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#1048: Meat Puppets – Plateau

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So, I wrote about Meat Puppets’ song ‘Lake of Fire’ a few years back. Mentioned how that song came to be a lot more well-known when it was covered by Nirvana in their ’93 MTV Unplugged in New York performance, and how people seem to prefer the cover much more than the original because of how Kurt Cobain sings it compared to original vocalist Curt Kirkwood. I also went on to assume that I possess the more contrarian take of preferring the original to that Nirvana performance. Well, I may as well copy and paste that whole post and switch a few words around, because the same applies here too.

I’ve heard that Nirvana performance many a time and can’t help but think that it was performed in a key that higher than Cobain’s capacity. He really strains on those choruses. Just don’t like the sound of his voice on it all that much to be quite frank. Don’t know what it is. Not to say that Kirkwood sings it all that much better. His voice also breaks on those “book about biiirds” lines, but the whole vocal performance has much less of a twang on it and sort of delivered with a softness that I take more of a liking to. I also appreciate that the bass guitar appears to be double-tracked and placed in the left and right speakers, with Kirkwood’s vocal, acoustic guitar and the drums placed in the center. Places a lot more emphasis on the rhythm, but you can hear that acoustic guitar work piercing through.

I’ve come to think of the song as one about the search for the meaning of life, with the plateau seemingly being this place where it can be found, but in the end there’s nothing there but a few mundane and unremarkable items. By the end of the track, people wonder where the next plateau can be found. Others say it lays right where they stand. Maybe that’s saying that life is what you make of it in the here and now, and not something that you have to tirelessly search for? Perhaps. The answer’s left unknown, and with that the track ends with a mesmerizing flange(?)-effected electric guitar outro, from out of nowhere, adding a hazy, mystical dimension to the soundscape. The whole song’s worth the listen just for that closing moment alone. Again, not to say that Nirvana’s cover isn’t great. But I’ll take the Meat Puppets over it any day.

#710: Meat Puppets – Lake of Fire

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Anyone who reads this blog and is very much into the same music will see this and think, “Hey, that’s that song Nirvana covered in the Unplugged concert for MTV”. Then, if you haven’t heard the original, you’ll click on the video above and think “Wow, Kurt did this song way better, this man can’t sing at all!”

Personally, I’m not a big fan of Kurt’s voice in that session and prefer the original by a mile. Curt Kirkwood doesn’t really “sing” the original. It’s more of a strained yelling, (almost) in tune, with a scream that occurs for a split second in the midst of it all. I can’t say that cliché where the singing doesn’t matter because it’s the passion with which it’s sung because Kirkwood sounds either very high or drunk behind the microphone. But I really like it still, I’ve got to say.

Despite it’s almost lo-fi style and the really loose way the music is delivered, there’s still an almighty sense of swing and menace to the track. The bass is thick and melodic, right in the centre, and the lead guitar in the right sounds ferocious with its triplet licks and emphatic downstrokes. It’s clear how Cobain took influence from their music in the first place. There’s also this strange clicking noise that you can hear throughout the track… Don’t know what it is, but it only adds to the dark and quite strange atmosphere.

I’ll leave Nirvana’s cover below – but it’s all about the Meat Puppets for me.