Dinosaur Jr

The band Dinosaur Jr emerged during the years when the dogma of hardcore was beginning to weaken. Far from siding with the reactionaries like the Smiths, Dinosaur Jr took inspiration from the aesthetics of punk (minimal, amateurish, irreverent), but invented a new sound for that aesthetic, one just as ragged and raucous, but of an entirely different nature: a sound based on guitar distortion. Guitarist Joseph Mascis played in an apparently sloppy and dazed manner, in the least virtuosic way possible (in reality, a new kind of virtuosity in itself). Behind those layers of noise hid melancholic songs that were perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist of their generation. The combination of "noise + melody" became one of the fundamental themes of the 1990s and forever changed the course of rock music.

Singer and guitarist J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow, fresh from Deep Wound with singer Charles Nakajima (later of Gobblehoof) — whose EP Deep Wound (Radiobeat, 1983), featuring Mascis on drums, foreshadowed grindcore — formed Dinosaur Jr with drummer Murph in Boston in 1985.

The style of Dinosaur (Homestead, 1985) was a kind of psychedelic country-punk in the vein of Meat Puppets (Cats In A Bowl), showing a fondness for Neil Young’s depressed and neurotic ballads (especially in Severed Lips). The more original tracks, however, brushed against the most transcendent acid rock (Forget The Swan and Repulsion) and coined a more psychotic form of ballad (Leper and Mountain Man).

You're Living All Over Me (SST, 1987 – Merge, 2005) continued precisely in that direction: a kind of languid ballad grafted onto the violence of hard rock. It is above all Mascis’s guitar that sows the chaos. Anemic acid-rock melodies (Little Fury Things, one of their peaks) and Neil Young–like laments (Raisans) are submerged in a din of distorted riffs. The more harmless tracks (In A Jar) have the peculiarity of suddenly exploding into sequences of maniacal chords. A REM-style litany like Kracked mutates into a tornado of Helios Creed–like distortions. A country-punk number such as Lung becomes an epic gallop into hard rock.
The most successful track is perhaps Sludge Feast, which features a kind of duet between the heavy-metal chords of one guitar and the sorrowful phrasing of another. The deafening noise of this music seems aimed at a colossal exorcism of the insecurity that clouds the protagonist.
The wild energy is not always enough to justify a method that essentially consists of drowning the melody in orgies of (sometimes gratuitous) distortion. In the long run, the sound can end up feeling simply banal. Despite this limitation, the record would exert an enormous influence on the next generation, establishing a sonic standard that all “grunge” bands would have to reckon with.

Bug (SST, 1988 – Merge, 2005) turned Mascis’s style into a stereotype. This album is at once the quintessence of his art and a nauseating exercise in repetitiveness. The form of their ballad finally finds balance in Freak Scene, a small masterpiece of arrangement: while the melody unfolds linearly, the guitar keeps changing its tune, from the “jingle-jangle” strumming of folk rock to pure distortion, from heavy-metal riffing to delicate acoustic chords, and the drums alternate between tribal tom-tom rhythms and a martial cadence. The album boasts songs with choruses worth listening to and professional accompaniments.
Their noisy “mannerism” produces more atmospheric results than usual in the breezy They Always Come (with a dreamy instrumental interlude and a finale of cascading psychedelic chords), in the tense The Post (a “slow” piece with the fiercest and most visceral riffs), and above all in the apocalyptic Don’t, a sabbath of devastating wah-wahs, electronic noises, and desperate screams—the only track in their career to brush up against the “alien” grandeur of Chrome. And Mascis finally seems believable in the role of “guitar hero.”
But once again half the record is filled with pretexts rather than songs. The weak, litany-like style of Repulsion always lurks behind the adrenaline outbursts (for example in Yeah We Know). This “catastrophic” approach turns an album (and perhaps an entire career) into one long spasm of pop blown apart by hostile decibels. What saves the record are above all the first and last songs—the first capable of reinventing pop, and the last a worthy heir to three decades of extremist rock.

At that point, Barlow decided to focus on the Sebadoh, while Mascis and Murph briefly joined Don Fleming and Jay Spiegel. Mascis continued for a while to play with the Velvet Monkeys and Gobblehoof, then finally reformed Dinosaur Jr, recording practically everything himself on Green Mind (Blanco Y Negro, 1991 – Sire, 2006).
The album marks the stylistic peak and artistic maturity of the figure, capitalizing on the inventions and repetitions of previous records. The Wagon tries to replicate the success of Freak Scene using more or less the same tricks, and in general the whole album is a version of the previous one adapted to the needs of commercial rock. Mascis has stopped mumbling lullabies and finally sings melodies. The accompaniment no longer produces gratuitous noise, but serves as counterpoint. After many years of harmonic chaos, there is now an almost predictable order in the dynamics of these little songs.
The folk melancholy of Flying Cloud (with hints of the more mystical Led Zeppelin) and the philosophical blues of Thumb (with a pastoral flute borrowed from progressive rock) are the best Mascis manages to coax from the bottom of the barrel. The old fire can still be heard only in How'd You Pin Down That One On Me. While he has improved as a singer and guitarist, Mascis remains a mediocre composer, and therefore the quality of his repertoire is still his main handicap.

Mascis discovered himself as an old-school singer-songwriter with the album Where You Been (Sire, 1993), recorded with Mike Johnson on bass and the trusty Patrick Murphy on drums (with arrangements including acoustic guitar, string section, and organ). Mascis’s ordeal, projecting in his lyrics the image of an apathetic, misunderstood, lonely, and disillusioned figure, continues with the same melodramatic intensity, but this time the emphasis is squarely on the ordeal itself, not on sonic choreography. He is an artist who opens his heart, not a guerrilla hurling grenades.
Once again, the work is monochromatic, dominated by Mascis’s quivering falsetto (sometimes almost agonizing), which, unlike his model Young, is a lament incapable of rising into an epic cry to fight windmills, instead destined to fade into long psychedelic moans, essentially imitating the guitar’s feedback. The exception is Drawerings, which finds the “stride” of Harvest. It is, in essence, a folk ballad, with less narrative genius but more introspective insight than the folk singers it imitates. Among these influences, Young is certainly the most impactful, especially in the subdued tracks (Not The Same), almost whispered in that dreamy, psychotic register, where the singer becomes languid and poignant, brushing the darkest tones and most expressionist atmospheres (What Else Is New).
This time, Get Me takes the place of Freak Scene, with a truly epic melody and phrasing, and one of Mascis’s finest rasping vocals (a register that over the years has become something of an alter ego to his falsetto). While Out There, On The Way, and especially Hide (with the most driving riffs) revisit the same ambiguities (and ultimately the same weaknesses) of Green Mind, much of the new collection expresses a desire for renewal, if necessary even paying homage to Lou Reed (Start Choppin, rhythmic and vigorous, perhaps the best of the album) and Bob Dylan (Goin' Home, with Al Kooper-style organ).
Mascis is a child of the affluent bourgeoisie (his father a prominent dentist, his brother a notable lawyer) and expresses the sense of futility that this social class must overcome to continue surviving.
Overall, Where You Been is Mascis’s second milestone; no longer the catastrophic violence of You're Living All Over Me, but with genuine musicality.

The EP of Out There (1993) contains one of Mascis' best solos in Keeblin.

Without A Sound (Sire, 1994), on the other hand, so closely retraces Mascis’s own style that it feels like a laconic routine.
A crystalline yet noisy production mercilessly exposes Mascis’s limitations, those of an anonymous Neil Young epigone who lacks both the agonizing voice and the satanic guitar. The formal grace of I Don't Think So and Feel The Pain (which resembles I Melt With You by Modern English but also features a majestic solo) are, in reality, examples of music that increasingly feels like melancholic routine and ever less like emotion—templates of a premeditated sound taken to the point of tedium. For the most part, Mascis merely repeats the same apathetic falsetto lines and the same pensioner-style solos. Grab It and Get Out Of This pass by sleepily, leaving no mark. Two acoustic ballads, Outta Hand and Seemed Like The Thing To Do, however, leave an impression, showing the man grappling with his contradictions and perhaps with the awareness that he has exhausted an all-too-lucky formula. Mascis’s perpetual sleepwalking may have reached a point of no return, a terminal coma.

Despite successful works like his two masterpieces, Mascis was one of the most overrated musicians of his time: essentially, he did little more than push Neil Young’s technique to the extreme, counterpointing melodic lines with neurotic guitar work and adapting that technique to the successful sound of the Jesus And Mary Chain. In doing so, however, he invented a style that became a stereotype of the “grunge” era. In many respects, the feedback of his guitar *is* the sound of the ’90s.

Bassist Mike Johnson also launched a solo career.

Mascis himself released an acoustic album under his own name, Martin And Me (Baked Goods, 1996), recorded live in a small club.

Hand It Over (Reprise, 1997) was probably the worst Dinosaur Jr album yet, lacking in clarity, focus, songwriting, and, last but not least, taste. The eight-minute Alone and Sure Not Over You are the two mournful ballads that are worth listening to. Mascis tries to save the day by adding trumpet (I'm Insane), strings (Can't We Move This), banjo (Gettin' Rough) and mellotron (Never Bought It) but only the most naive fans can buy this as progress.

Mascis' first real solo album, More Light (Ultimatum, 2000), sounds exactly like late Dinosaur Jr. A few songs stand out as prime Dinosaur Jr (Sameday, All The Girls), but several others drag it down as usual Dinosaur Jr fillers. More Light has enough power to derail what is meant to be a project of middleage compromise. Waistin' is yet another tribute to his master, Neil Young. The Hendrix-ian fugue Ammaring and the fuzz-fest Where'd You Go attest to Mascis' guitar prowess. All in all, a mixed result, but when composition, voice and guitar find the right balance, Mascis is still the king of his generation.

Free So Free (Ultimatum, 2002) presents a terrific guitarist in search for a good song. While the playing is fluent and competent, If That's How It's Gotta Be and Free So Free are typical of someone who can recite all the rules in the (stoner) book while brushing his teeth or doing the laundry. Countless guitarists, from Eric Clapton to Jeff Beck, have spent their career making classy albums of pointless music. Mascis seems ready to update the stereotype to the grunge generation.

Mascis' Sing + Chant For Amma (Baked Goods, 2006) is a hippy-style spiritual tribute to a Hindu deity.

Mascis and Lou Barlow reunited in 2005 for the first time in almost 20 years (since Bug). The original line-up of Dinosaur Jr recorded Beyond (Fat Possum, 2007), an album hyped by journalists who had grown up in the 1980s but rather shallow and predictable, just a bit more professional (sleek, smooth, concise) than the original albums. Almost Ready and Been There All the Time prove Mascis' talent at writing pop tunes, but hundreds of musicians can do the same in 2007. Pick Me Up is adventurous but hardly revolutionary. Ultimately, the reunion album (creatively disappointing like most reunion albums) helped as a metaphorical summary of the band's entire career, never ambitious enough to produce a masterpiece, never mediocre enough to deserve a premature burial, interesting but not exciting, sincere but not visceral.

Witch (Tee Pee, 2006) was a collaboration between J Mascis (on drums) and the Feathers in the vein of stoner-rock and doom-metal. The second Witch collaboration, Paralyzed (Tee Pee, 2008), leaned towards the "rock" side of the equation. Die Fehl-Ritzhausen Kassette (Who Can You Trust?, 2012) documents a live Witch show.

Farm (Jagjaguwar, 2009), the second album after the re-union of the classic line-up, does not have the playful singalongs of its predecessor (although Over It and I Want to Know try very hard) but instead pivots on I Don't Want to Go There

Several Shades Of Why (Sub Pop, 2011) was J Mascis' (mostly) acoustic album, but it wasn't a solo album since it included contributions by Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Matt Valentine (Tower Recordings), Suzanne Thorpe (Mercury Rev), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene) and Kurt Vile, all playing collectively quite a chamber orchestra of instruments. It was also the first album entirely composed by him. Unfortunately, removed from his scorching riffs and clawing hooks, Mascis' music is very little musical.

J Mascis also formed the instrumental trio that debuted with the six space-rocking jams of Heavy Blanket (Outer Battery, 2012).

Dinosaur Jr's reunion quickly ran out of gas. I Bet on Sky (2012) is an album of formulaic routine, with lazy guitar solos that bear all of the hallmarks of classic Dinosaur Jr but fail to concoct the same magical textures. This should have been a three-song EP with Watch the Corners, Don't Pretend You Didn't Know and Stick a Toe In. The excitement is totally missing from Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not (2016), a relaxed, laid-back, bland, monotonous experience from which it's hard to salvage anything. Even the guitar sound is restrained on Sweep It Into Space (2021), a collection of softly poppy songs that hark back to middle-of-the-road rock of the 1970s. It's difficult to pick specific songs from these albums.

Meanwhile, J Mascis formed Sweet Apple with guitarists John Petkovic and Tim Parnin and bassist Dave Sweetapple, a band that released Love & Desperation (2010), The Golden Age of Glitter (2014), Sing the Night in Sorrow (2017).