Let's Rank All The Jesus And Mary Chain Albums!
Here’s another band that I’ve put off ranking despite being one of my all time favorites. I probably don’t need to keep saying that because it will lose its oomph. The fact is if I’m ranking albums by a band they’re one of my favorites since I really won’t take on the task if I don’t know all of their albums inside and out. And yes, I’ve spent a crap ton of time listening to the Reid brothers for around 40 years. The epitome and worthy carriers of Velvet-Underground-levels of cool, the godfathers of shoegaze, and maybe the most audaciously stupid/brilliant lyric writers of all time.
I didn’t get to see them live until May 3rd, 2015 at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit with The Black Ryder opening, and that was so cool because there was a time that it seemed they were done. Jim and William have had a pretty volatile relationship and when they broke up that seemed like it would be it. Not only did they reform but they’ve recorded two new albums of material since, so they didn’t just cash in as a nostalgia act (which I never would have expected them to do anyway).
Some ground rules as usual: I’m only comparing studio LPs that were released with new songs and conceived as an album - they’ve put out full length releases that were collections of B-sides and outtakes such as Barbed Wire Kisses and Hate Rock N’ Roll that are filled with amazing material. But those aren’t albums to me - they are collections with plenty of tracks that were already released. That’s pretty much it - so it’s just one rule really. And also to be clear - there isn’t a bad JAMC album. You could say the Mary Chain is a band whose songs “all sound the same” and manage to all be different and interesting at the same time, so maybe a little more than most these albums are hard to “rank.” But it’s still fun to give it a try and a good format to discuss and break down their music.
*Note - if you are interested in purchasing any of these albums you can click on the album cover and be taken to Amazon to do so via my affiliate link. I may get a small commission on your purchases if you do. So with that said…
Let’s Rank All The Jesus And Mary Chain Albums!
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes - Cooking Vinyl
8. Glasgow Eyes (2024) I like this album a lot - I do. But it’s…..odd. Odd can be good, and in this case it is. It’s just not always….great. I don’t mind when these guys experiment and go out of the box here and there - they’ve often managed to do this with great results and while still sounding exactly like the JAMC throughout their career, but this is the first time they’ve done it where I’ve kinda been like, huh? So let’s start with the good stuff that is in the pocket like the lead single jamcod (as in Jesus And Mary Chain Overdose) which is an instant classic. Great jam, great lyrics:
The monkey's organ grinder, isn't grinding anymore
And I can't shake the feeling that I've seen this dream before
Fucking up and then falling down but it punts me to the door
And I can't see the ceiling 'cause I'm faced down on the floor
Let’s goooo - vintage Mary Chain. The album opener Venal Joy kicks ass too. Second of June is the pretty one - great tune. Girl 71 is a fun summertime cheesy banger - Allmusic.com’s Tim Sendra just destroyed this one and I vehemently disagree. He called it simple-minded, cliched and silly - it’s like he has no clue that this band has done simple-minded, cliched, and silly and made it cool like few others have ever been able to, and they still can. The problem is there are too many songs here that just aren’t interesting. Some of them just kind of go nowhere. For a band that has always been influenced by the Velvet Underground to finish an album with a misspelled Hey Lou Reid for some reason is a little puzzling, and the song is just sort of…there. The Eagles and the Beatles is also a head scratcher. It’s catchy enough but the lyrics are distracting. “I’ve been rolling with the stones - Mick and Keith and Brian Jones - Bill and Charlie have gone home.” Huh? What does that even mean? And what does it have to do with The Eagles or Beatles? I don’t get it - maybe that’s not the point, I don’t know. What can I say - it just hasn’t caught fire for me as one of my favorites from this band even though I DO still like it.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Honey’s Dead - Warner
7. Honey’s Dead (1992) Honey’s Dead is good but I always felt there was an inconsistency in the material on this one. The fact that they included Rollercoaster on the LP which was released as the title track of an EP a full year and a half earlier was also kind of a distracting disruption of the flow of the album for me. Once again, the album is still very good. It’s so Mary Chain to start an album with the announcement of “I wanna die just like Jesus Christ…” These guys just push the envelope so often with lyrics that feel taboo - and isn’t that rock n roll? Nothing is sacred in JAMC world and it’s never cringy somehow. Okay almost never cringy. I’ve never quite known how I feel about Teenage Lust about a “little skinny girl - she’s doin’ it for the first time.” And we might as well get the other negatives out of the way… I don’t think I Can’t Get Enough is a great song. Catchfire same thing. I don’t know… on paper it all sounds pretty good (?) but the songs just aren’t AS strong. Now the highs here are still pretty high. Far Gone And Out is a banger and was on the radio back in the day. The aforementioned opener Reverence is a killer too. And to follow up the opening request about how to die with “I wanna die just like JFK, I wanna die on a sunny day…” Whoa. How do you sing that? That line always gives me anxiety lol. Good For My Soul, Sugar Ray and Almost Gold are the other highlights.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic - Warner
6. Automatic (1989) The Mary Chain start to display some of the wicked humor that would be a hallmark going forward. And here’s a throwback for you: This CD was released in “ADD” which definitely had me fooled into thinking I was hearing some superior sound. It didn’t matter what system I might have been listening to it on, or with my Sony Discman plugged into a cassette adapter in my Pontiac Phoenix I drove while I was at Michigan. The album was recorded with NEW TECHNOLOGY! Hey - if you know you know - let me know if you have any idea what I’m talking about in the comments. I remember Play It Again Records’ Ann Arbor location having the posters for this album in the window when it dropped. And like Darklands, it opens with William on lead vocals (even though he only sings three songs on the album) with Here Comes Alice which is fantastic. One problem with this album (if it is a problem - I’ll explain) reveals itself right off the bat and that’s the drum machine they use. My understanding is they used a drum machine on Darklands, but this is the album where it sounds like a drum machine. But the thing is, it fits for this album and the album is somewhat defined by it in a way that works. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s nostalgia? But in typical Mary Chain fashion it’s as if they lean into something that should suck in a way that inverts it into cool. Is it just me? There is something absurdly cool about the robotic soulless drums that give the album its aesthetic and makes it unique in their discography. The “band” is down to the duo of the brothers Reid here. In the progression of their music chronologically you can hear that they’re evolving, and this album as their third full length is an entirely different vibe than the others. Not noise drenched like Psychocandy, more lively than Darklands, and the songs are still awesome. And as I mentioned the lyrics are starting to crack me up at this point. “Don’t let your life be the butt of a joke, get your lips round a cool, black Pepsi Coke.” I also think it’s cool when your contemporaries are covering your songs, like The Pixies with their awesome version of Head On that they released as a single not even two years later. That says a lot. And it’s so damn catchy. “Makes you wanna feel, makes you wanna try, makes you wanna pull the stars from the sky, I can’t stand up, I can’t cool down, I can’t get my head off the ground…” Love it. Blues From A Gun, Halfway To Crazy, Between Planets, Gimme Hell - I love these songs. I’ll just leave you with the poetry of Gimme Hell:
“She can ball and she can shout and she can ball and fuck it out, so c’mon.”
There you have it.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Damage and Joy - Cooking Vinyl
5. Damage And Joy (2017) The comeback - I was skeptical. Not only was it two decades since the last studio album, but there were familiar titles on this one like Facing Up To The Facts, The Two Of Us and Get On Home which were already released by Jim Reid’s Freeheat project. Actually half of the album’s tracks were released before in various forms. So right away I was thinking this is the new JAMC album? Retreads? Hardly. Facing Up To The Facts and The Two Of Us in particular are completely reworked and improved upon by a mile. And the album feels coherent and not some hodgepodge. They sound as inspired as ever with all of the energy and total cool of their best work. A few of these tracks that were reworked for this album I hadn’t heard such as the killer opener Amputation (which Jim released under the moniker Dead End Kids (?), Can’t Stop The Rock (released by their sister), All Things Pass and Song For A Secret. So these were all new to me, and they’re all great. As for the new material written and recorded for this LP there are some gems as well like Black And Blues, Presidici, and War On Peace. Everything here is solid.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Munki - Cooking Vinyl
4. Munki (1998) The epic that broke the band. This was before the vinyl revival and I don’t know if it got a vinyl release at the time, so is it a double album? It’s almost 70 minutes long which filled a compact disc, and some bands put out longer albums without having to convince a record company to release a double album. Some of those decisions were good and some not so much. This one was good. JAMC took advantage by exploring some new sounds and longer songs, like the gargantuan Commercial - with a droning 1:45 instrumental intro with huge drum fills that continue through the song and plenty of improvisation it’s a unique entry in the JAMC canon. And it kicks ass. It’s 4th in a 5 song tour de force from tracks 7-11 that includes Virtually Unreal, Degenerate, (William’s possible statement on his struggle with mental health) Cracking Up and the Tomorrow-Never-Knows-esque Supertramp. What a sequence of varied and effective ass kicking - so good. This is also one of those things I’ve discovered poking around the web but according to Wikipedia a June 1998 edition of Alternative Press quotes Jim as saying he wrote I Love Rock N’ Roll (which opens the album) to counter William’s I Hate Rock N’ Roll (which closes the album and was the title of the 1995 compilation release). The brothers weren’t talking during the recording of this album and they broke up after a disastrous gig where they got into a brawl on the way. There’s a great article about this time in the band’s history in El Pais here. Other standouts include the absurd Birthday about having a Jesus complex (?) - “I’m a mean motherfucker now but I once was cool…..and it’s Christmas time again……in my head. Am I dead?” Yep - prime Mary Chain. The Sister Vanilla (Linda Reid - sister of the brothers) sung Moe Tucker and Hope Sandoval’s guest vocal on the trippy Perfume are both interesting and other standouts include Stardust Remedy, Fizzy and Never Understood.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy - Creation
3. Psychocandy (1985) I know this will be controversial. And I know this is a landmark album that was groundbreaking at the time. It’s a pillar of the shoegaze genre and a masterpiece in its own way. Yes. All of that - I know. If there are Mary Chain fans who were blown away when this came out back in 1985 I’d love to hear from you. I didn’t discover JAMC until the sophomore LP, Darklands. So the wall of noise on the debut has always been a bit TOO impenetrable for me to fully embrace as my favorite or even the best of their catalogue. It may have been necessary to shatter the molds at the time and it accomplished that in spades. But at this point it’s more of a historically significant relic in my mind, and I saw them perform the whole album live and was ready to be converted - it didn’t happen. Now again, don’t get me wrong - I do recognize the significance and there is plenty of greatness here, otherwise I wouldn’t have it 3rd on my list for one of my favorite bands. But it’s definitely the album I listen to the least in their catalogue. As for some of the best moments, Just Like Honey is still effective in announcing something significant happening as an opener. It’s a gorgeous song and even the feedback itself is gorgeous. The aesthetic works to great effect elsewhere as well, such as on Some Candy Talking, and Cut Dead. It’s tough to get through all 15 tracks of noise though - the constant onslaught of extreme intentional sensory overload leads to some serious listener fatigue. There aren’t enough dynamics to let you recover from the squalling assault of guitar feedback. The idea of coupling this with beauty is brilliant, but it’s often too much noise for me. I think anyone who says otherwise just isn’t being honest. Something’s Wrong got a much needed rewrite with Happy When It Rains on Darklands. The riff was too good not to give it a proper chance. Go ahead and take your shots in the comments…
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Stoned and Dethroned - Warner
2. Stoned And Dethroned (1994) If we thought Darklands was stripped down Mary Chain, we just hadn’t heard Stoned And Dethroned yet. Not fully acoustic but there is liberal use of acoustic guitars here and it’s definitely a stoned out comedown full of beauty vibe. There are subtle levels of complexity to some of these songs too like the song She for example, with its melodic guitar riff that goes way beyond strumming a couple simple chords. Yet most of these songs are simple and there are 17 of them, the longest (Bullet Lovers) being 3:39, and I’m having trouble finding the words to describe why so many of them are so good. Songs that on paper seem like simple prayers such as Save Me or God Help Me (with guest vocalist Shane MacGowan of The Pogues) hit so hard because they’re so damn gorgeous but they are presented with a wink - at least to me. None of the Mary Chain’s music sounds religious or gospel in any way even with so many references to God and Jesus - I can’t explain it. If I felt they were gospel I wouldn’t be listening. Maybe the joke’s on me…lol. Especially on an album that starts with Dirty Water with lyrics like “Fuck with me and I’ll fuck with you - isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” Meanwhile, the big hit Sometimes Always featuring the duet between Jim and William’s girlfriend / lead singer of Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval is a classic. Sandoval’s voice is just dreamy. There’s not a dud in the lot and two of the best are the two shortest in Come On and Everybody I Know which are both only 2:14 long. On top of that even the 4 B-Sides which would show up on the following year’s compilation Hate Rock N’ Roll include a couple of my favorite JAMC songs of all time New York City, Taking It Away and The Perfect Crime. These guys had perfected the formula in the mid-90’s even if trouble was on the horizon.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands - Warner
1. Darklands (1987) THIS is the one. It’s perfect Mary Chain. They dial back the feedback from Psychocandy, increase the quality of the songwriting and voila - a perfect result. This was a moment in time when they came across as a band that was going for meaning - songs that get you in the feels with thoughtful if not always the most optimistic lyrics. There isn’t as much of a humorous edge here which is delicious on subsequent albums, but this suspended moment in between the noise and the fun is the one that always sticks with me the most. To set up the proceedings with a by-the-way foregone conclusion of “As sure as life means nothing, and all things lead to nothing…” lets you know where we’re going here. To the Darklands - wherever that may be. Like Deep One Perfect Morning - with “a world that keeps turning the screws into my mind…” during a drug comedown? It’s all pretty bleak. But it feels so good. There are pop gems that aren’t overly complicated and don’t need to be, for example Happy When It Rains is the best JAMC song. Period. And the lyrics again are exquisite:
Step back and watch the sweet thing
Breaking everything she sees
She can take my darkest feeling
Tear it up till I'm on my knees
But still he continues “I would shed my skin for you” - a toxic relationship that he’s addicted to. Is it a girl or a chemical? Brilliant. The album never lets up - it’s a masterpiece. 10 perfect songs. Down On Me is the most uptempo track here and it might be the one track that doesn’t totally stand out, but if that is the worst thing here…? That says plenty for this LP. Much of the album is softer vibe, including the sheer majesty of the whispered Nine Million Rainy Days with William on vocals and another theme of pleasure and pain: “All my time in hell is spent with you…” And then there’s April Skies, which - you guessed it - is about a toxic relationship. So is Fall. So is Cherry Came Too. Some batch of love songs eh? Well, the album ends with an actual pretty love song with optimism. An acknowledgment that it’s not always easy but he knows there’s “something good…about you.” A hopeful end after a lot of mental torture. A great way to finish.
This was hard - and I’m not sure I’m completely satisfied with my order… the only thing I’m pretty sure of is #1 and #8, and I still like #8. There’s room for movement in between lol… Let me know what YOU think in the comments!
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