FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Silverchair – Freak Show
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THIS is a Vinyl Corner…
where I am featuring a band I have not included before. Silverchair were an Australian Alternative Rock group. They left us with some sensational albums. I think that their second album, Freak Show, is their best known. It is an album that I would encourage people to seek out on vinyl. It is an amazing album from a band that are not really played an awful lot now. They were very popular in the mid to late-1990s, though I wonder how many people are discovering Silverchair today. If you have not heard of the band before, then I would suggest Freak Show as a starting point. Released in February 1997, the album celebrates its twenty-fifth anniverssary soon. Five years ago, Cryptic Rock spotlighted and explored Silverchair’s second studio album twenty years down the line:
“Back in the ’90s, when Alternative Rock was king, Aussie band Silverchair were etching their name in history. Only 13 years of age when beginning their band back in 1992, their 1995 debut album, Frogstomp, was recorded in just nine days, going on to become one of the hottest releases on the charts.
As Frogstomp and “Tomorrow” continued to gain in popularity, the group toured the US with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in June, The Ramones in September, and also played on the roof of Radio City Music Hall at the MTV Music Awards. Going on to become a #1 album in Australia and New Zealand, it was certified as a US double-platinum album by the RIAA, triple-platinum in Canada by the CRIA, and multi-platinum in Australia. Not bad for 15 years old still attending high school, right?
Looking to keep the momentum of their success going, in May of 1996, the Hard Rock trio composed of Vocalist/Guitarist Daniel Johns, Drummer Ben Gillies, and Bassist Chris Joannou re-entered the studio to work on their sophomore album. Often the most challenging record for a band, of course with success and record sales always comes a certain degree of criticism as well as backlash.
For Silverchair, many felt that the band’s debut album relied too heavily on their Seattle Grunge influences. Songs like the singles “Pure Massacre” and “Israel’s Son” seemed derivative of the teens’ influences ranging from Nirvana, to Pearl Jam, to Soundgarden, to Alice In Chains, as well as Black Sabbath. For this, critics gave the group serious flack for wearing their influences on their sleeves, instead of melding their own, original sound.
So it was their second album, Freak Show, that the trio from Down Under had much to prove. Concluding the recording process in November of 1996, the album hit record stores across the U.S. on January 31, 1997. Now, twenty years later, the album remains a pivotal point in the story of Silverchair.
Lyrically, many of the songs on Freak Show focused on the backlash and anger of the expectations put on the band during their Frogstomp period. The group’s lyricist, Johns, focused his young mind, determined to prove the naysayers wrong. For his efforts, the album reached #1 and two-times platinum in Australia; was #12 on Billboard and certified gold in the United States; hit #2 in Canada; was in the Top Ten in New Zealand; and its global sales eventually exceeded 1.5 million copies. Say what they might, how many critics had released two #1 discs before graduating high school?
For the album, Johns wrote all of the lyrics with Gillies collaborating on the music. The young duo were no strangers to radio gold, and Freak Show‘s singles – “Freak” and “Abuse Me” – would help propel it to the top. (A third single/video was released in Australia and Europe for “Cemetery” but never made it to the U.S. An additional fourth single, “The Door,” received an Australia-only release.)
“Freak,” the first single and video, reached #1 on the Australian charts; it was the second single by Silverchair to do so after “Tomorrow” in 1994. (The band would not have another #1 hit until “Straight Lines” in 2007.) The music video for this song was directed by Gerald Casale, a member of Devo, who also directed the majority of their other videos. It raises the pertinent question, “What is a freak?” Are the black-clad teenagers with eyebrow piercings freaks, or is it the women that seek plastic surgery to look younger? Although, with their bass-heavy, grungy sound, none of this really mattered: they were the perfect sign of the times, musically speaking. The video for “Freak” won the International Viewer’s Choice Award for MTV Australia at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.
Second single/video “Abuse Me” reached #4 on Billboard‘s Hot Modern Rock Tracks and Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks charts in the U.S. The video depicted the trio performing on a silver stage, amidst freak show performers and paraphernalia, and a Rock-n-Roll astronaut inside a human gyroscope. As far as videos go, it was not-monumental, but it continued the push for the album and the band. The song, however, was a clear jab at critics who had lauded the band for copying their influences. “Come on, abuse me more, I like it,” Johns taunts in the now-classic chorus. It was a mirror of Nirvana’s “Rape Me,” but that did not stop fans from loving the track and the album.
Third single, “Cemetery,” received an overseas release but was never available here in the U.S. Die-hard fans did not much care and still managed to get their hands on the video. Reportedly, Johns had never actually intended to release the song, as he was apprehensive about being ridiculed for having written a ballad. Of course, Johns need not have worried: both his bandmates and fans loved the song. In fact, to date, it has been covered by a plethora of artists, most notably Good Charlotte.
By late 1997, the trio had completed their secondary education and were free from school books and exams. After Freak Show, the band would go on to release three more albums, 1999’s Neon Ballroom, 2002’s Diorama, and 2007’s Young Modern over the next ten years before announcing an indefinite hiatus in May 2011. The music has not seized for the members of Silverchair though as they continue to write and record in other projects since, notably Johns’ released an impressive debut solo album in 2015, entitled Talk.
Nonetheless, the importance of Freak Show in the Silverchair oeuvre is as the catalyst for the band’s third, arguably most beloved album, Neon Ballroom. It was with this disc that their sound would truly begin to take on its own voice, moving away from Hard Rock and toward something much more Pop-friendly”.
Some would say that Silverchair’s third album, Neon Ballroom (1999), is their finest moment. I would plump for Freak Show. It is an album that got a lot of love back in 1997. It was a great year for Rock and Alternative music. I want to end with a review for Freak Show. Rolling Stone had their say in 1997:
“Bonding with Silverchair’s ’95 debut, Frogstomp, was like finding cool clothes at your local mall: No matter how much you wanted to dismiss it as a fluke, one that somehow stumped your hip radar, it ultimately fulfilled some deep, aesthetic need. So Freak Show should be the teenage trio’s embarrassing second album, one that proves that this Australian outfit is truly the Menudo of grunge. But as Freak Show demonstrates, you weren’t duped the first time around — Silverchair own the attitude, passion and songwriting skills that most Nirvana Juniors can only feebly approximate.
“If only I could be as cool as you,” sings Daniel Johns on “Freak,” addressing the you-only-think-you’re-from-Seattle issue with a sarcastic one-liner. The band then moves on to pillage other sources, namely the hardcore guitar assault of Helmet and the heavy-duty groove of its parents’ Black Sabbath albums.
Johns’ bittersweet, crackly voice tops the ample power chordage, sounding eerily close to Kurt Cobain as Johns hits shivery, emotional notes that convey both sweet idealism and disappointment. The 17-year-old singer’s lyrics aren’t quite as deep as the Nirvana frontman’s; instead, Johns is a fount of the kind of poetry etched on the walls in fifth-period English class (“No more maybes/Babies got rabies”). And that’s enough — for now, it’s Johns’ voice that’s doing all the communicating.
Throughout, Silverchair spin out songs strong enough to crack the charts, yet the band plays them with the spontaneity of an after-school jam. A number like “The Door” is as catchy as a Monkees tune, but Silverchair actually wrote it themselves. The only problems with Freak Show are that a few tracks sound too much alike and the proggy ballad “Cemetery” is as overblown as the hairstyles in any high school annual (you watch, it’ll be their biggest hit).
Silverchair have loads of potential. The band may still be using other peoples’ riffs to guide its post-pubescent fury, but it’s the enthusiasm that makes this Freak Show more than a novelty”.
An album that is well worth getting on vinyl, make sure that you add Silverchair’s Freak Show to your collection. I encountered it first time around in 1997, though it is an album that I have come back to. Freak, to me, is one of the defining songs of the 1990s. I have been dipping back into it the past few days. A terrific album from the much-missed Silverchair, Freak Show is an album that sounds pretty raw and epic…
ON vinyl.