Meat Puppets II explained

Meat Puppets II
Type:studio
Artist:Meat Puppets
Cover:Meatpuppetsii.jpg
Alt:An abstract painting with thick swatches of green and blue framing a smaller area of red and orange. “Meat Puppets II” is printed in the upper left.
Released:April 1984
Recorded:April – May 1983
Studio:Total Access, Redondo Beach, California
Genre:
Length:29:57 (original)
48:01 (reissue)
Label:SST (019)
Prev Title:Meat Puppets
Prev Year:1982
Next Title:Up on the Sun
Next Year:1985

Meat Puppets II is the second album by the Phoenix, Arizona, band the Meat Puppets, released in 1984. It is a departure from their self-titled debut album, which consisted largely of noisy hardcore with unintelligible vocals. It covers many genres from country-style rock ("Magic Toy Missing," "Climbing," and "Lost") to slow acoustic songs ("Plateau" and "Oh, Me") to psychedelic guitar effects ("Aurora Borealis" and "We’re Here").

The cover art is by Curt Kirkwood and Neal Holliday.[6]

Rykodisc reissued the album in 1999 with extra tracks and B-sides, including a cover of the Rolling Stones's Aftermath-era track "What To Do."

The Meat Puppets' SST labelmates Minutemen covered "Lost" on the live EP Tour-Spiel and their last studio album, 3-Way Tie (For Last). Three of the album's songs were covered by Nirvana (as the Kirkwood brothers joined them onstage) during their "Unplugged" show for MTV ("Plateau", "Oh, Me", and "Lake of Fire").

Reception

Kurt Loder, in an April 1984 review in Rolling Stone, described Meat Puppets II as "one of the funniest and most enjoyable albums" of the year, as he thought the band had developed beyond thrash music to become "a kind of cultural trash compacter" in which they blend head-banging with "a bit of the Byrds...Hendrix-style guitar...and...Blonde on Blonde-style wordsmithing."[7] In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that Curt Kirkwood had combined "the amateur and the avant-garde with a homely appeal," which resulted in a "calmly demented country music" in a "psychedelic" vein.[8]

Robert Hilburn commented in the Los Angeles Times that they were "far more of an acquired promising though willfully unfocused rock act."[9]

In a retrospective review for Pitchfork, Matthew Blackwell called it "a sun-baked, country-fried, acid-addled cowpunk album that could have come from nowhere else but the Arizona desert."

Legacy

The album was number 94 on Pitchforks "Best Albums of the 1980s."[10] Slant Magazine listed the album at number 91 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s."[11]

The final track "The Whistling Song" was taken as the title of Stephen Beachy's first novel. Curt Kirkwood created the cover art for the book.

The album was performed live in its entirety at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Monticello, New York, in 2008 as part of the ATP Don't Look Back season,[12] and again in December, 2008, at a performance in London.[13]

Personnel

Meat Puppets

Technical

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Goller . Josh . Revisit: Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II . Spectrum Culture . 31 January 2017 . 17 June 2018.
  2. Web site: Niesel . Jeff . Meat Puppets to Revisit Their 'Middle Period' for Beachland Show . Cleveland Scene . 17 June 2018.
  3. Blender Staff . May 2003 . 500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die! . . New York . . April 1, 2023.
  4. Blender Staff . May 2003 . 500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die! . . New York . . April 1, 2023.
  5. Web site: Pitchfork Staff . The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s . . September 10, 2018 . ...II was very much on its own trip. Its outsider Americana took in Grateful Dead-style jamming.... April 24, 2023.
  6. Web site: Notes . Derrick Bostrom . Derrick Bostrom . meatpuppets.com . 2010 . 18 June 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120428205404/http://meatpuppets.com/puppets/notes/ . 28 April 2012 .
  7. Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II . . April 26, 1984 . 18 June 2012 . Loder . Kurt . Kurt Loder . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080918051459/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/meatpuppets/albums/album/172218/review/5944091/meat_puppets_ii . September 18, 2008.
  8. News: Christgau. Robert. Robert Christgau. May 29, 1984. Christgau's Consumer Guide. The Village Voice. New York. September 5, 2014.
  9. Web site: Meat Puppets II CD Album . Robert Hilburn . Robert Hilburn . Cduniverse.com . 18 June 2012.
  10. Web site: 2023-03-19. Top 100 Albums of the 1980s. 21 November 2002 . Pitchfork Media.
  11. Web site: The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s. Slantmagazine.com. 5 March 2012. 29 December 2021.
  12. Web site: Don't Look Back – Don't Look Back 2008 – Meat Puppets – Concert-info . Dontlookbackconcerts.com . 2012 . 18 June 2012.
  13. Web site: Don't Look Back – Don't Look Back 2008 – Meat Puppets – Concert-info . Dontlookbackconcerts.com . 2008 . 18 June 2012.