Jane's Addiction -- Ritual de lo Habitual

This album's 25th anniversary recently came and went, foisting upon me some rather uncomfortable thoughts about my age but also spurning me to resurrect this blog.
The hubbub around the release of Ritual de lo Habitual--because of its cover--was probably the first time I was cognizant of the concept of trolling, though no one would've called it that, then. The "censored" art was in the bag before the album even came out. Hey, I didn't like the PMRC any more than the next 16 year-old, but I didn't particularly appreciate inorganic controversy then any more than I do now either.

Anyway, thinking about the album qua an album is kind of hard to do in that the difference between the two sides (sides?) might be the most striking of any non-concept album of which I'm aware. Side 1 is a collection of loveable if not almost forgettable rockers--naturally the worst of them all became the single and hence probably the band's most recognized song, "Been Caught Stealin'". But side 2...side 2 is an unimpeachable and perfectly sequenced classic. Timeless, without a hitch. If the whole album was as good as its second side, it'd be one of the top ten albums of all time. The band perfectly, simultaneously, reigns Perry Farrell away from Jim Morrison territory while allowing him to flourish. (Maybe that means the same thing.)

Best Song

Perry's drug- and sex-fueled mediation on anthropology, 'Three Days'. But really, almost, the second side might be taken as its own concept album centered around the idea of family.

Released
August 21 1990.

Acquired
Almost certainly August 25 1990.

Next Closest
Surely others have written on JA's relation to their contemporaries on Sunset Boulevard during the mid- to late-1980s. If Ratt and Poison and Guns-n-Roses had been listening to less Kiss and more Velvet Underground (and had been less stridently heterosexual), they'd be Jane's Addiction.

Brush with greatness (note: may include name-dropping): I saw Jane's Addiction at Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha on May 20 1991. It was pretty transcendent.