Is Veruca Salt's album American Thighs one of your favorites of all time?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000003TBD.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Classic. "Wolf" is my fave.

this record is approx. two-thirds great. i am very fond of it but it's not a favorite of all time.

spiderman kind of epitomizes the mood of it for me -- languid, sad, thick.

see i feel it's one of the few records that is actually 3/3 great. i can't think of 1 track i don't really appreciate.

or forsythia, geez.

ooh ur right i forget about Wolf! the title never sticks with me but the song is wow

yeah not an all time favorite but fond memories of when this came out. I remember everyone being all 'lol major label fake indie' but that seems kinda lame in retrospect.

If I were to ever sit down and make a 100 Favorite Albums Ever list or something, I could definitely see this coming in circa 60-70, yes. Great, under-appreciated album.

'lol major label fake indie'

This was on Minty Fresh, right? What's "fake indie" about that? (Granted, the guys who started Minty Fresh were former A&R reps for DGC/Geffen.)

Oh, apparently DGC re-released it 6 weeks after it first came out, lol.

omg, no

it's not as good as this one:

OMG! I Finally Bought A Copy Of Eight Arms To Hold You By Veruca Salt!

i'm lying though. cuz i've never heard anmerican thighs.

yeah you're totally lying, cuz as fun and campy as Eight Arms to Hold You is, it still kinda sucks!! especially compared to this piece of work

but that's the thread i remember ;)

scott u need to get this.

Good album this.

I'm torn between this one and Eight Arms, tbh.

omg u crazy!~

all hail me is so great

ur so wonderful, i adore you, i adooooooore you, i adoore u, victrola

Favorite Veruca Salt track of the moment is "Aurora" from the Tank Girl soundtrack. "Spiderman 79" would be a close 2nd.

this album makes me want to cry, i'm really having a hard time believing how perfect it is

seriously, we need an I <3 Surmounter board.

awwww

when i was five i took a dive
when i was ten i walked again
when i was fifteen i kept my motor clean
when i was twenty, i got plenty
when i was 25
when i was 25

:::DRUMS

just downloaded this album

fucking love itunes

can't believe i ever misplaced my copy /shoot me

this is killing me in my ears right now

the more u want it, the less u gonna get it back

"Seether" is such a horrible, embarrassing song.

"25" is a jam

<3

not an ugly band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahecngBTUYM

ive still got the green vinly 7 inch of Number 1 Blind.

hott band more like it

Yummy!

" sleeping where i want " is effortless perfection

definitely has a liz phair kind of blankness

and what do u know an exile in guyville track came on last.fm right after

I've really enjoyed this album since the very first time i played it. Hooks and harmonies-o-plenty! Can't stand 8 Arms... but the hit their nadir with the Blow It Out Your Ass E.P.

Maybe it was unfair of me to judge this band by the fluffy lead ditty "Seether". And also their album was named after one of the crappiest details in an overplayed AC/DC song which just sorta said to me "you want to get airplay on 98 Rock". Guess I had them pegged all wrong.

i was just singing 25 on the street yesterday, an octave down

reunion: http://www.avclub.com/articles/altrock-darlings-veruca-salt-to-reunite-continue-t,103229/

Nina Gordon was exposed as total weaksauce when she broke off solo, but maybe her coming back to play the role of the foil for Louise to write better songs is a good thing.

"born entertainer" and everything afterwards weren't that great either.

ive still got the green vinly 7 inch of Number 1 Blind.
I need this for "Aurora."

got tickets to see them in portland this sunday, and i just found out it's the very first show of their reunion tour! yahhhhh

i never got to see the original lineup, but i did see the louise post/stephen fitzpatrick version twice in the last decade. louise has kinda been downplaying that version in the recent press, saying she regrets using the name without nina. makes me wonder how stephen feels about the reunion, since technically he was a member of the band longer than any of the departed originals.

I like this record very much. But who among you, I say, WHO AMONG YOU!!!! will rep for Nina Gordon's "Tonight and the Rest of My Life."

I love it more than any VS mee-oooz-eek. But then I love the Sheryl Crow/Shania Twain kinda shit she's shooting for, which I think she achieves with distinction.

okay, i feel like a huge dork, but i legit teared up like six times during tonight's show. i've followed nina and louise's solo careers really closely since the breakup: their albums, demos, and the countless interviews where they were asked "so, are you guys still fighting?" at first they wrote cutting songs about each other, and then as time passed they wrote more thoughtful songs about each other, and eventually their separate interviews grew kinder and more complimentary. so seeing them onstage together and harmonizing again really felt like the culmination of a long journey, and it was fantastic. at the end of one song, louise sang the chorus to nina's solo single "kiss me 'til it bleeds" and i was basically reduced to miyazaki tears.

they started with "get back"/"all hail me", and ended with "earthcrosser," which i had hoped they would. loved hearing everyone howl along with "where's my lip GLOSSSSSSSSSSS?" the setlist was basically half of the first album, half of the second, and the first two songs off the "blow it out your ass" EP, which i was stoked about. the only song i was surprised not to hear was "number one blind," since i think it was a single, and i WAS surprised to hear "with david bowie," which i love but which always struck me as overlooked.

also NOT THAT IT MATTERS BECAUSE JUDGING PERFORMERS BY THEIR LOOKS IS GROSS AND DUMB, but they both look great.

I will totally rep for Nina's solo album. I bought it on hugely expensive import and was not impressed when my brother picked it up for about $3 a year later. A few songs are overproduced (the demo of "Got Me Down" is a lot better) but I reckon a few of the songs would sound great on a country radio station these days - "Horses In The City" in particular.

But it's not as good as American Thighs. Oh yes.

most of my fave VS songs are b-sides or unreleased, don't have anything in front of me but I remember "Pale Green" and "Sleeper Car" off the boot called Charlie & the Chocolate Factory; then "Aurora", and I liked their cover of "Bodies".

I always thought "25" was a terrible, overwrought, grunge-anthem closer in the same way "Jenny" is on SK's Dig Me Out.

Whole record is great and people are wrong if they don't like "Seether."

i live in the middle of nowhere/oldsville.
yesterday this cd turned up in a local charity shop.
i only remember loving 'seether' so bought it on sight.
seems the rest is just as good.
joy zipper + more guitars = perfection.

Re: thread title, I think it might be, actually, yes.

"Wolf" sounds increasingly epic as time elapses. Not many songs from the '90s alt explosion I can say that about.

all hail me is so great

― Surmounter, Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought this was a pretty good snapshot of the time:

https://music.avclub.com/all-hail-veruca-salt-the-oral-history-of-american-thig-1837988745?%2Fsetsession

Oh cool! I can't wait to read that.

I used to listen to this album so loud in my dorm room; I’m slightly embarrassed in retrospect at my flagrant disregard for my neighbors.

Veruca Salt will always have a special place in my heart, if only for their stellar appearance in the Paper Soldiers video.

one time i had a date that went well (i guess? by my standards of the time) and he stayed late and we were making out and i was blaring this album so loud that my neighbor had to email and be like "listennnnnn. i love veruca salt but. stop."

That oral history was interesting... I like the part about them listening to the rough mixes, on cassette, on their individual car stereos.

I totally forgot (or never knew) that Brad Wood produced this album, btw

LP: I remember touring Geffen—everyone had heard this four-song demo of ours, or a sampler. We met the people at the label—they were trying to get us to come to Geffen—and they all seemed [self-help group/cult] EST-ed to me. They all seemed really weird and woo-woo, and I remember saying to Nina, “They’ve all been to EST.” And, sure enough, they’d all been to Lifesprings, which is the current-day EST. It was interesting I picked up on that. Because they all said the same lines. They all said, “You guys are so good! You’re poppy with an edge.”

production on this album is insane
nothing has ever sounded quite so good to me
start to finish

> I thought this was a pretty good snapshot of the time

thanks for posting. definitely takes me back. (great to see that shout out to Menthol, too. that band threw down.)

Love the detail about everybody at Geffen having gone to EST.

Never heard about EST before - sounds pretty fascinating

Have you seen The Americans? (I guess not!)

EST is discussed some on the Landmark Forum thread. It was the cultier progenitor of Landmark (which is apparently still rather culty).

Anyway, I listened to this and Eight Arms to Hold You back-to-back this morning and I still prefer the latter.

xp thanks, as a fan both of 80s cults and corporate robo-speak, this seems right up my alley

I always preferred the latter, as far as the band goes, and will honestly fess up to being a shit-talker at the time.

just wanna show some love to surm's neighbour who was concerned enough about the volume of the music to complain but chill enough to do it via email

completely the opposite for me, I didn't much like Eight Arms To Hold You at all when it came out

I think I came round on it a bit (pretty sure I still own it on CD) but looking at the track listing the only song I can remember liking is Straight, which I already had because it was a B-side on the Seether CD single (diff version I think but still)

I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite of those two albums, both were so good for different reasons. I was also a huge fan of that Albini recorded Blow It Out Your Ass EP. At the time it felt like such a weird left turn for them, like a more successful version of what Bush tried to do with Razorblade Suitcase later that same year. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only person ever to post on ilx to ride for large parts of that one too.

dope video of them playing in 1995

love the energy and vibes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPsQcB52V18