Hungry for Stink

Hungry for Stink
Studio album by
L7
ReleasedJuly 12, 1994 (1994-07-12)
RecordedWinter 1993[1]
Studio
Genre
Length44:43
Label
Producer
L7 chronology
Bricks Are Heavy
(1992) 		Hungry for Stink
(1994) 		The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum
(1997)
Singles from Hungry for Stink
  1. "Andres"
    Released: 1994
  2. "Stuck Here Again"
    Released: 1994 (promo)
  3. "Can I Run"
    Released: 1995 (promo)

Hungry for Stink is the fourth studio album by L7, released in July 1994 by Slash Records. The album peaked at number 117 on the Billboard 200 chart,[2] as well as number 2 on the Heatseekers Albums chart.[3]

"Fuel My Fire" was based on the Cosmic Psychos song "Lost Cause",[4] and was covered by The Prodigy on their 1997 album The Fat of the Land.[5] The Independent reported that the album's name Hungry for Stink was derived from an advert the band saw in Bear Magazine, a gay publication "for and about big hairy men".[6]

Critical reception

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[7]
Chicago Tribune[8]
Entertainment WeeklyA+[9]
Los Angeles Times[10]
NME6/10[11]
Q[12]
Record Collector[13]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[14]
Spin Alternative Record Guide7/10[15]
The Village VoiceA−[16]

In a rave review for Entertainment Weekly, Greg Sandow wrote that whereas L7's earlier albums "were forceful and bratty", Hungry for Stink "is far more sophisticated, with a musical surprise on nearly every track", and cements L7 as "one of the top hard-rocking bands of any kind, gender be damned."[9] Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot opined that "L7 affirms that it is a great band" with their "strongest batch of songs",[8] while Rolling Stone's Paul Corio praised L7's "smart, hard neopunk" and commented that they "kick inter-gender butt by means of power chords and grunge abandon."[17] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said that L7 "reverse the usual evolution" by leaning further into a grunge sound on Hungry for Stink; he credited the band for avoiding the genre's "dull despair" and instead keeping their music "rooted in the rock and roll everyday, where it belongs."[16]

Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times was less impressed, commending L7's return to a more "fuzzed-out" aesthetic but detecting "little genuine personality, be it a sense of irony or conviction, behind the lyrics, which are so predictably anti-Establishment that the only feeling you get from them is the band's need to be incredibly punk rock."[10] NME reviewer Johnny Cigarettes deemed Hungry for Stink "roughly two-thirds of a fine album" and felt that it "sags noticeably in the middle and towards the end" from a lack of memorable melodies.[11]

Retrospectively, AllMusic's Neil Z. Yeung found that Hungry for Stink, while "not as crisp and catchy" as L7's previous album Bricks Are Heavy, nonetheless stands out as one of their "crunchiest, grimiest, and nastiest" records and "merits attention and appreciation for being the end of a certain era for the band, just as they were on the verge of a brief evolution before their two-decade hiatus."[7]

Track listing

[edit]
Hungry for Stink track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Andres"Donita Sparks, Suzi Gardner3:03
2."Baggage"Sparks, Gardner3:18
3."Can I Run"Sparks3:54
4."The Bomb"Sparks, Jennifer Finch2:39
5."Questioning My Sanity"Sparks, Finch3:42
6."Riding with a Movie Star"Sparks3:19
7."Stuck Here Again"Sparks, Gardner4:58
8."Fuel My Fire"Sparks, Cosmic Psychos3:46
9."Freak Magnet"Sparks, Gardner3:14
10."She Has Eyes"Sparks, Finch3:16
11."Shirley"Finch3:09
12."Talk Box"Sparks6:06
Total length:44:43

Personnel

[edit]

Credits adapted from liner notes.

Performers
Production

Charts

[edit]
Chart (1994) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[18] 57
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[19] 47
UK Albums (OCC)[20] 26
US Billboard 200[2] 117
US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard)[3] 2

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "L7 Time Line". repriserec.com. Archived from the original on January 23, 1998. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
  2. ^ a b "L7 - Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  3. ^ a b "L7 - Heatseekers Albums". Billboard. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  4. ^ "Original versions of Fuel My Fire written by Donita Sparks". Secondhandsongs.com. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  5. ^ "'Fuel My Fire' by L7 covered by The Prodigy – Magnificent Cover Version No.18". Noisecrumbs.com. January 2, 2017. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
  6. ^ Thompson, Ben (July 10, 1994). "ART / Show People: California screaming: L7". The Independent. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
  7. ^ a b Yeung, Neil Z. "Hungry for Stink – L7". AllMusic. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Kot, Greg (July 15, 1994). "Selling 'Alternative, Inc.'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
  9. ^ a b Sandow, Greg (July 15, 1994). "Hungry for Stink". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  10. ^ a b Ali, Lorraine (July 10, 1994). "L7 Slides Back to Sludgy Roots". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  11. ^ a b Cigarettes, Johnny (July 16, 1994). "The Pong Remains the Same". NME. p. 38.
  12. ^ Henderson, Dave (September 1994). "L7: Hungry for Stink". Q. No. 96. p. 102.
  13. ^ Moores, JR (December 2022). "L7: Hungry for Stink / The Beauty Process – Triple Platinum". Record Collector. No. 538. p. 98.
  14. ^ Harris, Keith (2004). "L7". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 500. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  15. ^ Stovall, Natasha (1995). "L7". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. p. 231. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  16. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (September 13, 1994). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
  17. ^ Corio, Paul (December 29, 1994 – January 12, 1995). "L7: Hungry For Stink". Rolling Stone. No. 698–699. p. 182. Archived from the original on November 12, 2007. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  18. ^ Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p. 159.
  19. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – L7 – Hungry for Stink". Hung Medien. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  20. ^ "L7". Official Charts Company. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
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