Belly arrived at a strange time for
alternative rock. Prior to the early 1993 release of their debut,
Star, they had released a series of critically acclaimed U.K. EPs that balanced the shimmering, otherworldly quality of
Throwing Muses with an increased sense of songcraft from ex-
Muse/
Breeder Tanya Donelly --
dream pop that really emphasized the
pop, while adding emotional undercurrents that could shift from sweetness to haunting within one song.
Star, like the EPs, captured this well, and since it arrived when all things
alt-rock had a shot at the charts, they actually had a gold album and a
Billboard hit with
"Feed the Tree." This led to semistardom -- not nearly as big as
Kurt-n-
Courtney or
Eddie, nor as gossip-worthy as
Evan-n-
Juliana, but to a lot of appearances at festivals and even the cover of
Rolling Stone, which meant that they wanted to broaden their audience and sound with their second album, the
Glyn Johns-produced
King. Though the selected songs were good, the big, glossy production didn't quite fit, but it came to define
Belly -- deliberately, too, since they began to remix their British hits for
MTV and modern
rock radio.
Rhino's 2002 collection
Sweet Ride: The Best of Belly collects all of the singles, but not necessarily in their original form. Included are
"Gepetto" in the remix version (which was, admittedly, U.S. single version); the live version of
"Dusted"; a U.S.-radio mix of
"Feed the Tree." There are a couple of key album tracks, and a whole lotta B-sides: a wonderful, slyly sexy version of
"Trust in Me" from
Disney's
The Jungle Book, a cover of
"Hot Burrito #1," and, of course, the tremendous title track. There's also some collector-bait ephemera here, okay
King B-sides, a French version of a song from
King, and a cover of
"Are You Experienced?" ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
