Dinosaur Jr: Dinosaur

Dinosaur Jr: Dinosaur

1985

Jagjaguwar Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Forget the Swan  2. Cats in a Bowl  3. The Leper  4. Does it Float  5. Pointless  6. Repulsion  7. Gargoyle  8. Severed Lips  9. Mountain Man  10. Quest


I used to have this on cassette tape waaaay back in those grunge-filled days of the early 90's...But back then there was no "Jr"...The tape was just labeled "Dinosaur"...It looked like this...

I used to look at that tiny cover art and wonder what in the hell was going on...I can tell you, now that I own a 12x12 vinyl copy of it, I still don't know...The whole thing is so butt-ugly, yet beautiful...Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good way to describe a lot of Dinosaur Jr's music...

Later in the 90's, I bought a CD copy that seemed to have a permanently dusty jewel cast that weighed 10,000 lbs...Y'know what I'm talking about? The jewel cases that just weigh so much more than any other CD in your collection? Anyway, I went to do the post for this album last year and the CD was no longer in the case made of dwarf-star material...So I went to Zia Records to find a replacement CD and found a vinyl reissue instead...However, when I got home, I realized this version doesn't have "Bulbs of Passion" on it...Boooo!!! Hissss!!

Talk about a band figuring out their sound between their first and second album! Sheesh! This album is all over the place, but the follow-up "You're Living All Over Me" sets the formula so precisely they would never stray from it ever again...That's why I love this particular record and find it so intriguing...Sure, maybe only half of it is truly great, but it's a pretty fascinating look into 80's underground...You can hear sensitive jingle-jangle, raging hardcore, cowpunk, corrosive noise and whatever else those floppy-haired college kids were into circa '85...

I count three drop-dead classics: "Forget the Swan" which almost sounds like the Dino we know and love, but with a slightly more country-ish feel...You can also hear the spirits of both Neil Young and Greg Ginn in that ominous guitar line...Then there's the hardcore hoe-down "Cats in a Bowl" where the sound is pure Sebadoh and Meat Puppets...

 "Cats in a Bowl" gets my vote as the album's best track...Careening and catchy as fuck...Although "Repulsion" is right neck-in-neck with it...Now this is the song that points the way to the band's future...It's the only track on here that could appear on any of the band's subsequent albums without raising an eyebrow...And that chorus is a killer... I also think that if the airy "Severed Lips" was a smidge more memorable it might make the classic list....It has one of those brilliant J Mascis  melancholy-yet-speaker-cracking  guitar solos that I like so much...

Again, the rest of it is all over the place.You've got abrasive post-punk goth on "Pointless," lumpy ugliness on "The Leper" and sludge metal on "Mountain Man"...If you're a college rock sub-genre obsess-o, you'll love it...If you're a Dinosaur Jr fan, you'll probably find it hit and miss, but oh, those hits...

 Let's check out a song...Here's "Cats in a Bowl" Enjoy...