Strays [ENHANCED]

Jane's Addiction

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 22, 2003)
• Original Release Date: July 22, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00009XBZ8
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #18,419 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Jane's Addiction helped put the word "alternative" on the middle-American map with a scarlet A, but their straight-up rock was always front and center. On Strays, the first Jane's Addiction studio album in 13 years, there's no mistaking Perry Farrell's trademark vocal sound (a nasal goose? a banshee in flight?) and Dave Navarro's ever-adaptable guitar style. But the band--only bassist Eric Avery is absent from their classic lineup, replaced by Chris Chaney--hasn't come to party like it's 1991. Sure, the balance of hedonism and earnestness, environmentalism and decadence, remains, but the quartet's approach is that of a unit ready to flex a few new muscles. Listeners will notice roof-raisers like "True Nature" and "Hypersonic" first, but some of the quieter tracks ("Price I Pay," with the classic Farrell rationalization "I always do the wrong thing, but I got a good reason," "To Match the Sun") are among the most effective Jane's mood pieces ever. Strays is certainly a much more apt return than 1997’s odds-and-sods compilation Kettle Whistle. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Give it a chance, maybe 1%, October 3, 2003

By A Customer

Like all good Jane's albums, you need to listen to them at least 10 times start to finish before determing whether they blow or not. I am beginning to love this album.

I was really bummed out that Perry's artwork was not on the cover or involved with the CD at all. I have a feeling they rushed this album out so it would sell while they toured.

"True Nature" and "The Riches" stood out as classic Jane's adrenaline tunes with great lyrics. I feel like the more the CD spins, the more I get into the songs I initially thought were horrible. The only song that is truly idiotic is "Superhero". What were they thinking?

The album is not as insightful or groundbreaking as previous works, but it keeps us late 80's/early 90's "Jane's freaks" from travelling to Madagascar to find rare and unreleased material. I truly think that, although drugs seem to have broken up the band, they WERE the band. I was always so interested in what happened to Perry on the streets or on some sort of wacked out heroin vision. It added a mystical quality to the music.

I hate to see these old farts on MTV. I used to think they were so cool. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see the father of alternative rock try so hard to fit in to the MTV idiot crowd. Navarro thinks he is some sort of fashion model. Perkins is the only one who is cool enough to know that they are JANE'S ADDICTION. They don't need to try so hard. They are already the coolest band ever.

Anyhoo, buy the album. Listen to it without reading the lyrics in the CD sleeve. Listen to it again and again. There are layers that begin to reveal themselves. It's like a magic eye picture. You can see some cool stuff in there if you look long enough.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The front cover says it all..., May 25, 2004

By	Chris "Chris" (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

Jane's Addiction. How do you summarize the works of a band that effectively changed the face of alternative music in the 90's? These guys were there at the beginning, along with "The Pixies", and in their time, they were epic. Their records will forever be a part of my life, and the values they instilled in me will not soon be forgotten.

That being said, this album is a wash of overproduced and commercialized numbers that the band recorded, as far as I can tell, to nuture a mid-life crisis. Everything the band stood for in the past seems to have been in vain as they fail to heed their own words on this mainstream, done-a-hundred-times rock album. You can still feel the prescence of "Jane's Addiction" underneath the wreck, but it's not enough. As with "Gravity" by "Our Lady Peace", these are songs that A LOT of people are going to be able to enjoy, and get into, but it's not for previous fans of the band.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing's Striking, November 27, 2003

By	Beau Yarbrough (Hesperia, CA) - See all my reviews

This is an album I wanted to like more than I did: Intellectually, a Jane's Reunion is nothing but good, especially as Perry's had plenty of time to stretch his creative wings with Porno for Pyros and bring plenty of great new ideas back to the table.

Unfortunately, what we get instead is mostly bereft of new ideas, sounding instead like a mediocre band doing a very great Jane's impression. This may sound harsher than it's meant: "Strays" is a decent album, one most bands would be quite proud of. But for a Jane's album ... there's no flashes of genius, of inspiration. The album rocks along quite nicely, but it never soars and never really grabs the listener.

Mildly recommended for those looking for proof that rock isn't dead in the 21st century, although Jane's previous work still outshines this album by a large degree.