Negoba
Decadancing to one of Glam's Best
I picked up Extreme's Pornograffiti at the urging of Guitar magazine like many albums before, and at the time thought I'd found the best album I'd ever heard. It was that good. Along with a huge dose of phenomenal guitar playing was some of the best songwriting ever to find itself into glam. The whole album is a commentary on the already cliched scene into which the band was catching the tail.
But a sharp wit and some intelligence would never have been enough. 1990 was smack in the middle of the age of the guitar, and Nuno Bettencourt was the wunderkind of the moment after Extreme's debut and the tapping extravaganza on "Mutha Don't Want to Go to School Today." On Pornograffiti, he not only lives up to his shredder rep, but sings harmony, grooves, and basically adds music to a genre that was running on fumes even before grunge put it out of its misery.
Getting "More than Words" out of the way, I must mention that this song was much better than probably any other glam power ballad save perhaps "Wanted: Dead or Alive." The finger plucked acoustic was a huge step forward from the mindless G-C strumming that had become the norm, and on the album we even got a little clean tapping extravaganza to finish things off. Similarly, the acoustic rocker "Hole Hearted" took the unplugged formula and pushed it. Interestingly, though I bought the album to listen to guitar solos, that is fairly far down the list in reasons I admire it now. That is not say that the solos are poor. In fact, they are example of the hottest gun at the peak of the shred movement. The fact that the music bests the wankery is a testament to the band, album, and artist.
The thing that blew me away from the beginning, however, was Nuno's tone. It was friggin' huge. Sizzling with harmonics, double tracked and thick, the entire album sounded fresh and powerful. The long build to "Decadence Dance" was a tasty appetizer before the great riff and perfect hook. To this day, this may be my favorite hair metal rocker ever. At the same time, the band is easing us into the theme, which is of course slamming the sleaze sex that had become part and parcel of bands who tried to look like the bimbos they were hoping to land.
At the time, the band was proud to be infusing a little funk into their metal. It wasn't the first time, but was perhaps the first album to push the sound start to finish. While Faith No More's Real Thing would be hitting at the same time, the move got a bit overshadowed. But songs like "Get the Funk Out," "Pornograffiti," and "He-Man Woman Hater" were great rockers with plenty of syncopation.
Almost 500 words to say...metal masterpiece. I knew from the first time I heard the first song. And 20 years later my opinion hasn't changed.