Jesus Jones - Already - 1997

 

I'm going out of town tomorrow, so I thought I'd do tomorrow's post today, just to get it out of the way.

I look at Jesus Jones now, and I really do feel sorry for them.  Mike Edwards is truly a talented songwriter - truly.  He has passion and creativity and he loves what he's doing.  Sad thing about it, is that the entertainment industry is fickle, and in the case of the nineties, it was shifting dramatically all over the place.  JJ was in the right place at the right time and they were on top of the world.  I read several interviews back in the day in Details magazine and Rolling Stone about these guys and they made Mike out like he was a god or something.  He had to feel like he was on top and nothing was going to stop him.

Now, a lot of people consider them to be one-hit wonders - which has always bewildered me as they had a hell of a lot more than one hit.  I watch some videos of them playing on Youtube, like this one---

and there they are, stuck on this little micro-stage, playing to a handful of people.  Mind you, they could do something about their stage presence (that keyboardist is a dork), but they are having fun, could have been huge, and I get the feeling that there is a lot of remorse of what might have been.  

Maybe I'm wrong.

Already was a breath of fresh air to me, at the time, as we were in the middle of the psuedo-grunge American "Alt Rock" scene, and then the Electronica thing before it exploded into a zillion different sub-genres.  Here we find a new, unassuming Jesus Jones album.  Powerful, soulful and solid, the album really stood out to me as something ELSE.  Not the same old crap that I heard every day on the radio (and in some cases my CD player.)  It had potential and maturity and direction.  It had everything needed to be an album to put them over the top.  Except, it didn't have the publicity and marketing, it didn't have the support of the industry, and the hardcore fans like myself couldn't make a difference no matter how hard we tried.  I think there was two of us in my town.  Hell, the album wasn't even officially released in the states.

They've already (no pun intended) released a deluxe version of Already with 3 or 4 discs of material.  Some live stuff, alternate takes, demos of the existing tracks and whatnot.  I just pulled the album, the b-sides and the demos of songs that weren't on the album.  Now, you have at least one version, if not the official version, of every track recorded during those sessions.  All of them are good, no matter if it's a b-side, demo or album track.

I'll be gone this weekend, but my next scheduled post wasn't going to be until Tuesday anyway.  I'll be back then, with a post from their "brother" band from the early 90s who was also called a one-hit wonder.  I'll make a deluxe edition of the album of your choice if you can be the first person to correctly name the "brother band" I'm talking about before I post it on Tuesday.  

See you then....

Jesus Jones - Already - 1997          Jesus Jones - Already Demos - 1997

Jesus Jones - Perverse - 1993

After Doubt, I was excited for the release of Perverse.  I expected a lot, after the success of the previous albums, and also from the countless interviews I read with Mike talking about songs that would one day be played on elevator music because it was so good it would be considered timeless.  Huge expectations from a lot of us.

But, by the time of this release, Madchester was dying hard and fast, and Grunge and Techno were killing it.  The album sounded lost, like it didn't know where or what it wanted to be.  There are some really great songs on this album, but as a whole, it lacks in execution.  Some songs retained their traditional JJ sound, others tried to move forward, and others tried different styles that just didn't fit with JJ nor the album itself.

NOTE - I must remind you, if you haven't already guessed, that when I write these commentaries, it nearly all comes from my head, in the way I feel about the albums, what little memory I retain about the albums, and hardly any research.  It's part of the magic of this blog.  I should rename it "Bliss In Ignorance".  If you want facts, go to Wikipedia or Discogs.  You're not going to find hardly any here.  Wink wink.

Back on to JJ's Perverse, I will say that I like the album.  I will always have it, and consider JJ as one of my favorite bands.  Probably in my top 100 bands.  But, I will only listen to some of the songs on it, and probably won't ever listen to the whole thing through in one sitting, ever again.

Now, Already is another story.  That is their undiscovered masterpiece.  But, that is for another day....

Jesus Jones - Perverse - 1993

Jesus Jones - Doubt B-Sides and Remixes - 1991

I got Jesus Jones, EMF and Blur's first album all at roughly the same time, and that was my initial exposure to what I thought was Madchester.  Inspiral Carpets, Happy Mondays, Charlatans, Stone Roses, the Farm, so forth and so on, didn't come until later for me.  

Doubt is an outstanding album.  I have no problems sitting and listening to it from beginning to end, uninterrupted, and have the time of my life.  In fact, as I was deciding which album to select for today, I played IBYT with my 4-year-old son and him and I danced and laughed around the living room.

But, and there's always a but, and I usually hate what follows.....

But, the remixes and b-sides of Doubt?  Well, they just aren't up to par with the rest of the album.  There's a few good tunes in there, like Damn Good At This, and some of the mixes are great, like DNA's mix of Welcome Back Victoria.  But, for the most part, I have to say "meh".

Why post it?  Jesus Jones is still the bomb, and a disc like this is usually a hard-on for most completists.  I will say, there are 4 remixes missing.  I left them off because I couldn't stand them.  Sorry to make that judgement call, I did it for your own good.

You might like it, you might not.  If you do, your welcome.  If you don't, then piss off.  See you tomorrow.

Jesus Jone - How Do You Do It? - 1991