Formation Mascis and Barlow played together, on drums and guitar respectively, in the
hardcore punk band
Deep Wound, formed in 1982 while the pair were attending high school in western
Massachusetts. After high school, they began exploring slower yet still aggressive music like
Black Sabbath,
the Replacements, and
Neil Young. Mascis's college friend
Gerard Cosloy introduced him to psychedelic-influenced pop bands like
Dream Syndicate, which Mascis in turn showed to Barlow. Barlow explained, "We loved
speed metal ... and we loved wimpy-
jangly stuff". Deep Wound broke up in mid-1984. Cosloy had dropped out of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst to focus on running his independent record label,
Homestead Records. He promised Mascis that if he were to make a record, Homestead would release it. Mascis wrote a number of songs by himself and showed them to Barlow, to whom he offered the bassist position. Barlow described the songs as "...fucking brilliant... They were so far beyond. I was still into two-chord songs and basic stuff like 'I'm so sad.' While I was really into my own little tragedy, J was operating in this whole other panorama." Mascis enlisted vocalist Charlie Nakajima, also formerly of Deep Wound, and drummer Emmett Patrick Murphy (otherwise known as Murph) to complete the band. Mascis explained the concept behind the group as "ear-bleeding country". The band was initially named Mogo, and they played their first show on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in the first week of September 1984. However, Nakajima used the performance to launch an extended anti-police tirade. Mascis was so appalled by Nakajima's behavior at the show that he disbanded the group the next day. A few days later, Mascis invited Barlow and Murph to form a new band without telling Nakajima. "I was kind of like too wimpy to kick him out, exactly," Mascis later admitted. "Communicating with people has been a constant problem in the band." The trio named themselves Dinosaur, and Mascis and Barlow took over lead vocal duties.
Dinosaur Dinosaur began playing gigs all over Amherst. Their extremely loud live performances often alienated audience members and angered venue owners. This forced them to play frequent out of town shows, and early gigs at such venues as New York's
CBGB and Boston's
the Channel would give Dinosaur a much needed boost. Their debut album
Dinosaur was released in 1985, for which Mascis wrote all of the songs. The vocals were done by Mascis in his trademark nasal drawl, which was often compared to singer Neil Young. Though originally unimpressed by the first Dinosaur performance they saw, Sonic Youth approached the band after watching them play several months later, declaring themselves fans. Sonic Youth invited Dinosaur to join them on tour in the American Northeast and northern Midwest in September 1986.
'''' and name change Dinosaur recorded much of their second album, '''', with Sonic Youth engineer
Wharton Tiers in New York. Tensions emerged during the recording process between Mascis and Murph due to Mascis' very specific ideas for the drum parts. Barlow recalled, "J controlled Murph's every drumbeat ... And Murph could not handle that. Murph wanted to kill J for the longest time." Gerard Cosloy was excited by the completed album, but was devastated when Mascis told him the band was going to release it on California-based
SST Records. Mascis was reluctant to sign a two-album deal with Homestead, which Cosloy felt betrayed by, "There was
no way I couldn't take it personally." ''
was released in 1987; early copies of the record in the Boston area were packaged with the Weed Forestin''' tape, the first release by Barlow's side project
Sebadoh. The album received much more attention in the indie-rock community than the debut. Barlow also composed two songs: the hardcore-influenced "Lose" and an acoustic song entitled "Poledo" that anticipated his work with
Sebadoh. Immediately following the release of '''', a
supergroup called
Dinosaurs (featuring ex-members of
Country Joe and the Fish,
Quicksilver Messenger Service,
Hot Tuna, the
Grateful Dead, and
Jefferson Airplane) sued Dinosaur over the use of the name, prompting the addition of "Jr."
Bug and Barlow's departure Dinosaur Jr. had a significant breakthrough in the United Kingdom with their debut single for
Blast First, "
Freak Scene", in 1988. A version with censored lyrics was issued for radio use, reaching number 4 in the UK independent chart. It stayed on the chart for 12 weeks. The band's third album,
Bug, followed shortly afterwards, reaching number 1 on the UK independent chart and spending 38 weeks on the chart. Despite the album's success, tension between Mascis and Barlow began interfering with the band's productivity. In 1989, after touring in support of
Bug, Barlow was kicked out of the band. Barlow focused his attention on his former side-project
Sebadoh. "The Freed Pig", the opening track on 1991's
Sebadoh III, documents Barlow's frustration with Mascis and feeling of being treated poorly in Dinosaur Jr. Meanwhile, the band embarked on an Australian tour with
Donna Dresch filling in for Barlow. In 1990, the band released a new single,"
The Wagon", on
Sub Pop, their first release since Barlow's departure. The single featured a short-lived lineup including guitarist
Don Fleming and drummer Jay Spiegel from the band
Gumball, in addition to Mascis and Murph.
Major label years Despite the ongoing turmoil in their lineup, Dinosaur Jr. signed with
Sire Records in 1990, and made their major-label debut with
Green Mind in 1991. This record heavily featured Mascis, with Murph playing drums on only a few songs, as well as minimal contributions from Fleming and Spiegel, who were out of the band by the time the album was released. Mascis recorded many of the drum parts by himself and layered the various instrumental parts through
overdubbing. The band found their live shows well received in the changing musical climate of the early 1990s and decided to record new material with the new lineup. This time, the recording sessions included full participation from Murph and Johnson, with the former playing most of the drums and the latter playing all of the bass parts, singing harmony vocals, and even contributing a few guitar solos. This material represented the peak of the band's commercial success, with the single
Start Choppin' reaching the top 20 in the UK, and the album that followed,
Where You Been, reaching the UK top 10 and the US top 50. The opening track, "
Out There", had an accompanying video and was aired on
MTV for a short time on the show
120 Minutes. Although their new material was more accessible than the band's 1980s albums, in terms of playing, it represented a partial return to the more unrestrained power-trio sound of the original lineup. Murph left the band after touring for
Where You Been and was replaced for the band's live shows by George Berz, leaving Mascis as the sole remaining original member. However, the band's subsequent albums would be recorded mostly by Mascis on his own, playing everything except for the bass and some of the harmony vocals, which continued to be handled by Mike Johnson. The commercial success continued with 1994's
Without a Sound, which placed well in both the US and UK album charts.
Without a Sound notably contained the lead single "
Feel the Pain", which became the band's highest-charting single (No. 4 on the
Alternative Airplay chart and No. 25 on the
UK Singles chart). 1997's
Hand It Over suffered from a lack of promotion by the band's label, as Mascis claimed that the album did not contain a "hit single" (although "Take a Run at the Sun", which only appeared on certain editions of the album, peaked at No. 53 on the UK Singles chart). Due to the lack of promotion and a low turnout during their 1997 tour, Mascis finally retired the Dinosaur Jr. name, with the group's final live performance being an appearance on the American talk show
The Jenny Jones Show. In 2000, Mascis released the first of two solo albums under the name
J Mascis + The Fog.
2005 reunion and onward Mascis and Barlow began to reconcile when Mascis began showing up at
Sebadoh shows. "I think he was kind of aware of how much shit I was talking about him," Barlow noted in a 2005 interview, "but I don't think he really ever pursued any of it. One of the things that really triggered this, for me to finally just go, 'Hey, you know, maybe this could work,' is when I realized that maybe J wasn't really holding any kind of grudge against me because he didn't like me. I was thinking, maybe he just didn't realize what he had done, or maybe he wasn't really aware of how much he'd actually hurt me. And when I started to realize that, he kind of became more human to me." In 2002, the two shared the stage for two shows in London, with Barlow singing "
I Wanna Be Your Dog" along with Mascis,
Ron Asheton,
Scott Asheton and
Mike Watt, who had been performing
Stooges songs as "Asheton, Asheton, Mascis and Watt". Mascis regained the master rights to the band's first three albums from SST in 2004 and arranged for their reissue on
Merge in early 2005. Later that year, he and Barlow shared the stage at a benefit show for
autism at
Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts organized by Barlow's mother, and played together as
Deep Wound after Mascis and Sebadoh had completed their respective sets. '' tour, February 1, 2013 Following the reissues in 2005, Mascis, Barlow, and Murph finally reunited to play on
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on April 15, 2005. In June that year, they kicked off a tour of Europe. While performing in New York City in 2006, much of the band's equipment was stolen while stored outside their hotel. The band members were later among the curators of 2006's
All Tomorrow's Parties festival. In 2007, the original members of Dinosaur Jr. released
Beyond on
Fat Possum Records, their first album of new material as a trio since
Bug in 1988. It was met with critical acclaim, receiving an 8.4 rating from
Pitchfork Media and garnering positive reviews from the music press as a whole. It was considered somewhat of a sonic paradox in that even though it featured the original members who produced "two records so drenched in noise they still sound like aural assaults decades after their original release," sonically it resembled the major label releases of the 1990s in both production values and stylistic range. On the other hand, while the sound was not as extreme as the original lineup's 1980s albums, it did feature a bigger, more unrestrained, and more live-sounding feel than their 1990s albums, though Barlow's bass was noticeably quieter. Barlow made his mark on the music in other ways; for the first time since ''
, he contributed to the songwriting. The album went on to have good commercial success, debuting on the Billboard'' 200 at number 69 its opening week. In February 2009, the band signed with indie label
Jagjaguwar. The band's first release on the new label was an album titled
Farm which was released on June 23, 2009. Murph said the album was recorded at Mascis's home and marked a return to the heavier,
Where You Been LP era. The album reached number 29 on the
Billboard 200, making it the band's highest-charting album in the US. To promote the album, the band played
Farm's lead-off track, "Pieces", on
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on June 25, 2009. Dinosaur Jr. released their second album for Jagjaguwar,
I Bet on Sky, in September 2012, to favourable reviews. In December 2015, Murph confirmed the band had entered the studio to begin working on their follow up to
I Bet on Sky. The album
Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not was released on August 5, 2016, on Jagjaguwar. In February 2019, the song "Over Your Shoulder" from the band's 1994 album
Without a Sound reached number 18 on Japan's
Billboard charts. The cause is suspected to be the song's use on the Japanese TV show called
Gachinko Fight Club. In February 2021, the band announced their 12th album
Sweep It Into Space, which was released on April 23, 2021. The album was originally scheduled for release in mid-2020 but was delayed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The album was preceded by the single "I Ran Away" on February 23, 2021, with a music video for the song being released on March 3, 2021. The second single, "Garden", was released with a music video on March 31, 2021. The band announced a 2021
North American tour to support the album was planned to begin in September 2021 and would conclude in February 2022. In 2024, the band, along with
The Flaming Lips, served as the opening act for
Weezer during their
Voyage to the Blue Planet concert tour. Dinosaur Jr. announced a 2025 American summer tour with
Snail Mail. ==Musical style and influences==