Released April 14, 1992 Artist L7 | Length 37:28 Release date 14 April 1992 | |
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Similar L7 albums, Grunge albums | ||
L7 bricks are heavy 1992 full album
Bricks Are Heavy is the third album by the American rock band L7, released in April 1992 by Slash Records. Backed by the single "Pretend We're Dead", the album became a breakthrough hit and the band became the "poster girls" of grunge music.
Contents
- L7 bricks are heavy 1992 full album
- L7 wargasm
- Critical reception
- Personnel
- Other success
- Accolades
- Songs
- References
The album was released shortly after grunge had broken into the mainstream with the surprise success of Nirvana's Nevermind. In July 1992, the song "Pretend We're Dead" gained popularity among American rock radio stations, where it received regular airplay. By late August, the album had reached No. 1 on Billboard's Heatseekers album chart, and two weeks later it peaked at No. 160 on the Billboard 200.
Musically the album is heavier and dirtier than the band's previous recordings and described as "catchy tunes and mean vocals on top of ugly guitars and a quick-but-thick bottom of cast-iron grunge" by Entertainment Weekly. While the band retained its punk and hardcore punk roots, there was more emphasis on heavy metal than before. It was produced by Butch Vig, who is renowned for his work with bands such as Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth and, later, Garbage.
L7 wargasm
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for Playboy, Robert Christgau regarded Bricks Are Heavy as an "object lesson in how to advance your music by meeting the marketplace halfway", though he believed it would not sell as much as it deserved. He said Vig helped L7 produce grunge-metal featuring "intense admixtures of ditty and power chord" that "never quite gathers Nirvana's momentum, but it's just as catchy and a touch nastier." Greg Kot was less enthusiastic in the Chicago Tribune, writing that there were not many good songs such as "Slide" and "the performances-while certainly ferocious-aren`t sufficiently varied enough to make up the difference."
Personnel
Other success
The song "Pretend We're Dead" was used in the video games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Rock Band 2. It was also used in the US trailer for the movie Shaun of the Dead.
The song "Shitlist" was used in both the 1992 sequel Pet Sematary Two and Oliver Stone's 1994 film Natural Born Killers and its soundtrack. The song is or was used by professional wrestlers Jon Moxley, who is currently signed as Dean Ambrose in WWE, during his runs in CZW, and Brian Pillman in ECW. CM Punk, now under contract with UFC, used the song as his entrance theme while on the independent circuit.
The song was used in the opening credits of an episode of the television series Beverly Hills 90210.
Accolades
Songs
1Wargasm2:42
2Scrap
3Pretend We're Dead3:55