Their original works (the "In a Car" ep and "Meat Puppets I" lp) were wholeheartedly punk, with unintelligible vocals on surreal themes and often ferociously sloppy musicianship. Yet they never lost a certain southwestern flair, and even did a snarling cover of "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds."
"Meat Puppets II" appeared, as did the first album, on SST Records. This thoroughly eclectic album included more psychedelia, acid rock, and quieter tunes alongside the western-style thrash. In the early 1990s, the Meat Puppets found themselves suddenly popular when Kurt Cobain played three of the songs from this album with Curt and Cris on MTV.
But the overdriven dominance all but disappeared on their third album, the landmark "Up On the Sun," which eschewed all traces of "standard" punk rock formats in favor of songs more gentle and groovy with solid melodies. The music had more in common with the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty" than with the Dead Kennedys' "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables."
With the championing of 70s rock amongst other punk bands (namely Black Flag's Black Sabbathisms, the Minutemen's paeans to [Steely Dan]? and [Van Halen]?, and Society System Decontrol's pure heavy metal "How We Rock"), the Meat Puppets helped to nourish the full flowering of indie rock as a kind of "third stream" of punk rock.
Over the next decade, the Meat Puppets released a series of albums, both on SST and finally on major labels, which unabashedly hearkened back to [ZZ Top]? and Led Zeppelin without being derivative. Cris Kirkwood's cool melodic bass lines blended uniquely with his brother's boogie rock pyrotechnics. Curt is the only original member left in the band as of 2001.
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