Sixteen Stone is the debut studio album by English rock band Bush, released on 6 December 1994 by Trauma and Interscope Records. It became the band's most popular album, peaking at number four on the US Billboard 200 and boasting numerous successful singles. "Comedown" and "Glycerine" remain two of Bush's biggest hits to date, each reaching number one on the US BillboardModern Rock Tracks chart. "Comedown", "Machinehead", and "Glycerine" were the three songs from the album to enter the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching number thirty, number forty-three, and number twenty-eight, respectively. To mark its twentieth anniversary, a remastered edition of the album was released on 14 October 2014.
Packaging
In the UK, a stone is a unit of weight that equals 14 pounds. Therefore, sixteen stone means 224 pounds or about 102 kilograms. When asked why lead singer Gavin Rossdale chose the name "Sixteen Stone" for the name of their album, he said: "Once upon a time there was a lonely man... my friend, who called a phone number advertising a '21-year old Scandinavian beauty, new in town.' When she arrived, she was forty years old and sixteen stone..." In the booklet of Sixteen Stone, there is a heart and a dedication to "Rupert and Julie", two of Gavin's friends who died in a boating accident along the Thames in England. The cover insert has a picture of what looks like a bush or mop head flying through the air. This is actually Gavin's dog named Winston. A Puli, a breed of dog with dreadlock-like cords, that has been tossed in the air or is jumping. Beck used the same effect in 1996 with a Komondor, another Hungarian dog breed that has similar fur to the Puli, on his album Odelay which looks like a mop jumping a hurdle. The album cover and packaging were designed by David Carson.
Release
Sixteen Stone was released on 6 December 1994, through Trauma Records. Around the album's 20th anniversary, a remastered edition of its original recordings was released. When asked about also remixing the album for the anniversary edition, Rossdale stated "I did attempt to remix... but it's really, like, you just can't do that. You can't mess with stuff. Those mixes, every single level of those songs is just ingrained in my DNA as it's probably in anybody's DNA who knows it. It just sounds really weird when you mess with it."
Critical reception
Sixteen Stone received mostly positive feedback from music critics. Q wrote that Bush "make a carefully honed post-grunge sound that fits perfectly alongside American counterparts like Stone Temple Pilots or Live." In a four out of five star review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic calls their sound impressive, but states that the band sounds too much like Seattle rockers Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Robert Christgau was more critical in The Village Voice, regarding it as a "not altogether unmusical howl of male pain" that glorified "despair". Retrospectively, Sixteen Stone has received critical acclaim. In April 2014, Rolling Stone placed the album at number thirty-nine on their 1994: The 40 Best Records From Mainstream Alternative's Greatest Year list. A month later, Loudwire placed Sixteen Stone at number eight on its "10 Best Hard Rock Albums of 1994" list. In July 2014 Guitar World placed the album on its "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.
Track listing
All songs written by Gavin Rossdale.
Early pressings of the album do not list "Alien" on the back cover. "Monkey" is also missing from the inside cover, but both songs have lyrics printed and appear on the album.
Subsequent pressings also include an acoustic version of "Comedown" and a second CD of live tracks, "Swim", "Alien", "Bomb", and "Little Things". Rather than actually being acoustic, the bonus "Comedown" track is actually Rossdale singing and playing guitar with more effects. This version is also slower paced, has violins added and has no drums.
Sixteen Stone first entered the Billboard 200 at number 187 for week ending 28 January 1995, and eventually peaked at number four. In 2010 the album's US sales passed the six million mark.
