Jane's Addiction: Nothing's Shocking [WARNER]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing was made in the EU and includes a printed inner sleeve. The album went platinum, "Jane Says" reached No. 6 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart, and Rolling Stone placed it at No. 312 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Printed inner sleeve
• Pressed in the EU
• Lyrics included

About the album

Before alternative rock had a name, it had Perry Farrell. Jane's Addiction came out of the Los Angeles club scene in 1985, headlining Scream with a sound that pulled metal, funk, punk and art rock into one sweaty room, and Warner Bros. signed them with one of the biggest advances of its day. Before the studio album they cut a live debut at the Roxy Theatre for $4,000, toured with Love and Rockets and opened for Peter Murphy in Long Beach.

Farrell picked producer Dave Jerden for his engineering on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Jerden listened to an 18-song demo every night for a summer, chose the songs, set the order, and had the band rehearse and record them exactly that way. Dave Navarro's guitar, Eric Avery's rolling bass and Stephen Perkins' tribal drumming carry "Up the Beach," "Ocean Size" and "Mountain Song," while "Jane Says" swaps the roar for steel drums and an acoustic strum.

It's now held up as one of the key alternative albums of the 80s and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance. A few years later Farrell started a touring festival called Lollapalooza, which suggests the man was never going to settle for a quiet life.

Also at Kops: more Jane's Addiction on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Bros. (cat# 8122798884), a reissue of the 1988 album.