The 40 Weirdest Post-'Nevermind' Major-Label Albums (according to Spin)

It's between Fudge Tunnel and God for me. Love both those records - they're in my iPod right now. Saw FT on that tour, in fact, with Sepultura, Fear Factory and Clutch.

Wait, is the Claw Hammer in the poll the same one that made Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Not Devo? Cos that was a completely fucking great record, but I never explored any further than that.

best thing abt the God alb being on a major label = lots of cheap review copies at Music & Video Exchange

fudge tunnel and butt trumpet, it was great that the major labels were signing 12-year-old boys back then...

And Mr. Bung Hole

choke choke choke choke choke choke choke choke suck suck suck suck suck suck suck suck

Voting for the Gorky's Zygotic Mynci comp, their early stuff was so great. I like the Drive Like Jehu and Melvins albums a lot too but yeah this

Shudder to Think - Pony Express Record wuz robbed

is OTM.

I only own the Cop Shoot Cop album, so that one. Plus it's frickin' great.

I need to go back to that Cop Shoot Cop album; I remember it being great but I can't bring to mind any of the songs on it.

(basically whenever I try to remember how a Cop Shoot Cop song goes, I get the Spiritualized song stuck in my head)

"let's make a band with all the worst aspects of frank zappa & none of the amazing music"*

pretty much everything about this statement should be so apparently wrong to anyone who's listened to even one Ween album

trolling Ween fans has become one of my favorite ilx pastimes, i could do this all day

I have the tee-shirt for that Cop Shoot Cop album but I play "Release" all the time to this day and this is despite totaling my car while playing it (I still remember going to the junkyard to pry the CD from the stereo and, yes, I still have that CD.)

In my universe, this song was a #1 hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RbnshwWL-A

While wearing the aforementioned shirt and living in Ohio, some guy came up to me and complimented me on it. I was a little inebriated so I started to go on how I loved the band, saw them live and got to interview them back in the day. The guy mistook my drunken enthusiasm for bragging. He sized me up and bitterly spat out "Oh yeah? Well, I did coke with them! How's that?!?"

Um, okay, dude. You win.

I don't know if this detail matters, but Mr. Bungle were already signed to and had an album released by WB before Disco Volante. The self-titled album came out in '91. I remember the lyric, "Will Warner Brothers put our record on the shelf" in "Carousel."

Voted 'Steel Pole Bath Tub' - Chicago record store and label Permanent Records released their swan song, 'Unlistenable,' last year. It's named after the Slash Records A&R team's reaction when they brought it to the table. It's pretty friggin' awesome too. Just looked up their wikipedia entry and it seems they've had a good run of making video game music!

that first Bungle album is so so great, even if part of me holds a grudge due to hyperextending my elbow in the pit at their show and having a fucked-up arm for years afterward as a result

I didn't know Yank Crime was on a major! I haven't listened to half of these. That Mr. Bungle album rules but I voted Boredoms

I love the first Bungle album. It makes me feel 13 all over again without feeling the slightest hint of shame. The music is just that cool.

I don't know if this detail matters, but Mr. Bungle were already signed to and had an album released by WB before Disco Volante. The self-titled album came out in '91. I remember the lyric, "Will Warner Brothers put our record on the shelf" in "Carousel."

― afriendlypioneer, Friday, January 11, 2013 10:07 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah there was def a little bit of cheating on that entry, but the fact remains that no one ever said WB had to put out a SECOND Bungle record

especially one with a 10-minute musique concrete suite on it

The hit single off the Cop Shoot Cop album was $10 Bill - a genuine chart hit in Britain after Jakki Brambles championed it on daytime radio and played it every show.

Well, I just learned some things about Fred Armisen and Carla Bozulich

Hello, I gather I was invoked earlier.

Dude, you owned this thread without even showing up.

Hahah well then.

Now we all want to know what you vote for.
Or at least, I do.

Sorry, I do not vote in poll threads (nor do I start them). I will stand by that assessment of Pop Tatari, though.

listening to interstate right now, first time in a while -- definitely not the best pell mell album but great nonetheless.

Do you think any of these actually paid off for the labels?
Pure Guava must've made some dough by now.

Trenchmouth was really trading

Raging

Yank Crime for me...will be checking a load of these out though, sweet thread!

Do you think any of these actually paid off for the labels?

royal trux definitely did not

Pitchfork: You started making Accelerator with Virgin but it was released on Drag City. What's the story behind that?

JH: We dictated the whole thing, actually. We requested to be let out of the contract after Sweet Sixteen. We knew that [Virgin] couldn't get their head around what we were doing. But having signed the contract for three records, they were going to have to pay us for a third record no matter what. And in the contract, we were given total artistic free reign-- we'd administer our own budgets and we didn't have to have them sign off on anything.
So after Sweet Sixteen came out, we basically freaked the fuck out of [Virgin]. We told them that we were going to make this other record right now, and that we were going to do it on eight tracks with no producer. Then we'd have the lawyer convince them that it would be easier for them to give us all the money for that record and not have to spend anything to promote it. That was our game. So we got exactly what we wanted, because the record was paid for by Virgin, even though it wasn't even started when we got the money. Then we went about recording it however we wanted and finished up the trilogy as it were.
NH: It wasn't really a relief to get away from Virgin since we had a good deal-- I think they were pretty lame though. Our [Virgin] deal was for two LPs straight out, then they had an option for the third, but they had to decline by a certain date. We got paid one fee if they declined, one fee if they accepted-- and then if they declined, they had to buy out the remaining options on our contract. If they had stuck with the contract, they would have put out Accelerator, Veterans, and Pound4Pound-- all of which would have been done with bigger producers, and they might have eventually been able to break one of them. But fuck them.

ha never saw this video before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGI6mbD0E9A

love Firewater, bums me out that Cop Shoot Cop's albums don't seem to be in print or on itunes/spotify, etc.

who could have predicted this wasn't going to fly off the shelves!?!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0MzSeqFbaZY/TpzchghicMI/AAAAAAAAAAk/GC23OaCxtAI/s400/Royal%20Trux.jpg

feel like this is the apex of major label weird
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a16igonZo20

it's funny at the time there was so much hand-wringing and angst about The Man co-opting the underground, but now looking back on it, it's like it was free ice cream day at ben & jerry's

http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/images/15/music/the_man.jpg

in a sense the underground was co-opted by signing everybody and showing them that anything beyond niche careerism was too hard a mountain to climb

also kind of funny how boomers get to be all WE CHANGED THE WORLD while 90s nostalgiacs are more "man remember when we dressed funny and the economy was decent"

would love to write a book full of stories about the creative and/or financial ruination of so many people involved in this gold rush. Our Band Could Be Your Tax Write-Off.

I didn't know Yank Crime was on a major! I haven't listened to half of these. That Mr. Bungle album rules but I voted Boredoms

― friday goodness thank it's (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, January 11, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If I recall correctly they were signed as a condition of Rocket from the Crypt's major label contract. Speedo wanted both his bands signed.

mid 80s probably more remembered for funny clothes and financial prosperity? the Nirvana generation still has plenty of illusions about how the world was changed.

the memoirs by dean wareham and the semisonic drummer definitely go that "lol majors" route

and yeah i realize those are broad generalizations but c'mon some dude

xposts
it's hard to say really what the long-range effects of this goldrush were since the bottom fell out of the music biz right after this period,...
and not because they signed a bunch of wackjobs, but because people stopped buying records. if people still bought zillions of records, i bet the majors would still splash out for longshot/niche/cred/vanity projects like these.

actually cds were selling more than ever in the late '90s when all these guys got dropped, they just weren't buy alternative cds

oh yeah - don't doubt this crop would have been dropped, just think the cycle of more far-out major signings would have repeated if not for the crash

it'd be interesting to see similar lists for the 60's-80's

I'm not sure about the order, but these 3 for me:

Flaming Lips (half this album is still some of my favorite Lips stuff)
Ween (love most of the album, but only a couple songs still get played)
Mercury Rev ( I still listen to this. it's a roller coaster of beauty and noise)

Yank Crime for me, one of my favorite records, and certainly the most influential to me when it came out. By far the biggest "event" record on this list for me.

Disco Volante for me.