Meat Puppets II

A wild ride. But behind the slight sillyness there is some excellent songwriting, I even enjoyed the songs with country elements. I was surprised to hear some songs Nirvana covered/popularised

Fairly underwhelming but was likely ahead of its time genre-wise.

Geen enkel nummer bleef hangen. Maar was wel goed voor op de achtergrond

- Drunk rock and roll -Cowpunk - Fun project ( will probably grow on me )

Kurt Cobain sure liked this band a whole lot more than I do.

this fucking blows I like "Lost" and "What To Do" The style of shitty music really benefits those specific songs. I kinda like it. 1

This album should dispel the myth about what a musical genius Kurt Cobain was. He was a damn poser who ripped off others' music even more than Jimmy Page did on the first few Zeppelin albums. Cobain wasn't just influenced by these guys. He didn't have an original idea in his head. As for the Meat Puppets? I like them. This album was pretty good. I wonder if their singer was trying to sound like the guy from the Violent Femmes, or vice versa? Just curious.

The opening tempo feels like an alternate universe where hardcore came from out West. The descent from there never fails, exactly, but the record never peaks. Along with distinction in style, I liked the instrumental back-and-forth of the sequence.

The Meat Puppets are one of those hardcore punk bands on SST that evolved to a more mainstream sound, from fast and loud to chill and low key. I have Meat Puppets II on both vinyl and cassette, despite the fact I'm not a huge follower of the band. The first record was too fast and unintelligible, while their albums after II were a bit boring for my taste. On the second album, I compare it to the Replacements, Hootenanny album, their breakthrough record where their sound brought in more musical genres, styles and wrote more accessible songs. For me, this album was my sweet-spot, I still enjoyed the off-key vocals, ragged, sometimes off putting songs and it was punk enough to keep my interest. Though their sound is not for everyone's taste, I really like this album. Love the cover art too!

I enjoyed "Plateau" for its symbolism and for being more sonically pleasing than the other songs on the album in my opinion. Altogether, the rest of the album was a complete drag to get through and I hated it.

Plateau, Oh Me, and Lake of Fire. Maybe I heard it mentioned at some time when Nirvana was hot, but really had no idea this was MPs as I just think about Nirvana when I hear those songs. They must have had a huge influence on Nirvana. I understand MPs did get to play with Nirvana some. This version of Plateau stands out and the guitar is outstanding in the middle. Guitar in Aurora Borealis is similarly outstanding. A strong weird track. Songs like New Gods and I'm Not Here are just too busy for me-- like a frenetic Zappa song with no sense of humor. Teenagers smells like Sonic Youth a touch. A lot to like here but also some filler and things that don't work for me.

We're all just a bunch of Meat Puppets controlled by the evil corporate government and secret societies. They all tell me that I should give this five stars... "Thank you, sir. May I have another...

I wish I could tell you what I thought of "Meat Puppets II" without having first heard "Plateau," "Oh, Me," and "Lake of Fire" repeatedly on Nirvana "Unplugged." Hearing the Nirvana versions first just isn't fair. Though I hope they exposed a lot more people to the Meat Puppets? I actually owned the Meat Puppets' "Too High To Die," which came out the year after "Unplugged," though I didn't come to them through the covers. I think it was hearing "Backwater" on the radio. "Backwater" is a pretty stereotypically mid-90s alternative rock song, but the rest of "Too High To Die" is pretty good and holds up well. But the major difference between that album and "Meat Puppets II" is the vocals. Curt Kirkwood simply became a much better singer over those 10 years, and it makes their later work so much better. Their early/mid 80s stuff may have been so underground that they were deliberately going for crappy vocals. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for "Meat Puppets II" (just barely) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for "Too High To Die"

The instrumental songs are great. The lead singers voice is terrible. I don't love Kurt (Cobain)'s voice but it is miles better than Curt (Kirkwood)'s on the MP covers that Nirvana did for Unplugged.

These guys are all over the place. One aspect that remains consistent is that the vocals are subpar. Thankfully…strangely thankfully…there are a lot of instrumental parts to the album. I definitely recognized Lake Of Fire. Digging more, I had no idea that Nirvana’s Unplugged album covers three of these songs (even though Kurt Cobain straight up says it). After making that connection, I can hear the influence on Nirvana. I turned the album off just past the end of the original track list. I made it through. There’s barely enough interesting material to pull this above the JBZ.

I've tried to listen t9 this album several times, and it always starts out str9ng but by the end I've just zoned out and lost interest.

I didn't get it, and I think that is because the band members themselves do not get it either. The songs are not bad, but this looks like much more a demo EP to show off the different styles the band can perform than a coherent album. I don't think that every album must be organized, and I'm into some experimentalism, but it should at least looks like an album rather than a found lost tape that the band forgot in some studio in the 80s.