In 2018 it's easy to be dismissive of Jane's Addiction - on the surface, there's a lot that hasn't aged well, but probably no more than most bands from LA at the same time. Sure, the reunions and reunion albums (yes, plural, apparently) probably didn't help, but if you ignore all of that, they released two landmark albums. I wrote about Ritual de lo Habitual five years ago, but kept forgetting to write about Nothing's Shocking.
There's a very good chance I've not listened to this album in the years in between; if I had I would have remembered how great it is and written about it straight away. The second those amazingly uplifting guitars hit in Up the Beach I would have been mentally writing paragraphs after paragraphs about it. Over the 15 years I've had this album I've periodically had this same thought: Ocean Size might be the biggest riff ever. I mean, literally the-size-of-an-ocean huge. The production is incredible (this was recorded in 1988) and it does everything to possible to make you focus on the sheer size of that riff. I like Up the Beach as an opener, but can you imagine if they'd just opened it up with Ocean Song? People wouldn't have known what hit them.
Nothing's Shocking is a funny one - there are songs that in my mind are less essential, but actually all have their charms - Summertime Rolls takes a little too long to get going but I do love where it ends up - I think I even used to put it on mixtapes; Idiots Rule ends up being this jazz explosion but starts as something almost throwaway; and Ted, Just Admit It builds in an almost post-rock style that was a world apart from anything they'd written before. Of course there's also Mountain Song and that bassline - a song that would dominate any album that didn't already have Ocean Size on it. Snapcase did a cover of it which worked well. I think Sepultura covered it too. It's a classic.
Jane Says was, as mentioned before, my introduction to Jane's Addiction, although I was used to the live version from Kettle Whistle being played on MTV. I was excited to hear the original version when I bought this album - I'd found a copy of Kettle Whistle a few months beforehand, which quenched my thirst for the song (and introduced me to demos of Ocean Song and Mountain Song). I like it, but not as much as the live version - the steel drums are far quieter in the mix. I'm still a little bitter that I've never seen them play it live - at Reading in 2002 they had the steel drums by the side of the stage but didn't play them; they cancelled their set last minute at Reading 2011 and when I saw them in Brixton they were playing Ritual in whole. I might have to accept that I'll never see it.
If I had to say which Jane's album was the best (no one is asking, but I like to ponder these questions) I'd be torn. Ritual was the first I heard and I spent a lot if time listening to it in the two years before getting Nothing's Shocking; I love it and all its strangeness. On the other hand, Nothing's Shocking has the big stand-alone songs - Ocean Size, Mountain Song and Jane Says; when I think of the best Jane's songs, I think of those songs. But maybe that answers the question itself - Ritual is the better album, but Nothing's Shocking has the songs. Either way, both are important and excellent.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: None
mp3s: None
