Sixteen Stone is the debut studio album by English rock band Bush, released on 1November 1994 in the United States and on 8May 1995 in the United Kingdom through Trauma and Interscope Records. Featuring a rock sound characterised by guitar distortion and quiet interludes, the album quickly invited comparisons to Seattle grunge bands, particularly the recently disbanded Nirvana. Lyrical themes on the album included adversity and criticism of masculine stereotypes, as well as relationships and terrorism.
Sixteen Stone has been considered the band's most popular album, peaking at number 4 on the US Billboard 200 and boasting numerous successful singles. "Comedown" and "Glycerine" remain two of Bush's biggest hits to date, each reaching number 1 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. "Comedown", "Machinehead", and "Glycerine" were the three songs from the album to enter the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 30, number 43, and number 28, respectively. The album was certified 6× Platinum in the United States by the RIAA on 16April 1997. Although notably less successful in the band's native Britain, the album was nonetheless certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. To mark its 20th anniversary, a remastered edition of the album was released on 14October 2014. Sixteen Stone charted 59th in the Billboard decade-end chart for 1990–1999, and ranked 8th on Guitar World 2014 list "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994". That same year, she said it was the band's best album.
Recording and background
The seeds of the album were sown prior to Rossdale, previously of the band Midnight, first meeting future Bush bandmate Nigel Pulsford in 1991, when Rossdale wrote "Comedown", the first song he had ever written by himself, which would later reach Number 1 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay charts. The album was originally scheduled to be released in January 1995, but was released 2 months earlier as radio stations began playing "Everything Zen" and "Little Things".
Guitarist Nigel Pulsford's father and Rossdale's stepfather died around the time the album was recorded. Sixteen Stone is dedicated to both. post-grunge, and hard rock, and has been compared with the music of 1990s Seattle-based bands including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden; the song "Bomb" in particular invited a description of "Nirvana-approximating" from Stereogum. Other influences noted by critics included the musical similarities between "Everything Zen" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" (1989) and the resemblance borne between the riff on "Body" and that on the Soundgarden song "Rusty Cage" (1991). the Ramones-indebted punk rock of "X-Girlfriend", and what Stereogum described as "groove-grunge" on "Comedown" and "Body", the former featuring a bassline inspired by Massive Attack and the latter being described by SoundVapours as "the perfect mix" of Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.
Reflecting on the influences on Sixteen Stone, Gavin Rossdale cited seeing bands including Jane's Addiction, My Bloody Valentine and Soul Asylum as key formative experiences and stated "…I liked the performance of the American bands a lot, [...] that all just inspired me, and I put it in a melting pot and out came Sixteen Stone.” Drummer Robin Goodridge told the publication Modern Drummer in 1996 that Sixteen Stone features percussion informed by the styles John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, Billy Cobham and Keith Moon of The Who.
Lyrics
The lyrical content of Sixteen Stone revolved around a variety of themes. "Testosterone" conveyed a take-down of machismo, Other songs related to personal challenges, including "Little Things" which Rossdale claimed was written about "trying to be strong in the face of adversity".
Reception
Critical reception
Sixteen Stone received mostly positive feedback from music critics. Q wrote that Bush "make a carefully honed post-grunge sound that fits perfectly alongside American counterparts like Stone Temple Pilots or Live." A month later, Loudwire placed Sixteen Stone at number eight on its "10 Best Hard Rock Albums of 1994" list. In July 2014 Guitar World placed the album on its "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.
Remaster
Around the album's 20th anniversary, a remastered edition of its original recordings was released. When asked about also remixing the album for the anniversary edition, Rossdale stated "I did attempt to remix ... but it's really, like, you just can't do that. You can't mess with stuff. Those mixes, every single level of those songs is just ingrained in my DNA as it's probably in anybody's DNA who knows it. It just sounds really weird when you mess with it."
Track listing
Notes
- Early pressings of the album do not list "Alien" on the back cover (there is a blank space where the title should be). "Monkey" is also missing from the inside cover, but both songs have lyrics printed and appear on the album.
- Subsequent pressings also include an alternate version of "Comedown" and a second CD of live tracks, "Swim", "Alien", "Bomb", and "Little Things". The bonus "Comedown" track is Rossdale singing and playing guitar with more effects. This version is also slower-paced, has violins added and has no drums.
Personnel
Bush
- Gavin Rossdale – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
- Nigel Pulsford – lead guitar, backing vocals
- Dave Parsons – bass
- Robin Goodridge – drums
Additional musicians
- Caroline Dale – cello
- Gavyn Wright – violin, viola
- Vincas Bundza – harmonica
- Jasmine Lewis – backing vocals
- Alessandro Vittorio Tateo – backing vocals
- Winston – backing vocals
Technical personnel
- Bush – producer, engineer
- Clive Langer – producer, engineer, mixing
- David J. Holman – mixing
- Paul Palmer – mixing
- Danton Supple – assistant engineer
- Robert Vosgien – mastering
- Alan Winstanley – producer, engineer, mixing
- Debra Burley – co-ordination
- Jackie Holland – co-ordination
- Paul Cohen – photography, cover photo
- Mark Lebon – photography
- Gillian Spitchuk – paintings
- Mixed at Cactus Studio Hollywood
Chart performance
Sixteen Stone first entered the Billboard 200 at number 187 for week ending 28 January 1995, and eventually peaked at number four. In 2010 the album's US sales passed the six million mark.
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
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!Chart (1994–1996)
!Peak<br/>position
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Canada Albums (The Record)
| style="text-align:center;"|4
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)
| style="text-align:center;"|35
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|-
|-
!Chart (1995)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
|37
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|-
!Chart (1996)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"|Australian Albums (ARIA)
|18
|-
!scope="row"|Canadian Albums (RPM)
|10
|-
!scope="row"|New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
|14
|-
!scope="row"|US Billboard 200
|11
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|-
!Chart (1997)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"|Canadian Hard Rock Albums (Nielsen Soundscan)
|14
|-
|}
Decade-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (1990–1999)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| style="text-align:center;"|59
|}