{"id":2328,"date":"2009-09-15T13:58:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T17:58:53","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-09-15T13:58:53","modified_gmt":"2009-09-15T13:58:53","slug":"way-weird-albums-from-major-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/way-weird-albums-from-major-labels\/","title":{"rendered":"Way Weird Albums from Major Labels"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F4kNREU83AU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Here&#8217;s my own personal <b>They Don&#8217;t Make &#8216;Em Like They Used To<\/b> gripe. I&#8217;m at the point of my life where I mourn the passing of <i>120 Minutes<\/i>&#8216; &#8217;90s heyday, when they showed videos by weirdo bands that had managed to snare major-label contracts. <\/p>\n<p>Arguably, there is no weirder album from this era than <strong>Shudder To Think<\/strong>&#8216;s <i>Pony Express Record<\/i> (Epic), which mixes glam, prog, hardcore, pop, beat poetry, and rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll, probably in that order. It has a twisted sensibility which gloriously sets it apart from a lot of the painfully earnest rock of that era. Also, this is an album that you have to hear a couple of times to understand. (I actually picked it up in a used bin about 2 years ago.) The album doesn&#8217;t present itself as a mass-pleasing easy-to-love hook-fest. You have to meet it <b>on its terms<\/b>, and I&#8217;d argue it&#8217;s a rewarding experience.<\/p>\n<p>I bet the above video will piss off a number of you for any number of reasons. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.magnetmagazine.com\/2009\/02\/20\/seen-your-video-shudder-to-think\/\" target=\"_blank\">These comments from lead singer Craig Wedren<\/a> make for a good read.) So tell me about your favorite Way Weird Albums From Major Labels, all the better if, like <i>Pony Express Record<\/i>, they were perhaps-inevitable commercial failures. Also, am I wrong in thinking these kinds of albums don&#8217;t come out anymore?<\/p>\n<p>A few other notes:<\/p>\n<p>1) Shudder To Think reunited a year ago, and have just released a live album, which you can stream for now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spinner.com\/new-releases#\/1\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>2) If you can track down their rendition of &#8220;The Ballad of Maxwell Demon&#8221; from <i>Velvet Goldmine<\/i>, you can hear the best fake Bowie song ever. Sadly, the version on YouTube is from the film, featuring the band&#8217;s backing track, but with that unfortunate lead actor singing lead instead of Wedren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s my own personal They Don&#8217;t Make &#8216;Em Like They Used To gripe. I&#8217;m at the point of my life where I mourn the passing of 120 Minutes&#8216; &#8217;90s heyday, when they showed videos by weirdo bands that had managed to snare major-label contracts. Arguably, there is no weirder album from this era than Shudder <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/way-weird-albums-from-major-labels\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}