Bush, Sixteen Stone
The hairdo that launched a thousand fantasies and the singles that rescued post-Nirvana modern rock radio
The story of Bush is the story of a hairdo. Dashing frontman Gavin Rossdale's greasy, Harlequin Romance-ready mane launched a thousand fantasies, and Sixteen Stone, his UK quartet's 1994 debut, launched nearly a half-dozen singles that rescued modern rock radio from its post-Nirvana lull. While Bush certainly owe much to the Seattle trio, the influence has been greatly overstated — indeed, Cobain & Co. deftly paired melody and crunch, but never to Sixteen Stone's extent. Rossdale injects Nevermind's lazy melodies into In Utero's unkempt decor as guitarist Nigel Pulsford's riffs heave like overloaded barges.
If you owned a radio in the mid '90s, you know this album already. "Everything Zen," "Little Things," "Comedown" and "Machinehead" ably encompass modern rock's workman-like efficiency, guitar pedaling from chorus to verse to bridge with nary an organic sound. Rossdale's vocals alternate between halting (rarely does he add the final consonant to a word) and seething (in "Everything Zen," he repeatedly bellows, "There's no sex in your violence" with bewildering conviction). "Glycerine," the album's big single, was the power-ballad of the '90s, and it delivers cringes and shivers equally. True, the neo-grunge of Nickelback and Creed originates here, but Bush's confident debut should hardly bear that burden. Let's blame Rossdale and Scott Stapp's hairdressers instead.
