Mother Love Bone, "Apple"

CJ gets to the core of the story behind the would-be kings of Seattle

CJ’s Pitch:

I’m still mad at Andrew Wood.

It’s been over 30 years since his senseless heroin-induced death and I’m still pissed at this beautiful, enigmatic, fucked up son-of-a-bitch.

Because if Wood stays off the horse, he and his band Mother Love Bone just may have been the Seattle outfit that defined the ‘90s.

At the end of the 1980s hard rock and mainstream metal were at a crossroads. The hair bands were thankfully on their way out. But, that meant the face of hard rock was 40-something Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler who was a few years away from doing soundtracks for movies starring Ben Affleck.

Mainstream metal had it even worse. Their poster boy was 127-year-old Robert Plant stunt double David Coverdale and the rotating cast of Whitesnake. And, to a lesser extent, his crazy ass wife.

These genres were in need of a merger and a complete rebranding. They had to get younger, smarter and more contemporary.

Meanwhile in Seattle, one band stood out like a beacon among the murky local fare. Mother Love Bone had invented a new sound that drew from classic hard rock, but incorporated the best aspects of what came to be known as grunge. Instead of mumbling into his flannel shirt like most Seattle frontmen, Andrew Wood employed the vocal histrionics of his glam forefathers Marc Bolan and Noddy Holder. On top of that, he had the stage presence of Freddy Mercury and the charisma (ka-raz-ma) of David Lee Roth. And the friggin’ guy was only 24-years-old.

Then he died a few days before the album we’re about to discuss was released.

Shit.

Andrew Wood’s death set in motion a series of events that would change the entire music industry. While working on a Wood tribute album with Chris Cornell (you may be familiar with his work), Mother Love Bone guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament joined up with two fellas by the name of Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder who then went on to form Limp Bizkit. (I’m kidding, of course. That would have made this tragedy a thousand times worse.) Within the next few months, Nirvana broke and Seattle exploded.

But, let’s talk about Apple now, shall we?

Most people first heard Mother Love Bone on the Singles movie soundtrack, which featured a 2-in-1 song called “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” from their earlier EP Shine. (Note: “Crown of Thorns” also appears on Apple by itself.) The first MLB song I ever heard is what I consider to be their signature tune, “Stardog Champion”, which contains the lyrics:

West Virginia, that’s where my father lies

He was a wartime hero, the kind that money buys

It’s a diamond bracelet, for my mommy’s memory

I said that’s all she wrote, boy. That’s all she wrote for me.

This was not your typical pop metal fluff. It was dark and wounded and magnetic. Other songs on the album took up that theme. “Bone China” and “Stargazer” are wistful tales of lost love. “Heartshine” and “Come Bite The Apple” are introspective looks at past disappointments and pain. And the aforementioned “Crown of Thorns” holds the ominously prophetic lyrics:

You ever heard the story of Mr. Faded Glory?

Say he who rides a pony must someday fall.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. “This Is Shangrila”, “Captain Hi Top” and “Holy Roller” are joyous fables of rock ‘n roll excess and on-stage antics.

But, the most remarkable songs on this album are “Gentle Groove” and “Man of Golden Words.” When you listen to their respective instrumentation and phrasing, you can actually hear Pearl Jam being born.

So, don’t be afraid to take a bite of this bittersweet apple. You can trust me. I’m a stardog, baby. I ain’t gonna let you down.

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Ken’s Response:

One day, the week before my ninth birthday, I got home from school and went rummaging through the kitchen cabinets looking for a snack. On the highest shelf of a cabinet that no one ever opened I spied a delicious-looking tub of chocolate frosting.  Without thought or delay, I ate some...and then some more.  And as I sat there chocolate-faced and stupendously happy, I thought, “Damn, Mom is gonna be a bit mad.”  First of all, I’m sure that frosting was meant for something specific, but more than that there’s no way she would approve of me eating uncut sugar as an after-school snack.  So like any responsible kid would do, I came clean and confessed my sins.  Or saying it another way, I hid the evidence under Kato’s window like it was a bloody glove.

A couple days later I walked through the door to the smell of cake cooling in the kitchen; of course there was cake, it was my birthday.  Mom’s somewhere, Dad’s at work, my sister is watching General Hospital and I’m a year older, which in kid terms is a pretty big deal.  Seems like it’s gonna be a pretty good afternoon.  My Mom got home and immediately started making dinner (no one offered to help her because it was 1979, and being a good person and helping in the kitchen was frowned upon back then.)  Inevitably, she noticed there was a key ingredient missing from my birthday cake, and no time to get to the grocery store to buy more.  So we had cake.  Just cake.  Plain yellow cake.

That’s what Mother Love Bone’s Apple is: cake with no frosting.  It wants to be something more, but it’s missing an important ingredient.  An ingredient so key, that its omission makes the whole thing virtually indigestible.  Pearl Jam became Pearl Jam not because Stone Gossard is a good rhythm guitarist or because Jeff Ament’s basslines are super-sophisticated.  Eddie Vedder’s haunting voice and deep, autobiographical lyrics are the frosting that completes their musical cake.  Without him, they are something that you want to enjoy but in the end leaves you thoroughly disappointed.

• Pitch Failed

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Don’s Response:

SHIT. I didn’t realize Andrew Wood died just before Apple was released. It makes me feel a little bad for belittling his life’s work. But after swallowing this record for a good week, I’m afraid it’s just empty calories in the middle of a hair metal and grunge SANDWICH.

Forgive me. I didn’t want to bury the lede. 

Rest assured, I listened several times because I respected CJ’s pitch. After all, when CJ declares a record as the rightful heir to the metal he unabashedly loves, and the inspiration for the most impactful rock genre of the 1990s - grunge - you have to give it a chance. 

Of course, it’s obvious straight away why it’s been characterised as such. You don’t even need to know a couple of Pearl Jam’s founders were in Mother Love Bone to connect the dots. And you can’t overlook the Seattle scene’s reverence for its inspiration. 

But, to me, Apple lacks what both metal and grunge were missing: soul.

It’s “rock” in a hard place, with Mother Love Bone stuck trying to push it uphill, when the real alternative would have been to simply let it roll.

• Pitch Failed

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Mitch’s Response:

Years ago, I started seeing a logo around town that said “TAPOUT” and I couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. Organic food, farmer’s markets and kale were all having a moment, so I assumed that “ta-poo” (I prefer the French pronunciation) was a hip new vegetable like haricot verts or something.

One thing that didn’t add up, however, is that the TAPOUT sticker looked kind of Ed Hardy-ish in design, and it was on a lot of pickup trucks instead of Priuses. Wrong demo, as we say in the ad game (side note: we don’t call it the ad game). So I asked Mr. Google and he informed me that it was pronounced “TAP OUT” and it was actually related to mixed martial arts.

Tumbling down the MMA rabbit hole, I was fascinated to learn that the whole concept was to figure out which fighting style was tougher than the rest. As a former green belt with three stripes I was intrigued. Intellectually the idea was quite compelling. I, too, suddenly and desperately needed to know which fighting style was the best (Brazilian Ju-Jitsu as it turns out). So I fired up some ultimate fighting on the old YouTube and was absolutely horrified. Scary men with too many tattoos and too few teeth, angrily yelling and spitting blood, kicking and punching. Yikes. Not for this delicate flower.

Intellectually, the idea of listening to the missing link between hair metal (an underrated genre) and grunge (an overrated genre) was fascinating. The actual experience of listening, however, made me feel like the chump in one of those MMA fights: suffering from a relentless physical assault, each song bringing a fresh kind of pain, feeling the blood pour from my ears, and the life drain from my soul. The ballads were slightly less painful but no more enjoyable.

Tell this mother that I say uncle. I’m tapping out.

• Pitch Failed

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CJ’s pitch was a little too tart and Mother Love Bone’s Apple has been exiled from the Newbury St. Collection.

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Come bite the apple and become CJ’s stardog champion by leaving a comment and letting us know what you think about Mother Love Bone’s Apple.

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Please join us next week as we open our hearts with a very special month featuring our most loved albums. Ken kicks us off with Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky.