Bush – Deconstructed (1997) Review

Bush followed Razorblade Suitcase with a strange move.

Instead of doubling down on the raw guitar attack of that album — or racing back toward the bigger hooks of Sixteen Stone — they released Deconstructed; a full-length collection of remixes of previously issued material built by a rotating cast of electronic producers.

On paper, the project seemed like an interesting idea: Bush were keen to shake off their “Nirvana clones” tag, and Gavin Rossdale has since described it as “an attempt to collide rock with techno and dance culture”.

In practice, it’s downright unlistenable.

Audience Of None

The central issue with Deconstructed is that it struggles to find a natural audience.

Much like Michael Jackon’s polarising Blood On The Dancefloor: HIStory In The Mix — released just six months proior — these remixes are far too removed from the source material to appeal to the band’s core fanbase. Meanwhile, electronica listeners will likely feel the mashups sound like rock songs shoehorned into a club setting, rather than music genuinely built for the that world.

It’s not that rock cannot be effectively remixed into dance; The Dead Daisies’ 2020 hit Unspoken proves it can be done beautifully. The issue here is that Gavin Rossdale’s monotone drawl, while perfectly suited to grunge, only serves to drain the life out of an electronic beat.

The One Track That Worked

The only track that feels geninely necessary is Mouth.

“The Stingray Mix” remains close enough to the original song’s tension while providing it with greater weight and shape, and also ends up addressing one of the biggest criticisms levelled at Razorblade Suitcase: that Steve Albini’s minimalistic production left Bush’s strongest ideas sounding somewhat skeletal.

It went on to become a sleeper hit for the band, peaking at No.5 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart, and featuring on the soundtrack to 1997’s An American Werewolf in Paris.

The success of this remix proves Deconstructed’s initial concept wasn’t entirely broken — when Bush inserted elements of electronic language into their music, it did in fact seem to work.

However, as the rest of the record demonstrates, the real problems came when they started stripping their songs down to bare bones and rebuilding them as something they were never meant to be.

Unintersting, But Useful

It’s easier to view Deconstructed a bridge than an album.

The remixes themselves — excluding Mouth — are generally lifeless, but the project clearly influenced Bush to start experimenting with the electronic textures that would eventually be applied far more effectively on 1998’s The Science of Things.

In that sense, consider this a dry run: not especially satisfying, but useful in hindsight, because it documents a band testing new machinery before eventually building a very strong record with it.

Bush – Deconstructed

Deconstructed is a mess from start to finish.

Over the course of a punishing 65-minutes, the album proves overlong, underwhelming and incredibly clunky. Too many tracks land squarely in the dead zone between rock and electronica, lacking the creativity to succeed in either genre.

While it serves as an interesting snapshot of a band in transition — restless, self-conscious, and searching for an identity — there is ultimately nothing here worth returning to outside of its killer lead single.