Re: Busted Stuff
I don’t know about anyone else, but after listening to the Steve Harris interview it gave me a whole new appreciation for Busted Stuff as an album. It’s always been an album I’ve loved and come back to many times but had that nagging, “what could have been…?” in the back of my mind given the Lillywhite Sessions. Most of us, especially those of us old enough and lucky enough to have experienced the Lillywhite Sessions leak, tend to favor “what could have been” over what ultimately was. But I’ll be damned if Busted Stuff doesn’t belong on some sort of DMB album wall of fame.
I’m a huge fan of music history and the inner workings of bands. Sometimes, all it takes is a good documentary to spark my interest in a bands music, because it adds more context. In the case of Busted Stuff, I felt Matt Norlander’s interview with Steve Harris offered great context to the album and made me appreciate it even more. The fact that it’s the ONLY album with just the 5 original members is special in it of itself. Then to contextualize it with the fact that Everyday was such a glossy polished diversion from the bands sound and they come back just a year later with an album that returns to form just the 5 of them is perfect. It also shows just how great those tracks are that they didn’t need the fancy production Lillywhite brought to the table in the first three albums.
It’s funny, on the flip side, the interview Norlander did with Lillywhite made me care for those sessions less because of how uninteresting that story ended up being. I mean, JTR, Captain and Grace is Gone are still masterpieces from those sessions, but there’s a stronger fuller energy in the collective release that is Busted Stuff. Lillywhite Sessions really do sound pretty lifeless. Example: Sweet Up and Down.
If there were a Big 4, Busted Stuff certainly deserves it. Top tier DMB album.
|