Pitchfork

A few months ago a friend lent me some old Spin magazines. December 1991, the annual "Year in Music" roundup, is a particularly edifying issue. Tucked away in the record review section is a 170-word quickie about a new album by Nirvana. Lauren Spencer gives Nevermind the green light (the only ratings then were green, yellow, and red) and says, "I swear you'll be humming these songs for the rest of your life." A couple pages later is a lukewarm (yellow) review of a new My Bloody Valentine album called Loveless. Jim Greer is bummed that it doesn't sound more like Blood, Sweat & Tears. Oh well. In a "Ten Best Albums of the Year You Didn't Hear" sidebar, Spin extols the virtues of Pavement's Perfect Sound Forever EP and Royal Trux' Twin Infinitives. The "Artist of the Year" on the cover? Perry Farrell.

One narrative for the decade, then, was pretty well laid out by December 1991. And Jane's Addiction were central to that story, even though, as Farrell discusses in the accompanying interview, they had just broken up. After that summer's Lollapalooza tour, the first, Jane's were no more. But it didn't matter then that they were supposedly finished, since they'd already set the tone for the next several years of youth culture. Greil Marcus argued that Bob Dylan invented the 1960s with "Like a Rolling Stone"; by similar logic, you could say that Jane's Addiction invented the 90s in the time between Nothing's Shocking and that first Lollapalooza.

Jane's were proud to be alternative music icons, and Farrell had the dreadlocks to prove it. Though they were arty and just a little dangerous, Jane's were oddly accessible, which helped push the underground up into the sunlight. They sang about things like heroin and serial killers but seemed relatable somehow; whitebread Midwesterners could "get" them, no problem. Authenticity was never an issue with Perry Farrell. You knew he grew up a middle-class Jewish kid, that his father was a jeweler, and that, in the great tradition of rock music, he was able to reinvent himself completely as a chronicler of L.A.'s bohemian underbelly. He said "motherfucker" a lot, like he was some street dude, even though he was a child of privilege. His background didn't matter; what counted was who he wanted to be. Because of his influence, we had a nation of college kids with more beer money than sense serenading next-door neighbors with impromptu acoustic renditions of "Jane Says". (I wasn't the only one, was I?)

And then there was the music, which brought several strands of 80s underground culture in a single tent. There was the scratchy wah-wah funk, the gothic undercurrent of Eric A's bass-- lines for the ages, truly, and there will never be a Jane's without him-- and Dave Navarro's guitar, which was both "heavy" in the metal sense but always ready to lose the weight and drift off into a psychedelic space. Something for everybody who liked the music chronicled in Our Band Could Be Your Life, really; a canny musical blend from a very canny band.

Jane's weren't finished in 1991, of course, and even then people probably suspected as much. The pull to see if something more can be salvaged-- and to make more money-- is strong, and Jane's reunited live periodically and returned with Strays in 2003. By then, the sound they helped create at the dawn of the 90s had become rock's standard expression, and they seemed content to blend in with the nu-metal multitudes. It's not a particularly good record. And so when I remember Jane's Addiction, I like to remember the one that broke up at the height of their powers in 1991, with two amazing studio albums and that initial live document to their names.

Their brief initial run presents an immediate problem as far as compiling a best-of: why whittle two discs, which together add up to 96 minutes of music, to one? Filler on both Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual is almost non-existent, so if you're looking for an introduction to Jane's Addiction, why not just start with one of those? The answer provided by this track selection-- so that you can also get "Superhero" and "Just Because" from Strays, "Whores" from the live debut, and a "Jane Says" recorded on the first Lollapalooza tour and released previously on the vault-clearing Kettle Whistle-- doesn't wash. This best-of exists because important bands are supposed to have best-ofs.

But still: "Stop", "Ocean Size", "I Would for You", "Been Caught Stealing", "Summertime Rolls", "Mountain Song", etc. Even "Superhero"-- or, as I like to call it, "Rag Doll 2003"-- isn't so bad, for a knockoff of late-period Aerosmith. But hearing "Three Days" and not having it followed by "Then She Did", well, it hurts a little. And as for the live "Jane Says", maybe everyone tired of the Nothing's Shocking version, I don't know. I never did. Matter of fact, I'm looking at that guitar in the corner that hasn't been tuned in five years and I remember how it goes-- just G and A, isn't it? But OK, the live version is decent, and it's a nice reminder that Jane's came so close to the best band breakup since the Beatles. No band since has been as far in front as they were in December 1991, and though this comp is unnecessary, it explains why.