In their first five years as a band, Dinosaur Jr. made three records that revolutionized underground guitar music and then promptly imploded. The original lineup of three scrappy Amherst punks had a nearly magical chemistry that always teetered on being derailed by simmering tension between controlling guitarist/vocalist/principal songwriter J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow. In 1989, Mascis acrimoniously fired Barlow and pushed forward with his own vision for the band. Fourth album Green Mind would be not only the first Dinosaur Jr. record without Barlow's countermelodic bass lines and neurotic songwriting contributions, it would also be their first major-label effort. Released on Sire subsidiary Blanco y Negro in early 1991, Green Mind was more a Mascis solo album than the work of a proper band, with original Dinosaur drummer Murph only playing on three songs and Mascis handling almost all of the instruments. Even so, the overall sound of the album only changes negligibly from the SST classic Bug that preceded it by just 16 months. Buzzy album opener "The Wagon" (with assistance from Gumball's Don Flemming and Jay Spiegel) acts as a milder postlude to Bug's ragged "Freak Scene," and romps like "How'd You Pin That One on Me?" and "I Live for That Look" only slightly dial back the noisy punk din that could sometimes swallow entire songs on the first three albums.Where the chaos and confusion of the band's early days were fueled by youthful anger and frustration, Green Mind found Mascis alone in a room arguing with himself. This becomes more apparent on the album's second half, where the tone mellows greatly on the melancholic and lamenting "Water," the stoned bumble of "Muck," and album highlight "Thumb," a blissed-out ballad heavy on Mellotron flute samples and Mascis' searching guitar soloing. The album ushered in the version of Dinosaur Jr. that would live out the rest of the '90s, with Mascis' lyrical language of slang and vaguities hemming him into a lonely stoner figure and the warm-but-distant tone of the songwriting exposing an enormous debt to Neil Young for the first time in the band's catalog. While he would work with other musicians more collaboratively on successive recordings, Mascis stayed at the center of every decision for the band's major-label run. Green Mind would be the most restless and insular of the four albums, born out of Mascis' band deteriorating under its own weight, leaving him to ramble and shred as his own devices saw fit. At the time of its release, many thought it lacked the power of the original trio, but it's a unique chapter in the band's discography, with some of the best-written songs Mascis would manage. Aptly named, Green Mind finds Mascis shrugging and mumbling as he walks listeners through a guided tour of his stoned, drifting thoughts.
The conventional wisdom on Dinosaur Jr. is focused almost entirely on their sonics, which admittedly were devastating and influential. Other bands had never relinquished the force of electric guitars -- Hüsker Dü were a galvanizing force, Sonic Youth reaffirmed that sheer noise had poetic power -- but Dinosaur, through their laconic frontman, J Mascis, restored not just the idea of a guitar hero, but showed that underground rock could soar with the eloquence of a guitar hero, reeling from lovely leads to sheets of noise to tranquil chords. In their early days, they relied more on sheer, overwhelming power, which tended to overshadow Mascis' subtle songwriting -- something that came to the forefront when the group, shed of Lou Barlow, shifted to Sire early in the '90s, because that also brought cleaner, precise productions. Since Rhino's 2001 compilation Ear-Bleeding Country: The Best of Dinosaur Jr. concentrates the Sire recordings, it does wind up emphasizing his songwriting, yet since those songs were always graced with Dinosaur's sonic power and grace, it does provide an accurate summary of their career. And it provides a pretty tremendous listen in doing that. Some may argue that there's not enough Homestead or SST material here, and "Raisans" should have been here (along with Green Mind's "Puke + Cry," and possibly their cover of "Show Me the Way"), but this generous 19-track collection never sags in its momentum, never has a dull spot, and pulls off a tricky move -- it makes Mascis seem consistent, which latter-day Dinosaur Jr. were not necessarily. However, as this collection proves, Mascis never lost his touch and could still write terrific songs, even as late as the group's final album. But what really stands out here is the consistency of the work -- "Little Fury Things" and "Freak Scene" may be the benchmarks of underground '80s rock, but alt-rock standards like the straight cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven," "Whatever's Cool With Me," "Start Choppin," "Get Me," "Feel the Pain," and the astonishing "The Wagon" are their equal, as is nearly every other song on this collection. And while the inclusion of "Where'd You Go," a cut by Mascis and his post-Dinosaur outfit, the Fog, is puzzling, "Take a Run at the Sun," a Beach Boys homage from the Grace of My Heart soundtrack that puts the High Llamas and R.E.M.'s latter-day efforts to shame, certainly isn't, since it illustrates that Mascis' genius is conscious. So, while there may be a couple of songs that maybe should have made the cut, what is here cements that Dinosaur Jr. are one of the great bands of their era, and it's a terrific listen, one of the best records in their catalog.
Following the legendarily acrimonious bust-up between singer/guitarist J Mascis and bassist/singer Lou Barlow, Dinosaur Jr. were a different band altogether. Their first three albums had stirred hardcore, psychedelia, noise, country and metal into a blurry and glorious mess of sludge-pop, switching from melody to noise with the stomp of a pedal. Barlow’s exit, to form lo-fi bards Sebadoh, was followed by a contract with major label imprint Blanco Y Negro, and a fourth album (1991’s Green Mind) that sired an unlikely underground hit in The Wagon. But the group seemed adrift, enough so that Mascis seriously considering quitting to play drums with an unknown Seattle group called Nirvana.
He didn’t, of course, and after Nirvana’s Nevermind went supernova, many looked to Dinosaur Jr. to follow them into the big-time; after all, their 1988 single Freak Scene coined the quiet/loud dynamic Smells Like Teen Spirit would later ride to phenomenal success. Released as grunge was at its height, 1993’s Where You Been hazily evaded any Nirvana-esque commercial crossover (it peaked at number 50 in the Billboard charts), but was a ragged masterpiece that found a fine new voice for the band.
There was something unabashedly classic about Where You Been’s rock, deriving not least from Mascis’s copious guitar heroics, layering multiple tracks of scree and howl so the entire album feels like one epic, sky-scraping solo. Out There opened the album with enough overdriven squalling and riffing to excite the teens in the Pearl Jam t-shirts, but Where You Been’s charms lay more in the lazy melodic drawl of Mascis’ songcraft: the lilting Start Choppin’, the breezy What Else Is New?, the winsomely aching Goin’ Home. With his fondness for extended guitar-play, his country-soaked rock crunch, his cracked and sweet vocals, Where You Been identified Mascis as hewn from the same stone as Neil Young before him.
There were still moments of punked-up fury to set the moshpit alight: On the Way a slamdance immolated by howling, roaring guitar, Hide a desperate dash illuminated by passages of Sonic Youth-esque skronk. But Where You Been’s best moments were more considered: Not the Same – all windswept mourn, strings and tympani and Mascis’ affecting whine achieving a moving drama Billy Corgan would later imitate with The Smashing Pumpkins’ Disarm – and Get Me, the album’s standout, a simple but perfect country strum sent into the heavens by wave after wave of wracked, ecstatic guitar soloing that lent grand emotional erudition to Mascis’ mush-mouthed mumbling. The second chapter of Dinosaur Jr.’s career was decidedly back on track.
