Scooter Chronicles

Living Colour - “Stain”

Tracks:

1. Go Away
2. Ignorance is Bliss
3. Leave it Alone
4. Bi
5. Mind Your Own Business
6. Ausländer
7. Never Satisfied
8. Nothingness
9. Postman
10. WTFF
11. This Little Pig
12. Hemp
13. Wall

(Been a while since I did one of these kind of posts.)

Another great band that was introduced to me by MTV. Too bad they (meaning MTV) don’t play anything worthwhile these days. Or even any videos to begin with. Video may have killed the radio star, but over hyped television killed the VJ. Anyway, like most rock and pop fans, I stood up and took notice of Living Colour when I heard the raucous guitar and grooves of “Cult of Personality” in the late 80’s.

(From left): Will Calhoun (drums), Doug Wimbish (bass), Vernon Reid (guitar), and Corey Glover (vocals) in a more recent photo.

Living Colour grew out of a coalition formed by Reid and others in New York City for black musicians that wanted to play rock. Muzz Skillings was the original bass player. “Stain” was the first album with Wimbish as his replacement. It’s a different sounding album then the first two. Darker. More experimental sounding. (At least to my ears.) And though Skillings could groove, the bass sound improved and helped usher in the new direction and sound. Quite honestly, being a fan of bass players, Wimbish was the biggest reason I bought this when it came out. I had heard of him and heard some of his playing before he joined the band. So I was excited to hear that he was a member and was looking forward to the new sound. I wasn’t disappointed.

It’s that darker, more raunchy sound that caught my ear with this one. The previous albums rocked their butt off most of the time, but they were also had a that “made for radio” sound to them. Not entirely, but enough. It seemed they threw out those ideals with “Stain”, quite possibly the reason that Skillings left the band. (Just speculation on my part.) There aren’t any nice vocal openings like “Open Letter” from their “Vivid” album utilizing Glover’s very soulful tenor. As a matter of fact, on “Postman” it’s hard to believe that the scratchy yelling and screaming is the same guy singing.

Reid, Calhoun, Wimbish, and Glover around the time the album was recorded.

Like with their previous albums they cover some social issues. Though it’s not all seriousness. The song “Bi” discusses the bi-sexual section of our population. One of the verses though pokes a bit of fun where a guy finds out that the girl he is cheating on his girlfriend with is also seeing his girlfriend behind his back.

And through all the hard edge raunchy rock, there are still two interludes. “Nothingness” is an all-synth-almost-ballad, but isn’t, and is much cooler anyway. Then there is “Hemp” which even drops the bass and drums and is a spoken word poem, recited by it’s author (if I remember correctly … I am having a hard time finding my copy of this CD to re-read the liner notes).

“WTFF” is one of the highlights, being an instrumental the warps genres with hip-hop, funk, electronic dance, and rock. It’s a wicked little number. It’s only problem is that it’s too short at only two minutes and fifteen seconds.

The last song “Wall” is a great album closer. It brings a little bit of that “made for radio” sound back, but still doesn’t give in to it totally, still feeling like a part of the new sound. But it is also the biggest statement on the album. (”The walls between us, all must fall.”) The song is more about the music. Those the last two minutes get quite wonky, making it a great statement both musically and lyrically.