for sure".
If the only non-verbal expression of love you can think of is fucking, that’s a problem with you, not with the song.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:40 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
If the only non-verbal expression of love you can think of is fucking, that’s a problem with you, not with the song.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:40 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Don't forget the Jimmy Fallon/Jack Black shot-for-shot remake of the "More Than Words" video.
posted by mrbill at 6:41 PM on March 1, 2018
posted by mrbill at 6:41 PM on March 1, 2018
If the only non-verbal expression of love you can think of is fucking, that’s a problem with you, not with the song.
More like recognizing that all too often when people attempt to cajole someone into demonstrating (or "proving") their love physically (even if it's "just a hug"), instead of with words, they are being inconsiderate, creepy, or downright sleazy.
posted by straight at 7:19 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
More like recognizing that all too often when people attempt to cajole someone into demonstrating (or "proving") their love physically (even if it's "just a hug"), instead of with words, they are being inconsiderate, creepy, or downright sleazy.
posted by straight at 7:19 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
If the only non-verbal expression of love you can think of is fucking, that’s a problem with you, not with the song
It was 80's pop-metal - it's totally about fucking, no question. The entire damn genre was about fucking.
That's half the reason Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magik exploded a year later - a whole generation wanted songs about something other than fucking, or at least wanted everyone to quit being so damn coy about it.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:31 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
It was 80's pop-metal - it's totally about fucking, no question. The entire damn genre was about fucking.
That's half the reason Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magik exploded a year later - a whole generation wanted songs about something other than fucking, or at least wanted everyone to quit being so damn coy about it.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:31 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
If the only non-verbal expression of love you can think of is fucking, that’s a problem with you, not with the song.
I'm "of an age" where albums were looked on as related units and not just a string of singles, and I think from the context, it's pretty obvious....
posted by hippybear at 9:46 PM on March 1, 2018
I'm "of an age" where albums were looked on as related units and not just a string of singles, and I think from the context, it's pretty obvious....
posted by hippybear at 9:46 PM on March 1, 2018
It was 80's pop-metal - it's totally about fucking, no question.
If that’s what it takes to convince yourself you’re not listening to wuss rock, so be it.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with wuss rock. But, like, “More Than Words” is absolutely it. Minus the rock.
If it were “totally about fucking, no question,” why be so cagey about it, particularly when a freaking boy band is right there on the same pop chart at the same pop time singing “I Wanna Sex You Up”?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:13 AM on March 2, 2018
If that’s what it takes to convince yourself you’re not listening to wuss rock, so be it.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with wuss rock. But, like, “More Than Words” is absolutely it. Minus the rock.
If it were “totally about fucking, no question,” why be so cagey about it, particularly when a freaking boy band is right there on the same pop chart at the same pop time singing “I Wanna Sex You Up”?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:13 AM on March 2, 2018
That's not fair. Wuss rockers want to pester women just as much as pretty boys with creepy mustaches do.
posted by straight at 8:36 AM on March 2, 2018
posted by straight at 8:36 AM on March 2, 2018
After Extreme's third and fourth albums, the band retired for quite a while then came back with a new album in 2008.
In the interim, Nuno released a whole bunch of projects. An eclectic solo album that leaned toward late-90s power pop, a couple of albums with his "Heavy Funk Trio" Mourning Widows, a soundrack of sappy acoustic music for the movie Smart People, and did some eclectic solo/band stuff under the names Population 1 and Dramagods (including mixing in some pipe organ sounds with his rock (links are to tracks I like from each album).
posted by straight at 9:25 AM on March 2, 2018
In the interim, Nuno released a whole bunch of projects. An eclectic solo album that leaned toward late-90s power pop, a couple of albums with his "Heavy Funk Trio" Mourning Widows, a soundrack of sappy acoustic music for the movie Smart People, and did some eclectic solo/band stuff under the names Population 1 and Dramagods (including mixing in some pipe organ sounds with his rock (links are to tracks I like from each album).
posted by straight at 9:25 AM on March 2, 2018
It’s just...It takes an awful lot of toxic masculinity to have to superimpose some imaginary secret fuckfest onto a perfectly innocent sappy love ballad before you can give yourself permission to like it. You’re allowed to like sappy love ballads on their own terms. Men are allowed to have feelings other than horniness.
Just reach out your hand
And touch me
Hold me close
Don’t ever let me go
That’s all the physicality present in the song, and it’s put in the context of consoling someone with a broken heart. It’s a real stretch to read anything remotely sexual into it. The average Bing Crosby tune has more horndoggery. It simply is not there. What is inferred is not always implied. Something something Rorschach something something Freud.
And I’m the kind of person who really enjoys reading things into things! Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower, indeed! But these beans are just beans, this plate is just a plate, and this sappy love ballad is just a sappy love ballad, no matter what some frustrated bundle of hormones told you in 8th Grade homeroom.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:36 AM on March 2, 2018
Just reach out your hand
And touch me
Hold me close
Don’t ever let me go
That’s all the physicality present in the song, and it’s put in the context of consoling someone with a broken heart. It’s a real stretch to read anything remotely sexual into it. The average Bing Crosby tune has more horndoggery. It simply is not there. What is inferred is not always implied. Something something Rorschach something something Freud.
And I’m the kind of person who really enjoys reading things into things! Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower, indeed! But these beans are just beans, this plate is just a plate, and this sappy love ballad is just a sappy love ballad, no matter what some frustrated bundle of hormones told you in 8th Grade homeroom.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:36 AM on March 2, 2018
It takes an awful lot of toxic masculinity
It's an entire album about toxic masculinity!
But, I think you're right that "More than Words" and "Hole Hearted" are both intended to be earnest responses to all the toxic cultural stuff they're (satirizing? kidding about on the square?) in the rest of the album. But the whole "show your love for me is real" thing definitely seemed creepy to me when the song came out and is still not something I would want to say to someone I loved.
posted by straight at 9:54 AM on March 2, 2018
It's an entire album about toxic masculinity!
But, I think you're right that "More than Words" and "Hole Hearted" are both intended to be earnest responses to all the toxic cultural stuff they're (satirizing? kidding about on the square?) in the rest of the album. But the whole "show your love for me is real" thing definitely seemed creepy to me when the song came out and is still not something I would want to say to someone I loved.
posted by straight at 9:54 AM on March 2, 2018
Nuno is a fantastic guitar player, and Gary is a wonderful vocalist (I even like his stint in Van Halen). I listened to the Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee many times when I was a young person who liked to play air guitar facing the mirror.
I tried listening to this album about a year ago, though, and I just couldn't get through it. It has not, to my mind, aged well at all.
Hole Hearted still works, and Nuno's 12-string solo shows, I think, just how versatile a guitarist he is. Lots of people can do fancy tapping, but not a lot of them can also do good double-stop loaded acoustic solos.
posted by curiousgene at 12:04 PM on March 2, 2018
I tried listening to this album about a year ago, though, and I just couldn't get through it. It has not, to my mind, aged well at all.
Hole Hearted still works, and Nuno's 12-string solo shows, I think, just how versatile a guitarist he is. Lots of people can do fancy tapping, but not a lot of them can also do good double-stop loaded acoustic solos.
posted by curiousgene at 12:04 PM on March 2, 2018
If that’s what it takes to convince yourself you’re not listening to wuss rock, so be it.
It’s just...It takes an awful lot of toxic masculinity to have to superimpose some imaginary secret fuckfest onto a perfectly innocent sappy love ballad before you can give yourself permission to like it.
???????
You are making hella assumptions about my opinions of and reactions to 80's pop metal based on I dunno what. You seem to think that I'm claiming the song is about sex so I don't de-masculinize myself by listening to it because it's not a "heavy" song? Where on earth did you get that from? Where on earth did I even say that I liked anything about any of this? Talk about reading into things . . . . .
this sappy love ballad is just a sappy love ballad, no matter what some frustrated bundle of hormones told you in 8th Grade homeroom.
It's got nothing to do with hormones, it's that starting in 1989 I began to have personal and professional experience with pop-metal bands, local, regional, and national, professional experience that has continued, off and on, to this day, and I am here to tell you that I don't care how "innocent" you think this sappy love ballad is, for pop-metal musicians sappy love ballads are bait-and-switch, stalking horses at best. You write the sappy love ballad so the girls think you're sensitive and will treat them like more than a one-night-stand. This approach has been relayed to me, virtually verbatim, by multiple pop-metal musicians.
Now, admittedly, I've never met or worked with anybody in Extreme, so for all I know they're staunch feminists, the exception that disproves the rule, and would be horrified if I went up to 'em and said, "C'mon, that song's about fucking, ain't it?"
But to stake out the position that we're a bunch of dirty-minded toxic masculine creeps because we're casting a wary and jaundiced eye at a sappy love ballad is totally ignoring the context of an entire genre of music that dominated the US for a decade-plus. The genre responsible for Cherry Pie doesn't really get much benefit of doubt when it comes to the innocence of their sappy love ballads.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:56 PM on March 2, 2018
It’s just...It takes an awful lot of toxic masculinity to have to superimpose some imaginary secret fuckfest onto a perfectly innocent sappy love ballad before you can give yourself permission to like it.
???????
You are making hella assumptions about my opinions of and reactions to 80's pop metal based on I dunno what. You seem to think that I'm claiming the song is about sex so I don't de-masculinize myself by listening to it because it's not a "heavy" song? Where on earth did you get that from? Where on earth did I even say that I liked anything about any of this? Talk about reading into things . . . . .
this sappy love ballad is just a sappy love ballad, no matter what some frustrated bundle of hormones told you in 8th Grade homeroom.
It's got nothing to do with hormones, it's that starting in 1989 I began to have personal and professional experience with pop-metal bands, local, regional, and national, professional experience that has continued, off and on, to this day, and I am here to tell you that I don't care how "innocent" you think this sappy love ballad is, for pop-metal musicians sappy love ballads are bait-and-switch, stalking horses at best. You write the sappy love ballad so the girls think you're sensitive and will treat them like more than a one-night-stand. This approach has been relayed to me, virtually verbatim, by multiple pop-metal musicians.
Now, admittedly, I've never met or worked with anybody in Extreme, so for all I know they're staunch feminists, the exception that disproves the rule, and would be horrified if I went up to 'em and said, "C'mon, that song's about fucking, ain't it?"
But to stake out the position that we're a bunch of dirty-minded toxic masculine creeps because we're casting a wary and jaundiced eye at a sappy love ballad is totally ignoring the context of an entire genre of music that dominated the US for a decade-plus. The genre responsible for Cherry Pie doesn't really get much benefit of doubt when it comes to the innocence of their sappy love ballads.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:56 PM on March 2, 2018
It's got nothing to do with hormones, it's that starting in 1989 I began to have personal and professional experience with pop-metal bands, local, regional, and national, professional experience that has continued, off and on, to this day, and I am here to tell you that I don't care how "innocent" you think this sappy love ballad is, for pop-metal musicians sappy love ballads are bait-and-switch, stalking horses at best. You write the sappy love ballad so the girls think you're sensitive and will treat them like more than a one-night-stand. This approach has been relayed to me, virtually verbatim, by multiple pop-metal musicians.
Appeal to authority, check. Moving goalposts, check.
Read the text of the song and point to the part about fucking. I’ll wait.
The notion that Extreme and their cohorts were a bunch of phonies who only played these songs to get laid is a whole other issue, and you’ll get no argument from me on that one.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:24 PM on March 2, 2018
Appeal to authority, check. Moving goalposts, check.
Read the text of the song and point to the part about fucking. I’ll wait.
The notion that Extreme and their cohorts were a bunch of phonies who only played these songs to get laid is a whole other issue, and you’ll get no argument from me on that one.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:24 PM on March 2, 2018
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17-year-old me gave this album many listens. It was highly representative of the guitar-driven pop metal of the era, and as a budding shredder, I paid it due attention. It cemented Nuno Bettancourt as a first-rate guitar hero and made his signature Washburn N4 a desirable bit of gear (though the value of that instrument has not held up over the years).
"Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee" is a standout from a player's perspective. It should be noted that it's only half as fast as it sounds. It uses the 3/16 technique, where you set an echo effect to produce a single return at 100% amplitude with a delay of three sixteenth notes. You then play a straightforward sequence of muted 8th note plucks or taps, and the result is a ridiculous interleaved cascade of 16th note shreddy goodness. This track was far easier to play than one might expect. It was tabbed out in Guitar for the Practicing Musician and I could play it note for note.
posted by rlk at 6:52 PM on February 28, 2018 [4 favorites]