L7 Archives - Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums

L7’s Bricks Are Heavy: Heavy Riffs, Feminist Fury, and a Legacy Built to Last L7 - Bricks are Heavy Album Art

L7’s Bricks Are Heavy: Heavy Riffs, Feminist Fury, and a Legacy Built to Last

Neil Johnson 23 November 2025

In April 1992, as grunge and alternative rock were exploding into the mainstream, Los Angeles quartet L7...

Podcast Episodes

Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Welcome to Riffology, where a GenX and a Millennial talk about the albums from their youth. It’s more fun than it sounds…

When everyone said no, radio said yes

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~92 minutes
Release: 17 November 2025

Episode Description

Bush’s Sixteen Stone shouldn’t exist. Dropped by their first label for having “no singles and no album tracks,” Gavin Rossdale went back to painting dentists’ offices while his debut sat in limbo. Then a tiny record label called Trauma took a chance, American rock radio caught fire, and suddenly the album British critics dismissed as “Nirvana lite” went 6x platinum. Neil and Chris unpack the bizarre journey of an album that conquered the US while being completely ignored at home, from its compressed post-grunge production to the legal battles that followed its success.

This episode digs into the sonic differences between grunge and post-grunge, why British press hated Bush while America couldn’t get enough, and how Gavin’s first solo-written song, Come Down, became the blueprint for everything that followed. Neil shares his obsession with Little Things and the elusive vinyl hunt, while Chris rediscovers Machine Head live. They explore the album’s refusal to use click tracks, its deliberately cryptic binary artwork, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes persistence matters more than critical approval.

What You’ll Hear:

The Trauma Records story: how two surgeons-turned-label-owners broke Bush in the US, then sued Interscope for $100 million
Post-grunge production decoded: compression, radio loudness wars, and why this doesn’t sound like Seattle
Gavin Rossdale’s lyric-writing process, inspired by David Bowie’s cut-up technique and poetic fragments
Why the UK embraced Britpop’s AC30s and semi-acoustics while rejecting American Marshall stacks
The one crossover: Stiltskin’s Inside as Britain’s sole post-grunge hit
Album artwork mysteries, 16-stone dating disasters, and why the 30th anniversary reissue changed the cover color

Featured Tracks & Analysis:

Everything Zen kicks off with a guitar solo, a bold statement that sets the tone for an album dripping with confidence despite its chaotic creation. Neil breaks down Little Things as a near-perfect meditation on relationship erosion, the “death by a thousand cuts” captured in octave riffs and layered guitars. Come Down gets dissected both as Gavin’s songwriting breakthrough and Chris’s live performance memory from a Branston music showcase. Machine Head’s lyrical collage approach reveals how fragments and feelings mattered more than narrative coherence. Glycerine emerges as the emotional centerpiece, with Mike Tivy’s definitive cover version haunting Chris’s memory from their college days.

Tangential Gold:

Vinyl frustrations: double vinyl “flippy flips,” 2014 reissue pricing at £150, and begging American friends for original pressings
Billy Corgan’s philosophy on chasing things you’ll never feel complete owning
Arguing with ChatGPT in the bath about what actually defines post-grunge
The Donald Trump-REM vocal similarity revelation
Super gluing yourself to a step ladder during DIY disasters
Blood Bowl League commitments and painting Warhammer with Mike Tivy

Why This Matters:

Sixteen Stone represents the moment when American rock radio diverged completely from British taste, creating parallel scenes that barely acknowledged each other. While the UK obsessed over Blur vs Oasis and semi-acoustic guitars, the US was building a post-grunge ecosystem of compressed, arena-ready rock that prioritized hooks and thickness over rawness. This album crystallizes that split. It’s also a masterclass in perseverance, proof that critical consensus means nothing if you find your audience. Bush got savaged by NME and Melody Maker, told Gavin couldn’t sing, dismissed as derivative copycats. Six million sales later, none of that mattered.

The episode reveals how production choices shape genre definition. Post-grunge isn’t just grunge-after-grunge, it’s a sonic philosophy: tighter, more commercial, compressed for radio dominance, unashamed of choruses and clean production. Sixteen Stone sits at that crossroads, polished enough to dominate American rock radio but still raw enough to feel urgent. It’s an album born from rejection, rescued by persistence, and vindicated by connection with millions who didn’t care what critics thought.

Perfect for: Post-grunge historians tracking the genre’s US dominance, vinyl collectors cursing limited UK pressings, anyone who remembers when Bush was inescapable on American radio but invisible in Britain, producers studying loudness wars and compression techniques, songwriters interested in lyrical collage methods, fans of Live/Candlebox/Silverchair’s era, people who’ve argued with AI about music genres, and anyone who’s ever been told their work isn’t good enough by gatekeepers who turned out to be spectacularly wrong.