Meat Puppets II

Meat Puppets II
Studio album by Meat Puppets
Released	April 1984
Recorded	April – May, 1983
Genre	Alternative rock, cowpunk, punk rock
Length	29:57 (original) 48:01 (reissue)
Label	SST Records
Meat Puppets chronology
Meat Puppets (1982) Meat Puppets II (1984) Up on the Sun (1985)

Meat Puppets II is the second album by the Phoenix, Arizona band the Meat Puppets, released in 1984. It is a departure from their self-titled debut album, which consisted largely of noisy hardcore with unintelligible vocals. It covers many genres from country-style rock ("Magic Toy Missing", "Climbing", Lost") to slow acoustic songs ("Plateau", "Oh Me") to psychedelic guitar effects ("Aurora Borealis") to hard rock ("Lake of Fire").

The cover art is by Curt Kirkwood and Neal Holliday.^[1]

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

The Meat Puppets' SST labelmates The Minutemen covered "Lost" on the EP Tour-Spiel and their last studio album, 3-Way Tie (For Last). Three of the album's songs were covered by Nirvana (as the Kirkwood brothers joined them onstage) during their "Unplugged" show for MTV ("Plateau", "Oh, Me", and "Lake of Fire").

Reception

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, feeling that 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".^[2] In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave the album an "A–" and felt 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.^[3]

Robert Hilburn commented in the Los Angeles Times that they were "far more of an acquired promising though willfully unfocused rock act".^[4]

Legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[5]
Magnet	(Favorable)[6]
NME	(8/10)[7]
Spin	(Favorable)[8]

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and was also #94 on Pitchfork Media's "Best Albums of the 1980s".^[9] Slant Magazine listed the album at #91 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".^[10]

The final track "The Whistling Song" was taken as the title of Stephen Beachy's first novel. Curt Kirkwood created the cover art for the album.

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,^[11] and again in December, 2008 at a performance in London.^[12]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Curt Kirkwood, unless otherwise noted. 

Original release
No.	Title	Writer(s)	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

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

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

References

1. Derrick Bostrom (2010). "Notes". meatpuppets.com. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
2. Kurt Loder (26 April 1984). "Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on September 18, 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
3. Christgau, Robert (May 29, 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice (New York). Retrieved September 5, 2014.
4. Robert Hilburn. "Meat Puppets II CD Album". cduniverse.com. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
5. Allmusic review
6. Magnet review
7. NME review
8. Spin review
9. "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
10. http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/feature/best-albums-of-the-1980s/308
11. "Don't Look Back - Don't Look Back 2008 - Meat Puppets - Concert-info". dontlookbackconcerts.com. 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
12. "Don't Look Back - Don't Look Back 2008 - Meat Puppets - Concert-info". dontlookbackconcerts.com. 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2012.

External links

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