Modern Rock #1 Hits of 1996

pretty good, underrated album imo, i rate it only slightly below their best '80s LPs

yeah I think so too. Like Monster this was a used-CD bin perennial

yeah Too High to Die took me a long time to get into, but once it clicked I saw it truly as a thing of beauty. I love how the "We Don't Exist" chorus is just "Cayenne" sung over and over

Also no way is "Pepper" (or "Ironic") the worst song of the same year that inflicted "Crash Into Me" onto the world.

"sharon got sharice, she was sharin' sharon's outlook on the topic of disease" is the kind of horseshit that will bounce around my brain cells til the day that i die that i can usually blame dexter holland or gavin rossdale for putting in there

yeah "Pepper" is kinda there's-money-to-be-made-and-we-know-how-to-do-this-so-let's-get-paid stuff but it has one Gibby line that's so much in his classic mode that it got a pass from me - "they were all in love with dying/they were doing it in Texas" is BH Cream Corn era acid-evocative, though I consider it you-had-to-be-there stuff; if that band came to your town circa '86/'87 and you saw the show, it left marks on your brain, they were something special for a minute there so when they lost the plot it sort seemed like "pay these guys, they've been working long hours for ten years now"

I dug both Too High To Die and No Joke!. Haven't listened to either in years, though.

I thought I was "supposed" to like the Butthole Surfers and tried to for a long time before I realized that I didn't much. Occasionally decent songs but that's about it.

"Pepper" has some lines here and there that would be good in the right context but that deadpan-staccato-through-a-telephone-receiver-over-shitty-loops mid '90s alt sound makes everything banal and worthless

http://i.saucesome.net/PZ7.jpg

"Pepper" has some lines here and there that would be good in the right context but that deadpan-staccato-through-a-telephone-receiver-over-shitty-loops mid '90s alt sound makes everything banal and worthless

That's the point. Surfers achieved their greatest commercial successes by taking the piss.

i dunno man. what did they do with that 'success'? they only made one more album, 4 years later, and the lead single was basically like "Pepper" but even worse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeTyW9zQ-Sg

i mean a lot of bands in that era made kind of silly pop moves but then leveraged that to kind of continue on their own weird path (like, say, the Flaming Lips) but it seems to me like the Surfers just ran into a total creative ditch and never returned

Surfers got a rough ride from Capitol records when they refused to release their 1998 album. By 2001 they were a spent entity. Have to remember that "Pepper" was 15 years into their career.

But I was mainly talking about "Pepper" and "Who Was In My Room Last Night?" which were the closest they had to hits. Both play on the trends of the time and are stupid by even their standards.

leveraged that to kind of continue on their own weird path (like, say, the Flaming Lips)

^^^gibby is bitter about this

xpost

Post-Touch & Go lawsuit karma?

Anyone remember P.? I just this moment remembered they were a thing.

I recently found my Trouser Press 90s book and read the Butthole Surfers + side projects entry. I'm wondering if I should at long last check out the P record

lol "Champagne Supernova" is not going to siphon many votes from "Wonderwall"

― some dude, Friday, May 25, 2012 1:50 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought this too, but here we are

I

I love "pepper"

When I saw the Buttholez live recently they did it at like twice the speed and just devolved it into noise by the chorus. They def look back with equal disdain and hilarity

I found this out much later, but it was Gabby Hayes singing on "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" from Ministry circa 1991/92.

This guy? That's news to me!

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/gabby.jpg

Gibby Haynes must be angry someone is going around stealing work from him.

Especially a dude who died in 1969.

I was curious as to how "Pepper" was received at the time in my old fanzine, so I went back and checked. People like me who were comparatively older (i.e., 30s and beyond) uniformly loved it, giving it 8.0 or higher; people who were in their 20s almost uniformly hated it, except Gavin Edwards. The very youngest person, though, who I think was maybe 17 or 18 at the time, she loved it too. People tended to write very long comments. Most notable exception was Jeff Pike, who wrote "Sell out!" and gave it an 8.0.

HA - Freudian slip... or slip of some kind.

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I liked it enough to buy the album at 18 or 19 or whateverthehell. Same could not be said for "Who Was In My Room Last Night?" (those two songs marking the extent of my BS exposure at the time).

Most notable exception was Jeff Pike, who wrote "Sell out!" and gave it an 8.0.

lol, awesome.

Same could not be said for "Who Was In My Room Last Night?"

This track was so far superior to "Pepper" I was really bummed out that it didn't cross over in the same way.

I always thought the Surfersk second biggest hit was "Hurdy Gurdy Man"

Surfer SK was a really weird comeback album IMO although I know a lot of people stan for it.

I like the compressed distorto-tremolo guitar sound in Pepper, and also the cheesy Bollywood synth strings.

while i always loved the butthole surfers' faster and more rocking songs ("butthole surfer", "human cannonball", "fast") and often at least half wished they'd do a few more of them, i wound up somewhat disappointed with independent worm saloon, their big hard rock move. "strawberry" is all time; love "who was in my room", "dust devil" and "edgar"; like at least a few more - but the constant, industrial-strength pound & grind gets kind of boring over the long haul. the first BHS album that really felt bloated, and unsurprisingly their first that was clearly sequenced for the CD era. nice to see them finally knuckle down and kick some ass, texas style, but i miss the textural variety and experimental weirdness of the early albums.

[/digression]

re: johnny's praise of "who was in my room"

I always thought the Surfersk second biggest hit was "Hurdy Gurdy Man"

i don't think "hurdy gurdy man" charted in either the US or the UK, though i'm not certain. it did get some MTV play. "who was in my room" was at least a minor modern rock hit in the US.

I loved 'Worm Saloon'-era Buttholes-as-metal-band. I bet if they kept that up, they would have never had a "Pepper" but might be still making records for The End or Hydra Head or somethin

I recall "Pepper" as being critically revered.. 95/96/97 had a lot of "finally" moments for long-term 120 Minutes bands finally scoring 1 hit. I don't think the song is worth being ashamed of. It still sounds like they wrote it under hallucinogens, and besides the radio-ubiquity it doesn't really feel like an obvious attempt to sell out or anything.. It fits into their late-period discography nicely.

At least it didn't have acoustic guitar, which is included on most of my least-favorite Butt tracks.

John E Smoke?!?!?

At least it didn't have acoustic guitar, which is included on most of my least-favorite Butt tracks.

― billstevejim, Monday, May 28, 2012 1:49 PM Bookmark

I don't know the song but there is something beautifully Geir-ish about this, in a world where Geir was a big-time Butthole Surfers fan.

I remember when somebody asked Marcus about one of the those Sex Pistols reunion tours (the first one, I think), he laughed and said he didn't begrudge them anything; they did so much to make the world a more interesting place, they were entitled to do whatever they wanted to do.

On a much smaller scale, that's part of what I feel about "Pepper." In the early '80s, the Butthole Surfers were about as far away as one could get from the place where people made hit records and made a lot of money. For a brief period in the mid-'90s, a window had improbably opened whereby they could get some commercial airplay and make a little money. So they wrote a (to me) really catchy song that sounded like Beck; the lyrics were more or less as weird as what they'd always written, albeit less profane (who cares). Good for them.

lol "Champagne Supernova" is not going to siphon many votes from "Wonderwall"

― some dude, Friday, May 25, 2012 1:50 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought this too, but here we are

― Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna (The Yellow Kid), Monday, May 28, 2012 12:27 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark

holy fucking shit, what is WRONG with you people

"Champagne Supernova" is a fine song! Maybe a bit long but it's got some good lines, well-delivered, and a good overall wash of sound. Beats the pants off anything on Be Here Now although I know that's sort of faint praise. I'd basically rather hear it than "Wonderwall" most of the time.

yeah comparing to Be Here Now is totally stacking the deck, let's just say it's the worst of those 10 singles from the first two Oasis albums

It sports one of the grossest guitar solos in the history of gross guitar solos.

No way, it is definitely better than "Roll With It!"

This "oh no! they dumbed down/sold out/whatever!" talk is hilarious to me as someone who's never heard a Buttholes song other than "Pepper" and thinks it's great.

i don't even think they necessarily dumbed down or sold out, it's just horrible and tiresome to me

As popular as it was with Oasis fans in 1996, and even though it had a music video made for it, 'Champagne Supernova' wasn't a single here in the UK. The video recieved a lot of airplay, but there wasn't a single release. I remember one or two people getting confused, because they'd see the video to 'Champagne Supernova' on the music channels and thought it was coming out as a single. See also: 'Morning Glory', which also had a video made for it which also received a lot of airplay in the UK, but only came out as a single in Australia(!)

dr c with the real talk itt weller backing guitar solo 4 lyfe

yeah it's funny how dramatically different Oasis's singles campaigns were in the US compared to the UK. iirc "Morning Glory" was also the first single off the album in the US, or at least the first one i heard on the radio moderately before "Wonderwall" broke huge.