Short Bus (album)

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The band's choice to use a drum machine was influenced by the works of Ministry and Big Black. [12]

Described as an industrial rock, [13] [14] [15] post-grunge, [15] hard rock, [16] and nu metal record, [17] Short Bus blends the industrial sound with grunge music. [18] [19] The Rough Guide to Rock writer Essi Berelian described the record as "a broad and imaginative slab of industrial noise, distinguished by Patrick's ability with a strong hook and melodic chorus." [20] Richard Patrick has gone on to name bands such as Pantera, Butthole Surfers and Skinny Puppy as influences on the album's sound; [21] Helmet and Soundgarden were also other early influences on Filter. The album's guitar-heavy sound features the use of a drum machine for percussion; [4] the band's adoption of the digital instrument was influenced by the works of Big Black and Ministry's 1988 record, The Land of Rape and Honey . [12] Music software was also used to process guitars and other sounds; the verses of "Hey Man Nice Shot" featured a looped feedback of a pick stratch. The band also incorporated the sounds of a broken toilet on the track "Stuck in Here". [10] [9] The track "It's Over" features a guitar drop that was recorded on a low-quality mini-cassette recorder; Liesegang has described the resulting recording as a "Robert Johnson spooky kind of sound". Other incorporated sounds on the record include answering machine vocals on "Spent" and television recordings on "White Like That". [9]

Lyrical themes include religion and suicide, with the album's opening track and lead single "Hey Man Nice Shot" being written as a response to R. Budd Dwyer's televised suicide. The track was, at one point, rumored to be about the death of musician Kurt Cobain; however, the band has denied said rumor in the past. [22] Similarly, "It's Over" was written about a mutual friend of the band who died by suicide, and was one of the first few songs written by the group. [23] The album is named after the slang "short bus", which refers to the smaller school busses used by students with disabilities. Liesegang stated that the band chose the title for solidarity and reclamation. [24]

Packaging

The album was released with artwork similar to that of a package, with the tracklist and barcode being part of the front cover. Some pressings included a photo on the back tray, while others simply featured a tracklist against a bare background. The minimalist design was done in homage to Public Image LTD's 1986 recording Album . [11]

An expanded edition was released by Concord Music on November 2, 2018. This version replaces the Reprise Records logo with that of Craft Recordings, which is Concord's reissue label. This version adds six new mixes: two of "Dose", three of "Hey Man Nice Shot", and one of "White Like That". [25]

Promotion and touring

The album spawned three singles ("Hey Man Nice Shot", "Dose", and "Under") with the first two receiving music videos that featured an expanded line-up. The line-up included guitarist Geno Lenardo, bassist Frank Cavanagh, and drummer Matt Walker, who were all hired to back up Patrick and Liesegang for live shows. To promote Short Bus, the band would tour the United States, with footage taken during this time period later being released used for the 1996 Filter documentary Phenomenology.

Although originally intended to be touring members, Lenardo and Cavanagh would eventually join the band as full-time members to work on their 1999 follow-up album Title of Record .

Critical reception

Short Bus
Filter shortbus.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedApril 25, 1995 (1995-04-25)
Recorded1994–1995
Genre
Length46:05
Label Reprise
Producer
Filter chronology
Short Bus
(1995)
Title of Record
(1999)
Singles from Short Bus
  1. "Hey Man Nice Shot"
    Released: 1995
  2. "Dose"
    Released: 1995
  3. "Under"
    Released: 1995 (promo) [1]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [18]
Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal 6/10 [26]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [19]

AllMusic critic Neil Z. Yeung praised the record, stating: "Filter never sounded quite like this again and Short Bus wound up being a singular snapshot cemented in time, a sleeper hit that became an enduring genre touchstone." [18] Writing for The New Rolling Stone Album Guide , Greg Kot stated that the record "finds a middle ground between grunge's world-weary sense of melody and industrial rock's icy steel-pulse rhythms;" Kot further stated that the record "otherwise fails to take its Nails-Nirvana hybrid beyond the formula." [19]

The album was featured on Loudwire 's list of "10 Best Hard Rock Albums of 1995". [16]

Track listing

All music is composed by Richard Patrick [18]

No.TitleLength
1."Hey Man Nice Shot"5:14
2."Dose"3:54
3."Under"4:19
4."Spent"4:39
5."Take Another"4:23
6."Stuck in Here"3:35
7."It's Over"3:37
8."Gerbil"3:22
9."White Like That"4:17
10."Consider This"4:19
11."So Cool"4:26
Total length:46:05

Personnel

Filter

Additional personnel

Charts

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA) [2] Platinum1,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. "Under" (single). Filter. Reprise Records. 1995. PRO-CD-7917.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. 1 2 "American album certifications – Filter – Short Bus". Recording Industry Association of America.
  3. "Billboard". May 6, 1995. Retrieved January 29, 2025. Reprise has high hopes for Filter's debut, "Short Bus," released April 25, as the first single, "Hey Man, Nice Shot" is No. 39 with a bullet on the Modern Rock Tracks this week.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Interview - Richard Patrick of Filter tells all - Cryptic Rock". crypticrock.com. August 5, 2013. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  5. Suarez, Gary (May 7, 2014). "The Incredible Shrinking Industrial Man: Stuart Zechman On Stabbing Westward". Consequence of Sound . Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  6. Stingley, Mick (June 7, 2013). "Filter Frontman Richard Patrick on Nineties Nostalgia and Men in Shorts". Rolling Stone . Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  7. Oswald, Derek (February 23, 2014). "[AltWire Interview] Filter: "There are Things Worth Fighting For"". altwire.net. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  8. Filter: Erkenntnistheorie (cassette). Warner Bros. Records. 1994.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "White Trash, White Heat". Alternative Press . No. 86. November 1995.
  10. 1 2 Liesegang, Brian (November 1995). "The Future of Rock". Spin . Vol. 11, no. 8. p. 92.
  11. 1 2 3 Harris, Chris (May 8, 2020). "Filter's Richard Patrick Reflects on 'Short Bus' at 25: I Was Done Riding Trent Reznor's Coattails". Billboard . Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  12. 1 2 Man, The (June 4, 2013). "An Un-Filtered Interview with Filter « Man Cave Daily". Mancave.cbslocal.com. Archived from the original on November 21, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  13. Hill, John (August 24, 2017). "Filter Albums Ranked". Loudwire . Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  14. Kot, Greg (September 2, 1999). "Filter: Title of Record : Music Reviews". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on June 19, 2008. Retrieved June 24, 2012.
  15. 1 2 Unterberger, Andrew (April 8, 2019). "The 99 Greatest Songs of 1999: Critics' Picks". Billboard . Archived from the original on April 8, 2019.
  16. 1 2 Cornell, Jeff (May 22, 2015). "10 Best Hard Rock Albums of 1995". Loudwire . Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  17. "Vote for the greatest nu metal album of all-time". March 4, 2022.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 Yeung, Neil Z. "Filter: Short Bus". AllMusic . Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  19. 1 2 3 Kot, Greg (2004). Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian David (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide . New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 298. ISBN   978-0-7432-0169-8.
  20. Berelian, Essi (2003). Buckley, Peter; Buckley, Jonathan (eds.). The Rough Guide to Rock. Rough Guides. pp. 372–373. ISBN   9781858284576.
  21. Brooks, Nev (2010-06-08). "Interview with Richard Patrick of Filter". uberrock.co.uk. Uber Rock. Retrieved August 13, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. "Richard Patrick of Filter Talks About ‘Hey Man Nice Shot’ and Kurt Cobain". KLAQ, June 29, 2012.
  23. Cook, John (Director) (1996). Phenomenology (Videotape). Warner Reprise Video.
  24. Considine, J.D. (September 28, 1995). "Tech-friendly Filter's 'Bus' rolls into town". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  25. "Craft Recordings to Re-Issue Filter's Debut 'Short Bus'". BroadwayWorld . October 25, 2018. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  26. Popoff, Martin (2007). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 3: The Nineties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. p. 155. ISBN   978-1-894959-62-9.
  27. "Top RPM Albums: Issue 8533". RPM . Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
  28. "Filter Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
  29. "Filter Chart History (Heatseekers Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved June 30, 2024.