Ween

The most common answer to the question, "what kind of music do you like?" has undoubtedly got to be "everything except country and rap", which basically proves how stupid the question is in the first place. I mean, it's ridiculous to assume that people can only like one or two styles of music; every genre has its appealing points no matter who you are. So let's ask this - why aren't there more bands like Ween? They play it all; gritty rock n' roll, sleazy adult contemporary, pure pop, hard rock, Latin, soul, prog, and of course a healthy smattering of "undefined". They even wrote and recorded an entire country album (no word on the rap though). The best part is that it doesn't even feel like a gimmick; Ween are not like those technical metal groups that try to wow their audiences by switching genres three times on every song. Rather, you get the impression that these guys really do listen to a lot of good music and just write whatever happens to be bouncing around in their heads.

It really helps that both members of the band (Dean Ween and Gene Ween, real names: easy to find but who cares) have a ton of talent; Gene has a ridiculous range as a singer and a naturally great voice, while Dean is a versatile and gifted guitar player. In addition they're great songwriters and pretty freaky dudes overall (they never really made their drug habits a secret). But as you may expect from a band that named themselves "Ween", they do have a sense of humor about everything, which is why most of their work sounds half like a tribute and half like a foul-mouthed parody; this is a band for which song titles like "Touch My Tooter" and "Waving My Dick in the Wind" are common. They're the Beatles and the Frogs rolled up into one, with a reverence for offbeat songwriting comparable only to early They Might Be Giants. In fact, they have a few things in common with TMBG; they recorded with a 4-track and a drum machine for their first few albums as well, only picking up a "real" band after they had already been established.

As for their discography - the nature of their music makes it tough to like every song on an album, so you've got to know what you're getting before you buy. Their early period, which is their first three albums, are a tough bunch to love - lo-fi, drug-fueled, unfocused, obnoxious, experimental, and too long, but their moments of brilliance are hard to deny, and they were absolutely unique. As such, it's no surprise that the most "hardcore fans" consider these albums to be better than anything that came after, but new fans should start with their later, more polished material. Also, it's important to know that Ween have a reputation for being a must-see live band, as the studio albums don't really tell the "whole story" (similar to the Grateful Dead or King Crimson). They've definitely earned that reputation - these guys are nearly flawless on stage, not only sprucing up their songs but loosening things up, which leads to a number of unexpected things. Pretty much every Ween live recording is a good time, sometimes making it tough to go back to the actual studio recordings.

On to the reviews....

God Ween Satan (1990)
The first Ween album came out when the boys were just barely out of their teens, but having released a number of homemade tapes over their high school years, they were up to the challenge. Well, kind of. I doubt very many of these songs, besides the ones that lead into each other, were meant to be played together, making God Ween Satan seem fairly choppy and deranged, but what can you expect? After all, the album's nearly 80 minutes long, consisting of a whopping 29 songs (although that includes the 3 bonus songs mixed in the tracklist of the new re-release), and I doubt there's anyone who likes them all. Probably the best advice is to take it with an open mind, lest you ignore some of the brilliant, drug-fueled experimentation ("Mushroom Festival in Hell"). Okay, so maybe the experimentation is what grinds the album to a halt near the end ("Blackjack"), but besides that, this is all pretty listenable - lots of it is loud and obnoxious ("You Fucked Up", "Common Bitch", "Bumblebee"), but there's lots of interesting genre hopping along the way. Bebop, swing, doo-wop, gospel, and even a Prince parody ("L.M.L.Y.P") make their way before the final pot anthem closes out the album (make sure you turn up your volume for that one, or you'll probably miss it altogether). Most of the really good songs come toward the end - the heartfelt "Birthday Boy", begins with a spoken "Jesus Christ, pain!", setting the tone for a bitter and over distorted guitar ballad that shows Gene's vulnerable side, and the catchy psychedelic rock of "Marble Tulip Juicy Tree" and fast-paced country of "Hippy Smell" are among the album's best cuts. There's certainly not many albums with this much creativity floating around, but it's far from perfect - too much noise and obnoxious vocals (in order to help sound like all the bands they emulate, Ween uses quite a bit of vocal processing), and neither of the 9+ minute songs really needed to be that long - in fact, a good 20 minutes could probably be lopped off the album. Of course, which minutes those are would be huge debate among the fans (and probably the band themselves), so I guess you could just program out the tracks you don't like. Certainly a very good album, but anyone who starts here will need a lot of patience to get past it.

The Pod (1991)
The band's most unique album, The Pod came about when the boys were both stuck at home with a wicked case of mono. The result is a totally lo-fi, completely "self-produced", drug-induced mess, but given a couple of listens there's something very uniquely special at work here. Overly fuzzed guitar, worn out drum machines, mutilated vocals, and a really twisted sense of song structure are only some of the weird joys you'll find over the album's 76 minute running time. Like the last one, it's almost certainly too long, with too many compositions seemingly made up on the spot ("Boing", "She Fucks Me"), but there's something to this. Many of the songs seem to hold their own - the bombastic "Dr. Rock", the glam-infused "Captain Fantasy", the hilarious, drug-induced "Stallion pt. 1", and the proto-Mollusk "Right To The Ways And Rules Of" are hard to take completely seriously, but they're damn fine songs in their own right. There too many tracks to name, but I really like "Frank", which sounds like something from Hardcore Devo, and some of the real melancholy material such as "Alone" and "Mononucleosis" which reflect what the boys were going through. The truly messed up songs like "Molly" get stranger every time you hear them. Hell, there's even a Phil Collins tribute/parody called "Demon Sweat", and what's not to like about that? But man, 76 minutes? A good third or so of the tracks go nowhere, and halfway through the sloooow tempo of pretty much every track is likely to get to you (save "Sketches of Winkle", a genuine rock song!) Don't start with this one, but many Ween fans really swear by it, so what do I know? All things considered, this is one of the best ‘bad’ albums I own.

Pure Guava (1992)
You wouldn't know it by listening to it, but Ween actually got signed to a major label (Elektra) for this album. You have to give Elektra credit for being adventurous, possibly hoping that Ween would use their budget to make a more commercial turn, but this is what we got - a shorter and less serious version of The Pod, lo-fi recordings and all. It's hard to believe an album with such nothing-fests as "She Fucks Me" would have outtakes, so maybe they did this on purpose? It's a lot more fun, but an album with songs like "Poopship Destroyer" and "Touch My Tooter" can only take you so far. Okay, there's quite a few moments of Pod-style goodness in the beginning - the guitar tone on "Little Birdy" rules, and the majestic "Stallion Pt 3" is both hilarious and catchy...do you suppose the South Park guys were inspired by this for that Lemmiwinks episode? No? Well what about "Push th' Little Daisies" - doesn't that sound pretty much exactly like Cartman singing in the end? Or "The Goin' Gets Tough From The Getgo", where the Weens talk just like the South Park Canadians? What's that? DVDA (Trey Parker and Matt Stone's band, mostly known for that awesome "Now You're a Man" song) opened for Ween? Well, guess it's settled then. And like the 'Park, Ween aren't quite on 100% of the time, resulting in a number of half-songs or noise experiments like "Reggaejunkiejew" or "Morning Glory". Some of this stuff like "I Play It Off Legit" and "Hey Fat Boy (Asshole)" aren't even songs at all. Hell, besides "Springtheme" and "Don't Get 2 Close 2 My Fantasy" - most certainly the best tune here, also featured on the movie It's Pat ("I touched the Ween!"), for all of you that saw that wonderful flick - nothing on the 2nd half really seems finished at all. Like The Pod it's interesting and chock full of cool ideas, but also like The Pod it's undeveloped and constantly trying your patience.

Oh, and how did "Push th' Little Daises" become a single anyway? I guess Elektra wanted to release something as a single and found the album didn't really have anything that would fit? Of course, releasing a video during the early, "Beavis and Butthead" days of MTV pretty much guaranteed quite a bit of play, which caused the tune to win several awards to the tune of "worst song of the year" and "most obnoxious song ever", which it pretty much is. Oh, but it's so catchy!

At The Cat's Cradle (rec. 1992, rel. 2008)
I like when bands master old performances and release them commercially, especially when we're in an era where a band can release a good-quality live recording to the public within minutes of the show being performed. This puts an emphasis on live albums recorded from about 2006 onward, so it's cool to see a band actually go back in time and release a show from their early years. This album fills a pretty major gap in the Ween discography. This is the only era of Ween that doesn't really have a live album to go with it, and without hearing this you won't really have a good idea of what the brothers were like in their early years. Basically it's two guys with guitars, possibly stoned out of their minds (they constantly make references to being high on opium), playing against a DAT machine that basically acts as virtual drummer. Sounds terrible; but it's actually pretty damn good - Ween themselves called this their "brownest album ever". The DAT machine does limit what they can do, but you can tell the Weens were open to a bit of interpretation with the tunes and the setlist. One of the best parts of this all is the stage banter - they definitely have a sense of humor about themselves, beginning the show with "we must have been really good last time we were here...there's about half the audience", telling each other that they're in "rare form", introducing "You Fucked Up" by saying, "this is a song about that fuckin' bitch" in a deadpan voice, and describing the early, stripped down form of "Buckingham Green" as being their "ultimate low point" - they even solo for a few minutes and ask the crowd, "wanna hear it again?" They accidently record over part of one of their songs, and during "Don't Get 2 Close 2 My Fantasy", Gene starts off by singing the wrong verse (which ends up being one of the funniest moments on the album). Even when they take requests at the end, they ignore them all and instead play "ReggaeJunkieJew". At least they're having fun - half the time you don't really know what they're talking about. You can't really ignore how much these guys seem to like being on stage and making each other laugh, and despite what they say this show was actually quite good; Dean in particular is on fire. I don't really want to list the high points (ahem), but let me just say the renditions of "Nan" and "Marble Tulip Juicy Tree" sound amazing, and it's not really surprising that most of these songs sound better without the vocal effects applied to them. This is an essential document of the early band, and in my opinon gives you a better sense of what they were trying to do back then than any of their studio albums did.

Chocolate and Cheese (1994)
A big turning point for Ween; they've recruited a full band and put out an album that actually sounds kind of normal. Well, "normal" is a relative term - certainly, most of these tracks won't raise an eyebrow on your typical FM station - but the album itself is a strange listen since it basically changes genres every track. So you'll get an obnoxious Tom Jones parody ("Take Me Away"), some Philly soul ("Freedom of 76"), great Beatles-like pop tunes ("What Deaner Was Talkin' About"), old-time country ("Drifter in the Dark"), tribal disco ("Voodoo Lady"), an Eddie Hazel-influenced bluesy guitar jam ("A Tear For Eddie"), pure pop ("Roses Are Free"), and so on. Over the course of 16 tracks, this constant switching makes it tough to get too involved, as only a few of the tracks are real winners ("Voodoo Lady", "What Deaner Was Talkin' About", "A Tear For Eddie", "Freedom of '76"), but it's an interesting listen chock full of solid songwriting. It's all too easy to accuse Ween of lightening up and betraying their roots, but how do you explain the sick and twisted "Spinal Meningitis" or "Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony"? Okay, so "Candi" does sound like something off Pure Guava, great. It can stay there. But for every one of those, there’s something that truly is funny – “Take Me Away” is so intentionally straight and generic I can’t help smiling all the way through. I feel like this rating is a little low, but you kind of feel that the group is still trying to feel themselves out, and most of the tracks are a lot more subdued than they should be; it never really raises above midtempo, and once you hear these songs performed live, you won't want to go back. On the other hand, how many bands could ever pull this off and make it not only listenable, but musically solid? Good album to start with? For sure. But Ween would go on to do better than this!

12 Golden Country Greats (1996)
Yes, Ween really did record a country album (on the cusp of a commercial breakthrough, no less!), and it's only kind of a joke. It's short (10 tracks, not 12; the title refers to the number of musicians), but it's authentic; this was recorded in Nashville with a group of skilled session musicians. Predictably, the critics and fans alike slammed this to no end. But it's actually surprisingly good - certainly, they've shown us their melodic brilliance in the past, but even when more or less straight faced, they can pull off some fantastic and sentimental tunes like "You Were The Fool" or "Powder Blue", which ends with most of the musicians taking a neat solo (including a spoken word part by Muhammad Ali, for reasons that aren’t quite clear). The standout track is probably "Piss Up a Rope", which is a downright hilarious parody of the genre (and if it weren't for the deadpan vocals, would be pretty damn believable). There's only one more real 'comedy' track, "Mister Richard Smoker", which is done in a 20's style dance tune, although the lyrics kind of ruin it (it's not much more than a gay joke, and not really a funny one) - surely, tracks like "Fluffy" or "Japanese Cowboy" aren't completely straight-faced, but they're well-written and performed compositions that are a heck of a lot more thoughtful than some of the garbage passed off as country music these days. That said, if you're scared off from this album because you're sick of country on the radio, rest assured this draws more on guys like Willie Nelson and Hank Williams than modern hybrid-country like Garth Brooks or Toby Keith. It's almost as if Ween made this album to convince their fans that country music isn't really so bad. Give it a shot.

Live in Toronto (rec. 1996, rel. 2001)
A Chocodog live release documenting a show on the band's country tour, featuring a number of accomplished country musicians called the "Shit Creek Boys". Sadly, they don't do the best tracks off the country album, and in general they seem to shy away from their previous best (sans "Dr. Rock", I guess), so if you're not in love with all of Ween's past, you'll probably find yourself bored at some point. Good thing this band is so skilled, adding fiddles and piano to nearly every track, but they just don't fit into some of the older material ("Spinal Meningitis", "The HIV Song"). However, the high points are fantastic - they turn in a beautiful version of "What Deaner Was Talkin' About", and there's a country-western stompin' rendition of "Pumpin' for the Man" which makes the original look limp and rushed in comparison (which, quite frankly, it is). Oh, and "Push th' Little Daisies" is still obnoxious, but the band accompanies it well, and Gene's lungs seem endless, plus his delivery is hilarious. As with most Ween live releases, there’s enough variation on the songs and funny stage banter to make it worthwhile. They run out of songs to play and drunkenly take requests, resulting in a huge "Fluffy" jam session and a go at "Piano Man", where Gene replaces the chorus with "put some coke on my dick tonight", abruptly ending the song right there. So it's highly entertaining, and it's really great to see the things Ween could do with a talented backing band, but they just don't play to their strengths enough.

The Mollusk (1997)
Another album that nobody expected, The Mollusk is a collection of nautical-themed tunes, drawing inspiration mostly from old prog-rock and psychedelia. Not like "Schizoid Man" or anything really crazy, but rather the prettier, more melodic stuff like "Voices in the Sky". Ween pull it off fantastically, resulting in not only their most emotional album yet but also their most well-written. There´s pretty much no filler and plenty of highlights, making this a great listen all the way through. While it´s based off a genre of music that's generally overblown and pompous, it's no surprise that Ween makes the album actually fun to listen to (and concise, too!). The opening tune, a cover ("I'm Dancing in the Show Tonight"), is a simple showtune at its core, and yet it's warped in a way only Ween could, with a constant flux in vocal manipulation giving it a dream-like quality. Sure, it does sound really dopey, but this is part of Ween's genius - it's the sound effects and vocal tricks that make these tunes particularly memorable, but they're solid enough to not appear gimmicky.

Like the country album, there's nothing too much out of left-field (although the drunken sing-along pirate tune "The Blarney Stone" is the most unexpected, it certainly fits the theme), so perhaps the most surprising thing is how convincing Ween can sound when they really play it straight - "It´s Gonna Be Alright" and "She Wanted to Leave" are both particularly moving, and "Buckingham Green" condenses a side-long prog epic into about three minutes. Best of all there´s the Caribbean-flavored "Ocean Man", maybe the most addictive Ween song ever written - all this band really needs is a catchy hook and a funny voice, and boy does this one have those. Other highlights include the queasy acid trip "Mutilated Lips" and the awesome-but-incredibly-dorky title track, though nearly everything works on some level. The only dud is "Cold Blows the Wind", which is also a cover, but this one's long and static enough to wear things down, which is why the album "only" receives 4 1/2 stars. Otherwise, this is Ween at their best, the only downside being that they never really attempted anything quite like it again (2003's quebec has the same trippiness but took it in a different direction).

Paintin' the Town Brown (1999)
This was Ween's first 'official' live album. Ween originally conceived of this as a gift to the fans to be released over the internet, but Elektra apparently didn't like that and released it commercially. It definitely makes more sense as the former; all the recordings are from various bootlegs from various years with various sound quality, and there's nothing from The Mollusk, their most recent album. It caters more to the fans of the browner material; there's a lot of druggy and messed up stuff here that the band only seems to be half-serious about ("Mountain Dew"). The most interesting thing here the drawn out raga groove that "I Can't Put My Finger On It" turns into; otherwise there's some decent material but few standout performances. I mean, "Doctor Rock" is intense, but the sound quality distorts a lot of it, and as good as the lengthy solo on "Voodoo Lady" is, they've done better (and lengthier) ones on live albums since. Otherwise, probably the most notable thing about the album is the sheer length of some of the tracks - doing the one-joke "Awesome Sound" for eight minutes is one thing, but the second disc's hippie jam of "Vallejo" and extreme noise fest "Poop Ship Destroyer" (which bears no real resemblance to the original) are another, clocking in around a half hour each (basically, skip the second disc altogether). The only real selling point of this was that it gave you an opportunity to hear the early 90's band live, but now that At The Cat's Cradle has been released, there's little to recommend this for. Still, Ween has pretty much always been great live, so this is still pretty enjoyable as long as you stay away from the second disc. It does feature a lot of songs that don't really appear live elsewhere ("She Fucks Me", "Tender Situation", "Mushroom Festival in Hell", "Puffy Cloud", among other non-songs). The flip side is that they generally stay away from their better material. This is definitely an odd one. Pick up the other live albums first.

White Pepper (2000)
Whereas The Mollusk showed that Ween had the skills and the ability to be great, by the time White Pepper rolled around, it was apparent that the group had matured in a way that actually benefitted their music and were starting to come into their own. Gene and Dean were now hitting 30 and making a bid for longevity in the 21st century - this is a carefully arranged and thickly produced pop album that turned the comparisons away from the Butthole Surfers and towards the Beatles. Oh, it's still Ween - there's plenty of genre-hopping, a few carefully placed profanities, and a sense of good-natured irony throughout - maybe "Pandy Fackler" is a parody of Steely Dan, but the instrumentation and arrangement suggest that it was a parody that they really cared about; at the very least, it shows that Ween were so good at lampooning many different styles because they were talented enough to imitate them. If this album has a theme, it's pop-psychedelia, as the group was able to put together a number of densely produced and professionally written tunes with painstaking detail (the Eastern mysticism of "Flutes of the Chi" and the heartbreaking steel guitar in "Back to Basom", not to mention all the fantastic guitar heroics throughout). In light of this new fixation, it's no wonder that many of the fans called the band out on the lack of "brown" material, but the songwriting makes up for it - who wouldn't enjoy a love song as sweet and hook-filled as the country-twanged "Stay Forever"? Then again, Ween fans are a weird bunch. Some of it's good enough to make you wonder if the only reason why this didn't get much radio play was because, you know, it's Ween. The only trouble with the album is that the stuff like "Back to Basom" and "The Grobe" is so good that you wonder why they're wasting time on Motorhead parodies ("Stroker Ace") or inconsequential instrumentals ("Ice Castles"), as the album is fairly light at only 12 tracks.

Live at Stubbs (rec. 2000, rel. 2003)
While previous live releases have hinted at Ween's reputation as a great live band, this 3 hour long live set finally makes good on that promise. Spanning 31 tracks, this is a big Texas-style rock concert with a band that's as comfortable with their faster and harder early stuff as they are with their newer, more polished material, with nearly as much from GodWeenSatan as there is from their latest, White Pepper. There isn't much room for subtlety here - they do some slower, trippier numbers like "Little Birdy" and "A Tear for Eddie", but most of this is balls-out rock, to the point where they can drop "Hot For Teacher" in their setlist without batting an eyelid. This means there's a lot of their riff-heavy tunes ("Marble Tulip Juicy Tree", "Captain Fantasy", "Sketches of Winkle"), and some big dumb rock songs like "Fat Lenny" and "Big Jilm". Hell, they even make room for "Put the Coke on My Dick" which is one of those songs that only really works live (same goes for the singalong "Booze Me Up and Get Me High"). The drummer, Claude Coleman, sings that one (along with "Hot for Teacher") and he's indispensible here, as he's practically flawless no matter what style the Weeners are attempting. As the brothers are pretty excellent themselves, the jam sections work well, which make a 10-minute "Voodoo Lady" and a 8-minute "Tear for Eddie" a lot more tolerable than they could have been. The big tomato on here is the third disc, which is nothing but a slow, raunchy, grooved out "L.M.L.Y.P." that goes for over 36 minutes (!). I mean, a lot of bands do big, jammed out tunes as a final encore, but you have to give Ween credit for taking things this far. The way it launches into a jazzy Weather Channel-style jam halfway through is neat, then Coleman takes a solo that lasts forever. By this time, the audience is spent, but damn, they do get their money's worth. And so will you - it's a must-have for fans of the band, but more than that it's just a great live rock album. This may be the crown jewel of Ween's catalogue.

quebec (2003)
A natural follow-up to White Pepper, though the band seems to be in a much more fucked up mental state. This time, most of the tunes have an air of desperate sincerity to them, rather than the classic rock posturing of stuff like "Even if You Don't". It helps that this is some of their best material yet - not only is the songwriting great, but they've gotten adept at layering and creating atmosphere, which allows droning tracks like "Captain", "Among His Tribe", and "Alcan Road" to co-exist well with bombshells like "Transdermal Celebration" (which makes good on every promise Oasis ever made) and "Tried and True". Like the last few albums, the real highlight is the rich production and economic arrangements that emphasize all the right things, allowing songs like "Chocolate Town" to become stunning instead of merely good. In fact, they've gotten so good at "serious" songwriting that the browner stuff seems out of place ("So Many People in the Neighborhood", "The Fucked Jam", and "Hey There Fancypants", an unnecessary rewrite of "Mister Richard Smoker"), none of which are even close to being as good as the trippy "Ooh Vah La", which is essential but somehow got deleted from the U.S. release (some have it as a bonus track though). This makes it hard to consider the album better than The Mollusk, even though both albums are actually fairly similar (in particular, "The Argus" sounds like it would have fit on that album perfectly as an epic closer), especially in that both have a ton of replay value. The difference is that this one sounds more grounded and has an air of chemically-induced haziness, as though it's a soundtrack to getting messed up on Nyquil. The exceptions are the opener and the closer, one of which is an awesome Motorhead ringer ("It's Gonna be a Long Night"), and the other a dramatic show-stopper that may be Gene's best vocal performance to date ("If You Could Save Yourself, You'd Save Us All"). Put all together, this might be the best representation of what late-period Ween was all about and all the different things they could have become.

All Request Live (2003)
A live-in-the-studio album where the tracklist was voted on by the fans. It seems like the only fans who bothered to log on and vote were those who loved the 'brown' era of the band, as most of the selections aren't even really songs at all. It's charming to hear the guys tackle things like "Pollo Asado" and "Reggaejunkiejew" in a live setting, but I really wish there was more material that showcased the band's later songwriting genius rather than just "Stay Forever" and "Tried and True". Most hardcore fans would probably love this, as there's four unreleased tracks, including the hilarious rejected Pizza Hut jingle "Where'd the Cheese Go?" The last time I listened to this I hit black ice and crashed my car, but you may have better results.

Live in Chicago (2004)
Another from the Chocodog concert series, this one not only showcases modern Ween as an excellent live band, but provides a great live album for new-ish fans who want a taste of what the band's about without having to sit through a 3-disc set or a 30-minute abstract noisefest like "Poop Ship Destroyer". It's based off a DVD which I don't have that apparently contains more tracks than the CD, but the disc does fine without them. Focusing mostly on their more recent song-oriented material (there's only one song from their pre-C&C era, "Pork Roll Egg and Cheese"), it's amazing just how great of a live band these guys have become (or always been?). There's a certain quality here that reminds me of something like King Crimson live circa the 1980's - it's much fuller than the studio albums, and there's a good amount of jamming, although not enough to turn anyone off. A great album for those who, like me, thought that Chocolate and Cheese wasn't exciting enough, since all six tunes from here that were taken from that album are spruced up and rocked out (particularly "Voodoo Lady", which adds a blistering guitar solo), making C&C seem boring in comparison (after hearing the first thirty seconds of "Take Me Away", I knew I'd never hear the studio version the same again). The other tracks don't get such a dramatic transformation (save for "Zoloft", which becomes surprisingly addictive and serene, and "I'll Be Your Johnny on the Spot", which rocks twice as hard), but they're hardly any worse. Okay, the closing "Ocean Man" doesn't quite capture the awesomeness of the studio version, but that was mostly production work anyway, and that's a minor complaint - the point is, this is a disc well worth seeking out, and those who see live Ween as the band's true form would probably agree that this makes a great first purchase. This is Ween at their best.

Shinola, Vol. 1 (2005)
A collection of rare tunes spanning all of Ween's career (frustratingly, there isn't a list of when these songs were recorded, but you could probably figure most of them out), and strangely enough, one of their most solid albums ever. It's been said that the worst judge of an artist's work is often the artist themselves, which certainly rings true here - every single one of these tracks could have been used to improve one of their albums. Three of the tunes in particular ("Gabrielle", "Someday", "The Rift") are just too well done to be confined to a rarities collection, but when you consider how solid the rest of the album is, suddenly that doesn't seem so bad. Okay, so maybe "Someday" and "Israel" are just too unlike Ween to have made an album (like that's stopped them in the past), but the rockabilly "Gabrielle" sounds like it could have been a hit circa the late-70's, and "Monique the Freak" is as spot-on of a Prince homage as anything I've heard. Sure, some of the early weirder tracks are kind of grating ("Big Fat Fuck"), but as a whole, only The Mollusk and quebec are as solid as this. This may be the only time I recommend an outtakes collection as a first purchase - it contains flashes of many of the band's sides (including their 'brown' period), lots of immediately memorable tracks, and is a great litmus test - if you can't get into this, you probably wouldn't be able to get into too many of their other releases either.

The Friends EP (2007)
A neat little release to show off some of the tracks that were written for the next album but didn't make it. It's worth getting for the title track alone, which is Eurotrash pop! It's so over the top that it's hard not to smile, and the vocal hook is good enough to warrant lots of repeat listens. If the synth-crazy overly upbeat arrangement seems to be parody of Crazy Frog, then get this - the track was produced by Reinhard Raith, the man who was Crazy Frog. Anyone who begrudgingly admitted that they actually liked Cher's "Believe" would have a blast with this. From what I've heard, it was Gene's idea to produce the track in this way; Dean apparently hates it. The other four tracks take on a variety of styles - funk, reggae, Latin, and slow ballad, and they're decent if not a little gimmicky. But it's a fun EP with no real missteps; a good primer for the upcoming album.

La Cucaracha (2007)
While I did like The Friends EP, I was hoping for a bit more from the full-length. From The Mollusk on, every release was basically a knockout (even the outtakes collection), as their music became more layered and thoughtful the older these guys got. With La Cucaracha, they've essentially undone all the work they did on quebec and have turned into the joke band most non-fans assume they are. It's still a solid listen, but it doesn't really expand on the EP at all, and in some cases is worse - "Friends" appears here in a stripped down form and is only half as much fun as the EP version, and "The Fruit Man" is a long reggae tune that's a knockoff of "King Billy". Every song here does have something going for it, but ultimately the album adds up to less than the sum of its parts - there are no real standouts like "Tried and True" or "The Argus", mainly because they really don't even try. There really isn't much here that you won't glean on your first impression; this may actually be their most diverse album ever, but they never really let the songs develop much beyond "random genre excursion". Some of it is intriguing at first - "With My Own Bare Hands" is a great tribute to ridiculous cock-rock and features some pretty funny lyrics, and "Learnin' to Love" is a dumb bluegrass parody that is hard to get enough of. But there's not much else to sustain them - it's like Chocolate and Cheese if it was full of nothing but songs like "Take Me Away" and "Drifter in the Dark". There are still some interesting ideas on here, but not everything really works - I like the idea of intentionally botching the auto-tune on "Spirit Walker", but the song itself sounds only half-finished. While "Shamemaker" is a parody of garbage Brit-pop, it hardly rises above its subject. They only really get ambitious for the last two songs - the progged-out "Woman and Man" is over 10 minutes long and features a good driving guitar jam, and "Your Party" is a jazzy adult contemporary tune with Gene doing what sounds like a Marlon Brando impression. If there's one thing you can say about this album, it's that Ween is really getting good at sounding like other groups; "Sweetheart in the Summer" and "Blue Balloon" don't sound like Ween at all. Overall, there is some fun to be had here, but for once there's not much to say about it besides "yep, that's a Ween album" (not that people like me won't try).