YFLM turns 30

[DLR Bridge]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OL...atsPVsAyzSvLlI

A day late but, Your Filthy Little Mouth, released on 3/8/94.

I know it’s been discussed ad nauseam, but just figured I’d wish this album a happy 30th.

I’ve always dug this record, and admire almost every chance it took. That country tune being my only must-skip.

Maybe someday someone will run this through AI and give it a proper production level. Joking, but I wish it had the impact punch of ALAE. I realize, it was all part of switching up sounds in the grunge era.

My top 3 tunes are:

She’s My Machine
Experience
Sunburn

And hats off to Terry Kilgore. Wish that guy had more of a presence in the music world post working with Dave. Would’ve been interesting to hear his work with others.

[Terry]

It was a weird album, released at a weird time for pop/rock music...at least it was weird from my perspective back then.

Definitely a weird time for Dave's career...at the very least, a transitional one. Probably the period after ALAE was initially released and underperformed commercially - so, say, mid-1991 - could be considered the beginning of the transitional period for Dave's career. The low-key silliness of Dave's pot bust in the spring of 1993 was the first indication that Roth's cultural relevance wasn't what it had been several years prior. The underwhelming reception the release of Your Filthy Little Mouth got sort of cemented it. By the spring of 1994, Dave seemed like a former superstar spandex-clad relic of an era that felt like it had taken place a million years ago. The proof being that YFLM got virtually nada in terms of media attention.

Some of it was just Roth's 80's audience getting older. Come YFLM, I was in my mid-20's. Going to university. Working part-time. My peak high school party days were a decade behind me. None of the younger kids in college in their late teens or early 20's were listening to either version of Van Halen, much less whatever David Lee Roth was doing. Most of what I was hearing on then contemporary terrestrial radio was the bigger grunge bands, or U2. From what I recall, even on the classic rock stations back then Van Halen wasn't getting as much airplay as they went onto get in the 2000's.

In point of fact, I have no memory of YFLM being released in terms of hearing a radio dj saying it, or seeing it mentioned on MTV or whatever. I mean, doubtless it must have been. However, I don't recall watching a single showing of, say, the promo video for She's My Machine on MTV. As opposed to the promo video for A Little Ain't Enough which had a heavy rotation in the early months of 1991. A longtime bud of mine going way back to the 4th grade had also been into Van Halen, and it was actually him who got the YFLM album on cassette a few months after it was released. I didn't think much of it at the time beyond the first three or four tunes on the record...I really still don't, truth be told.

I'd say I can appreciate the different musical styles on the album, perhaps a bit more so these days than I could then. Which is to say, I can appreciate that Roth wanted to essay a wide variety of styles. That's not the same as saying that I thought what was being offered on the album stylistically particularly worked well. Frankly, more than a couple of the tracks were embarrassing in terms of the results. Some of it I can put down to a lack of distinctive musicians playing on the tracks. Some of it lies squarely with Roth and nobody else. I wasn't thrilled with every single track on Skyscraper or A Little Ain't Enough, but the standout tracks on those albums (which were usually reminiscent of the CVH style/energy/attitude) helped elevate the stuff I didn't care for. Doubtless others on this site will disagree, but for me there really weren't any truly great tracks on YFLM. A few good ones, but not any truly great ones. And the few good ones are outweighed by the eclectically marginal ones.