eMusic Review 0
Listening to the scant amount of material recorded by the Seattle glam-punk act Mother Love Bone can often trigger feelings of, “What if?” What if, instead of passing away of a heroin overdose shortly before the release of his band’s debut album, the grandiose Apple, lead singer Andrew Wood had lived? Would the band’s gritty, yet achingly vulnerable take on arena rock have supercharged a cultural movement toward glitter eye shadow and platform boots? Would pleather have taken the place of flannel? Would Eddie Vedder still be surfing?
Mother Love Bone’s music existed on a precipice between the larger-than-life hard rock that was just starting to fall out of favor in 1990 and the bleaker, more low-end-heavy music that would eventually be dubbed “grunge.” But the catalytic factor was Wood, a self-proclaimed disciple of Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan who laid all his romantic dreams — of grandeur on the stage and in the bedroom, of meeting a woman who’s “just like me, only beautiful” — absolutely bare in a way that, at its best, remains absolutely unnerving even on multiple listens.
To be fair, Wood was backed by a top-notch band that helped drive along his vision:… read more »
