Nothing's Shocking is the debut studio album by American rock band Jane's Addiction, released on August 23, 1988 through Warner Bros. Records.
The band's frontman, Perry Farrell, appreciated Dave Jerden's work as engineer on David Byrne and Brian Eno's album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Bassist Eric Avery said he and the other members – guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins – were stunned by these demands.
[14] Farrell and his then girlfriend Casey Niccoli created the cover image, which features a sculpture of nude female conjoined twins on a rocking chair with their heads on fire.
[19] Lack of airplay on MTV and modern rock radio meant Nothing's Shocking sold only 200,000 to 250,000 copies in its first year of release.
[22] Other than the addition of remastering production credits and a cardboard slipcase over the standard jewel case, the liner notes and artwork are almost identical to the original release.
[28] Los Angeles Times critic Richard Cromelin commented that Jane's Addiction "sounds supremely assured as it alternates its taut, brutal metal alloy with oddly endearing moments of reflection", describing their style as "a bracing throwback to rebellious sources and forces of excess like old Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper".
[24] Ken Tucker, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, found the album's lyrics incomprehensible in meaning, but viewed them as secondary to the music, which he deemed "first-rate – deceptively slapdash, passionately messy, thoroughly exhilarating.
's Phil Wilding hailed Jane's Addiction as "the second coming" and posited that their innovation would be "understood" over time,[23] while Q's Martin Aston wrote that the band manages to recall acts such as Led Zeppelin and Van Halen without resorting to "the plagiarism that plagues the HM/hard rock genre.
"[27] Jack Barron of NME credited Jane's Addiction for having "breadth" and concluded that they "come from a town ruled by glam where talent is only mascara deep, but this is no five-year-old's IQ on show here.
[31] The poll's curator, Robert Christgau, was lukewarm toward the record, summarizing Jane's Addiction as "Alice Cooper revisited" while conceding that "if they stick at it like the pros they'll be, they might land an 'Only Women Bleed.
'"[30] In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Greg Prato called Nothing's Shocking a "now classic" album and "a must-have for lovers of cutting-edge, influential, and timeless hard rock.
"[4] Steve Hochman, writing in the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, regarded it as an "often stunning" work whose songs juxtapose "slinky Zeppelin thunder with personal/poetic imagery recalling Lou Reed.
"[29] "Even with all the baggage of prophecy and influence," wrote Ian Cohen of Pitchfork, "Nothing's Shocking lives as a poignant, almost quixotic work of Hollywood imagination".