UNDERAPPRECIATED ALBUMS
Soup
Welcome to our record — strap your shit in
“We’re in New Orleans. We’re out of our minds. Welcome to our record — strap your shit in. — Christopher Thorn of Blind Melon on Soup
There was a time when critics could single-handedly take down an album with a negative review.
Music critics create a certain amount of accountability for integrity in music and I hold them in high enough regard for their intense scholarship and dextrous effort to put a language (writing) to another (music). It’s what we are doing here on The Riff every time we submit a story.
But for albums like Blind Melon’s haunting triumph Soup, the critics were just as reductive as the public in painting the album as a failure based on stereotypes arising after the first album. The critic’s consensus with the public on Soup was a failure of their trade.
Steven Shehori of AV club points out the same Rolling Stone critic who dismissed Soup, did so with Radiohead’s The Bends likely due to its perceived departure from “Creep”. Reviews will always be subjective, but sometimes the privileging of that subjective view — feebly locked into a fixed image — becomes a barrier to accepting unquestionable evolution in a band.
Soup was Blind Melon’s Pet Sounds. It’s…
