It's Weed Week, so we're lighting up a monster joint and celebrating all things marijuana. In honor of the occasion we had a stoner who doesn't listen to metal rank stoner albums. We also had a metalhead who doesn't smoke weed rank stoner metal albums. What follows is the later.
I remember the first time I ever smoked weed. I was about 13 at the time, and the boy I liked, Steve, was super into being a stoner. His eyes were always red, he talked at a stumbling glacial pace, he sucked at school, and he really only talked to me when the subject of nu-metal came up (as far as I was concerned, it was kind of our "thing"). For some reason, I thought all of these excruciatingly obvious red flags were all super attractive. So, one day, determined to forge a deeper connection, I plucked up the courage to ask him to sell me a "dime bag," as I was pretty sure it was called. We made the exchange the next day after lunch, and then I promptly forgot about it until about a week later, when he asked if I wanted any more. Shit.
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After school, my best friend Beth came over to help me on my quest for stoner bliss. We scampered out to the back corner of my family's property, where she served as a lookout. Sweating bullets, I crouched down next to my dad's butcher shed and furtively pulled out my little baggie and the "one-hitter" that Steve had thrown in to sweeten the deal. It was made out of a grey pen, and got very hot as soon as I held the flame up to its tiny "bowl," which I'd packed (loosely) with mysterious green herbiage.In retrospect, Steve had definitely sold me what I've come to realize is known as "dirt weed"—the shittiest possible kind of weed, and a terrible way to introduce oneself to the alleged wonders of cannabis. At that point, though, I was determined to make it happen. A couple of puffs and ensuing flurry of dry, racking coughs later, I… felt the same. After a few minutes, I convinced myself that I "totally feel something," but all I really felt was bummed that I'd wasted ten bucks on a sore throat and muddy knees.Every close encounter of the green kind I've had since has been summarily disappointing—from coughing through high school parties, to huffing gravity bongs in college, to the time I ate a weed cookie at Roadburn and fell asleep during OM. One time, I accidentally ate a weed brownie on the first day of my first tour running merch for Corrosion of Conformity, and legitimately thought I was dying. The few times I have actually managed to get high, it went wrong; I'd get all giggly and silly and say a bunch of dumb shit, and then get really hungry and eat a bunch of garbage food… and then, I'd end up getting really sad and upset, because I didn't want to be high anymore, but couldn't make it stop. I'm sure this is the kind of thing you'd get over if you smoked more habitually and built up some tolerance, but I personally just don't see the point of wasting all that time when whiskey exists.
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At this point (even while leaving treacherous baked goods out of the equation) I generally just… hate… weed. I know that's a controversial thing to say on this website, but I cannot hold my silence any longer. I hate how it smells, how the smoke soaks into my hair when people around me are smoking it, and the effect that it has on me. I also 100 percent believe that it should be legal, and that anyone incarcerated for selling (or using) it should be promptly freed and given reparations—but beyond that, keep it the fuck away from me.On a more superficial (but still annoying!) level, I hate the way that it's seen as some kind of prerequisite for enjoying albums by some of my favorite bands. See, I hate weed, but I love stoner metal. Whether we're talking lumbering ganja-stained riffs, or fuzzy-wuzzy psych, or desperate, dirty sludge, I'm all in—and the insinuation that I'm somehow "missing something" about bands like Sleep or Bongzilla just because they like weed and I don't is more than a little grating. I love EyeHateGod, too, but that doesn't mean I'm stoked on heroin, you know?In talking about this with my coworkers, I decided that I need to make a stand for all the sober stoner doom lovers out there. The term "stoner doom" itself can be as fuzzy as an Orange amp set to stun, so for the purpose of this exercise, I'm focusing on the "metal" part, and leaving out obvious stoner rock rifflords Kyuss, Nebula, Fu Manchu, and Graveyard in favor of their more distorted counterparts. So, without further ado, here are what I consider to be the top ten stoner metal albums of all time… ranked by someone who really, really fuckin' hates weed.
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10. Belzebong, Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves
9. Acid King, Busse Woods
Fun fact about San Francisco's Acid King: they allegedly took their name from the Acid King, a local drug dealer who'd murdered a friend over angel dust while high on mescaline. With that kind of auspicious origin story, how could they be anything but dark, cosmic, and utterly addictive? Guitarist and vocalist Lori S. formed the band back in 1993, and 1999's Busse Woods still stands as one of Acid King's finest hours. Every inescapably groovy note is perfectly calibrated to life your spirits and bow your head, and Lori's tough, soaring vocals especially stand out in a genre crowded with crooning hippie dudes. Heavy on biker vibes and a life-fast-or-die-trying attitude, Acid King is the odd stoner band that actually seems like they might kick your ass once they finish their bowl.
8. Goatsnake, Flowers of Disease
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7. Saint Vitus, Born Too Late
6. Melvins, Stoner Witch
One of my favorite tidbits about the Melvins is that, while they released this album and have generally served as messy spiritual forefathers to all manner of sluggish, ugly, difficult, druggy heavy music, band mouthpiece and chief hair farmer King Buzzo doesn't even smoke weed. He's on my team! One assumes this general aversion to drugs is a result of growing up in the Seattle grunge scene and seeing a bunch of his friends meet grisly ends at the end of a needle, but only he knows for sure. Anyway, in addition to spawning at least a few dozen Instagram handles, Stoner Witch is weird as shit, riffy as hell, and seems like it would definitely freak out anyone who was in any way impaired in a (probably?) good way.
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5. Black Sabbath, Master of Reality
4. Weedeater, God Luck and Good Speed
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3. Electric Wizard, Dopethrone
2. Sleep, Holy Mountain
1. Sleep, Dopesmoker
This is it, the granddaddy of them all, the ultimate stoner metal album: Dopesmoker. Drop out of life with bong in hand, and follow the smoke toward Matt Pike's gloriously heavy, mind-melting, riff-filled land (just try not to inhale).
BONUS: BONGRIPPER, Hippie Killer
I just wanted to stick this on here because Bongripper rules and so does this album, even though it doesn't really fall under what I'd consider to be stoner doom (it is, however, very trippy and warped, which might work well with weed?). I am also firmly anti-hippie, partly because I hate weed so much. Phish sucks, tie-dye is stupid, and metal rules. Later, nerds!
Kim Kelly will not be getting stoned on 4/20. Follow her on Twitter.
Check out the rest of Noisey's Weed Week here.