It’s been a while.
Twenty years though? It certainly doesn’t feel that way, and listening to this again certainly helps to cover over the fact that it really has been two decades since Bubblegum (and its curtain-raiser, the Here Comes That Weird Chill EP) first made itself known in a way that some of us can happily pretend that at least most of that middle bit didn’t happen. Representing a fresh start in as many senses as possible, Mark Lanegan puts out something far removed from his stunning earlier work for Sub Pop and sets off on a journey that may have knowingly baffled fans at the outset but left nobody behind as he and his band of as many like-minded accomplices as possible push the boundaries of their own audience’s expectation and sets a whole new standard for Lanegan’s songwriting and performance.
Skipping ahead to the main event (as this is obviously the reason for the release and central to all of the various versions), Bubblegum itself is an incredible piece of work that has only revealed much of its painful depth since Lanegan began writing about it much later. It was 15 years between the release of this record and his Sleevenotes book, and the revelations in there about songs that had become familiar comforts at that point repainted this album as something far darker than his audience had first thought or could possibly imagine.
Opener ‘When Your Number Isn’t Up’ is a perfect example of this; a song that already conjures a gloomy atmosphere with impenetrable lyrics is now revealed to be about Kurt Cobain and is further explained in his subsequent memoir as being about a fateful phonecall from Kurt which he didn’t answer. A song that became a frequent show opener for many years is now revealed to be a form of penance, and it’s truly a difficult pill to swallow now, or even comprehend. Or the light psychedelia of ‘Morning Glory Wine’, sounding for all the world like an airy contented song which is actually about a relationship he had with a fellow traveller when they were both homeless (and who became the victim of a serial killer some years later). There are unexpected depths here, and it was a long time before its creator was ready to point out where the most dangerous ones were.
Surrounding all of this horror though is layer upon layer of absolute beauty. ‘Strange Religion’ (a song played live, but almost never sung on stage by him) is a wonderfully grateful love song set to the gentlest of gospel backings. ‘Wedding Dress’, with its sparse and lysergic pulse, provides an intoxicated slant on commitment, while his self-described “saucy” ‘Come to Me’ duet with PJ Harvey provides a licentious yang to the former’s chaste yin. And then there’s ‘One Hundred Days’ in harmony with Chris Goss which describes very little in a beautiful, blissful state as the chorus chimes “There is no morphine, I’m only sleeping”.
Elsewhere, his Queens of the Stone Age side (and occasional bandmates) get to let loose on tracks like ‘Can’t Come Down’ and ‘Driving Death Valley Blues’, coming to a head with the riotous ‘Sideways in Reverse’, where the sheer sense of fun involved in making this song evokes a “woo!” from Lanegan.
Over its fifteen tracks, and regardless of knowledge or otherwise of its background or history, Bubblegum is a record that goes on a journey and steers the listener along with it, safe in the knowledge that no matter how strange the waypoints may feel at first, the destination is somewhere that will stay with most people for ever. It can be occasionally exhausting (even for its creator – there was no Mark Lanegan Band album for another eight years after this) but is so emotionally and creatively rewarding that it truly deserves a new moment in the spotlight to draw a whole new audience.
And there’s more. Expanded versions come with 2003’s “gentle introduction” EP Here Comes That Weird Chill which helps to set the scene for the main course by opening with the brash (and literal) metallic banging and maniacal laughter the precedes ‘Methamphetamine Blues’ that basically says “this is how it is now”, made all the more weird in hindsight thanks to the much later release of his Houston recordings, revealing the origin of this industrial banger to be a far more gentle affair. A cover of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Clear Spot’ further disorients the listener while ‘Skeletal History’ is just plain nasty in its hypnotically jarring riff and psychotic lyrical tone which made for such a great set closer back in the day. Even this has it’s (sort of) lighter moments though, with fan favourite ‘Message to Mine’ meeting QotSA and Masters of Reality somewhere halfway, ‘Wish You Well’ providing a bittersweet romance-ending groove and the stunning hymnal ‘Lexington Slowdown’ (another song altered by hindsight) showing the world what his voice is capable of. As an EP, it’s longer than some albums, and is just as worthy of your time as the album which follows.
And finally there’s all the other bits and bobs. There are bands who wish their best output was anywhere near as good as b-sides ‘Mirrored’ and ‘Mud Pink Skag’, and there are two late album offcuts that may be familiar to some fans (as they leaked before the album released) – ‘Josephine’ is a down-the-line banger that retains an uncanny vibe throughout and remains an outstanding track, and what seems to have been Bubblegum’s originally-intended closer ‘Blood (Crackers and Honey)’ is just plain strange, probably better suited to closing …Weird Chill but ultimately floating around homeless until now.
A couple of hotel room-recorded tracks found on the excellent Has God Seen My Shadow? Anthology is expanded with a breezy cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘You Wind Colorado’, Union Tombstone’s amiable gait recalls an alternate-universe ‘Mrs Robinson’ where it’s not immediately apparent where Mark ends and Beck begins, ‘Heard a Train’ showcases Lanegan’s knack of having an idea, doing it, not quite liking it and reusing it later on (musically this became future b-side and videogame soundtrack ‘Burning Jacob’s Ladder’, and the lyrical snippet “Jesus of Nothing” became a Soulsavers track) and an early version of ‘Revolver’ from his later collaboration with Isobel Campbell feels almost like the thought where Bubblegum’s own title track sprang from.
Whatever version you get is a version well worth getting. Older fans get the joy (and pain) of nostalgia tempered with some new what-never-was and what-might-have-beens, first-timers get a brilliantly strange introduction to a unique and uncompromising artist who will continue to surprise should anyone then wish to investigate further in whatever completely different direction they then choose, and those in between will experience the weird chill of wondering where all the intervening time went. Reissues are common these days but it’s rare that one is as essential and beautiful as this.
