Bush
Sixteen Stone

THE REVIEW

April 1994: American Kurt Donald Cobain decides to abruptly cut ties with the virtual world of "Show Biz," leaving us with a handful of exquisite songs and thousands of deplorable imitators. One of these is the young Englishman Gavin Rossdale, leader of Bush, who records the debut album "Sixteen Stone" with three of his friends in 1994.
Hoarse voice, mediocre guitar, ripped jeans, sufficiently scruffy look, and a pretty face... these are the main characteristics of Gavin, who will quickly become the new sex symbol (REALLY!!?) for teenage girls across the pond.

But what do the leader of Bush and that of Nirvana have in common? Nothing, and apart from a fake blonde singer who can’t sing chosen as a partner (Courtney Love for Cobain and Gwen Stefani for Rossdale), the two are extremely different! However, Gavin Rossdale, luckily for him, finds himself at the right place at the right time... that is, he jumps onto the success train just when the record producers, still mourning Cobain, have lost their golden goose, and just when the supergroups from Seattle are competing to jump off the "grunge" bandwagon.

Their first work is truly embarrassing, yet it sells over 8 million copies in the United States! Consequently, they become prophets at home, where they were initially received coldly because they were overshadowed by the Oasis vs. Blur phenomenon.
What can we say about the album? It’s a jumble of utterly banal riffs and pseudo-dirty effects, elementary rhythms, and non-existent bass lines... but the thing that pisses off the most is Rossdale's voice... eternally monotonous, somewhere between a dreamy, cold-struck Cobain and my cousin Gino when he does his Eddie Vedder impression.
Talking about the songs and the lyrics ("...I don't believe that Elvis is dead... I'm an alien, you're an alien and it's a beautiful rain...") would be superfluous... but I advise you to download the first 20 seconds of Little Things to understand where those in the tampon commercials took their inspiration to compose the jingle similar to Smells Like Teen Spirit for their ad from a few years ago.

God save the music!