A few years later, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden heard the band play, helped to get them signed to A and M Records. Recorded in a few weeks, Superjudge was released in 1993 and attracted little notice. Since the alternative nation ruled in the early '90s, most metal/hard rock bands were ignored as relics. Nevertheless, Superjudge featured some great jams,most notably in Dinosaur Vacuum and Elephant Bell. And Dave's vocals on a remake of Willie Dixon's Evil were hot enough to melt the CD on which it was pressed.
Shortly thereafter, a more palatable but wacky entrée, Dopes To Infinity which contained the Top 10 single Negasonic Teen-age Warhead...to the surprisingly low-key Blow 'Em Off and a wonderful danceable ditty Dead Christmas. This song showcases Wyndorf's unique method of coupling a cheerful-sounding mid-60s Carnaby street beat with bizarro subject matter. The spacey Ego, The Living Planet with the lone lyric "I talk to planets, baby." is a masterpiece. Where are my headphones?
The next album Powertrip was released in 1998. The soon to be infamous video for Space LOrd was orginally hidden at the back end of 120 Minutes on MTV. However, when the song actually appeared during the daytime on New York radio, I almost fell out of my chair at work, and, apparently, other people did likewise, calling up the station in sated disbelief. "You're playing Monster Magnet. That's so cool!" MM are a band with a pretty heavy "underground" following, and the emergence of the band to wider prospects was well-deserved and long overdue. .
Powertrip made the Billboard Top 100 as a result of the video and song Spacelord, though it only got miminal play on MTV the follow-up single Powertrip, disappeared quickly but the album itself.Powertrip is sheer genius.Penned by Wyndorf during a trip to Las Vegas, Every song is a gem. the album was voted best of 1998 by English metal zine Kerrang - it also hit many critics top 10 lists in the U.S., including Launch and Salon. If you like old-school hard rock, do yourself a favor and buy this CD. When you have a song like Bummer which begins with the line "You're looking for the one who fucked your Mom, its not me, its not me." Or Tractor ,"got a knife in my back, got a hole in my arm, I'm driving a tractor on the drug farm?" complete with accompanying jackhammer guitars.
Go To Page: 1 2
