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RIFF070 - Bush - Sixteen Stone

Season 2025 Episode 39

RIFF070 - Bush: Sixteen Stone — Post-Grunge, Paint Fumes & Platinum Payback

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~90 minutes
Release: November 2025

Episode Description

Welcome to another episode of Riffology - the podcast where two mates dissect the albums that shaped music history. This week, Neil and Chris tackle Bush’s “Sixteen Stone”, a very British band who somehow made one of the defining American post-grunge records of the 90s – then watched the UK mostly shrug while the US went absolutely mad for it.

What starts as a love letter to one of Neil’s all-time favourite records quickly turns into a story of rejection, resilience, weird artwork and very expensive vinyl, with a surprising amount of life advice buried under the distortion.

What You'll Hear:

Vinyl Obsession & the “Flippy Flips” Rant: Neil’s ongoing battle to own Sixteen Stone on vinyl – from £150+ reissues and million-pound Discogs listings to his campaign against double LPs with “two tracks per side” when you just want to put a record on and code.
Little Things & Relationship Death by a Thousand Cuts: A deep dive into “Little Things” as one of Neil’s favourite songs ever – unpacking its lyrics about relationships falling apart through tiny repeated hurts, and why that idea hits so hard.
“Come Down” as a Life Marker: Chris revisits “Come Down” on stage for the first time in decades, talks about playing it at a local showcase, and how the song is wired into memories of six-disc Sony changers, falling asleep with albums on loop, and teenage subconscious learning.
Gavin Rossdale vs. The Entire Industry: How UK labels told him he “couldn’t sing”, why Sixteen Stone was first rejected as having “no singles and not even any album tracks”, and how persistence plus one tiny US label (Trauma) turned that “failure” into a multi-platinum classic.
Post-Grunge, Loudness Wars & Production Nerdiness: A proper geek-out on what actually makes this post-grunge: big compressed mixes for American rock radio, massive choruses, slick but not click-tracked performances, and why that smoother, heavier sound was poison to British critics but catnip to US stations.

Featured Tracks & Analysis:

Neil and Chris spend serious time with:

“Little Things” – why it feels “virtually perfect”, how the lyric “the little things that kill” nails the slow corrosion of relationships, and the swirling secondary guitar lines that underpin the main riff.
“Come Down” – the first full song Gavin ever wrote on his own, the two different versions (full band vs. string-laden), and how it became the turning point that convinced him he really was a songwriter.
“Machinehead” – from its octave-driven intro (cue live guitar demo of octaves next to the mic) to its themes of pressure, productivity and trying to keep your head straight while being a dad, husband and working musician.
“Glycerine” – the grungy torch-song moment: sparse arrangement, vulnerable vocal, and how it’s become one of those songs that singers (including Chris’s mate Mike) can absolutely own in their own style.

Tangential Gold:

True to Riffology form, expect delightful detours into: