Meat Puppets II

Meat Puppets II is the second album by the Phoenix, Arizona, band the Meat Puppets, released in 1984 by SST Records.

Meat Puppets II
Studio album by Meat Puppets
Released	1984
Studio	Total Access, Redondo Beach, California
Genre	Cowpunk[1] psychedelic rock[2] bluegrass[3] folk[3] Americana[4]
Length	29:57 (original) 48:01 (reissue)
Label	SST (019)
Meat Puppets chronology
Meat Puppets (1982) Meat Puppets II (1984) Up on the Sun (1985)

Background

The album artwork was created by Curt Kirkwood and Neal Holliday.^[5]

Rykodisc reissued the album in 1999 with extra tracks and B-sides, including a cover of the Rolling Stones's Aftermath-era track "What To Do."

Style

Music journalist Andrew Earles described the album as a "country-roots-punk-hardcore album" and noted the apparent influence of ZZ Top and "other masters of fried '70s boogie".^[6]

II is a departure from the Meat Puppets' first album, which largely consisted of noise-filled hardcore punk with unintelligible vocals. In addition to hardcore and punk rock, the group's second album encompasses a wide assortment of styles including country rock, ballads, and psychedelia.^[7]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[8]
Chicago Tribune	[9]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[10]
NME	8/10[11]
Pitchfork	9.0/10[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10[14]
The Village Voice	A−[15]

Kurt Loder, in an April 1984 review in Rolling Stone, described Meat Puppets II as "one of the funniest and most enjoyable albums" of the year, as he thought the band had developed beyond thrash music to become "a kind of cultural trash compacter" in which they blend head-banging with "a bit of the Byrds...Hendrix-style guitar...and...Blonde on Blonde–style wordsmithing."^[13] In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that Curt Kirkwood had combined "the amateur and the avant-garde with a homely appeal," which resulted in a "calmly demented country music" in a "psychedelic" vein.^[15]

Robert Hilburn commented in the Los Angeles Times that they were "far more of an acquired promising though willfully unfocused rock act."^[16]

In a retrospective review for Pitchfork, Matthew Blackwell called it "a sun-baked, country-fried, acid-addled cowpunk album that could have come from nowhere else but the Arizona desert."^[12]

Legacy

The album was number 94 on Pitchfork's "Best Albums of the 1980s."^[17] Slant Magazine listed the album at number 91 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s."^[18]

The album was performed live in its entirety at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Monticello, New York, in 2008 as part of the ATP Don't Look Back season,^[19] and again in December, 2008, at a performance in London.^[20]

The Meat Puppets' SST labelmates Minutemen covered "Lost" on the live EP Tour-Spiel and their last studio album, 3-Way Tie (For Last).

Three of the album's songs were covered by Nirvana as part of their 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged, which was later released as the Nirvana album MTV Unplugged In New York. Curt Kirkwood and Cris Kirkwood of Meat Puppets joined Nirvana onstage for renditions of "Plateau", "Oh, Me", and "Lake Of Fire".^[21]

Track listing

Original release

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Split Myself in Two"	2:22
2.	"Magic Toy Missing"	1:20
3.	"Lost"	3:24
4.	"Plateau"	2:22
5.	"Aurora Borealis"	2:44
6.	"We're Here"	2:40
7.	"Climbing"	2:41
8.	"New Gods"	2:09
9.	"Oh, Me"	2:59
10.	"Lake of Fire"	1:54
11.	"I'm a Mindless Idiot"	2:26
12.	"The Whistling Song"	2:56

All tracks are written by Curt Kirkwood, unless otherwise noted.

1999 CD bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
13.	"Teenager(s)"	Meat Puppets	3:36
14.	"I'm Not Here"		1:55
15.	"New Gods" (demo version)		2:13
16.	"Lost" (demo version)		3:03
17.	"What to Do"	Mick Jagger, Keith Richards	2:35
18.	"100% of Nothing"		1:50
19.	"Aurora Borealis" (demo version)		2:28

Personnel

Meat Puppets

• Curt Kirkwood – guitar, vocals
• Cris Kirkwood – bass, vocals
• Derrick Bostrom – drums

Technical

• Spot – engineer
• Curt Kirkwood, Neal Holliday – cover artwork

References

1. Goller, Josh (31 January 2017). "Revisit: Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II". Spectrum Culture. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
2. Niesel, Jeff. "Meat Puppets to Revisit Their 'Middle Period' for Beachland Show". Cleveland Scene. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
3. Blender Staff (May 2003). "500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die!". Blender. New York: Dennis Publishing Ltd. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
4. Pitchfork Staff (September 10, 2018). "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Retrieved April 24, 2023. ...II was very much on its own trip. Its outsider Americana took in Grateful Dead-style jamming...
5. Derrick Bostrom (2010). "Notes". meatpuppets.com. Archived from the original on 28 April 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
6. Earles, Andrew (September 15, 2014). Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981-1996. Yoyageur Press. p. 189. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
7. Meat Puppets II - Meat Puppets | Album | AllMusic, retrieved 2024-10-13
8. Deming, Mark. "Meat Puppets II – Meat Puppets". AllMusic. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
9. Kot, Greg (January 23, 1994). "Life Doesn't Suck?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved December 26, 2016.
10. Bautz, Mark (March 22, 1999). "Meat Puppets I; Meat Puppets II; Up on the Sun; Out My Way; Mirage; Huevos; Monsters; Live in Montana". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
11. "Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II". NME: 37. April 17, 1999.
12. Blackwell, Matthew (March 24, 2024). "Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
13. Loder, Kurt (April 26, 1984). "Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on September 18, 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
14. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide (1st ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
15. Christgau, Robert (May 29, 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
16. Robert Hilburn. "Meat Puppets II CD Album". Cduniverse.com. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
17. "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork Media. 21 November 2002. Retrieved 2023-03-19.
18. "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s". Slantmagazine.com. 5 March 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
19. "Don't Look Back – Don't Look Back 2008 – Meat Puppets – Concert-info". Dontlookbackconcerts.com. 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
20. "Don't Look Back – Don't Look Back 2008 – Meat Puppets – Concert-info". Dontlookbackconcerts.com. 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
21. Payne, Chris (2014-11-18). "Nirvana's 'MTV Unplugged' 20 Years Later: Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood Looks Back". Billboard. Retrieved 2024-11-02.

External links

• Meat Puppets II (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)